Produced by Don Kostuch





[Transcriber's notes]

  Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly
  braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred
  in the original book.

[End transcriber's note.]


THE CATHOLIC WORLD.


_A Monthly Magazine_

of

GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.



VOL. IV.

OCTOBER, 1866, TO MARCH, 1867.



NEW YORK:

LAWRENCE KEHOE, PUBLISHER.

145 Nassau Street.

1867.


CONTENTS

  Aërolites, 536.
  Andorra, The Republic of, 561.

  Books, Rise and Progress of, 104.
  Books and Hymns, Mediaeval, 804.

  Cervantes y Saavedra, Miguel de, 14.
  Connecticut, Divorce Legislation in, 101.
  Cowardice and Courage, 160.
  Count Julian and His Family, Legend of, 211.
  Celtic Anthology and Poetic Remains, 389.
  Charity and Philanthropy, 434.
  Christmas with the Baron, 446.
  Conversion, The Philosophy of, 459.
  Christ is Born, 496.
  Christmas Story, Little Sunbeam's, 515.
  Christmas Day, The Little Birds on, 584.
  Christmas Eve, What Came of a Laugh on, 542.
  Christmas, Catholic, 565.
  Catholic Church, How my Aunt Pilcher found the, 667.
  Christine, 681.
  Catholic Ceremonial, The, 721.

  De Vere, Aubrey, 73.
  Divorce Legislation in Connecticut, 101.
  Doubt, Victims of, 550.

  European Events, Recent, 217.

  French Unity, Founders of, 197.
  French Watering-Place, A Month at a, 405.
  Flowers, Sea-Side, 621.
  Fra Angelico, A Portrait of, 671.

  Godfrey Family, The, 30, 174, 320, 473, 598, 750.
  Holy Land, The, 500.
  Heart of Man, What Most Rejoices the, 559.

  Lake Dwellings, 398.
  Labor, The Source of, 593.
  Limerick, The First Siege of, 708.

  Miscellany, 138, 281, 424, 570, 853.
  Montpensier, Mademoiselle de, 360.
  Monarchy, The Church and, 627.
  Mediaeval Books and Hymns, 804.

  Nationalities, Development of, 245.

  Old Owl, The, 264.
  Origen at Caesarea, 772.

  Problems of the Age, 1, 145, 289, 519, 652.
  Paris, The Musée Retrospectif in, 275.
  Painting, Missal, 303.
  Proselytism, Protestant, in Eastern Lands, 342.
  Pope and the Revolution, The, 577.
  Parisian Attic, Genius in, 685.

  Robert; or, The Influence of a Good Mother, 641, 824.
  Rossetti, Christina G., 889.
  Ritualism, What I Heard About, in a City Car, 850.

  Saint Catharine at Florence, 129,
  Science, Physical and Christian Revelation, 253, 372.
  Syracuse and AEtna, 701.
  Swetchine, Madame, 736.

  The Age, Problems of, 1, 145, 289, 519, 652.
  The Church, Independence of, 51,
  The Thatched House, The Mystery of, 65.
  Traveler's Tales, 111.
  Tombstone, The Tale of a, 792.

  Unconvicted; or, Old Thorneley's Heirs, 87, 223.

  Woman, 417.

------

POETRY

  A Summer Sorrow, 103.
  Anniversary, 128.
  Autumn, 341.
  Ave Maria Sine Labe Concepts, 415.

  Barabas and I, 535.
  Bartimeus, On the Cure of, 771.

  Christmas Song, A, 433.
  Christmas Bells, 471.
  Charity, Christian, 518.
  Christmas Tree, My, 533.
  Christmas Dream, A, 549.

  Delia, 359.
  Dying Year, The, 499.
  Deliverance, 541.
  Deo Opt. Max., 640.

  Epigram, 457.

  Home at Last, 263.
  Herodias, Request of the Daughter of, 626.

  I Am the Way, 680.
  "Inconsolabile," 838.

  Lucifer Matutinus, 110.
  Light, 803.

  My Soldier, 100.
  My Fears, 210.
  My Two Mites, 423.

  Our Lord, Apparition of, to His Disciples, 514.
  One Moment, 651.

  Pea-Blossom, 404.
  Poem, 597.
  Pardon, 620.

  "Quare Tristis es Anima Mea et Quare Conturbas Me?" 397.

  Resurrection, The, 72.

  Silent Grief, 29.
  Song, 159.
  Saint Lucy, 172.
  Summer Days are Gone, 227.
  Sonnet, 274.
  St. Peter's Denial, On, 499.

  The Fairest Fair, 818.
  The Virgin's Cradle Hymn, 388.
  The Christmas Tree, 458.
  The Cry, 748.
  The Answer, 749.
  The Test, 846.
  The Barren Fig-Tree and the Cross, 852.

  Work-Box, My Aunt's, 666.

------

NEW PUBLICATIONS

  Allie's See of St. Peter, 139.
  Alphonso, 144.

  Church History, Darras, 575.
  Curious Questions, 428.

  England, History of, for the Young, 144.

  First Principles, 288.
  Frederick the Great and His Court, 575.

  Holt, Felix, 141.
  Harkness' Latin Book, 143.

  International Law, Wheaton's Elements of, 282.
  King René's Daughter, 859.

  Jesus, Sufferings of, 576.
  Jesus Crucified. The School of, 858.

  Laurentia, a Tale of Japan, 287.
  Letters, Beethoven's, 574.
  Lydia, 719.

  Mormon Prophet and his Harem, The, 144.
  Moral Evil, Origin of, 432.
  Men, Light and Life of, 576.
  Mouthful of Bread, History of a, 720.
  McAuley, Catherine, Life of, 854.
  Manual, The French, 858.

  Philip Earnescliffe, 143.
  Pastoral Letter of Second Plenary Council, 425.
  Poems, Alice Carey's, 572.
  Poems, Buchanan's, 574.
  Paulists, Sermons of the, 718.
  Pictorial Histories, Goodrich's, 720.
  Physiology of Man, The, 859.

  Rise and Fall, The, 431.

  See of St. Peter, Allie's, 139.
  Six Months at White House, Carpenter's, 142,
  Sunday-school Class-Book, Improved Catholic, 143.
  Saint Cecilia, Life of, 286.
  Spanish Papers, Irving's, 286.
  Shakespeare, Authorship of the Works of, 429.
  Scientific Subjects, Herschel's Lectures on, 430.
  Saint Vincent de Paul, Life of, 576.
  Severne, Robert, 857.

  The Sham Squire, 288.
  The Conditioned, Philosophy of, 432.
  Town, Out of, 860.

  Vignettes, Miss Parke's, 287.

  Woman's Work, Essays on, 142.
  Women, Higher Education of, 575.
  Welte, Alte und Neue, 576.

----

{1}

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. IV., NO. 19.--OCTOBER, 1866.


ORIGINAL.

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.


VII.

THE DOGMA OF CREATION--THE PRINCIPLE, ARCHETYPE,
AND END OF THE CREATIVE ACT.


The next article of the creed is, "Creatorem coeli et terrae:" Creator
of heaven and earth.

The mystery of the Trinity exhausts the idea of the activity of God
within his own interior being, or _ad intra_. The dogma of creation
expresses the idea of the activity of God without his own interior
being, or _ad extra_. It is an explication of the primitive idea of
reason which presents simultaneously to intelligence the absolute and
the contingent in their necessary relation of the dependence of the
contingent upon the absolute. Being an explication of the rational
idea, it is rationally demonstrable, and does not, therefore, belong
to the super-intelligible part of the revelation, or that which is
believed simply on the veracity of God. That portion of the dogma of
creation which is super-intelligible, or revealed truth in the highest
sense, relates to the supernatural end to which the creation is
determined by the decree of God. Nevertheless, although the idea of
creation, once proposed, is demonstrable on purely rational
principles, it is fairly and fully proposed to reason under an
adequate and explicit conception adequately expressed, only by divine
revelation. Wherever this adequate formula of revelation has been
lost, the conception has been lost with it, and not even the highest
philosophy has restored it. Plato's conception of the formation of the
universe went no higher than the impression of divine ideas upon
matter eternally self existent. In all philosophy which is not
regulated by the principles of revelation, the ideas of necessary
being and contingent existence and of the relation between them are
more or less confused, and the dogma of creation is corrupted.

The pure, theistic conception gives at once the pure conception of
creation.

Not that the idea of creation can be immediately perceived in the idea
of God, which has been shown to be impossible; but that it can be
perceived in the idea of God by the medium of the knowledge of finite
existences given to the intellect together with the knowledge of
infinite being, in the {2} primitive intuition. When the idea of
infinite being is fully explicated and demonstrated in the perfect
conception of God, the existence of real entities which are not God,
and therefore not included in necessary being, being known, the
relation of these things extrinsic to the being of God, to the being
of God itself, becomes evident in the idea of God. It is evident that
they have no necessary self-existence either out of the divine being
or in the divine being, and therefore have been brought out of
nonentity into entity by the act of God.

This creative act of God is that by which he reduces possibility to
actuality. It is evident that this possibility of creation, or
creability of finite existences extrinsic to the divine essence, is
necessary and eternal. For God could not think of doing that which he
does not think as possible, and his thoughts are eternal. The thought
or idea of creation is therefore eternal in the divine mind. It is a
divine and eternal archetype or ideal, which the externised, concrete
reality copies and represents. The divine essence is the complete and
adequate object of the divine contemplation.

It is, therefore, in his own essence that God must have beheld the
eternal possibility of creation and the ground or reason of
creability. It is the divine essence itself, therefore, which contains
the archetype or ideal of a possible creation. As an archetype, it
must contain that which is equivalent to finite essences, capable of
being brought into concrete, actual existence by the divine power, and
multiplied to an indefinite extent God's eternal knowledge of the
possibility of creation is, therefore, his knowledge of his own
essence, as an archetype of existences which he is capable of enduing
with reality extrinsic to the reality of his own being, by his
omnipotent power. The eternal possibility of creation, therefore,
exists necessarily in the being and omnipotence of God. It is the
imitability of the divine essence as archetype by finite essences,
which are its real and extrinsic similitudes, and which are
extrinsecated by an act of the divine will. The ideal or archetype of
creation is evidently as necessary, as eternal, as unchangeable, as
God himself. God cannot create except according to this archetype, and
in creating must necessarily copy himself, to give extrinsic existence
to something which is a concrete expression of the divine ideal in his
own intelligence. This ideal which creation copies being, therefore,
eternal in the divine intelligence, and the interior activity of the
divine intelligence, or its interior ideal life, being inexplicable
except in the relation of the three persons in God, creation is
likewise inexplicable, except in relation to the distinct persons of
the Trinity.

The Son, or Word, proceeds from the contemplation of his own divine
essence by the Father, who thus reproduces the perfect and coequal
image of himself. In this act of contemplation, the knowledge of the
archetype of creation, or of the creability of essences resembling the
divine essence, is necessarily included. The expressed ideal or
archetype of all possible existences is therefore in the Word, as the
personal image of the Father, and he contains in himself, in an
eminent and equivalent manner, infinite similitudes or images capable
of being reduced to act, and made to reflect himself in a countless
variety of ways. The Son thus communicates with the Father in creative
omnipotence. The spiration of the Holy Spirit, from the Father and the
Son, consummating the act of contemplation by which the Son is
generated in love, and thus completing the interior, intelligent, or
spiritual life of God within himself, is perfectly correlated to the
eternal generation of the Son. The complete essence of God is
communicated by the Father and the Son to the Holy Spirit, and with it
creative omnipotence as necessarily included in it. The object of
volition in God is identical with the object of intelligence. The
essence of God as being the archetype of a possible creation, {3} that
is, the ideal of creation, or the idea which creation copies, being
included in the term of the divine intelligence, or in the Word, is
also included in the term of the divine love, or the Holy Spirit. The
ideal of creation is therefore included in the object of the eternal,
intelligent, living contemplation in which the three persons of the
blessed Trinity are united. The power of illimitable creation
according to the divine archetype is a necessary and eternal predicate
of his divine being, which he contemplates with complacency. The idea
of creation is therefore as eternal as God; it is coeval with him, and
the object of the ineffable communications of the divine persons with
each other from eternity. God has always been pleased with this idea,
as the artist delights himself in the ideal of beauty, to which he
feels himself capable of giving outward form and expression in
sculpture, painting, or architecture.

The decree of God to reduce this possibility of creation to act, or
the creative purpose, is likewise eternal; since all divine acts are
in eternity, and there is no process of deliberation or progress from
equilibrium to determination possible in the unchangeable God. God is
_actus purissimus_, most pure act, and there is in him nothing
potential or reducible to act which is not in act from eternity; since
in him there is no past or future, and no succession, but _tota, simul
ac perfecta possessio vitae interminabilss_, a complete, simultaneous,
and perfect possession of interminable life.

The necessity of his own self-existent being does not determine him to
the creative act, but merely to the exercise of supreme omnipotence in
choosing freely between the contemplation of creation in its ideal
archetype alone, and of creation in its ideal archetype determined to
outward actual expression. The inward life of God is necessary, and
the interior act of beatific contemplation is of the essence of the
divine being. Nothing beyond this, or outside of the interior essence
of God, can be necessary, and the creation cannot therefore be
necessary, or it would be included in the idea of God, and be
identical with the essence of God. God does not create, therefore, by
necessity of nature, but by voluntary choice. It is the only exercise
of voluntary choice possible to him. It is a choice, however, which
though free is determined from eternity. He might have eternally
chosen the contrary, that is, to leave the possible creation
unactualized in its ideal archetype. He did eternally choose, however,
to create.

The learned expositor of St. Thomas, F. Billuart, says that the
purpose to create is communicated by the Father to the Word,
concomitantly with the intelligence of the divine essence by which he
is generated. [Footnote 1] Creation is no afterthought, no capricious
or sportive play of omnipotence, like the _jeu d'esprit_ which a poet
throws off from a sudden impulse of fancy. The creative purpose has
been the theme of the mysterious communications of the three persons
of the blessed Trinity, from all eternity. In God, purpose and act,
consultation and decree, are one. The decree of creation and the
creative act are identical. The creative act, therefore, _a parte
Dei_, is eternal. It is an illusion of the imagination to conceive of
time as having existed before creation. "In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth." That beginning was the first moment of
time, which St. Thomas says God created when he created the universe.
Time is a mere relation of finite entities to each other and to
infinite being, arising from their limitation. The procession of
created existences is necessarily in time, and could not have begun
_ab aeterno_ without a series actually infinite, which is impossible.
Nevertheless, the first instant of created time had no created time
behind it, and no series of instants behind it, intervening between it
and eternity, but touched immediately on eternity.

  [Footnote 1: Tract. De Trin. Diss. V. Art III. ]

{4}

The procession of created existences from God is a finite similitude
of the procession of the Son and Holy Spirit from the Father. Creation
is an expression of that archetype in finite form which is expressed
in the infinite image of the Word. He is "the splendor of the glory,
and the express image of the substance"  [Footnote 2] of the Father;
and creation is a reflection of this splendor, a reduplication in
miniature of this image. It is an act of the same infinite
intelligence by which the infinite Word is generated. For although
finite itself, it is the similitude of an infinite archetype which
only infinite intelligence can possess within itself. It is also an
act of the same infinite love whose spiration is the Holy Spirit. The
sanctity of the divine nature consists in the perfect conformity of
intelligence and volition. Volition is love, a complacency in good.
Love must therefore concur with intelligence in every divine act, that
it may be holy. The Holy Spirit, or impersonated love, must concur
with the Father and the Son, as principle and medium, to consummate or
bring to its final end the creative act. Creation is therefore
essentially an act of love; proceeding from intelligence and ordained
for beatitude; proceeding from God as first cause, and returning to
him as final cause. [Footnote 3]

  [Footnote 2:  Heb. i. 3.]

  [Footnote 3:  Final cause is the same as ultimate end. It is the
  cause or reason of the determination of God to create.]

The final cause of creation must be God, just as necessarily as its
first cause must be God. The creative decree being eternal, all that
constitutes its perfection, including its end and consummation, must
be eternal, and must therefore be in God. He is the principle and
consummation of his own act _ad intra_, and of his act _ad extra_,
which imitates it perfectly. God creates, because he freely chooses to
please himself by conferring the good of existence through the
creative act on subjects distinct from himself. The adequate object of
this volition of God is himself as the author of created good, or the
term of the relation which created existences have to him as their
creator. The possession of good by the creature is inseparable in the
volition of God from the complacency which he has in the exercise of
the power of bestowing good by creation. Although he is necessarily
his own final end in creating, yet this does not prevent creation from
being an act of pure and free love, but on the contrary makes it to be
so; because it is as infinite love that God is the end of his creative
act. A charitable man, who confers good upon another, is moved by a
principle of love in himself, which causes him to take delight in the
happiness of his fellow-creatures. This movement originates in
himself, and returns back to himself, being consummated in the pure
happiness which the exercise of love produces. Yet the possession of
good by another is the real object which elicits the act of love, and
it is therefore pure, disinterested charity. Love makes the good as
given, and the good as received, one identical object, and unites the
giver and receiver in one good. Selfishness is inordinate self-love,
or a love of others merely so far as they serve as instruments of our
own pleasure and advantage, and not as themselves subjects of
happiness. But the just love of self and of others is identical in
principle, proceeding from the _amor entis_, or love of being. The
benignant father, prelate, or sovereign, the generous benefactor of
his fellow-men, is not less disinterested in his acts on account of
the pure happiness which comes back to himself, filling his heart with
the purest happiness of which it is capable. Thus in God; his
complacency in his creative act, or sovereign pleasure in creating, is
the purest and most perfect love to the creature. That which he
delights in as creator is the bestowal of existence, which
participates in the infinite good of his own being.

{5}

The mode and degree in which existences participate in this infinite
good which God distributes from the plenitude of his own being,
specificates and determines their relation to him as final cause, and
constitutes the ultimate term to which their creation is directed.
This ultimate term or final end of creation as a whole, includes the
ends for which each part taken singly is intended, and the common end
to which these minor and less principal ends are all subordinated in
the universal creative design. The end of a particular portion of the
creation, taken singly, is attained, when it makes the final and
complete explication of that similitude to the divine perfections
which constitutes it in its own particular grade of existence. The end
of the universe of existences is attained, when they collectively
reach the maximum of excellence which God proposed to himself in
creating. That is, when the similitude of the perfections of God is
expressed in the universe in that variety of distinct grades, and
raised to that altitude in the series of possible states of existence,
which God prefixed in the beginning as the ultimate term of the
creative act. Whatever the maximum of created good may be, whatever
may be the predetermined limits of the universe of existence, whatever
may be the highest point of elevation to which it is destined, it is
evident that the accomplishment of the creative act brings the
creation back to God as final cause. It has its final end in God,
wherever that finality may have been fixed by the eternal will of God.
This is very plain and obvious. But it leads into one of the most
abstruse and, at the same time, one of the most unavoidable questions
of philosophy, that which relates to the end of creation
metaphysically final. What is the end of creation, or the relation of
the universe of created existences to the final cause, which is
metaphysically final? How far ought the actual end of created
existences to coincide, or does it really coincide with the end
metaphysically final?



VIII.

THE END OF CREATION METAPHYSICALLY FINAL--THE ASCENDING SERIES OF
GRADES IN EXISTENCE--THE SUMMIT OF THIS SERIES IS A NATURE
HYPOSTATICALLY UNITED TO THE DIVINE NATURE OF THE WORD--THE
INCARNATION, THE CREATIVE ACT CARRIED TO THE APEX OF POSSIBILITY--THE
SUPERNATURAL END TO WHICH THE UNIVERSE IS DESTINED COMPLETED IN THE
INCARNATION.

By the end of creation metaphysically final, is meant a relation of
the universe to God as final cause which is final in the divine idea,
or the one which God beholds in his own infinite intelligence as the
ultimatum to which his omnipotence can carry the creative act. It is a
relation which brings the creature to the closest union and similitude
to the creator in the good of being which the nature of the infinite
and of the finite will admit.

We have already established the doctrine that God is by nature free to
create or not to create, and eternally determines himself to creation
by his own sovereign will to confer the pure boon of existence. We
have also established, that since God determines himself from eternity
to create, he necessarily creates in accordance with his own nature or
essence, in accordance with the eternal archetype and idea reflected
in the person of the Word; and for his own glory, or for an end in
himself to which the creature is related, and which he must attain if
he accomplishes his destiny. But we must inquire further, whether in
determining himself to create according to the archetype contained in
his own essence, he necessarily carries out this idea to the most
perfect and complete actualization in the real universe? That is, does
he necessarily create for an end metaphysically final, and carry the
creative act to its apex, or the summit of possibility? Or is there
any degree of existence or {6} grade of resemblance and relation to
God as archetype which must be supposed in order to conceive of an end
accomplished by creation which is worthy of the divine wisdom and
goodness? Or, on the contrary, is it just as free to God to determine
any limit, however low, as the term of creation, as it is to abstain
from creating? For instance, can we suppose it consistent with the
divine wisdom to create only a grain of sand? On the one hand, it may
be said that creation being a free act, the creation of a grain of
sand does not take away the liberty of the divine will to abstain from
creating anything else. On the other hand, God, as being in his very
essence the infinite wisdom, must have an adequate end in view, even
in creating a grain of sand. It may be said that the creation of a
grain of sand is truly an infinite act, and that a grain of sand
represents the omnipotence of God as truly as the universe itself.
Yet, it is difficult to see any reason why Almighty God should make
such a representation merely for his own contemplation. For the same
reason, it is equally difficult to suppose any adequate motive for the
creation of a merely material universe, however extensive. The wisdom
and power of God are manifested, but manifested to himself alone. The
very end of such a manifestation appears to be to manifest the
attributes of God to intelligent minds capable of apprehending it.
Suppose the material universe filled with sentient creatures, and,
although its end is thus partially fulfilled, by the enjoyment which
they are capable of receiving from it, its adaptation to the
manifestation of the divine attributes to intelligence is still
apparently without an object. The sentient creation itself manifests
the wisdom and goodness of God in such a way that it seems to require
an intelligent nature to apprehend it, in order that God may be
glorified in his works, and that the love which is the essential
consummating principle of the creative act may be reflected back from
the creation to the creator, and thus furnish an adequate term of the
divine complacency. This complacency of God in himself as creator, as
we have seen, is complacency in the communication of good, or pure,
disinterested love delighting in the distribution of its own infinite
plenitude. The material creation can only be the recipient of this
love _in transitu_ or as the instrument and means of conveying it to a
subject capable of apprehending it. The sentient creation can only be
the recipient of it as its most imperfect term, and as an end most
inadequate to the means employed. The wisdom and goodness of God in
the creative act cannot therefore be made intelligible to us, except
as we consider it as including the creation of intelligent natures,
capable of sharing in the intelligent life of God. As soon as the mind
makes this point, it is able to perceive an adequate motive for the
creation, for it apprehends a good in the finite order resembling the
infinite good which is necessary and uncreated. It is approaching to a
finality, for it apprehends that the rational nature is that nature in
which the finality must be situated, or in which the ultimate relation
of the universe to the final cause must exist. In other words, it
apprehends that God has created a _universe_, including all generic
grades of existence explicated into a vast extent and variety of
subordinate genera and species multiplied in a countless number of
individuals, all subordinate to a common order, and culminating in
intelligent life. It apprehends the correspondence of the actual
creation to its ideal archetype, or the realization in act of the
highest possible nature which omnipotence can create after the
resemblance of his own essence impersonated in the Word, and of every
inferior nature necessary to the constitution of a _universe_, or a
world of composite order and harmony comprising all the essential
forms of existence whose infinite equivalent is in the divine idea.

{7}

It is evidently befitting the wisdom and grandeur of Almighty God,
that the created universe should represent to created intelligence an
adequate and universal similitude of his being and perfections; that
its vast extent and variety, the multiplicity of distinct existences
which it contains, its complicated relations and harmonies, the
sublimity and beauty of its forms, the superabundance of its sentient
life and enjoyment, the excellence and perfection of its intelligent
creatures, should be adapted to overwhelm the mind with admiration of
the might and majesty, the wisdom and glory, the goodness and love of
the Creator; that, as far as possible, the procession of the divine
persons within the essence of God should be copied in the procession
of created existences; that the ineffable object of the divine
contemplation, or the Word going forth from the infinite intelligence
of the Father and returning to him in the Holy Spirit, should be
represented in created similitudes by the communication of being,
life, and intelligence, in every possible grade, and the completion of
these in the most sublime manner of union to God of which finite
nature is capable. This consummation of the creative act is worthy of
the wisdom of God; for it is the most perfect act of the divine
intelligence _ad extra_, or extrinsic to the _actus purissimus_ by
which the Word is generated in the unity of his eternal being, which
is possible. It is worthy of the goodness of God; for it is the most
perfect act of love _ad extra_, or extrinsic to the _actus purissimus_
of the spiration of the Holy Spirit, consummating the interior life of
God in eternal, self-sufficing beatitude, which omnipotence can
produce.

Let us now analyse the composite order of the universe, and examine
its component parts singly, in reference to the final end to which
this order is determined. We will then proceed to examine more closely
the mode by which the end of the universe is attained in the rational
nature, and the relation of this rational nature to the end
metaphysically final.

Theologians distinguish in the divine nature _esse, vivere_, and
_intelligere_, or being, life, and intelligence, as constituting the
archetype of the inanimate, animated, and rational orders of creation
respectively.

The inanimate order, composed of the aggregate of material substances,
imitates the divine _esse_, considered as concrete and real imply;
prescinding the idea of vital movement. It imitates the divine being
in the lowest and most imperfect manner. The good that is in it can
only be apprehended and made to contribute to the happiness of
conscious existence when a higher order of existence is created. God
loves it only as an artist loves an aqueduct, a building, or a statue,
as the medium of contributing to the well-being or pleasure of his
creatures. Its hidden essence is impervious to our intelligence. The
utmost that we can distinctly conceive of its nature is that it is a
_vis activa_, an active force, producing sensible effects or
phenomena. This appears to be the opinion which is more common and
gaining ground both among physical and metaphysical philosophers.
[Footnote 4] By active force is meant a simple, indivisible substance,
which exists in perpetual activity. It is material substance, because
its activity is blind, unconscious, and wholly mechanical, producing
by physical necessity sensible effects, such as extension, resistance,
etc. Though not manifest to intelligence in its hidden nature and
operation, it is apprehensible by the intelligence through the effects
which it operates, as something intelligible. Its sensible {8}
phenomena are not illusions, or mere subjective forms of the
sensibility, but are objectively real. Nevertheless, our conception of
them must be corrected and sublimated by pure reason, in order to
correspond to the reality or substance which stands under them. Our
imaginary conceptions [Footnote 5] represent only the complex of
phenomena presented to the senses. They represent matter as composite,
because it is only through composition, or the interaction of distinct
material substances upon each other, that the effects and phenomena
are produced which the senses present to the imagination. The
substance, or active force which stands under them, is concluded by a
judgment of the reason. Reason cannot arrest itself at the composite
as something ultimate. The common, crude conception of extended bulk
as the ultimate material reality, is like the child's conception of
the surface of the earth as the floor of the universe having nothing
below it, and of the sky as its roof; or like the Indian conception of
an elephant supporting the world, who stands himself on the back of a
tortoise, who is on the absolute mud lying at the bottom of all
things. It is the essential operation of reason to penetrate to the
_altissima causa_, or deepest cause of things, and not to stop at
anything as its term which implies something else as the reason or
principle of its existence. It cannot therefore stop at anything short
of the _altissima causa_, in the order of material second causes, any
more than it can stop short of the cause of all causes, or the
absolute first cause. That which is ultimate in the composite must be
simple and indivisible in itself, and divided from everything else, or
it cannot be an original and primary component. For, however far the
analysis of a composite may be carried, it may be carried further,
unless it has been analysed to its simple constituent parts which are
not themselves composite, and therefore simple. It is of no avail to
take refuge in the notion of the infinite divisibility of matter. For,
apart from the absurdity of the infinite series contained in this
notion, one of these infinitesimal entities could certainly be divided
from all others by the power of God and made intelligible to the human
understanding. And the very question under discussion is, What is the
intelligible essence of this ultimate entity?

  [Footnote 4: The philosophical works of Leibnitz may be consulted
  for a thorough exposition of this doctrine. Also the Philosophical
  Manuals of F. Rothenflue, S.J., and the Abbé Branchereau of the
  Society of St. Sulpice. The philosophical articles of Dr. Brownson
  in his Review contain some incidental arguments of great value on
  the same topic. P. Dalgairns of the London Oratory, also treats,
  with the ability and clearness which characterize all his writings,
  of this subject, at considerable length, in his work on the Holy
  Communion.]

  [Footnote 5: By "imaginary conceptions" is not meant fanciful,
  unreal conceptions, but conceptions of the imaginative as and
  intellectual facility which reflects the real.]

Another proof that material substance is something intelligible and
not something sensible, is, that it has a relation to spiritual
substance, and therefore something cognate to spirit in its essence.
The Abbé Branchereau defines relation: "Proprietatem qua duo aut plura
entia ita se habeat ad invicem, ut unius conceptus conceptum alterius
includat aut supponat." "A property by which two or more entities are
so constituted in reference to one another, that the conception of one
includes or suppose the conception of the other."  [Footnote 6]

  [Footnote 6: Praelect. Philos. De Relat. Entis. Num. 108, 8.]

The conception of spirit must contain the equivalent of the conception
of matter, and the conception of matter must contain something the
equivalent of which is contained in spirit. Else, they must be related
as total opposites, which leads to the absurd conclusion that in the
essence of God, which is the equivalent of all finite essences, total
opposites and contradictions are contained. The same is affirmed by F.
Billuart after the scholastic principles of the Thomists. "Supremum
autem naturae inferioris attingitur a natura superiori." "The summit
of the inferior nature is touched by the superior nature."   [Footnote
7] Everything copies the essence of God and exists by its
participation in his being. There is no reason therefore for any other
distinction in creatures except the distinction of gradation in a
series, or the distinction of a more or less intense grade of
participation in being. God cannot create anything totally {9}
dissimilar to himself, because the sole archetype imitable in the
creative act, whose similitude is externised in creation, is himself.
All things therefore being similar to his essence are similar to the
essence of one another, each to each, each grade in the ascending
series containing the equivalent of all below it.

  [Footnote 7: De Augelis. Diss. II. Art. I.]

The material creation represents the real being of God, as
distinguishable in thought from his life and intelligence, in an
express and distinct manner. The being of God is the archetype of the
material creation, and contains a reason why the material order was
necessary to perfect the universe. All geometrical principles are
intuitively seen by the reason to be eternal truths. As eternal and
necessary they are included in the object of the divine contemplation.
The complete and adequate object of the divine contemplation is the
divine essence. It is therefore in his own essence that God sees these
necessary geometrical truths, not as we see them, but as identical
with the truth of his own being in some way above our human
understanding. These eternal geometrical principles are the principles
which lie at the basis of the structure of the material universe,
which therefore represents something in the divine essence not
immediately and distinctly represented by the spiritual world.

Without pretending to define precisely what the material universe
represents as equivalently and eminently contained in the divine
essence, we are only uttering a truism when we affirm that what man in
his present state principally apprehends through it, is the idea of
the immensity of the divine being. The material universe, which has a
_quasi_ infinitude to our feeble and limited imagination, is an image
of God as possessing boundless infinitude, and including an
immeasurable ocean of perfections. It is only when the mind becomes so
overwhelmed with the magnitude of the creation as to forget its
relation to the creator, that its judgment is erroneous. And the error
of judgment does not consist in appreciating the material universe too
highly, but in appreciating it too little, that is, in not
appreciating its highest relation to the spiritual order, with which
it is cognate in its essence. The physical, visible world is not to be
despised. It is no illusion, no temporary phase of reality, no
perishable substance, but real, indestructible, and of endless
duration. Its essence and its relation to the final cause are
incomprehensible. Its essence is, however, so far intelligible that we
can understand it to be a real entity, bearing a similitude to the
divine nature, endued with active force as a physical second cause,
through which wonderful phenomena are produced in which the divine
perfections are manifested. Its end is also intelligible as
subordinated to the higher grades of existence and to the grand
composite order of the universe.

The next grade of existence is that which represents the _vivere_ of
the divine essence, or presents an animated and living similitude of
the life of God. The distinct type of this grade is in the animal
world, but it is connected with the inanimate creation by an
intermediate link, namely, that which is constituted by the world of
vegetative life. This world of vegetative life represents the
principle of life in an inchoate form, and ministers to the higher
life of sentient existences, by furnishing them with the sustenance
and food of their physical life, and contributing to their enjoyment
by the beauty of its forms.

Thus far, the creation is merely good as means to an end, or as the
substratum of that order of existence which is capable of apprehending
and enjoying good. In the sentient creation, existence becomes a good
in itself, or a good capable of terminating the divine will. The
countless multitudes of sentient creatures are created that they may
enjoy life, and attain their particular end in this enjoyment.
Nevertheless this {10} particular end is a minor and less principal
end in reference to the general end of the created universe. To this
more general end the sentient order contributes, by increasing the
beauty and perfection of the whole, and ministering to the happiness
of the higher, intelligent order.

This third and highest grade of existence represents the divine
_intelligere_. It includes all rational natures, or intelligent
spirits, created after the similitude of that in the divine essence
which is the highest archetype imitable in finite existences.
According to the regular series of gradation, man comes next in order
above the animal world, and should be first considered. There is a
particular reason, however, which will appear hereafter, for
considering the angels first.

The angels represent most perfectly the order of pure intelligence as
distinct from the irrational creation. By their nature they are at the
summit of existence, and participate in the most immediate and
elevated mode which can be connatural to any created essence, in the
divine perfections. The perfection of the universe requires that it
should contain a grade of existence imitating that which is highest in
the essence of God so far as it is an archetype of a possible
creation. There is nothing conceivable in the divine essence higher
than its intelligence or pure spirituality. The divine life is
consummated in the most pure act of intelligent spirit, which is the
procession of the Word and Holy Spirit from the Father. This divine
procession within the divine essence being the archetype of the
procession of created existences without it, the latter ought to
imitate the former by producing that which represents the intelligent
act of God as closely as possible. This intelligent act of God being
consummated in love, or complacency in that infinite good which is the
object of intelligence, creation, which imitates and represents it,
ought to contain existences which are the recipients of love and are
capable of its exercise in the highest possible manner which can be
essential to a created nature. The creative act would therefore be
most imperfect and incomplete if it stopped short with the material or
even the sentient creation. Supposing that God determines to carry out
his creative act by creating a universe or a world in which the
potential is actualized in a universal manner by representing the
_esse, vivere_, and _intelligere_ of the divine essence in every
generic mode, this universe must evidently contain intelligent
spirits. Intelligent spirit alone can apprehend the image of God in
creation, apprehend itself as made in the image of God, apprehend the
infinite attributes of God by the intuition of reason, and become
fully conscious of the good of existence, capable of enjoying it, and
of returning to the creator an act of love, worship, and
glorification, for his great boon of goodness conferred in creation.
Creation is an overflow of the plenitude of good in the divine being
proceeding from the complacency of God in the communication of this
good. This communication can be made in a manner which appears to our
reason in any way adequate to terminate the divine complacency, only
by the communication of intelligence.

The type of intelligent nature is most perfectly actualized in the
angels, whose essence and operation are purely spiritual, so far as
created, finite nature and operation can be purely spiritual. Whatever
is intelligible or conceivable of finite, intellectual activity as
connatural, or intrinsically included in the essence of created
spirit, is to be attributed to them.

The notion of any composition of nature in the angels, or hypostatic
union of their pure, spiritual substance with another material
substance distinct from it, is wholly gratuitous. It destroys the
distinctive type of the angelic nature and the specific difference
between it and human nature. It has no foundation in reason except the
baseless supposition that a distinct {11} corporeal organization is
necessary to the exercise of created intelligence. Nor has it any
solid support from tradition or extrinsic authority.

Some of the fathers are cited as maintaining it. Their language is,
however, for the most part explained by the best theologians as
indicating not the union of the angelic spirit to a distinct subtle
corporeity, but the existence of something analogous to matter in the
angelic spirit itself. The angels are called corporeal existences,
because their essence is extrinsic to the divine essence, and
extrinsecation attains its extreme limit in matter; also because their
potentiality is not completely reduced to act, and their operation is
limited by time and space. This appears to be also the notion
advocated by Leibnitz, and the exposition of the nature of material
substance given above, in accordance with his philosophy, removes all
difficulty from the subject.

The conception of the angelic essence as completely free from all
composition with a distinct material substance, is also at least more
evidently in harmony with the decree _Firmiter_ of the Fourth Council
of Lateran, than any other. "Firmiter credimus et simpliciter
confitemur, quod unus est solus verus Deus aeternus. . . . .  qui sua
omnipotenti virtute simul ab initio temporis, utramque de nihilo
condidit creaturam, spiritualem et corporalem, angelicam videlicet et
mundanam; ac deinde humanam quasi communem ex spiritu et corpore
constitutam."

"We firmly believe and confess with simplicity, that there is one only
true eternal God . . . . who by his own almighty power simultaneously
from the beginning of time made out of nothing both parts of the
creation, the spiritual and the corporeal, that is, the angelical and
the mundane: and afterwards the human creature, as it were of a nature
in common with both, constituted from spirit and body."

Nevertheless, by the principle of the Thomist philosophy above cited,
that the lowest point of any nature touches the highest of the nature
beneath it, there may be something even in the spiritual operation of
the angels cognate to material operation, and coming within the sphere
of the sensible. We will venture to give a little sample of scholastic
theology on this head from Billuart.

"It may be said with reason that the angels operate two things in the
celestial empyrean. The first is the illumination by which the
intrinsic splendor of the empyrean is perfected, according to St.
Thomas and various testimonies of Holy Scripture in which certain
places are said to have been sensibly illuminated by the angels. For
although an angel cannot immediately produce alterative qualities, as
heat or cold, he can produce light, because light is a celestial
quality and the highest of corporeal qualities, and the summit of the
inferior nature is touched by the superior nature.

"In the second place, the angels operate on the empyrean heaven, so
that it may more perfectly and efficaciously communicate a suitable
perpetuity and stability to all inferior things. For as the supreme
angels who are permanently stationed there have an influence over the
intermediate and lowest angels who are sent forth, although they
themselves are not sent forth, so the empyrean heaven, although it is
itself motionless, communicates to those things which are in motion
the requisite stability and permanence in their being. And that this
may be done more efficaciously and permanently the angels aid by their
operation in it. For, the whole universe is one in unity of order; and
this unity of order consists in that by a certain arrangement
corporeal things are regulated by those which are spiritual, and
inferior bodies by the superior; therefore, as this order demands that
the empyrean spheres influence the inferior ones, it demands also that
the angels influence the empyrean sphere."   [Footnote 8]

  [Footnote 8: De Angelis. Diss. IL Art. I.]

{12}

Whatever may be thought of this as philosophy, it is certainly
brilliantly poetical, as is the whole treatise of the learned
Dominican from which it is extracted. The physical theory of the
universe maintained by the scholastics was a magnificent conception,
although it has been supplanted by a sounder scientific hypothesis.
There appears to be no reason, however, for rejecting the notion of
angelic influence over the movement of the universe. The modern
hypothesis of a central point of revolution for the universe being
substituted for the ancient one of the empyrean, the entire scholastic
theory of the influence of the angels upon the exterior order of the
universe may remain untouched in its intrinsic probability.

The consideration of man has been reserved, because, although he is
inferior to the angels in intelligence, he sums up in himself the
three grades of existence, and therefore the consideration of the
three as distinct ought to precede the consideration of their
composition in the complex human nature. The human nature includes in
itself the material, vegetative, animal, and intelligent natures,
which represent respectively the divine _esse, vivere_, and
_intelligere_. For this reason man is called a microcosm or universe
in miniature. In certain special perfections of the material,
sentient, and intelligent natures, he is inferior to each; but the
combination of all gives him a peculiar excellence and completeness,
and qualifies him to stand in the most immediate relation to the final
cause of the universe, or to the consummation of its end.

What this end is, we must now more closely examine. It is plain at
first sight that this end must be attained by creation through its
intelligent portion, or through the angelic and human natures. As God
is final cause as well as first cause; of necessity, these intelligent
natures in themselves, and all inferior natures through them, must, in
some way, terminate on God as their ultimate end. God is final cause
as the supreme good participated in and attained to by the creation,
through the overflow of the plenitude of the divine being. The divine
complacency in this voluntary overflow of the fount of being and good
was the ultimate and determining motive to the creative act. The good
of being thus given is a similitude of the divine _esse, vivere,_ and
_intelligere_. As it is real, or existence in act, it must copy, as
far as its grade of existence permits, the most pure act of God in the
blessed Trinity. That is, the creature must reflect from its own
essence an image of the divine essence, or a created similitude of the
uncreated Word, in which its existence is completed and its act
consummated. In the material world this is a mere dead image, like the
representation of a living form made by a statue or picture. In the
sentient world, so far as we can understand this most inscrutable and
baffling of all parts of the creation, there is an apprehension by the
sensitive soul of a kind of shadow of the intelligible object in
sensible forms, and the imperfect resemblance of the life and felicity
of an intelligent nature which corresponds to this imperfect
apprehension. In the intelligent creature, its spiritual essence, by
virtue of the rationality in which it is created, and is its
constitutive principle, reflects an image of the divine Word in the
contemplation of which its intelligent life is completed. So far as
intelligent nature is merely potential, it is potential to this act of
intelligent life; and when its potentiality is reduced to act, so as
to produce the nearest similitude to the divine intelligence in act,
which God has determined to create, intelligent nature, and in it all
nature, has attained its finality. Intelligent nature has attained the
highest good attainable; and, the different intelligent species and
individuals existing together in due order and harmony in the
participation of the common good, with all inferior grades of
existence subordinated to them, the universe has unity and is
determined to a common final end.

{13}

Thus, creation returns back to the principle from which it proceeded
by the consummation of the creative act. As the Father is united to
the Word in the Holy Spirit, or in love and complacency, so the
creation is united to God by the possession of good and the
complacency of God in this good. It is actualized in the intelligent
nature capable of knowing and loving God, and therefore having a
similitude to the Son or Word. When it is ascertained what the highest
union to the Father, or that approaching nearest to the union of the
Son to him of which created nature is capable, is, it will be
ascertained what is the end metaphysically final to which created
nature can attain, if God wills to bring it to the summit of
possibility. When it is ascertained what this summit of possibility
is, it is ascertained what the end of creation is which is
metaphysically final; and when it is ascertained how far toward this
summit God has actually determined to elevate his creation, it is
ascertained what is the end of creation actually final, and how far it
coincides with the end metaphysically final.

This knowledge cannot be deduced from any first principle given to
reason. It is communicated by revelation, and by this revelation we
learn that God has determined to bring the creation to the end
metaphysically final in the incarnation of the Word.

The revelation of the mystery of the Incarnation is concomitant with
the revelation of the mystery of the Trinity; therefore, in the creed,
the same terms which propose the dogma that the Word is of God and is
God, propose the dogma that the Word is incarnate in human nature. The
name given to the Second Person in the Trinity, in the creed, Jesus
Christ, is the name which he assumed with his human nature. "Et in
unum Dominum nostrum, Jesum Christum Filium Dei unigenitum, Deum de
Deo, Lumen de Lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero, genitum non factum,
consubstantialem Patri, per quern omnia facta sunt. Qui propter nos
homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de coelis, et incarnatus
est etiam pro nobis de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus
est."

"And in one Jesus Christ our Lord, the only begotten Son of God, God
of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made,
consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who, for
us men, and for our salvation, descended from heaven, and was
incarnate also for us by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was
made man."

The mystery of the incarnation presents to us the idea, that the Word
has assumed human nature, not by assuming all the individuals of the
race, but by assuming humanity individuated in one perfect soul and
body into a union with his divine nature, in which it terminates upon
his divine person as the final complement of its existence, without
any confusion of its distinct essence with the divine essence to which
it is united. By this union, the Word is a theandric person, or one
divine person in two natures, divine and human, really distinct from
each other in essence and existence, but with one common principle of
imputability to which their attributes and operation are to be
ascribed. This is the union, called in theological language
hypostatic, of the creature to the Creator, which is metaphysically
final, or final to the divine intelligence and power; beyond which
there is no idea in God of a possible act _ad extra_, and which is
next in order to the procession of the divine persons _ad intra_.
Through this hypostatic union, created nature participates with the
uncreated nature impersonated in the Son in the relation to the Father
as principle, and the Holy Spirit as consummation, of intelligence and
love; that is, in the divine life and beatitude. The incarnation
having been in the view and purpose of Almighty God from eternity,
{14} as the ultimatum of his wisdom and omnipotence, is the apex of
the creative act, or the terminus at which the creative act reaches
the summit of possibility. In it the creation returns to God as final
cause, from whom it proceeds as first cause, in a mode which is
metaphysically final. It is therefore certain that God, in his
eternal, creative purpose, determined the universe to an end
metaphysically final; and that this end is attained in the
incarnation, or the union of created with uncreated nature in the
person of the Word.

--------

From The Dublin University Magazine.


MIGUEL DE CERVANTES Y SAAVEDRA.


Notwithstanding the value of the precious metals extracted from the
American mines, the Spanish exchequer had not been in a satisfactory
condition for a long time. War had scourged the kingdom since the
conquest by the Moors. Ferdinand and Isabella had indeed dislodged
them and their unlucky King Boabdil from their little paradise in
Granada and Andaluçia, about a century before the poor Don made his
first sally; but it was at a dread sacrifice of money and men's lives.
Charles V. was engaged in ruinous wars during the greater part of his
reign, and Philip II., his successor (unwillingly indeed), was put to
trouble and expense while uniting with other Christian powers to
prevent the ferocious sultan from bringing all Europe under the
Mussulman yoke. The victory of Lepanto, gained by his half-brother,
Don John, somewhat crippled the Sublime Porte and the terrible
renegade Uchali, but did not prevent the Algerine and other African
pirates from doing infinite mischief to all the Christian states
bordering the Mediterranean. Ceaselessly they intercepted their
merchant vessels, made booty of the freight and slaves of the crew,
and obliged all in the rank of merchants or gentlemen to find heavy
ransoms. Now what should have prevented Spain and France and the
Italian kingdoms from collecting a large fleet and army at any one
time, and battering down the strongholds of these ruthless plunderers,
and effectually putting it out of their power to annoy their Christian
neighbors? Philip was often urged to co-operate in such a good work,
but he preferred to expend time and money, and his subjects' blood and
property, on other projects.

An extract from the work mentioned below,  [Footnote 9] in reference
to the state of Spain toward the latter years of Philip II., is well
worth transcribing. The author is speaking of Cervantes in prison,
some time between 1598 and 1603:

  [Footnote 9: Michel de Cervantes, sa Vie, son Temps, son OEuvre
  Politique et Littéraire. Par Émile Chasles. Paris: Didier et Cie.]

  "He distinctly perceived, through the splendor and apparent unity of
  the Spanish monarchy, a muttering and stormy confusion, a thousand
  strange and opposed groupings;--politicians who in fact were mere
  favorites, austere gentlemen mixed with _galant_ writers,--grave
  inquisitors condemning errant Bohemians, applying a barbarous law to
  barbarous hordes, and cauterizing but not curing wounds. Through
  this assemblage of contrasts he could see a wide separation between
  the social classes. Two distinct groups existed united by any common
  idea or sympathy, extra-social world of Gitanos (gipsies), rogues,
  and mystics, whose lives were independent, and that of the alcaids
  and corregidors.

{15}

  "Between these two camps hovered a mixed population so frequently
  treated of in Spanish letters,--the alguazil, the sacristan, the
  deserter, the refugee, a hybrid people attached to the law or the
  church, but affiliated to the _hampa_ (illegal bond of union) by
  character, by nature, by origin, or by interest.

  "In a country where poverty was every day increasing, necessity
  threw thousands every day on a career of adventure. It depopulated
  Spain in exiling to the Indies her best soldiers. It flung away
  innumerable renegades to the coast of Africa. It decimated that
  nobility erewhile so valiant, so full of pride and patriotism.
  Impoverished gentlemen soon formed a large class of honorable
  paupers. They endured, with a stoicism purely Spanish, the
  exigencies of honor and poverty, along with the necessity of living
  and dying useless to their country."

Let pity be awarded to the poor gentlemen who took his promenade
toothpick in hand, to impress on his world that he had dined.
Cervantes had no need to go beyond his family recollections for
materials for this sketch:

  "Behold the hidalgo coming out of his house with unquiet eye. His
  suspicious humor inclines him to believe that every one knows his
  shoes are pieced, that perspiration has left marks on his hat, that
  his cloak is threadbare, and that his stomach is empty. He has taken
  a draught of water within closed doors, and just come forth
  displaying his hypocritical toothpick,--dolorous and deceptive
  exhibition, which has grown into a fashion."

Political principles and social institutions
prevalent during the long wars between
the Christians and the Moors were
still in vigor at the end of the sixteenth
century, when the circumstances
of the country had undergone a thorough
change.

  "During the the centuries when Spain was struggling against the
  Arabs, the she condition of the nationality was the purity of blood
  and the Christian faith. The Old Christian (Christiano Viejo), the
  irreproachable Castilian alone, could be intrusted with the defense
  of the soil or the government of the country. And now when the enemy
  was expelled the usage remained. The alcaid (magistrate) did not
  know the law, perhaps he could not read, but 'he had,' as he said,
  'four inches of the fat of an Old Christian on his ribs, and that
  was sufficient.'"

In the interlude of the Election of the Alcaids of Daganzo, Cervantes
specifies the personal gifts sufficient to qualify for the post. An
elector proposing Juan Verrouil, thus dwells on his good qualities:

  "At all events Juan Verrouil possesses the most delicate
  discernment. The other day, taking a cup of wine with me, he
  observed that it smacked of wood, of leather, and of iron. Well,
  when we got to the bottom of the pitcher, what did we discover but a
  key fastened by a strap of leather to a piece of wood!

  "_Secretary_.--Wonderful ability, rare genius. Such a man might rule
  Alanis, Cazalla, ay even Esquivias."

Francis de Humillos is considered fit for the magistracy because of
his nearness in soling a shoe. Michael Jarret is voted worthy, as he
shoots an arrow like any eagle. Peter the Frog knows every word of the
ballad of the "Dog of Alva" without missing one, but Humillos stands
the examination with rather more credit than the rest; he knows the
four prayers, and says them four or five times per week.

The number of wandering gipsies and brigands and thieves of all
description was out of all rational proportion with the honest and
respectable population. These were united under the hampa, and it was
a matter of extreme difficulty to obtain information against any
delinquent from a brother of the order.

Little is said about the mercantile or manufacturing classes in books
connected with the time of Cervantes. Enough is told of the pride, and
luxury, and generally perverted tastes of the great, and hints are
given of the kind and considerate demeanor of the nobility residing on
their estates to their dependents.

{16}

DON QUIXOTE'S PREDECESSORS.

Spain is not the only country which for a time has set an extravagant
estimate on some books or class of books. Even in our own days and in
those of the last generation, have not literary furors prevailed for
picturesque banditti, and feudal castles, and caverns, and awful
noises in vast and dimly lighted bedchambers, for poetry beckoning its
victims to despair and suicide, for novels stamped with the silver
fork of high life, and lastly, for those which enlarge on the
physiology of forbidden fruit? M. Chasles will pleasantly explain the
literary _penchants_ of the peninsula two hundred and sixty odd years
since:

  "We have seen the France of the seventeenth century enthusiastic for
  the Astrea and the Clelia,  [Footnote 10] and the England of the
  eighteenth assume shield and spear for Clarissa Harlowe,  [Footnote
  11] but in 1598 and in Spain, the extraordinary popularity of the
  Amadises resembled a brain fever at which no one dared laugh. One
  day a certain nobleman coming home found his wife in tears. 'What is
  the matter? What bad news have you heard?' 'My dear, Amadis is
  dead.' They could not suffer the writers to put their heroes to
  death. The infant Don Alonzo personally interceded with the author
  of the Portuguese Amadis to rewrite the chapter in which the Signora
  Briolana was sacrificed. These creatures of the imagination assumed
  a personal reality among the people of that era in the mind of every
  one. Every one was convinced that Arthur of Britain would one day
  return among men. Julian of Castile, who wrote in 1587, affirmed
  (could we believe him) that when Philip II. espoused Mary of
  England, he was obliged to reserve the claims of King Arthur, and
  engage to yield him the throne when he returned. Chivalric fictions
  became an article of faith. A certain gentleman, Simon de Silveyra,
  swore one day on the Holy Gospel that he held the history of Amadis
  de Gaul [Footnote 12] for true and certain."

  [Footnote 10: For information concerning these slow romances and
  their contemporaries, and the great Honore d'Urfy. see University
  Magazine for February, 1844.]

  [Footnote 11: A school of simple and warm-hearted working-class folk
  nightly assembled at a forge in Windsor to hear the perilous trials
  of Pamela read out to them. They watched with unflagging interest
  her progress through her ticklish trials, and showed their joy in
  her final triumph by running in a body to the church and ringing the
  bells.]

  [Footnote 12: This first and best of the chivalric romances was
  composed by Vasco de Lobeira of Oporto, who died in 1406. It was
  written between 1342 and 1367, and first printed between 1492 and
  1500. There is some uncertainty concerning the given dates.]

Such were a few characteristics of Spanish life when Cervantes thought
of writing his Don Quixote. In his numerous works he had it in purpose
to improve the state of things in his native country, and to correct
this or that abuse, but he obtained no striking success till the
publication of this his greatest work. Alas! while it established his
character as master in literature, it excited enmities and troubles in
abundance.


YOUTH OF CERVANTES.

Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra was born in 1547 at Alcala de Hénarès.
His parents, both of gentle birth, were Rodrigo de Cervantes and
Leonor de Cortinas. Their other children born before Michael were
Rodrigo, Andrea, and Luisa. His family belonged to the class of
impoverished gentlefolk, poor but intensely proud of their descent
from one of those hardy mountaineers the Saavedras, who, five
centuries before, so heroically defended the northern portion of Spain
against the Moors. While the hereditary possessions were growing less
and less, the heads of the family would endeavor to compensate for
present privations, by relating to their children the noble deeds and
the great estates of their ancestors.

Cervantes' paternal roof was probably surrounded by some of the
paternal fields, and it is likely that the domestic economy was
similar to that described in the first chapter of Don Quixote, where
translators have still left us at a loss as to the Saturday's fare,
_duelos y quebrantos_ (griefs and groans), some, guessing it to be
eggs and bacon; others, a dish of lentils; others, brains fried in
oil; others, the giblets of fowl.

Alcala de Hénarès  [Footnote 13] was worthy to be the birthplace of
Spain's best writer. The archbishops of Toledo owned a palace there,
and there the great Cardinal Ximenes, an ex-student of its {17}
college, returned when somewhat under a cloud, and prepared his
world-famous polyglot Bible in Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, and Latin. From
the date when the great scholar and statesman made the town his
permanent residence it aimed to become, and did eventually become, the
intellectual Metropolis of the native country of Cervantes. It
possessed a University, nineteen colleges, thirty-eight churches, and
works of art in profusion.

  [Footnote 13: "From the Arabic At-Cala-d'el-Nahr, the chateau by the
  river."]

Whether debarred by poverty or negligence, the last an unlikely
supposition, Cervantes did not graduate in the University of Alcala or
in any other, a circumstance that occasioned him much fortification in
his manhood and advanced age. Émile Chasles thus expresses himself on
this subject:

  "The graduated took their revenge. When Cervantes acquired celebrity
  they recollected that he had taken no degree. When he thought an
  employ they applied to him by way of iron brand the epithet,
  _Ingenio Lego_, 'He is not of ours,' said they; 'he is not a
  cleric.' The day when he attracted the attention of all Europe their
  anger was excessive towards the writer who possessed talent without
  permission, and genius without a diploma. Cervantes gaily replied,
  that he admired their pedantic learning, their books bristling with
  quotations, the complements they paid each other in Greek, their
  erudition, their marginal notes, their doctors' degrees, but that he
  himself was naturally lazy, and did not care to search in authors
  for what he was able to say without them; and finally, that when
  there is a dull or foolish thing to be expressed, it will do in
  Spanish as well in Latin."

He was smarting under the contempt of the learned asses of his day
when writing the preface to his Don Quixote:

  "Alas, the story of Don Quixote is as bare has a rush! Ah, if the
  author could do as others,--cite at the head of the book a litany
  of authorities in alphabetic order, commencing with Aristotle and
  ending with Xenophon or Zoilus! But the poor Cervantes can find
  nothing of all this. There he sits, paper before him, the pen behind
  his ear, his elbow on the table, his cheek in his hand, and himself
  all unable to discover pertinent sentences or ingenious trifles to
  adorn his subject. Happily a humorous and intelligent friend enters
  and brings relief. 'Quote,' said he, 'and continue to quote; the
  first sentence that comes to hand will answer. "Pallida mors aequo
  pede" is as good as another. Horace will come in well anywhere, and
  you can even make use of the Holy Scriptures. The giant Golias or
  Goliath was a Philistine, whom David the shepherd slew with a stone
  from a sling in the valley of Terebinthus, as is related in the Book
  of Kings in the chapter where it is to be found.'"


THE FIRST PLAYS AT WHICH HE ASSISTED.

The earliest instructors of our brave romancer and poet were the
excellent clergyman Juan Lopez de Hoyos, who took pride and pleasure
in expanding the intellects of clear-headed pupils, and the talented
strolling actor, Lope de Rueda, who at a time (middle of sixteenth
century) when neither Alcala nor even Madrid could boast a suitably
appointed theatre, went from town to town, and amused the inhabitants
from his rudely contrived stage. This consisted of a platform of loose
planks supported by trestles, and a curtain as respectable as could be
afforded, doing duty as permanent scene, and affording a hiding-place
behind it to the actors when not performing, and to the few musicians
who occasionally chanted some romantic ballad.

Rueda had been in his youth a gold-beater at Seville, whence, finding
in himself a strong vocation for the mimetic art, he made his escape,
carrying some of the popular satiric stories in his head, and moulding
them into farces. His troupe consisted of three or four male actors,
one or two occasionally presenting female characters, and these were
found sufficient to present a simple story in action, the manager
himself being an actor of rare ability. These open air performances
took a very strong hold on Cervantes' imagination. An outline is given
of one of these acted fables, the precursors of the voluminous
repertory furnished some years later by Lope de Vega.

Rueda himself, presenting an old laborer, tired and wet, and carrying
a fagot, appears before his door, and calls on his wife, who should
have his supper ready. His daughter (represented by {18} a beardless
youth) acquaints him that she is helping a neighbor at her skeins of
silk. She is called, and a fierce scolding match ensues, he demanding
his supper and vaunting the severity of his labor, she vilifying the
fagot he has brought home. By-and-by the discourse falls on a little
plantation of olive trees which he has just put down, and the Signora
Aguéda de Toruegano forgets her anger in the anticipation of the large
profits to accrue from her seedlings:

  "_Wife_.--Do you know, my dear, what I've been just thinking? In six
  or seven years our little plantation will produce four or five
  fanèques (about fifteen barrels) of olives, and putting down a plant
  now and again, we shall have a noble field all in full bearing in
  twenty-five or thirty years.

  "_Husband_.--Nothing more likely; it will be a wonder in the
  neighborhood.

  "_Wife_.--I'll gather the fruit, you'll take them to market on the
  ass, and Menciguela (the daughter) will sell them; but mind what I
  tell you, girl! you must not sell them a maravedi less than two
  reals of Castile the celemin (bushel).

  "_Husband_.--Two reals of Castile! O conscience! a real and a half
  [Footnote 14] will be a fair price.

  [Footnote 14: This has been substituted for fifteen deniers,
  about three farthings, the amount in M. Chasles' version.]

  "_Wife--Ah_, hold your tongue! They are the very best kind--olives
  of Cordova.

  "_Husband_.--Even so, a real and a half is quite enough.

  "_Wife_.--Ah, don't bother my head! Daughter, you have heard me; two
  reals of Castile, no less.

 "_Husband_.--Come here, child. What will you ask--the bushel?

  "_Daughter_.--Whatever you please, father.

  "_Husband_.--Just a real and a half.

  "_Daughter_.--Yes, father.

  "_Mother_.--Yes, father! Come here to me. How will you sell them the
  bushel?

  "_Daughter_.--Whatever you say, mother.

  "_Father_.--I promise you, my lass, two hundred stripes of the
  stirrup leathers, if you don't mind my directions. Now what'll be
  the price?

  "_Daughter_.--Whatever you like, father.

  "_Mother_.--How! Ah, here's for your 'whatever you like.' (_She
  beats her_.) Take that, and maybe it'll teach you to disobey me.

  "_Father_.--Let the child alone.

  "_Daughter_.--Ah, mother, mother, don't kill me! (_Cries out; a
  neighbor enters_.)

  "_Neighbor_.--What's this, what's this? Why do you beat the little
  girl?

  "_Wife_.--Ah, sir, it's this wasteall that wants to give away all we
  have for nothing. He'll put us out of house and home. Olives as
  large as walnuts!

  "_Husband_.--I swear by the bones of my ancestors that they are no
  bigger than grains of millet.

  "_Wife_.--I say they are.

  "_Husband_.--I say they're not.

  "_Neighbor_.--Will you please, ma'am, to go inside? I undertake to
  make all right (_She enters the house_.) Now, my friend, explain
  this matter. Let us see your olives. If you have twenty fanèques, I
  will purchase all.

  "_Father_.--You don't exactly comprehend. The fact is--do you
  see?--and to tell the honest truth, the olives are not just in the
  house, though they are ours.

  "_Neighbor_.--No matter. Sure it's easy to get them brought here.
  I'll buy them at a fair price.

  "_Daughter_.--My mother says she must get two reals   [Footnote 15]
  the bushel.

    [Footnote 15: The Spaniards keep their accounts in piastres,
    reals, and marvedis, the first-named being worth about 8s. 6d. of
    our money. Thirty-four marvedis make a real, eight reals a
    piastre. The real mentioned in the text was probably a piece of
    eight or piastre.]

  "_Neighbor_.--That's rather dear.

  "_Father_.--Now isn't it, sir?

  "_Daughter_.--My father only asks a real and a half.

  "_Neighbor_.--Let us see a sample.

  "_Husband_.--Ah, don't ask to talk about it farther. I have to-day
  put down a small plot of olives. My wife says that within seven or
  eight years we'll be able to gather four or five fanèques of fruit
  from them. She is to collect them, I to take them on the ass to
  market, and our daughter to sell them, and she must not take less
  than two reals. She says yes, I say no, and that's the whole of it.

  "_Neighbor_.--A nice a fair, by my faith! The olives are hardly
  planted, and yet your daughter has been made to cry and roar about
  them.

  "_Daughter_.--Very true indeed, sir, what you say.

  "_Father_.--Don't cry any more, Menciguela. Neighbor, this little
  body is worth her weight in gold. Go, lay the table, child. You must
  have an apron out of the very first money I get for the olives.

  "_Neighbor_.--Good-by, my friend; go in and be agreeable with your
  wife.

  "_Father_.--Good-by, sir. (_He and his daughter go in_.)

  "_Neighbor, alone_.--It must be owned that some things happen here
  below beyond belief. Ouf! quarrel about olives before they're in
  existence!"

{19}

The reader will easily recognize the "Maid with the milking pail" at
the bottom of this illustration. Before the production of any of the
regular pieces of De Vega, or Calderon, or Alarcon, or Tirso de
Molina, the easily pleased folk of country or town were thoroughly
satisfied with Rueda's repertory. When the talented stroller died in
1567, he was honored with a costly funeral, and solemnly interred in
the cathedral of Cordova. Strange contrast between his posthumous
fortune and that of Molière!

The impression made on Cervantes by the performances on Rueda's
platform was strong and lasting. He ever retained a high respect for
the talent of observation, the native genius and the good sense of
Lope de Rueda.

In the preface to his own plays, Cervantes left an inventory of the
theatrical properties of the strolling establishments in his youth:

  "All the materials of representation were contained in a sack. They
  were made up of four jackets of sheepskin, laced with gilt leather,
  four beards, as many wigs, four shepherd's crooks. The comedies
  consisted of eclogues or colloquies between two or three shepherds
  and one shepherdess. They prolonged the entertainments by means of
  interludes, such as that of the _Negress_, the _Ruffian_, the
  _Fool_, or that of the _Biscayan_,--four personages played by Lope
  as well as many others, and all with the greatest perfection and the
  happiest natural ability that can be imagined."

One evening in the old age of Cervantes, the company around him were
discussing the living actors and the present condition of the theatre.
Among other things they treated of the infancy of the Spanish stage,
and the artist who first essayed to make it something better than a
platform for tumbling. Cervantes at once brought forward the claims of
his early master:

  "I remember having seen play the great comedian Lope de Rueda, a man
  distinguished for his intelligence and his style of acting. He
  excelled in pastoral poetry. In that department no one then or since
  has shown himself his superior. Though then a child, and unable to
  appreciate the merit of his verses, nevertheless when I occasionally
  repeat some couplets that have remained in my memory, I find that my
  impression of his ability is correct."



HIS FIRST STEP IN LIFE.

The young admirer of Lope de Rueda exhibited in his temperament and
appearance more of the soldier than the poet. With his high forehead,
his arched eyebrows, his hair flung behind, his firm-set mouth, he
seemed to present little of the imaginative dreamer. However, there
was that in the delicate contours of the countenance, in the searching
look, in the fire of the large dark eyes, which betrayed the ironical
powers of the observant man of genius. No doubt he had the literary
instincts somewhat developed by the practical lessons of Rueda, but
military aspirations had the ascendant for the time. Though his
brother Rodrigo had departed for the war in Flanders, and it seemed as
if he was destined to remain at home with his family, fate and
inclination were against this arrangement. However, the first step he
took in life was not in the direction of the battle-field. An Italian
cardinal took him to Rome in quality of secretary. The brave Don John,
half-brother of Philip II., was appointed general of the league arming
against the Grand Turk at the same time, and the young and ardent
Miguel eagerly took arms under him, and was present at the memorable
naval engagement of Lepanto. Philip did not enter with much good-will
into this strife, and prevented any advantages that might result from
the glorious victory by shortly withdrawing his brother from the
command of the allied forces of Christendom. The enthusiastic young
soldier received three wounds as well as a broken arm in the fight.
This was in the year 1571, and until 1575 we find Cervantes attending
Don John in his contentions with the Mohammedan powers on the coast of
Africa, in which the chivalric commander was hampered by the ill-will
of his brother, Philip II. He went into the Low Countries much against
his will, and after several victories met a premature death there in
1578, when only thirty-two years old.

{20}

CAPTIVE IN ALGIERS.

Cervantes received from his great-souled commander written
testimonials of his valiant conduct and moral worth, and sailed for
Spain from Naples in the year 1578. On the voyage the vessel was
attacked by three Turkish galliots; those who fell not in the
engagement were made prisoners, and our hero became the slave of a
lame renegade called the "Cripple," in Arabic, Dali Mami.

The Algerians, rigid Mussulmans as they were, killed as few Christians
in these attacks as they could. Slaves and ransoms were the cherished
objects of their quests, and as soon as could be after the landing in
Algiers, the classification was made of "gentles and commons." The
captors were cunning in their generation, and this was the process
adapted for the enhancement of their live property.

The captive's owner proceeded with wonderful skill to raise the value
of his goods. While the slave declared his poverty, and lowered his
station in order to lower the terms of his ransom, the master affected
to treat his victim with the greatest respect. He gave him almost
enough of nourishment, and professed he was ruining himself for the
other's advantage through pure deference and good-will; and slipped in
a word as to his hopes of being repaid for his outlay. The prisoner
might undervalue himself as much as he chose, "he was merely a private
soldier." Ah, his master knew better; the man of the ranks was a
general, the man before the mast a _caballero_, the simple priest an
archbishop.

  "As for me,' said the captive Dr. Sosa, 'who am but a poor clerk,
  the need me bishop by their own proper authority, and _in
  plenitudine potestatis_. Afterward they appointed me the private and
  confidential secretary of the Pope. They assured me that I had been
  for eight days closeted with His holiness in a chamber, where we
  discussed in the most profound secrecy the entire affairs of
  Christendom. Then they created me cardinal, afterwards governor of
  Castel Nuovo at Naples; and at this present moment I am confessor to
  Her Majesty the Queen of Spain.' In vain Dr. Sosa renounced these
  honors. They produced witnesses, both Christian and Turks, who swore
  to having seen him officiating as cardinal governor."

The letters of of Don John of Austria having been found on Cervantes,
the poor soldier of Lepanto became at once a great lord, from whom a
large ransom might be expected. They began with genuflexions, and
frequently ended with the scourge, not in his case, however. Many poor
wretches, to save themselves from the horrible treatment they endured,
or expected to endure, became Mohammedans, on which they immediately
obtained their liberty, were set on horseback, with fifty Janissaries
on foot, serving as cortège, the king defraying the expense of the
ceremony, bestowing wives on the hopeful converts, and offering them
places among his Janissaries.

Cervantes became the centre, round which the hopes of many poor
captives were grouped. He made several attempts at evasion, and,
strange to say, was not in any instance punished by his otherwise
cruel master.

Several Christians enjoying the benefit of safe conduct were free to
come and go among these Algerines, and the Redemptorist Fathers
enjoyed thorough freedom, as through them the ransoms were chiefly
effected. A Spanish gentleman being set at liberty, carried a letter
from our hero home to his family, and in consequence the brave old
hidalgo, his father, mortgaged his little estate, took the dowries of
his two daughters, and forwarded all to his son for the liberation of
himself and his brother, who was also in captivity. When he presented
himself to Dali Mami with his sum in his hands the renegade cripple
only laughed at him. He and Rodrigo were men of too much importance to
be ransomed for so trifling a sum.

{21}

The cruel viceroy of Algiers having spent his allotted time in charge
of that nest of vultures, was replaced by a governor still more cruel,
under whom Cervantes made a desperate effort to escape, and carry off
forty or fifty fellow-captives with him. He paid his brother's ransom,
and he, when set at liberty, managed to send a vessel near the spot
where Miguel had his companions in safety in a grotto of a certain
garden. Through some mismanagement the descent failed, and the
hiding-place was revealed by the treachery of a trusted individual.
All were brought before the new Viceroy Hassan, and Cervantes avowed
himself the chief and only plotter among them. Hassan used flattery,
promises, and threats to induce the intrepid Spaniard to criminate a
certain brother Redemptorist as privy to the plot, in order that he
might come at a much coveted sum of money which he knew to be in his
possession. All was in vain. Cervantes was not to be turned from the
path of loyalty, and when every one expected sentence of death to be
pronounced on him at the moment, Hassan became suddenly cool, and
merely ordered him to be removed.

The bagnio of Hassan was a sufficiently wretched place, but while our
hero sojourned there, he made it as cheerful as he could by composing
poetical pieces and reciting them, and getting up a Spanish comedy.
There were forty priests in it at the time, and these performed their
clerical duties as if at liberty. They celebrated mass, administered
holy communion, and preached every Sunday. When Christmas approached,
he arranged a mystery, such as he had seen performed in his native
Alcala under the direction of the ingenious Lope de Rueda. All were
prepared,--the shepherds' dresses, the crib, the stable, etc.; the
guardian admitting outsiders at a small charge, and a shepherd
reciting the opening verses of the entertainment, when a Moor entered
in hot haste, and shouted out to all to look to their safety, as the
Janissaries were rushing through the streets, and killing the
Christians. Some clouds on the northern horizon had been taken for the
Christian fleet under Don John, and the terrible guards determined to
put it out of the Christian captives' power to aid the attack. The
massacre ceased on the clearing away of the vapors.

About that time, Philip II. was collecting a large naval force in the
Mediterranean for the ostensible purpose of storming Algiers, though
in reality his intent was merely to seize on the kingdom of Portugal.
Its romantic sovereign, Don Sebastian, the hero of one of Miss
Porter's romances, had just been slain in Morocco, and his successor
Henry, whose days were numbered, was unable to cross his projects. The
report of Philip's meditated descent inspired Cervantes with a project
of a general rising of the slaves. He even addressed to the sombre
king, through his secretary Mateo Vasquez, a remonstrance and
encouragement, of which we present a few extracts:

  "High and powerful lord, let the wrath of thy soul be enkindled.
  Here the garrison is numerous, but without strength, without
  ramparts, without shelter. Every Christian is on the alert; every
  Mussulman is watching for the appearance of the fleet as the signal
  for flight. Twenty thousand Christians are in this prison, the key
  of which is in your hands. We all, with clasped hands, on bended
  knees, and with stifled sobs, and under severe tortures, beseech
  thee, puissant lord, to turn your pitying looks towards us, your
  born subjects, who lie groaning here. Let the work courageously
  begun by your much loved father be achieved by your hand."

Hassan employed the slaves in building fortifications for his
garrison, but he kept Cervantes strictly guarded. "When my disabled
Spaniard," said he, "is under guard, I am sure of the city, the
prisoners, and the port." But though well watched, the restless
captive made three other attempts at escape, for each of which he was
to receive, but did not, two thousand bastinadoes. In the fourth
attempt, two merchants who were compromised, and feared he might
betray them under the torture, offered to pay his ransom, and thus
secure his departure, but he did not accept the terms. He braved the
examination, and would {22} not reveal the names of any accomplices
except four who were already out of danger. Strange to say, even this
time he escaped without punishment. A renegade, Maltrapillo, high in
Hassan's confidence, and who seems to have entertained great esteem
for the fearless and generous character of Cervantes, probably saved
his back sundry stripes on these different occasions. On this subject
we quote some lines from M. Chasles:

   "Either through the interference of Maltrapillo or the influence
   exercised by the noble character of Cervantes on all around him,
   this time again he was spared by Hassan. How was he enabled to many
   times to escape his master's rage? In following his fortunes
   through these years of trial, I am struck by the mysterious
   influence of his noble character on the events and the persons by
   whom he was surrounded. In the mixed of a diverse population
   incessantly changing, among a crowd of soldiers and captive
   doctors, he occupied an exceptional station. Brothers of Mercy,
   Christian merchants, renegades, all recognize in him a moral
   superiority. 'Every one,' says the eye-witness Pedrosa, 'admired
   his courage and his disposition.'"

The acts of kindness done by the renegades to the captives were not
small nor few. Nearly all of them had conformed through the immediate
prospect of promotion, or fear of punishment, and there was scarcely a
conscientious Mussulman among every hundred of them. In general they
were anxious to obtain from the captives about to be ransomed
certificates of their own good offices towards them. These were
intended to be available for some possible future contingencies.

The poor sorrowful father continued to make unavailing efforts for his
ransom. He even disturbed the court officials with representations of
his son's services and sufferings; but "circumlocution" was a word
understood even in Madrid and in the days of Philip II. The afflicted
and impoverished gentleman died in dragging his suit through the lazy
and unpatriotic officials, and if ever a death resulted from
heartbreak his was one. Still his mother, his brother Rodrigo and his
sister Andrea exerted themselves, and dispatched to Algiers 300
crowns. A strong representations at the court insured in addition the
amount of a cargo then consigned to Algiers, which produced only 60
ducats, say £30. These sums were not sufficient, and the heart sick
captive would have been carried by Hassan to Constantinople, his
viceroyalty having expired, only for the deficiency being made up by
the Brothers of Mercy, Christian merchants, etc., who were "tightly
targed" for that purpose by the good-hearted and zealous brother
superior, Gil. This providential redemption occurred in 1580.

Before he quitted his abode of little ease he had the forethought to
demand a public scrutiny of his conduct by the Christian authorities.
Witnesses in great number came forward to testify to his worth. The
following facts were irrevocably established. He had rescued one man
from slavery only for the treachery of Blanco. The pure morality of
his life was attested by a gentleman of high standing. Others proved
his many acts of charity to the unfortunate and to children, all done
as secretly as possible. He had contrived the escape of five captives.
A gentleman, Don Diego (James) de Benavides, furnished this testimony:

  "On coming here from Constantinople, I asked if there were in the
  city any gentlemen by birth, I was told there was one in
  particular--a man of honor, noble, virtuous, well-born, the friend
  of caballeroes, to wit, Michael de Cervantes. I paid him a visit. He
  shared with me his chamber, his clothes, his money. In him I have
  found a father and a mother."

The declarations of Brother Gil and of Rev. Dr. Sosa solemnly
confirmed the facts brought forward by numerous captives. Sosa wrote
his declaration while still in irons, and avowed with a mixture of
dignity and feeling that his principles would have prevented him from
allowing himself such {23} intimacy with Cervantes, had he not
considered him in the light of an earnest Christian, liable to
martyrdom at any moment.

A scrutiny was also made in Spain at the request of the elder
Cervantes, in 1578, and both the justifying documents, signed by
notaries, are still in existence.

  "Ah!" says Haedo (himself an eye-witness of the sufferings of the
  Christians in that vulture's nest), "it had been a fortunate thing
  for the Christians if Michael Cervantes had not been betrayed by his
  own companions. He kept up the courage and hopes of the captives at
  the risk of his own life, which he imperilled four times. He was
  threatened with death by impaling, by hanging, and by burning alive;
  and dared all to restore his fellow-sufferers to liberty. If his
  courage, his ability, his plans, had been seconded by fortune,
  Algiers at this day would belong to us, for he aimed at nothing
  less."

Cervantes did not put his own adventures in writing. The captive in
Don Quixote said with reference to them, "I might indeed tell you some
strange things done by a soldier named Saavedra. They would interest
and surprise you, but to return to my own story." The disinterested
hero had more at heart the downfall of Islamism than his own
glorification.


HIS RESTITUTION TO HIS NATIVE LAND.

Cervantes touched his native land again with no very brilliant
prospect before him. His father was dead; his mother could barely
support herself, his brother was with the army, and his friends
dispersed. Still the first step on his beloved Spain gave him great
joy, afterwards expressed through the mouth of the captive in Don
Quixote:

  "We went down on our knees and kissed our native soil, and then with
  eyes bathed in tears of sweet emotion we gave thanks to God. The
  sight of our Spanish land made us forget all our troubles and
  sufferings. It seemed as if they had been endured by others than
  ourselves, so sweet it is to recover lost liberty."

At the time of his arrival king and court were at Badajos, watching
the progress of the annexation of Portugal. He joined the army, and
during the years 1581, '2, '3, shared in the battles between Philip
and the Prior Antonio de Ocrato, the latter being assisted by the
French and English. In one of these fights the Spanish admiral ordered
the brave Strozzi, wounded and a prisoner, to be flung into the sea.
At the engagement of the Azores, Rodrigo Cervantes and another captain
flung themselves into the sea, and were the first to scale the
fortifications, thus giving their soldiers a noble example.


MARRIAGE AND SUBSEQUENT TROUBLES.

He lived in Lisbon a short time and composed his Galatea there. Next
year he returned to Madrid, and married the lady Dona Catalina de
Palacios y Salazar y Vomediano. She was of a noble family, but her
dowry consisted of a few acres of land. In the marriage contract,
signed in presence of Master Alonzo de Aguilera, and still in
existence, mention is made of half a dozen fowl forming part of the
fortune brought by her to the soldier and poet. The marriage was
celebrated 12th December, 1584, at the bride's residence, Esquivias, a
little town in the neighborhood of the capital.

He now betook himself seriously to literature, published the Galatea,
and began to write for the theater. At first he was very successful,
but on a sudden Lope de Vega came on the scene, and exhibited such
dramatic aptitude and genius and mental fertility, that managers and
actors and audience had no ears for any other aspirant to dramatic
reputation, and poor Cervantes found his prospect of fame and
independence all at once clouded. The pride of the Spanish hidalgo and
"Old Christian"  [Footnote 16] had been much {24} modified by his life
in the army and bagnio, and his good common sense told him that it was
his duty to seek to support his family by some civil occupation rather
than indulge his family pride, and suffer them and himself to starve.

  [Footnote 16: One unsuspected of having Moorish or Jewish blood in
  his veins.]

But oh, Apollo and his nine blue stockings! what was the occupation
dropped over our soldier-poet's head, and doing all in its power to
extinguish his imaginative and poetic faculties? Nothing more nor less
than the anti-romantic duties of a commissary. Well, well, Spain was
no more prosaic than other countries, and Cervantes had brothers in
his mechanical occupations. Charles Lamb's days were spent in adding
up columns of "long tots." Burns gauged whiskey casks and kept an eye
on private stills; Shakespeare adjusted the contentions of actors, and
saw that their exits and entrances did not occur at the wrong sides;
perhaps the life of the mill-slave Plautus furnished as much happiness
as any of the others. The mill-stones got an occasional rest, and he
was in enjoyment for the time, when reading comic scenes from his
tablets or scrolls, and listening to the outbursts of laughter that
came from the open throats of his sister and brother drudges.

The Invincible Armada, while preparing to make a hearty meal on
England, had need meantime of provender while crossing the rough
Biscayan sea, and four commissaries were appointed to collect
provisions for that great monster, and for the behoof of the Indian
fleets. Cervantes was one of the four, Seville appointed his
headquarters, and his time most unpoetically employed collecting
imposts in kind from all tax-paying folk.

The regular clergy (houses of friars and monks) were at the time at
deadly feud with his Most Catholic Majesty, Philip II., and refused to
pay him tribute. They founded their refusal on a papal bull; and on
the other aide, the alcaids produced the royal warrant. Between the
contending powers the author of Galatea found himself sufficiently
embarrassed.

For some years Cervantes endured a troubled and wretched existence in
such employment as the above, in purchasing corn for the use of the
galleys, and in making trips to Morocco on public business. He
solicited the government for an office in the Indies, and was on the
point of obtaining it when some influence now unknown frustrated his
hopes. He describes his condition and that of many other footballs of
fortune in the Jealous Estremaduran:

  "In the great city of Seville he found opportunities of spending the
  little he had left. Finding himself destitute of money, and not
  better provided with friends, he tried the means adopted by all the
  idle hangers-on in that city, namely, a passage to the Indies, the
  refuge of the outcasts of Europe, the sanctuary of bankrupts, the
  inviolable asylum of homicides, paradise of gamblers who are there
  sure to gain, resort of women of loose lives, where the many have a
  prospect, and the few a subsistence."

Our poet not being born with an instinct for regular accounts and
being charged to collect arrears of tax in Granada to the amount of
two millions of maravedis, say £1,500, found his task difficult among
people who were slow in committing to memory the rights of the crown.
His greatest mistake was the intrusting of a considerable sum to a
merchant named Simon Freire de Luna in order to be deposited in the
treasury at Madrid. Simon became bankrupt, and Cervantes was cast into
prison for the deficiency in his accounts. He was soon set at liberty,
but the different appearances he was obliged to make before the courts
of Seville, Madrid, and Valladolid were sufficient to turn his hair
grey before its time. The judges reproached him for his deficit, the
people gave him no praise. The alcaids of Argamasilla in La Mancha
gave him particularly bad treatment. Perhaps he recollected it when
writing his romance.

{25}

Subjected to the interrogatories of the royal councillors, judges, and
even alcaids, a servant to all merely for means to live, and always
moving about, poor Cervantes appears at last to have given way. From
1594, when sent to collect arrears in Granada, to 1598, little can be
gathered concerning him, but from this last date till 1603 nothing
whatever is known of his fortunes. The probability is that he spent
part of the time in a prison of Andaluçia or La Mancha, and there
meditated on the vanity of human expectations, and wrote the first
part of Don Quixote.


HIS LITERARY LIFE.

Wherever he spent this interval his brain had not been idle--he had
passed in review the defects of the Spanish government and of the
Spanish character. He had been unable to rouse the king to crush the
power of the Algerine pirates, either by the memorials he had
consigned to his friend the secretary, or by the vigorous pictures he
had presented on the stage (after his return from captivity) of the
cruelties inflicted by them on their unhappy captives. He had failed
in his great and cherished object, but there remained one reformation
yet to be made, namely, of taste among those Spaniards, ladies and
gentlemen, to whom reading was a pleasure, and who could afford to
purchase books. To substitute a relish for healthier studies was a
darling object of our much worried poet for years. It was cherished in
prisons, and the first part of his great work written, or nearly so,
at the time when we find him again mixing with society in Valladolid,
where Philip II. held his court. This was in the year 1603. The
following extract concerning his residence and his mode of life in
that city, is taken from the work of M. Chasles:

  "There is at Valladolid a poor looking house, narrow and low, hemmed
  in among the taverns of a suburb, and near the deep and empty bed of
  a torrent called Esguéva. There Cervantes came to live in 1603, in
  the fifty-seventh year of his age. With an  emotion which I cannot
  express I hare visited this dwelling, which stands outside the city,
  and which remains unmarked by stone or inscription. A well-used
  staircase conducts to the two modest chambers used by Cervantes.
  One, in which he slept, no doubt, is a square room with a low
  ceiling supported by beams. The other, a sort of ill-lighted kitchen
  looking on to the neighboring roofs, still holds his _cantarelo_ or
  stone with three round hollows to hold water jars. Here lived with
  him his wife, Dona Catalina, his daughter Isabelle, now twenty years
  old, his sister Dona Andrea, his niece Constanza, and a relation
  named Dona Magdalena. A housekeeper increased the family. Where did
  all sleep? However that was arranged, they all did their work
  together. The ladies earned money by embroidering the court-dresses.
  Valladolid, adopted for abode by the new king and by the Duke of
  Lerma, was then incumbered, as was Versailles afterwards, with
  gentlemen, with the grandees, and with generals. Our impoverished
  family was supported by this affluence. The Marquis of Villafranca,
  returning from Algiers to the court, got his gala-suit made by the
  family of the soldier-poet, with whom he had erewhile been
  acquainted. Cervantes was occupied either with keeping the books of
  people in business, or regulating the accounts of some people of
  quality, or striving to bring his long lawsuit with the government
  lo a close.

  "In the evening, while the needles of the women flew through the
  stuffs, he held the pen, and on the corner of the table he put his
  thoughts in writing. There it was he composed the prologue of that
  work which had been a labor of love in the composition, and in which
  he employed all the force of his genius. In bringing it with him to
  Valladolid, he experienced alternations of hope and fear, being
  fully sensible that it was his masterpiece. 'Idle reader,' said he
  in the first page, 'you may credit my word, for I have no need to
  take oath, that I wish this book, child of my brain, were the most
  beautiful, the most brilliant, and the most witty that any one could
  imagine.' He had published nothing since the Galatea, which had
  appeared twenty years before and was an amiable apology for the
  taste of the times. The book about to be printed was a flagrant
  attack on the same literature."

Those who despise the old books of chivalry, and have probably never
opened one, are too ready to undervalue Cervantes' apprehension about
bringing out his book, and the service it eventually rendered to
society and literature. We recommend an indifferent individual of this
way of thinking to peruse about the eighth of the contents of one of
the condemned {26} volumes of Don Quixote's library, and work himself
into the conviction that the body of the Spanish readers of 1603,
ladies and gentlemen, not only admired such compositions more than
living readers admire the most popular writings of our times, but in
many instances believed the contents to be true.

Let us hope that there is some mistake about the non-accommodation
afforded to the seven individuals of Cervantes' family, six of whom
were of gentle blood. It is easy to imagine what delightful evenings
they would have enjoyed if tolerably comfortable with regard to
furniture and space, the soldier-poet reading out some passages from
the Don, or the Exemplary Novels, or one of his plays, and the
well-bred women plying their needles, listening with interest, and
occasionally breaking out into silvery laughs at the comic misfortunes
of the knight, or the naive pieces of roguery of the squire.

We can readily imagine the desolation of Cervantes' spirit during the
troubled years of his official wanderings, his superiors urging him to
grind the faces of his countrymen and fellow-subjects, and these
entertaining most unfriendly feelings toward himself. The ladies of
his family--where were they during this nomadic life of his, and how
were they situated? Separation from their society and anxiety about
their privations must have added much to the present suffering, and
forebodings of things still worse, the companions of his lonely hours.

A pleasant interruption to the monotony and privations of the family
life must have been the appearance of the first part of the Don in
1604, and the popularity it soon attained.


HIS LABORERS AND THEIR REQUITAL.

Some who merely neglected the author till found by fame, were soon
ready to do him disservice by passing censure on the execution of the
great work, and even searching for subjects of blame in his past
career. Lope de Vega, as we have seen, had put it out of his power to
turn his dramatic talents to account. Further, he did not act in a
kind manner towards him in private, though outwardly friendly. But
Lope's friends and admirers so deeply resented an honest and judicious
criticism on the works of the prolific dramatist by Cervantes, that
they ceased not during the remaining dozen years of his life to do him
every unfriendly act in their power. One was so full of malice and so
unprincipled, that towards the end of Cervantes' life he wrote a
second part of the Adventures of Don Quixote, distinguished by
coarseness, dullness, and inability to make the personages of the
first part of the story act and speak in character. The impudent and
talentless writer called himself Don Avellaneda of some town in La
Mancha, but one of De Vega's admirers was supposed to be the real
culprit. Suspicions fell on several, but the greater number centered
in Pere Luis de Aliaga, a favorite of the Duke of Lerma, and the
confessor of Philip III. He was call, meagre, and dark-complexioned,
and had got the sobriquet of _Sancho Panza_, by antithesis.



The wretched attack, for it was no better, was published in 1614, two
years before the death of Cervantes, Though suffering from illness,
and overshadowed by the expectation of approaching death, the
appearance of the impudent and worthless production acted on him as
the bugle on the nerves of the old battle-steed. In the order of
Providence good is extracted from mere human evil, and to the false
Avellaneda the world is indirectly indebted for the second part of Don
Quixote, the wedding of Gamacho, the wise though unsuccessful
government of Barataria by Sancho, the disenchantment of Dulcinea, and
all the delightful adventures and conferences that had place at the
ducal chateau, province unknown.

{27}

But between the publishing of the first part of Don Quixote in 1605,
and the second in 1614, how had the great heart and head been
occupied? Probably with little pleasure to himself. On his return from
the wars of Portugal in 1584, he had the pleasure and profit of seeing
several of his plays acted, some expressly written to direct public
spirit towards a crusade on the Algerines.  [Footnote 17] Of these he
thus speaks in the prologue to his dramatic works, published 1613:

    [Footnote 17: Between the days of Lope de Rueda and those of
    Cervantes' debut, Naharra of Toledo had made considerable
    improvement in the mechanics of the art. The sack was rejected,
    and chests and trunks held the properties. The musicians came from
    behind their blanket, and faced their customers. He rejected the
    beards except in the case of disguisements, and invented or
    adopted thunder, lightning, clouds, challenges, and fights. He
    himself was a capital personator of cowardly bullies.]

  "In all the playhouses of Madrid were acted some plays of my
  composing, such as the Humors of Algiers, the Destruction of
  Numantia, and the Naval Battle, wherein I took the liberty of
  reducing plays to three acts which before consisted of five. I
  showed, or, to speak better, I was the first that represented the
  imaginations and secret thoughts of the soul, exhibiting moral
  characters to public view to the entire satisfaction of the
  audience. I composed at that time thirty plays at least, all of
  which were acted without anybody's interrupting the players by
  flinging cucumbers or any other trash at them. They ran their race
  without any hissing, cat-calling, or any other disorder. But
  happening to be taken up with other things, I laid aside
  play-writing, and then came on that prodigy of nature, that
  marvellous man, the great Lope de Vega, who raised himself to be
  supreme monarch of the stage. He subdued all the players, and made
  them obedient to his will. He filled the world with theatrical
  pieces, finely and happily devised, and full of good sense, and so
  numerous that they take up above ten thousand sheets of paper all of
  his own writing, and, which is a most wonderful thing to relate, he
  saw them all acted or at least had the satisfaction to hear they
  were all acted."

Good-hearted, generous Cervantes, who could so dwell on that success
in a rival which condemned himself to the wretched life of an inland
revenue officer, to the hatred of non-payers of tax, to prosecutions,
and to the discomforts of an Andaluçian or Manchegan dungeon, and
separation from his niece, sister, daughter, and wife, whom, in
absence of data to the contrary, we take to be amiable and
affectionate women.

When the court returned to Madrid he and his family followed it, but
we find no employment given by him to the printing presses of that
city from 1604 to 1613, when he got published the collection of plays
and interludes before mentioned. In the same year he published his
twelve Exemplary Novels,  [Footnote 18] dedicating them to his patron,
Don Pedro Fernandez de Castro, count of Lemos. This nobleman, in
conjunction with Archbishop Sandoval, and the actor, Pedro de Morales,
had succeeded (let us hope) in cheering the poet's latter years. In
the preface he gives a portrait of himself in his sixty-sixth year,
distinguished by his own charming style, always redolent of
resignation, good-will, and good-nature. He pretends that a friend was
to have got his portrait engraved to serve as frontispiece, but, owing
to his negligence, he himself is obliged to supply one in pen and ink:

    [Footnote 18: The Lady Cornelia, Rinconete and Cortadillo, Doctor
    Glass-case, the Deceitful Marriage, the Dialogue of the Dogs
    Scipio and Berganza, the Little Gipsy Girl, the Generous Lover,
    the Spanish-English Lady, the Force of Blood, the Jealous
    Estremaduran, the Illustrious Scullery-Maid, and the Two Damsels.]

  "My friend might have written under the portrait--This person whom
  you see here, with an oval visage, chestnut hair, smooth open
  forehead, lively eyes, a hooked but well-proportioned nose, a
  silvery beard that, twenty years ago, was golden, large moustaches,
  a small mouth, teeth not much to speak of, for he has but six, all
  in bad condition and worse placed, no two of them corresponding to
  each other; a figure between the two extremes, neither tall nor
  short, a vivid complexion, rather fair than dark, somewhat stooped
  in the shoulders, and not very light-footed: this I say is the
  author of Galatea, Don Quixote de la Mancha, . . . commonly called
  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. He was for many years a soldier, and
  for five years and a half in captivity, where he learned to have
  patience in adversity. He lost his left hand by a musket-shot in the
  battle of Lepanto, and ugly as this wound may appear, he regards it
  as beautiful, having received it {28} on the most memorable and
  sublime occasion which passed times have ever scene, or future times
  can hope to equal, fighting under the victorious banners of the son
  of that thunderbolt of war, Charles V. of blessed memory. Should the
  friend of whom I complain have no more to say of me than this, I
  would myself have composed a couple of dozen of eulogiums, and
  communicated them to him in secret," etc.


THE CLOSING SCENE.

Cervantes' Voyage to Parnassus, in which he complains to Apollo for
not being furnished even with a stool in that poets' elysium, was
published in 1614, the second part of Don Quixote in 1615, and that
was the last book whose proofs he had the pleasure to correct. He was
employed on his Troubles of Persiles and Sigismunda,   [Footnote 19]
and wrote its preface, and the dedication to his patron the Count of
Lemos, while suffering under his final complaint, the dropsy, and
having only a few day to live. From the preface to the Persiles he
appears to have received extreme unction before the last word of it
was written. From the forgiving, and patient, and tranquil spirit of
his writing, even when annoyed by much unkindness and injustice on the
part of the Madrid coteries, from the spirit of religion and morality
that pervades his writings, and the care he appears to have taken to
meet his summons as a sincere Christian, we may reasonably hope that
his sorrows and troubles for time and eternity ended on 23d April,
1616 the day on which a kindred spirit breathed his last at
Stratford-on-Avon.

  [Footnote 19: It was published by his widow, Dona Catalina, la 1617.]

And indeed in our meditations on the characteristics of the author and
man in Cervantes, we have always mentally associated him with
Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott. We find in all the same versatility
of genius, the same grasp and breadth of intellect, the same gifts of
genial humor and the same largeness of sympathy. The life of Cervantes
will be always an interesting and edifying study in connexion with the
literature and the great events of his time. We find him
conscientiously doing his duty in every phase of his diversified
existence, and effecting all the good in his power. When he feels the
need of filling a very disagreeable office in order to afford
necessary support to his family, he bends the stubborn pride of the
hidalgo to his irksome duties--and it is not easy for us to realize
the rigidity of that quality which he inherited by birth, and which
became a second nature in every gentleman of his nation. In advanced
years he still vigorously exerts his faculties, and endures privations
and disappointments in a resigned and patient spirit; and when
complaints are wrung from him they are neither bitter nor ill-natured.
Even his harmless vanity has something amiable and cordial about it.
When he has just reached his sixtieth year he effects a salutary
revolution in the corrupt literary taste of his countrymen and
countrywomen, and save a few coarse expressions separable from the
literature of his day, a deathbed examination would have found few
passages in his numerous writings which it would be desirous to find
omitted. He closed an anxious and industrious life by a Christian
death.



NOTE.

Towards the end of Cervantes' life he belonged to the third order of
Trinitarian monks, and was buried in their church with his face
uncovered. These brothers having quitted their convent in 1633, the
site of the interment could not be discovered when a search was
afterwards made. The house he occupied in Madrid being pulled down
about twenty years since, his bust has been placed in a niche in front
of the new building.

------

{29}


SILENT GRIEF.


  You bid me raise my voice,
             And pray
  For tears; but yet this choice
  Resteth not with me. Too much grief
  Taketh the tears and words that give relief
             Away:
  Though I weep not, silent and apart,
        Weeps and prays my heart

  You like not this dead, calm,
            Cold face.
  So still, unmoved, I am.
  You think that dark despair begins
  To brood upon me for my many sins'
            Disgrace:
  Not so; within, silent and apart,
       Hopes and trusts my heart.

  Down underneath the waves
          Concealed
  Lie in unfathomed graves
  A thousand wrecks, storm never yet--
  That did the upper surface madly fret--
            Revealed.
  Wreck'd loves lie deep; tears, with all their art,
       Ne'er could show my heart.

  Complaint I utter not.
            I know
  That He who cast my lot,
  In silence also bore His cross.
  Nor counted lack of words or tears a loss
            In woe.
  Alone with Him, silent and apart,
        Weeps and prays my heart.

--------

{30}

Original.

THE GODFREY FAMILY;
OR, QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.


CHAPTER I.


MR. GODFREY AND HIS FAMILY.

About the time the events of the era 1792 were creating a panic
throughout the European world, an English gentleman sat at breakfast
with his wife and children in a noble mansion on the south eastern
coast of his native island. The newspaper was unfolded with more than
usual interest, for the Honorable Mr. Godfrey's sister had married a
French nobleman, and the daily accounts from France struck every day
new terror to the heart of this gentleman. Until now, he had been what
is termed a liberal in his politics, and, alas! an unbeliever in his
religion, and had prided himself on bringing up his family free from
all bigotry and superstition; he had kept up correspondence with men
of science all over the world, and fondly hoped that the reign of
intellect "would emancipate the world from evil." His children had
been brought up under all these influences, and thus far with success
to his scheme. Accustomed from infancy to refinement, elegance,
domestic happiness, and intellectual culture, these young people felt
that in their case goodness and happiness were synonymous. All that
was beautiful they loved, for they had cultivated tastes; all that was
noble in sentiment they admired, for their father prided himself, and
taught them to pride themselves, on their noble ancestry, whose deeds
of daring and renown he was never weary of recounting. Fame, honor,
and glory were their idols. Brought up among such genial influences as
foster agreeable manners and bring out the most lovable of earth's
dispositions, together with an intellectual expression of beauty, and
a poetic appreciation of nature's charms, it was little wonder that
they mistook strong impulses for principle, thought themselves firm in
integrity of purpose, and were disposed fearlessly to launch their
vessel on the ocean of life, secure that intelligence and high aims
would guard them for ever against shipwreck. But now a change seemed
pending. The fear engendered by the French Revolution had somewhat
revolutionized Mr. Godfrey's mind, he was becoming more cautious in
his theories, and more morose in his temper than he had ever been
before. His wife hesitated ere she asked: "Any news of the countess
to-day?"

"No; though affairs are getting more desperate every hour. Would she
and the count were safe in England."

"But, in that case, their estates, would be confiscated, would they
not?"

Mr. Godfrey rose uneasily and paced the room. "What is the world
coming to?" he said.

A loud ring at the outer gate prevented reply; it was early for
visitors at the front entrance. They paused, and listened; soon a
servant announced "M. de Villeneuve."

"M. de Villeneuve! why, what can bring him here? Where have you shown
him to?"

"He is in the library, sir."

Mr. Godfrey hastened to receive his visitor. "I thought you were in
America," he said, after the first greetings were over.

"I went back to France to finish arranging some affairs for my father;
{31} and well for me that they were settled before these scenes of
blood had crazed the populace, or we should have lost everything."

"And now------"

"Now, everything of ours has been favorably disposed of, and my father
and his family are settled in America without loss of property; my
father is delighted at the prospects of the new world, where every man
is to be EQUAL before the laws; you know he is an enthusiast."

"Yes, but it is an untried experiment yet, and France is presenting a
very fearful spectacle at this moment in endeavoring to follow in the
track."

"It is of that I came to speak to you. You have relations there?"

"My sister--do you know anything about her?"

"I and some other friends brought her and her husband's daughter
across the Channel last night."

"Last night! across the Channel! And her husband----"

"Has perished by the guillotine!"

"Great God!" Mr. Godfrey hid his face in his hands. "My poor sister!
how did she bear it? where is she? how did you come?"

"We came over in an open fishing boat--the Countess de Meglior,
Euphrasie, the priest of the old chateau, and myself; it was all we
could do to escape detection. I, of course, passed unnoticed, as an
American citizen; but the Countess of Euphrasie and M. Bertolot had to
disguise themselves and to suffer many hardships. The countess now
lies ill in the little inn at New Haven; she sent me on to tell you of
her situation."

"My poor sister! My poor sister! Has she lost all?"

"Nearly so. The estate is confiscated, and save a little money and a
few jewels she was able to save nothing; indeed she was too much
terrified to think. Mademoiselle de Meglior had been sent for on the
first alarm from the south of France, where she had been educated; she
arrived in time to throw herself into her father's arms as the
officers were taking him from his house; and in less than a week he
was no more. Secret intimation was sent to the countess that she and
her daughter were both denounced, and they fled, as I have told you."

To hasten to his sister's aid was, of course, the first thing to be
thought of. It was some days before the countess was sufficiently
recovered to be able to be removed to her brother's house; and even
after removal she was for a long time confined to her room.

Euphrasie, her step-daughter, tended her most assiduously, but the
poor lady could scarcely be comforted. To have, lost everything at
once--husband, estate, wealth, power, and position, and to be reduced
to depend upon a brother's bounty--it was not wonderful that she
should feel her situation acutely. She had lived exclusively for this
world's honors; every duty of domestic life had given place to her
love of the court and its pleasures. Euphrasie, brought up at the
convent and under the guardianship of her paternal grandmother, was
almost as much a stranger to her as the nieces to whom she was now
newly introduced.

. . . . . .

It was a long time ere the Countess de Meglior rallied sufficiently to
appear in the drawing-room of the mansion, and meantime her
step-daughter, Euphrasie, was simply her slave. Madame never
considered her welfare, or seemed to think she was in any way
concerned in the misfortune that bad overtaken them; yet never,
perhaps, was a child more fondly attached to a father than had been
our heroine. Although since the death of her own mother she had for
the most part resided away from him, yet her father's frequent visits
to his ancestral chateau, and the still more frequent correspondence
with his mother and daughter, had kept up a warm interest. At the
death of her grandmother she had received her education at a
neighboring convent, for her step-mother {32} declined taking charge
of her. She was summoned home at last in consequence of the troubles
of the times; arrived in time to be torn by force from the arms of her
father, into which she had thrown herself; passed days of agonizing
suspense, which were terminated only by hearing of his death.

Paris was no longer safe; advertised of her own proscription, Madame
de Meglior, almost in a state of frenzy, excepted the kind offices of
M. de Villeneuve, and, with the old family chaplain, had fled the
country, taking with her Euphrasie, with whom she so suddenly became
aware she was connected, though a stranger alike to her character and
disposition.

Euphrasie, though overwhelmed by the blow, was constrained to hide her
own emotions, the better to console one who seemed so inconsolable as
the countess, her step-mother. Truly, the poor girl did feel she was
as a stranger in a strange land. Until the storm broke forth which
drove the nuns from the convent, and let infidelity and irreligion
like "the dogs of war" loose over the fated kingdom, Euphrasie had
dwelt in happy ignorance of all grosser evil, and with light and merry
heart, chastened by earnest piety, pursued her innocent way; but
suddenly awakened by such horrors to the knowledge of crime, vice, and
their concomitant miseries, she shrank from entering into a world
which contrasted with the abode she had left, seemed to her
over-excited imagination filled with mysterious terrors, and fraught
with indescribable dangers.

She met, then, the advances of her entertainers with constraint; kept
the young people absolutely at a distance, and would more willingly
shut herself up in the apartment of her peevish, unloving stet-mother,
to whom she manifested the affection and paid the respect of a
daughter, than join with Adelaide or Annie either in study or
amusement.

Adelaide, the eldest daughter of Mr. Godfrey's family, was within two
months of her eighteenth year--Eugene, the only son and heir, was then
sixteen--while her sister Annie was but a year younger; and the merry,
laughing Hester had scarcely counted thirteen years. With the
compassionate eagerness of youth they crowded round Euphrasie, whom
they persisted in saluting as "cousin," and were not a little
chagrined to find their advances met in so chilling a manner; they
spared no pains to distract her from her moodiness, or hauteur, or
ill-temper, or whatever it might be, that made her so different from
themselves. Yet moodiness it scarcely could be, for the young French
girl was cheerful in society, so far as the expression of her
countenance went; and when surprised in solitude, a calm serenity sat
on her youthful brow, and she bore the ill-temper of the countess with
wonderful sweetness; her mother's impatience, indeed, seemed but to
increase her patience, and the harshness she underwent served but to
make her more gentle. She was a mystery to her animated young friends,
who, loving a life of excitement and intellectual progress, could not
understand how Euphrasie could exist in so stupid and monotonous a
course.

Yet was the young French girl far from being deficient in those
branches of accomplishments which are especially feminine. She played
and sang with taste and feeling, but I the airs were generally of a
solemn character. She loved, also, to exercise her pencil, but it was
to delineate the head of the thorn-crowned Saviour, of the penitent
Magdalene, or of, "Mary, highly favored among women." Earthly subjects
and earthly thoughts had no attraction for her, yet there were moments
when, as if unconsciously, she gave utterance to fancies which
startled her young companions. She would walk with them by the
sounding shore, and while they were busy gathering and classifying
shells and sea-weed and geological specimens, she, too, would seem to
study' and listen and learn a lesson, but a far {33} different lesson
from the one they sought. The young ladies Godfrey were scientific,
though in a playful way; there was aim, object, utility, in short, in
all their seekings. "Knowledge is power," was the axiom of the family;
and the members of it might fairly challenge the world for the
consistency with which they sought to carry that axiom into practice.
But Euphrasie would wonder and ponder, and philosophize unconsciously.
She did not decompose the fragments of the mighty rocks with acids as
her young friends did; she did not classify and dissect the lovely
flower; but she stood in mute wonderment at the base of the rocks, and
heard their disquisitions on its strata having been once liquid and
gradually consolidating, and said: "What a wondrous history! what a
sight for the angels to behold the atomic attraction forming the
worlds grand order! A true theory of geology would be like a chapter
of the _life of God_--a true revelation of his spirit to man."

"Yes," said Adelaide; "science will yet and if superstition from the
earth."

"Superstition!" said Euphrasie. "Yes! if superstition means false
views of God's relation to the human soul. True science is mystic, and
must reveal God interiorly; but true science can scarcely be attained
by guesses or dissection. You destroy a beauteous flower by pulling it
to pieces, but I do not see how its separate petals and crushed leaves
can speak so plainly to the soul as the living plant on the stem, or
how your anatomy is a revelation."

"Nay, we discern the uses of the different parts thereby, and admire
the structure, seeing how each organ fulfils its office duly, in
minuteness as in grandeur."

"But your long words," said Euphrasie; "do they too reveal God? To me
they hide him in a cloud of dust. I feel the order, I love the beauty,
I am elevated by the grandeur of creation, because nature is a
metaphor in which God hides himself and reveals himself at once, but I
distrust a mere human key. How can we be sure of systems, unless we
spend a life in verification? Did not Pythagoras teach astronomy in
the Copernican fashion? and yet the world did not receive the teaching
till centuries after. The world receives the theory of Copernicus now
on trust; would it be wise to spend a life in verifying it?"

"Have you any other key?" asked Annie.

"There is a key to the lesson which nature teaches," said Euphrasie,
in a low tone; "but not so much as to its formation as to its being a
manifestation of God. We must not speak of these things; they are too
high for us."

"Nay," said Eugene; "they are the very things to speak about,
especially if, as you say, they lead to higher things; my idea of
science is utility. The old Magian astrologers, the Chaldean sages and
Eastern sophists, studied cloudy myths and wrapped up their theories
in a veil of obscurity; but the modern idea is usefulness; an
abridgment of man's toil, and promotion of his comfort. Do you reject
all human research?"

"I reject nothing that God has given," said Euphrasie; "but truth is
one, error is many. The science first to be taught, is how to discover
truth--the next, how to apply it. You say the ancients applied
science to other purposes than we; if they applied it to learn the
qualities of their own souls, and we apply it to the comfort of our
bodies merely, which is the highest object?"

"What, then, would you do?" said Adelaide, a little impatiently; "shut
up our books, and sit and dream on the sea-shore on matters beyond all
practical use?"

Euphrasie answered very gently, as she rose to walk to the seaside, "I
am not a teacher, _ma cher cousine_, but I think mind has its laws as
well as matter, and as on the government of our minds so much depends,
even in {34} our researches after material knowledge, it is likely
that the science of mind is more important than that of matter, and
necessary for the truth-seeker to study first. But I am getting quite
out of my depth; let us go and throw pebbles into the sea."

. . . . . .

Mrs. Godfrey was a kind-hearted and very reasonable woman, in the way
in which she understood reasoning. She was bent on rousing her young
inmate to energy and action. She was but a _girl_, she said--a girl of
seventeen could not have been so spoiled by the insipidities of a
convent as to be beyond reclaiming for the tangible world surrounding
her; or was it that her thoughts were with the dead, and that the deep
sorrow she had undergone had penetrated to the depths of her being?
Whatever the cause, Mrs. Godfrey was dissatisfied with the result, and
her motherly warmth of heart yearned to comfort the young orphan in
her desolation. She let a few weeks pass away in hopes of witnessing a
change, but when none came, or seemed likely to come, she thought it
her duty to remonstrate with Euphrasie, the more so as the countess
being now recovered sufficiently to join the family circle, Euphrasie
had no plausible excuse for passing hours together in the solitude of
her own chamber.

"It is not good for you, my dear, to be so much alone," said Mrs.
Godfrey to her, as one day she intruded on the young girl's privacy.
"Rouse your energies to some good purpose, and employ your mind in
some definite pursuit; it is very injurious, I assure you, to let your
faculties lie dormant so long."

Euphrasie laid aside the embroidery on which she had been employed,
and answered meekly, "What shall I do to please you, my dear madam?"

"Why, exercise your mental faculties--study."

"I am most willing to do so, madam; but what shall I begin?"

"Why, languages if you will; but you know enough of these, perhaps;
your own language and that of this country may content you. Or will
you study German and Italian?"

"I will, if you wish it, though I confess I have no great inclination.
It seems to me as if to learn different names for the same thing were
not very profitable; and unless I had occasion to visit the countries
in which these languages are spoken, I think it would be time thrown
away."

"How time thrown away? Could you not read the literature of the
languages? That will expand your mind."

"Literature? Do you mean poetry and fiction--such as your daughters
read? I do not care for them. I want to study truth."

"Truth? Yes, but fiction may be covert truth. Tales show us mankind as
they are. Literature has a refining tendency, and gives us elegance of
taste."

"I should defer to your opinion, madam," replied Euphrasie, with a
resigned air; "and when you wish, I will begin."

"Yes," said Mrs. Godfrey, "but not as a punishment; it is as a source
of attraction, of interest, that I wish you to cultivate literary
tastes."

"I cannot feel interest, madam, in that which will unfit me for my
duty."

"Unfit you for your duty! what do you mean?"

"Pray, madam, pardon me; I, of course, defer to you."

"I want no deference, child, save what your reason gives. Explain your
meaning."

"I only mean, dear madam, that too much refinement and elegance might
make us forget our inherent weakness; teach us to set too high a value
on exterior accomplishments, and to forget the tendency to sin ever
abiding within us."

"The girl is raving! Now, Euphrasie, do you honestly believe in the
corruption of your heart?"

{35}

"I know I am prone to evil in many ways, and that I must keep a
constant watch over all my dispositions. I suppose I do not know the
extent of evil in my own heart--that were a rare grace, vouchsafed to
few--but I see nothing in myself to lead me to suppose that I am
naturally better than the men who murdered my father."

"Do you feel disposed to murder, then?"

"No; but the very indignation I often feel at their crimes teaches me
not to trust myself. Did we give way to our passions, and had we
power, who can tell what we should do? Nero showed good dispositions
when he began his reign. Alfred the Great was a licentious youth till
Almighty God chastened him by adversity, and humbled him through life
by inflicting him with an incurable disease, which kept him ever
mindful of his former delinquencies."

"Do yon think that disease was a good to Alfred?"

"Decidedly; it helped to keep him mindful of the ever-present Deity
whom his former life had offended, and probably prevented his
relapsing into sin."

"You foolish child! his disease was probably occasioned by the
hardships he had undergone during his campaign; it was the natural
consequence to damp and wet and bad living. You must study science,
Euphrasie; that will rid you of all these foolish notions."

"I will study what you please, madam," replied Euphrasie.

But Mrs. Godfrey's endeavors to make her young _protégé_ comprehend
results as _inevitable_ signally failed, to her own great
astonishment. The girl pursued easily and willingly the course of
study marked out for her; was somewhat amused by chemical and other
experiments, but could never be brought to declare them necessary
results in the absolute sense. "The action of the same spirit that
established these relationships" said she "might at will disturb them;
even as the chemical relationship between two substances is disturbed
by the presence of a third substance more potent in its affinities."

"What, then, is a natural law?" demanded Mrs. Godfrey.

"A natural law," replied Euphrasie, "is the ordinary mode in which
Divine Providence causes one portion of insentient matter to act on
another portion of insentient matter."

Her instructor would object to this. "Nay, but there are natural laws
affecting mind also."

"Doubtless," said Euphrasie, "there are ordinary modes of acting upon
mind, both by the action of matter and by the action of other minds;
but as the special object of this life is to reunite, to re-bind man
to his Creator, supernatural means are ever at work to effect this
object, and of these we can predicate nothing certain."

"Supernatural nonsense, child--who put this precious style of
reasoning into your head?"

"Does not religion mean re-binding, madam? Was not man severed from
God by disobedience? Was not the whole spirit of religion, both before
and since our Lord's advent, founded on the fact that the mercy of God
wished to provide a remedy for that fatal act of Adam and Eve? And has
not insentient nature ever been made to depart from her ordinary
rules, when such departure could forward the cause for which Christ
died?"

Mrs. Godfrey was silenced. She did not wish to avow her scepticism and
infidelity, but in secret she rejoiced that her own children were free
from such a bar to improvement.

The arrival of a box of books as a present to Euphrasie from M. de
Villeneuve, who, in a note addressed to the countess, asked her
permission "to be allowed to present to the daughter of his departed
friend a few works which, he believed, would suit her taste, and which
she would be scarcely likely to find in Mr. Godfrey's library,
valuable as that library was in many respects," came to help the
enemy's {36} cause in Mrs. Godfrey's view of the case, for among the
works were selections from St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, from Bede, St.
Thomas Aquinas, and others of the fathers of the church. "I did not
know you read Latin, cousin," said the girls in surprise. "Nor do I,
except church Latin," said Euphrasie. "I learnt church Latin on
purpose to study these books, which my father had promised me as soon
as I could read them. M. de Villeneuve must have heard of this promise
from M. Bertolot. It was very kind in him to send them to me."

"I wonder you did not say 'it was a special providence'," bantered
Annie; but Eugene looked at her beseechingly and reprovingly, so she
said no more.

In spite of the new attraction, Euphrasie continued to study the
course appointed by Mrs. Godfrey, but in learning thus there was so
evidently a want of appreciation of the importance of the
study--science seemed to her so very little higher than a game of ball
with a little child--that her instructors were fairly discomfited, and
inclined to turn her over to the musty old fathers she had the bad
taste to prefer to their intelligent elucidations.

The young people, too, were annoyed, for they could not attribute to
stupidity the indifference she manifested, and that indifference
seemed felt as a tacit reproach of their own eagerness.

"She is not only not stupid,"' said Adelaide, the oldest of the girls;
"she is absolutely clever; she intuitively comprehends what it takes
me hours to make out. I began to explain algebra to her, and before a
month was up, she knew more of it than I did myself; and when I spoke
to her of this new discovery of locomotive power, which has taken us
so long fully to comprehend, she gave me what she calls the course of
the ordinary sequences of matter, in proof that the invention must
succeed, if this course of sequences be properly applied; and that
then we may travel without horses as fast as we can reasonably wish;
'but,' she added, 'it will be worth no one's while to perfect such an
invention, for, travel as fast as we may, we cannot run away from
ourselves by any material means.'"

"She is a monomaniac," said Mr. Godfrey; "sensible on all points but
one."

"Unless," urged Eugene, "it be true, as she once said, that there is
higher science than the science of matter, and that that science is
the necessary one for us to study."

"_Et tu, Brute_," shouted the father indignantly. "Now, children, let
us have no such trash in my own family. Pity your young friend, and
withhold your censure. Remember, she was brought up in superstition
and ignorance. It cannot be expected that her mind should awaken at
once to the beauty of the physical law. But for yourselves, after the
pains that have been taken to keep your minds unfettered by the
trammels of superstition, it were a disgrace indeed to see you yield
to any such worn-out fancies. The close of the eighteenth century must
witness higher thoughts."

"The close of the eighteenth century has witnessed terrific doings
over the water," said Eugene.

"Yes, and see there the effects of superstition," answered his father.
"Had those poor wretches been taught an enlightened philosophy instead
of an abject superstition, the reaction would not have produced such
awful results."

"Do you then believe, father, that when Euphrasie throws off her
religion, she will become such as these men are?"

"No; Euphrasie is better educated already, even from her intercourse
with us; besides, she is refined and elegant."

"But so they say is Robespierre. A Frenchman, and one not friendly to
him, said to me the other day that his house is the very picture of
simple elegance. Besides, the Roman emperors were excessive in their
luxurious magnificence at the very time they {37} were murdering by
wholesale. Nero sang to his lyre the Siege of Troy while Rome was
burning. What if it were true that he set the city on fire merely to
revel in the luxury of a new sensation, and to realize the emotion he
deemed he ought to feel at such a catastrophe?"

"Why, Eugene," said Hester, laughing, "you, too, are growing
metaphysical. What will come next?"

"Why, next we will inquire how far metaphysics are true when they
teach that mental sensation and moral power are distinct from each
other, and that a man may be consequently imaginatively great--capable
of every grand mental sensation--and be morally weak; nay, the very
slave of his lowest propensities. We have many examples of this."

"So says Euphrasie; and therefore she insists that what we call mental
culture is at best but of secondary value, well enough as an assistant
agent, but not to be considered as a principal means in attaining the
ultimatum of life."

"Euphrasie is a simpleton," said Mr. Godfrey.

Eugene rose to quit the room. He was considering within himself
whether Euphrasie were not in the right.




CHAPTER II.

THE EARTHLY UTOPIA, AND THE LOST EMPIRE.

In a little country town where society is scarce, it often happens
that people associate together whose rank is dissimilar, for the mere
sake of relieving ennui of solitude. Thus in Estcourt a half-pay
captain, his wife, the clergyman and his family, the lawyer, the
doctor, and their incumbrances, were occasionally admitted as visitors
to Estcourt Hall, as Mr. Godfrey's residence was called; and here,
though somewhat restrained by being found in such aristocratic
society, opinions were sometimes broached which plainly manifested
that "the spirit of the time" was working even in that remote
district.

St. Simon, Fourrier, Owen, had not then developed the social system
which is now endeavoring to sap the foundations of all that antiquity
held in solemn reverence; but the principles of socialism to which
these men afterwards gave a "shape" were even then fermenting in the
minds of many. Disturbed spirits were questioning the rights of landed
proprietors, while the sudden introduction of machinery was raising a
faction among the displaced artisans. Ominous signs were visible on
the political horizon, and perhaps an English "reign of terror," that
would have vied in horror with that of France, would have been
inaugurated, had not the threatened invasion of the island by Napoleon
united all classes anew to repel the foreign foe.

Certain it is that, early in the nineteenth century, it was found
necessary to have government agents in many a petty country town in
England to watch the progress of disaffection, and five or six
shopkeepers could hardly assemble together without the fact being
recorded, and inquiries set on foot respecting the purport of their
meeting. Rebellious spirits were mysteriously _pressed_ to man the
royal navy, and the magistrates not only connived at such kidnapping,
but frequently designated the individuals whom it was desirable to
remove.

This process, comparatively easy when it concerned apprentices,
journeymen, or those belonging to the laboring population, could not
be brought to bear upon obnoxious members of the gentry with equal
facility. Now, Alfred Brookbank was one of these. His father was
rector of Estcourt, and, independently of his living, was proprietor
of a pretty landed estate, the whole of which by right of
primogeniture was to fall to the eldest eon, a careless, unprincipled
prodigal, who had already involved his family in pecuniary
embarrassment {38} by his reckless expenditure, and brought disgrace
on his father's cloth by his loose morality.

His brother Alfred was the reverse of this--astute, aspiring,
ambitious, he was smitten with the prevailing mania, and at times
talked loudly of the folly and injustice of sacrificing the interests
of a whole family to one selfish fool. The girls, too, whose fortunes
had been injured by the elder brother's extravagance, lent no
unwilling ear to the doctrine of equal participation of property.

Alfred Brookbank was gifted with an eloquent tongue, an insinuating
manner, and a gentlemanly deportment. His figure was good, and his
features, without being handsome, were agreeable from their animated
expression. He was a general favorite; and being prudent enough to
avoid the expression of his opinions before the elder branches of the
family, it was seldom that he was suspected of spreading sedition and
disaffection among the young.

Of Mr. Godfrey's three daughters, the second one, Annie, was, at this
period of our tale, by far the most susceptible of these novel ideas.
She professed that she would follow truth wherever it should lead her,
even though it involved the relinquishment of her own superior rank in
society. Mr. Godfrey only laughed at such protestations from a girl of
seventeen, well knowing they would not stand the test of experience;
but however harmless might be her sallies, he had not calculated on
one result of freedom of opinion; Annie began to take pleasure in
Alfred Brookbank's attentions, and to feel flattered when he
expatiated to her on the beauty of such a system of co-operative
industry as would banish vice and misery from the globe and renew the
golden era.

"Is it to be wondered at," said Alfred, "that revolutions take place
in blood, when property is so unequally divided? nay, when oftentimes
the property is in the possession of the fool, while the wise man has
to get his living by hard labor? Look at the _rationale_ of the thing!
One man holds wealth, as it is called, and on the strength of it he
must compel fifty men to work for him, while be fives at his ease--the
roasted pigeons flying into his mouth, crying, 'come eat me!'"

"But some one must work," argued Annie.

"You mean to say," replied Alfred, "that food most be raised and
clothing furnished. True. But how many are employed in really useful
labor, compared with those whose occupations might be dispensed with
without loss to society, and those who are mere appendages of
wealth--mere creatures of idleness--men who, by forestalling their
master's wants, make _him_ dependent on themselves; who, by
surrounding him with luxuries, effeminate him; and who, by pandering
to his pleasures, surfeit him, at the same time that by doing these
things they degrade themselves; for why should one man be a mere
appendage to another?"

"But if all must work," said Annie, "all cannot work in the same way.
We most have hewers of wood and drawers of water, as well as poets and
philosophers. A community needs a head, as well as hands and feet.
Suppose you were elected head of a community, you would need servants
to do the manual labor?"

"True, but I would not badge them for it," answered Alfred, glancing
at the liveried servants, who were then bringing in refreshments. "All
men must work for the common weal; therefore, all labor is honorable;
and no man need lord it over another, as if himself were made of
porcelain, and the other of earthenware. An American philosopher has
lately calculated that in order to supply the world with necessaries,
if each grown individual were to work four hours a day, the whole
population of the world might be far better provided for than it is
now."

"And what would they do with their spare time?" asked Annie.

{39}

"What but improve their minds, and employ their energies in loftier
labors--what but grow out of the drudge into the man! Oh! we have yet
to learn the wonders that are to be achieved by a well-regulated
community. Men are scarcely men yet. Half of them are slaves to the
mere bread-winning to support their bodies, and the other half are
seeking phantoms--they are trying to find pleasure in lording it over
their fellows, or they are driven to excess by the mere necessity of
passing away time. It is an unfair position to place a man in, to set
him above that reciprocal dependence which binds man to man as equals.
It is a practical injustice to individuals to sever them thus from
their kind, and prevent their feeling their brotherhood." Alfred
continued, warming with his subject:

  "There are, deep seated in the human heart,
  A thousand thrilling, yearning sympathies--
  A thousand ties that bind us to our kind--
  A thousand pleasures only there enjoyed
  In cheering intercourse with fellow-man.
  'Tis thus the voice of nature speaks aloud,
  Proclaims from pole to pole the heav'n-born truth:
  'Ye are the children of one only God.
  Learn to acknowledge your fraternity.'

I think you have not seen my poem on Human Brotherhood, Miss Annie?"

"I have not, but to judge from the specimen you have just quoted, I
should like very much to read it. These truths seem so evident now, it
is wonderful they have not been discovered before."

"They have been discovered, though not acted on. The fact is that
men's minds have been so trammelled with superstition, they have been
afraid to tread out of the beaten track. They have been afraid to
reason, I scarce know why, even on their own grounds. Yet matters are
mending in this respect. I was present the other day when an indignant
orator thus addressed his audience:

Shall he, the Author of life and light, who has given to man, as the
reward of the use of reason, the power of traversing the trackless
deep, and of drawing down the lightning innocuous from the
skies--shall he deny to his creature the privilege of using his own
gift on themes that more immediately concern man's happiness? Oh no!
believe it not! Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,
and cometh down from the Father of light, with whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning.' The audience he was
addressing shouted applause; so you see the people's cause is
progressing, and even Scripture is called in to aid this desirable
change."

"I wish Euphrasie could hear you speak," said Annie; "she might begin
to believe that there is some good in human learning, and that it can
promote true happiness. I must introduce you to her more particular
acquaintance."

"No; if she is a votary of ignorance, pray don't. I dislike silly
unideaed girls--they are the pest of society."

"But Euphrasie is neither; she is only original and opinionated. Ideas
seem to grow with her indigenously; for no one can tell how she gets
them; but they are very crude, and directly contrary to the spirit of
progression. I wish you would convert her."

"I doubt it would be difficult, and, to say the truth, I do not wish
to attempt it. She is not my taste at all. I prefer animation, zeal,
sympathy. She looks like a marble statue of Contemplation; well enough
in its way, but possessing no interest for me, who am all for
practical life."

"Euphrasie is a great thinker, and thought aids practice. You had
better enlist her on your side; for there is no saying how much she
might assist you, if once she could be brought to see how happy a
paradise you have planned for the human race."

But Alfred was by no means anxious for this. He evidently felt that
Euphrasie would not listen to him. Perhaps he feared that she would
set Annie against himself, and mar his own schemes in her regard; {40}
for different as was their rank in life, and improbable as it was that
Mr. Godfrey should condescend to ally himself with aught save the high
aristocracy, this young man intended, if possible, to secure an
interest in Annie's affections. Not that he loved her; his self-love
was so absorbing that it was almost impossible for him to love any one
save himself; but he thought such an alliance would forward his
ambitious projects, and enable him to begin life under favorable
auspices.

Annie had no idea whatever beyond the amusement of the passing hour,
and was more intent just now on making a convert of the young refugee
than in paying regard to the homage tendered her by Alfred. Euphrasie
was a difficult subject to deal with; but there are some minds to whom
difficulty is an incentive.

She was one day sitting in the library with Eugene, intent in
depicting on canvas the glories of the "Golden Era." Euphrasie
entered, and sat down to some work. Annie called to her:

"Now, my dear Euphrasie, come to me. You are a judge of painting; tell
me what you think of my picture."

Euphrasie drew near. "It is very pretty," she said, "but what does it
represent? Those peasants resting under the fig-trees, those
vine-dressers plucking the beautiful grapes, have very graceful
figures, and most happy and intelligent faces; but what do they belong
to?"

"To the new Utopia," said Annie, "where all are intelligent and
beautiful, and where discord enters not."

Euphrasie looked dreamily in Annie's face, and said doubtingly:
"Heaven? This is no picture of heaven."

"No; it is an earthly paradise, _ma chère amie_. One need not die in
order to enjoy it," laughingly rejoined Annie.

"Oh! a fancy piece," said Euphrasie; "well, it is very pretty, but I
am no judge of fiction;" and she sat down.

"Fiction or not, I cannot let you off so," said Annie; "do you not
think it would be very pleasant to dwell with a goodly number of
intelligent people, each taking his own share of work, and aiding in
making life happy--all good, all instructed and accomplished?"

"Pleasant? Yes, very pleasant I have lived with such," said Euphrasie;
"but their happiness was of a very different kind to that which is
delineated here."

"You have lived with such! Where, in the name of wonder?" asked Annie.

"In France," said Euphrasie.

"And what sort of happiness was theirs?" asked Eugene, now thoroughly
roused.

"I cannot tell you--that is, I could not make you understand. Excuse
me," said Euphrasie, evidently sorry she had said so much.

"And why not? why could we not understand?" asked brother and sister,
both in a breath.

"Because your principles are so different."

"Nay, then, explain the principles, _ma chère_. You have excited our
curiosity; you must gratify it now."

"Nay, I know not how. The principles belong to the interior life, and
on that I cannot speak."

"Why not? are you sworn to secrecy?" asked Annie. Eugene looked his
request for information, but spoke not.

"Not so," said Euphrasie; "but, in the first place, I am no teacher;
and, in the second, there are some subjects which can only be
approached with reverence, and I am afraid--" she hesitated.

"You are right, mademoiselle," said Eugene; "we have too little
reverence."

Euphrasie looked distressed. But Annie broke in with--"But we can be
reverent, and we will be reverent when the case demands it. Tell us
your principles, dear Euphrasie."

{41}

The young girl, with evident reluctance, said:

"My friends held that the soul had been originally endowed with power
over the mental faculties, as also over the senses and the appetites
of the body, and all inferior nature; and that that empire had been
lost through man's fault. They believe that no lasting, no high
enjoyment can be procured until that empire has been regained."

"What kind of empire do you mean?" said Annie.

"As thus," replied Euphrasie. "We _will_ our foot to tread here or
there, and it obeys us. We _will_ our hands to grasp or to work, and
it is done. But when we _will_ our feelings to be calm, or our
appetites to keep within certain limits, they do not always obey. We
resolve, and find that our resolutions fail. We determine, and do not
act. When children, nay, when grown people, are taxed with doing
wrong, they reply, 'I could not help it.' This is a confession of
failure in self-government, or, as might be said, a proof of empire
lost."

"That is, supposing it admitted such empire once existed. But do you
seriously think that perfect self-government may be acquired, or, as
you say, regained?"

"At least a near approach to it may, if the proper means are used."

"And those means?"

"Are too serious for me to mention; besides, they are paradoxical in
appearance; for, though impossible to mere humanity, they are
nevertheless possible. But you must carry your inquiry to a better
teacher than I am;" and Euphrasie rose to depart.

"No; we have no other teacher near us, and I shall not let you go
until you have told me what I want to know;" and Annie laid her hand
somewhat forcibly on the young stranger's arm, and compelled her to
reseat herself.

"Well, then," faltered out the poor girl, "when the soul was in
possession of its pristine empire, it had also the power of communion
with high spiritual intelligences--nay, with the highest--even with
the creative intelligence. The same fault that lost man the high
empire over all inferior natures, and over his own appetites and
passions, by disturbing the equilibrium which primarily existed in the
higher part of his soul, also severed the bond of that high spiritual
communion; and that bond must be reunited ere the empire be restored
to him. Man of himself cannot reunite that severed bond, nor can he be
happy without such reunion; because the higher part of man's soul was
created for such high spiritual communion, and can no more be content
without it than could our inferior senses without the gratification
they require. But what he cannot do will be done for him, if he
prepare himself duly. He must build the altar of sacrifice, lay on the
wood, prepare the victim. Fire from heaven will then descend for his
enlightenment, for his purification, and more than he had lost may be
regained."

"You speak oracularly, _ma belle amie_, but I want something more
tangible yet. Tell me some of the practical rules observed by your
friends; may be I shall better understand your sybilline wisdom then."

Euphrasie shook her head. "They are too minute," she said. "You might
even think them childish." But Annie had not yet relaxed her grasp,
and appeared determined to be satisfied; so Euphrasie continued:
"Nevertheless, if you will promise to let me go immediately after, I
will give you one of their rules of action."

"One, only one?"

"One will be enough at a time. When you have solved one rule, it will
be the time to ask for more."

"Solved one rule? What do you mean by that?"

"There is a body and a soul to every religious rule--the letter and
the spirit. Observance must be yielded to both. I can only give you
the body. God only can teach you to understand the spirit of it."

{42}

"Well; proceed with your enigma."

"You promise to let me go, whether you understand it or not."

"Yes, provided the rule is practical," said Annie.

"Well, then," said Euphrasie, "one reason that my friends were so
happy together--that though there were fifty of them, there was no
quarrelling, no ill will, no envy--was, that they constantly
endeavored, each one of them, to choose for herself the poorest
things; in her diet, the poorest fare; in her clothes, the coarsest
habit; in her employment, the most humbling functions."

"Impossible!" said Annie. "Stay, cousin!" But Euphrasie had already
made her escape, and her reluctance to dwell on these subjects in that
presence was so evident that Annie did not choose to pursue her, and
she was left to conjecture whether the young French girl had been
playing on her credulity or not. The mere fact that fifty ladies had
been guided practically by such a principle as that given, was clearly
beyond her belief. Not so, however, did Eugene decide. His interest in
their young and mysterious inmate was ever on the increase. Each word
she uttered was gathered up as food for thought. The ideas were new to
him, and, not only so, they were contrary to those in which he had
been educated, and he had but a faint glimmering of their meaning. Yet
they worked strangely within him, and fain would he have sought
explanation from that pale sybil, but that for to-day she had
forbidden it.

When Annie also had left the apartment, he walked up and down in deep
thought repeating to himself:

"Man has lost the empire over himself and over inferior nature."

"Man has lost the power of high spiritual communion."

"_But these may be regained._"

"If this be true, any privation or sacrifice may be undergone for
their repossession; too small the price, whatever the cost. But then,
how can contentment with the meanest things, or filling the humblest
offices, assist this conclusion? And this is but one rule; are the
others of a like fashion?" The young man was fairly mystified; that
the oracle had emitted truth, he doubted not; but a clue to the
meaning of that truth was wanting, and where should he find that clue?


CHAPTER III.

THE "MARIAGE DE CONVENANCE."

There was a visible excitement in the house; even Mr. Godfrey, ever so
solemn, and latterly so inclined to severity, put on a cheerful
appearance; people outside the family were _guessing_ at the cause.
For a long time, guessing was the only thing they could do; even
Madame de Meglior was not in the secret until one morning she received
a letter from M. de Villeneuve, which appeared to contain some news,
for she said to Mr. Godfrey, who happened to be the only one present:
"Brother, can this be true?"

"Can what be true, my good sister?" was the question returned.

"That the Duke of Durimond is coming here to marry Adelaide?"

"Why should it not be true?"

"Why, the duke is an old man!"

"Not at all; he was quite young when he made proposals for Adelaide;
surely you remember them."

"Remember them! Do you mean the agreement you made at the
dinner-table, when Adelaide was two years old."

"The agreement was made before, between his father and me; it was
ratified, then, by himself; he had just come of age."

"And that is sixteen years ago. Will you give Adelaide to a man of
seven-and-thirty?'

"Why not, if she makes no objection?"

"Has she ever seen him?"

{43}

"Yes, she saw him in town last winter; 'twas there he renewed his
offer; but, in fact, we have always corresponded. The duke is fond of
the arts; 'twas he sent those fine pictures you admire so much."

"He can't know whether he likes Adelaide or not, and she never struck
me as being in love all this time."

"Pshaw! The duke has proposed; Adelaide is satisfied. The marriage was
agreed upon years ago; what would you have? I thought you' knew the
world by this time."

This was taking madame by her foible, so she said no more. Mrs.
Godfrey was simply quiescent: she was not accustomed to oppose her
husband's will, and, incredible as it may seem, the young girl herself
offered no objection to the marriage announced to her. To deck her
brow with a coronet had charms enough for the deeply fostered pride of
that young heart to induce her to forego the prospect of love,
sympathy, and domestic happiness; she simply coveted rank and power.
The duke had immense revenues; he offered ample settlements: what
mattered it that he was thirty-seven, and she but sweet eighteen?
Marriages occurred every day in which the disparity was more glaring.
What mattered it that she had scarcely seen the noble duke; that she
knew little of his private life, or of his tastes and feelings? He was
a nobleman of high birth; he paid her courtly compliments, presented
her with a magnificent casket of jewels; pleaded his long absence on
the Continent in excuse for his apparent want of attention to herself;
and urged his long friendship and unbroken correspondence with her
father as a plea for hurrying on his happiness; and thus, almost
unwooed, the fair Adelaide was won. Poor girl, the chief idea in her
head was that she should like to be a duchess; and thus both she and
her father contrived to overlook the fact that but little allusion had
been made to the proposed alliance in the sixteen years'
correspondence on art and science that had been maintained between the
gentlemen. The matter had been settled years ago. There was little
occasion for the world to interfere, if the parties concerned were
satisfied. The father's scientific friend was necessarily a fitting
husband for the daughter. And so the preparations went forward. The
house was filled for a time with dress-makers and bandboxes, and when
these were dismissed, there came guests to witness the bridal. Among
these was the Comte de Villeneuve, whom we have already introduced to
our readers; a friend of both families was the comte, and had been a
friend too of the late Comte de Meglior. This made him welcome also to
Madame de Meglior and Euphrasie; indeed he treated the latter with
distinguished attention, and she seemed more at her ease with him than
with any person at the Hall. M. de Villeneuve was thirty-five years of
age, but good-looking and animated, and Madame de Meglior was in some
slight degree uneasy at first at the evident friendship he evinced for
Euphrasie, for she did not approve of disproportionate marriages, and
she thought Adelaide's example a bad one. Gradually, however, she
became so absorbed in the duties imposed upon her by Mrs. Godfrey of
directing the embellishments, that she forgot to look after the object
of her solicitude in the subject which suited her better. Living as
she had been wont to do in the gay circles of Parisian exclusives, she
was regarded as a very oracle of fashion and elegance, and
consequently she willingly took the lead in planning the arrangements
for the bridal day.

The young people were in a puzzle, Annie especially. It was the first
act of unblushing worldliness she had ever witnessed. She felt as if
she did not know the world she lived in. She looked at her mother;
there was no joy on her face; she looked at Adelaide; already the
young girl had {44} assumed her rank; the calm hauteur, the majestic
politeness, with which she received her guests, astonished every one.
Adelaide was born to command, every one felt it; none more so than
Annie, who had been so fondly attached to that sister from whom she
felt already severed.

"O Euphrasie!" she said to her cousin, as they were walking together
in the grounds that surrounded the house, "you must be my sister when
Adelaide is gone; it will be so dreary to have no one of my own age to
love and talk to; will you not try to love me?"

"I love you already, dear; you must not talk in that way--how can I do
other than love you?"

"I was afraid you thought me a reprobate whom it was a sin to love."
This was said half playfully, but the tears started to Euphrasie's
eyes.

"You a reprobate! a sin to love you who have been so kind to the poor
orphan girl! O Annie! have I really been so ungrateful as to give you
this idea?"

"No, dear, no! not so; but I seriously thought you deemed all human
nature utterly depraved, and did not wish to form strong attachments
with those not of your creed."

"If human nature were utterly depraved, how could it hear the voice of
God in the soul? and if you here were utterly depraved, would you have
opened your house and your heart to the wandering outcast?"

"Then you do not think religion essential to goodness? How is that,
then?"

"Man was made in the image of God, my dear Annie, and even his natural
qualities bear witness to this, unless, indeed, he become utterly
depraved."

"You do not, then, exclude us from your heaven," said Annie, embracing
her. "I am so glad; you will be my friend and sister, Euphrasie."

Euphrasie warmly returned the embrace, and said: "I have no heaven to
exclude you from, dear Annie, but if you wish for eternal bliss, you
must offer your natural qualities to him who alone can stamp eternity
upon them."

"And how shall I do that, dear?"

"Pray to God, and he will teach you."

"I would rather have your teaching just now; tell me, if you believe
human nature to be good, what is meant by 'original sin,' as it
affects us. I know the story of Adam and Eve, but not what it means."

"Adam was created with certain natural qualities, even as the inferior
animals were, adapted to the part he was to perform as lord of earth;
these qualities were good, nay, in Adam perfect. They are transmitted
to us, shorn of their brightness by the fall, but still they are good,
though imperfect now. Natures differ in individuals, but some have
very high qualities, very lofty aspirations. Have you not noticed
this?"

"Well, I used to think so, but--"

"But what?"

"No matter what; tell me, what are we to do with our high qualities
more than cultivate them, and act upon them?"

"Bring them under supernatural action, that they may be purified,
refined, and stamped with the seal of immortal truth."

"Is this your religion?"

"I know no other."

The approach of M. de Villeneuve, who was gathering flowers for Hester
to make into bouquets, prevented further conversation. The merry girl
was making garlands, and flung them round Euphrasie and Annie as they
approached. "Now sit down here," she said, "and I will crown you both
as victims to the sacrifice. M. de Villeneuve shall be the priest.
What deity will you offer these victims to, monsieur? They are ready
bound."

{45}

"That is a serious question; we must take time to consider, and
luckily here comes Eugene to solve the question for us. What divinity
rules here, young man? your sister wants to offer up these two victims
to the genius of the place."

"Indeed, it were difficult to say; ours is a pantheistic worship just
now, and we will defer the rite until we know what star is in the
ascendant. What beautiful ceremonies those old worshippers used to
have! We might raise an altar to Flora, I think, just to use to
advantage Hester's flowers."

"Mademoiselle Euphrasie would find a use for your flowers, without
going to a heathen goddess," said M. de Villeneuve. "All beauty
symbolizes good with her, and all nature reveals some truth."

"What a splendid idea, monsieur!" said Annie. "How did you know that
it was Euphrasie's? did she tell you so?"

"Not in words, but I know her of old; to her there was a spirit in
every flower, a mystic word in every form. Matter was the expression
of mind, its language in a certain sense; and she was ever inquiring
its meaning."

"You are laughing at me, monsieur," said Euphrasie; "but those were
pleasant days at the old chateau, when you used to scold me because I
would not reason, but only enjoy."

"Nay," said Annie, "by monsieur's account you did reason, and very
beautifully too. Some people want hard words and long-drawn deductions
for apprehension of what to others is inspiration. I like the
inspiration best."

"It is the easiest, at any rate," said Eugene.

"To those to whom it comes," said the Frenchman; "the materialism of
our day stifles inspiration; men see only in rocks and stones a
moneyed value. Niagara is valued less than a mill-turning stream.
Inspiration is no longer believed in."

. . . . . .

The wedding-day approached, and all were busy trying to make a show of
gladness, which, however, they but imperfectly succeeded in effecting;
but what was wanting in hilarity was more than compensated for in
dignity and magnificence. M. de Villeneuve acted as groomsman, Annie
and Hester as bridesmaids, Euphrasie excused herself on account of her
mourning habit, which she declined to remove; she was not visible
during the whole day and one or two subsequent ones. And now the hour
was come which was to place a coronet on that fair brow; but could the
courtly bridegroom have seen how little he entered into the thoughts
of his young bride, perchance he had been but half pleased, even
though she was as stately and as fair as his great pride demanded. But
love, esteem, or mutual respect entered into the thoughts of neither
during the time that the Bishop of Chichester was marrying them by
special license, in the drawing-room at Estcourt Hall.

This same arrangement was a great disappointment to the townspeople.
They had been desirous of witnessing the ceremony, and were not
well-pleased that the duke had not honored the church with his
presence. The duke, however, liked not to be gazed at, and the
sight-seers had no opportunity of gratifying their curiosity till the
bridal party left the house.

The public entrance was besieged by expectant congratulators, who
waited to shower bouquets over the blooming bride. But here again they
were doomed to disappointment; for, to avoid this publicity, which was
distasteful to them, the bridal party walked through that portion of
the splendid grounds which had been specially decorated for the
occasion, and entered their carriages at the opposite side of the
park. They were, however, obliged to pass through part of the town,
and shouts of "they come--they come!" resounded as the carriages made
their appearance. The road lay down a deep hollow, on the turn leading
to which stood a small inn. The road was so steep that the drivers
necessarily checked the horses, in order to pass safely down the
declivity. At the cry raised of "they come {46}--they come!" a woman
elegantly dressed ran out of the inn, and gazed wildly at the
carriages. At that moment the duke put his head out of the window to
see what occasioned the delay, caught the eye of the woman, turned
pale, and hastily bade the coachman drive on.

The woman shrieked, rather than said, "Tis he! O my God!" and fell to
the ground in a fainting fit.

The bystanders raised her--the carriage passed; but the spirit of the
crowd seemed changed, they scarcely knew why; they crowded round the
woman; they questioned her; and each seemed eager to afford her help.
But, as soon as her strength permitted, she withdrew without
gratifying their evident curiosity, merely apologizing for her passing
weakness, and deliberately saying she would recover best when alone.
The style, the manner, the elegance of the stranger interested them
all, and with difficulty did they persuade themselves to abandon their
inquiries. The groups which had collected to congratulate the bride
were now occupied in discussing the appearance of the stranger, and
many surmises were hazarded as to her connection with the newly wedded
pair.

Meantime that lady ordered a post-chaise to be got ready, and, ere
half recovered, entered it, to the great discomfiture of the gaping
crowd, whom she thus left to their conjectures.

The landlord was now besieged with questions, but he could tell
nothing of importance. The lady came the previous evening; gave her
name as Mrs. Ellwood; made many inquiries concerning the family at
Estcourt Hall, and had the duke's person described to her; seemed
restless, agitated; went out, and hovered round Mr. Godfrey's
residence till nightfall; then returned and locked herself immediately
in her bed-chamber. In the morning she rose late, ate little or
nothing, but sat watching and listening intently, till she issued
forth to enact the scene described. The townspeople shook their heads,
and wished Miss Godfrey, now the Duchess of Durimond, might not be the
worse for it. Adelaide had been very popular among them, and the
public festivities on the occasion of her wedding were not so mirthful
as, but for this incident, they would you have been.

The inmates of the hall, however, were as yet in happy ignorance of
the ominous conjectures raised respecting the fate of the fairest and
cleverest daughter of their house. The incident we have related came
to their knowledge as an accidental circumstance, altogether
unconnected with the wedding. Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey were well pleased
at their daughter's accession to rank and power, and the merry Hester
laughed delightedly at the anticipation of shortly visiting the
ancient castle of which her sister was now mistress, promising herself
much interest and delight in rambling amid the ancient chambers, which
had been the scene of famed historic deeds. Annie was pondering
whether her sister's rank could consist with the newfangled ideas of
liberty and equality that the times were teaching. She was wondering
whether high rank were a fetter or a privilege--a relic of man's
ignorance or a help to man's advancement, Eugene hoped that the "old
man" would use his sister well. He had not been pleased with his new
brother-in-law; he was too courtly, too stately for friendliness, and
altogether the whole affair had looked too much like bartering youth,
beauty, and intelligence for rank and wealth. He had entertained high
ideas of woman's purity, of woman's devotedness, of woman's
disinterestedness, and what was he to think? His beautiful, his
gifted, his cultivated sister had sold herself for a ducal coronet!
Was it true, then, as Shelley sings, "that all things are venal, and
that even a woman's heart may be put up in an auction mart?"

Soon after the wedding, the young man sought but did not obtain
permission to go abroad. In default of this he went to Cambridge, and
said to himself he intended to find out TRUTH.

{47}

The society of an English University is very various. Almost any
disposition may suit itself there. The boisterous, the idle, the
reckless, the gay, the meditative, and the sober, with the refined and
the sentimental, alike are there, and it is of no small importance to
a young man to be well introduced on the outset. Mr. Godfrey, himself
a Cambridge man, could not fail to procure every advantage for his
son, and that son felt himself entitled to stand proudly on his
father's position, not only as a country gentleman, but as a
scientific man, for, as we have already hinted, the Honorable Mr.
Godfrey was an exception to the ordinary stamp of the English country
gentlemen of that day. He cared more for his library than he did for
his hounds and horses, and though he himself was far from being a
profound searcher into nature's secrets, he was a great patron of
science and of scientific men. Eugene had then little to fear from
friendlessness; he was well cared for, and his friends were sober,
well-conducted men.

But accompanying him to college was one whose society he would not
willingly have sought.

Frederic Morley, son of the lawyer at Estcourt, had early given
evidence of a studious disposition, and his father wished to bring him
up to the church, as, by means of Mr. Godfrey's patronage, he hoped to
push him into some church preferment. The young man, however, was in
fact a sentimentalist, a transcendentalist, too refined, too
sensitive, for this world of stern reality. Petted at home as a poet,
he held himself superior to common influences, prided himself on
having a fine mind, on possessing elegant and cultivated tastes, and
affected disgust at the coarse, homespun ideas of ordinary people. He
wrote pathetic tales of unrealities; touching verses of despairing
affection, with which it was his delight to draw forth tears of
sympathy from young lady audiences.

A more uninteresting companion Eugene Godfrey could scarcely have met;
yet as his disposition was naturally kind and urbane, and as Morley
was without friends or acquaintances in the university, he continued
his friendship to him, and endeavored to direct his attention to
earnest themes and loftier subjects. This, however, was unwelcome to
so clever a person as Morley believed himself to be. He wanted no
direction even from the cleverest. All he sought for was appreciation,
sympathy. He could think for himself, and guide himself. The study of
Aristotle's Ethics was in his case soon supplanted by Paine's Age of
Reason and Volney's Ruins of Empires. The coarseness of the former
author he termed "wit" and the sophistry of the latter passed with him
for "wisdom." Eugene felt sorry for these freaks, for in indulging
them Frederic Morley was throwing away his livelihood; he endeavored
to reason with him, and then he became vexed that he had so few
efficient arguments to bring forward, and none but interested motives
to present. Was he to tell Frederic to be a hypocrite, and to study
theology for a "living?" He felt rather than knew the foolish boy was
pursuing a phantom, and was urged forward by very selfish motives, yet
he could not explain his own ideas, vague, mysterious, and undefined
as they were.

             "There is a fire
  And motion in the soul, which will not dwell
  In its own narrow being; but aspire
  Beyond the fitting medium of desire,
  And but once kindled, quenchless evermore."

This Eugene felt, but why he felt it, or how to satisfy it, he knew
not. The words of Euphrasie, "that perhaps there is a science of mind,
more worth than all the science of matter," recurred continually, for
in that science must lie the solution of every difficulty that beset
him. How could he learn this science? how investigate this truth, if
truth it were? And he wandered hour after hour on the banks of the
Cam, in profound meditation burying himself in the thickets near to
avoid observation.

{48}

"O truth!" exclaimed he aloud one day, in the intense excitement of
his feelings--"O truth! if ever thou deignest to visit mortals, reveal
thyself to me; teach me the way, and by all that is holy or dear to
me, I swear to follow thee!"

He was leaning against a tree; the drops stood on his forehead, caused
by the depth of his emotion, and suddenly the answer came: "PRAY,
child of aspirations, bow in prayer."

Eugene started; looked around; no form was visible, but again the
words were repeated: "Pray, seeker for truth, pray! it will come to
thee."


CHAPTER IV.

MAGNETIC INFLUENCES.

"Behold he prayeth."

"Pray, pray!" repeated Eugene; "what is prayer? Is it to hold
communion with a higher being? To be raised above the mists of this
murky earth? If so, how glad I should be to pray!" and involuntarily
he exclaimed: "O mighty Being, who rulest all, if indeed thou wiliest
to communicate with man, instruct me how to approach thee; my mind is
dark and sad. Oh! teach me truth." Eugene Godfrey was sincere; he
wished for truth; but educated in scornful intellectual supremacy,
educated to tolerate religion as a means of keeping in order the lower
classes, it was difficult for him to comprehend how "faith" could
exist otherwise than as a beautiful poetic fancy, to be classed with
the imagery of the Iliad or the Odyssey.

The real, the sentient, had been his study, and till the horrors of
the French Revolution turned his mind to consider how man could
influence man by higher motives than merely getting "good things for
one's self," he had been satisfied to leave these themes unthought of.
But now they were forced upon him. Events unprecedented in the annals
of the world bade him lay aside physical science and tun to study
mental and moral influences. He had heard enough in the little town to
which he belonged to feel sure that the multitude must be cared for,
most be looked to. He saw his father uneasy at every commotion, lest
the English aristocracy should likewise be sent on their travels. He
saw Alfred Brookbank hating his own brother, because that brother
stood between him and a property; and his sister--his fearless
sister, accomplished, beautiful, the very epitome of a refined
lady--he dared not think of her! Oh! for a motive to raise these
groveling aims! Oh! for purity, heroism, good. But for the vision of
Euphrasie, all would have been darkness then. Such were Eugene's
thoughts as he bent his steps to his chambers and sat down in his easy
chair to indulge in this absorbing reverie.

How long he sat he scarcely knew, but at length he became conscious
that he was not alone. He had forgotten to "sport his oak" (as closing
the outer door was called by the students) in token that he wished to
be alone, and Frederic Morley had entered, and, perceiving him so
engrossed, had quietly seated himself without speaking, till Eugene
gave signs of life.

"Ah, Morley, is that you? how long have you been there?"

"I scarcely know, Mr. Eugene; I have been watching your absent
thoughts. You were so still, I might have supposed you magnetized, but
I suppose the great wizard would not take so great a liberty with
you."

"What wizard?" asked Eugene.

"Have you not heard, then? There is a man here who can throw a person
into a trance, and make him reveal all kinds of secrets," answered
Frederic.

"Pshaw!" said Eugene.

"Nay," answered Frederic, "I will tell you what I saw. I was at Mrs.
Moreton's yesterday evening, singing duets with Isabel, and young
Moreton came in with a tall, dark-haired, mustachioed, whiskered
fellow, with eyes {49} like lighted coals, they were so large and
piercing. Where Moreton picked him up, I could not find out, but he
was evidently fascinated with him. He introduced him laughingly to his
mother as a great wizard, and they interrupted the music to hear him
talk. He was grandiloquent enough, told tales of spirits and
influences that haunt me still; but more than this, he insisted that
mind can influence mind irrespective of matter; that the old tales of
magic were true, and the deeds wrought by men of wondrous power, who
had found the key to nature's nighty secrets--only nature with him
does not mean inert matter as we mean by it, but matter and
intelligences who act upon matter. The universe, he says, is peopled
by wondrous forms, and these forms can be communicated with by a
privileged soul. Oh, he is a mighty man!" and Frederic shuddered.

"And you have no more sense than to believe such a cock-and-bull story
as that? Fie, Morley, I am ashamed of you!"

"But let me tell you what I saw with my own eyes. He first threw
Isabel into a trance, from which neither Mrs. Morley, nor her brother,
nor i could awaken her. Then when Mrs. Morley grew frightened, he
assured her there was no danger, that she was only bewitched by his
art, and that he would make her talk as he pleased. Then he put her
brother's hand in hers, and bade him think of the walk he had taken
that afternoon, of the people he had met and spoken to; he did so, and
the wizard bade the girl speak, and she recounted the events of the
walk from his leaving college to his meeting with the wizard, and
their entering the room in which we were--all, as her brother
declared, correctly. The wizard then disenchanted her, and she slowly
roused herself, pale and listless, but quite unconscious of what had
passed."

"I have heard of animal magnetism before, quietly responded Eugene.

"Have you? But do you know its power? It is absolutely frightful. He
lifted my arm before I knew what he was about, passed his hand two or
three times above and below it, and there it remained fixed
horizontally from the shoulder, without my having power to move it up
or down. Young Moreton tried to put it down for me, but he could not;
and there I stood fixed till it pleased the wizard to unloose the
spell he had cast around me."

"Yours was not an agreeable position, truly," said Eugene, "but he did
not hurt you; you are safe and sound now."

"Yes, but the most wonderful is yet to come. Little Helen Moreton came
into the room to bid her mamma good-night. Seeing the stranger, she
was shy, and went to the window-curtains to hide. Mrs. Moreton called
her, but she looked out for a minute, seemed to take a greater dislike
to the stranger than before, and hid again. Mrs. Moreton was annoyed,
and the wizard said: 'Do you want her, madam? If so, I will bring her
to you.' But Mrs. Moreton replied, 'Oh no! if you go near her she will
shriek and cry; she is so shy.' 'Nay,' said the man, 'I will stand
here, and here she shall come without a shriek, and lie down at my
feet.' What he did we could not find out, for he seemed perfectly
still. The window-curtain unfolded, and apparently against her will
the child came forward. She caught at a chair, as if determined to
resist the influence, but that seemed to urge her forward; she let it
go, and then grasped the table with both hands, as if determined to
resist. She pouted, she frowned, she strove to keep her place, but
keep it she could not. Step by step she came and laid herself quietly
down at the wizard's feet. Mrs. Moreton almost shrieked, but the child
lay as if she dared not leave until the magician gave permission."

"Well, and what do you infer from all this?" asked Eugene.

{50}

"I hardly know; I am terrified; what if it is true, as this man says,
that weak minds must obey the strong; that resistance is useless? I
should not like to become the slave of a spirit such as his."

"You believe him to be a wicked man?"

"I do, yet I know not why; I should not like to meet him when
unprotected."

"Why, Morley, you astonish me; I could not conceive you so weak. These
fears are unworthy a noble mind."

"But what are we to do if such theories be true?"

"They are not true--at least not in the way you state them. There are
protecting, counteracting influences for the weakest. I cannot explain
all this to-night; but all history, all experience go to prove that
the 'race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong'
--that bad power is often overcome by weak means. I will repeat to you
a piece of advice I received myself to-day, and which I intend to
take. It is one you must often have received, for your father intends
you for the church. Pray, Morley, to the highest of all intelligences,
to the greatest of all powers. The strongest will then be invoked to
your aid."

"_Pray?_ Are you serious, Mr. Eugene?"

"I am serious; why doubt it?"

"An advice so contrary to the spirit of the age! why, it is the last
to be expected."

"Perhaps so; but listen: That mind is not matter, your experience
proves, as does that of most people. What mind is, perhaps we do not
know; but that mind acts upon mind, irrespective of space and
obstacles, we feel. Listen! you know my family; a family less
superstitious scarcely exists. We are too much wedded to cause and
effect lightly to believe. My grandfather was as little credulous as
my father. Now hear what happened to him. He had a brother to whom he
was fondly attached, and by whom he was as fondly loved. Their
correspondence was constant. That brother went to India, as an
officer. One night about twelve o'clock, as my grandfather was going
to sleep, having sat up later than usual, the curtains at the foot of
the bed were with drawn, and his brother, pale, but in full
regimentals, appeared and said, 'Good-by, Frank.' My grandfather
related the circumstance at breakfast next morning, and noted it down
in writing, being confident that he was not asleep. After due time the
Indian mail arrived, giving an account of the brother's death on the
field of battle at the exact hour and day specified. Ere his spirit
winged its flight, we know not whither, it had communicated with the
being it loved best on earth."

Frederic turned pale. "What do you infer from this?" he asked.

"Simply this," returned Eugene; "that 'there are more things in heaven
and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,' and this
influence of mind on mind is one of them. If the Supreme Ruler have
made a law that man, to be assisted by him, must pray to him, must put
himself in communication with him, who are we that we should refuse
the means? If you fear the evil spirit in a man, try if there be no
good spirit capable of protecting you. The universal testimony of
mankind is in favor of supernatural agencies. We should ponder well
ere we throw from us such aid."

Frederic smiled, and rose to take his leave. Advice so different from
what he had expected was scarcely likely to be well received. He had
no answer ready, so he left the narrow-minded religionist to his own
crude fancies.

And Eugene closed the oaken door, and returned, and for the first time
of his life knelt down to beseech light from the Author of
light--light to guide him through these wearisome shoals of doubt and
darkness--light to show him something more than how to render matter
subservient to animal comfort--light to enlighten the {51} inward
feeling. Good and evil, what are they? Mind and matter--which is the
true reality? What are we to live for--the animal life, or the
spiritual? And is the purely spiritual distinct from the purely
intellectual as well as from the animal? Is there a soul, the
functions of which are different, distinct, from those of the body,
and to the knowledge of which mere intellect cannot arrive? What is
nature? What is revelation? How do they act upon each other? What is
the office, what the aim of each? Revolving these themes, it was deep
in the night ere the young man sought his couch.



TO BE CONTINUED.

--------

ORIGINAL.


INDEPENDENCE OF THE CHURCH.


Our age is more sentimental than intellectual, more philanthropic than
Christian, more material than spiritual. It may and no doubt does
cherish and seek to realize, with such wisdom as it has, many humane
and just sentiments, but it retains less Christian thought than it
pretends, and has hardly any conception of catholic principles. It
studies chiefly phenomena, physical or psychical, and as these are all
individual, particular, manifold, variable, and transitory, it fails
to recognize any reality that is universal, invariable, and permanent,
superior to the vicissitudes of time and place, always and everywhere
one and the same. It is so intent on the sensible that it denies or
forgets the spiritual, and so engrossed with the creature that it
loses sight of the creator.

Indeed, there are not wanting men in this nineteenth century who deny
that there is any creator at all, or that anything has been made, and
maintain that all has been produced by self-development or growth.
These men, who pass for the great scientific lights of the age, tell
us that all things are in a continual process of self-formation, which
they call by the general name of progress; and so taken up are they
with their doctrine of progress, that they gravely assert that God
himself, if God there be, is progressive, perfectible, ever proceeding
from the imperfect towards the perfect, and seeking by unremitting
action to perfect, fill out, or complete his own being. They seem not
to be aware that if the perfect does not already really exist, or is
wanting, there is and can be no progress; for progress is motion
towards the perfect, and, if the perfect does not exist there can be
no motion towards it, and in the nature of the case the motion can be
only towards nothing, and therefore, as St. Thomas has well
demonstrated, in proving the impossibility of progress without end, no
motion at all. Nor do they seem any more to be aware that the
imperfect, the incomplete, is not and cannot be self-active, or
capable of acting in and from itself alone, and therefore has not the
power in itself alone to develop and complete itself, or perfect its
own being. Creatures may be and are progressive, because they live,
and move, and have their being in their Creator, and are aided and
sustained by him whose being is eternally complete who is in himself
infinitely perfect. They forget also the important fact {52} that
where there is nothing universal, there can be nothing particular,
that where there is nothing invariable there can be nothing variable,
that where there is nothing permanent there can be nothing transitory,
and that where there is no real being there can be no phenomena, any
more than there can be creation without a creator, action without an
actor, appearance without anything that appears, or a sign that
signifies nothing.

Now the age, regarded in its dominant tendency, neglects or denies
this universal, invariable, persistent, real, or spiritual order, and
its highest and most catholic principles are mere classifications or
generalizations of visible phenomena, and therefore abstractions,
without reality, without life or efficiency. It understands not that
throughout the universe the visible is symbolical of the invisible,
and that to the prepared mind there is an invisible but living reality
signified by the observable phenomena of nature, as in the Christian
economy an invisible grace is signified by the visible sacramental
sign. All nature is in some sense sacramental, but the age takes it
only as an empty sign signifying nothing. Hence the embarrassment of
the Christian theologian in addressing it; the symbols he uses and
must use have for it no meaning. He deals and must deal with an order
of thought of which it has little or no conception. He is as one
speaking to a man who has no hearing, or exhibiting colors to a man
who has no sight, He speaks of the transcendental to those who
recognize nothing above the sensible--of the spiritual to men who are
of the earth earthy, and have lost the faculty of rising above the
material, and piercing beyond the visible. The age has fallen, even
intellectually, far below the Christian order of thought, and is
apparently unable to rise even in conception to the great catholic
principles in accordance with which the universe is created,
sustained, and governed.

Nobody in his senses denies that man is progressive, or that modern
society has made marvellous progress in the material order, in the
application of science to the productive arts. I am no _laudator
temporis acti_; I understand and appreciate the advantages of the
present, and do not doubt that steam navigation railroads, and
lightning telegraphs, which bid defiance to the winds and waves, and
as it were annihilate space and time, will one day be made to subserve
higher than mere material interests; but I cannot shut my eyes to the
fact that in many and very important respects, the modern world has
deteriorated instead of improving, and been more successful in losing
than in gaining. The modern nations commonly regarded, at least by
themselves, as the more advanced nations, have fallen in moral and
religious thought below the ancient Greeks and Romans. They may have
more sound dogmas, but they have less conception of principles, of the
invisible or spiritual order, excepting always the followers of
Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus, whose absurd materialism is
revived with hardly any disguise by the most approved thinkers of our
own age. The Gentiles generally held catholic principles, but
misapprehended and misapplied them, and thus fell into gross idolatry
and degrading and besotting superstition; but the moderns while
retaining many Catholic dogmas have lost the meaning of the word
principle. The Catholic can detect, no doubt, phases of truth in all
the doctrines of those outside the church, but the Christianity they
profess has no universal, immutable, and imperishable principle, and
degenerates in practice into a blind and fierce fanaticism, a watery
sentimentality, a baseless humanitarianism, or a collection of
unrelated and unmeaning dogmas, which are retained only because they
are never examined, and which can impart no light to the
understanding, infuse no life into the hearty and impose no restraint
on the appetites and passions.

{53}

Having fallen below the conception of a order above the visible and
phenomenal, and sunk to complete Sadduceeism, which believes in
neither angel nor spirit, the age makes war on the church because she
asserts such order, and remains fast anchored in it; because she is
immovable and invariable, or as her enemies say, stationary,
unprogressive, and therefore hostile to progress. She has, it is said,
the insolence to attempt to teach and govern men and nations, instead
of gracefully submitting to their views and wishes, and bestowing her
blessing on their exertions for the liberty and progress of society.
The age denies her to be the church of God, because she fails to prove
herself to be the church of man, holding simply from a human
authorities. It denies her divine origin, constitution, and authority,
because she is stable, cannot be carried away by every wind of
doctrine, does not yield to every popular impulse, and from time to
time resists individuals, civil rulers, the people even, and opposes
their favorite theories, plans, and measures, whenever she finds them
at war with her mission and her law. It applauds her, indeed, to the
echo, when she appears to be on the side of what happens to be
popular, but condemns her without mercy when she opposes popular
error, popular folly, popular injustice, and asserts the unpopular
truth, defends the unpopular cause, or uses her power and influence in
behalf of neglected justice, and please with her divine eloquence for
the poor, the wronged, the downtrodden. Yet this is precisely what she
should do, if the church of God, and what it would be contrary to her
nature and office on that supposition not to do.

The age concedes nothing to the unseen and eternal. In its view
religion itself is human, and ought to be subject to man, and
determinable by society, dictated by the people, who in the modern
mind usurp the place of God. It should not govern, but be governed,
and governed from below, not from above; or rather, in its subversion
of old ideas, it holds that being governed from below is being
governed from above. It forgets that religion, objectively considered,
is, if anything, the revelation and assertion of the divine order, or
the universal and eternal law of God, the introduction and maintenance
in the practical affairs of men and nations of the divine element,
without which there would and could be nothing in human society
invariable, permanent, or stable--persistent, independent, supreme, or
authoritative. The church is simply the divine constitution and organ
of religion in society, and must, like religion itself, be universal,
invariable, independent, supreme, and authoritative for all men and
nations. Man does not originate the church. She does not depend on
man, or hold from him either individually or collectively; for she is
instituted to govern him, to administer for him the universal and
eternal law, and to direct and assist him in conducting himself in the
way of his duty, to his supreme good, which she could not do if she
held from and depended on him.

The point here insisted on, and which is so far removed from the
thought of this age, is, that this order transcending the phenomenal
and the whole material or sensible universe, and which in the strictly
philosophical language of Scripture is called "the Law of the Lord,"
is eminently real, not imaginary, not factitious, not an abstraction,
not a classification or generalization of particulars, nor something
that depends for its reality on human belief or disbelief. Religion
which asserts this divine order, this transcendental order, is
objectively "the Law of the Lord," which, proceeding from the eternal
reason and will of God, is the principle and reason of things. The
church, as the divinely constituted organ of that law, is not an
arbitrary institution, is not an accident, is not an afterthought, is
not a superinduction upon the original plan of the Creator, but enters
integrally into that plan, and is therefore founded in the {54}
principle, the reason, and the constitution of things, and is that in
reference to which all things are created, sustained, and governed,
and hence our Lord is called "the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world."

But this our age does not conceive. For it the divine, the invariable,
the universal, and the eternal are simply abstractions or
generalizations, not real being. Its only conception of immensity, is
space unlimited--of eternity, is time without end--of the infinite,
the undefined, and of the universal, totality or sum total.
_Catholic_, in its understanding, means accepting or ranking together
as equally respectable the doctrines, opinions, views, and sentiments
of all sects and denominations. Christian, Jewish, Mahometan, and
Pagan. He, in the sense of modern philosophers, has a catholic
disposition who respects all convictions, and has no decided
conviction of his own. Catholicity is held to be something made up by
the addition of particulars. The age does not understand that there is
no catholicity without unity, and therefore that catholicity is not
predicable of the material order, since nothing material or visible is
or can be strictly one and universal. The church is catholic, not
because as a visible body she is universal and includes all men and
nations in her communion; she was as strictly catholic when her
visible communion was restricted to the Blessed Virgin and the
Apostles as she is now, or would be if all the members of the race
were recipients of her sacraments. She is catholic because she is the
organ of the whole spiritual order, truth, or reality, and that order
in its own intrinsic nature is one and universal. All truth is
catholic, because all truth is one and invariable; all the dogmas of
the church are catholic, because universal principles, always and
everywhere true. The law of the Lord is catholic, because universally,
always and every where law, equally law for all men and nations in
every age of the world, on earth and is heaven, in time and eternity.
The church is catholic, because she holds under this law, and because
God promulgates and administers it through her, because he lives and
reigns in her, and hence she is called his kingdom, the kingdom of God
on earth, a kingdom fulfilled and completed in heaven. It is this
order of ideas that the age loses sight of and is so generally
disposed to deny. Yet without it there were no visible order, and
nothing would or could exist.

The principal, reason, nature, or constitution of things is in this
order, and men must conform to it or live no true, no real life. They
who recede from it advance towards nothing, and, as far as possible,
become nothing. The church is independent, superior to all human
control, and persistent, unaltered, and unalterable through all the
vicissitudes of time and place, because the order in which she is
founded is independent and persistent. She cannot be moved or harmed,
because she rests on the principle, truth, and constitution of things,
and is founded neither on the individual man, the state, nor the
people, but on God himself, the Rock of Ages, against which anything
created must rage and beat in vain. "On this rock will I build my
church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The
church is therefore, by her own divine constitution, by the very
principle and law of her existence, indefectible. No weapon forged
against her shall prosper. The wicked may conspire for her
destruction, but in vain, because they conspire to destroy reality,
and all reality is always invincible and indestructible. They cannot
efface or overthrow her, because she is founded in the truth and
reality of things, or what is the same thing, in the unalterable
reason and will of God, in whom all creatures have their
principle--live, move, and have their being.

{55}

They who oppose the church in the name of humanity or human progress,
cannot succeed, because she is indivisible, and they would utterly
defeat themselves if they could. They would deprive the human race of
the law of God, which makes wise the simple and strengthens the weak,
and deprive men and nations of the truth and reality of things, the
very principle of all life, and of the very means and conditions of
all progress. Man no doubt is progressive, but not in and by himself
alone. Archimedes demanded a _pou sto_, a whereon to rest his fulcrum
outside the earth, in order to move it, and there is no conceivable
way by which a man can raise himself by a lever supported on himself.
How is it that our philosophers fail to see the universal application
of the laws which they themselves assert? All progress is by
assimilation, by accretion, as that hierophant of progress, Pierre
Leroux, has amply demonstrated, and if there is no reality outside of
man or above him, what is there for him to assimilate, and how is he
to become more than at any given time he already is? Swift ridiculed
the philosophers of Laputa, who labored to extract sunbeams from
cucumbers, but even more ridiculous are they who pretend that
something may be assimilated from nothing, or that a thing can in and
of itself make itself more than it is. Where there is nothing above
man with which he does or may commune, there is for him no possibility
of progress, and men and nations can never advance beyond what they
are. This is so in the nature of things, and it is only what is
implied in the maxim, _Ex nihilo nihil fit_.

An institution, no matter by what sacred name called, founded by
savages, embodying only what they are, and worked by them, would have
no power to elevate them above their savage state, and could only
serve to perpetuate their savagery. The age speaks of the applications
of science to the productive arts, of the marvels of the steam-engine,
steamboats, the locomotive, and the magnetic telegraph, and boasts
that it renders mind omnipotent over matter. Vain boast, poor
philosophy. We have in those things gained no triumph over matter, no
control over the forces of nature, which are as independent of our
reason and will as ever they were, as the first steamboat explosion
will suffice to convince the most skeptical. We have subjected none of
the forces of nature; we have only learned in some few instances to
construct our machinery so as to be propelled by them, as did the
first man who built a mill, constructed a boat, or spread his sails to
catch the breeze. We alter not, we control not by our machinery the
forces of nature, and all the advantage we have obtained is in
conforming to them, and in suffering them, according to their own
laws, or laws which we have not imposed on them, to operate for us.
The principle is universal, catholic, and as true in the moral or
spiritual as in the mechanical or physical world.

Man does not create, generate, or control the great moral and
spiritual forces on which he depends to propel his moral and spiritual
machinery. They exist and operate independently alike of his reason
and his will, and the advantages he derives from them are obtained by
his placing himself within the sphere of their influence, or, to be
strictly correct, by interposing voluntarily no obstacle to their
inflowing, for they are always present and operative unless resisted.
Withdraw him from their influence, or induce him obstinately to resist
them, which he may do, for he is a free moral agent, and he can make
no more progress than a sailing ship at sea in a dead calm. These
forces are divine, are embodied in the church as her living and
constitutive force--are in one sense the church herself, and hence men
and nations separated from her communion and influence are thrown back
on nature alone, and necessarily cease to be progressive. We may war
against this as much as we please, but we cannot alter it, for the
principle on which it rests is a universal and indestructible law.

{56}

Individuals and nations separated by schism or heresy from the visible
communion of the church do not become at once absolutely and in all
respects unprogressive, for they are carried on for a time by the
momentum she baa given them, and besides, they are not, as she
continues to exist, absolutely beyond or outside of the sphere of her
influence, though indirect and reflected. But from the moment of the
separation their progress begins to slacken, their spiritual life
becomes sickly and attenuated, and gradually they lose all that they
had received from the church, and lapse into helpless and unassisted
nature. This, which is demonstrable _à priori_, is proved by the
experience of those nations that separated from the church in the
sixteenth century. These nations at first retained a large portion of
their old Catholic culture, and many of the habits acquired under the
discipline and training of the church. But they have been gradually
losing them ever since, and the more advanced portions of them have
got pretty clear of them, and thrown off, as they express it, the last
rag of Popery. Indeed this is their boast.

In throwing off the authority of the church, they came in religious
matters under the authority of the state, or the temporal sovereign or
ruler--a purely human authority, without competency in spirituals--and
thus lost at once their entire religious freedom, or liberty of
conscience. In Catholic nations the civil authority has always, or
almost always, been prone to encroach on the authority of the church,
and to attempt to control her external discipline or ecclesiastical
administration; but, in the nations that were carried away by the
so-called reformation, the civil authority assumed in every instance
complete control over the national church, and prescribed its
constitution, its creed, its liturgy, and its discipline. This for
them completely humanized religion, and made it a department of state.
It is true these nations professed to recognize the Bible as
containing a divine revelation, and to be governed by it; and this
would have been something, even much, had they not remitted its
interpretation to the civil magistrate, the king, the parliament, the
public judgment of the people, or the private judgment of the
individual, which made its meeting, as practically received, vary from
nation to nation, and even from individual to individual.

This sacrificed, in principle, the sovereignty of God and the entire
spiritual order, departed to a fearful distance from the truth and
reality of things, and if it retained some of the precepts of the
Christian law, it retained them as precepts not of the law of God but
as precepts of the law of man, enjoined, explained, and applied by a
purely human authority. In process of time, the authority of the state
in religious matters was found to be usurped, tyrannical, and
oppressive, and the thinking part of the separated nations asserted
the right of private judgment, or of each believer to interpret the
Holy Scriptures for himself. Having gone thus far, they went still
farther, and assert for everyone the right to judge for himself not
only of the meaning, but of the inspiration, authenticity, and
authority of the Scriptures, though the civil government in none of
these nations, except the United States, not in existence at the time
of the separation, has disavowed its authority in spirituals.
Practically, the doctrine that each individual judges for himself is
now generally adopted.

The authority of the Scriptures has followed the authority of the
church, and is practically, when not theoretically, rejected. It was
perhaps asserted by the reformers at first for the purpose of
presenting some authority not precisely human, which no Catholic would
deny, as offset against that of the church, rather than from any deep
reverence for it, or profound conviction of it« reality. But, be this
as it may, it counts for little now. The authors of Essays and
Reviews, and the Anglican bishop of Natal, take hardly less liberty
with the {57} Scriptures than Luther and Calvin did with the church.
The more advanced thinkers, if thinkers they are, of the age go
further still, and maintain not only that a man may be a very
religious man, and a true follower of Jesus Christ, without accepting
either the authority of the church or that of the Bible, but without
even believing either in the existence of God or the immortality of
the soul. Schleiermacher, the great Berlin preacher, went thus far in
his Discourses on Religion, addressed to the Cultivated among its
Despisers; and equally far, if not farther, in the same direction, go
the rising school or sect called Positivists. Religion is reduced to a
spontaneous development--perhaps I should say, to a secretion of human
nature, implying no reality above or distinguishable from human nature
itself.

It is not pretended that all persons in these nations have as yet
reached this result; but as there is a certain logic in error as well
as in truth, all are tending and must tend to it. What is called
progress of religious ideas or religious enlightenment is not held to
consist in any accession to our stock of known truth, in penetrating
farther into the world of reality, and attaining a firmer grasp of its
principles, nor in a better understanding of our moral relations and
the duties growing out of them, but in simply casting off or getting
rid of so-called Popery--of everything that has been retained in the
nations, and the sects into which they divide and subdivide, furnished
by the Catholic Church in which the reformers had been reared, and in
reducing men and nations to the nakedness and feebleness of nature.
The more advanced portion are already seen sporting _in puris
naturalibus_, heedless alike of shame and winter's cold. The others
are following more or less rapidly in the same direction; for there is
no halting-place between Catholicity and naked naturalism, and men
must either ascend to the one or descend to the other. But those who
choose to descend can find no resting-place even in naturalism, for
nature, severed from Catholicity, is severed from its principle, is
severed from God, from the reality and truth of things, and is
therefore unreal, nothing, Hence the descent is endless. Falsehood has
no bottom, is unreal, purely negative, and can furnish no standing.
Men can stand only on the true, the real, and that is Catholicity, the
order represented in society by the church. Those who forsake the
church, Catholicity, God, forsake therefore the real order, have
nothing to stand on, and in the nature of the case can only drop into
what the Scripture calls "the bottomless pit."

We hear much of the ignorance, superstition, and even of idolatry of
Catholics, nothing of which is true; but this much is certain, that
those who abandon the church, and succeed in humanizing religion,
making it hold from man and subject to his control, do as really
worship gods of their fashioning as did the old worshippers of gods
made of wood and stone, because their religion is really only what
they make it, and fall into as gross an idolatry and into as besotted
and besotting a superstition as can be found among any heathen people,
ancient or modern.

It is easy therefore to understand why the church sets her face so
resolutely against modern reformers, liberals, revolutionists, in a
word, the whole so-called movement party, professing to labor for the
diffusion of intelligence and the promotion of science, liberty, and
human progress. It is not science, liberty, or progress that she
opposes, but false theories substituted for science, and the wrong and
destructive means and methods of promoting liberty and progress
adopted and insisted on by liberals and revolutionists. There is only
one right way of effecting the progress they profess to have at heart,
and that is by conforming to truth and reality, for falsehood is
impotent, and nothing can be gained by it. She opposes the movement
party, not as a movement party, not as a party of light, liberty, {58}
and progress, but as a party moving in the wrong direction, putting
forth unscientific theories, theories which amuse the imagination
without enlightening  the understanding, which if they dazzle it is
only to blind with their false glitter, which embraced as truth
to-day, must be rejected as falsehood to-morrow, and which in fact
tend only to destroy liberty, and render all real progress impossible.
As the party, collectively or individually, neither is nor pretends to
be infallible, the church, at the worst, is as likely to be right as
they are, and the considerations presented prove that she is right,
and that they are wrong. There is no science but in knowing the truth,
that which really is or exists, and there is no real progress,
individual or social, with nature alone, because nature alone has no
existence, and can exist and become more than it is only by the
gracious, the supernatural assistance of God, in whom all things live,
move, and have their being.

A great clamor has been raised by the whole movement party throughout
the world against the encyclical of the Holy Father, dated at Rome,
December 8, 1864, and even some Catholics, not fully aware of the
sense and reach of the opinions censured, were at first partially
disturbed by it; but the Holy Father has given in it only a proof of
his pastoral vigilance, the fidelity of the church to her divine
mission, and the continuous presence in her and supernatural
assistance of the Holy Ghost. The errors condemned are all aimed at
the reality and invariability, universality and persistency, of truth,
the reality of things, the supremacy of the spiritual order, and the
independence and authority of the divine law, at real science, and the
means and conditions of both liberty and progress. In it we see the
great value of the independence of the church,--of a church holding
from God instead of holding from man. If the church had been human or
under human control she would never have condemned those errors,
because nearly all of them are popular, and hailed as truth by the
age. Man condemns only what man dislikes, and the popular judgment
condemns only what is unpopular. It is only the divine that judges
according to truth, and without being influenced by the spirit of the
age, or by what is popular or unpopular. If the church had been human,
she would have been carried away by those errors, and proved herself
the enemy instead of the friend, the protector, and the benefactor of
society.

These remarks on the divine character and independence of the church
are not inappropriate to the present times, and may serve to calm,
comfort, and console Catholics amidst the national convulsions and
changes which, without the reflections they suggest, might deeply
afflict the Catholic heart. The successes of Italy and Prussia in the
recent unjustifiable war against Austria, and the humiliation of the
Austrian empire, the last of the great powers on which the church
could rely for the protection of her material interests, have
apparently given over the temporal government of this world to her
enemies. There is at this moment not a single great power in the world
that is officially Catholic, or that officially recognizes the
Catholic Church as the church of God. The majority of Frenchmen are or
profess to be Catholics, but the French state professes no religion,
and if it pays a salary to the Catholic clergy, Protestant ministers,
and Jewish rabbis, it is not as ministers of religion, but as servants
of the state. The Russian state is schismatic, and officially
anti-papal; the British state, as a state, is Protestant, and
officially hostile to the church; Italy follows France; and Prussia,
which at the moment means Germany, is officially Protestant and
anti-Catholic; and so are Holland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.
Belgium and our own great Republic profess officially no religion, but
give freedom and protection to all religions not held to be _contra
bonos mores_. Spain and Portugal, no longer great powers, and {59}
most of the Central and South American states, officially profess the
Catholic faith, but they count for next to nothing in the array of
nations. Hellas and the Principalities, like Russia, are schismatic,
and the rest of the world, including the greater part of Asia and all
of Africa, is Mahometan or pagan, and of course hostile to the church.

I have not enumerated Austria, for what is to be her fate no one can
now say; but as a portion of her population belong to the Greek
schismatic church, and a larger portion still are Protestants, the
most that can be expected of her is that she will, in regard to
religion, assume the attitude of France and Italy. There is then
really no power on which the church can now rely for the support of
her external and material interests. I will not say that the triumph
of Prussia is the triumph of Protestantism, for that would not be
true; but it is, at least for the moment, the success of the party
that denounced the papal encyclical, and would seem to be a complete
victory, perhaps a final victory, over that system of mixed civil and
ecclesiastical government which grew up on the downfall of the Roman
empire and the conversion of the barbarian nations that seated
themselves on its ruins. It is the total and final destruction of the
Christian empire founded, with the aid of the Pope and bishops, by
Charlemagne and his nobles, and not unlikely will end in the complete
severance of all official union of church and state--alike the
official union between the state and the heretical and schismatic
churches, and between the state and the Catholic Church; so that
throughout the civilized world the people will be politically free to
be of any religion they choose, and the state of no religion.

This result is already reached in nearly all the nations hitherto
called Catholic nations, but not in the officially Protestant and
schismatic nations; and for a long time to come the anti-Catholic or
anti-papal religions, schismatical, heretical, Mahometan, and pagan
religions, will be retained as official or state religions, with more
or less of civil tolerance for Catholics. For the moment, the
anti-papal party appears to be victorious, and no doubt believes that
it is all over with the Catholic Church. That party had persuaded
itself that the church, as a ruling body, was of imperial origin--that
the papal power had been created by the edicts of Roman emperors,
and that it depends entirely on the civil authority for its
continuance. Hence they concluded that, if the church could be
deprived of all civil support, it must fall. They said, the church
depends on the papacy, and the papacy depends on the empire; hence,
detach the empire--that is, the civil power--from the papacy, and the
whole fabric tumbles at once into complete ruin. It is not improbable
that, to confound them, to bring to naught the wisdom of the wise, and
to take the crafty in their own craftiness, Providence has suffered
them to succeed. He has permitted them to detach the empire, that they
may see their error.

The successful party have reckoned without their host. They have
reasoned from false premises, and come necessarily to false
conclusions. The church is, undoubtedly, essentially papal as well as
episcopal, and the destruction of the papacy would certainly be her
destruction as the visible church; but it is false to assume that the
papacy was created by imperial edicts and depends on the empire, for
it is an indisputable historical fact that it existed prior to any
imperial edict in its favor, and while the empire was as yet
officially pagan, and hostile to the church. Hence it does not follow
that detaching the empire from the papacy will prove its destruction.
The church was as papal in its constitution when the whole force of
the empire was turned against it, when it sought refuge in the
catacombs, as it is now, or was in the time of Gregory VII. or
Innocent III., and is as papal in this country, where it has no civil
{60} support or recognition, as in Spain, or the Papal States
themselves. The very principal, idea, and nature of the church, as we
have set them forth in asserting the independence and supremacy of the
spiritual order, of which she is the organ, contradict in the moat
positive manner the dependency of the papacy on the empire.

The church as a visible body has, no doubt, temporal relations, and
therefore temporal interests susceptible of being affected by the
changes which take place in states and empires, and it is not
impossible, nor improbable, that the recent changes in Europe may more
or less deeply affect those interests. The papacy has itself so
judged, and has resisted them with all the means placed at its
disposal. These changes, if carried out, if completed, will affect in
a very serious manner the relations of the papacy with temporal
sovereigns, or, to use the consecrated term, with the empire, and many
of its regulations and provisions for the administration of
ecclesiastical affairs will certainly need to be changed or modified,
and much inconvenience during the transition to the new state of
things will no doubt be experienced. All changes from an old
established order, though in themselves changes for the better, are
for a time attended with many inconveniences. The Israelite's escaping
from Egyptian bondage had to suffer weariness, hunger, and thirst in
the wilderness before reaching the promised land. But whatever
temporal changes or inconveniences of this sort the church in her
external relations may have to endure, they are accidental, and by no
means involve her destruction, or impair her power or integrity as the
church of God, or divinely instituted organ of the spiritual order.

There is no question that the party that regards itself as having
triumphed in the success of Italy and Prussia is bitterly hostile not
only to what it calls the papal politics, but to the Catholic Church
herself, and will not be satisfied with simply detaching the empire
from her support, but will insist on its using all its power and
influence against her. That party, indeed, demands religious liberty,
but religious liberty, in its sense of the term, is full freedom for
all religions except the Catholic, the only true, religion. Error,
they hold, is harmless when reason is free, but truth they
instinctively feel is dangerous to their views and wishes, and must
for their safety be bound hand and foot. But suppose the worst;
suppose the civil power becomes actively hostile to the church,
prohibits by law the profession and practice of the Catholic religion,
punishes Catholics with fines and imprisonment, fire and sword, the
dungeon and the stake, the church will be no worse off than she was
under the pagan emperors, hardly worse off than she was under even the
Arians. The empire under the Jew and the Gentile exerted its utmost
fury against her, and exerted it in vain. It found her irrepressible.
The more she was opposed and persecuted, the more she flourished, and
the blood of the martyrs fattened the soil for a rich growth of
Catholics. Individuals and nations may be, as they have been, detached
from her communion, and many souls for whom Christ died perish
everlastingly, which is a fearful loss to them, and society may suffer
the gains acquired to civilization during eighteen centuries to be
lost, and moral and intellectual darkness gather anew for a time over
the land, once enlightened by the Sun of righteousness, for God
governs men as free moral agents, not as machines or slaves; but the
church will survive her persecutors, and reconquer the empire for God
and his Christ. Is she not founded on the Rock of Ages, and is it not
said by him who is truth itself, that the gates of hell shall not
prevail against her?

It would be impossible to subject the church to a severer ordeal than
she has time and again passed through, and it is not likely that her
children will be exposed to greater trials than {61} those to which
they were subjected in the fifth and sixth centuries by the subversion
of the Roman empire by the pagan and Arian barbarians, or to suffer
heavier calamities than were inflicted on them by the so-called
reformation in the sixteenth century. The Protestants of today cannot
be fiercer, more intolerant or fanatical than they were in the age of
Luther and Calvin; and the infidels of to-day cannot be more envenomed
against the church, or more bloodthirsty and brutal, than were the
infidels in the French revolution; and all these the church has
survived.

The well-being of society, its orderly, peaceful, and continuous
progress, requires, as the Holy See has constantly maintained, the
co-operation and harmonious action of the church and the empire or
republic, but the church has seldom found the empire ready and willing
to co-operate with her, and the record of the struggles between her
and it fills more than a brief chapter in ecclesiastical and civil
history. In point of fact, the church has usually found herself
embarrassed and oppressed by officially Catholic states, and most of
the popular prejudices that still exist against her owe their origin
neither to her doctrines nor to her practices, but to the action of
secular governments officially Catholic. In the last century, her
bitterest enemies were the sovereigns of officially Catholic states;
the most generous friends of the Holy See were states officially
heretical or schismatic, as Russia, Great Britain, Sweden, and
Prussia. Austria is humiliated and suffering now for being in the way
of the anti-papal aggression, and every generous-hearted man
sympathizes with her noble-minded and well-disposed if not able
emperor, and it is no time to speak of her past shortcomings; but this
much may be said, she has seldom been a generous supporter of the Holy
See, and sometimes has been its oppressor.

Governments, like individuals, seldom profit by any experience but
their own; yet experience has proved, over and over again, that
governments the most powerful cannot, however determined on doing so,
extirpate Catholicity by force from their dominions. Pagan Rome, once
the haughty mistress of the world, tried it, made the profession of
the Christian faith punishable with death, and death in the most
frightful and excruciating forms, but failed. England, with all her
power, with all her Protestant zeal, aided by her intense national
prejudices, though she emulated the cruelties of the Caesars and even
surpassed the Caesars in her craft and treachery, has never been able
to extinguish the Catholic faith and love of the Irish people, the
great majority of whom have never ceased to adhere to the Catholic
religion. The church thrives under persecution, for to suffer for
Christ's sake is a signal honor, and martyrdom is a crown of glory.
The government can reach no farther than to the bodies and goods of
Catholics, and he who counts it an honor to suffer, a crown to die,
for his faith, fears nothing that can be done to those, and is
mightier than king or kaiser, parliament or congress. The Christians,
as Lactantius well says, conquered the world not by slaying but by
being slain. Woe to him who slays the Catholic for his religion, but
immortal honor and glory to him who is slain! Men are so constituted
that they rarely love that which costs them nothing, no sacrifice. It
is having suffered for our native land that hallows it in our
affections, and the more we suffer for the church, the more and the
more tenderly do we love her. St. Hilary accuses the Arian Constantius
of being a worse enemy to the church then Nero, Decius, or Diocletian,
for he seduced her prelates by favors, instead of enabling them to
acquire glory in openly dying for the faith.

The civil power can never uproot Catholicity by slaying Catholics, or
robbing the church of her temporalities. Impoverish the church as you
will, you cannot make her poorer than she was {62} in our Lord
himself, who had not where to lay his head, nor than she was in the
twelve apostles when they went forth from that "upper room" in
Jerusalem to conquer the world. She has never depended upon the goods
of this world as the means of accomplishing her mission, and her
possessions have often been an embarrassment, and exposed her to the
envy, cupidity, and rapacity of secular princes. If deprived by the
revolution of the temporalities of her churches, and left destitute,
so to apeak, of house or home, she can still offer up "the clean
oblation," as she has often done, in private houses, barns, groves,
catacombs, caverns in the earth, or clefts in the rocks.

The church has frequently been deprived of her temporal possessions
and of all temporal power, but the poor have suffered by it more than
she. She is really stronger in France today than she was in the age of
Louis XIV., and French society is, upon the whole, less corrupt than
in the time of Francis I. Religion revives in Spain in proportion as
the church losers her wealth. There are no countries where the church
has been poorer than in Ireland and the United Slates, and none where
her prosperity has been greater. Let matters, then, take the worst
turn possible, Catholics have little to fear, the church nothing to
apprehend, except the injury her enemies are sure to do themselves,
which cannot fail to afflict her loving heart.

Yet, whatever may be the extent of the changes effected or going on in
the states and empires of Europe, I apprehend no severe or prolonged
persecution of Catholics. The church in this world is and always will
be the church militant, because she is not of this world, and acts on
principles not only above but opposed to those on which kings and
kaisers and the men of this world act. She therefore necessarily comes
in conflict with them, and could render them no service if she did
not. Conflicts there will be, annoyances and vexations must be
expected; but in all the European states as well as our own, if we
except Sweden and Denmark, there is too large a Catholic population to
be either massacred, exiled, or deprived of the rights of person and
property common to all citizens or subjects. The British government
has been forced to concede Catholic emancipation, and all appearances
indicate that she will be forced ere long to place Catholics in all
respects on a footing of perfect equality with Protestants before the
state. Prussia, should she, as is possible, absorb all Germany, will
have nearly as many Catholic as Protestant subjects, and though she
may insist on remaining officially Protestant and anti-Catholic, she
will find it necessary to her own peace and security to allow her
Catholic subjects to enjoy liberty of religion and equal civil rights.
The mass of the Italian people are Catholic, and will remain
Catholics; and these are not times when even absolute, much less
constitutional, sovereigns can afford to is the it's and convictions
of any considerable portion of their people.

The anti-papal party may prove strong enough to deprive the Holy
Father of his temporal sovereignty and make Rome the capital of the
new kingdom of Italy; that is undoubtedly laid down in the programme,
and is only a natural, a logical result of Napoleon's campaign of 1859
against Austria and Napoleon holds that the logic of events must be
submitted to. He said in 1859 that there were two questions to be
settled, the Italian question and the Roman question. As the former
has been settled by expelling the Austrians from Italy, so the latter
is likely to be settled by the deprivation of the Pope as temporal
sovereign--the plan of settlement being evidently to secure to the
anti-papal party all it demands. Austria humiliated cannot interpose
in behalf of the temporal sovereignty, and is reported to have
abandoned it; Napoleon will not do it, unless compelled, for he has
been the determined but politic enemy of that sovereignty ever {63}
since, with his elder brother, he engaged in a conspiracy, in 1831, to
destroy the papal government; and Russia, Great Britain, and Prussia,
all anti-Catholic states, will abandon the papal throne to the logic
of events. Under the providence of God, it depends on the Italian
people whether the Holy Father shall retain his temporal sovereignty
or not, and what they will do nobody can say. They are capable of
doing anything hostile to the Pope one moment, and next falling on
their knees before him, and, with tears in their eyes, begging his
absolution.

But beyond the rights of the Supreme Pontiff as sovereign of the Roman
state, I cannot apprehend any serious attacks on the papacy; or after
the first fury has passed, even on ecclesiastical property. Much
hostility for a time will be displayed, no doubt, against the monastic
orders, and where they have any property remaining in their
possession. It, not unlikely, will be confiscated, and the right of
the church to be a proprietor legally denied or not recognized, yet
property dedicated to religious uses still will be passably secure
under the general law protecting citizens and their rights of
property, to make gifts _inter vivos_, and testamenary bequests. The
law will gradually become throughout Europe what it is with us. The
civil law in the United States knows nothing of the canons of the
Church establishing religious orders, or of the vows taken by the
religious; it takes no cognizance of the church herself, it recognizes
in her no proprietary rights, and gives her no standing in the courts,
and yet nowhere is ecclesiastical property better protected or more
secure, and nowhere are religious orders more free in person or more
secure in property. This proceeds from the right of property secured
to the citizens, and the right of the church, and of religious orders,
not as proprietors, but, if I may so speak, as recipiendaries, or
their right to receive enjoy eleemosynary gifts, grants, and bequests
in whatever form made, which the courts protect according to the will
of the donors or testators. There may be great inconveniences
resulting from the inevitable changes taking place, great wrong is
pretty sure to be done. The church has a valid right to be a
proprietor, and it is a great crime and a great sin to rob her of any
of her possessions; but she can carry on, and in most countries long
has carried on, her mission without the law recognizing any
proprietary rights.

Present appearances indicate that the church throughout the world will
be thrown back, as she was in the beginning, on her internal resources
as a spiritual kingdom; that she will cease to be the official church
any nation--at least for a time, if not for ever; and that she will
not henceforth govern or protect her children as civil life
communities, states, or empires through their civil rulers, but simply
as Catholics, individual members of her communion, through her own
spiritual ministry, her bishops and prelates alone, without any
official relation with the state. She can then exercise her full
spiritual authority over her own members, as the independent kingdom
of God on earth, free from all entangling alliances with the shifting
policies of nations.

It is not assumed that the changes recent events have produced, or are
producing, were desirable, are not evil, or are not brought about by
evil passions, and from motives which every lover of truth and right
does and must condemn; all that is argued is, that the church can
survive them, and with less detriment to her material interests than
her enemies have contemplated. Nothing that has taken place is
defended, or defensible; but who can say that God in his gracious
providence will not overrule all to the glory of his church and the
good of them that love him? Who knows but he has given the victory to
his enemies for the very purpose of confounding them, and showing them
how vain are all their strivings against him and the order he has
established? That is very victory, seemingly so {64} adverse and so
afflicting to the Catholic heart, may prove to be the means of
emancipating the church from her thraldom to the secular powers
officially Catholic, but really anti-Catholic in spirit, and of
preparing the way for her to labor more effectually than ever for the
advancement of truth, the progress of civilization, and the salvation
of souls! It is the prerogative of God to overrule evil for good, and
the church, though immovable in her foundation, inflexible in her
principles, and unchanging in her doctrines, has a wonderful capacity
of adapting herself to all stages of civilization, and to all the
changes in states and empires that may take place; she is confined
within no national boundaries, and wedded to no particular form of
civil government--she can subsist and carry on her work under Russian
autocracy or American democracy, with the untutored savage and the
most highly cultivated European, and is equally at her ease with the
high and the low, the learned and the unlearned, the rich and the
poor, the bond and the free. The events which, to all human judgment,
seem adverse often turn out to be altogether in our favor. "All those
things are against me," said the patriarch Jacob, when required to
send his son Benjamin down to Egypt, and yet the event proved that
they were all for him. When the Jews with wicked hands took our Lord
and slew him, crucified him between two thieves, they, no doubt,
thought that they had succeeded, and that it was all over with him and
his work; but what they did was a means to the end he sought, for it
was only in dying that he could accomplish the work he came to do.

The detachment of the empire from the church, which has been effected
for purposes hostile to her, and with the hope of causing her
destruction, perhaps will prove to her enemies that she does not rest
on the state, that the state is far more in need of her than she of
it, and show in a clear and unmistakable light her independence of all
civil support, her inexhaustible internal resources, her supernatural
energy and divine persistence. The empire detached from her and
abandoning her to herself, or turning its force against her, will
cease to incumber her with its official help, will no longer stand as
an opaque substance between her and the people, intercepting her
light, and preventing them from beholding her in her spiritual beauty
and splendor. The change will allay much political hostility, remove
most of the political prejudices against her, and permit the hearts of
the people to turn once more towards her as their true mother and best
friend. It may in fact tend to revive faith, and prepare the nations
to reunite under her divine banner. Be this as it may, every Catholic
knows that she is in herself independent of all the revolutions of
states and empires, of all the changes of this world, and feels sure
that she is imperishable, and that in some way the victories of her
enemies will turn out to be their defeat, and the occasion of new
triumphs for her.



{65}

From The Month

THE MYSTERY OF THE THATCHED HOUSE.


It was a clean, bright, wholesome, thoroughly lovable house. The first
time I saw it, I fell in love with it, and wanted to live in it at
once. It fascinated me. When I crossed its threshold, I felt as if I
had opened a book whose perusal promised enchantment. I felt a
passionate longing to have been born here, to have been expected by
the brown old watchful walls for years before it had been my turn to
exist in the world. I felt despoiled of my rights; because there was
here a hoard of wealth which I might not touch, placed just beyond the
reach of my hand. I was tantilized; because the secrets of a sweetly
odorous past hung about the shady corners, and the sunny
window-frames, and the grotesque hearth-places; and their breath was
no more to me than the scent of dried rose-leaves.

It was my fault that we bought the Thatched House. We wanted a country
home; and, hearing that this was for sale, we drove many miles one
showery April morning to view the place, and judge if it might suit
our need. Aunt Featherstone objected to it from the first, and often
boasted of her own sagacity in doing so, after the Thatched House had
proved itself an incubus--a dreadful Old Man of the Mountains, not to
be shaken from our necks. I once was bold enough to tell her that
temper, and not sagacity, was the cause of her dislike that April
morning. We drove in an open phaeton, and Aunt Featherstone got some
drops of rain on her new silk dress. Consequently she was out of humor
with everything, and vehemently pronounced her veto upon the purchase
of the Thatched House.

I was a spoiled girl, however; and I thought it hard that I might not
have my own way in this matter as in everything else. As we drove
along a lonely road, across a wild, open country, I had worshipped the
broken, gold-edged rain-clouds, and the hills, with their waving lines
of light and their soft trailing shadows. I had caught the shower in
my face, and laughed; and dried my limp curls with my
pocket-handkerchief. I was disposed to love everything I saw, and
clapped my hands when we stopped before the sad-looking old gates,
with their mossy brick pillars, and their iron arms folded across, as
if mournfully forbidding inquiry into some long hushed-up and
forgotten mystery. When we swept along the silent avenue my heart
leaped up in greeting to the grand old trees, that rose towering
freshly at every curve, spreading their masses of green foliage right
and left, and flinging showers of diamond drops to the ground whenever
the breeze lifted the tresses of a drowsy bough, or a bird poised its
slender weight upon a twig, and then shot off sudden into the blue.

Aunt Featherstone exclaimed against the house the very moment we came
in sight of it. It was not the sort of thing we wanted at all, she
said. It had not got a modern porch, and it was all nooks and angles
on the outside. The lower windows were too long and narrow, and the
upper ones too small, and pointing up above the eaves in that
old-fashioned, inconvenient manner. To crown its {66} absurdities, the
roof was thatched. No, no, Aunt Featherstone said, it was necessary
for such old houses to exist for the sake of pictures and romances;
but as for people of common sense going to live in them, that was out
of the question.

I left her still outside with her eyeglass levelled at the chimneys,
and darted into the house to explore. An old woman preceded me with a
jingling bunch of keys, unlocking all the doors, throwing open the
shutters and letting the long levels of sunshine fall over the
uncarpeted floors. It was all delicious, I thought; the long
dining-room with its tall windows opening like doors upon the broad
gravel, the circular drawing-room with its stained-glass roofing, the
double flights of winding stairs, the roomy passages, the numerous
chambers of all shapes and sizes opening one out of another, and
chasing each other from end to end of the house; and above all, the
charming old rustic balcony, running round the waist of the building
like a belt, and carrying one, almost quick as a bird could fly, from
one of those dear old pointed windows under the eaves down amongst the
flower-beds below.

I said to myself in my own wilful way, "This Thatched House must be my
home!" and then I set about coaxing Aunt Featherstone into my way of
thinking. It was not at all against her will that she completed the
purchase at last. Afterwards, however, she liked to think it was so.

In May it was all settled. The house was filled with painters and
paper-hangers, and all through the long summer months they kept on
making a mess within the walls, and forbidding us to enter and enjoy
the place in the full glorious luxuriance of its summer beauty. At
last, on driving there one bright evening, I found to my joy that the
workmen had decamped, leaving the Thatched House clean and fresh and
gay, ready for the reception of us, and our good's and chattels. I
sprang in through one of the open dining-room windows, and began
waltzing round the floor from sheer delight. Pausing at last for
breath, I saw that the old woman who took care of the place, she who
had on my first visit opened the shutters for me and jingled her keys,
had entered the room while I danced, and was standing watching me from
the doorway with a queer expression on her wrinkled face.

"Ah, ha! Nelly," I cried triumphantly, "what do you think of the old
house now?"

Nelly shook her gray head, and shot me a weird look out of her small
black eyes. Then she folded her arms slowly, and gazed all round the
room musingly, while she said:

"Ay, Miss Lucy! wealth can do a deal, but there's things it can't do.
All that the band of man may do to make this place wholesome to live
in has been done. Dance and see now, pretty lady--now, while you have
the heart and courage. The day'll come when you'd as soon think of
sleepin' all night on a tombstone as of standin' on this floor alone
after sunset."

"Good gracious, Nelly!" I cried, "what do you mean? Is it possible
that there is anything--have you heard or seen--"

"I have heard and seen plenty," was Nelly's curt reply.

Just then, a van arriving with the first instalment of our household
goods, the old woman vanished; and not another word could I wring that
evening from her puckered lips. Her words haunted me, and I went home
with my mirth considerably sobered; and dreamed all night of wandering
up and down that long dining-room in the dark, and seeing dimly
horrible faces grinning at me from the walls. This was only the first
shadow of the trouble that came upon us in the Thatched House.

It came by degrees in nods and whispers, and stories told in lowered
tones by the fireside at night. The servants got possession of a
rumor, and the rumor reached me. I shuddered in silence, and contrived
for the {67} first few months to keep it a jealous secret from my
unsuspecting aunt. For the house was ours, and Aunt Featherstone was
timorous; and the rumor, very horrible, was this--the Thatched House
was haunted.

Haunted, it was said, by a footstep, which every night, at a certain
hour, went down the principal corridor, distinctly audible as it
passed the doors, descended the staircase, traversed the hall, and
ceased suddenly at the dining-room door. It was a heavy, unshod foot,
and walked rather slowly. All the servants could describe it minutely,
though none could avow that they had positively heard it. New editions
of this story were constantly coming out, and found immediate
circulation. To each of these was added some fresh harrowing sequel,
illustrative of the manners and customs of a certain shadowy
inhabitant, who was said to have occupied the Thatched House all
through the dark days of its past emptiness and desolation, and who
resented fiercely the unwelcome advent of us flesh-and-blood
intruders. The tradition of this lonely shade was as follows: The
builder and first owner of the Thatched House was an elderly man,
wealthy, wicked, and feared. He had married a gentle young wife, whose
heart had been broken before she consented to give him her hand. He
was cruel to her, using her harshly, and leaving her solitary in the
lonely house for long winter weeks and months together, till she went
mad with brooding over her sorrows, and died a maniac. Goaded with
remorse, he had shut up the house and fled the country. Since then
different people had fancied the beautiful, romantic old dwelling, and
made an attempt to live in it; but they said that the sorrowful lady
would not yield up her right to any new-comer. It had been her habit,
when alive, to steal down stairs at night, when she could not sleep
for weeping, and to walk up and down the dining-room, wringing her
hands, till the morning dawned; and now, though her coffin was nailed,
and her grave green, and though her tears ought to have been long
since blown from her eyes like rain on the wind, still the unhappy
spirit would not quit the scene of her former wretchedness, but paced
the passage, and trod the stairs, and traversed the hall night after
night, as of old. At the dining-room door the step was said to pause;
and up and down the dreary chamber a wailing ghost was believed to
flit, wringing her hands, till the morning dawned.

It was not till the summer had departed that I learned this story.

As long as the sun shone, and the roses bloomed, and the nightingales
sang about the windows till midnight, I tried hard to shut my ears to
the memory of old Nelly's hint, and took good care not to mention it
to my aunt. If the servants looked mysterious, I would not see them;
if they whispered together, it was nothing to me. There was so short a
time for the stars to shine between the slow darkening of the blue sky
at night and the early quickening of flowers and birds and rosy beams
at dawn, that there was literally no space for the accommodation of
ghosts. So long as the summer lasted, the Thatched House was a
dwelling of sunshine and sweet odors and bright fancies for me. It was
different, however, when a wintry sky closed in around us, when
solitary leaves dangled upon shivering boughs, and when the winds
began to shudder at the windows all through the long dark nights. Then
I took fear to my heart, and wished that I had never seen the Thatched
House.

Then it was that my ears became gradually open to the dreadful murmurs
that were rife in the house; then it was that I learned the story of
the weeping lady, and of her footstep on the stairs. Of course I would
not believe, though the thumping of my heart, if I chanced to cross a
landing, even by twilight, belied the courage of which I boasted. I
forbade the servants to hint at such folly as the existence of ghosts,
and warned them {68} at their peril not to let a whisper of the kind
disturb my aunt. On the latter point I believe they did their best to
obey me.

Aunt Featherstone was a dear old, cross, good-natured, crotchety,
kind-hearted lady, who was always needing to be coaxed. She considered
herself an exceedingly strong-minded person, whereas she was in
reality one of the most nervous women I have ever known. I verily
believe that, if she had known that story of the footstep, she would
have made up her mind to hear it distinctly every night, and would
have been found some morning stone-dead in her bed with fear.
Therefore, as long as it was possible, I kept the dreadful secret from
her ears. This was in reality, however, a much shorter space of time
than I had imagined it to be.

About the middle of November Aunt Featherstone noticed that I was
beginning to look very pale, to lose my appetite, and to start and
tremble at the most commonplace sounds. The truth was that the long
nights of terror which passed over my head, in my pretty sleeping-room
off the ghost's corridor, were wearing out my health and spirits, and
threatening to throw me into a fever; and yet neither sight nor sound
of the supernatural had ever disturbed my rest--none worth recording,
that is; for of course, in my paroxysms of wakeful fear, I fancied a
thousand horrible revelations. Night after night I lay in agony, with
my ears distended for the sound of the footstep. Morning after morning
I awakened, weary and jaded, after a short, unsatisfying sleep, and
resolved that I would confess to my aunt, and implore her to fly from
the place at once. But, when seated at the breakfast-table, my heart
invariably failed me. I accounted, by the mention of a headache, for
my pale cheeks, and kept my secret.

Some weeks passed, and then I in my turn began to observe that Aunt
Featherstone had grown exceedingly dull in spirits. "Can any one have
told her the secret of the House?" was the question I quickly asked
myself. But the servants denied having broken their promise; and I had
reason to think that there had been of late much less gossip on the
subject than formerly. I was afraid to risk questioning the dear old
lady, and so I could only hope and surmise. But I was dull, and Aunt
Featherstone was dull, and the Thatched House was dreary. Things went
on in this way for some time, and at last a dreadful night arrived. I
had been for a long walk during the day; and had gone to bed rather
earlier than usual, and fallen asleep quickly. For about two hours I
slept, and then I was roused suddenly by a slight sound, like the
creaking of a board, just outside my door. With the instinct of fear I
started up, and listened intently. A watery moon was shining into my
room, revealing the pretty blue-and-white furniture, the pale
statuette and the various little dainty ornaments with which I had
been pleased to surround myself in this my chosen sanctuary. I sat up
shuddering and listened. I pressed my hands tightly over my heart, to
try and keep its throbbing from killing me; for distinctly, in the
merciless stillness of the winter night, I heard the tread of a
stealthy footstep on the passage outside my room. Along the corridor
it crept, down the staircase it went, and was lost in the hall below.

I shall never forget the anguish of fear in which I passed the
remainder of that wretched night. While cowering into my pillow, I
made up my mind to leave the Thatched House as soon as the morning
broke, and never to enter it again. I had heard people whose hair had
grown gray a single night, of grief or terror. When I glanced in the
looking-glass at dawn, I almost expected to see a white head upon my
own shoulders.

During the next day I, as usual, failed of courage to speak to my
aunt. I desired one of the maids to sleep on the couch in my room,
keeping this {69} arrangement a secret. The following night I felt
some little comfort from the presence of a second person near me; but
the girl soon fell asleep. Lying awake in fearful expectation, I was
visited by a repetition of the previous night's horror. I heard the
footstep a second time.

I suffered secretly in this way for about a week. I had become so pale
and nervous, that I was only like a shadow of my former self. Time
hung wretchedly upon my hands. I only prized the day inasmuch as it
was a respite from the night; the appearance of twilight coming on at
evening, invariably threw me into an ague-fit of shivering. I trembled
at a shadow; I screamed at a sudden noise. My aunt groaned over me,
and sent for the doctor.

I said to him, "Doctor, I am only a little moped. I have got a bright
idea for curing myself. You must prescribe me a schoolfellow."

Hereupon Aunt Featherstone began to ride off on her old hobby about
the loneliness, the unhealthiness and total objectionableness of the
Thatched House, bewailing her own weakness in having allowed herself
to be forced into buying it. She never mentioned the word "haunted,"
though I afterward knew that at the very time, and for some weeks
previously, she had been in full possession of the story of the
nightly footstep. The doctor recommended me a complete change of
scene; but instead of taking advantage of this, I asked for a
companion at the Thatched House.

The prescription I had begged for was written in the shape of a note
to Ada Rivers, imploring her to come to me at once. "Do come now," I
wrote; "I have a mystery for you to explore. I will tell you about it
when we meet." Having said so much, I knew that I should not be
disappointed.

Ada Rivers was a tall, robust girl, with the whitest teeth, the purest
complexion, and the clearest laugh I have ever met with in the world.
To be near her made one fed healthier both in body and mind. She was
one of those lively, fearless people who love to meet a morbid horror
face to face, and put it to rout. When I wrote to her, "Do come, for I
am sick," I was pretty sure she would obey the summons; but when I
added, "I have a mystery for you to explore," I was convinced of her
compliance beyond the possibility of a doubt.

It wanted just one fortnight of Christmas Day when Ada arrived at the
Thatched House. For some little time beforehand, I had busied myself
so pleasantly in making preparations, that I had almost forgotten the
weeping lady, and had not heard the footstep for two nights. And when,
on the first evening of her arrival, Ada stepped into the haunted
dining-room in her trim flowing robe of crimson cashmere, with her
dark hair bound closely round her comely head, and her bright eyes
clear with that frank unwavering light of theirs, I felt as if her
wholesome presence had banished dread at once, and that ghosts could
surely never harbor in the same house with her free step and genial
laugh.

"What is the matter with you?" said Ada, putting her hands on my
shoulders, and looking in my face. "You look like a changeling, you
little white thing! When shall I get leave to explore your mystery?"

"To-night," I whispered, and, looking round me quickly, shuddered. We
were standing on the hearth before the blazing fire, on the very spot
where that awful footstep would pass and repass through the long,
dark, unhappy hours after our lights had been extinguished, and our
heads, laid upon our pillows.

Ada laughed at me and called me a little goose; but I could see that
she was wild with curiosity, and eager for bedtime to arrive. I had
arranged that we should both occupy my room, in order that, if there
was anything to be heard, Ada might hear it. "And now what is all this
that I have to learn?" said she, after our door had been fastened for
the night, and we sat looking at one another with our dressing-gowns
upon our shoulders.

{70}

As I had expected, a long ringing laugh greeted the recital of my
doleful tale. "My dear Lucy!" cried Ada, "my poor sick little moped
Lucy, you surely don't mean to say that you believe in such vulgar
things as ghosts?"

"But I cannot help it," I said. "I have heard the footstep no less
than seven times, and the proof of it is that I am ill. If you were to
sleep alone in this room every night for a month, you would get sick
too."

"Not a bit of it!" said Ada, stoutly; and she sprang up and walked
about the chamber, "To think of getting discontented with this pretty
room, this exquisite little nest! No, I engage to sleep here every
night for a month--alone, if you please--and at the end of that time,
I shall not only be still in perfect health, my unromantic self, but I
promise to have cured you, you little, absurd, imaginative thing! And
now let us get to bed without another word on the subject. 'Talking it
over,' in cases of this kind, always does a vast amount of mischief."

Ada always meant what she said. In half an hour we were both in bed,
without a further word being spoken on the matter. So strengthened and
reassured was I by her strong, happy presence that, wearied out by the
excitement of the day, I was quickly fast asleep. It was early next
morning when I wakened again, and the red, frosty sun was rising above
the trees. When I opened my eyes, the first object they met was Ada,
sitting in the window, with her forehead against the pane, and her
hands locked in her lap. She was very pale, and her brows were knit in
perplexed thought. I had never seen her look so strangely before.

A swift thought struck me. I started up, and cried, "O Ada! forgive me
for going to sleep so soon. _I know you have heard it_."

She unknit her brows, rose from her seat, and came and sat down on the
bed beside me. "I cannot deny it." she said gravely; "_I have heard
it._ Now tell me, Lucy, does your aunt know anything of all this?"

"I am not sure," I said; "I cannot be, because I am afraid to ask her.
rather think that she has heard some of the stories, and is anxiously
trying to hide them from me, little thinking of what I have suffered
here. She has been very dull lately, and repines constantly about the
purchase of the house."

"Well," said Ada, "we must tell her nothing till we have sifted this
matter to the bottom."

"Why, what are you going to do?" I asked, beginning to tremble.

"Nothing very dreadful, little coward!" she said, laughing; "only to
follow the ghost if it passes our door to-night; I want to see what
stuff it is made of. If it be a genuine spirit, it is time the
Thatched House were vacated for its more complete accommodation. If it
be flesh and blood, it is time the trick were found out."

I gazed at Ada with feelings of mingled reverence and admiration. It
was in vain that I tried to dissuade her from her wild purpose. She
bade me hold my tongue, get up and dress and think no more about
ghosts till bedtime. I tried to be obedient; and all that day we kept
strict silence on the dreadful subject, while our tongues and hands
and (seemingly) our heads were kept busily occupied in helping to
carry out Aunt Featherstone's thousand-and-one pleasant arrangements
for the coming Christmas festivities.

During the morning, it happened that I often caught Ada with her eyes
fixed keenly on Aunt Featherstone's face, especially when once or
twice the dear old lady sighed profoundly, and the shadow of an
unaccountable cloud settled down upon her troubled brows. Ada pondered
deeply in the interval of our conversation, though her merry comment
and apt suggestion were always ready as usual when occasion seemed to
call for them. {71} I noticed also that she made excuses to explore
rooms and passages, and found means to observe and exchange words with
the servants. Ada's bright eyes were unusually wide open that day. For
me, I hung about her like a mute, and dreaded the coming of the night.

Bedtime arrived too quickly; and when we were shut in together in our
room, I implored Ada earnestly to give up the wild idea she had spoken
of in the morning, and to lock fast the door, and let us try to go to
sleep. Such praying, however, was useless. Ada had resolved upon a
certain thing to do, and this being the case, Ada was the girl to do
it.

We said our prayers, we set the door ajar, we extinguished our light,
and we went to bed. An hour we lay awake, and heard nothing to alarm
us. Another silent hour went past, and still the sleeping house was
undisturbed. I had begun to hope that the night was going to pass by
without accident, and had just commenced to doze a little and to
wander into a confused dream, when a sudden squeezing of my hand,
which lay in Ada's, startled me quickly into consciousness.

I opened my eyes; Ada was sitting erect in the bed, with her face set
forward, listening, and her eyes fastened on the door. Half smothered
with fear, I raised myself upon my elbow and listened too. Yes, O
horror! there it was--the soft, heavy, unshod footstep going down the
corridor outside the door. It paused at the top of the staircase, and
began slowly descending to the bottom. "Ada!" I whispered, with a
gasp. Her hand was damp with fear, and my face was drenched in a cold
dew. "In God's name!" she sighed, with a long-drawn breath; and then
she crept softly from the bed, threw on her dressing-gown, and went
swiftly away out of the already open door.

What I suffered in the next few minutes I could never describe, if I
spent the remainder of my life in endeavoring to do so. I remember an
interval of stupid horror; while leaning on my elbow in the bed, I
gazed with a fearful, fascinated stare at the half-open door beside
me. Then, through the silence of the night there came a cry.

It seemed to come struggling up through the flooring from the
dining-room underneath. It sounded wild, suppressed, smothered, and
was quickly hushed away into stillness again; but a horrible
stillness, broken by fitful, confused murmurs. Unable to endure the
suspense any longer, I sprang out of bed, rushed down the stairs, and
found myself standing in the gray darkness of the winter's night, with
rattling teeth, at the door of the haunted dining-room.

"Ada! Ada!" I sobbed out, in my shivering terror, and thrust my hand
against the heavy panel. The door opened with me, I staggered in, and
saw----a stout white figure sitting bolt upright in an arm-chair, and
Ada standing quivering in convulsions of laughter by its side. I fell
forward on the floor; but before I fainted quite, I heard a merry
voice ringing through the darkness,

"O Lucy! your Aunt Featherstone is the ghost!"

When I recovered my senses, I was lying in bed, with Ada and my aunt
both watching by my side. The poor dear old lady had so brooded over
the ghost-stories of the house, and so unselfishly denied herself the
relief of talking them over with me, that, pressing heavily on her
thoughts, they had unsettled her mind in sleep. Constantly ruminating
on the terror of that ghostly walk, she had unconsciously risen night
after night, and most cleverly accomplished it herself. Comparing
dates, I found that she had learned the story of the spirit only a few
days before the night on which I had first been terrified by the
footstep.

The news of Aunt Featherstone's escapade flew quickly through the
house. It caused so many laughs, that the genuine ghosts soon fell
into ill repute. The legend of the weeping lady's rambles became
divested of its dignity, and grew therefore to be quite harmless. Ada
and I laughed over our adventure every night during the rest of her
stay, and entered upon our Christmas festivities with right goodwill.
I have never forgotten to be grateful to Ada for that good service
which she rendered me; and as for Aunt Featherstone, I must own that
she never again said one word in disparagement of the Thatched House.

------

{72}

From the German.

THE RESURRECTION.


  Rise? Yes, with the myriads of the just,
  After short sleep, my dust!
  Life of immortal fire
  Thine from the Almighty Sire!
            Alleluia!

  Sown, to upspring, O joy! in richer bloom,
  The Lord of harvest's tomb
  Gives forth his sheaves within----
  Us, even us, who died in him!
            Alleluia!

  O victory! O dayspring's kindling ray!
  God's everlasting day!
  In the grave's solemn night.
  Slumbering, soon shall thy light
            Wake me to sight.

  As if of visionary dream the end----
  With Jesus to ascend
  Through joy's celestial door----
  Pilgrims of earth no more----
            Our sorrows o'er.

  My Saviour, to the Holiest leading on;
  That we may at the throne,
  In sanctuary free.
  Worship eternally!
            Alleluia!

F. W. P.

------

{73}

Original

AUBREY DE VERE.  [Footnote 20]

  [Footnote 20:
  Search after Proserpine, and other
  Poems. London, 1843.

  Poems. by Aubrey de Vere. London, 1855.

  The Sisters, Inisfail, and other Poems. London, 1861

  May Carols. New York: Lawrence Kehoe, 1866.]


Out of the greater breadth and catholicity, so to speak, of our
present literary taste, it results that one class of poets is arising
among as which has been very rare before our day: those in whom the
soul is the predominant force--men who care nothing for popularity,
and barely enough for recognition by their peers to make them publish
at all--men by nature high-strung and shy, yet tranquil, balanced, and
strong; who write, in short, from the spiritual side of things. These
could not, in ordinary times, hope for a wide, general favor, and they
sailed the nautiluses of literature; dropping from the surface of
themselves, equally native to the cooler, deeper waters below. But so
strong have been the gales of awakening love of reading, that even
these stranger ships, not bound for the ports of popularity, find wind
enough to waft them wherever refinement and scholarship care to deal
in their rare and choice cargoes.

An extreme of this class is Aubrey de Vere. Naturally not a poet of
the people, and still further isolated by holding and eloquently
celebrating a faith which incurs certain ostracism from the literature
of sectarian bigotry, he is almost unknown in America. Fresh from his
works, we are almost at a loss to understand how, in a country not
only of so many Catholic leaders, but where there is so much
pretension to literary taste, he can be such a stranger. All the usual
and more accessible sources are so barren of his biography that we
cannot trust ourselves to attempt any sketch of his life. From
materials so meagre and of such indifferent authenticity, nothing
satisfactory--nothing vivified--can be gathered; and biography that
fails in personality is a body without a soul. So we content ourselves
with the poet as we see him in his works.

In attempting an analysis of the qualities displayed in these volumes,
we find, to begin with, none of the inequalities of those writers who
begin quite young, and whose works go comet-like through after years,
the youthful nebulosity tailing off from the maturer nucleus, in a
long string of promising but not much performing versicles. There is
none of the crudeness of journey work, but everywhere thought and
gravity. The latter quality indeed is conspicuous. De Vere can be too
sarcastic for us to deny him wit, but humor seems to be unknown to
him. There is not the ghost of a joke in all his pages. We call this
remarkable, because he treats of so very many things. In Thomson's
Seasons (even waiving Thomson's nationality) or Paradise Lost--in any
one poem--we may not expect humor; but in a miscellany, where every
side of a man's mind usually displays itself, it seems odd not to find
a trace of sense of the ludicrous. Certainly there is variety enough
for it. The range of subjects is perhaps not very great, but the
individual poems exhibit almost every shade of style, beginning on the
hither side of quaintness and bringing up on the boundaries of the
colloquial. {74} An artificial style like that of the Idyls of the
King, or the Emersonian dialect ("_virtute ac vitiis sapientia
crescat_"), our author never attempts; his thoughts, as a rule, seem
to choose their own channel. He is willing enough to spend pains in
making a thought clear, but such grave, antique costuming of ideas he
takes no time for. The manner is always kept well in subordination to
the matter of what he has to say.

There is a strange versatility in these books in unconsciously
adopting peculiarities of other writers. The author himself, in his
notes, acknowledged this, or rather detects himself after the fact, in
a few instances; but though acute so far, he does not see half. More
honest and unconscious imitation there never was, and just as the
impression of the archetype rarely rose to a fact of consciousness, so
the consequent resemblance seldom amounts to a traceable parallelism.
There is no reproduction of passages, but of characteristics. A shade,
a turn of phrase, a suggestion, a _soupçon_, as we read, recalls at
once some great writer. The sonnets are full of subtle odors and
flavors of Shakespeare, evanescent, intangible, and charming. There
are also what the French would call "coincidences of style" with
Coleridge, and often, especially in the May Carols, with Tennyson.
Both are easily accounted for; the one by kindred tendencies to
philosophy, the other by the strong likeness in plan to In Memoriam.
But perhaps the most singular of all occurs in the very forcible poem
called The Bard Etheil, which bears a curious resemblance to the poet
of all poets the very opposite of De Vere--Robert Browning. There is
nothing at all like this poem in all our author's works. It stands as
saliently alone as a meteoric boulder in a meadow. The subject is an
Irish bard, a relic of the bardic days, but a zealous convert to a
Christianity of his own, tinged with a wild, ineradicable barbarism,
whose outcroppings make the interest of the character. There is all
Browning's sharp outline sketching, all his power of handling
contradictions of character, yet none of the topsy-turvy words and
sentences without which the Great Inversionist would not be
himself;--in short, it is Browning with the constitutional gnarl in
the grain left out.

Another--a closer parallelism than usual--we find in The Year of
Sorrow:

  "The weaver wove till all was dark.
  And long ere morning bent and bowed
  Above his work with fingers stark.
  And made, nor knew he made, a shroud."

The terrible parallel passage in the Song of the Shirt is too familiar
to need more than an allusion.

Yet through all these coincidences runs an abundant individuality that
proves De Vere to be anything but a wilful or even permissive
plagiarist. He is, in simple truth, a great reader, with a mind in
such true tune with all things high and refined, that it responds as
the accordant string of some delicate instrument echoes a musical
note. There needs no better test than this, that mere imitators
invariably copy faults, while Mr. De Vere always reproduces
excellences.

In point of language, our author inherits an Irishman's full measure
of vocabulary. Through a most varied series of metres, his verse is
full of ease, fluency, and grace. In rhythm he rises to the rank of an
artist. He has passed the first degree--that baccalaureateship of
verse-making whose diploma is perfect smoothness and melody; where Tom
Moore took a double first, and beyond which so few ever attain. He is
one of the _maestri_, like Tennyson and Swinburne, who know the uses
of a discord, and can handle diminished sevenths. His lines are full
of subtle shadings, and curious subfelicities of diction, that not
every one feels, and few save the devotee to metre (such as we own
ourselves to be) pause to analyze and admire. His taste, too, is
fastidiously unerring; there is never a swerve beyond the cobweb
boundaries of the line of beauty. {75} Sometimes he misses the exact
word he wants, but he never halts for want of a good one. The only
deficiency arises from his temperament. Where spirit demands to be
heard in sound as felt in sense, he uniformly fails. He cannot often
make his lines bound and ring like Moore's. In the face of the fiery
episodes of Irish history which he deals with in Inisfail, he is too
often like one of his own bards on a modern battle-field.

So much for the mere style; the man himself remains. Pre-eminently he
is a philosopher--too much of one to be a great poet. Not that any man
can be a poet at all without being also a philosopher. Only his
philosophy should be to his poetry as a woman's brain to her heart--a
suggesting, subordinate element--the "refused" wing of his progress.
With him it is just the reverse. Philosophy is the primary fact of his
inner life, out of which blossom incidentally his poetry and his
patriotism, but whose legitimate and beautiful fruit is his religion.
The consequence is, everything is too much a development of high
principle, instead of an impulse of deep feeling. He is too _right_,
too reasonable, too well-considered. He has not enough _abandon_. This
one, but final and fatal fault to the highest poetical success,
ramifies curiously through everything he writes. The first result is
occasionally too much abstractness. There are fetters of thought
poetry cannot be graceful in. Her vocation is to lead us among the
fostered flowers and whispering groves of the beautiful land, not to
go botanizing far up the cold heights, among the snow-growths, whose
classification is caviare to the general. There let science climb with
her _savans_. On rare occasions, indeed, the poet may tellingly deal
with the naked truths of nature, but it demands the inspiration of a
Lysimachus and the glorious contours of a Phryne. Tennyson, in his In
Memoriam, has touched with the rarest felicity on the most pregnant
problems of natural divinity, without even rippling the smoothness of
his verse; De Vere has done the same, with excellent success, in his
May Carols; but he tries too often not to fail oftener than we could
wish. It must be owned an honorable failure; not of strength, but of
grace. His lines lift the weight they grapple with, but he does not
interest us in the labor. At the risk of trespassing on time-honored
critical demesnes, we differ with that tacit _consensus doctorum_
which suffers sonnets, and some other things, to be as abstract as the
author pleases.

Another effect of this over-philosophic temperament, while equally
hurtful to his popularity, greatly endears him to the few. It is the
pure and elevated tone of all he writes. In this quality he is
eminent. He is a mountaineer on the steeps of Parnassus, whose game by
instinct never flies to the plains. He lifts ordinary subjects into a
seeming of unreality. Things seem to lose outline and glide away from
the grasp; as clouds that have form enough when seen from the earth,
are shapeless vapor to the aeronaut among them. So, again, the
interest fails in comparison with a lower grade of thought. People
will buy very indifferent sketches, but care very little for the most
accurate bird's-eye view. There is a singular charm in this unlabored,
if not unconscious loftiness; but the mass of readers weary, as they
do of a lecture on astronomy, from over-tension of unused faculties.
What is the difference to a reader whether an author passes beyond his
reach by going apart into abstruseness or soaring away into idealism?

We have shown before how the versification suffers. Everywhere reason
clogs the wings of rhyme. Our author is for ever putting his Pegasus
in harness to the car of some truth or other. A warm human
sympathizer, a deep and poetical worshipper, a burning and noble
protestant against the woes and wrongs of Ireland, with scholarship,
reading, talent, every auspicious omen, he has never fulfilled, and
may never fulfil, the promise that is in him. {76} His reason is for
ever making clear to his better angels of fancy and feeling the exact
boundaries of just thought, which they may not overstep. It robs his
philanthropy of human tenderness, his religion of ardor, his
patriotism of enthusiasm. His is the calm, trained strength of perfect
mental soundness; the fiery contractile thrills, that make of the
impassioned man a giant for one grand effort, he seems to do battle
with and slay before they can grow into acts. What a combination of
qualities goes to the making of a great poet!

The poems now before us range themselves mainly into three grand
classes--sonnets, religions poems, and lyrics, etc., on Ireland. There
are some noteworthy exceptions, however--as, for example, the
excellent poems on Shelley and Coleridge, whom he thoroughly
appreciates, the widely known stanzas called The AEolian Harp, and the
splendid lines on Delphi--one of his very best efforts. But our
purpose lies rather with the poet, as revealed through his works, than
with the poems themselves. So we must leave a wide, unnoted margin of
miscellaneous pieces, where any reader whom we may succeed in
interesting in the beauties of our author may range unprejudiced by
our expressions of opinion, and confine ourselves to our true
subject--the poet himself, viewed successively in the three great
pathways he has opened for himself. We only pause to advise our reader
that we make no pretensions to gathering the harvest, but leave golden
swathes behind instead of ordinary gleaning.

Sonnets seem to require a peculiar talent. Almost all our best men
have written them, and almost all badly, while the small newspaper and
periodical craft strand on them daily. Only our deepest and most
refined thinkers have written really good ones, and to succeed in them
at all, is to join a very limited coterie, where Shakespeare and
Milton have but few compeers. When, then, we say that De Vere is the
author of some of the best we have in our literature, we justify high
expectation.

He is one of the most voluminous of sonnet writers. There are in the
books between one hundred and fifty and two hundred. It seems to be
his favorite outlet for those briefer, choicer reflections that lose
their charm by being amplified for the vulgar comprehension,

  ". . . . As orient essences, diffuse
  On all the liberal airs of low Cashmere,
  Waft their rich faintness far to stolid hinds,
  To whom the rose is but a thorny weed;"

but which, after all, are the trifles that make up the inner life of a
soul, and for whose waste, as our author himself says,

  "Nature, trifled with, not loved,
     Will be at last avenged."

It may well be imagined that this is a path peculiarly adapted to our
author's contemplative yet versatile mind. He is singularly fitted for
this style of composition, which does not demand the least particle of
that kind of spirit and impulsive animation in which he is wanting;
and accordingly he has written a number of sonnets which will, we
think, compare with the very best for eloquence and just thought.
Walter Savage Landor--_non sordidus auctor_--deliberately pronounced
the one on Sunrise the finest in the language.

Two others, by which he is probably best known to American readers,
appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, one written March, 1860, the other,
June 12, 1861, addressed to Charles Eliot Norton, the editor of the
North American Review. Both relate to the national struggle, and
indicate a somewhat lively interest in our affairs, but otherwise are
not remarkable. Much better than these we find the following. It is a
good sample besides of the author's general style:

  "Silence and sleep, and midnight's softest gloom,
  Consoling friends of fast declining years,
  Benign assuagers of unfruitful tears,
  Soft-footed heralds of the wished-four tomb!
  Go to your master, Death--the monarch whom
  Ye serve, whose majesty your grace endears.
  And in the awful hollows of his ears
  Murmur, oh! ever murmur: 'Come, O come!'
  Virginal rights have I observed full long,
  And all observance worthy of a bride.
  Then wherefore, Death, dost thou to me is wrong,
  So long estranged to linger from my side?
  Am I not thine? Oh! breathe upon my eyes
  A gentle answer, Death, from thine elysian skies!"

{77}

It is no easy thing to be publicly and yet gracefully sad. Do not we
mentally associate an idea of weakness or effeminacy with melancholic
writings? Yet here is--we feel it at once--the true sadness we all
respect: the unaffected weariness which does not cry out its grief,
but sighs because it suffers and is strong.

It is not often that De Vere leaves the lofty pinnacles of thought or
the pleasant hills of fancy for sterner fields, but here for once he
swoops from his eyrie into the following scathing lines. They are the
last of five very spirited sonnets on Colonization, each of which is
worth quoting, did but our space permit:

  "England, magnanimous art thou in name;
  Magnanimous in nature once thou wert;
  But that which ofttimes lags behind desert,
  And crowns the dead, as oft survives it--fame.
  Can she whose hand a merchant's pen makes tame,
  Or sneer of nameless scribe--can she whose heart
  In camp or senate still is at the mart,
  A nation's toils, a nation's honors claim?
  Thy shield of old torn Poland twice and thrice
  Invoked; thy help as vainly Ireland asks,
  Pointing with stark, lean linger from the West--
  Of western cliffs plague-stricken, from the West--
  Gray-haired though young. When heat is sucked from ice,
  Then shall a Firm discharge a national task."

This speaks for itself. It sums up the faults of the English nation
better in a dozen lines than a congress of vaporers about British
tyranny or essayists on _perfide Albion_ could do in a month of
mouthings. There is not a weak line or phrase in it, or one that is
not auxiliary to the general effect intended. This, in short, is what
we call masterly.

There are a score of other sonnets that we would wish to quote in
illustration of the refined thought and elegant delicacy of diction
which characterize them all; but we are constrained to content
ourselves with one also noticed by Landor for its singular felicity
and beauty. It is from his first book, page 268:

  "Flowers I would bring. If flowers could make thee fairer.
  And make, if the muse were dear to thee;
  (For loving these would make thee love the bearer.)
  But sweetest songs forget their melody,
  And loveliest flowers would but conceal the wearer:
  A rose I marked, and might have plucked; but she
  Blushed as she bent, imploring me to spare her,
  Nor spoil her beauty by such rivalry.
  Alas! and with what gifts shall I pursue thee.
  What offerings bring, what treasures lay before thee;
  When earth with all her floral train doth woo thee,
  And all old poets and old books adore thee;
  And love to thee is naught; from passionate mood
  Secured by joy's complacent plenitude?"

This poem is remarkable to us as containing one of the few
recognitions we have ever seen of that beauty which rises above the
province of passion, and strikes a dim awe into admiration. They are
not many who can feel it, and few, indeed, who have expressed it. The
same thought occurs in another passage referred to by Landor:

  "Men loved; but hope they deemed to be
   A sweet impossibility."

But we have a further reason for preferring this to several equally
fine. It is to note what may be another of De Vere's unconscious
adaptations. The well-known scholar, Henry of Huntington, addressed to
Queen Adelicia of Louvaine some lines which hinge upon the very same
turn of thought. The real excellence of the verses emboldens us to
subjoin a few of them, that the reader may observe the resemblance:

  "Anglorum regina, tuos, Adeliza, decores
     Ipsa rcferre parans Musa stupore riget.
  Quid diadema tibi, pulcherrima? quid tibi gemma?
    Pallet gemma tibi, nec diadema nitet.
  Ornamenta cave; nec quicquam luminis inde
    Accipis; illa nitent lumine clara tuo . . . ."

We are not sure but the mediaeval poet, having no further idea beyond
mere laudation, has rather the better of the complimenting. But then
praise to a queen would be flattery to a subject.

Without trying the rather dubious policy of attempting to prove our
taste, we think that upon these sonnets alone we could rest De Vere's
claim to be a first-class sonnet writer. If it were not a received
impossibility, we should be tempted to call him the equal in this
respect of Shakespeare. Of course we admit the impossibility.

{78}

Leaving the sonnets, we come to a far more interesting portion of the
works before us--the religious poems. As a Christian, our author is
indeed admirable. He evinces not only a deep, strong, real, and
realizing faith, but much fruitful thought over the mental details, so
to speak, and a wonderful comprehension of the theory, theology, and
mysteries of the church.

More properly than religious poems, we should speak of poems on
religion; for the man's whole life is a religious poem. Scarcely a
scrap is not full of his deep Catholicity. Of verses specially and
professedly devotional, these volumes contain few, besides the May
Carols, save some Poems on Sacred Subjects, which we find below the
author's average. Some of them carry abstractness to the verge of
vagary. What color of pretence, for instance, has a man for printing
(if he _must_ write it), and deliberately inviting the public to read,
a copy of verses on the Unity of Abstract Truth? We internally know we
are not Wordsworths, but it is very unpleasant to have it made so
plain. In shrewd anticipation of any mental queries, we utterly
decline saying whether we have read the lines or not. We cannot
determine which would be the more to our credit.

But we pass by unnumbered beauties to reach our author's best and most
memorable work--May Carols. This is noble alike in design, tone, and
execution. The plan is simple--to produce a series of poems in honor
of the Blessed Virgin, graduating poetical expositions of her
relations to faith according to the progress of her month of May. It
is just the topic for him, and the result is the most beautiful
development of the entire subject that can be imagined. We have no
words for the subtlety and success with which the individualities of
Mary and Jesus are wrought out. The man who, without seeking
adventitious aid by startling and shocking the habits of Christian
thought and Christian reverence, can so draw a portrait of the
Saviour, has in this alone deserved the thanks of the ages as a
standard-bearer on the march of the hosts of God. These great
delineations form the first and main function of the whole work. We
cannot set forth his purpose more lucidly than in his own words, as we
find them in the preface:

  "The wisdom of the church, which consecrates the fleeting seasons of
  time to the interests of eternity, has  dedicated the month of May
  (the birth-day festival, as it were, of creation) to her who was
  ever destined in the divine counsels to become the Mother  of her
  Creator. It belongs to her, of course, as she is the representative
  of the incarnation, and its practical exponent to a world but too
  apt to forget what it professes to hold. The following poems,
  written in her honor, are an attempt to set forth, though but in
  mere outline, each of them some of the great ideas or essential
  principles embodied in that all-embracing mystery. On a topic so
  comprehensive, converse statements, at one time illustrating highest
  excellence compatible with mere creaturely existence, at another,
  the infinite distance between the chief of earthly creatures and the
  Creator, may seem, at first sight, and to some eyes, contradictory,
  although in reality mutually correlative. On an attentive perusal,
  however, that harmony which exists among the many portions of a
  single mastering truth can hardly fail to appear, and with it the
  scope and aim of this poem."

This certainly is aiming high. Not only does the poet include in his
plan the moral delineation of her whom the church holds the highest
type of created humanity; he scales the heavens themselves. But our
author is impious Enceladus crushed beneath his own presumption, but a
Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord, and rising to the infinite
sky in beatific visions. Perhaps we best realize the boldness of the
enterprise when we think for how many centuries the praise of the
Mother and Son has exhausted thought and imagination of the greatest
souls. He is a daring gleaner who follows the fathers of the church
over their chosen fields. Yet the May {79} Carols are a sheaf from the
same golden foison where Augustine and Aquinas and Chrysostom led the
reapers. How fruitful must be the soil!

We have never seen anything to compare with the picture of the Holy
Child here presented, unless it be the picture of the Holy Mother. We
cannot, in our allotted space, render all the admirable gradations and
delicate shadings, but must cull with difficult choice one or two
only. One of the first is the


  MATER CHRISTI

  Daily beneath his mother's eyes
    Her lamb maturity his lowliness:
  'Twas hers the lovely sacrifice
    With fillet and with flower to dress.

  Beside his little cross he knelt,
    With human-heavenly lips he prayed;
  _His will with in her will she felt,
      And yet his will her will obeyed_. . . .

  He willed to lack; he willed to bear;
    He willed by suffering to be schooled;
  He willed the chains of flesh to wear;
    Yet from her arms the world he ruled.

  _As tapers 'mid the noontide glow
      With merged yet separate radiance burn_,
  With human taste and touch, even so,
    The things he knew he willed to learn.

  He sat beside the lowly door:
    His _homeless_ eyes appeared to trace
  In evening skies remembered lore,
    And shadows of his Father's face.

  One only knew him. She alone
   Who nightly to his cradle crept.
  And _lying like the moonbeam prone
   Worshipped her Maker as he slept_.

Whoever can read that without admiring it, is a clod: whoever can read
it without having his whole idea of Christ's childhood intensely
vivified and expanded, must be a St. John or an angel. How beautiful,
and, when we look at it, how bold is the epithet "homeless!" How
exactly it embodies the longing of his spirit out of its human prison
toward the freedom of the heavens! Yet how daringly true to imagine
the omnipresent Deity homeless! Again, how acutely the last scene
characterizes the tender timidity of Mary's mother-love, and how
natural and intensely human the conscious, sweet self-deception which
brought her to worship when only the humanity slept, and she seemed
separated from her Son and alone with her Creator! But the simile of
the taper is perhaps the best touch of all, as being the masterly
expression of one of the most subtle and difficult conceptions of the
human mind. It must divide the honors of comparison with the
concluding lines of the


  MATER SALVATORIS.

  O heart with his in just accord!
    O soul his echo, tone for tone!
  O spirit that heard, and kept his word!
    O countenance moulded like his own!

  Behold, she seemed on earth to dwell;
    But, hid in light, alone she sat
  Beneath the throne ineffable,
    Chanting her clear magnificat.

  Fed from the boundless heart of God,
    The Joy within her rose more high.
  And all her being overflowed,
    Until the awful hour was nigh.

  Then, then there crept her spirit o'er
    The shadow of that pain world-wide,
  Whereof her Son the substance bore;--
    Him offering, half in him she died.

 _Standing like that strange moon, whereon
     The mask of earth lies dim and dead,
   An orb of glory, shadow-strewn,
     Yet girdled with a luminous thread_.

For originality, and perfect expression of an idea by an image, we
know of nothing better in all our range of poetry than those two
similes. That last is especially wonderful for its reconditeness. Who
would ever think of an annular eclipse of the moon as an illustration
of religion? And yet how marvellously well it does illustrate! The
first verse of the poem is very poor and strained in its rhythm, and
the second not much better in its mysticism, which is rather adapted
to the enthusiasm of the middle ages; but the end counterbalances all.

Having thus digressed to the Blessed Virgin, we go on to note in how
many lights these poems display her. The idea of her they present is,
to an ordinary idea, as the flashing, many-faceted jewel to the rough
gem of the mines. Here, for example, the whole poetry of motherhood is
pressed into her service in a few dense lines:

{80}

  O Mother-Maid! to none save thee
    Belongs in full a parent's name:
  So faithful thy virginity,
    Thy motherhood so pure from blame!

  All other parents, what are they?
    Thy types. In them thou stood'st rehearsed,
  (As they in bird, and bud, and spray).
    Thine Antitype? The Eternal First!

  Prime Parent He: and next Him thou!
    Overshadowed by the Father's Might,
  Thy 'Fiat' was thy bridal vow;
    Thine offspring He, the "Light of Light."

  Her Son Thou wert: her Son Thou art,
    O Christ! Her substance fed Thy growth:--
  She shaped Thee in her virgin heart,
    Thy Mother and Thy Father both!

Let us pass on from this, without breaking the continuity, to

CONSERVABAT IN CORDE.

  As every change of April sky
    Is imaged in a placid brook,
  Her meditative memory
    Mirrored His every deed and look.

  As suns through summer ether rolled
     Mature each growth the spring has wrought,
  _So Love's strong day-star turned to gold
      Her harvests of quiescent thought_.

  _Her soul was as a vase, and shone
      Translucent to an inner ray;
   Her Maker's finger wrote thereon
     A mystic Bible new each day_.

  Deep Heart! In all His sevenfold might
    The Paraclete with thee abode;
  And, sacramented there in light,
    Bore witness of the things of God.

The last verse has a flaw rare in these volumes--a mixture of
metaphors. In the first two lines, "heart" is strongly personified,
and clearly represents Mary herself. In the third with no intimation
whatever, and without a break in the construction of the sentence, the
same heart is become a place, and is indicated by "there." We cannot
imagine how the author, with his susceptible taste, read it over in
the proof-sheets without feeling the jar of the phrases.

So much for the loving side of Mary's character. In depicting her
suffering, the poet has even excelled this. The first broad stroke of
his picture is

MATER DOLOROSA

  She stood: she sank not. Slowly fell
    Adown the Cross the atoning blood.
  In agony ineffable
    She offered still His own to God.

  No pang of His her bosom spared;
    She felt in Him its several power.
  But she in heart His Priesthood shared:
    She offered Sacrifice that hour. . . .

Beautifully our author hag named the succeeding poem also Mater
Dolorosa. The one is the agony of loss, the other the bitterness of
bereavement:

  From her He passed: yet still with her
    The endless thought of Him found rest;
  A sad but sacred branch of myrrh
    _For ever folded in her breast_.

  A Boreal winter void of light--
    So seemed her widowed days forlorn:
_She slept; but in her breast all night
    Her heart lay waking till the morn_.

  Sad flowers on Calvary that grew;--
    Sad fruits that ripened from the Cross;--
  These were the only joys she knew:
    Yet all but these she counted loss.

  Love strong as Death! She lived through thee
    That mystic life whose every breath
  _From Life's low harp-string amorously
      Draws out the sweetened name of Death_.

  Love stronger far than Death or Life!
    Thy martyrdom was o'er at last
  Her eyelids drooped; and without strife
    To Him she loved her spirit passed.

For once we can leave the of a poem to the unaided italics with a good
grace. To expound the exquisiteness of these lines would be like
botanically dissecting a lily. But there is a deeper underlying
excellence that may perhaps not suggest itself so irresistibly--the
marvellous intuitive delicacy of the whole conception embodied by this
poem. Only a truly profound religious feeling could thus happily have
characterized the effect of such a sorrow on such a nature. A mere
pietist would have painted a sanctified apathy; a merely smart writer
would have imbued her with an eagerness for the end of earthly
trouble; a man of talent would have made her resigned to death; the
man of genius makes her resigned _to life_. Here is the effortless
exactness of true poet.

Two more views, and we can turn from this picture of the Blessed
Virgin of the May Carols--one, her human and inferior relation to God;
and the other, her human and superior relation to ourselves. To the
first point, perhaps the most explicit of the poems is the following,
which, also, is a good example of the author s peculiar, sudden manner
of turning his broad philosophy into the channel of some forcible
application:

{81}

  Not all thy purity, although
    The whitest moon that ever lit
  The peaks of Lebanonian snow
    Shone dusk and dim compared with it;--

  Not that great love of thine, whose beams
    Transcended in their virtuous heat
  Those suns which melt the ice-bound streams,
    And make earth's pulses newly beat:--

  It was not these that from the sky
    Drew down to thee the Eternal Word:
  He looked on thy humility;
    He knew thee, "Handmaid of thy Lord."

  Let no one claim with thee a part;
    Let no one, Mary, name thy name,
  While, aping God, upon his heart
    Pride sits, a demon robed in flame.

  Proud Vices, die! Where Sin has place
    Be Sin's familiar self-disgust.
  Proud Virtues, doubly die; that Grace
    At last may burgeon from your dust.

But the poem which of all most truly, tenderly, and perfectly develops
the whole beautiful spiritual dependence of the true Catholic upon the
Mother of his God, is the Mater Divinae Gratis, already published in
The Catholic World for May, p. 216.

The beauty of this piece has already attracted wide attention. The
wonder is that any Catholic could have passed it by. It is a
theological treatise in itself. Could all the repositories of divinity
furnish a more complete reputation of those cold and narrow organisms
(we hesitate to call them hearts) whose breasts would seem to have
room for just so much piety, of a prescribed quality and regulation
pattern, and who insist that every one we love is a unit in the
divisor which assigns to each his portion of that known and limited
store, our affection? These people sincerely cannot see how one can
love Mary too without loving God less. It is as if a tree could not
strike another root without sapping its trunk. Perish this narrowness!
How long before these strait-laced souls--the moral progeny of that
unhappiest of men, Calvin--will learn to love God as well as believe
in him?

There is something very difficult of analysis about the power of these
poems. They have none of that dramatic force which consists in
skilfully selecting and emphasizing the striking sonnets of the
situation. De Vere's strength does not seem to tend toward the outward
personality, but rather lies in the direction of the soul and its
sensations. When we lay down the May Carols, we do not conceive a whit
the more clearly how the Virgin Mary looked; there is no impression to
overlie and mar our memories of the great painters' pictures of her.
But we cannot read aright without bearing away an expanded
comprehension and near, real, vivid insight into her love, her pain,
her humility, her deserving, her glory. We so enter in spirit into the
scenes of her life as absolutely to lose sight of the surroundings.
This kind of power may not be the most broadly effective, but we must
admit that it reaches our admiration through our best faculties. Its
secret lies in the fact that the author's own ideas both of Christ and
his Mother are so complete and exalted. At what advantage, for
example, he stands over the author of Ecce Homo, who, it seems, would
have us believe Christ in his childhood to have been a Hebrew boy,
much like other Hebrew boys, till ill-explained causes metamorphosed a
Galilean peasant youth into the most transcendent genius of history!
With this cold casuistic theory compare De Vere's picture of the
mother lying worshipping by the moonlit cradle of her Son and God. He
accepts in their entirety the received ideas of the church, neither
varying nor wishing to vary one jot or tittle of the law, but lovingly
investing it with all the developments of thought and all the
decorations of fancy. No Catholic can help being struck by the
singular doctrinal accuracy which pervades without perturbing the
whole of this work. The result is a portraiture of the incarnation and
the Blessed Virgin, such as an author who could set all the ruggedness
of Calvary before our eyes, and make every waving olive-leaf in
Gethsemane musically mournful in our souls, could not hope to rival by
all the efforts of graphic genius.

{82}

But scarcely less remarkable is the success in the other grand aim of
the May Carols--what he himself calls "an attempt at a Christian
rendering of external nature." His attempt has brought forth a series
of purely descriptive pieces, interspersed at intervals, intended to
present the symbolism which the aspect of May's successive phases
might offer to the imagination of faith. To cultivate Christianity in
the shifting soil of fancy is of itself a bold endeavor; but when the
method proposed is by picturing the delicate and evanescent shades of
spring's advance, the difficulty can be realized.

How far the author succeeds in this most subtle undertaking of educing
the symbolism of May, we must leave to country criticism for final
adjudication. We have our opinion; we can discover many sweet emblems;
but we cannot analyze or reason out our thoughts satisfactorily. We
recognize portraits in the May-gallery, but are not familiar enough
with nature's costumes to judge of the historical order. We can exult
with the earth in the gladness of the season; we are permeated in a
measure, as are all, with the influences of the bluer skies, the
softer breezes, the more confident advance of the flowers. But when it
comes to reading the succession of the changing clouds, harmonizing
the melody of the gales, deciphering the hieroglyphics that spring's
myriad fingers write in verdure on the woods and meadows, we feel that
ours is but a city acquaintance with May. We have rested too well
content with the beauty to think of its moral suggestiveness or
significance.

But this we do know, that the author has struck such a vein of
descriptive felicity that, according to Dr. Holmes's witty logic, he
can afford to write no more description till he dies. There are
touches of this here and there in other places, but nothing to promise
such little gems of landscape as stud the May Carols. There is an
accession of naturalness and a flow of happy phrases as soon as he
reaches one of these themes, that is like swimming out of fresh water
into salt. Take for instance, this:

  When April's sudden sunset cold
    Through boughs half-clothed with watery sheen
  Bursts on the high, new-cowslipped wold,
    And bathes a world half gold half green,

  _Then shakes the illuminated air_
    With din of birds; the vales far down
  Grow phosphorescent here and there;
    Forth flash the turrets of the town;

  Along the sky thin vapors scud;
    _Bright zephyrs curl the choral main;_
  The wild ebullience of the blood
    Rings joy-bells in the heart and brain:

  Yet in that music discords mix;
    The unbalanced lights like meteors play;
  And, tired of splendors that perplex,
    The dazzled spirit sighs for May.


It is a great disadvantage to these beautiful little poems to be thus
taken from their frames, thereby losing their emblematic and retaining
only their intrinsic beauty. But even so, there are two more which we
fearlessly present on the merit of their own unaided charms. Here is
the first:

  Brow-bound with myrtle and with gold,
    Spring, sacred now from blasts and blights,
  Lifts in a firm, untrembling hold
    Her chalice of fulfilled delights.

  Confirmed around her queenly lip
    The smile late wavering, on she moves;
  And seems through deepening tides to step
    Of steadier joys and larger loves.

  The stony Ash itself _relents,
     Into the blue embrace of May
  Sinking, like old impenitents
     Heart-touched at last;_ and, far away,

  _The long wave yearns along the coast_
    With sob suppressed, like that which thrills
  (While o'er the altar mounts the Host)
    Some chapel on the Irish hills.

We scarcely know which to admire most, the precise, clear-cut elegance
of the opening personification, the beauty of the third verse, or the
melody (how the first line matches the sense!) and admirable
comparison in the last one. Only, if the poet had ever waded among the
waves of bloom of our western prairies, he would have found a better
expression than the awkward one of "deepening tides," which is out of
character with the rest.

{83}

But the last one we give is the finest. We had put it in the first
rank ourselves before finding that it had also struck the fine ear of
Mr. Landor. It is a Claude Lorraine done into verse:

  Pleasant the swarm about the bough;
    The meadow-whisper round the woods;
  And for their coolness pleasant now
    The murmur of the falling floods.

  Pleasant beneath the thorn to lie,
    And let a summer fancy loose;
  To hear the cuckoo's double cry;
    To make the noon-tide sloth's excuse.

  Panting, but pleased, the cattle stand
    Knee-deep in water-weed and sedge,
  And scarcely crop the greener band
    Of osiers round the river's edge.

  But hark! Far off the south wind sweeps
    The golden-foliaged groves among,
  Renewed or lulled, with rests and leaps--
    Ah! how it makes the spirit long

  To drop its earthly weight, and drift
    Like yon white cloud, on pinions free,
  Beyond that mountain's purple rift,
    And o'er that scintillating sea!

We do not think we can say anything that will add to this.

There are two very noticeable faults of detail in the May Carols. One
is the great occasional looseness of rhyme. We are no lover even of
the so-called rhymes to the eye--words ending, but not pronounced
alike--but when there is no similarity of sound at all, we
emphatically demur. Here are some, taken at random, of the numberless
false rhymes which disfigure these poems: "Hills--swells;"
"height--infinite;" "best--least" (these last two in one short piece
of sixteen lines); "buds--multitudes;" "repose--coos;" "flower--more;"
"pierce--universe," etc. Now such as these are utterly indefensible.
The different sounds of the same vowel are as different among
themselves as from any other sounds, and there is no sense in taking
advantage of the accident that they are represented by the same letter
to cheat the ear and plead the poverty of the alphabet. In a man who
labored for words, we could condone a roughness here and there; but in
a writer of De Vere's fluency there is no excuse for such gross
carelessness.

We observe also at intervals a kind of baldness of expression--a
ruggedness and disregard of beauty in uttering ideas--that is
unpleasant. We think, with a learned friend who first drew our
attention to it, that this comes of the authors anxiety and
determination to be clear. The lines seem like men trained down to
fighting-weight--all strength and no contour. No doubt the high and
difficult ideas to be rendered (for it is never seen in the
descriptive interludes) constitute ample cause for this fault; but
yet, in noticing the whole, we are constrained to note it as a
blemish.

It remains to speak of the author's poems on Ireland. Here it is
evident that he feels warmly as the chief organizer himself; and yet
nothing can be further from to-day's Fenianism than the tone of his
writings. Irish they are to the core--as animated as the best in
proclaiming the wrongs of Ireland and the misrule of the invaders--but
from the same premises somehow he seems to draw a different
conclusion. This is to our author one of those near and dear subjects
which are elements in a man's inner life: he has published another
volume   [Footnote 21] upon it, and a large portion of his poems turn
on it. Most of the best among his single poems--The Irish Celt to the
Irish Norman, the Ode to Ireland, the beautiful Year of Sorrow, and
others--are either too long or too close-woven for quotation. Another
able one is The Sisters, which is full of beautiful thoughts,
independent of the Irish bearing.

  [Footnote 21: English Misrule and Irish Misdeeds. London, 1848.]

But the most prominent and elaborate of these poems is Inisfail, or
Ireland in the Olden Time--a chronological series of odes, songs, and
all manner of remarks in rhyme, illustrative of Ireland's history and
the feeling of her people, through the various epochs of her national
and denationalized life. There is more historical research, more
talent, and more time buried to waste in this poem, than would make
ten ordinary shallow reputations. The author shows a thorough and a
_vitalized_ knowledge of Irish history, and he penetrates well and
nobly the {84} succession of popular sentiment; nay, he has done a
more difficult thing still--he has caught much of the spirit of bardic
verse. Only our very decided and deliberate opinion is, that the
spirit of bardic verse is extremely like the gorilla--very hard to
catch, and not particularly beautiful when caught. We have read, we
are fairly sure, the better part of the English-Irish poetry that has
attained any note--that class of which Clarence Mangan stands at the
head, and are very much grieved and dissatisfied with it. Wherever the
Gaelic ode-form is adopted, or the Gaelic symbolism--the Roisin Dhu,
Silk of the Kine, etc.--we cannot help wishing it absent. Whatever has
pleased us in poems of this sort would have pleased as well or better
in another guise; whatever has fatigued or offended, has generally
done so on account of its Gaelic form. From weary experience, we have
reached the firm conclusion that the Gaelic style is peculiarly
adapted to the Erse tongue, and we earnestly hope that future
twangings of the harp that hung in Tara's halls may be either in the
aforesaid dialect, or else, like Moore's Irish Melodies (and does any
one wish for anything more nobly Irish?), consonant in style with the
spirit of the language they are written in. The best talent devoted to
grafting Gaelic blossoms on English stems has only served to show them
essentially uncongenial. Every attempt of this kind reads like a
translation from Erse into English, and, like all translations, hints
in every turn of the superiority of the original. And, speaking
disinterestedly (we are, as it happens, neither Gael nor Sassenach),
we scarcely think any translator likely to swim in waters where
Clarence Mangan barely floated.

Thus we admire much of Inisfail for the wonderful adaptiveness which
revivifies for us the dead feelings of dead generations, while at the
same time we cannot thoroughly like nor enjoy it. There is great
artistic taste throughout, but the poetical merit, as indeed might be
expected, Appears to us to be greatest in the delineations from the
fourteenth to the seventeenth century--neither too far nor too near in
point of time. The outlawry times elicit some fine lines: in fact,
violation of law seems always to bring our author out at his best. Of
the earlier poems, perhaps the best are The Malison and The Faithful
Norman. These are of the first, or pure Irish period. The next, or
Irish-Norman epoch, is full of the best and the worst of our author's
verse. Of The Bard Ethell we have spoken before. The Bier that
Conquered is a striking poem, as are also the quaint, rambling,
suggestive lines called The Wedding of the Clans. Amid several long,
fierce, and highly Gaelic exultations over battles, chiefs, and things
in general, we find a noble poem. The Bishop of Ross, which we really
regret we cannot quote here. Just before it, however, is one of the
best which we may have space for:


KING CHARLES'S "GRACES."

A.D. 1626

  "Thus babble the strong ones, 'The chain is slackened!
      Ye can turn half round on your sides to sleep!
  With the thunderbolt still your isle is blackened,
      But it hurls no bolt upon tower or steep.
  We are slaves in name! Old laws proscribed you;
      But the king is kindly, the Queen is fair.
  They are knaves or fools who would goad or bribe you
      A legal freedom to claim. Beware!'

II.

  "We answer and thus: Our country's honor
      To us is dear as our country's life!
  That stigma the bad law casts upon her
      Is the brand on the fame of a blameless wife
  Once more we answer: From honor never
      Can safety long time be found apart;
  The bondsman that vows not his bond to sever,
      Is a slave by right, and a slave in heart!"

There is the true ring about this--strength and spirit both. Close by
it is another--the only one of the odes we like--The Suppression of
the Faith in Ulster, which is of the same calibre.

The last book (there are three) is full of beauty as the style grows
modern. But we have cited so much that is beautiful, that we prefer
quoting one of the few but forcible instances where our most Christian
poet gives vent to his very considerable powers of sarcasm:

{85}

GOOD-HEARTED.

      "The young lord betrayed an orphan maid--
       The young lord soft-natured and easy:
  The man was 'good-hearted,' the neighbors said;
  Flung meat to his dogs; to the poor flung bread.
  His father stood laughing when Drogheda bled;
      He hated a conscience queasy!

II.

      "A widow met him, dark trees o'erhead,
      Her child and the man just parted--
  When home she walked her knife it was red;
  Swiftly she walked, and muttered, and said,
        'The blood rushed fast from a fount full-fed!
        Ay, the young lord was right "good-hearted!"'

III.

      "When morning wan its first beam shed.
      It fell on a corpse yet wanner;
  The great-hearted dogs the young lord had fed
  Watched, one at the feet and one at the head--
  But their months with a blood-pool hard by were red;
      They loved--in the young lord's manner."

There is something about the fierce bitterness here that strongly
reminds one of Tennyson's poem of The Sisters, with its weird line--

  "Oh! the Earl was fair to see!"

From several of very nearly the same purport, we select the following,
influenced to choose it, as we own, by the wonderful flow of its
measure, as well as its truly Irish beauty. There is a kind of
peculiar richness of diction that no other nation on earth ever
attains. Every reader of Tom Moore will know what we mean, and
recognize a kindred spirit in


  SEMPER RADEM

  "The moon, freshly risen from the bosom of ocean,
      Hangs o'er it suspended, all mournful yet bright;
  And a yellow sea-circle with yearning emotion
      Swells up as to meet it, _and clings to its light_.
  The orb, unabiding, grows whiter, mounts higher;
      _The pathos of darkness descends on the brine_--
  O Erin! the North drew its light from thy pyre;
      Thy light woke the nations; the embers were thine.

II.

      "'Tis sunrise! The mountains flash forth, and, new-reddened,
      The billows grow lustrous so lately forlorn;
  From the orient with vapors long darkened and deadened.
      _The trumpets of Godhead are pealing the morn:_
  He rises, the sun, in his might reascending;
      _Like an altar beneath him lies blazing the sea!_
  O Erin! who proved thee returns to thee, blending
      The future and past in one garland for thee!"


But what we regard as really the finest poem in Inisfail is an
apparent, perhaps a real, exception to our rule above stated, that
whatever of this poetry pleases us would please as well if divested of
its Gaelic form. The charm of this lies in its being so essentially
Irish in conception. It is just such an original, bold, wild
inspiration as no other body than an Irish clan could without
incongruity be made to feel. There is more intense _Irishness_ (what
other word will express it?) in it than in all the poems--ay, and half
the poets--of this century. We give it with the author's own
explanation prefixed:


  THE PHANTOM FUNERAL.

  "James Fitz-Garret, son of the great Earl of Desmond, had been sent
  to England, when a child, as a hostage, and was for seventeen years
  kept a prisoner in the Tower, and educated in the Queen's religion.
  James Fitz-Thomas, the 'Sugane Earl,' having meantime assumed the
  title and prerogatives of Earl of Desmond, the Queen sent her
  captive to Ireland, attended by persons devoted to her, and provided
  with a _conditional_ patent for his restoration .... As the young
  earl walked to church, it was with difficulty that a guard of
  English soldiers could keep a path open for him. From street and
  window and housetop every voice urged him to fidelity to his
  ancestral faith. The youth, who did not even understand the language
  in which he was adjured, went on to the Queen's church, as it was
  called; and with loud cries his clan rushed away and abandoned his
  standard for ever. Shortly afterward he returned to England, where,
  within a few months, he died.

  Strew the bed and strew the bier
      (Who rests upon it was never man)
  With all that a little child holds dear,
      With violets blue and violets wan.

  Strew the bed and strew the bier
      With the berries that redden thy shores, Corann;
  His lip was the berry, his skin was clear
      As the waxen blossom--he ne'er was man.

  Far off he sleeps, yet we mourn him here;
      Their tale was a falsehood; he ne'er was man!
  'Tis a phantom funeral! Strew the bier
      With white lilies brushed by the floating swan.

  They lie who say that the false queen caught him
      A child asleep on the mountains wide;
  A captive reared him, a strange faith taught him;--
      'Twas for no strange faith that his father died!

  They lie who say that the child returned
      A man unmanned to his towers of pride;
  That his people with curses the false Earl spurned:
      Woe, woe, Kilmallock! they lie, and lied!

  The clan was wroth at an ill report.
      But now the thunder-cloud melts in tears.
  The child that was motherless played. "'Twas sport."
      A child must sport in his childish years!

  Ululah! Ululah! Low, sing low!
      The women of Desmond loved well that child!
  Our lamb was lost in the winter snow;
      Long years we sought him in wood and wild.

  How many a babe of Fitzgerald's blood
      In hut was fostered though born in hall!
  The old stock burgeoned the fair new bud,
      The old land welcomed them, each and all!

{86}

  Glynn weeps to-day by the Shannon's tide,
      And Shanid and she that frowns o'er Deal;
  There is woe by the Laune and the Carra's side,
      And where the knight dwells by the woody Feale.

  In Dingle and Beara they chant his dirge:
      Far off he faded--our child--sing low!
  We have made him a bed by the ocean's surge,
      We have made him a bier on the mountain's brow.

  The clan was bereft! the old walls they left;
      With cries they rushed to the mountains drear.
  But now great sorrow their heart has cleft;--
      See, one by one they are drawing near!

  Ululah! Ululah! Low, sing low!
      The flakes fall fast on the little bier;--
  The yew-branch and eagle-plume over them throw!
      The last of the Desmond chiefs lies here."


We close, far from completing our sketch of the poet. We have not
exhausted the volumes before us, and they do not exhaust their author.
De Vere has written several other books, mostly of early date--from
1843 to 1850--which one must read to know him entirely. But we are
very sure that those who will read the books from which we have drawn
our illustrations will read all. There are few authors who grow so
upon the reader. Somehow the force and beauty of the thoughts do not
impress at first. We think the rationale of the process is that we
mostly begin by reading three parts of sound to one of sense. After
the melody comes the harmony; gradually, on after-reading, the glitter
of the words ceases to dazzle, and then, if ever, we commune mind to
mind with the author. This is as rare with modern readers as a hand-to
hand bayonet fight in modern battles. Now Aubrey de Vere writes a
great deal of thought so very quietly, that we miss the cackling which
even talent nowadays is apt to indulge in on laying any supposed
golden eggs of wisdom. Hence we have some singular opinions about him.
One finds him cold and impassible; another votes him a sort of
gentlemanly Fenian visionary, while a third devotes a column of one of
our best hypercritical periodicals to viewing him as a mere love-poet.
These are all windfall opinions, which had been better ripening on the
tree. The grace, the rhythm, and, above all, the stern ascendency of
truthful exactness over inaccurate felicities of expression, strike
one constantly more and more. We have ourselves passed through these
phases of opinion, besides several others; but every day fortifies our
final conviction. It is, that Aubrey de Vere is one of those true
poets whom the few love well; who will always have admirers, never
popularity; and who must wait for his full fame until that distant but
coming day when blind, deep movements of unity shall thrill the sects
of Christendom, and bigotry no longer veil from the gifted and
appreciative the merits of the first Catholic poet of to-day.

--------

{87}

From The Lamp.

UNCONVICTED; OR, OLD THORNELEY'S HEIRS.


CHAPTER X.

UNCONVICTED!


Up to the time when James Ball entered the witness-box, the whole case
had been dead against the prisoner. Even the grave doubts which the
cross-examination raised about the housekeeper's veracity had passed
unsubstantiated by any further evidence or proof; and the cook's story
of the footstep on the stairs died out of all reckoning in the modicum
of balance left in favor of the accused man when Davis, the chemist,
had closed his evidence. But when his luckless assistant got down,
after making such astounding admissions, we breathed again, and hopes
that had been trampled under foot rose once more with renewed
buoyancy. The rigid face of Serjeant Donaldson relaxed into anxious
gravity, and the frank, genial countenance of Mr. Forster--Hugh
Atherton's contemporary, and at whose side he had fought many a legal
battle--shook off its cloud as he sat down and conferred with his
senior colleague; whilst I heard a deep sigh of relief burst from
Merrivale as he uttered, "Thank God, we have got over _that_ rock!"

Then Donaldson rose. I think I hear and see him still, that
grey-headed serjeant, with his rugged Scotch features lighted up by
all the earnestness of his will, all the acute intelligence of his
mind, as he turned to the jury, and in a voice tremulous with emotion,
though it failed not to set forth the firmness of his purpose, and the
honest conviction of his soul, opened his defence of Hugh Atherton.

"Though standing at this bar," said Serjeant Donaldson, "with a heavy
cloud of accusation overshadowing his hitherto stainless name, though
branded by public opinion with the foul epithet of murderer, I can
still call Mr. Atherton 'my friend' without a flush of shame; I can
yet take him by the hand and feel proud to hail him brother by
profession, companion in the same vocation. If," said the Serjeant,
raising his voice and looking boldly around him, "the last witness had
never been placed before you and made the remarkable revelation which
you have all heard, I would still indorse what I have just said, and
assert to you, my lords and gentlemen of the jury, my deep and
heartfelt conviction of the innocence of the prisoner. But I have
other and better grounds upon which to plead before you to-day--the
only grounds upon which you can legally and conscientiously find a
verdict."

He then proceeded to review the evidence, pulling it to pieces, and
cutting right and left into every deposition, showing up the flaws,
attacking _sans ménagement_ the character and veracity of the
witnesses, dealing blows with no gentle hand on every side, and
evidently lashing "his learned friend the Solicitor-General" into a
state of suppressed fury; the whole drift and gist of his argument
going to prove that, unless the fact of the prisoner's visit to the
chemist's shop in Vero street did, to the minds of the jury, involve
as a necessary consequence his purchasing the paper of strychnine,
that also being satisfactorily established by conclusive {88}
evidence, no verdict against the prisoner could be found. On the other
hand, the last witness has positively declared that the strychnine had
been purchased under false pretences by a female, and that on the
following day hush-money had been sent to and received by James Ball
not to identify that woman who bought the poison. Further, he should
presently call a witness who would corroborate all that had been
disclosed by James Ball--one whom he, Ball, had evidently considered
as effectually silenced; one who, though but a boy, had given a very
steady, consistent, and lucid account of what had transpired on the
evening of the 23d and on the following day. After commenting further
upon this, and touching pointedly upon the curious coincidence of my
rencontre with the woman in Vere street and the visit of the woman to
the chemist's shop, he wound up his address: "There has been question
today, gentlemen, of one whose name should never have been dragged
before your notice, but who, in her agonized wish of doing her feeble
part in clearing _him_, her betrothed husband, from the foul charge
laid on him, has besought us, who are engaged in his defence, not to
spare her, not to deprive her of taking her share in the testimony we
shall bring forward in his favor. Gentlemen, this noble-minded girl.
Miss Ada Leslie, will tell you in what terms the prisoner at the bar
used to speak of his deceased uncle--the only guardian and father whom
he ever remembers--in that intimate communion which exists between a
man and the woman whom he is going to make part of himself. I need add
no more. Providence has shaken from under your feet the only ground
upon which you could condemn Mr. Atherton; Providence has, to my mind,
pointed out the road along which further inquiries into this most
heinous and wicked murder can be pursued. The same almighty and just
God will enlighten your understandings and bring your minds to a
righteous conclusion upon the case before you. But, gentlemen,
although as I said at first starting, we have better grounds than
those of private conviction upon which to urge the prisoner's
innocence--viz., those of proof and evidence--still I cannot but think
you all feel with me that, as you look at him standing there, as you
remember the tones of his voice, so familiar to us in this court,
urging upon us the arguments of a powerful mind, thoroughly healthy in
its moral tone, and the pleadings dictated by a heart whose impulses
were intrinsically generous and humane, whose guileless soul--and I
crave his pardon for uttering these words in his presence--shone out
of his honest eyes, and whose blameless life was openly known to all
and clear as the noonday--I think, if the evidence had been other than
it was, or than that which you are going to hear will be, you would
still be ready to exclaim, 'That man _cannot_ be guilty of the crime
imputed to him; _who_ is innocent if _he_ is proved guilty?"

I had no idea that Ada would be in court, far less give evidence; and
I concluded she had not mentioned it to me lest I should object or be
distresses on her account. The sensation was tremendous in court when
she entered the witness-box, accompanied by her mother. The latter's
agitation whether affected or real, seemed very great, and the
frequent application of her handkerchief to her eyes betrayed she was
crying. How Ada had got her there at all was a wonder; how she
remained silent _when_ there, was a greater marvel. Can I ever forget
her as she stood there, that tall slender girl, with her pale
colorless face of calm and high resolve, the dark shadows beneath
those eyes that looked as if now they never slept, but with the
steadfast light of deep, devoted affection shining in them as they
fell upon Hugh; her whole figure quivering with emotion, and her
clasped hands leaning upon the table before her? One look at Hugh, and
then she returned to the Lord Chief-Justice. I saw the {89}
undisguised rush of sympathy and of interest flash across his
countenance as his gaze met hers; and he leaned towards her with the
courteous attention of the innate gentleman that he was.

"My lord," she began, in tones that at first were scarcely audible,
though peculiarly sweet, but which rose and deepened as she went on,
"I have come here because there is something I wish to say to you,
although I know you think _he_ is innocent; but still I had best say
it. For many months past I have known every thought of his heart;
there has been no secret kept back from me. My lord, he loved that
poor murdered man very tenderly, even as he would have loved his
father had he lived, and he never spoke of him but with kindness and
affection. It was only on the very day it happened that he was talking
with me of the future. We were to have been man and wife--oh, I trust
in God we shall still be!--and that day he, my Hugh, said how he was
looking forward to the time when we should have a home of our own, and
he could win his uncle away sometimes from his solitary life, and make
him come to us. Do you think," she said, turning with passionate
suddenness to the jury,--"do you think he could say that to _me_ and
an hour afterwards kill the old man? do you think that of him who
never bore an unkindly thought even to a dumb animal?"

And then her womanly timidity seemed to come back, or physical
excitement overpower her; and when Mr. Frost, a young and rather
conceited-looking man, rose with a view doubtless to cross-question
her, the Solicitor-General waved him back, for she had sunk on the
chair placed for her.

Then I heard, and hearing it my heart seemed like to break, a heavy
groan burst from the prisoner's lips--the first sign of deep emotion
that had escaped him during those long weary hours of suffering and
suspense; and I law him stretch out his arms toward her with a wild
movement of unutterable love. Thank God, she neither saw nor heard!
Merrivale hastened to her, and with her mother led her out of the
court.

Jacob Mullins was then called by Serjeant Donaldson.

He said: "I am sixteen years of age, and have lived two years with Mr.
Davis, chemist in Vere street, as errand-boy. I take the medicines
home when made up, and make myself generally useful in the shop. I
never serve over the counter. I clean the pestles, mortars, and all
vessels used, but I never serve out medicines. I quite well remember
the evening of the 23d. I was sitting at the far end of the shop
behind the counter, polishing a brass mortar. I could see who came
into the shop, because where I sat was opposite the flap of the
counter, and I looked through each time any one came in. I wasn't very
busy that evening. I remember a tall gentleman coming in and asking
for some spirits of camphor. Master served him; Mr. Ball was in the
shop. I suppose it was about eight o'clock or thereabouts. I never
take much count of time, except when I have to hurry. He didn't buy
anything else. I am quite sure of it; I could swear it. I was
listening all the time. He was a very tall gentleman. I think it was
the prisoner at the bar; he was like him, but he had his hat on."

Baron Watson: "Let the prisoner put on a hat."

Witness: "Yes, that is the gentleman. I could swear it is the same."

Serjeant Donaldson: "What happened next?"

Witness: "A few minutes after the gentleman went out, a lady came in.
I did not see her face. She had on a thick veil. She asked for a grain
of strychnine. My master was out of the shop. Mr. Ball said to her,
'That's poison; I daren't give it you.' 'Oh,' says she, 'it's all
right. It's for my husband to try on a dog. He's a doctor.' 'A
doctor!' says Mr. Ball; 'where does he live?' {90}
'Just round the corner--Mr. Grainger, at the top of Vere street 'All
right,' says, Mr. Ball; and goes to the drawer where the poisons are
kept, and unlocks it, and I see him weigh it out and put it up.' 'How
much?' say a she; 'A shilling,' says he; 'and I shall come round
presently and see if it's all right.' 'Very well,' says she; 'come now
if you like.' 'No, by-and-by,' says Mr. Ball, 'when the master's
back.' On that she went out. I couldn't swear to her, nor to what she
wore. I never notices ladies' togs. She had a veil on--that's all I
know. I went home soon after nine that evening. Mr. Ball sleeps in the
house. The next day we heard that old Mr. Thorneley of Wimpole street
had been poisoned by strychnine; and then, that the poison had been
bought at our shop. Everybody was talking of it who came in. I went up
to Mr. Ball when we were alone in the shop at dinner-time, and says I,
'It's along of that strychnine that was bought last night here. I
guess, as the murder's been done.' 'Hold your confounded tongue.' says
he, 'or we shall get into a precious mess.' He jaws awful at me
sometimes, and I'm afraid of him; so I said no more and kept aloof
from him, for he looked terrible black all the afternoon. At five
o'clock the postman brought in a letter for Mr. Ball. He was in the
parlor having his tea. I called out there was a letter for him, and he
came into the shop. I saw him open the letter and take out a banknote.
'My eyes!' says I, 'you're in luck to-day, Mr. Ball.' He was reading
the letter. With that, he turned on me as fierce and red as a
turkey-cock. 'You young viper,' says he, 'if you go blabbing about my
affairs I'll get you discharged as sure as I am standing here!' I
thought he'd have killed me. Why haven't I told this before? Because
nobody's asked, and because I have been frightened of him. He's given
me money several times lately, and mother's been ill, and--" (Here the
witness broke down and began to cry.) It was no use the gentleman (the
Solicitor-General, who was  cross-questioning him) trying to bully
him. He'd told the truth; it was true as gospel. He'd take his oath
any day. He could and did swear to it all. Nobody had given him a
farthing except Mr. Ball. He'd only told this to a gentleman a few
days back who had spoken to him and then served a paper on him to
appear to-day. The gentleman had told him afterwards he was a
detective officer.

This was the pith of what Jacob Mullins deposed. In vain did the
Solicitor-General try to badger and browbeat him; he stuck like a
limpet to the same story. Confronted with James Ball, only the same
results produced. Serjeant Donaldson, at Merrivale's whispered
instigation, tried to bring out of them both a clearer identification
of the person who had bought the strychnine, but in vain. Only
Mullins, in reply to a query as to whether she spoke like a foreigner,
said he couldn't just exactly tell, but she seem to talk rather funny.
Confronted at the prisoner's request with Mrs. Haag, became confused,
and said he didn't think it was the lady; it might be and it mightn't;
was sure he never could point her out for certain. But although the
person who did buy the strychnine had not been identified, the fact
that Hugh Atherton did not buy it was satisfactorily proved, and that
was matter for the deepest thankfulness.

The two detective officers Keene and Jones were next examined. To what
is already known the following was added: Ten years ago a man of the
name of Bradley had been convicted at the Old Bailey of burglary at
Mr. Thorneley's house in the City, and sentenced to fourteen years'
penal servitude. Inspector Keene had been employed in the case, and
had been helped principally by anonymous letters, giving information
which had led to the detection of the burglar. Bradley on being
captured had hinted that he knew to whom he was indebted for {91} his
apprehension. Thinking to ferret out some accomplice, Inspector Keene
had shown him one of the anonymous communications received, and he had
immediately identified the handwriting as his wife's. He then confided
to Inspector Keene that she was a foreigner, a Belgian by birth; that
he had married her at Plymouth, and separated from her two years
after; that she was in domestic service--but where and in what
capacity he would not divulge. Either fear of or affection for her
seemed to be greatly influencing his mind. This same Bradley had made
his escape from the penal settlement in Australia during the spring of
the present year, and had been seen and recognized by Detective Jones
in a small public-house in Blue-Anchor Lane, known as one of the worst
haunts of bad characters in the metropolis. But unable with safety to
take him into custody on the night in question, the police had lost
sight of him since, up to the present time. Putting two and two
together, Inspector Keene had last week travelled down to Plymouth,
searched the parochial registers, found and obtained the certified
copy of marriage between Robert Bradley and Maria Haag which Serjeant
Donaldson had handed in to their lordships. Further, Detective Jones
stated, as a corroboration of what I had already related in my
evidence, that this Bradley, or O'Brian, as he now called himself, was
in close communication with a man of the name of De Vos, _alias_
Sullivan, who again was in communication with Mr. Lister Wilmot; this
same De Vos, or Sullivan, having formerly been in prison for
embezzlement, and was now under suspicion of uttering false coin. The
full relation of the conversation between De Vos and O'Brian on the
night of our visit to "Noah's Ark" was not without its effect upon
judges and jury.

Both the Chief-Justice and Baron Watson put repeated questions to
Jones; and the Solicitor-General quite surpassed himself in his
endeavors to browbeat both him and Inspector Keene. All to no purpose.
Nor could that learned gentleman in his final address, after the case
for the defence was closed, at that supreme moment which English law
gives to the prosecutor to the crushing of all hopes raised by the
evidence and appeal of the prisoner--not then could he remove the
impression made on all minds that a mystery hitherto unpenetrated lay
beneath the last evidence adduced.

The Lord Chief-Justice summed up. He said that, to convict a man of
murder by poison, evidence must be adduced to prove that the poison
was administered by the person accused; that the points of the case
before them were these: The murdered gentleman, Mr. Thorneley, had on
the evening of the 23d of October last received a visit from his two
nephews, Mr. Lister Wilmot, and Mr. Philip Hugh Atherton, the prisoner
at the bar; that a dispute had occurred between the three, relative to
advancing money by the deceased to Mr. Wilmot; that the brunt of Mr.
Thorneley's anger had fallen, strange to say, and from some unknown
cause, upon the prisoner; that the prisoner had retaliated, and used
words of threatening import, implying that the deceased would repent
on the morrow what he had said that night; that at nine o'clock the
housekeeper brought in the usual refreshment of which Mr. Thorneley
partook at that hour--bitter ale and hard biscuits. The prisoner at
the bar went to the table, poured out the ale into a glass, and handed
it to his uncle. Soon after the nephews, one after the other, took
leave of him and went away. Mr. Thorneley retired to rest that night
about ten o'clock, without having any further communication with his
household. In the morning he was found dead in his bed. On medical
evidence he is proved to have been poisoned by strychnine, and
strychnine is found in the few drops of bitter ale left in the tumbler
out of which the deceased had drunk on the {92} previous evening. In
the ale remaining in the bottle no strychnine is found. Now here
arises a question and a doubt. Was there, or was there not, any ale
poured out in the glass before it was brought up into Mr. Thorneley's
study? The prisoner in his statement before the magistrates, and
before the coroner, distinctly says there was; the housekeeper swears
there was not. Is the housekeeper's evidence to be relied on? Much had
been adduced that day which tended to show that at least it was
doubtful. The Chief-Justice commented at length upon the evidence of
the two detectives, and then said:

"The suspicions, however, of the police were directed to Mr. Hugh
Atherton; and the evidence had shown that he was met coming out of a
chemist's shop in Vere street on the evening of the murder, and before
visiting his uncle; that upon being taken into custody the next day,
an empty paper, labelled Strychnine, and bearing the name of Davis,
chemist, Vere street, was found in the pocket of the overcoat which he
had worn on his visit to Wimpole street. On the other hand, both James
Ball, the chemist's assistant, and Jacob Mullins, the errand-boy, had
sworn that the grain of strychnine entered as sold on the 23d was
purchased by a female on false pretenses. Both likewise swore that the
prisoner did not purchase any strychnine, but only the bottle of
camphorated spirits found on his table. Then, again, James Ball had
owned to receiving a letter containing hush-money, and a caution not
to identify the person who had bought the poison. How, then, did the
paper labelled 'strychnine' get into the prisoner's pocket? He
declares he knows nothing of it; and on that point there is no further
evidence. There was another mystery also which in his, the judge's,
mind bore very direct influence upon the case in question; and that
was the assertion of Mr. John Kavanagh that he had made and executed a
will for the deceased gentleman on the night of his death, leaving the
bulk of his property to a hitherto unknown and unrecognized son, which
son and heir had been found under peculiar and difficult
circumstances--a living confirmation of the truth of Mr. Kavanagh's
statement. The question of this will was not for the present jury to
consider; but simply they were to bear in mind the circumstances under
which it was made, the disclosures attendant, and, above all, the fact
that whereas this last will, conferring a handsome income on the
prisoner at the bar, remained a buried secret from everybody, the
prisoner included, save the lawyer who made it under solemn promise of
silence, the other will, bequeathing a mere nominal sum to the
prisoner, and cutting off with a shilling the rightful heir, namely,
Mr. Thorneley's son, was lodged with the deceased's family lawyers,
produced, read, and acted upon by them and the sole residuary legatee,
Mr. Wilmot. This was to be considered  vis-à-vis with the motive by
which the prisoner at the bar was implied to have been influenced to
the commission of the crime charged against him." The Chief-Justice
concluded, after many more comments, by saying that, although every
one must have been touched by the appearance and words of the first
witness heard in the defence, yet that, as far as evidence went, they
must not be allowed to weigh with any value. The one great question,
deduced from all that had gone before, which the jury had to consider
was, whether the prisoner at the bar had or had not purchased the
strychnine in question, had or had not introduced it into the glass of
bitter ale handed by him to the deceased, Mr. Thorneley. And he prayed
the God of light, and truth, and justice to enlighten their minds and
guide them to a right conclusion.

I have but faintly portrayed the clear, lucid manner in which that
able judge summed up the evidence, or the deep feeling expressed in
every tone of his voice. Cautious and prudent {93} to a degree as he
had been in his language, it yet gleamed out from time to time, like a
ray of sunshine, that in his own mind he considered Atherton _not_
guilty. The jury after five minutes' deliberation asked to retire.

Do you know what that suspense is,--that hanging on each minute which
might bring the issues of life or death? Can you thank what it was to
stand there for that hour and a quarter, seventy-five minutes,
forty-five hundred seconds, when every minute seemed an hour, and
every second a minute; with the dead silence reigning in the court,
broken only by casual sounds now and then, that were hushed almost
instantly, to so great a pitch had the interest and suspense of the
whole crowd collected there risen; your eyes fixed upon that fatal
door through which you knew the decision would be borne, with your
heart throbbing in dull, heavy thumps against your breast, and your
breath almost bushed and dying on your lips? So we stood that evening,
the dense November fog stealing into the court, and the gas-lamps
flaring garish and yellow in the thick atmosphere, waiting for the
verdict. Twice over was a message sent in from the jury-room to the
judges, demanding further explanation or elucidation on some point or
other. And still we waited. At last the door opened, and they filed
back one by one into their box, and took their seats in solemn
silence, and were instantly harangued by the clerk of the court, and
called upon to declare whether Philip Hugh Atherton was guilty or
innocent of wilful murder. Amidst a dead hush, a stillness that was
thrilling in its intensity, the foreman stood up and pronounced the
verdict, "NOT GUILTY." I saw the prisoner raise his hands for one
moment, and then his head drooped on his breast, and he leaned heavily
against the railing in front of him. I saw Merrivale rise hastily,
and, turning round, lay his hand upon Hugh's shoulder, and his counsel
eagerly stretching out their bands towards him in fervent
congratulation; and then was heard the Chief-Justice's voice
addressing the foreman of the jury:

"The peculiarities and complexity of the case make it needful that we
should ask upon what grounds you have given in your verdict."

Foreman: "We find the prisoner not guilty, my lord, on the ground that
it is proved he did not buy the strychnine, and that the evidence of
the housekeeper is unreliable evidence. But we think that until the
mystery of the murder is cleared up, suspicion must still attach
itself to Mr. Atherton."

The Chief-Justice to the prisoner: "It is usual to say whether we,
before whom a case has been tried, agree in the verdict of the jury.
Both myself and my brother Watson do most fully in this instance. We
agree that upon the evidence brought forward to-day you could not by
the criminal law be convicted; but we also agree in the remark made by
the foreman that a degree of suspicion and doubt will rest upon you so
long as the real perpetrator of this horrible crime is not
forthcoming. As having known you under happier circumstances, I
sincerely trust and pray for your sake that time may bring to light
this hidden deed of darkness."

The judges rose and left the court. Then arose from all parts a savage
yell of disappointment. Once before I told how thirsty the public were
for another sight of the hangman and his victim; and now to snatch
their prey from under their very eyes, with the stain of crime upon
him, with a shadow of the gallows hanging over him, was more than they
could bear. Amidst groans and hisses, amidst a deluge of the foulest
epithets, he passed out of the court--UNCONVICTED. Unconvicted, but
not unsuspected; uncondemned, but not unblemished. With the taint of
murder clinging to him, with his fair good name tarnished by the
withering breath of imputed crime, and his innocent life robbed of its
{94} noblest beauty in the eyes of his fellow-men, Philip Hugh
Atherton left that criminal court and became once more a free, and yet
a marked man beneath his native sky. His whole position opened out
clear before me in that one brief second which succeeded the closing
the trial--all its future suffering and sorrow. Oh! if he would but
now realize that at least one friend was true to him, that one heart
warmed to him with the same affection as ever, who would devote
himself to clearing away every cloud that dimmed his future! And
dashing away the blinding tears that would force themselves into my
eyes, I made my difficult way through the crowd and gained the outer
court. A carriage stood opposite the private door, and a double line
of policemen guarded a passage to it. I hurried forward. Hugh Atherton
and Lister Wilmot passed quickly out, the carriage-door shut, and they
drove off.

"Atherton and Wilmot!" I was saying the names aloud to myself, when I
heard a mocking laugh. Standing beside me, and looking up into my
face, was Mrs. Haag.

"Have you been drinking again, Mr. Kavanagh?" she said in her peculiar
hard tones, and was gone in a moment. But she left what she little
dreamed of leaving behind her--the indelible impression on my mind of
her strong resemblance to Lister Wilmot.



CHAPTER XI.

FOUND!

Yes, most undoubtedly, most undeniably, a strong likeness did exist
between Lister Wilmot, old Thorneley's nephew, and Maria Haag,
Thorneley's housekeeper,--a likeness that, as I walked home from the
Old Bailey and recalled the various points in their features and
expressions, grew yet more striking to my mental vision. The
housekeeper was fair, with sandy hair; so was Lister Wilmot. The
housekeeper's eyes were of  that peculiar blue-grey, cold, passionless
in their expression; so were Wilmot's. Mrs. Haag's features were cast
in a perfectly Flemish mould, unmarked, broad, flat; Wilmot's were
better defined, especially the nose, and yet they were of the same
stamp, allowing for that difference. But the peculiar resemblance lay
in a character of the tightly-drawn lips, in the dark, evil,
scintillating light that gleamed from time to time in both his and her
eyes; the expression so often alluded to in these pages, full of
danger, of defiance; a glance that sent your blood shivering back to
your heart; a look that told, as playing as words could speak, of
unscrupulousness and utter relentlessness in the pursuit of any
selfish purpose. And as this forced itself with distinct clearness
upon my mind, I remembered the question put to me in Merrivale's
office on the day of the funeral by Inspector Keene,--"Did you ever
see a likeness to any one in Mr. Wilmot?" and my answer, "No, not that
I know of. We have often said he was like none of his relative
living." But how to account for this likeness established so suddenly?
I tried to recollect all I had ever heard about Wilmot. Thorneley had
acknowledged and treated him in all respects as his nephew; he was
thus named in the will made by Smith and Walker, and Hugh Atherton had
told me Lister was the son of Gilbert Thorneley's, his own aunt; that
the marriage had been an unhappy one; that she died soon after her
son's birth; and that of Mr. Wilmot, his uncle-in-law, he knew
nothing. How had this strange and striking likeness arisen? Had he
been privately married to Mrs. Haag? Surely not; and then I remembered
what had come out in court to-day about her connection with Bradley,
alias O'Brian. Old Gilbert Thorneley certainly was no fool; he would
have been too wide awake to be tricked into a marriage with a woman of
whose antecedents {95} he had not made himself perfectly sure. The
conjecture of Haag being his wife was dismissed almost as soon as it
was entertained. Fairly at a nonplus, and yet feeling that much might
come out of this new conviction, I resolved to send for Inspector
Keene as soon as possible, and impart to him all the crowd of thoughts
and speculations and ideas to which the impression received this
evening had given birth. Meanwhile it is necessary I should relate
events as they happened after the trial.

Discharged and yet disgraced, Hugh Atherton left the court that day
with his future blasted, with a blot on his shield and a stain upon
his name. The jury could not convict him, but public opinion hooted
him down, and the press wrote him down. His character was not simply
"blown upon" by the insidious soft breath of undertoned scandal, but
caught up and shivered to pieces in a whirlwind of shame and ignominy.
Friends shunned him, acquaintances cut him; society in general tabooed
him, and "this taboo is social death." Society set its ban upon him;
but Lister Wilmot stuck to him. Stuck to him tight and fast--after
this manner: He went about from one person to another, from this house
to that, and talked of "his poor cousin Atherton, his unfortunate
relative, his much-injured friend." He would ask So-and-so to dinner,
and then when the invitation was accepted, he would add, "You won't
mind meeting my cousin, poor Atherton; he is very anxious to do away
with that unfortunate impression made at the trial; I do assure you
that he is innocent."

The consequences are evident. You may damn a man with faint praise;
you may doubly damn a man by overstrong patronage. And this was done
to perfection by Wilmot. He--a young, agreeable, and not bad-looking
man--was a far different person in the eyes of the world from rough
old Gilbert Thorneley; and when he stepped into the enormous wealth of
his uncle--when, in spite of the existence of the son and heir, no
will was forthcoming, no legal grounds could be found on which to
dispute his possession, the world made her best bow to him, and
society knelt at his feet, offered up her worship and swung her
censers before him. And I had to stand aside and see it all--stand
aside with the bitter smart of broken friendship, of rejected
affection, rankling in my breast. That fatal evening, oh that fatal
evening! One word, and he had turned with me, friends for evermore;
one word, and all the anguish and misery, the blight and the sorrow,
of the past weeks had been saved!

Hugh and I never met after his trial but once. It was on the 3d of
December, the day on which Ada Leslie attained her majority, that I
saw him for the last and only time. I went to Hyde Park Gardens early
in the morning, to offer her my congratulations for her birthday, to
relinquish my guardianship, and to settle many matters which were
necessary on her coming of age.

I need not say that it cost me something to give up the sweet
relationship of guardian and ward; that it was like bidding a farewell
to almost the only brightness that had been cast across my path in
life. There was much business to settle that day, and perforce I was
obliged to detain Ada for a long time in the dining-room. Just before
I rose to leave, Hugh came in. He greeted Ada, and then turning to me
simply bowed. My blood was up; now or never should he explain the
meaning of his past conduct; now or never should the cloud which had
intervened between us be cleared away; now or never should the
misunderstanding be removed.

"Atherton," I said, "I have a right to demand the cause of this change
in you; I have a right to know what or who it is that is murdering our
friendship. No, Ada, do not go away. Be my interpreter with him. _You_
know how much cause he has had to doubt me."

{96}

I saw his face working as if powerful emotions were contending for
mastery in him; but he answered in very cold, measured tones: "If I
have been mistaken, if the heavy load of trouble I have had to go
through has warped my judgment, I trust I may be forgiven; but I see
no reason at present to wish that our former intimacy should be
renewed."

"But why? in heaven's name, why?"

He looked towards Ada, who was standing near him, and then at me.

"If your own heart, Kavanagh, does not supply the reason, I have
nothing more to say." And then, as if a sudden impulse had come over
him, he stretched out his hand to me, and as I grasped it he said in a
voice that shook with agitation: "It is best for us both, John; we can
only forgive and forget."

"Hugh!" said Ada, laying her hand upon his arm, "do be friends with
him. I cannot imagine what has made you think so ill of your best and
truest friend."

But for reply he shook his head and quickly left the room. I took my
leave of Ada and went away. And thus we parted--Hugh and I, after more
than twenty years passed almost entirely together in the most intimate
communion of friendship--a friendship that I for one had never thought
could have been broken save by death, and which even then would have
risen strengthened, purified, and perfect beyond the grave.

Weeks passed on after this last meeting. I was very much occupied with
business that had been accumulating during the past three months, and
I was thankful to plunge into it, and drown in the overpress of work
bitter thoughts that rose but too constantly for my peace. I seldom if
ever went to Hyde Park Gardens. How could I after Hugh Atherton's
steady refusal of any explanation? for I knew I should constantly meet
him there, and it would prove only a source of pain to us all. Poor
young Thorneley remained under my care; Marrivale had then told by
Hugh he should not interfere in any way, excepting to make over the
5000_l_. left him by his uncle to the idiot. Further, I learnt that he
had withdrawn his name from the barrister's roll; but nothing more as
to his future movements transpired. The housekeeper had suddenly
disappeared, and with her had likewise disappeared Inspector Keene.
Jones told me he believe he had gone, on his own responsibility, "to
keep an eye on her." So December went by, Christmas had gone, and the
new year had set in. "I shall hear of their marriage soon," I thought
to myself. "Surely they will let me know _that_." And it was now the
end of January, when one day, as I was deep over some papers, the door
of my private office opened, and a young clerk who was replacing
Hardy, laid up with a fit of gout, looked in. "A lady, sir, wants to
see you."

"What is her name? I'm very busy. If it's nothing particular, ask her
to call to-morrow."

"She says it's most particular, and she won't give her name. She's
very young, and I think she's crying."

"Then show her in."

And in a moment Ada Leslie stood before me.

"Ada! my dear child, what is it?"

She was trembling violently.

"Gone!" she said in her heart-broken accents.

"Gone!" I repeated. "Who?"

"Hugh, Gone to Australia. Look here!" and she thrust a crumpled letter
into my hand. It was indeed a farewell from him--a farewell written
with all the passionate tenderness of his love for her, but admitting
not the shadow of a hope that he would falter in his determination. It
was more than he could bear, he said, the disgrace that had been
heaped upon him; more than he could stand, to meet the cold averted
looks, the sneers, the innuendos which fell so thickly on his path.
Nor would he condemn her to share his lot; the shame that had come
{97} on him should never be reflected on her. He bade her farewell
with many a vow and many a prayer. She had been his first love, she
would be his last; and to know she was happy would be all he would
ever care to hear from the land he was leaving, even if that happiness
were shared with another. Much more he said, and I read it on to the
end.

"How could he! Oh, how could he!" she cried, wringing her hands, when
I had finished and laid down the letter. "Did he not know my whole
heart and soul were bound up in him? Did he not know that he was my
very life? And he has gone from me, left me."

I could not answer for a minute. I was thinking deeply.

"Ads" I said at last, "this is not entirely his own doing. It is
Lister Wilmot's."

"No, no!" she said, moaning and rocking herself backwards and
forwards; "you are mistaken. He is in great distress about it. This
letter was inclosed to him last night; he knew nothing of it."

"Ada, I feel convinced that he did and that he does know. Child, let
me speak to you once more as your guardian and your dead fathers
friend. Take your mind back to that morning before the inquest, and to
a conversation which passed between us then. You remember that Wilmot
had been at your house before me, and repeated something which poor
old Thorneley said the evening of his death--something about you and
me. You called it then, Ada, 'worse than foolishness;' so I will call
it now. Do you remember?'

"I do," she said faintly, the color rising to her cheeks.

"That has been dragged out several times since, privately and
publicly--always by Wilmot himself or at his instigation. Has Hugh
never spoken about it with you?"

"Yes," she answered in the same low tones. "He spoke of it once, very
lately. I was trying to persuade him to be friends with you. It was
the only time he ever said an unkind word to me; but he was angry
then." A sob broke from her at the remembrance.

"I don't wish to distress you; but just think if those thoughts and
feelings were put into his mind and harped upon, traded with by one
professing himself to be so staunch a friend just now,--can we wonder
at the results?"

She looked at me as if she hardly understood.

"I mean," I said, speaking as calmly as I could, "that he was led to
believe it true. He thought I was attached to you, and desirous of
winning you from him."

She was silent for some moments.

"What am I to do?" she said at last.

And I too was silent. One thing presented itself to my mind, if only I
had the heart to speak it out, if only the courage. Suddenly she
looked up with a happy light in her eyes and almost a smile on her
lips. She leaned forward with breathless earnestness. I felt
instinctively she had thought on the same thing, and that she had
resolved to act upon it.

"I can go after him. That is the right thing for me to do, is it not,
guardian?"

For a moment my heart stood still. I knew she would go.

"Can you bear the voyage, Ada?"

"I could bear anything,--all for his sake."

And I felt that her answer was but a faint shadowing of the great
truth that filled her heart.

"Then go," I said; "and may God's blessing go with you!"

I rose, turned my face towards the window, and looked out into the
desolate square with its leafless trees, its snow-covered walks;
looked out into the dull blank future, into the cheerlessness of
coming years.

There and then it was settled she should follow Atherton to Australia
by the overland route, and thus reach Melbourne before his ship could
arrive. I asked her if she would not find great difficulty in
persuading her mother to {98} accompany her, and without whom she
could not go; but she told me she thought not; Mrs. Leslie would
rather enjoy the excitement of travelling. We talked long and
earnestly that morning, and I expressed to her my strong convictions
that the day would come before long when we should see Atherton
cleared from the remotest suspicion of his uncle's murder. All the
sweet old confidence of former days seemed to have come back, and she
opened her heart fully and freely to me. I learnt from her very much
of Wilmot's late conduct, of which I mentally made notes; it was all,
though she little thought it then, valuable information to guide me on
to the one thing I had set my heart on doing, viz., sifting the
mystery of Thorneley's murder and the discovery of the lost will.
Before she left me I had exacted a promise that of her intended
journey nothing should be said to Wilmot; and finally we fixed on the
4th of February for her to start.

The days flew by with more than usual fleetness, so it seemed to me;
and the 1st of February found Ada and her mother with every
preparation completed for their long journey. Up to that moment the
promise made to me had been rigidly kept, and Lister Wilmot was still
in ignorance of their intended movements. His absence from town for a
fortnight rendered this a comparatively easy task, and he was not
expected to return until after the 6th. On the evening of the 1st I
received a note from Miss Leslie.

"I have been greatly taken by surprise and much distressed," she
wrote; "this morning's post brought me an offer of marriage from
Lister Wilmot. He speaks of Hugh's heartless desertion and his own
_long_ attachment. Either he is mad or deliberately insults me. I
entreat you to act as if you still were, and what I shall always
consider you, my guardian, and answer it for me. A horrible fear of
him possesses me, and all I pray is that he may know nothing of this
journey until we are well on our road."

"This then," said I to myself, as I sat down to do Ada's bidding, "is
the reason why Hugh was got  so suddenly and secretly. The secret is
out at last, Master Wilmot; but you have overshot your mark. This time
you have not a trusting friend, not a confiding girl, to deal with;
but with me, a man of law; and I'll be even with you yet. I've a heavy
grudge to wipe out against you, and you shall smart with a bitter
smart."

But before all it was necessary to be prudent, and I answered his
letter to Ada with temperate words and calm politeness in her name.
_At present_, I wrote, she had commissioned me to say she could not
entertain the subject of his letter. In a month's time she would be
glad to see him. Only let him fall into that trap, and she would be
safely on her road to Hugh.

How anxiously I waited for a reply, I need hardly say. It came at last
to Ada (I had told her what and why I had thus written). He would wait
a month, a year, ten years, if only at last she could learn to love
him. The bait had taken; and we breathed again.

The 4th of February came, and they started. I had engaged an
experienced and trusty courier to travel with them, and they took an
old confidential servant to act as maid. I accompanied them to Dover,
and saw them on board the packet. Before it started Ada took me aside.

"John."

For the first time and the last she called me by my Christian name.

"Yes, Ada."

"Will you keep this for my sake, in case we never meet again? and
remember, oh remember, that I shall always cherish you as the dearest
friend I ever had!"

She took my hand and slipped on my finger a twisted circlet of gold,
in which one single stone was set, engraven with the word "Semper." It
lies there now, it will lie there when I am in my grave.

"I will keep it for ever and ever, Ada."

{99}

One kiss I took from her uplifted tearful face--that too the first and
last; and praying God to bless and guard her, left her. Until far out
at sea, till the last faint speck of the departing vessel had
disappeared beyond the horizon, till daylight had verged into the grey
of approaching night, and shore and sea and sky were all blended in
the thickening gloom, I watched from the desolate pier-head, with the
winter wind whistling around me, and the dashing spray, the roaring
waves, beneath. O Ada, fare you well! I have looked for the last time
on your fair loved face, for the last time gazed into your tender
eyes, for the last time pressed your kindly hand! Is it "worse than
foolishness" now to kiss this little ring, and hold it to my heart to
still the dull pain there? See now, as I write these lines my eyes
grow dim looking back to the hour when I turned away from that distant
view. Not on earth, Ada, shall we meet again, but in the better land,
"the land beyond the sea."

. . . . .

Two months had passed away since they had all gone,--Hugh, Mrs.
Leslie, Ada. By this time they had reached that distant land for which
they were bound; and I sat one evening in April by my solitary hearth,
with my books and pipe by my side, and little Dandie, Hugh's dog,
lying at my feet. I had begged hard of Ada to leave him with me. Both
my clerks had long since gone home, and office hours were past, when a
sharp double knock came at the outer door. I went and opened it. A man
rushed in, took the door forcibly from me, closed it, and then seizing
my hand wrung it till my arm ached. It was Inspector Keene.

"_Found it!_" he cried, flourishing his hat in the air. "Hurrah! found
it."

I thought he had been drinking; and lugging hold of him by the collar
of his coat, I drew him into my room, and sat him down in a chair.

"What the deuce is all this about? What have you found? Can't you
speak?" I cried, giving him a shake; for he had only flourished his
hat again in reply to my first question, and cried "Hurrah!"

"Excuse me, Mr. Kavanagh, but I'm beside myself to-night."

"So it seems," I answered drily. "What have you been drinking for?"

He was sobered in a moment.

"I've touched nothing but a cup of coffee since this morning, sir."

"Then what is the matter with you? What have you found?"

"Mr. Kavanagh, I've found the _will!_"

"Nonsense! Where?"

"In the house in Wimpole street. Do you recognize this, sir?" he said,
drawing a document from his breast-pocket, crumpled and dirtied.

"Merciful heavens! it is the will I drew up!"

"You could swear to it, sir?"

"Yes, ten thousand times yes!" I had it unfolded and laid before me.
There was the firm, bold signature of old Gilbert Thorneley; and below
the crooked, ill-formed writing of John Barker, footman, and Thomas
Spriggs, coachman. In the corner the date, and my own name which I had
signed.

"In the name of heaven, where and how did you find this, Keene?"

"In the housekeeper's bedroom in Wimpole street, concealed under a
loose plank in the floor. You know, sir, I have had my thoughts and
suspicions for long; I have watched and waited. To-day my time came.
The house is being done up. The plumber who has the doing of it is a
friend of mine. One workman more or less made no difference: I have
done odder things before than use the white-washing brush. I have been
in that house for the last three days, and to-day I whitewashed the
ceiling in Mrs. Haag's bedroom."

"I understand. And searched it besides?"

{100}

"Just so, sir. She had done it cleverly; but I'm her match in cunning.
I found the plank that had been disturbed, and I found the will under
it and here I am."

A text came to my mind,--"Be sure your sin will find you out;" and I
repeated it half aloud.

The inspector heard me. "Yes, sir, yes," he said gravely. "And there's
another and a worse crime than stealing her master's will that I'm
fearful she's guilty of."

"You mean the murder?"

"I do."



TO BE CONCLUDED IN OUR NEXT.

------

ORIGINAL.

MY SOLDIER.

  "Dear heart," he said, "I love you so,
    I dare not offer you my love
  Till passion purified in woe
    Shall worthier offering haply prove.

  "Then let us part. Mere absence is
    To love like mine enough of pain,
  As presence is enough of bliss;
    So welcome loss that leads to gain.

  "Yes, let us part. The bugles call,
    For God and you I draw the sword:
  Your tears will bless me if I fall,
    And if I live your kiss reward."

  He said, and parted. Long I staid
    To watch while tears would let me see,
  And longer, when he vanished, prayed
    That God might bring him back to me.

  Ah me! it was a selfish prayer
    To rob him of the nobler part;
  And God hath judged more wisely. Bear
    His judgment humbly, bleeding heart!

  Alas! I know not if I sin;
    In vain I wrestle with my woe.
  In vain I strive from grief to win
    That loftier love he sought to know.

  Mine is a woman's love alone--
    A woman's heart that wildly cries,
  "Oh! give me--give me back my own,
    Or lay me where my soldier lies!"


D. A. C.

------

{101}

ORIGINAL.


DIVORCE LEGISLATION IN CONNECTICUT.  [Footnote 22]

  [Footnote 22: Divorce legislation in Connecticut. By Rev. H. Loomis,
  Jr., North Manchester, Conn. article in the new England, for July,
  1865.]


The deadly and destructive epidemic of divorce legislation has crept
through our social system with such stealthy and noiseless advances,
and the Catholic community is so completely free from its contagion,
that we were startled at the facts displayed in the able article which
has suggested our present comments. Connecticut, it appears, stands
pre-eminent among the states for the facility and frequency of
divorce. Mr. Loomis says "that the name of Connecticut has become a
name of reproach among her sister states, with a shameful notoriety
surpassed by only one state in the Union." Nevertheless, many, if not
most of the other states, are entitled to a fair share in the same
reproach, having admitted the same false and ruinous principle into
their legislation. We confine our remarks therefore to Connecticut,
merely because it is a sample of the state of things generally
existing, and because we are furnished with the authentic statements
which are our necessary data by the principal periodical published in
that state.

These statements are, briefly, that divorces are granted by the
Superior Courts, under the statutes of the Legislature, _a vinculo
matrimonii_, leaving both parties free to marry again, for the
following causes: 1. Adultery; 2. Desertion; 3. Habitual Intemperance;
4. Intolerable Cruelty; 5. Imprisonment for Life; 6. Infamous Crime;
7. "_Any such misconduct as permanently destroys the happiness of the
petitioner and defeats the purposes of the marriage relation._"
Moreover, that within the last fifteen years 4,000 divorces have been
granted, of one for every twenty families. To this we add the further
statement that, more than one-fifth of the population being Catholics,
who never ask for these divorces, the proportion is increased to one
married couple out of every sixteen Protestant families.

These are the demonstrated facts in the case. And, in addition, we
have the testimony of Mr. Loomis, published with the sanction of the
editor of the New Englander, that the courts despatch these divorce
cases with the most shameful levity and haste, in many cases without
any due notice having been given to the respondent, and without any
close examination of witnesses.

Mr. Loomis says:

  "It need hardly be matter of surprise, in these circumstances, if a
  citizen of the state of Connecticut, entitled to the protection of
  the law in his most sacred rights, should chance to return from a
  temporary absence on business in another state, and find that in the
  meanwhile he had been robbed of wife and children, and of all which,
  for him, constituted home, on evidence which would not be sufficient
  before any jury in the state to take from a man property to the
  amount of five dollars, or even the possession of a pig; and to
  find, moreover, that both wife and children have, by the authority
  of law, been placed beyond his own control, perhaps in the hands of
  one who has conspired and paid for his ruin. The case supposed is
  not wholly imaginary. There is no reason, so far as the
  administration of the law is concerned, why it should not be
  frequent! In many cases the absence of the respondent is assured by
  pecuniary inducements, and in a yet larger number it must be
  confessed there is no opposition, because there is a common desire
  to be free from a burdensome restraint.

"It is doubtless true that, in the main, our courts have held
themselves bound at least by the letter of the law, though their
decisions are often hurried and based upon {102} wholly unsifted
evidence. And yet lax as are even the terms of the present law, it is
difficult to conceive how some of the decrees of divorce which have
been granted during the past five years can be brought within the
language of the so-called 'omnibus clause.' What shall we say of such
cases as these, for instance, in which, in the western part of the
state, a man and woman came into court with the confession that they
had entered into the bonds of matrimony at the mature age of
threescore and ten, but that now, after three weeks' experience,
having become convinced of their folly, they desired relief from the
court; or in which, after having failed to prove legal desertion, the
counsel simply stated his ability to prove that the husband, from whom
divorce was sought had called his wife by an opprobrious epithet, too
vile and vulgar to be repeated; or in which the soul plea made was
that the parties themselves had agreed through their counsel that a
divorce should be had. And yet in each one of these cases, we are
credibly informed, a decree of divorce was actually granted. Would not
all this tend to show that the administration of no long can be wholly
trusted to a court which is private in its proceedings, unwatched in
its purity, unguarded in its power, with no barriers against abuse,
and in which suits are practically contested only when property or
reputation are sufficiently at stake to induce, in one case in eleven,
a defence?"

Comment on our part seems hardly necessary. This page in the history
of one state which has its counterparts in those of many others, is
too black to need or admit of any deepening tints. As Mr. Loomis well
remarks, such a complete subversion of the essential nature of the
marriage contract by legislation endangers the very institution of
marriage itself, and tends to reduce it to legalized concubinage. An
ostensible marriage contract, in which both or one of the parties
intends to contract for a union which may be dissolved whenever there
is ground for complaint or dissatisfaction, is not a marriage. So far,
therefore, as the idea on which this infamous legislation is based
becomes common, so as to underlie the matrimonial contracts which are
entered into, those contracts are invalidated, and the institution of
Christian marriage is abrogated. This is sapping the foundations not
only of the Christian moral law, but of our civil institutions and
social organization. The extent to which this cancer has already
spread reveals a moral condition truly alarming. It indicates much
more than the discontent of certain married persons with each other,
which is only a symptom of moral depravation lying deeper and more
widely spread in the community.

We are glad to see that some influential clergymen and laymen in
Connecticut are endeavoring to stem and turn back this tide of moral
evil, and to effect a reform in the divorce laws. What have they been
thinking of during these past years, while this destructive work has
been going on? Why have they not preached against these infamous laws,
written against them, agitated against them--in a word, shown the zeal
and energy in a matter which concerns so nearly the public and private
well-being, the very existence of the community in which they live,
which they have displayed concerning the reformation and improvement
of mankind at large? It is useless to ask the question now, for the
mischief is done. The only thing they can do in reparation for their
supine neglect, is to work and agitate now for a correction of public
sentiment which will produce a reformation in public law. They will
have all the influence of the Catholic clergy on their side, and the
support of the whole mass of Catholic voters in any political measure
which may be necessary for restoring a sounder system of legislation.

The Catholic law, which denies all power to any tribunal, secular or
ecclesiastical, to grant a divorce _a vinculo matrimonii_ for any
cause whatever, in the case of marriages validly contracted and
consummated according to the institution of Christ, is manifestly the
most perfect protection possible to the inviolability of marriage.
Those who reject the authority of the church have no certain and
indubitable basis on which to rest the doctrine that marriage is
indissoluble. The author of the article we are noticing does not deny
the right of the civil power to {103} dissolve the bond of matrimony
in certain cases of grievous criminality. The civil power is
consequently the judge of both the law and the fact, and the clergy
cannot pretend to exercise any judgment whatever. They are left,
therefore, to exert what influence they can on public sentiment, in
view of the demoralizing and destructive effects of divorces upon
society. If there is enough left of sound moral sentiment in the
community to compel legislators to restrict the concession of divorces
within the ancient limits, a great good can be effected in checking
this gigantic evil. This is all that the Protestant clergy can
accomplish, and their only means of doing it. They cannot impose their
interpretation of Scripture or their ecclesiastical laws upon the
state. Nor can we expect legislatures or judicial courts to take the
New Testament as their code of laws, to interpret its meaning, or
embody its principles in statutes and decisions. On Protestant
principles, the doctrines of Christianity can be applied to
legislation only as they are absorbed by public opinion, which sways
the minds of those who make and execute the laws. Therefore there is
no remedy in this case except the one we have indicated, namely, to
form a public opinion on the deleterious effects of the divorce laws
upon society, and, as far as this motive is still available, their
contrariety to the spirit of Christianity. If a word of advice from a
Catholic source can be received, we counsel the Protestant clergy of
Connecticut to lose no time before putting all their energies at work
to save their state from the moral desolation which threatens it; and
the respectable lawyers to do something to wipe out the stigma which
attaches to their profession on account of these infamous divorce
laws.

------

From St. James' Magazine.

A SUMMER SORROW.


  She began to droop when the chestnut buds
    Shone like lamps on the pale blue sky;
 She faded while cowslip and hawthorn blew,
   And the blythe month, May, went by.

  I carried her into the sun-bright fields,
    Where the children were making hay;
  And she watch'd their sport as an angel might--
    Then I knew she must pass away.

  With the first white roses I decked her room,
    I laid them upon her bed;
  Alas! while roses still keep their bloom,
    My own sweet flower lies dead!

  I felt that the parting hour was near.
    When I heard her whisper low--
  "Take me once more, my father dear,
    To see my roses grow.

{104}

  "Take me once more to the sunny pool
    Where the dear white lilies sail,
  And below their leaves, through the crystal depth,
    The buds lurk mildly pale.

  "Take me once more to the waterfall,
    That seems blithe as a child at play;
  Where the ivy creeps on the mossy wall,
    And the fern-leaves kiss the spray."

  So I bore her along through the summer air,
    And she looked with a dreamy eye
  At the brook, the pool, and the lilies fair.
    And she bade them all good bye.

  Next day my darling's voice was gone;
    But her yearning spirit-eyes
  Told how she longed for a nameless boon,
    And love made my guessing wise,

  Again I bore her beneath the trees,
    Where their soil green shadows lay;
  But a darker shadow stole o'er my child,
    And at sunset she passed away!


--------

From The Irish Industrial Magazine.

THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF BOOKS.


The manufacture of books has grown from obscure and insignificant
beginnings, in a commercial point of view, to what it has become in
our day--an industrial resource of great importance--and as such
inviting our attention to see and examine its growth. The importance
of literature, as the great agent for educating the intellect for good
or for evil, is obvious to the most unreflecting; but it is not so
generally thought of, in the subordinate or trade aspect, as giving
employment to many hands and heads, that might not easily have found
the means of subsistence elsewhere.

Let us begin the study with the brain that lays the eggs--golden or
leaden, addled or prolific, as the case may be; thence to the
publisher, whose province it is to bring them out; onward to the press
in all its departments, that feathers the offspring for flight; pass
out thence into the paper mill; and end with the poor rag-collector of
delicate scraps, for "wearisome sonneteers" and well-woven and worn
reviews. When you have ranked your items, and summed them, the total
will be found something few imagine. Then we may search a little
closer; and, as we pass through the busy department, it may strike us
that this peculiar work requires a peculiar class, that might not have
been by constitution of mind or body so well fitted for other
employments as they are just suited to this. First the author: if we
praise his head, he will not be offended if we say little of his hand;
indeed, his handwriting is not always of the best. The publisher might
{105} succeed in cheese and pickles; but for the _publishing trade_ a
corresponding intelligence is required, he must be a man of tact and
discernment in intellectual tastes and demands; then compositors,
readers, _et hoc genus omne_, should be men of mind; and the neat and
dexterous female can find work for her hands to do,--type-setting,
stitching, etc. And thus, while they are ministering to the spread of
civilization, civilization repays them by finding a place for them,
where they may gain support and comfort in this working world.

Books, like the air which surrounds us, are everywhere, from the
palace to the humblest cottage; wherever civilization exists, and
people assemble, books are to be seen. But, though all know what books
are, all do not know their origin and development, and by what process
they have arrived at their present perfection. We therefore venture to
present a sketch of their beginning and advancement, and the means by
which they have become such a powerful agency to forward thought and
accumulate stores of knowledge ever increasing.

Without affectation of any erudite speculative knowledge respecting
the origin and progress of language from the first articulate sounds
of the human voice to words, symbolic signs, hieroglyphic characters,
letters, alphabets, inscriptions, writings, and diversities of
tongues, we shall in business-like manner commence with the elementary
raw materials of writing and book-making in the order of their use.
Stone, wood, metal, in which letters were cut with a Sharp instrument,
were the earliest materials. The art of forming letters on lead was
known when the Book of Job was written, as appears from the memorable
sentence "Oh, that my words were now written that they were printed in
a book, that they were graven with a pen and lead in the rocks for
ever!" Sheets of lead were used to grave upon; and inscriptions cut in
rocks or smooth stones in Arabia, where Lot is supposed to have lived,
have been discovered. But even more primitive materials were the barks
and leaves  [Footnote 23] of trees prepared for the purpose.
Shepherds, it is said, wrote their simple songs by means of an awl, or
some similar instrument, on straps of leather twisted round their
crooks. Even in the days of Mahomet, shoulder-blades of mutton,
according to Gibbon's account, were used by the disciples of Mahomet
for recording his supposed inspirations. The introduction of _papyrus_
from Egypt into Greece produced great results, in increasing the
diffusion of writings, and making books known by many for the first
time. Previously, the Greeks had used the materials which we have
enumerated. Vellum was brought into use about two centuries later; but
not commonly, on account of its brittleness. Its introduction is
attributable to a curious incident, remarkably illustrative of the
fact that the protectionist system was acted upon at a remote age,
when political economy was not understood, and the good effects of
free trade were unappreciated. Ptolemy Philadelphus (B.C. 246, to whom
the Septuagint version of the Hebrew Testament is due) had prohibited
the exportation of papyrus from Egypt, to prevent Eumenes, king of
Pergnmos, from obtaining that material, in hopes of preventing him
from multiplying MSS.; for Eumenes like Ptolemy, was a patron of
learning, and formed libraries. This unworthy jealousy on the part of
Ptolemy was deservedly defeated by Eumenes, who ascertained that
parchment would be a good substitute for papyrus. This far less
abundant material was, however, used before; but Eumenes so improved
the process of its preparation, that he may be almost termed the
inventor of parchment. Vellum--the prepared skin of a calf--probably
was brought into use at the same time; the deep yellow which both
materials had was subsequently removed by some process {106} adopted
at Rome, which made it white. The introduction of parchment led to the
present form of books and it became the general material for writing
upon not long afterward, though vellum was employed in all state deeds
until the eighth century.

  [Footnote 23: The terms library and folio are derived from _liber_,
  the _inner bark_; and _folium_, a leaf.]

Cotton paper was introduced into Europe from China about the ninth
century, and superseded parchment. Documents in cotton, of that
period, including diplomas of Italian princes, have been preserved in
foreign museums.

The first manufactory of cotton paper was established in Spain in the
twelfth century, also almost contemporaneously in France and Germany;
but, its durability being questioned, all state and official documents
for preservation were written, or at least engrossed, on parchment or
vellum. Paper made from linen rags is supposed to have originated in
Spain, and to have been introduced into England in the fourteenth
century. It has been considered a pre-eminently good material, with
which none of the various substances used from the earliest times to
the present can victoriously compete.

Dr. Fuller, a noted and quaint writer of the seventeenth century,
affected to detect national characteristics from the qualities of the
paper produced in the respective countries; e.g., Venetian paper he
compared to a courtier of Venice--elegant in style, light, and
delicate. French paper corresponds with the light-heartedness and
delicacy of the Frenchman. Dutch paper, thick and coarse, sucking up
ink like a sponge, is in this respect, he says, a perfect image of the
Dutch race, which tries to absorb everything it touches. Durability
distinguished English paper, a quality essentially English.

In 1749 the Irish Parliment granted a sum of money to a Mr. Jay,  for
having introduced the first paper factory into Ireland, which probably
had the distinction of anticipating England in this respect. Be this
as it may, the first eminent establishment of the kind was not in
operation in England until 1770, when a paper-mill was erected at
Maidstone, by John Whatman, who had acquired much knowledge in the art
by working at Continental factories.

In the British Museum is a book, dated 1772, which contains more than
sixty specimens of paper, made of different substances. The paper
called foolscap, so common in our use, derives its appellation from
the historical circumstances following: When Charles I. of England
found difficulties in raising revenue, he granted monopolies, among
which was one for making paper, the water-mark of which was the royal
arms. When Cromwell succeeded to power, he substituted, with cruel
mockery, a fool's cap and bells for the royal arms. Though this mark
was removed at the Restoration, all paper of the size of the
"Parliamentary Journal" still bears the name of foolscap.

When books first appeared is quite uncertain; for, though the Books of
Moses and the Book of Job are the most ancient of existing books, it
seems from a reference Moses has made to them that there were earlier
ones. Among profane writers Homer is the most ancient; he lived at the
period when King Solomon reigned so gloriously. Four hundred years
afterward the scattered leaves of Homer were collected and reduced to
the order in which we have them; and two hundred years still later
they were revised and accented, so as to have become perfect models of
the purest Greek--the noblest language in the world. And, Greek words
being so remarkably expressive of the meaning of the things or ideas
which they are used to signify, they are now used in arts and sciences
as descriptive of the subjects or things referred to; and very often
in a ludicrously pedantic manner, especially among inventors of patent
medicines and mechanical instruments. But it is not within the range
of our subjects, or knowledge {107} even, to touch upon languages and
literature, authorship and authors, and the gradual development and
progress of literary composition, but simply the subject of books, as
before intimated, as they have been presented to us, in their
material development from age to age.

In a number of the Cornhill Magazine there has appeared an article,
"Publishers before the Art of Printing," which presents a very
interesting account of bookmaking in Italy during the Augustan age.
The brothers Sosii, celebrated by Horace, issued vast  supplies of
manuscript books; fashionable literature was eagerly bought from Roman
booksellers; and, to supply the demand for them, slaves were educated
in great numbers to read aloud to indolent ladies and gentlemen as
they reclined on couches. The copying of MSS. was done principally by
slave scriveners, of whom a great staff was maintained, and, by their
penmanship, books and newspapers could be multiplied quickly. From the
dictation of one reader to several writers a large edition,
comparatively with the number of the reading public, could be soon
produced; in some private families readers and transcribers were
employed in this way. The demand for school-books was also great. As
slave labor was very cheap, bookmaking was then correspondingly
inexpensive, yet authors of high reputation were well paid by
publishers. They received much larger sums than were given long after
the invention of printing. Martial received for his epigrams a vast
remuneration--Milton, for his Paradise Lost, only 24_l_.

The number of what may be called books published by the fathers of the
church in the first centuries of the Christian era was great. Origen
wrote 6,000; many of these were more properly tracts; but his polyglot
version of the Bible (most of which has perished), and his great work
against Celsus, were laborious works indeed. Of the writings of the
fathers generally (apart from the Evangelists) but few have descended
to us. The Koran (partly compiled from the Bible) was composed by the
imposter Mahomet, in the seventh century. At that epoch there were few
books even in Europe, the most enlightened portion of our world, and
this literary darkness prevailed three hundred years longer.

A curious episode in the history of early bookmaking occurred in the
sixth century, Cornelius Agrippa has related, in his Vanity of
Science, that a contrivance had been invented, by which the several
parts of speech in any language could be combined by a system of
circles worked in an ingenious manner. The component parts--nouns,
verbs, etc.--come together so as to form complete sentences--a very
convenient contrivance for writers who are deficient in what we
consider essentials--intellect, learning, and invention. Sir Walter
Scott, in his Life of Swift, says that the dean was indebted for his
entertaining and witty satire on pretending philosophers, as displayed
in his Flying Island of Laputa, to the above historical fact. The
machine of the Professor of Lagado, in Gulliver's Travels, for
imparting knowledge and composing books on all subjects without
assistance from genius or knowledge, was designed to ridicule the art
invented by Raymond Tully, the individual referred to by Cornelius
Agrippa. Various improvements on this mechanical mode of composition
were tried, but of course with utter failure.

During long periods of barbarism, entire libraries of rolls and books
were destroyed by ruthless and ignorant soldiery, as in Caesar's time,
when the library of 700,000 volumes which had been amassed by Ptolemy
was burnt by Caesar's troops. The great library collected at
Constantinople by Constantine and his successors was burnt in the
eighth century.

{108}

The number of books written and collected by King Alfred was
extensive, when we take into account the extent of ignorance that
prevailed in England during the ninth century--an amount which may be
estimated from the fact that there was much difficulty in providing a
tutor competent to instruct the royal youth when twelve years old. Yet
he, like his celebrated contemporary, Charlemagne, became eminent for
encouraging literature, and for his high repute in erudition and
book-writing, when Anglo-Saxon literature was despicably low. The
extreme paucity of books in England in the eleventh century may be
inferred from a mandate of Archbishop Lanfranc to librarians of
English monasteries, ordering them to deliver one book at the
commencement of Lent to the monks in turn, and that any monk who
neglected to read it should perform penance. Anciently every great
church and monastery had its little library; and, as education was
almost entirely limited to ecclesiastics during the middle ages, few
books and transcribers were required.

The survey of the lands of England him Doomsday Book, in two volumes,
was commenced by command of William the Conqueror, in the year 1080,
and completed in six years. The book obtained its name either from a
room in the Royal Treasury called _Domus Dei_, in Winchester, or from
Saxon words signifying doom or judgment, no appeal from its record
being permitted. The first volume is a folio, the second a quarto, and
both are written in abbreviated Latin; the writing being on vellum,
strongly bound, studded, and inclosed in a leather cover. A copy of
_Magna Charta_, the great charter of British liberty, granted and
confirmed by preceding monarchs, but re-enacted after a struggle
between the Barons and that wicked man, King John, in the thirteenth
century, is preserved in Lincoln Cathedral. There were twenty-five
original sealed copies of it written on vellum; one copy was sent to
each English diocese, and to a few special places besides. About
twenty-five barons were present when this important document was drawn
up, none of room signed it; it was only attested by the Great Seal of
England. His majesty could not write; and it may be assumed that his
twenty-five nobles were equally illiterate. If any of them were
penmen, it was very courtier-like on their part to decline doing what
their king was incompetent to do.

Whether Italian or Irish manuscripts were the earliest in which
ornamental letters were employed, is an undecided question. The finest
specimen of the illuminated is the Book of Kells, of the fifth or
sixth century. This beautiful antique is preserved in the library of
the King's College, and is thought to surpass in minuteness of finish
and splendor of decoration the famous Durham Book, or Gospels of
Lindisfarne, which, though probably executed in the north of England,
is classed among Anglo-Hibernian books, because Irish literature was
more advanced than English in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries.
If this beautiful art of illuminating originated in the East, it
reached its perfection in the west of Europe. In the British Museum
there is a copy of the Gospels executed at Aix-la-Chapelle in the
eighth century, known as the Golden Gospels, the entire text being in
gold, on white vellum.

We are now to touch upon the variety and forms of books or booklings
--if we may invent a name--after the art of printing was discovered,
about the middle of the fifteenth century--a subject too familiar to
occupy any space here for details as to invention or progress.

Chaucer expressed in rhyme the inconvenience of being obliged to
correct every copy of his works after the scrivener's hands; he did
not anticipate the invention of types in a century afterwards, and the
employment of readers or correctors of the press.

{109}

Almanacs shall have the precedents, not so much from their high rank
in literary importance, but from their antiquity and pioneer character
in the march of uninspired literature. The Arabians, who studied
astronomy and astrology, noted the signs of the seasons, and regulated
their field occupations by the direction of their almanac makers, who
were their wise men; they would neither sow nor reap, nor trim their
beards and nails, without consulting their almanacs; they introduced
their rules of practice into Europe. A German named Müller constructed
an almanac in its present form, suited to general writers. An English
writer who called himself Poor Robin, published long ago an almanac
remarkable for coarseness and eccentricity. The following are
specimens of his style (they recently appeared in a public journal);
we present but a few:

  "Julius Caesar did the Britons came;
  Conquering will you him into England came;
  Brave Montrose was basely murdered;
  The Rev. Dr. Stewart lost his head;
  The plague raged very sore at London;
  London burnt, whereby many were undone;
  The crown on Anna's head was placed;
  She expired, and George's head it graced."

So much for historical records. There a calendar among his monthly
observations:

  "January--The gardens now doing healed no posies,
    And men in cloaks muffle their noses."

  "March--A toast we plunged in March beer,
     Being sugared well, and drunk up clear,
     Revives the spirit, the heart doth cheer;
    And, had for three pence, is not dear."

This old Robin shamefully pecks at the fair sex. In his notes on April
he says:

  "Then let young people have a care,
  Nor run their heads in marriage snare;
  A woman's tongue is like the ocean.
  It ebbs and flows in constant motion;
  But yet herein a difference grows--
  Her tongue ne'er ebbs, but always flows."

No booklings have multiplied more almanacs: we have now clerical,
medical, naval, military, aye, horticultural, down to children's
almanacs; and amongst these almanacs there is one entitled _Almanac
des Voleurs_. Magazines swarm, ranging from the highest class of
religious, literary, and social-scientific, not forgetting
_industrial_, subjects, to the most commonplace and trifling matters.
The Gentleman's Magazine is stated to have been the first of the class
published in England. Of reviews we have a long array, distinguished
by every shade of uniform and badge, and from them a vast amount of
useful and pleasurable information is obtainable. This class of books
first appeared in the middle of the last century; one entitled the
Monthly Review was the first published.

The first newspaper was published in the time of Queen Elizabeth--The
English Mercury, of which the earliest number is in the British
Museum, and bears the date 1588. In the reign of Queen Anne there was
but one daily paper, which made a slow and tedious course of
circulation; whereas in these days newspapers are everywhere, and the
leading ones convey intelligence of the whole world's transactions,
and issue admirable essays, affording information on every subject,
and this within a marvellously short space of time.

Books are so common, that it becomes necessary to be careful in the
selection of them. Tares and wheat will spring up together; the earth
produces noxious weeds with the most excellent fruit. If, then, we do
not reject the tainted and imperfect grains, a diseased crop is the
result. It cannot be expected in this age of inquiry and the rapid
progress of learning, that all books should be of an improving
character, but the good greatly overbalance the evil. "This
advantage," said Gregory the Great (writing so early as the end of the
sixth century), "we owe to a multiplicity of books; one book falls in
the way of one man, and another best suits the level or the
apprehension of another; it is of service that the same subject should
be handled by several persons after different methods, though all on
the same principle." A superfluity of good books is beneficial; I
would {110} illustrate this proposition thus: The Nile as it flows
fertilizes a vast tract of land; but if it were not for the streams
and rivulets that are artificially constructed to diverge from it, in
order to draw from the main supply of water some portion of the
alimentary matter it contains, other tracts would not be fertilized:
so the great folios in their wide expanse of text and margin have
their important use, while the streams and rills which issue from the
parent flood are illustrative of quartos, octavos, duodecimos, 24mos,
and 48mos, that refresh and enrich minds innumerable.

--------

ORIGINAL.

LUCIFER MATUTINUS.

  From a heart of infinite longing the youth
      Looks out on the world;
  "Where, spirit of candor--where, spirit of truth,
      Are thy banners unfurled?

  "O chivalrous chastity! lovely as morn.
      The dew on thy helmet, I hail thee afar;
  Like Lucifer, beautiful angel of dawn,
      I wear thy deep azure, I follow thy star.

  "Not mammon, not lucre; though white as sea-gulls
      The broad sails I watch studding ocean's blue deep,
  To droop their gay pennons where dreamily lulls
      The tropical breeze, and the lotus-flower sleeps.

  "But glory! but honor! the joy of a name
      Not written on sand; which for ages will stir
  All hearts that are noble, or kindle the flame
      Of devotion consuming the rapt worshipper."

  Thus from heart of infinite longing the youth.
      Looking out on the world,
  Cries ever, "Woo wisdom, woo beauty, woo truth:"--
  The sordid world, jaded with care, answers: "Ruth
  Waits on thy wild dreamings, O turbulent youth!"
      And with laughter uncouth
  Mocks life's fairest banners in brightness unfurled.

  O heart of the ostrich! above its own graves
  Of innocent hopes the world every day raves,
  And moans, with a pitiful droon of despair,
  O'er candor and honor, once blooming so fair;
  Yet treads, with a wanton, unpitying scorn.
  To earth every sweet aspiration of morn,
  True mark of a soul to infinity born;
  Or leaves, to the chance of the desert, the good
  Which God, at creating, charged angels to brood,
  And martyrs have guarded with rivers of blood.

------

{111}

Original

TRAVELLERS' TALES.


The world has been so thoroughly explored now, at feast in all but its
most savage and inhospitable recesses, that it seems not unnatural to
suppose that travelers abroad find it hard to get listeners to their
tails of sight-seeing and adventure; and that wanderers into foreign
lands should no longer deem it a part of their duty, as soon as their
peregrinations are over, to come home and write a book about them. We
can't expect any more Marco Polo or Mendez Pintos, unless some
adventurous spirits have a mind to travel beyond the regions of the
Albert and Victoria Nyanzas, and risk their lives among the dirty
tribes of Central Africa, whom even Mr. and Mrs. Baker were unable to
reach; and with all its little differences of manners and customs,
there is after all so much sameness in the untamed negro life that we
doubt whether anybody will think such a journey worth his trouble. Now
that the source of Nile has been found and the costly and useless
problem of the north-west passage has been solved, there really seems
to be nothing very new or startling which can be added to geographical
science. But for all that there is, and undoubtedly their long will
be, a certain fascination in every well-told narrative of life in a
distant country, even though the main features of the story were
familiar to us before. We know that a second Columbus can never come
home to us from across the ocean sees, with news of unsuspected
continents; that old ocean has loosed all the bonds which once shut us
in, and disclosed long ago all the new worlds which he wants
concealed; but we like to travel again and again over the lands we
have already passed, to take a few repeated peeps at the inner life of
distant peoples, even though their domestic interiors were long ago
laid open to our inquisitive eyes. Now and then, moreover, it does
happen that a traveller has something new to tell us, or at least
something which has not been told often enough to be familiar to all
the world. For example, in the spirited Sketches of Russian Life
[Footnote 24] which we have lately received from an anonymous hand in
England, there is, if nothing very new or surprising, at least a
liveliness and an air of novelty which are almost as good. The writer
is an Englishman who spent fifteen years in Russia, engaged in
business pursuits of various kinds, which brought him into contact
with persons of all ranks and conditions, and led him long journeys
back and forth across the empire--now in the lumbering diligence, now
in the luxurious railway train, and many a time and for long distances
in rude sledges across trackless wastes and through fearful snows. In
some parts of Russia there are seasons when the mere act of travelling
is a perilous adventure. In March, 1860, our author, in company with a
Russian gentleman, made a dangerous journey of two hundred miles in an
open sledge, through a snow-storm of memorable severity. They had been
struggling for some miles through drifts and hidden pits, when the
driver alarmed them with the cry of "Volka! volka!"--"Wolves! wolves!"
Six gaunt-looking animals {112} sat staring at them in the road, about
one hundred yards in advance of them. The horses huddled themselves
together, trembling in every limb, and refused to move. The Russian,
who is known in the book only by the name of Fat-Sides, seized a
handful of hay from the bottom of the vehicle, rolled it into a ball,
and handed it to our author, saying "Match." The Englishman understood
the direction, and as soon as the horses, by dint of awful lashing and
shouting, were forced near the motionless wolves, he set fire to the
ball and threw it among the pack. Instantly the animals separated and
skulked away with their tails dragging, but only to meet again behind
the sledge, and after a short pause to set out in full pursuit. The
tired horses were whipped to their utmost speed, but in forcing their
way through a drift they had to come to a walk, and the wolves were
soon beside them. The first of the pack fell dead with a ball through
his brain from the Englishman's revolver, and another shot broke the
leg of a second. At that critical instant the pistol fell into the
sledge as, with a sudden jolt the horses floundered up to their
bellies in in deep drift: then they came to a dead stop, and there was
a wolf at each side of the sledge, trying to get in. The Englishman
fortunately had a heavy blackthorn bludgeon, and raising it high he
brought it down with the desperate force of a man in mortal extremity,
crash through the skull of the animal on his side of the vehicle;
while Fat-Sides coolly stuffed the sleeve of his sheepskin coat down
the mouth of the savage beast on the other, and with his disengaged
hand cut its throat with a large bear knife. The pistol was now
recovered just in time to kill a fifth wolf which had fastened upon
neck of one of the horses. The sixth, together with the one that had
been shot in the leg, ran away.

  [Footnote 24: Sketches of Russian Life before and during the
  Emancipation of the Serfs. Edited by Henry Morley, Professor of
  English Literature in University College, London. 16mo, pp. 298.
  London: Chapman and Hall. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Co.]

After a day's detention at Jaroslav, where some irritating business
about passports had to be transacted, our travellers resumed their
journey in a "kibitka," or diligence-sledge--a rather more comfortable
conveyance than the one they had left, because it had a canvas cover.
There were no more encounters with wolves, but perils enough awaited
them in the snow. The first day three of their horses died, and in
sixteen hours, with three separate teams, they accomplished only
twenty-seven miles. All along the road they passed wrecks of sledges,
horses struggling in the drifts and men digging them out, and vehicles
overturned and abandoned until spring. Opposite a hut in which they
found shelter one night a cottage had been entirely buried, and the
family were not rescued until after four days. They were none the
worse for their long imprisonment; but the diggers had come upon a
sledge with its horse, driver, and two women frozen to death and
buried in the drift. Three months after this, when the snows
disappeared from two hundred to three hundred corpses were found, all
of whom had met their death in this fearful storm upon the Moscow road
alone.

The wretchedness of the inns added a great deal to the sufferings of
our travellers. A Russian hotel in the interior is the most filthy of
all filthy places. As the floors are never washed, the mud and filth
accumulate to an inch and a half in thickness; the walls are black and
fetid; horrible large brown beetles, called _tarakans_, crawl in
myriads over everything, invading even the dishes out of which the
traveller eats and drinks; and the dirty deal tables are further
defiled with a dirty linen cloth. The public rooms are constantly
filled with the offensive odor of the native tobacco. The waiters are
all men, dressed in print trowsers and shirts; the trousers stuffed
into long boots, and the shirts hanging outside the trowsers; the
particolored band or scarf round the waist completing the costume.
Their hair, like that of all the peasants, is worn long, cut straight
round the neck, and parted in front like a woman's, while the beard is
{113} neither cut nor trimmed. We are not surprised that our author
preferred to lodge with the horses and cows in the stable.

The distance from Jaroslav to Moscow out is about 160 miles, and the
journey occupied seven days and the better part of seven nights.

Our author made another journey, accompanied by his wife and six
children, and an amusing English "handy man", called Harry, who was
for ever knocking somebody down and getting the party into all sorts
of scrapes with the police. They started from Moscow, and rode about
500 miles into the interior. Their equipment consisted of two vehicles
called tarantasses, each drawn by three horses. The baggage, and a
good store of bread, tea, sugar, sardines, brandy, and wine, were
stowed away in the bottom of the wagons, and over them were spread
straw, feather beds, rugs, and other contrivances for breaking the
severity of the jolting. The passengers reclined on the top. Many time
they had no bed but the tarantass, and no food but what they had
brought with them. Harry found plenty of employment for his fists, as
well as for his ingenuity in bridge building and other useful arts.
Once he detected a waiter, in the end where they stopped at Tula,
stealing a bottle of castor-oil from the medicine chest. It was only
fit punishment to make the thief swallow a large dose; but when the
effects of the drug began to show themselves, the man declared himself
poisoned, and was carried to the hospital, while the travelers and
their effects were placed under the charge of the police.

  "We were prisoners for nearly 2 hours, when a doctor from the
  hospital, fortunately for us, a jolly Russ, came with a captain of
  police. While the captain of the police tackled Harry, who, ignorant
  of the language, answered 'da, da' (yes, yes) to everything. I
  explained to the doctor of what had really happened. The worthy
  doctor having gotten hold of the oil bottle cried,

  "'Bravo! Poison! The most excellent medicine in pharmacy. Look here,
  captain. The pig' (meaning the waiter) 'was taken ill with cholera,
  cramps, spasms, vomiting here--mind you, here in this room--before
  madame and mademoiselle. They run to the next room, so does my
  friend here, a great English my-lord. What could they do? But, sir,
  the case was desperate. This gentleman' (pointing to Harry) 'is a
  great doctor, accompanying my-lord and his family; there was no time
  to send for me. What does he do? He opens his great
  medicine-box--look, there it is--and gives the dying moushick a
  great dose of apernicocus celantacus heprecaincos masta, the best
  remedy in the world for cholera. I tell you, "Yea Boch!" there now,
  that's the truth.'

  "'But,' said the captain, 'the moushick, doctor, how is he?'

  "'Ah! the pig!' (and here he spat on the ground in contempt), 'I
  left the beast quite well and sleeping. I will answer for him. Come,
  captain, let us go. Poison! That is a good joke! Come, captain. Safe
  journey. Good-bye!'

  "The police captain was satisfied, however reluctantly. With two
  bottles of something better than castor-oil, and a fee, which the
  doctor might or might not divide with the captain, I paid the cost
  of Harry's thoughlessness."

Having reached their destination, and purposing to remain in that part
of the country for some time, our English friends obtained a house,
and went to housekeeping. The torment they suffered from thievish and
idle servants is pitiful to read. The lower-class of Russians seem to
have no more idea of working without an occasional application of the
stick than a sluggish horse; and an honest servant is the rarest thing
in the empire. Our author began housekeeping with four--a key-keeper
(housekeeper), cook, room-girl (housemaid), and footman. The dishes
were put upon the table dirty, just as they had been taken away after
the previous meal, because it was nobody's business to wash them; so a
dish-washer was added to the retinue. At the end of a week it was
found that nobody had time to scrub the floors; so scrubbers had to be
hired. Then another was wanted to wash clothes (though nobody could be
found who knew what it meant to get up linen, and the authors wife had
to do it herself); another to clean boots; a man to cut and fetch
wood; and another man to {114} split it and keep up the fires. Thus in
one week the establishment increased to thirteen souls. Their wages,
it is true, were small, but their pilferings were great. One day the
master and mistress resolved to examine the servants' boxes. In the
first one opened they found a canvas bag filled with lump-sugar,
parcels him and of tea and coffee, needles, pins, buttons, hooks and
eyes, tape, laces, soap, candles, children's toy», sealing-wax, pens,
note paper, and a keep of small articles, all of which had been
stolen. Every box had been opened in turn, and not one contained less
than the first, and many of them contained more.

Dishonesty, as may be supposed, is not confined to the lower classes,
but infects all ranks. The traders are the greatest cheats in the
world; we were going to say the greatest except the government
officials; but these are not exactly cheats, because their extortion
is open and unblushing. When our author once told a Russian baron that
English magistrates were incorruptible, the assertion caused an
incredulous laugh, and a remark from the baron that he could buy any
country magistrate in Russia for 50 kopecks (about 35 cents).
Certainly our friend often found it convenient to prove their
venality, especially when Harry of the strong arm had been giving his
fists a little more exercise than was strictly according to law. Trade
is a system of lying and cheating. The commonest  purchase can rarely
be made without a tedious and vociferous process of bargaining, very
much such as goes on when a veteran jockey sells an old horse at a
country fair. Our author had occasion to buy a pair of boots and a
portmanteau at Tula. After over an hour's wrangling the price was
reduced from 48 roubles to 16, and the letter some afterward proved to
be about twice as much an the articles were worth. "How shameful of
you," said the buyer to the seller when the transaction was concluded,
"to ask three times more then you would take, and then to tell so many
lies!" "Oh!" he replied, "words do not rob your pocket. I am no thief.
It is all fair bargaining." The larger operations of commerce, if not
so noisy, are at least no more honest then the retail dealing. It has
been remarked that profitably to understand trading in Russia would
require a course of many years training at university teaching the
principles and practice of chicanery, bribery, smuggling, and lying. A
rich trader of St. Petersburg gave our author of good deal of
information about the way business is carried on. Contracts with the
government, especially, are managed in a very curious fashion. Some
one is appointed by the state to draw up plans and specifications of
the work to be done, and to fix and "upset price." The contract is
then offered at auction, and the lowest bidder under this upset price
takes it. As there is a tacit understanding that the successful
competitor shall pay the official who fixes the upset price a
commission of 10 per cent on the gross amount of the contract, it
follows, as a matter of course, that this price is always ridiculously
high.

Smuggling is carried on very extensively, not as commonplace rascals
do it, across the frontier, but through the custom-house itself. "Just
look," said the merchant, "at this piano-forte--a first-rate 'grand'
from Broadwood. Had that instrument come through the 'Tamoshny' a as a
'forte-piano,' it would have cost me 100 rubles, that is 15 pounds of
your money. But, sir, I shipped it as a threshing machine--my children
have certainly made it one--and it cost me no duty at all; machinery,
you know, is the only thing duty-free. I paid my expediter his little
commission, and he managed to convince the examining official, by what
means I do not stop to inquire, that a threshing machine it was, and
as such it passed." Not only is the temptation to dishonesty so
strong, but honesty, on the other hand, is fraught with great danger.
{115} A tradesmen, who was beginning business in St. Petersburg,
imported a quantity of plain glass-ware, the duty on which was two
roubles and twenty-five kopecks per pood. He meant to pay the duty in
an honest, straightforward way; but this did not suit the custom-house
officials, who wanted their little commission. They discovered by some
singular optical delusion that the plain glass was all colored and
gilded, the duty being thus raised to ten roubles per pood. Nor was
this all, for the unfortunate tradesman was moreover fined fifty per
cent for a false declaration, and his dear loss by the importation was
about $500. This and a few similar transactions with the custom-house,
in which he stood out for the payment of just dues and no corruption,
ruined him. There is no redress for such outrages in Russia.

We have no space to go into details of the condition of the serfs,
which our author represents as miserable in the extreme. The stewards
on many of the estates are German adventurers of the worst
description, who cheat their employers, oppress the serfs, and do all
that man can do to ruin the country. Many of the lower class do not
thoroughly understand the czar's ukase of emancipation, and even those
who do understand what great things it does for them, show little or
no gratitude. That is a virtue of slow growth in a Russian bosom. Some
of the wisest land-owners anticipated the time set by the decree for
the abolition of serfdom, and immediately began to work their estates
with paid labor. The result was perfectly satisfactory. In a few
districts, however, the publication of the emancipation ukase was
followed by tumults and disorders, and now and then the peasants took
a bloody vengeance on their oppressors. Our author witnessed one scene
between a villanous steward and his emancipated serfs, which came near
being tragical. The steward was roused from his slumbers one morning
by a big strong mooshick, or peasant, who acted as his coachman.
Entering the room rather unceremoniously, the man bawled out, in a
peremptory voice:

  "'Come, master, get up quick! You're wanted in the great hall.'

  "The steward started at the unusual summons, and stared at the
  fellow in blank astonishment, unable to understand what he meant.

  "'Come, I tell you; rise--you're wanted.'

  "'Dog!' roared the steward, almost powerless with rage--'what do you
  mean by this insolence? Get out!'

  "'No,' said the man, 'I won't get out. You get up. They are all
  waiting.'

  "'Pig! I'll make you pay for this. Let me get hold of you, you
  villain!' and he jumped out of bed; but as he did so he perceived
  three of his other men-servants at the threshold ready to support
  the coachman.

  "'Oh! this is a conspiracy; but I'll soon settle you. Evan, you
  devil, where are you? Come here.'

  "Evan thus called--he was a lacquey--appeared at the door with a
  broad grin on his face.

  "'Did you call, master?'

  "'Yes, villain; don't you see? I am going to be murdered by these
  pigs. Go instantly for the policemen.'

  "'No, no, baron; I have gone too often for the stan's men. We can do
  without them this morning.'

 "'Come, come, master,' again struck in the tall coachman, 'don't you
 waste our time and keep the company waiting. Put on your halat; never
 mind the rest of your clothes; you won't need them for a little. You
 won't come--nay, but you must.' And he laid hold of him by the neck.
 'Come along!' and so they dragged their victim into the great dining
 hall.

  "There, sitting round the room on chairs and lolling on the sofas,
  were all the souls belonging to his domestic establishment, about
  thirty in all. Pillows were spread on the floor in the middle of the
  room; to these the steward was dragged, and forcibly stretched on
  them face down, with two men at his feet and two at his head.

  "The coachman, who had been pretty frequently chastised in former
  times, was ring-leader. He sat down on a large easy-chair, the seat
  of honor, and ordered a pipe and coffee. This was brought him by one
  of the female servants. When the long cherry-tree tube began to
  draw, in imitation of his master's manner he puffed out the smoke,
  put on a fierce look, stretched out his legs, and said, 'Now then,
  go on. Give the pig forty blows! creapka (hard)!'

  "In an instant the halat was torn up, and two lacqueys, standing at
  either side, armed with birch-rods, slowly and deliberately
  commenced the flagellation. The coachman told {116} off the blows as
  he smoked in dignity, 'one, two, three,' and so on to forty.

  "'Now, then,' said coachee, 'stop. Brothers and sisters, have we
  done right?'

  "'Right!' they all said.

  "'Is there one here whom he has not beaten?'

  "'Are you satisfied?'

  "'Then go all of you home, and leave this house. Not one must
  remain. Release the prisoner.'

  "Up jumped their tyrant, little the worse bodily for the beating he
  had got, but he was livid with rage. His face turned green and
  purple, he gnashed his teeth, and spat on his rebellious slaves.
  Speech seemed gone, and they all laughed in his face.

  "'Master,' said the coachman, walking leisurely towards the door,
  'we have not hurt you, but have given you a small taste of your own
  treatment of us for many years; how do you like it? We are free now,
  or will be soon, and will not be beaten any more. Good-bye; don't
  forget the stick. And listen. It you whimper a breath against any of
  us for this morning's work, your life is not worth a kopeck two
  hours after.' Each made a respectful bow as he or she went out, and
  the tyrant was left alone in the deserted house."

This, however, was not the end. In a short time the peasantry from a
long distance began to collect in the courtyard. A mill belonging to
the state stopped work, and its thousand hands joined the gathering
crowd. The steward appeared among them, and in a terrible rage ordered
them to work, They simply shrugged their shoulders and made him no
answer. He struck one of them with his open hand, and the peasant in
return spat in the steward's face.

  "The Russian spit of contempt, the most unpardonable of Russian
  insults, is unlike any other kind of spitting. The Yankee squirt is
  a scientific affair; Englishmen who smoke short black pipes in bars,
  on rails, and elsewhere, expectorate in an uncleanly, clumsy way.
  But with an intense look of detestation, as he says 'Ah pig!' the
  Russian, with the suddenness and good aim of a pistol shot, plunges
  a ball of spittle right into the face or on the clothes of his
  adversary, making a sound like the stroke of a marble where it hits.
  It is a weapon always ready, I have frequently seen a duel
  maintained with it for a considerable time at short range.

  "Matt, having thus shown his contempt, coolly leaned himself up
  against the gate, but the steward, insulted as he had never been
  before in this characteristic manner, before so many of his cringing
  slaves, lost any remains of reason his rage might have left him. He
  used hands and feet on the crowd of passive and hitherto quiet
  surfs, and seeing the old starost--Matt's father--coming up the
  road, he ran and colored the old man, dragged him to show where his
  son stood, and roared out his orders to take the devil into the
  stan's yard for punishment.

  "'Old devil!' he said, 'you are at the bottom of all this rebellion,
  you and your son. You shall flog _him_; and then I shall make him
  flog _you_. Go, pig, and take him away!'

  "The old man, for the first time in his life, openly disobeyed his
  tyrant's orders. He folded his arms across his sheepskin coat, gave
  the usual shrug, spat contemptuously on the ground, and said, 'No,
  steward, that is your work. Now, I will not.'

  "'Dog! Devil! do you refuse to obey your master? I will, if it is my
  work, drag you to punishment myself.'

  "With that he sees the starost by his luxuriant white beard, and
  began pulling him towards the next house, which, I have said, was
  the magistrate's and the police station. The old man resisted with
  all his might, and in the struggle he fell leaving a large mass of
  grey or rather white hair in steward's hands. The steward, finding
  he could not pull the starost by main force, lifted his foot, shod
  with heavy leather goloshes, and struck the old man twice on the
  head. The blood immediately ran down. Up to this moment the crowd of
  peasants, which had increased enormously, had been quiet spectators
  of the scene; but the site of the old man's blood gave the finishing
  touch to their patience. Without a word the crowd began slowly to
  move and concentrate itself around the steward and his fallen
  official. There might then have been five or six hundred people, and
  the numbers were increasing every moment, as the men came in from
  the stopped works. A rush took place, and the centre space was
  filled up with the mass. The bleeding starost was passed to the
  outside. The steward was surrounded, and many hands were laid on
  him. I do not believe there had been any premeditated designed to
  hurt the steward, cordially as they all hated him. Had he applied
  the listen given him that morning, and apprehended the changed
  feelings and circumstances of the serfs, he might have been passed
  from among them without further injury. But his passions were
  ungovernable, and he was slow to believe in the possibility of any
  resistance on the part of the poor slaves he had so long driven. The
  crowd swayed heavily from one side to another, tugging and pulling
  the poor steward about; and now he was in peril of his life. My
  window was wide open {117} He made a mute appeal to me for help. I
  signed to him to try the window. By some extraordinary effort he
  broke loose, and major rush and a spring to catch the sill. He
  succeeded so far, and two pair of strong arms were trying to drag
  the fat body through into the room; but we were too late, or rather
  he was too heavy for us. The crowd tore him down, and held him fast.
  Then a voice was heard, clear and decided as that of an officer
  giving the word of command--'to the water!' The voice was
  Mattvie's. A leader and an object had been wanted, and here there
  were both. Instantly the order was obeyed. The crowd, dragging the
  steward, left the front of my house and took the direction of the
  lake.

  "We hurried through the court-yard down to the end of the
  cotton-mail, and came out on the banks of the lake, just as the
  raging crowd of serfs were tying a mat with a large stone in it to
  the stewards neck.

  "Around the margin of the lake the ice was to some extent broken,
  and their evident intention was to throw him in. We ran to meet
  them, and if possible prevent the horrid act of retribution. But we
  were too late; they had selected the part of the bank nearest the
  road, as it was higher than the rest; and just as we came painting
  up, we saw the body of the steward swaying in the hands of a dozen
  of the man, and heard the fatal words given out by Matt: '_Ras, dwa,
  tree_' (One, two, three); then a cry of despair, above the yelling
  of the crowd; than a plunge in the water; no, two plunges. The
  ragoshkie, or bark mat, containing the heavy stone which was to keep
  the steward down, had not been a good one; for as the body passed
  through the air, the stone fell from the mat, splashing a second or
  two before, and a little beyond the spot where he came down. He
  disappeared under the water for a moment or two, then made desperate
  efforts to scrambled to his feet, in which he succeeded, standing up
  to his shoulders in the shallow water, and with the mat bag,
  drenched and limp, hanging from his neck. There he stood within
  twenty feet of the bank, facing a thousand yelling enemies. Outside
  was plenty of firm ice; but between him and them there might be
  thirty feet of deep clear water, the bed of the lake dipping many
  feet immediately beyond where he stood. He seemed to comprehend his
  position, and was evidently making up his mind to contend with the
  deep water rather than with the turned worms upon the bank. He had
  raised one arm, either for entreaty or defiance, and had taken off
  few steps toward the ice, when one of the many stones thrown at him
  struck the uplifted arm and it fell powerless to his side. Another,
  but a softer missile, struck him on the head. He fell down under the
  water, and again recovered his feet; but the stones were now--like
  hail about him. The serfs were as boys pelting a toad or frog--and
  their victim in the water did look like a great overgrown toad.

  "Saunderson and I had made several attempts to be heard, or to
  divert the attention of the people; but it was spending idle breath:
  'Go away; it is not your business,' some of the men said; others,
  more savage, asked how we would like the same treatment."

The contrivance is by which the unfortunate was rescued from his
perilous situation was so theatrical that we can hardly help
suspecting that the incidents of this story have been arranged with a
sharp eye to effect. The man's fate seemed certain when our author
espied a sleigh approaching at a considerable distance. No doubt it
contained young Count Pomerin, the owner of the estate. If a little
delay could be obtained, the steward might be saved. At this juncture
are friend Harry interfered. "I'll try," he exclaimed; "blow me if I
don't. The buffer's bad lot, but I sha'n't see him killed;" and with
that he jumped into the water, and was by the steward's side in a
moment. The noise and stoning ceased, for Harry was a prime favorite;
but the mob was not to be baulked of its vengeance, and after a
vigorous exchange of expostulations, in the course of which Harry made
several remarks that were more forcible than polite, the chivalrous
Englishman was pulled out of the water, kicking stoutly, and the
pelting was about to be renewed.

Just at this moment the sleigh, drawn by three magnificent greys,
dashed into the centre of the crowd. Three gentlemen occupied it. Two
were in official costume. The third, a tall, well-built man, rose, and
threw off  Is rich black fox-skin cloak, and the mob beheld, dressed
in the uniform of a general, not the young count, but his father, who
had been exiled years before, and was thought to be dead. He had now
come hack, with an imperial pardon, prepared to resume the management
of his estates. The steward was extricated from the water, and
immediately called upon to {118} settle his accounts. The old count
had visited the estate before in disguise, and knew how it had been
mismanaged. He had witnessed and all ready to Convict the steward of
peculation, and the result was that the wretched man was compelled to
refund on the spot $750,000 of stolen wealth, and then allowed
twenty-four hours to leave the place.

The next scene in this pretty little drama was between the count and
his serfs. He called them all together, and told them they were free
from that moment. He did not intend to wait for the period of
emancipation fixed by the ukase. Moreover, he gave to each male
peasant three acres of land, free of price--parting thus with
one-sixth of his estate. The whole assembled multitude then went down
on their knees, and cried, "Thanks, thanks, good count, the
illustrious master--God bless you!" And here, according to all
dramatic rules, unless there was somebody to be married, the thing
ought to have ended. But behold, ten grey-bearded peasants, who
evidently had no idea of propriety, stepped forward and wanted to know
what they were to do with their cows? Three acres would be enough for
garden and green fields, but it would not give them pasture.  Would
not his excellency add to his gift? and so might God bless him! Well,
the count allotted them pasture for ten years; and then the ten
grey-beards advanced again, with the cry a Russian always raises when
you give him anything--"prebavit" (add to it). Pasture was very good,
but how were they to get firewood? "If it please your high-born
excellency, add to your gift firewood. Prebavit!" So his high born
excellency added firewood; and the incorrigible peasant stepped up
again. "Prebavit! How were they to get fish? Would it please his high
born excellency to let them fish in the lakes?" There were the usual
thanks and the prostrations when this was granted; and then "prebavit"
again; they wanted something else; but they did not get it, and the
meeting broke up. A little while afterward our author revisited the
estate, and found that it had undergone a marvellous change. The
village was no longer a collection of mud huts, but a thriving town.
The people were not like the same beings; and there was decided
evidence of the rise of a middle class--a class once unknown in such
places.

Our author gives us an obscure glimpse of a curious religious sect in
Russia called the _starrie verra_, or "old faith," of whose
peculiarities be knows little, and of whoso history be confesses that
he know a nothing at all. It's members deem the present Russian Church
an awful departure from the primitive faith and practice; deny the
emperor's claim to be the head of the church; believe to any extent in
witches; fast, scourge themselves; meet in secret, generally at night
(for they are rigorously proscribed); hate the established religion of
the realm has much as the old Scotch Puritans hated prelacy; and, if
they had their wish, would probably advance the Czar to the dignity of
martyrdom. It is said that many distinguished personages privately
adhere to them, and submit to dreadful midnight penances, by way of
compounding for the sin of outward subserviency to the modern heresy.
People of the old faith are distinguished by a grim gravity and
opposition to all dancing or light amusement. Our author had a
woman-servant of this sect, who was remarkable for never stealing
anything, and for continually smashing crockery which she supposed to
have been defiled. There was a community of the old faith near his
residence? An old wooden building like a Druid temple, set in the side
of a hill among trees and rocks, was pointed out to him as the place
of their midnight conventicles. It was said to be presided over by a
priestess who never left the temple by night or by day. A roving
fanatic, whom the writer sometimes encountered in the village,
collecting {119} peasants around him and shouting like a
street-ranter, was looked up to by the sectaries as a prophet; though
he was certainly not a very reputable one, being often helplessly
drunk, and not very decently clad. He wore no covering for head or
feet, even in the severest frost. He carried a long pole, and danced
some holy dance, to words of high prophetic omen. Our author was
rather surprised to find that, thanks to his crockery-smashing cook,
he himself was commonly reputed a priest of the _starrie verra_; the
big volumes of the illustrated London News in which he used to read
were supposed to be illuminated Lives of the Saints, and the little
plays and dramatic scenes which his children used to perform on winter
evenings were looked upon with holy awe as religious rites of dreadful
power and significance. He bore his honors without complaining, and
even when the cook, on the night of a party, broke all his best
Wedgwood dinner-set, brought from England at a huge expense, he
endured the loss with Christian patience: it was so delightful to have
a Russian servant who would not steal.


From Russian servants to Italian brigands the transition is perfectly
natural. Both are rogues of the same class, only external
circumstances have made a difference in their modes of doing business.
An English gentleman named Moens has recently obtained a more intimate
acquaintance with the robber bands of Southern Italy than any of our
readers need hope to make, and has given us the result of his
observations in a very curious and interesting volume.  [Footnote 25]
Mr. and Mrs. Moens, and the Rev. J. C. Murray Aynsley and his wife,
had been visiting the ruins of Paestum, on the Gulf of Salerno, on the
15th of May, 1865, when their carriage was stopped on the way home by
a band of about twenty or thirty brigands.

  [Footnote 25: English travelers and Italian Brigands. the Narrative
  of Capture and Captivity. By W. J. C. Moens. With a Map and several
  illustrations. 12mo. pp. 355. New York: Harper & Brothers.]

The ladies were not molested, but the gentlemen were hurried off
across the fields, and through woods and thickets, until nearly
daylight the next morning, when they were allowed to lie down to sleep
for a short time on the bare earth. As soon as they felt themselves in
a place of security the band halted, and their captain, a fine-looking
fellow, named Manzo, got out paper and pen and proceeded to business.
The two Englishmen were to be well treated, provided they made no
attempt to escape, and on the payment of a ransom were to be released
without injury. The sum demanded for the two was at first 100,000
ducats, or about $85,000, but this was afterward reduced one-half. It
was now agreed that one of the two captives should be allowed to go
for the money, and lots were drawn to determine upon whom this
agreeable duty should fall. Good fortune inclined to the side of Mr.
Aynsley, and the reverend gentleman set off under the care of two
guides. He was hardly out of sight when the band was attacked by a
party of soldiers, and for a short time there was a sharp skirmishing
fire, in the course of which Mr. Moens came very near being killed by
his would-be rescuers. He was forced to keep up with the bandits,
however, and the whole party finally got away from the troops.
Whatever plans he may have had of flight he now saw were futile. The
brigands ran down the mountain like goats, while he had to carefully
pick his way at every step. The robbers had eyes like cats: darkness
and light, night and daytime, made but little difference to them.
Their sense of hearing was so acute that the slightest rustle of
leaves, the faintest sound, never escaped their notice. Men working in
the fields, or mowing the grass, they could distinguish at a distance
of miles, and they knew generally who they were, and to what village
they belonged.

After four days of dreadful fatigue, during which the captive and his
captors all suffered severely from hunger, {120} since the closeness
of the pursuit prevented them from getting their usual supplies from
the peasants, our party joined the main body of the band.

  "On emerging from the trees we saw the captain and about twenty-five
  of his men reclining on the grass in a lovely glade, surrounded by
  large beach-trees, whose luxuriant branches swept the lawn. Several
  sheep and goats were tethered near, cropping the grass. The men,
  with their guns in their hands, their picturesque costumes and
  reclining postures, the lovely light and checkered shade of the
  trees, made a picture for Salvator Rosa. But I do not believe that
  Salvator Rosa, or any other man, ever paid a second visit to the
  brigands, however great his love of the picturesque might be, for no
  one would willingly endure brigand live after one experience of it,
  or place himself a second time in such a perilous situation.

  "The band all arose, and looked very pleased at seeing me, for we
  had been separated from them since the fight on the 17th, and they
  were in great fear that I might have escaped, or have been rescued
  by the troops. I stepped forward and shook hands with the captain,
  for I considered it my best policy to appear cheerful and friendly
  with the chief of my captors. He met me cordially in a ready way,
  and asked me how I was. I said I was very tired and hungry, so he
  immediately sent one of his men off, who returned in a few minutes
  with a round loaf of bread, and another loaf with the inside cut
  out, and packed full of cold mutton cut into small pieces and
  cooked. I asked for salt, and was told it was salted. When cooked
  the meat tasted delicious to me, though it was awfully tough, for I
  and had not had meat since luncheon on Monday, in the temples of
  Paestum, four days before. I ate a quantity, and then asked for
  water, which was brought to me in a large leathern flask with a horn
  around the top, and a hole on one side serving to admit air, as the
  water was required for drinking. I had observed a large lump of snow
  suspended by a stick through its center, between two forked sticks;
  the water dripping from it was collected in flasks, and then drunk.
  There were two or three of these flasks. The captain asked me if I
  was satisfied. I answered 'Yes.'

  "I was then told that there were two more companions for me. I was
  taken through a gap in the trees to the rest of the band, about
  seventeen in number. Here by found those who were destined to be my
  companions for the next three weeks. A young man about twenty-eight,
  with a black beard of a month's growth, dressed just like Manzo's
  band, who was introduced to me has Don Cice alias, Don Francesco
  Visconti, and one Tomasino, his cousin, a boy of fourteen years old.
  I shook hands with them, and condoled them on our common fate, which
  Don Francesco described as fearful. I was told to sit down on one
  side, which I did and looked around me.

  "The spot seemed perfect for concealment. We were at the top of a
  high mountain, entirely surrounded by high trees, excepting two
  small gaps serving for entrances, opposite to each other. The
  surface of the ground was quite level. About twenty yards away, on
  the side opposite to where I entered, there was a quantity of snow,
  from which they cut the large pieces for drinking purposes. I saw
  five or six men bringing a fresh block, which they had just cut, and
  slung on a pole. It was now a little before mid-day, and they were
  preparing a cauldron full of _pasta_ (a kind of macaroni), which was
  ready by twelve o'clock. Some was offered to me, which I accepted.
  One brigand proposed putting the _pasta_ into a hollow loaf, but
  another brigand brought forward a deep earthenwere dish of a round
  shape. I thought milk would be an improvement, so I asked for some.
  Two men went to the goats and brought some in the few minutes. The
  _pasta_ was very clean and well cooked. What with the meat and
  bread, and this _pasta_, I made an excellent dinner, and felt much
  better. The _pasta_ was all devoured in a few minutes by the band,
  who collected round the _caldaja_, and dipped in spoons and fingers.
  I had now leisure to examine the men; they were a fine, healthy set
  of fellows.

  "Here the two divisions of the band were united, thirty men under
  the command of Gaetano Manzo,  and twelve under Pepino Cerino. The
  latter had the two prisoners, who had been taken on the 16th of
  April near the valley of the Giffoni, at five o'clock in the
  afternoon, as they were returning from arranging some affairs
  connected with the death of a relative.

  "The smaller band had for women with them, attired like the men,
  with their hair cut short--at first I took them for boys; and all
  these displayed a greater love of jewelry then the members of men's
  Manzo's band. They were decked out to do me honor, and one of them
  wore no less than twenty-four gold rings, of various sizes and
  stones, on her hands at the same moment; others twenty, sixteen,
  ten, according to their wealth. To have but one gold chain attached
  to a watch was considered paltry and mean. Cerino and Manzo had
  bunches as thick as and arm suspended across the breasts of their
  waistcoats, with gorgeous brooches at each fastening. These were
  sewed on for security; little bunches of charms were also attached
  in conspicuous positions. I will now describe the uniforms of the
  two bands. Manzo's band had long jackets of strong brown cloth, the
  color of withered leaves, with large pockets of a circular shape on
  the two sides, and others in the breast outside; and a slit on each
  side gave entrance to a large pocket {121} that could hold anything
  in the back of the garment. I have seen a pair of trowsers, two
  shirts, three or four pounds of bread, a bit of dirty bacon, cheese,
  etc., pulled out one after the other when searching for some article
  that was missing. The waistcoats buttoned at the side, but had gilt
  buttons down the center for show and ornament; the larger ones were
  stamped with dogs' heads, birds, etc. There were two large circular
  pockets at the lower part of the waistcoats, in which were kept
  spare cartridges, balls, gunpowder, knives, etc.; and in the two
  smaller ones higher up, the watch in one side and percussion caps in
  the other. This garment was of dark blue cloth, like the trowsers,
  which were cut in the ordinary way.

  "The uniform of Cerino's band was very similar, only that the jacket
  and trowsers were alike of dark blue cloth and the waistcoat of
  bright green, with small round silver buttons placed close together.
  When the jackets were new they all had attached to the collars, by
  buttons, _capuces_, or hoods, which are drawn over the head at night
  or when the weather is very cold, but most of them had been lost in
  the woods. A belt about three inches deep, divided by two
  partitions, to hold about fifty cartridges, completed the dress,
  which, when new, was very neat-looking and serviceable. Some of the
  cartridges were murderous missiles. Tin was soldered round a ball so
  as to hold the powder, which was kept in by a plug of tow. When used
  the tow was taken out, and, after the powder was poured down the
  barrel, the case was reversed, and, a lot of slugs being added, was
  rammed down with the tow on top. These must be very destructive at
  close quarters, but they generally blaze at the soldiers, and _vice
  versâ_, at such a distance, that little harm is done from the
  uncertain aim taken. Most of them have revolvers, kept either in the
  belts or the left-hand pocket of their jackets; they were secured by
  a silk cord round their necks, and fastened to a ring in the butt of
  the pistol. Some few had stilettoes, only used for human victims.
  Many wore ostrich feathers with turned-up wide-awakes, which gave
  the wearers a theatrical and absurd appearance. Gay silk
  handkerchiefs around their necks and collars on their cotton shirts
  made them look quite dandies when these were clean, which was but
  seldom.

  "At last, tired of watching the band, I lay down and fell asleep. I
  slept for some hours, during which a poor sheep was dragged into the
  enclosure, killed, cut up, cooked in the pot, and eaten. I must have
  slept until near sunset, for when I awoke another sheep was being
  brought forward and I watched the process of killing and cutting up
  the poor beast. The sheep was taken in hand by two men, Generoso and
  Antonio generally acting as the butchers of the band. One doubled
  the fore legs of the sheep across the head; the other held the head
  back, inserting a knife into the throat and cutting the windpipe and
  jugular vein. It was then thrown down and left to expire. When dead,
  a slit was made in one of the hind legs near the feet, and an iron
  ramrod taken and past down the leg to the body of the animal; it was
  then withdrawn and the mouth of one of the men placed to the slit in
  the leg, and the animal was inflated as much as possible and then
  skinned. When the skin was separated from the legs and sides, the
  carcass was taken and suspended on a peg on a tree, through the
  tendon of the hind leg; the skin was then drawn off the back
  (sometimes the head was the end, but this rarely). The skin was now
  spread out on the ground to receive the meet, etc., when cut off the
  body; the inside was taken out, the entrails being drawn out
  carefully and cleaned; these were wound around the inside fat by two
  or three who were fond of this luxury--Sentonio, and Andrea the
  executioner, generally performing this operation. These delicacies,
  as they were considered, being made about four inches long and about
  one inch in diameter, are fried in fat or roasted on spits. It was
  some time before I would bring myself to eat these, but curiosity
  first, and hunger afterward, often caused me to eat my share, for I
  soon learned it was unwise to refuse anything.

  "While these two men were preparing the inside, the other two were
  cutting up the carcass. The breast was first cut off, and then the
  shoulders; the sheep was then cut in half with the axe, and then the
  bones were laid on a stump and cut through, so that it all could be
  cut in small pieces. One man would hold the meat, while another
  would take hold of a piece with his left hand and cut with his
  right. As it was cut up, the pieces would be put into a large cotton
  handkerchief, which was spread out on the ground; the liver and
  lungs were cut up in the same way; the fat was then put in the
  _caldaja_, and, when this was melted, the kidneys and heart (if the
  latter had not been appropriated by some one) were put in, cooked,
  and eaten, every one helping himself by dipping his fingers in the
  pot. The pieces of liver were considered the prizes. All the rest of
  the sheep was then put in the pot at once, and after a short time
  the pot was taken off the fire and jerked, so as to bring the under
  pieces to the top.

  "They liked the meat well cooked; and when once pronounced done, it
  was divided into as many equal portions as there were numbers
  present; the captives being treated as 'companions'--the term they
  always used in speaking of one another. I soon found that the sooner
  I picked up my share the better. If there was no doubt about there
  being plenty for all, the food was never divided. Then they dived
  with their hands, {122} whoever ate fastest coming off best. I could
  only eat slowly, having to cut all the meat into shreds, as it was
  so tough; so I always took as much as they would let me, and retired
  to my lair, like a dog with his bone. If I finished this before all
  was gone, I returned for more, it being always necessary to secure
  as much as possible, as one was never sure when more food would be
  forthcoming, and it is contrary to brigand etiquette to pocket food
  when eaten thus. When it was divided, I might of course do as I
  liked with my share, but even then it was prudent not to allow them
  to know that I had reserved a stock in my pocket, or I was sure to
  come off short on the next division taking place. The skin was now
  taken and stretched out to dry, and then used to sleep on."


There were five women with the band, all dressed just like the men,
except that they wore corsets. Their hair was cut short, and two of
them carried guns, the others being armed with revolvers. They had no
share in the ransom-money, and were often beaten and otherwise ill
treated by their lords. Doniella, the partner of Pepino Cerino, one of
the subordinate chiefs, was a strapping young woman about nineteen
years old, with a very good figure and handsome features, a pretty
smile, and splendid teeth. She and her husband were prodigious
gluttons, and Pepino was eventually deposed from his rank on account
of his lawless appetite. Carmina, the companion of Giuseppe, was a
good-natured creature, who was often kind and generous to the English
prisoner. Antonina, the wife of a whole-souled rascal named Generoso
di Salerno, had a thin, melancholy face, with magnificent great
lotus-eyes. She was cheerful and generous, and did a great for Mr.
Moens in the way of mending his clothes and sharing her food with him
during the many periods when victuals were scarce. Maria and Concetta
were both ugly and sulky, hardly ever spoke, and never gave away
anything.

It was a terrible life these brigands led, very different from the
free and picturesque career with which poetry and romance love to
identify them. Hunted by the soldiers and fleeced by their friends the
peasants; suffering the extremes of hunger, thirst and fatigue;
passing long days and nights of apprehension among the perpetual snows
of the mountain summits, where they often durst not light a fire to
warm their benumbed limbs or cook their stolen sheep or goat, for fear
lest the flame should betray them, and where they would scarcely
snatch a few moments for repose, that they might be ready for instant
flight; dreading even to take off their clothes to wash themselves,
because the pursuit might be upon them at any moment; paying absurd
prices for all that they obtained from the country people; wasting in
gambling the sums they received for ransoms; and haunted every hour by
the Nemesis of past crimes and vain longings for a lawful and quiet
life--the most wretched captive in his dungeon seems almost happy in
comparison with them. Mr. Moens passed about a hundred days in their
company. The ransom, finally reduced to 30,000 ducats, was not raised
without some delay, in a country where he had few acquaintances, and
even after it was raised the getting it safely to the band was a work
of time and difficulty, for the government punishes all intercourse
with the brigands with great severity. The robbers meanwhile became
impatient. Our author was forced to accustom himself to kicks, cuffs,
starvation, and every species of ill-usage, and there was serious talk
of cutting off his ears and sending them to his wife as a gentle
incentive to haste. The money came at last, however, and he parted
from the gang on very friendly terms, receiving from them before he
left enough money to enable him to travel to Naples "like a
gentleman," besides several interesting keepsakes, such as a number of
rings, and a knife which had been the instrument of one or two
murders.



There is a sort of relief in turning from these two narratives of
rascality to the next hook on our list, though in literary merit it is
very far inferior to {123} them. It is the narrative of a lady's
travels in Spain. There is not much novelty in the subject, and only a
very moderate degree of skill in the execution; but it is something to
get into decent company. Mrs. William Pitt Byrne  [Footnote 26]
travelled from the Pyreneean frontier of Spain, through Valladolid,
Segovia, Madrid, Toledo, and Cordova, to Seville. Her book, with all
its faults, supplies some lively pictures of modern Spanish life, and
the reader who has patience to hunt for them will also find in her
pages some valuable bits of information about the condition and
prospects of the kingdom. She has a great deal to say about the
discomforts of travelling in Spain, and the horrors of the hotels and
inns, which are scarcely less abominable than those of Russia. However
useful these particulars may be to persons meditating a trip through
the Peninsula, they can scarcely be thought very important to the
public generally; and we shall therefore content ourselves with
extracting from Mrs. Byrne's two handsome volumes an account of a
bull-fight at Madrid, which, notwithstanding her sex, she was induced
by a sense of public duty to witness. We pass over the description of
the arena and the spectators, and the preliminary procession of the
actors in the bloody spectacle, and come at once to the moment when
the bull is let into the ring:

  [Footnote 26: Cosas de España: Illustrative of Spain and the
  Spaniards as they are. By Mrs. Wm. Pitt Byrne, Author of Flemish
  Interiors, etc. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 279, 322. London and New York:
  Alexander Strahan.]

  "No sooner was egress offered him than he rushed headlong into the
  circus, dashing madly round as if he sought an escape; baffled in
  this, and scared by the fanfare of the trumpets, the glare of the
  sun on the yellow sand, and the vociferous shouts of the people, he
  suddenly stopped, raised his head, and stared wildly round. The
  blood was already streaming from his neck where the _devisa_,
  [Footnote 27] in this case a sky-blue ribbon, had been fixed.
  Meantime the _lidiadores_, fifteen in number, were scattered about
  the arena, each with a brightly tinted cloak of different colors
  twisted about his arm, the _picadores_ being drawn up in a defensive
  attitude, one behind the other, as far as possible from the centre
  of the circus. The horses, we observed, were blindfolded, _pour
  cause_. Some precautions were taken for the safety of the _toreros_;
  thus there were, here and there, slits in the barriers,  [Footnote
  28] through which an expert fellow could glide, in extreme cases,
  and there is a step all round, from which the more readily to vault
  over the paling. For the protection of the public, a tight rope was
  strained all round the circus, fixed to iron stays, to arrest the
  progress of the bull, if, in his fury, he should attempt to scamper
  upwards among the spectators. This frequently occurs, to the great
  delight of those who are far enough off not to be damaged, and who
  seem to forget that the next time it may be their turn. Frightful
  indeed are the accidents, both among actors and spectators, which
  sometimes happen during these games; and, as they are generally of
  some unexpected kind, one never knows whether some awful casualty
  may not be on the point of occurring; it is always on the cards.

    [Footnote 27: The _devisa_ differs in color, and indicates the
    _ganaderia_ whence the bull has come.]

    [Footnote 28: At Seville the _lidiadores_, at least those who are
    on foot, have an additional chance of safety in the wooden screens
    placed all around at intervals, about fifteen inches in front of
    the fenced ring, behind which they can glide, without fear of
    being followed by the bull.]

  "The bull now discovered his adversaries, and seemed instinctively
  to recognize their treacherous intentions. The people became
  impatient for an attack, and the trumpets blew; the _capeadores_
  hovered about, dazzling, perplexing, attacking and repelling the
  bewildered brute, according to the different colors of their cloaks,
  and always gracefully and ingeniously eluding his vengeance. At
  length one, emboldened by success, continued his provocations beyond
  the bounds of discretion; the bull abandoned the others, and
  selecting his persevering tormentor, defied him to single combat.
  Scattering about the sand with his hoofs, he ploughed the ground
  with his muzzle, and, putting himself in a butting attitude, he
  pointed the back of his head and the tips of his horns with a
  menacing determination towards the object of his just vengeance. The
  agile _torero_, however, knew his bull; he never lost presence of
  mind for a moment, but twisting about the _capa_ till it became
  inflated, he flung it before the beast's face, and, under cover of
  its folds, fled nimbly to the barrier. The bull, furiously enraged,
  tossed the crimson silk, tearing it with his horns, and then,
  discovering how he had been duped, made for his foe with redoubled
  rage; but the _capeador_ had just gained the time he needed to vault
  over into the fenced ring just as the bull came up with him. His eye
  was dilated, and seemed to glare with fire; he had pursued his foe
  with such fury that the impetus given to his course served him
  instead of address, and, never losing sight of his man, he followed
  him, tumbling rather than leaping over the barrier into the narrow
  passage, {124} within one short section of which man and beast were
  now shut up together.

  "The approving roars from the amphitheatre were deafening; it was
  difficult not to be carried away by the general enthusiasm; it was a
  moment of intense excitement; the life of a fellow-being seemed to
  hang on a thread, and a moment more must decide his doom. It was a
  struggle between brute force and intelligent activity:--the man got
  the better of it. In that instant he made another desperate bound,
  and leaped over into the next division. The people, true to its
  character--

    'Sequitur fortunam, ut semper, et odit Damnatos,'

and who but now had thundered a unanimous '_Bravo toro!_' changed its
cry, and it was the _lidiador_ they hailed. But he was not saved yet;
the next move--quick as thought--was on the part of the bull, who,
making a second and almost supernatural bound, was seen coming up
behind him a third time, when the active fellow, by a happy
inspiration, leaped back into the arena, and his brethren in arms,
rushing to the rescue, threw open the communications to give his
provoked and angry foe free course, till, one of the barriers being
opened, he spontaneously returned into the circus, when it was neatly
closed, and the combatant was saved for _this_ time. Still panting
from the desperate chase, the disappointed brute now turned upon the
first _picador_, but received a check from the point of his lance; a
broad stream flowed from the widening gash, crimsoning the sand, and,
as might be expected, the wounded beast turned again with greater fury
on his assailant, who by this time had driven his spurs into his
horse, and by a bound had cleared the spot, so that the creature's
horns struck violently, and with a fearful crash, into the wooden
wall, and the bull, who as yet had gained no advantage, baffled and
stung, coursed once more desperately round the ring.

  "The men seemed to be taking breath; but the spectators had no
  intention of being satisfied with this tame dallying, and they
  vociferously signified their disapprobation. The trumpet sounded
  once more, and the _picador_ advanced a second time to the bleeding
  hero of the sport, and provoked him with his '_vara_,' at the same
  time siding up to the fence, so that, in case his horse should fall,
  he might secure an escape: the sagacious beast, albeit blindfolded,
  seemed to have an instinctive presentiment of the fate that awaited
  him; he trembled for a moment in every limb, as the bull, with a
  thundering roar, rent the air; but, obedient to the spur and to his
  master's voice, he recovered his pace, and advanced to meet the
  inevitable attack. The bull, lowering his head, rushed at the
  _picador_, and, with all the force of his weight, plunged his horns
  deep into the poor beast's right flank, turning him completely round
  as on a pivot, and lifting his hind quarters several times from the
  ground, the horse kicking violently. It was a ghastly group. The
  _picador_ kept his seat unmoved while the whole assemblage yelled
  it's savage delight. The attention of the bull, as soon as the lance
  had forced him to withdraw his horns, was called off by the
  _chulos_, who dazzled him with the evolutions of a yellow cloak, and
  the gored steed, now released, but frightfully torn, tottered on, a
  hideous spectacle, endeavoring with his fast-failing strength, to
  bear his rider out of danger. Arrived near the middle of the arena,
  however, his broken steps were arrested; his hour was come, and,
  making one last but futile effort, he fell with his rider heavily to
  the ground. When a _picador_ falls, and with his horse upon him, it
  is no easy matter for him to rise; and no sooner had the wretched
  steed succumbed, than the bull, dashing at the struggling and
  powerless man, 'in one red ruin blent,' attacked horse and man once
  more with all the vigor of his horns. The  _picador_ was utterly
  helpless; imbedded in his deep saddle and ponderous stirrups, his
  lower limbs cased in iron, he had not the shadow of a chance of
  extricating himself. His lance he had dropped, and all he could do,
  and all he did, was to urge his dying horse with violent and
  desperate blows to rise and release him. The cruelly-used beast,
  willing and intelligent to the last, mangled as he was, and almost
  swimming in the crimson pool beneath him, made a supreme effort to
  rise; it was in vain, and all he could now do was to serve as a
  shield by receiving the attack of the enraged bull, instead of his
  master. Still the position was eminently critical; the struggles of
  the dying horse under the horns of the infuriated full complicated
  the position, and the next moment might decide the helpless man's
  fate. He looked around, dismayed, when another _picador_ advanced,
  and, driving his lance into the bull's shoulder, aroused him to the
  consciousness of a new foe. The _toreros_ and _chulos_ took
  advantage of the diversion to bear the bruised and wounded _picador_
  off the field, and the expiring horse--not deemed worth of thought,
  because, pecuniarily speaking, he was valueless--was left there, not
  only to struggle in the agonies of a cruel death, but to form a butt
  for the frantic bull every time he passed in the fight.

  "Meantime, as if to carry their barbarity to the lowest depth, two
  or three _chulos_, watching their opportunity, advanced to the
  moribund horse, and beating him violently with clubs and sticks,
  tried to force him to rise, but in vain; his feet, once so swift,
  were destined never to support him again, and, after several
  attempts to comply, he dropped his head heavily, and with an almost
  human expression of powerlessness and despair. His savage tormentors
  were not satisfied even now, and as if determined the noble beast
  should not even die in peace, forestalled the {125} few moments he
  had yet to breathe, by dragging off, with frightful violence, the
  heavy accoutrements with which he was incumbered; and, having
  possessed themselves of these articles, departed without having even
  had the grace to put an end to his miserable existence, the bull
  being engaged in a deadly combat with the second _picador_ on the
  other side of the circus. The second _picador_, indeed, came off
  better than the first. _His_ horse, after the first goring, and when
  just about to fall, was recalled by a sharp spur-stroke in his
  already lacerated sides; he started off at a convulsive gala, and
  for his rider nearly round the ring, a miserable spectacle. His
  entrails were dragging along till, his feet getting entangled in
  them, his master, with surprising skill, contrived to dismount
  before he fell, and abandoned the dying and defenseless creature to
  the fury of the bull, who again gored and tossed him violently,
  escaped scot-free.

  "But the term of the persecuted _toro's_ own existence was
  shortening, and the people, fearing lest his end should arrive for
  they had had all the enjoyment that could possibly be extracted from
  his struggles, called loudly for the _banderillas_. The trumpets
  blew gets approving blast, and to bold _banderilleros_ presented
  themselves, after the bull had been provoked by the _chulos_ into
  the right position and attitude for these new tormentors to commence
  their attack. The _banderillero_ was an accomplished _torero_, who
  understood his business, and he took in at a glance the bull he had
  to deal with. His is a perilous office, but he executed it with
  intelligence, skill, and grace; he hovered about and around his
  bewildered victim, turning and twisting his _banderillas_ with
  provoking perseverance, and gliding aside with surprising muscular
  accuracy every time the poor bull tried to parry a feint; at last he
  succeeded in planting his gaudy instruments of torture into the
  exact spot in which a clever _artiste_ is bound to spike them,
  unless he can face the execrations of an assemblage of fastidious
  and disappointed _connoisseurs_. As it was, they testified their
  appreciation of the barbarous feat by the thunder of applause as the
  nimble _torero_ eluded the pursuit of his foe by swift retreat. The
  bespangled and befringed _banderillas_ drooped over with their own
  weight, and slapped violently on either side of the poor wretches
  neck, as with the sudden start and hideous roar at the unlooked-for
  aggravation, he bounded furiously across the sand, tearing up the
  ground with his horns and hoofs, and tossing everything in his way,
  in his frantic efforts to rid himself of the new torment; the blood,
  which had quite coagulated into a gory texture, hanging like a broad
  crimson sheet from either side of his neck, completely concealed his
  hide, now started in a fresh stream from the new wound, and his
  parched tongue hung from his mouth, eloquently appealing in its mute
  helplessness for one small drop of water. Strange to say, the
  pitiful sight touched no responsive chord in the hearts of that
  countless mass of humanity; on the contrary, like the beast of prey
  who has once licked up blood, this insatiate crowd seemed to gloat
  over the scene that had well-nigh sickened us; so far from being
  moved to compassion, regret, or sympathy, they urged on the
  remaining _banderilleros_, eager in their turn to show their skill,
  and after the usual flourishes, two more pair of fiery _banderillas_
  were adding their piercing points to the smarting shoulders of the
  luckless bull, 'butchered to make a _Spanish_ holiday.' What must
  the Roman circus have been, if this was so unendurable?--and yet
  tender, gentle, loving womankind assisted--ay, and applauded at the
  ghastly human sacrifice.

  "It was a relief when the trumpet blew its fatal blast, and the
  _espada_ came forward, bowed to the president, threw off his cap,
  and displayed his crimson flag. It was Cuchares--the great Cuchares
  himself: the theatre rang with applause. The Toledo steel, bright as
  a mirror, flashed in his practised hand, dexterously he felt his
  ground; he eyed the bull, and in a moment--a critical moment for
  him--perceived by tests his experience suggested to him the nature
  of the animal he had to deal with, and the mode in which he must be
  treated . . . and . . . despatched. All the other _toreros_ had
  retired, and he stood alone, as an executioner, face to face with
  his foredoomed victim. It was a supreme moment, and the attention of
  the amphitheatre seemed breathlessly concentrated into a single
  point.

  "There is a wonderful power of fascination in perfection of any
  kind, and, notwithstanding the nature of the act in which it was to
  be displayed, we felt ourselves insensibly drawn under its
  influence.

  "The _matador_ began his operations by dallying with the bull:
  possessing all the qualifications of a first-rate _espada_, the
  confidence he had in the accuracy of his eye and the steadiness of
  his hand was apparent in every gesture; the group formed a singular
  _tableau_, and the attitudes supplied a series of excitements. Every
  head was stretched forward with an eagerness which offered each
  individual character without disguise, to be read like the page of a
  book. The interest was intensified by a sudden and unexpected plunge
  on the part of the bull; it was vigorous, but it was his last; the
  poor beast was received with masterly self-possession on the point
  of the sword, which entered deep, deep into the shoulder, just above
  the blade, and with a fearful groan, the huge and bloody form fell,
  an inert mass, to the ground.

  "The crimson tide of life burst like an unstemmed torrent from his
  wide nostrils and gaping mouth, and with a quiver which seemed to
  communicate itself to the whole {126} amphitheatre, he was still for
  ever. The air was rent with shouts of men, screams of women, cries
  of approbation and roars of applause, which were still at their
  height, when one of the barriers suddenly opened, and the mules,
  with their harness glittering, and their _grélots_ tinkling, trotted
  gaily in; a rope was fastened with great dexterity around the neck
  of the still palpitating carcase, which was then dragged off with
  incredible rapidity, leaving a purple furrow in the sand: the dead
  bodies of the luckless horses, one of which still lingered on, were
  mercilessly disposed of in a similar manner; the _chulos_ came in,
  some raked over the large deep stains beneath where the dead had
  lain, and cleverly masked the tracks they had left, and others
  sprinkled fresh sand over the spots. All traces of the deadly
  contest were obliterated, and in the few moments the arena, bright
  and sunny as ever, was prepared for a new _corrida_; the _toreros_
  appeared again, as smart and dapper as the first, their costumes as
  fresh, their silk stockings as spotless; not a splash of blood had
  touched them, and their limbs appeared to retain their original
  pliability to the last. One _corrida_ is so like another, the
  routine is so precisely the same--never, apparently, having varied
  since the first bull-fight that was ever exhibited in the crudest
  times, and--unless there be an accident--the detail is so slightly
  varied, that it would be needless to add to the notes we have
  already recorded, especially as it is not an entertainment we would
  willingly linger over, even in recollection. We felt we ought to see
  it once; we saw, were utterly disgusted, and hope never to witness
  the horrid exposition a second time."



We have another book on Spain, just published in London, and much
better written than Mrs. Byrne's, though it does not contain a quarter
so much information as that lady's desultory journal. It is by Mr.
Henry Blackburn,  [Footnote 29] who made a trip through the kingdom,
in 1864, with a party of ladies and gentlemen.

  [Footnote 29: Travelling in Spain in the Present Day. Henry
  Blackburn. 8vo. pp.248. London: Sampson, Low, Son & Marston.]

He too went to see a bull-fight at Madrid, and he really seemed to
have enjoyed it, his chief regret, when he thinks of the performance,
being that the odds were too great _against the bull!_ If the beast
had only been allowed a fair chance, he would have liked it a great
deal better. He attended another bull-fight at Seville, and did not
like it at all. The great attraction on this occasion was a female
bill-fighter, who was advertised as the "intrepid señorita" She
entered the arena in a kind of Bloomer costume, with a cap and a red
spangled tunic, made her bow to the president, and then lo! to the
English gentlemen's unspeakable disappointment, a great tub was
brought, and she was lifted into it. It reached her arm-pits and there
she stood, waving her darts, or _banderillas_. At a given signal the
bull was let in, his horns having been previously cut short and padded
at the ends. "As the animal could only toss or do any mischief by
lowering its head to the ground, the risk did not seem great, or the
performance promising." The bull evidently considered the whole thing
a humbug, for at first he would have nothing to do with the tub, and
kept walking round and round the ring. At last indignation got the
better of him, and turning suddenly upon the ignominious utensil, he
sent it rolling half way across the arena, with the intrepid señorita
curled up inside. This seemed very much like baiting a hedgehog; but
when the bull caught up the tub on his horns and ran bellowing with it
round the ring, the sport began to look serious. There was a general
rush of _banderilleros_ and _chulos_ to the rescue. The performer was
extricated and smuggled shamefully out of the amphitheatre, and the
bull was driven buck to his cage. The next act Mr. Blackburn
characterizes by the appropriate name of "skittles." Nine grotesquely
dressed negroes stood up in a row, and a frisky young bull was let in
to bowl them over. They understood their duty, and went down flat at
the first charge. Then they sat on chairs, and were knocked over
again. This was great fun, and appeared to afford unlimited
satisfaction to the bull, the ninepins, the audience, and everybody
except Mr. Blackburn. The performance was repeated several times.
After that came a burlesque of the _picadores_. Five ragged beggars,
with a grim smile on their dirty faces, rode {127} forward on donkeys,
without saddle or bridle. The gates were opened, and the bull charged
them at once. They rode so close together that they resisted the first
shock, and the bull retired. He had broken a leg of one of the
donkeys, but they tied it up with a handkerchief, and continued
marching slowly round, still keeping close together. A few more
charges, and down they all went. The men ran for their lives and
leaped the barriers, and the donkeys were thrown up in the air. So,
with many variations and interludes, the sport went on for three
hours; and at last, when night came, two or three young bulls were let
into the ring, and then _all the people!_ "We left them there," says
our author, "rolling and tumbling over one another in the darkness,
shouting and screaming, fighting and cursing--sending up sounds that
might indeed make angels weep."

The Spaniard does not always figure in Mr. Blackburn's book as the
high-bred gentleman we are wont to imagine him. Take, for example,
this picture of a señor travelling: "For some mysterious reason, no
sooner does a Spaniard find himself in a railway carriage than his
native courtesy and high breeding seem to desert him; he is not the
man you meet on the Prado, or who is ready to divide his dinner with
you on the mountain-side. He is generally, as far as our experience
goes, a fat, selfish-looking bundle of cloaks and rugs, taking up more
than his share of the seat, not moving to make way for you, and seldom
offering any assistance or civility. He is not very clean, and smokes
incessantly during the whole twenty-four hours that you may have to
sit next to him; occasionally toppling over in a half-sleep, with his
head upon your shoulder and his lighted cigar hanging from his mouth.
He insists upon keeping the windows tightly closed, and unless your
party is a large one you have to give way to the majority and submit
to be half suffocated." Nor is it much better at the hotels: "A lady
cannot, in the year 1866, sit down to a _table d'hôte_ in Madrid
without the chance of having smoke puffed across the table in her face
all dinner-time; her next neighbor (if a Spaniard) will think nothing
of reaching in front of her for what he requires, and greedily
securing the best of everything for himself. That is an educated
gentleman opposite, but he has peculiar views about the uses of knives
and forks; next to him are two ladies (of some position, we may
assume; they have come to Madrid to be presented at the levée
to-morrow), but their manners at table are simply atrocious. In his
own house, it must be admitted, the Spaniard behaves better; but it is
only among the few that one encounters the same degree of refinement
and good manners that commonly prevail in England and America. The
Spanish gentry read little and are very ignorant; and, as a rule,
ignorance and refinement are hardly ever found together."

As a specimen of one of the lower classes take this extract: "Our beds
are made by a dirty, good-natured little man, who sits upon them and
smokes at intervals during the process. Our fellow-travellers, who
have been much in Spain and have been staying here some time, say that
he is one of the best and most obliging servants they have met with.
He attends to all the families on our _étage_, and earns 18s. or 20s.
a day! Every one has to fee him, or he will not work. We found him
active enough until the end of the week, when our 'tip' of 60 or 70
reals, equal to about 2s. a day, was indignantly returned, as
insufficient and degrading. The latter was the grievance: his pride
was hurt, and we never got on well afterward. He had a knack of
leaving behind him the damp, smouldering ends of his cigarettes; and
on one occasion, on being suddenly called out of the room, quietly
deposited the morsel on the edge of one of our plates on the breakfast
table."

{128}

The great feature of Spanish life seems to be its laziness. Crowds of
idlers, wrapped in their picturesque cloaks, stand about the plazas
from morning till night, doing noting, rarely speaking, and scarcely
seeming to have energy enough to light a cigarette. Sometimes they
scratch their fusees on the coat of a passer-by, in a contemplative,
patronizing fashion, that takes a stranger rather aback. A young
Madrileño is content to lounge his life away in this manner; and if he
has an income sufficient to provide him with the bare means of
subsistence, with his indispensable _cigarito_ and his ticket for the
bull-fight, he will do no work. In the morning he lounges on the
Puerta del Sol; in the afternoon he lounges (if he can't ride) on the
Prado; in the evening he lounges in the cafe or the theatre. This is
all he cares for, and about all he is fit for. The middle class--the
shop-keepers--have as little energy as their betters. "We went into a
confectioner s one day," says Mr. Blackburn, "to purchase some
chocolate, and were deliberately told that, if we liked to get it down
from a high shelf, we could have it; no assistance was offered, and we
had to go empty away." Could we accept Mr. Blackburn's sketch, or Mrs.
Byrne's either, as a true picture of Spanish society, we might indeed
despair of the ultimate regeneration of the kingdom. But the author of
Travelling in Spain at the Present Day has the candor to admit that he
is only a superficial observer, and with the following honest and
commendable passages from his concluding chapter, we take leave of him
and our readers together:

  "Spain is not a country to travel in, and there is no nation which
  is more unfairly estimated by foreigners who pay it only a flying
  visit. We have no opportunity of appreciating the Spaniards' good
  points, nor do we become at all aware of their latent fund of humor,
  their good-heartedness, and their true _bonhomie_. We jostle with
  them in crowds, we rub roughly against them in travelling, our
  patience is sorely tried, and we are apt, as Miss Eyre did, to
  denounce them as worse than 'barbarians. But we should bear in mind
  that Spaniards differ from other nations conspicuously in this--that
  they become sooner '_crystallized_;' and crystals, we all no well,
  are never seen to advantage when in contact with foreign bodies. In
  short Spaniards are not as other men; and Spain is a dear delightful
  land of contraries, where nothing ever happens as you expect it, and
  where 'coming objects _never_ cast their shadow before!'"



--------

ORIGINAL.

ANNIVERSARY.

  The brooding July noon, the still, deep heats
  Upon the full-leaved woods and flowering maize,
  The first wheat harvest, and the torrid blaze
  Which on the sweating reapers fiercely beats
  And drives each songster to its own retreats,--
  Much less the stately lily of the field,
  Gorgeous in scarlet, whose large anthers yield
  The honey-bee meet prison for its sweets,
  A flame amid the meadow-land's rich green--
  With the revolving year is never seen
  But o'er the sunny landscape creeps a shade
  Of solemn recollection. Lilies! lean
  Your brilliant coronals where once was laid
  A boy's brow grand in death, and "Rest in peace" be said.

------

{129}

From The Month.

ST. CATHARINE AT FLORENCE.


The history of every race, every institution, every community, and
even every family, has facts, phenomena, and characteristics of its
own, which are the necessary results of the operation of certain
elements or influences that belong to the subject of the history, or
bear upon it with a peculiar force. It is the province of the
philosophical historian to seize upon these characteristic features in
each ease, and to give them their due prominence; and an intimate
acquaintance with them and a due estimate of them are essentially
necessary to any one who understands the work of such a historian. To
be deficient in this point is enough to ruin the attempt. Thus, we
might have a rationalistic writer on church history free from every
prejudice, and endowed with literary powers of the highest
kind--candid, impartial, industrious, judicious, full of generous
sympathies, and large-minded and clear-sighted enough to take rank by
the side of Thucydides or Tacitus--and yet he would fail even
ludicrously as a Christian historian, because he did not recognize the
ever living supernatural agency which the fortunes of the church are
ordinarily guided--the force of prayer, the power of sanctity, the
softening and restraining influences of faith, charity, and
conscience, even on men or masses of men but imperfectly masters of
their own passions, and by no means unstained by vice.

It is our object in these papers to give prominence to some of what
may be conceded to be the more characteristic features of Christian
history, which may nevertheless be left in the shade by those to whom
it is little more than the history of Greece or Rome. Thus, a
philosophical historian might see in the return of the Holy See from
its long sojourn at Avignon a stroke of profound policy, by which it's
emancipation from the straitening influences of nationalism was
cheaply purchased, even at the cost of the great scandals which
followed, and which a calculating politician might have foreseen. But
to such a writer the manner in which the step was brought about would
seem to be a riddle; for nothing is clearer than that it was
consciously no stroke of policy at all. The wisest heads and the most
powerful influences at the pontifical court were united against it; it
was the work of an irresistible impulse on the conscience of a gentle
and peace-loving Pope, the subject of a secret vow, a design conceived
under the personal influence of one saintly woman--of princely race
indeed, and reverend age, and large experience--but carried out under
that of another in whom these last qualities were wanting; young,
poor, the daughter of an artisan, yet who was able to succeed in her
mission when success seemed hopeless, and to become the instrument of
strengthening the successor of St. Peter in an emergency that might
have taxed the courage of the great apostle himself.

Catholic art has sometimes represented St. Catharine of Siena as
taking a part in the triumphal procession with which Gregory XI.
entered Rome, and so terminated the long exile of the Holy See at
Avignon. These representations, although true in idea, are false as to
the historical fact; for St. Catharine never entered Rome in the
lifetime of Gregory. After having seen him embark from Genoa on his
{130} voyage toward the Holy City, she betook herself, with her
company of disciples, to her own home at Siena, where she seems to
have remained, with occasional excursions into the neighboring
country, for nearly a year. She then reappears in public, having been
sent once more by the Pope to Florence, in the hope that her presence
there might strengthen the hands of the better party in the Republic,
and bring it round again to peace with the church. In the interval she
resumed her usual occupations, exerting herself in every possible way
for the good of souls. Her letters at this time show great anxiety for
the peace, which had not yet been obtained in Italy; for the crusade,
which was always in her heart; and, perhaps more than all, for the
most difficult, yet most necessary of the objects that were so dear to
her--the reform of the clergy, and especially of the prelacy. It
would be a thankless task to inquire into the many causes which had
foster worldliness among churchmen at that time, and so prepared all
the elements for the great scandal that was so soon to follow in the
"schism" of the West. The best interests of the church had, in
reality, more deadly enemies than Barnabo Visconti or the "Eight
Saints" at Florence, in men who wore the robes of priests and even the
mitre of bishops.

There is every reason to suppose that the corruption was not widely
spread; but it had infected many in high station and authority, and
even a few bad and ambitious prelates can at any time do incalculable
mischief. The illuminated eye of Catharine had become familiar with
the evil that was thus gnawing at the very heart of the church,
manifesting its presence already by the pride, ambition, and luxury of
ecclesiastics, and ready, when the moment came to give it full play,
to break out into excesses still more deplorable than these. She saw
passion and vice enough to produce the worst of the evils by which the
providence of God permits the church to be afflicted, if only the
provocation came that would fan into full blaze the fire that was
already kindled. The B. Raymond tells us that, so far back as the
beginning of the troubles in the Pontifical States, when the news came
of the revolt of Perugia, he went to her in the deepest affliction to
tell her what had happened. She grieved with him over the loss of
souls and the scandal given in the church; but, seeing him almost
overwhelmed with sorrow, she bade him not begin his mourning so soon.
"You have far too much to weep for: what you see now is as milk and
honey to that which is to follow."

"How can any evil be greater than this," he replied, "when we see
Christians cast away all devotion and respect to Holy Church, show no
fear of her censures, and by their actions publicly deny their
validity? Nothing remains for them now to do but to renounce entirely
the faith of Christ."

"Father," said Catharine, "all this the laity do: soon you will see
how much worse that is which the clergy will do."

Then she told him that there would be rebellion among them also, when
the Pope began to reform their bad manners, and that the consequences
would be a widespread scandal in the church; "not exactly a heresy,
but which would divide it and afflict it much in the same way as if it
were." This prophecy was made about two years before the time of which
we are now speaking. It is no wonder that, with this clear view of the
existing elements of evil before her, Catharine should have urged upon
Gregory XI. the apparently impossible project of a reform of the
clergy. It was apparently impossible, partly from the circumstances of
the time, partly from the character of the pontiff himself. The
troubles of Italy still continued: all attempts at pacification
failed, and the fortune of the war was by no means favorable to the
cause of the church, Moreover, at Rome, the _banderesi_ or bannerets,
who had for some {131} time had possession of the chief power in the
city, had laid, indeed, their rods of office at the feet of Gregory at
his entrance, but they still exercised their authority without regard
to his orders for his wishes, and he found himself, therefore, not
even master in his own capital. This was not the time to undertake
that most difficult of all tasks, which was yet imperatively required
for the welfare of the church. Nor was Gregory, with his feeble
health, with the hand of death already upon him, and with his gentle
and patient disposition, fitted rather for suffering than for action,
the natural instrument for a work that called for sternness severity.
Nevertheless, Catharine urged it upon him with a firmness that shows
fact once the influence she had required, and her burning sense of the
necessity of the measure. In one of the three letters to him that
belong to this time, she tells him that the supreme truth demands this
of him: that he should punish the multitude of iniquities committed by
those who feed themselves in the garden of the Holy Church: "Beasts
ought not to feed themselves on the food of men. Since this authority
has been given to you, and you have accepted it, you ought to use your
power: if you will not use it, it were better to renounce it, for the
honor of God and the salvation of souls." She insists also upon the
necessity of granting peace to the revolting cities on any terms that
were consistent with the honor of God and the rights of the church.
"If I were in your place, I should fear that the judgment of God might
fall on me; and therefore I pray you most tenderly, on the part of
Jesus Christ crucified, that you obey the will of God--though I know
that you have no other desire than to do his will; so that that hard
rebuke may never be made to you, 'Woe to thee, for that thou hast not
used the time and the power that were committed to thee'" (Lett.
xiii.) These were strong words. Catharine sent Father Raymond about
the same time to Rome with a number of practical proposals for the
good of the church. It appears from a letter to Raymond himself that
Gregory XI. was displeased with her, either for her great liberty of
speech, or, as is more probable, for the ill-success that seemed to
have followed the step that he had taken at her advice. Nothing can be
more beautiful or more touching than her humble apology for
herself--she is ready to believe that all the calamities of the church
were occasioned by her own sins.

Gregory had in fact continually occupied himself with endeavors for
peace with Florence and the other confederated cities; but there had
been the usual insincerity on the other side, and besides, the
barbarities committed by the Breton troops at Cesena had produced
their natural effect of alienating still more his revolted subjects.
Negotiations had been recommenced even before the departure of the
Pope from Avignon, at least so far that the Florentines had been
desired to send ambassadors to meet him at Rome. He did not arrive
there by the time appointed, and wrote again from Corneto to fix a
later time. The negotiation failed, as we have said, not from any lack
of a desire for peace on the part of Gregory, but on account of the
bad faith of the rulers of Florence, who really wished the war to
continue. Their cause seemed to gain strength with time; for Visconti
now took their side, regardless of the treaty that had been made with
him, and the English company under Sir John Hawkwood entered their
service. A gleam of hope came when one of the revolted leaders, the
Lord of Viterbo, made his peace with the church. Gregory immediately
despatched two envoys to Florence, but their efforts were in vain; and
in the autumn of 1377 the Eight, who still held the supreme power,
ventured on a step which gave still greater scandal than any of their
former excesses, and seemed to widen still further the breach between
the Republic and the Holy See.

{132}

Florence had now been for nearly a year and a half under an interdict,
The churches were closed--the sacred offices could not be performed,
nor the sacraments administered, except in private. This weighed
heavily on the mass of the population. There were probably but few,
besides the Eight and their immediate followers, who regarded it with
indifference. The Italian character is in many respects unintelligible
to those who have not studied it in Italy itself. We can hardly
understand how nine-tenths of the population of a city or a duchy can
submit quietly to be governed by a handful of usurpers, who proclaim
themselves the representatives of the people--the great majority of
whom have abstained from the nominal voting that had conferred that
character upon them--and let things take their course under the
tyranny of their new masters, though that course lead to financial
ruin, burdensome taxation, and the spoliation of the best institutions
of the country, as well as to open persecution of religion and
deliberate attacks on morality. An Anglo-Saxon population would either
have brought public opinion and general feeling to bear irresistibly
upon the magistrates, or would have taken the matter into its own
hands, and sent the "Eight Saints" floating down the Arno if they had
not conformed their policy to the all but universal desire for peace.
But the Florentines waited and suffered, showing their attachment to
the church and to the services from which they were debarred in many
touching ways, some of which have been specially recorded by the
historians of the time. It was forbidden, for instance, that the
divine office--at which, at that time, it was the custom of the laity
to assist--should be sung publicly in the churches; but pious persons
could not be forbidden from practising such devotions as might occur
to them in place of the regular services; and we find that in
consequence they organized themselves into confraternities, and went
about in processions singing hymns in praise of God. Many of these
seem to have been composed by followers or disciples of St. Catharine.
There was a movement of popular devotion to make up for the solemn
ecclesiastical worship which was suspended. No doubt it was a symptom
of an irrepressible feeling in the public mind which frightened the
"Eight Saints." At length the feast-day of St. Reparata
approached--Oct. 8th. She was the titular saint of the cathedral,
[Footnote 30] and her feast was usually celebrated with splendor and
popular devotion. Were the people to be shut out of the church again
on the day of their patron saint? The Eight had, as we have seen, just
concluded their league with the lord of Milan, and strengthen their
arms by the accession of Hawkwood, and their envoys had have returned
from Rome without terms of peace. They determined to brave the Pope
still further, and to plunge the city into still more flagrant
rebellion against his authority, by ordering the violation of the
interdict. They would indulge the religious wishes of the people,
making them, at the same time, partners in a gross insults to
religion. They would force the clergy themselves to the alternative of
taking part against the church, or of suffering civil penalties and
persecution if they refused to do so.

  [Footnote 30: the Duomo of Florence, as it is signified by its
  name--S. Maria del Flore--is dedicated in honor of our Blessed Lady;
  but it was originally called after St. Reparata, an early martyr in
  Palestine, in gratitude for the deliverance of the city from a horde
  of Huns that besieged it in the fifth century; which deliverance
  took place on the date of the saint--Oct. 8th. The feast was kept as
  one of the first class, with an octave. The epithet "del Flore,"
  added to our Lady's name in the present title, signifies Florence
  itself, the emblem of the city being a lily.]

St. Catharine, in one of her letters about this time, blames certain
members of the clergy, and some of the mendicant friars, as having
either counselled this outrage, or as having been induced by worldly
motives to justify and defend it in pulpit. In a numerous clergy,
connected by countless ties with every party and {133} every class, it
is far more surprising that so few should ordinarily be found to help
on tyranny and persecution such as that of the Eight, then that some
should be weak enough to yield to its threats or its bribes. But the
scandal was very great, and it would seem that the great body of the
clergy, notwithstanding heavy fines levied on those who did not obey
the order of the government, stood firm. The bishop--a Ricasoli--had
already left the city rather than expose himself to the danger of
coercion. But there was the greatest danger for the better party both
among the people and among the ecclesiastics; and the state of things
called for the most vigorous exertions on the part of Pope to provide
a remedy before matters screw still worse. It may seem very strange to
the ideas of our century to say that the remedy adopted by Gregory was
the most fitting that could have been found, and the same of which the
Florentines had bethought themselves when they had wished to make
their own peace at Avignon. It had failed indeed, then, on account of
their bad faith; but it had produced another great result for which
Providence had destined it. The odious government that had plagued the
Florentine republic into so many excesses was to be overthrown by the
better and sounder part among the citizens themselves, who still might
have been too timid to exert themselves on the side of peace and order
if they had not had a saint among them to encourage and direct them.
We should all think ourselves foolish if we were to deny that such
results are the natural and lawful consequence of the exertion of
personal influence: it is only that we cannot bring ourselves to
conceive that the personal influence of great and recognized sanctity
may be more powerful than any other.

Father Raymond, the friend and biographer of St. Catharine, tells us
that he was then in Rome, governing the great convent of the Minerva.
He had had some conversation, before leaving Siena, with Niccolo
Soderini, a noble Florentine, who had told him that the great majority
of the citizens wished for peace with the Holy See, and that it might
easily be brought about if some of the present magistrates were
deprived of their offices. He even pointed out the way in which it
might be done. One morning the Pope sent for Father Raymond, and told
him he had received letters suggesting that peace might be made if
Catharine were sent to Florence to use her influence there; and he
bade him, accordingly, prepare a paper stating with what powers it
would be expedient to invest her. The bulls were at once drawn up, and
Catharine received orders to go to Florence as legate of the Holy See.
She was joyfully received, and at once set to work to confer with the
most influential persons in the state. The first fruit of her
exhortations was, that the interdict was again observed, and the first
great scandal thus removed. The next step was a more difficult one.
How were the obnoxious magistrates to be removed without a revolution?
The friends of peace were obliged to have recourse to a curious
institution, belonging to that long-established party organization
which had been the fruit of the division of the Italian cities, and of
each city, more or less, within itself, into the hostile factions of
Guelphs and Ghibellines. Florence had always been Guelphs, and it
appears that certain elected leaders of the dominant party had
obtained a recognized right, in order to maintain the government of
the city on their own side, to object to persons of the opposite
party, and remove them from any post that they might chance to hold. A
power like this was of course liable to great abuse: it has reappeared
now and then in history in some of the worst times, and been the
instrument of the greatest injustice and wrong. In Florence it seems
to have been exercised with more moderation than in many modern
instances; still it had sometimes been used {134} unscrupulously, and
made the means of satisfying private malice and personal revenge or
ambition. It was therefore very unpopular, and seems to have been
practically disused at the time of which we speak. Catharine, however,
thought that it might now be put in use with advantage, to take the
reins of government out of the hands of the Eight, and break down
their pernicious influence; and it is certain that a fairer use of
such a power could never have been made. The plan seems to have been
suggested by her friend Niccolo Soderini, whom we lately mentioned. It
was urged on the Guelph officials by Catherine; and one of the Eight
was accordingly "admonished," as the phrase was, that he was not to
occupy himself with public affairs for the future. He was a man of
much influence, but he does not seem to have resisted the admonition.

Unfortunately, the leaders of the Guelph party were willing to make
peace with the Holy See, but their dominant idea was to restore
themselves to power and ruin their enemies. They began to "admonish"'
on all sides, and to use the name and authority of Catharine as
vouchers for the purity of their motives and the wisdom of their
policy. It is said that in the space of eight months they either
removed as many as ninety citizens from posts of authority, or
prevented them from acquiring them. It may easily be imagined that
this could not be done without exciting furious passions; a storm soon
began to gather, which did not wait long to burst. Catharine protested
and entreated, and, to some extent, checked the evil. She had already
prevailed on the government to entertain seriously the project of
peace. It was agreed that a congress should assemble at Sarzano for
the settlement of the troubles that agitated Italy. The Pope sent a
cardinal and the Bishop of Narbonne as his representatives; France,
Naples, Florence, Genoa, and Venice were to send others; and Barnabo
Visconti was to be present in person to arbitrate between the Pope and
Florence. A strange position for that inveterate plotter against the
church; but one which shows, at all events, that Gregory XI. was
willing to do a great deal for the sake of peace. Everything seemed to
promise well; but while the congress was deliberating, Gregory died,
and nothing could therefore be concluded. His death took place in
March, 1378. Catharine was still at Florence, and seems to have had
good hopes of bringing matters to a favorable issue, notwithstanding
the failure of the congress. The new "gonfaloniere" seems to have been
elected on the first of May. He bore a name afterward destined to
become connected with the later splendors of his country--Salvestro
dei Medici--and he was a man of firmness and standing sufficient to
enable him to defy and check the extravagances of the Guelph
officials. It was agreed between them that there should be no more
"admonitions," except in the case of persons really tainted with
Ghibelline principles; and that in no case should the "admonition" be
valid after the third time. He was, moreover, bent on carrying out the
peace with the Pope, and, as it seems at the entreaty of St.
Catharine, sent fresh ambassadors to Urban VI., who had now succeeded
Gregory on the pontifical throne.

These fair prospects were soon clouded over by the mischievous
obstinacy of the Guelph party. The time came on, very soon after the
installment of the new "gonfaloniere," for the selection of new
"chiefs," into whose hands would pass the obnoxious power of
"admonishing." The new men did not consider themselves bound by the
promises made by their predecessors; they were not friends of
Catherine, as some of the others had been, and they began to use their
power in the former reckless manner. They especially threw down the
gauntlet to Salvestro and to the other magistrates, by their exclusion
of two men of distinction, which showed their determination {135} to
carry things to extremities. Here, again, we meet with the historic
name of Ricasoli. One of that family was among the captains of the
Guelphs, and is said to have forced this exclusion on his less willing
colleagues. The strain became at length too great, and Salvestro
himself sanctioned a popular outbreak against the Guelph officials; a
movement over which he soon lost all control, and which led in a few
months to a still more terrible outbreak, known as the affair of the
Ciompi. The fury of the people, led by the Ammoniti--those who had
been excluded from office by the exercise of the power lately
mentioned--and unchecked by any attempt on the part of the legitimate
authorities to restraint it, was irresistible. Many lives were
sacrificed; the leaders of the Guelphs saved themselves by flight,
leaving their houses to be sacked and burnt. Niccolo Soderini and
other friends of Catharine were among the fugitives, though they had
not taken part in the excesses that provoked the rising. As the tumult
gathered strength, and the people became blinder in their fury,
ominous voices were heard calling for the death of Catherine herself.
Her name had been freely used by the Guelph officials, though she had
protested publicly against their violent acts, and had entreated them
repeatedly to be guided by justice and prudence. The scene that
followed, a kind of turning-point in her life, shall be told in the
words of her simple biographer. When the rumor of the intended attack
on Catherine spread, "the people of the house in which she dwelt with
her companions bade them depart, for they did not wish to have the
house burnt down on their account. She meanwhile, conscious of her own
innocence, and willingly suffering anything for the cause of the Holy
Church, did not lose a jot of her wonted constancy, but smiling and
encouraging her followers to emulate her Spouse, she went out to a
certain place where there was a garden, and first gave them a short
exhortation, and then set herself to pray. At last, while she was thus
praying in the garden, after the example of Christ, those satellites
of the devil came to the place, a tumultuous mob armed with swords and
staves, crying out, 'Where is this cursed woman? Where is she?'
Catharine, when she heard this, as if she had been called to to a
delightful banquet, made herself ready at once for the martyrdom which
for a long time she had desired, and placing herself in the way of one
who had his sword drawn, and was crying louder than the rest, 'Where
is Catharine?' she cast herself with a joyous countenance on her
knees, and said, 'I am Catharine; do therefore with me all that which
our Lord permits you to do; but I command you, on the part of Almighty
God, not to hurt any of my companions.' When she said these words, the
wretch was so terrified and deprived of all strength, that he did not
dare either to strike her or to remain in in her presence. Though he
had so boldly and eagerly sought for her, when he found her he drove
her away, saying, 'Depart from me.' But Catharine, wishing for
martyrdom, answered, 'I am well here, and where should I go? I am
ready to suffer for Christ and for his church, because this it is that
I have long desired and sought with all my prayers. Ought I to fly now
that I have found what I have longed for? I offer myself a living
victim to my dearest Spouse. If thou art destined to be my sacrificer,
do at once whatever thou wiliest, for I will never fly from this spot;
only do no harm to any of mine.' What more? God did not permit the man
to carry his cruelty any further against her, but he went away in
confusion with all his companions." And then Fr. Raymond goes on to
tell us how, when all her spiritual children gathered round her full
of joy at her escape, she alone was overwhelmed with sorrow, and
lamented that she had lost through her sins the crown of martyrdom.

{136}

She was reserved for further labors, and for a martyrdom of another
kind in the same cause; and she had soon the consolation of seeing
that her mission to Florence had not been fruitless. The death of
Gregory XI. dispersed the congress of Sarzona; but the Florentines
remained, amid all their intestine troubles, firm in their resolution
to make peace with the Holy See. Before the outbreak of which we have
just spoken, they had arranged terms with Catharine, and ambassadors
had been chosen to go to Rome to treat with the new Pope. Catharine,
who had known Urban VI. when she was at Avignon, now wrote to him
earnestly entreating him to accept the terms; she was afraid lest the
scenes of violence and bloodshed that had lately taken place might
make him less inclined to peace. Her entreaties were successful. The
terms of peace were honorable to the Holy See. Everything was to
return to the state in which it had been before the war; the
Florentines were to pay 150,000 florins--a very moderate indemnity for
the mischief they had caused in the Papal States; and two legates were
to be sent to absolve the city from the censures it had incurred.
Catherine, full of joy, returned to Siena. She had refused to leave
the Florentine territory after the outbreak in which her life was
threatened, saying that she was there by order of the Pope; but she
had withdrawn for a while to the monastery of Vallombrosa.

The peace with Florence was of immense importance to the church at
that moment. The great storm which Catharine had predicted was already
gathering; she herself was to be called on for still greater exertions
in the cause of the papacy, and within a year and a half to be in a
true sense the victim of the struggle. After leaving Florence, she
spent a few months in repose at Siena, during which she dictated to
her disciples her only formal work, known by the name of the Dialogue.
It has always been a great treasure of spiritual doctrine, though
never so widely popular as the collection of her marvellous Letters.
It is in the course of these few months that an author as fitted as
any other to decide the question of time places a remarkable anecdote
of the saint, to which we have already alluded, and which shall form
the subject of the conclusion of this paper.  [Footnote 31]

  [Footnote 31: M. Cartier, who had paid great attention to the
  chronology of the life of St. Catherine, is our authority for
  placing the execution of Niccolo Tuldo at this time. As our
  acquaintance with the facts comes entirely from one of St.
  Catherine's own letters, which, like the rest, is without date, and
  which contains no internal notes by which to fix its time, it must
  be more or less than matter of conjecture. Fr. Capecclatro puts it
  much earlier--indeed, as it would seem, at a date when the letter,
  which is addressed to Fr. Raymond, who did not become her confessor
  until 1373, could not have been written. M. Cartier quotes the
  Venice copy of the Process of Canonization to support the date he
  assigns, in having access to which he has been more fortunate than
  the Bollandists themselves.]

As is so frequently the case in times of political instability, the
various governments that so rapidly succeeded one another in the rule
of the small Italian republics, seem to have been in the habit of
attempting to secure themselves in power by measures of the most
extravagant severity against any one who might seem to be disaffected
to them. We have already seen the issue of the odious powers of
"admonishing" possessed by the Guelph party in Florence; and at the
very time of which we are speaking, that republic was suffering under
a fresh tyranny of the lowest orders of her populace, who proscribed
and excluded from all civil authority anyone more worthy of power than
themselves. In Siena also the democratic party, so to call it, held
sway; the chief power was in the hands of a set of magistrates called
"Riformatori," who governed by fear, and by the exercise of the most
jealous watchfulness over the rest of the citizens, particularly the
nobles. We are told by the historians of Siena that it was made a
capital crime to strike, however lightly, one of these officials, and
that a certain citizen was severely punished because he had given a
banquet to which none of them had been invited. In such a state of
things, the anecdote of St. Catharine of which we are {137} speaking
finds a very natural place. A stranger in the town, a young noble of
Perugia, by name Niccolo Tuldo, had allowed himself to speak
disrespectfully and slightingly of the government. His words were
carried to the magistrates; he was seized, tried, and condemned to
death. We do not know what sort of life he had led before; but he was
young, careless, and had never, at all events, been to communion in
his life. He was not a subject of Siena, yet he found himself of a
sudden doomed to be legally murdered for a few light words. No wonder
that his spirit revolted against the injustice, and that he was
tempted to spend his last few hours of life in a fury of indignation
and despair. Here was a case for Catharine--a soul to be won to
penance, peace, and resignation, with the burning sense of flagrant
injustice fresh upon it, from which it could not hope to escape. Word
was brought to her, and she hastened to the prison. No one had been
able to induce the poor youth to think of preparing for death; he
turned away at once, either from comfort or from exhortation.

Catharine went to the prison, and he soon fell under the spell of that
heavenly fascination which is rarely imparted save to souls of the
highest sanctity. She won him to peace, and forgiveness of the injury
he had received. She led him to make his confession with care and
contrition, and to resign his will entirely into the hands of God. He
made her promise that she would be with him at the place of execution,
or, as it is still called in Italy, the place of justice. In the
morning she went to him early, led him to mass and communion, which he
had never before received, and found him afterward in a state of
perfect resignation, only with some fear left lest his courage might
fail him at the last moment. He turned to her as his support, bowed
his head on her breast, and implored her not to leave him, and then
all would be well. She bade him be of good courage, he would soon be
admitted to the marriage-feast in heaven, the blood of his Redeemer
would wash him, and the name of Jesus, which he was to keep always in
his heart, would strengthen him--she herself would await him at the
place of justice. All his fears and sadness gave place to a transport
of joy; he said he should now go with courage and delight, looking
forward to meeting her at that holy place. "See," says she, in her
letter to Fr. Raymond, "how great a light had been given to him, that
he spoke of the place of justice as a holy spot!" She went there
before the time, and set herself to pray for him; in her ardor, she
laid her head on the block, and begged Our Lady earnestly to obtain
for him a great peace and light of conscience, and for her the grace
to see him gain the happy end for which God had made him. Then she had
an assurance that her prayer was granted, and so great a joy spread
over her soul that she could take no notice of the crowd of people
gathering round to witness the execution. The young Perugian came at
last, gentle as a lamb, welcoming the sight of her with smiles, and
begging her to bless him. She made the sign of the cross over him.
"Sweet brother, go to the heavenly nuptials; soon wilt thou be in the
life that never ends!" He laid himself down, and she prepared his neck
for the stake, leaning down last of all, and reminding him of the
precious blood of the Lamb that had been shed for him. He murmured her
name, and called on Jesus. The blow was given, and his head fell into
her bands.

Catharine tells her confessor, in the letter from which our account is
drawn, that she had the greatest reward granted to her that charity
such as hers could receive. At the moment of execution, she raised her
heart to heaven in one intense act of prayer; and then she became
conscious that she was allowed to see how the soul that had just fled
was received in the other world. The Incarnate Son, who had {138} died
to save it, took it into the arms of his love, and placed it in the
wound of his side. "It was shown to me," she says, "by the Very Truth
of Truths, that out of mercy and grace alone he so received it and for
nothing else." She saw it blessed by each person of the Divine
Trinity. The Son of God, moreover, gave it a share of that crucified
love with which he had borne his own painful and shameful death, out
of obedience to his Father, for the salvation of mankind. And then,
that all might be complete, the blessed soul itself seemed to turn and
look upon her. "It made a gesture," she says, "sweet enough to win a
thousand parts: what wonder? for it already tasted the divine
sweetness. It turned as the bride turns when she has come to the door
of the home of her bridegroom; looks round on the friends that have
accompanied her to her new home, and bows her head to them, as a sign
that she thanks them for their kindness."

--------

MISCELLANY.


_The Population of Balloons_.--A very curious apparatus for the above
purpose has been devised by Mr. Butler, one of the members of the
Aeronautical Society, which has been lately established. It consists
of a pair of wings, to operate from the car of the balloon, and whose
downward blow is calculated to strike with a force exceeding forty
pounds, a power equivalent to an ascensive force of one thousand cubic
feet of carburetted hydrogen. The action required is somewhat similar
to that of rowing, and would be exactly so if at the end of the stroke
the oars sprang backward out of the hands of the rower; but, in this
case, the body is stretched forward as if toward the stern of the
boat, to grasp the handle and repeat the process, during which an
action equivalent to "feathering" is obtained. It is anticipated that
these wings, acting from a pendulous fulcrum, will produce, in
addition to the object for which they are designed, two effects, which
may possibly be hereafter modified, but which will be unpleasant
accompaniments to a balloon ascent, namely, the oscillation of the car
and a succession of jerks upward, first communicated to the car from
below, and repeated immediately by an answering jerk from the
balloon.--_London Popular Science Review_.



_The Poisonous Principle of Mushrooms._--This, which is called
amanitine, has been separated and experimented on by M. Letellier, who
has quite lately presented a paper recording his investigations to the
French Academy of Medicine. He experimented with the alkaloid upon
animals, and found the same results as those stated by Bernard and
others to follow the action of narceine. He thinks amanitine might be
used in cases where opium is indicated; and states that the best
antidotes in cases of poisoning by this principle are the preparations
of tannin. The general treatment in such cases consists in the
administration of the oily purgatives.



_The Conditions of Irish Vegetation_.--The inquiries of Dr. David
Moore have shown that whilst Ireland is better suited than any other
European country to the growth of green crops, it is unsuited to the
growth of corn and fruit-trees. This is attributable to the following
circumstances; the extreme humidity of the climate, and the slight
differences between the winter and summer temperatures--a difference
that in Dublin amounts to only seventeen and a half degrees, and on
the west coast is only forty-four degrees. The mean temperature of
Ireland is as high as though the island were fifteen degrees nearer
the equator.


_Libraries of Italy_.--There are 210 public libraries in Italy,
containing in the aggregate 4,149.281 volumes, according to the _Revue
de l'Instruction Publique_. Besides these, there are the libraries of
the two Chambers, that of the {139} Council of State, and many large
private collections, easily accessible. Then there are 110 provincial
libraries, and the collections belonging to 71 scientific bodies. In
the year 1863,  988,510 volumes were called for by readers, of which
183,528 related to mathematics and the natural sciences; 122,496 to
literature, history, and the linguistics; 70,537 to philosophy and
morals; 54,491 to theology; 193,972 to jurisprudence; 261,869 to the
fine arts; 101,797 to other subjects.



_The Poisonous Effects of Alcohol_--Supporters of teetotalism will be
pleased to peruse an essay on this subject by M. G. Pennetier, of
Rouen. The memoir we refer to is a "doctor's" thesis, and it treats
especially of the condition known as alcoholism. The following are
some of the author's conclusions: (1) Alcoholism is a special
affection, like lead-poisoning; (2) the prolonged presence of alcohol
in the stomach produces inflammation of the walls of this organ and
other injurious lesions; (3) the gastritis produced by alcohol may be
either acute or chronic, and may be complicated by ulcer, or general
or partial hypertrophy, or contraction of the opening of the stomach,
or purulent sub-mucous infiltration; (4) in certain cases of alcoholic
gastritis, the tabular glands of the stomach become inflamed, and pour
the pus, which they secrete, into the stomach or into the cellular
tissue of this organ.--_Popular Science Review._



_The Influence of Light on the Twining Organs of Plants._--At a
meeting of the French Academy, held on Oct 26th, a valuable paper on
this subject was read by M. Duchartre. The memoir deals with the
questions already discussed by Mr. Darwin, and in it the French
botanist records his own experiments and those of other observers, and
concludes that there are two groups of twining plants: 1. Such plants
as _Dioscorea Batatas_ and _Mandevillea suaveolens_, which have the
power of attaching themselves to surrounding objects only under the
influence of light 2. Species such as _Ipomoea purpurea_ and
_Phaseolus_, which exhibit this power equally well in light and
darkness.



_Chronicles of Yorkshire_.--To the series of works published under the
direction of the Master of the Rolls, the first volume of the
interesting chronicles of an ancient Yorkshire religious house, the
Cistercian Abbey of Meaux, near Beverley, has been added. Its title
runs thus: "Chronica Monasterii de Melsa, a Fundatione usque ad Annum
1396, Auctore Thoma de Burton, Abbate, accedit continuatio ad Annum
1406, a Monacho quodam Ipsius Domus. Edited from the autographs of the
author, by Edward A. Bond, Assistant-Keeper of Manuscripts and Egerton
Librarian in the British Museum." The abbey was founded in 1150, by
William le Gros, Earl of Albemarle, and its first abbot and builder
was Adam, a monk of Fountains Abbey. Thomas of Burton, who was abbot
in 1396, brings the history down to that year. This first volume ends
with the year 1247.--_Reader_.

--------

NEW PUBLICATIONS.


The See of St. Peter, the Rock of The Church, The Source or
Jurisdiction, And The Centre or Unity. By Thomas William Allies, M.A.,
etc. With a Letter to Dr. Pusey. 1 vol. 18mo, pp. 324. Republished by
Lawrence Kehoe, 145 Nassau Street, New-York. 1866.



We cannot sufficiently praise and recommend this little work, by far
the best on its topic for the ordinary reader, as well as really
valuable to the theologian. It was written before the author had been
received into the church, and immediately translated into Italian by
the order of the Holy Father. Mr. Allies was a noted writer of the
Anglican Church, and one of its beneficed clergymen. He held out long,
before he became, by the grace of God, a Catholic; and made strenuous
and able efforts to clear the Church of England from the charge of
schism. In becoming a Catholic he sacrificed a valuable benefice, with
the prospect before him of being obliged to struggle for a living,
and, we believe, was for a time in very straitened circumstances.

{140}

In this book, the argument for the Papal Supremacy from Scripture and
Tradition is presented in a clear and cogent manner, with solid
learning, admirable reasoning, and in a lucid and charming style,
rendering it perfectly intelligible to any reader of ordinary
education. It is impossible for any sophistry or cavilling to escape
from the irresistible force of Mr. Allies's reasoning. It is a moral
demonstration of the perpetual existence and divine institution of the
papacy in the Christian church.

An attempt has been made to detract from its force by representing
that the author himself had in a previous work drawn a different
conclusion from the same premises. This objection would have force in
relation to a matter of metaphysical demonstration; but has none at
all in the present case, which is one of moral demonstration arising
from the cumulative force of a great number of separate probabilities.
The former conclusion which the author drew was not one totally
opposite to his later one, but merely a partial, defective conclusion
in the same line.

In his first book be admitted the primacy of the Roman See, but not in
its full extent, or complete application to the state of bodies not in
her communion. Preconceived prejudices, and an imperfect grasp of the
logical and theological bearings of the question, hindered him from
comprehending fully the nature of the primacy, whose existence he
admitted. His second book is, therefore, a legitimate development from
the principles of the first, although this very development has led
him to quite opposite conclusions respecting certain important facts.

The policy of the enemies of the Roman See is, to accumulate all
possible instances of resistance to her authority, disputes to regard
to its exercise, ambiguous expressions concerning its nature and
origin, intricate questions of law, special pleadings of every kind,
gathered from the first eight centuries of Christianity. In this way
they file a bill of exceptions against the supremacy of the Holy See.
These disconnected, accidental shreds are patched together into a
theory, that the supremacy of the Holy See has been established by a
gradual usurpation. Starting on this _à priori_ assumption, the
advocates of the claims of Rome are required to prove categorically
from the monuments of the first, second, third, and other early
centuries the full and complete doctrine of the supremacy, with all
its consequences, as now held and taught by theologians. Whatever is
clearer, stronger, more minutely explicated at a later period than at
an earlier, is made out to be a proof of this preconceived usurpation.
In this way, these shallow and sophistical writers endeavor to
bewilder, and confute the minds of their readers amid a maze of
documents, so that they may give up the hope of a clear and plain
solution, and stay where they are, because they are there. A book of
this kind has just been translated and republished in this country,
from the French of M. Guettée, a priest who had left the Catholic
Church for the Russian schism, under the auspices of the American Mark
of Ephesus, Bishop Coxe. From a cursory examination of the French
original, we judge it to be as specious and plausible a resumé of the
materials furnished by Jansenists and Orientals--whose skirts the
Anglicans are making violent efforts to seize hold of just now--as
any that has appeared. Wherefore we trust that it may be soon and
effectually refuted.

It is plain to every fair mind and honest heart, that this method of
argument is, in the first place, false and unsound, and, in the second
place, unsuited for the mass of readers. Greeks and Anglicans use it
against the papacy, intending to hold on to the trunk of their
headless Catholicism. It can be applied, however, just as well to
ecumenical councils, and all of the rest of the hierarchical system.
So, also, to the Liturgy, to the canon of Scripture, then to dogma,
and finally to the doctrines of natural religion. The real order of
both natural and supernatural truth is one in which positive,
indestructible, eternal principles are implanted as germs, which
explicate successively their living power. With all their sophistry,
the enemies of Rome can never banish from Scripture and tradition the
evidence of the perpetual existence and living force of the primacy of
St. Peter.

{141}

They cannot form a theory which can take in, account for, and totalise
all the documents of fathers, councils, history, in the integrity of a
complete Catholic idea. They deny, explain away, object, question.
They have a separate special pleading for each and every single proof
or document. But there still remains the cumulative force of such a
vast number of probable evidences, all of which coalesce and integrate
themselves in the doctrine of the supremacy. The true way is to
interpret and complete the earlier tradition, by that which is later.
This is done by our adversaries in regard to the canon, to sacraments,
to episcopacy, to the authority of councils. It ought to be the same
in regard to the papacy. The grand fact of one Catholic Church,
centred in Rome as the See of Peter, stares us in the face. If we can
trace it regularly back, without a palpable break of continuity, to
its principle and source in the institution of Christ, that is enough.
Those who set up another Catholicity are bound to exhibit to the world
something more palpable, more universal, more plainly marked by the
characteristics of truth, which can be legible to all mankind. They
must solve the problem of all the ages, explain all history, assert a
mastery over the whole domain of the earth, and prove that their
doctrine and church can fill all things like an ocean; or, they must
step aside out of the way of the two gigantic combatants, who are now
stripping for the fight, Rome and Lawless Reason.

Besides, it is absurd to think that any except scholars can be
expected to wade through a discussion like that of a dry law-book, or
abstruse treatise on politics, examining the history and decisions of
councils, and all kinds of official documents. The essential signs and
marks of the truth and the church must be plain, obvious, level to the
common capacity. If the Roman Church be the true church, she must be
able to show it by plain signs, which will put all doubt at rest,
where the heart is sincere. So of the Anglicans, so of the Russians.

Therefore it is that Mr. Allies's book is especially valuable. It
brings out the clear, unmistakable evidence of the supremacy given to
St. Peter and his successors by Jesus Christ. It shows the great sign
of Catholicity to be communion with the Holy Roman Church, the See of
Peter. We recommend it to all, but especially to converts or those who
are studying, and who wish to instruct themselves fully on this
fundamental topic of Catholic doctrine. There cannot be a topic which
it is more, important to study at the present time. The cause of the
papacy is the cause of revelation and of sound reason, of law and of
true liberty, the cause of Christ, the cause of God. Whoever defends
it successfully is a benefactor to the human race.



Felix Holt, The Radical. A Novel. By George Eliot, author of Adam
Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Scenes of Clerical Life,
Romola, etc. 8vo. pp. 184. New-York: Harper and Brothers. 1866.



Whatever may be thought of the philosophy of this book, there can be
no question that, considered simply as a work of art, it is one of the
most admirable productions of the day. There are passages in it which
deserve to be classed among the gems of English literature, and
characters which will live as long as English fiction itself. With
Felix Holt, the hero, we are less satisfied than with any of the other
personages in the story. Full of generous impulses, and burning with
half-formed noble thoughts, he is, after all, when you look at him in
cold blood, only an impracticable visionary, who wastes his energy in
vain striving after some dimly-seen good, which neither he, nor the
reader, nor, we are persuaded, the author herself, fully understands
and at the end he drops quietly into a grumbling sort of happy life,
no nearer the goal of his indefinite aspirations than he was at the
beginning, and having succeeded no further in his schemes for the
elevation of the people than persisting in his refusal to brush his
own hair, or wear a waistcoat. It is very true that such is generally
the end of reformers of his character; the fundamental defect of the
book is that the author seems unconscious of the hollowness of Felix's
philosophy, and we are not quite sure that she is even conscious of
his ultimate failure.

Mrs. Holt, the hero's mother, is an exquisitely humorous conception,
who deserves a place by the side of Dickens's Mrs. Nickleby. She never
presents her austere "false front," or shows the "bleak north-easterly
expression" in her eye, without arousing a smile; and her {142}
rambling, inconsequential, dolorous conversation is a spring of
never-failing merriment. There is a plenty of humor too in several of
the minor characters, and there is delicate and unaffected pathos in
the fanatical and somewhat wearisome little preacher, Mr. Lyon, and
the proud, suffering Mrs. Transome, whoso youthful sin pursues her
like an avenging fury, and whose whole sad life, "like a spoiled
pleasure-day," has been such an utter, pitiful disappointment. But the
charm of the book is in the heroine, Esther Lyon. Never, we believe,
has the conception of refined physical beauty been so perfectly
conveyed by words as in the delineation of this exquisite character.
We are told nothing of Esther's features; we get no inventory of her
charms, no description of her person: a few words suffice for all that
the author has to tell us of her appearance; but she floats through
the book a vision of unsurpassed loveliness. She never enters a room
but we are conscious of the tread of dainty little feet, the fine
arching of a graceful neck, the gloss of beautiful hair, the soft play
of taper fingers, and a delicate scent like the breath of the
violet-laden south. The art with which this exquisite effect is kept
up all through the book, without repetition, and without the slightest
approach toward sensuality, is so perfect that we are tempted to call
it a stroke of genius. And the character of Esther is as fascinating
as her beauty. The author has thrown her whole heart into the
description of the ripening and development of this girl, and the
casting aside of the little foibles of her fine-ladyism under the
influence of Felix. The scenes between these two strongly contrasted
characters are scenes to be read again and again with never increasing
delight.

The pictures of English provincial life; the petty talk of ignorant
farmers and shopkeepers; the election scenes, the canvassing, the
nominations, the tavern discussions, the speeches, and the riot at the
polls, are all admirable, and their naturalness is almost startling.
There is no exaggeration in any part of the book, and not even in the
richest of the humorous scenes is there a single improbable passage.



Essays on Woman's Work. By Bessie Rayner Parkes. Second Edition. 16mo.
pp. 240. London: Alexander Strahan, 1866.


The serious questions discussed in this little book have happily a
less pressing significance in this country than in England; but even
here the problem of how to find suitable employment for destitute
educated women is often one of no slight importance, and as years pass
on, it will more and more frequently present itself for solution. Miss
Parkes approaches the subject not with the visionary notions of a
social "reformer," but in a spirit of practical and experienced
benevolence, which entitles her remarks to great weight. She points
out how the tendency of modern mechanical improvements is to banish
from domestic life a large and consistently increasing class of women,
and she pleads with eloquence and eagerness for a better provision
toward their moral and intellectual improvement than is made at
present. She treats of the various pursuits to which educated women
now resort for a livelihood--teaching, literature art, business, and
so on, and of others for which they are well fitted and which society
ought to lay open to them. She gives a very interesting account of
certain excellent associations founded in England for the assistance
of working women, with some of which Enterprises Miss Parkes herself
has been prominently connected. We advise our friends to read her
well-written essays, that they may understand something of the
terrible suffering which prevails largely abroad, and to some extent
also at home, among a class of poor who have very strong claims upon
our commiseration, but seldom or never appeal in person two our
beneficence. The evils which she describes, and for which she
indicates alleviations, if not remedies, are constantly growing with
the growth of population, and we ought to be prepared to meet them.



Six months at the White House with Abraham  Lincoln. The Story of a
Picture. By F. B. Carpenter,  16mo, pp. 359. New York: Hurd and
Houghton. 1866


Mr. Carpenter is a young New York artist, who, in 1863, conceived the
purpose of painting a historical picture commemorative of the
proclamation of emancipation {143} by President Lincoln. Through the
intervention of influential friends, he obtained not only the
President's consent to sit for a portrait, but permission to establish
his studio in the White House during the progress of the work; or, as
Mr. Lincoln expressed it, in his homely way, "We will turn you in
loose here, Mr. C--, and try to give you a good chance to work out
your idea." During the six months that he spent at the picture, Mr.
Carpenter was virtually a member of the President's family. He saw Mr.
Lincoln in his most familiar and unguarded moments; he won a great
deal of his confidence and regard; and he has now set down in this
little book his impressions of the President's personal character, and
a great store of anecdotes and incidents, many of which have not
before been published. For the work he has done and the manner in
which he has done it we have only words of praise. He has given us the
best picture of Mr. Lincoln's character as a man that has ever been
drawn, and he has done it with care, modesty, and good taste. We
believe that no man, however far he may have stood apart from Mr.
Lincoln on political questions, can read this admirable little book
without feeling a deep respect for our late President's
straightforward, honest, manly intellect, and faithfulness to
principles, and without loving him for his tenderness of heart, and
his many sterling virtues. Mr. Carpenter writes in a tone of ardent
admiration, but not of extravagant eulogy. He has the pains-taking
fidelity of a Boswell, but without Boswell's pettiness or sycophancy.
He has written a book which will not only be perused with eagerness by
the reader of the present hour, but will achieve a permanent and
honorable place in biographical literature.



An Introductory Latin Book, intended as an Elementary Drill-Book on
the Inflections and Principles of the Language, and as an Introduction
to the Author's Grammar, Reader, and Latin Composition. By Albert
Harkness, Professor in Brown University. 12mo, pp. 162.1 New York: D.
Appleton and Co. 1866.

The Latin books which Professor Harkness has published for more
advanced pupils have enjoyed a flattering popularity, and in schools
which have adopted them the present volume will prove very acceptable
for preparatory classes. It is intended, however, to be complete in
itself, and comprises an outline of Latin grammar, exercises for
double translation, suggestions to the learner, notes, and
English-Latin and Latin-English vocabularies. Unnecessary matters seem
to have been carefully excluded, and the work has an appearance of
great clearness and compactness.



Philip Earnscliffe; or, The Morals of Mayfair. A Novel. By Mrs.
Edwards, author of Archie Lovell, Miss Forrester, The Ordeal for
Wives, etc., etc. 8vo, pp. 173. New-York: The American News Company.



This is a clever, unartistical, readable, repulsive, and utterly
unprofitable story, vulgar in tone and vicious in sentiment. Both hero
and heroine are perfectly impossible and inconsistent characters, and
nobody will be the better for reading anything about them.





The Catholic Teacher's Improved Sunday-School Class Book. Lawrence
Kehoe, New York.

This little book should be in the hand of every Catholic Sunday-school
teacher. It provides for the registry of the scholars names, age,
residence, attendance, lessons, conduct, and everything necessary for
the good order and welfare of the school or class. It is more
comprehensive, and more easily kept, than anything yet published.

It also has a column in which to record the number of the book taken
by the scholar from the Sunday-school library. A library is necessary
to the complete success of every Sunday-school. From the catalogues of
our Catholic publishers a list of about four hundred books can be
selected, tolerably well adapted for this purpose. This, however, is
about one-third as many as an ordinary Sunday-school requires. We must
also confess it is not pleasant to be obliged to pay for these about
twice as much as Protestant Sunday-schools do for books published in
the same style. But it may be replied that they have societies
possessing a large capital, whose aim is to publish their {144} books
as cheap as possible, in order to spread them far and wide. True. And
why cannot the 5,000,000 Catholics in the United States, with 4,000
churches, and 2,500 priests, support a Publication Society, with
capital enough to publish Sunday-school requisites as cheap as they!
This Class Book is printed on good paper, and is not only more
complete than any other, but is furnished much cheaper.



A History of England or the Young. A new edition revised. 12mo, pp.
373. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. 1866.

This is an American reprint of an English book, and England is spoken
of throughout it as "our country"--an expression which will be very
apt to lead to misconceptions in the juvenile mind. The unknown
compiler seems to have spared no pains to make the book
unexceptionable in a religious point of view, for use in Catholic
schools; but we cannot commend it for clearness, and we think it might
be advantageously weeded of various anecdotes and trivial details, and
of a great deal of turgid rhetoric. There is need of a good English
history for our schools, but we do not believe this publication is
destined to supply it. So far as our examination has gone, it is full
of errors. The account of the American Revolution is absurd--the very
cause of it being egregiously misstated. The story of the Crimean war
is not much better told, and the history of the Sepoy mutiny in India
is very careless and inaccurate.



The Mormon Prophet and His Harem; or, An Authentic History of Brigham
Young, his numerous Wives and Children. By Mrs. C. V. Waite. 12mo, pp.
280. New York: Hurd and Houghton. 1866.

As Mrs. Waite resided for two years in the midst of the society which
she has undertaken to describe, and has also received a great deal of
information from persons long in the service of Brigham Young, her
account of the Mormon system and its arch-priest may reasonably be
assumed as authentic. To anybody who wants to read the disgusting
record of human imbecility and wickedness which disfigures the history
of Western civilization, Mrs. Waite's volume will, no doubt, be found
sufficiently full and interesting.



Mr. Winkfield. A Novel. 8vo. pp. 160 New-York: The American News
Company. 1866.

The unknown author of this book, which we can hardly call a story, as
apparently endeavored to satirize life and society in New-York. His
success has not been equal to his expectations.



Alfonso; or, The Triumph of Religion. A Catholic Tale, P. F.
Cunningham, Philadelphia.

This is a very interesting and instructive tale, designed to show "the
lamentable effects in your religious system of education will
infallibly produce." We hope the talented authoress will give us other
stories for our young people equally good. We think, however, she
crowds her hero along too fast. The charm of the story would be
increased by a more natural and easy concurrence of events.



BOOKS RECEIVED



From Hurd & Houghton, New York. Spanish Papers and other Miscellanies,
hitherto unpublished or uncollected. By Washington Irving. 2 vols.
12mo, pp. 487 and 466.



P. Donahoe, Boston. Redmond, Count O'Hanlon, The Irish Rapparee, and
Barney Brady's Goose. By William Carleton. 1 vol. 18mo.


Andrew J. Graham, New York. Standard Phonographic Visitor Edited and
published by Andrew J. Graham.



We have also received the Seventh Annual Report of the Trustees of the
Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art; and the
Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Mercantile Library Association of
the City of New York for 1866.



J. J. O'Connor & Co., Newark, N.J., have in press and will soon
published the work entitled "Curious Questions," by the Rev. Dr.
Brann.

--------

{145}

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.


VOL. IV., NO. 20.--NOVEMBER, 1866.


ORIGINAL.

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.


IX.

A FURTHER EXPLANATION OF THE SUPERNATURAL ORDER.


It has been already remarked, that the Incarnation is a more profound
and inscrutable mystery than even the Trinity. The reason is that the
trinity is a necessary truth, included in the very idea of God as most
simple being and most pure act. The incarnation is not a truth
necessary in itself, but only necessary on the supposition that it has
been decreed by God. The trinity of persons proceeds from a necessity
of nature in God, the incarnation from an act of free will. But the
acts of the divine free will are more mysterious and inexplicable than
those which proceed from necessity of nature.

Without revelation the incarnation would be inconceivable, and even
when it is disclosed by revelation, the analogies by which it can be
illustrated are faint and imperfect. The union between soul and body
in animal nature and between the animal and spiritual nature in man
furnish the only analogies of anything like a hypostatic union in the
natural world. But these analogies do not illustrate the dark point in
the mystery, to wit: the union of two _intelligent_ natures in one
_subsistence_, or one common personal principle of imputability to
which the acts of both are referrible. We have but little difficulty
in apprehending that acts proceeding from two distinct natures in man,
the animal and the spiritual, should be referred to one principle of
imputability or one personality. These acts are so very distinct and
different from each other, that they evidently have no tendency to
become blended or confused, by the absorption of one nature into the
other. But if we should try to conceive of a hypostatic union between
the angelic and human natures in one person, it would be impossible to
avoid imagining that one intelligent nature would be absorbed in the
other. If there is but one principle of imputability, how can there be
two distinct intelligent voluntary operations? Our opinion is, that a
union of this kind between two finite natures is impossible. The {146}
possibility of assuming a distinct intelligent nature must then belong
to a divine person only, and be included in the infinitude of the
divine essence. The difficulty of understanding it lies then in the
incomprehensibility of the divine essence. We apprehend nothing in the
divine essence distinctly, except that which is apprehensible through
the analogy which created essences bear to it. Evidently that in the
divine essence which renders it totally dissimilar from all created
essences cannot be represented by a similitude in created essences.
And as the divine essence subsisting in the second person renders it
capable of assuming human nature by an attribute which renders it
totally dissimilar from all finite personality, there can be no
analogy to it in finite things. In order to understand this it is
necessary to recall to mind a principle laid down by St. Thomas, that
we cannot affirm anything, whether being, intelligence, will,
personality, or whatever other term of thought we may propose, of God
and a creature, _univocally_, that is, in the same identical sense.
The essence of God differs as really from the spiritual essence of
angels and human souls as it does from the essence of animal souls and
of matter. We apprehend what the intelligence and the will of God are
only through the analogy of human intelligence and will, in a most
imperfect and inadequate manner. In themselves they are
incomprehensible to the human understanding. In the very essence of
God as incomprehensible, or super-intelligible, is situated that
capacity of being the personality of created intelligent nature which
constitutes the mystery of the hypostatic union. The only analogy
therefore in created things which is appreciable by the human mind, is
an analogy derived from the union of natures whose difference is
intelligible to us, as the spiritual and animal. This analogy enables
us to understand that the divine and human natures, not being
intelligent natures in a univocal sense, but being dissimilar not only
in degree of intelligence but in the very essence of intelligence, are
capable of union in one personality. There is no analogy, however,
which enables us to understand what this difference is, because it
would be a contradiction in terms to suppose in the creature any
analogy to that which is above all analogies and is peculiar to the
divine nature as divine. The utmost that reason can do is to
apprehend, when the mystery of the incarnation is proposed by
revelation, that the incomprehensibility of the divine essence renders
it impossible to judge that it cannot be hypostatically united to a
created intelligent nature, and that it increases our conception of
its infinitude or plenitude of being to suppose that a divine person
can terminate a created nature as well as the nature which is
self-existing. All that reason can do then is to demonstrate, after
the mystery of the incarnation is proposed, that the impossibility of
the incarnation cannot be demonstrated on the principles of reason,
and that it is therefore credible on the authority of revelation; and,
by the illumination of faith, to apprehend a certain degree of
probability or verisimilitude in the mystery itself.

Once established, however, as a dogma or fundamental principle in
theology, its reason and fitness in reference to the final cause of
the universe, the harmony of all other facts and doctrines with it,
and the grandeur which it gives to the divine economy, can be
conclusively and abundantly proved by rational arguments.

We know that it must be fitting and worthy of the divine majesty to
decree the incarnation, because he has done it. But we can also see
that it is so, and why. We can see that it befits Almighty God to
exhaust his own omnipotence in producing a work which is the
masterpiece of his intelligence and the equivalent of the archetype
contained in his Word. To show his royal magnificence in bestowing the
greatest {147} possible boon on created nature. To pour forth his love
in such a manner as to astound the intelligence of his rational
creatures, by communicating all that is contained in filiation and the
procession of the Spirit, so far as that is in itself possible. To
glorify and deify the creature, by raising it as nearly as possible to
an equality with himself in knowledge and beatitude.

The reason for selecting the human rather than the angelic nature for
the hypostatic union is obvious from all that has preceded. Human
nature is a microcosm, in which all grades of existence are summed up
and represented. In taking human nature the Word assumes all created
nature, from the lowest to the highest. For, although the angelic
nature is superior to the human, it is only superior to it in certain
respects, and not as a rational essence. Moreover, this superiority is
part only temporary, enduring while the human nature is in the process
of explication; and as to the rest, the inferiority of the human
nature is counterbalanced by the supernatural elevation given to it in
the hypostatic union, which raises the natural, human operation of the
soul of our Lord Jesus Christ far above that of the angelic nature.
Although, therefore, in the series of grades in the natural order of
existence, the angelic nature is above the human, it is subordinated
to it in the supernatural order, or the order of the incarnation, and
in relation to the final cause. For it is through the human nature
united to the divine nature in the person of the Word that the angelic
nature completes its return to God and union with him.

The elevation of created nature to the hypostatic union with God in
the person of the Word introduces an entirely new principle of life
into the intelligent universe. Hitherto, we have considered in the
creative act a regular gradation in the nature of created existences,
from the lowest to the highest. Each grade is determined to a certain
participation in being superior in intensity to that of the one below
it and to a mode of activity corresponding to its essence. There can
be no grade of existence in its essence superior to the rational or
intelligent nature, which is created in the similitude of that which
is highest in the divine essence. No doubt, the specific and minor
grades included under the universal generic grade of rationality might
be indefinitely multiplied. As the angels differ from man, and the
various orders of the angelic hierarchy differ from each other, so God
might continue to create _ad infinitum_ new individuals or new
species, each differing from all others, and all arranged in an
ascending series, in which each grade should be superior in certain
particulars to all below it. It is evidently possible that a created
intelligence should be made to progress from the lowest stage of
development continuously and for ever. Let us fix our thought upon the
most distant and advanced limit in this progression which we are able
to conceive. It is evident that God might have created an intelligent
spirit in the beginning at that point, as the starting-point of his
progression, and might have created at the same time other intelligent
spirits at various distances from this point in a descending series.
Suppose now that this is the case, and that the lowest in the scale
progresses until he reaches the starting-point of the most advanced.
The one who began at this advanced point will have progressed
meanwhile to another point equally distant, and will preserve his
relative superiority. But even at this point, God might have created
him at first, with another series of intervening grades at all the
intermediate points which he has passed over in his progressive
movement. We may carry on this process as long as we please, without
ever coming to a limit at which we are obliged to stop. For the
creation being of necessity limited, and the creative power of God
unlimited, it is impossible to equalize the two terms, or to conceive
of a creation which is equal to God as creator. Nevertheless, {148}
all possible grades of rationality are like and equal to each other as
respects the essential propriety of rationality, and never rise to a
grade which is essentially higher than that of rational nature. The
only difference possible is a difference in the mode in which the
active force of the intellect is exercised, and in the number of
objects to which it is applicable, or some other specific quality of
the same kind. Whatever may be the increase which rational nature can
be supposed to receive, it is only the evolution of the essential
principle which constitutes it rational, and is therefore common to
all species and individuals of the rational order. Although,
therefore, God cannot create a spirit so perfect that it cannot be
conceived to be more perfect in certain particulars, yet it is
nevertheless true that God cannot create anything which is generically
more perfect than spirit or intelligent substance. From this it
follows as a necessary consequence, that God cannot create a nature
which by its essential principles demands its last complement of being
in a divine person, or naturally exists in a hypostatic union with the
divine nature. For rational nature, which is the highest created
genus, and the nearest possible to the nature of God,--"Ipsius enim
et genus sumus,"  [Footnote 32]--developed to all eternity, would
never rise above itself, or elicit an act which would cause it to
terminate upon a divine person, and bring it into a hypostatic union
with God.

  [Footnote 32: "For we are also his offspring." Acts xvii. 28.]

Produce a line, parallel to an infinite straight line, to infinity,
and it will never meet it or come any nearer to it. The very essence
of created spirit requires that it should be determined to a mode of
apprehending God an image reflected in the creation. The activity of
the created intelligence must proceed for ever in this line, and has
no tendency to coincide with the act of the divine intelligence in
which God contemplates immediately his own essence. Increase as much
as you will the perfection of the created image, it remains always
infinitely distant from the uncreated, personal image of himself which
the Father contemplates in the Word, and loves in the Holy Spirit,
within the circle of the blessed Trinity. It has been proved in a
previous number that infinite intelligence is identical with the
infinite intelligible in God. If a being could be created which by its
essence should be intelligent by the immediate vision of the divine
essence, it would be intelligent _in se_, and therefore possess within
its own essence its immediate, intelligible object, which, by the
terms of the supposition, is the divine essence. It would possess in
itself sanctity, immutability, and beatitude. It would be, in other
words, beatified precisely because existing, that is, incapable of
existing in any defective state, and therefore incapable of error,
sin, or suffering. And as, by the terms, it is what it is, by its
essence, its essence and existence are identical; it is essentially
most pure act, essentially existing, therefore self-existent,
necessary being, or identical with God. It is therefore impossible for
God to create a rational nature which is constituted rational by the
immediate intuition of the divine essence. For by the very terms it
would be a creature and God at the same time. It would be one of the
persons in the unity of the divine nature, and yet have a nature
totally distinct. In the natural order, then, it is impossible that a
created nature should either at its beginning, or in the progress of
its evolution, demand as its due and necessary complement of being a
divine personality. Personality is the last complement of rational
nature. Divine nature demands divine personality. Finite nature
demands finite personality. It is evident, therefore, that there
cannot be a finite nature, however exalted, which cannot come to its
complete evolution within its own essence, or which can explicate out
of the contents of its being an act which necessarily terminates upon
a divine person, so as to bring it into a hypostatic union with the
divine nature.

{149}

Let us go back a little in the scale of being, in order to develop
this principal more fully. Lifeless matter is capable of indefinite
increase in its own order, but this increase has no tendency to
elevate it to the grade of vegetative life. A new and different
principle of organization must be introduced in order to construct
from its simple elements a vegetative form, as, for instance, a
flower. So, also, the explication of vegetative life has no tendency
to generate a sentient principle. The plant may go on producing
foliage, flowering, germinating, and reproducing its species for ever,
but its vital activity can never produce a sentient soul, or proceed
to that degree of perfection that it requires a sentient soul as its
last complement or the form of its organic life. Suppose a plant or
flower to receive a sentient soul; this soul must be immediately
created by God, and it would be the principle or form of a new life,
which, in relation to the natural, vegetative life of the flower,
would be _super_-natural, elevating it to an order of life above that
which constitutes it a flower.

A sentient creature, as a dog or a bird, has no tendency to explicate
from the constitutive principle of its animal soul intelligence, or to
attain a state of existence in which an intelligent personality is due
to it as its last complement. If the animal soul could have an
intelligent personality, it must be by hypostatic union with an
intelligent nature distinct from itself, which would then become the
_suppositum_, or principal of imputability to the animal nature. The
animal would then be elevated to a state which would be
_super_-natural, relatively to the animal nature, or entirely above
the plane of it's natural development.

In like manner, the rational nature has no tendency or power to rise
above itself, or to do more than explicate that principle which
constitutes it rational. If it is elevated to a higher order, it must
be by a direct act of omnipotence, an immediate intervention of the
creator, producing in it an act which could never be produced by the
explication of its rationality, even though it should progress to all
eternity. This act is supernatural in the absolute sense. That is, it
lies in an order above created nature as a totality, and above all
nature which might be created; _supra omnem naturam creatam atque
creabilem_.

It is beyond the power even of divine omnipotence to create a rational
nature which, by its intrinsic, constitutive principle of
intelligence, is affiliated to the Father through the Holy Spirit.
Such a nature would be equal to the Word, and another Word, and
therefore equal to the Father, or, in other words, would be a divine
nature although created; which is absurd. The Father can have but one
Son, eternally begotten, not made; and the only possible way in which
a created nature can be elevated to a strictly filial relation to the
Father, is by a hypostatic union with the divine nature of the Son in
one person, so that there is a communication of properties between the
two natures, and but one principle of imputability to which all the
divine and human attributes and acts can be referred. This union can
be effected only by a direct intervention of God, or by the Word
assuming to himself a created nature. For rational nature finds its
last complement of personality, its _subsistentia_, or principle of
imputability, within its own limits, which it never tends to
transcend, even by infinite progression. The human nature individuated
in the person of Jesus Christ, by its own intrinsic principles was
capable of being completed in a finite personality, like every other
individual human nature. The fact that the place of the human
personality is supplied by a divine person, and the human nature thus
completed only in the divine, is due to the direct, divine act of the
Word, and is therefore supernatural. In this supernatural relation it
becomes the recipient, so to speak, of the divine vital current, and
participates in the {150} act in which the divine life is consummated,
which is the procession of the Son and Holy Spirit from the Father.
This act consists radically and essentially in the immediate
contemplation of the divine essence. Created intelligence, therefore,
elevated to the hypostatic union, contemplates the essence of God
directly, without any intervening medium, by the immediate intuition
or beatific vision of God.

Thus, in the incarnation, the creation returns back to God and is
united to him in the most perfect manner, by participating in the good
of being in a way sublime above all human conception, exhausting even
the infinite idea of God. Created intelligence is beatified,
glorified, and deified. In Jesus Christ, man, in whose essence is
included the equivalent of all creation, and God meet in the unity of
one person. The nature of God becomes the nature of man in the second
person, who is truly man; and the nature of man becomes the nature of
God in the same person, who is truly God. Creation, therefore, attains
its final end and returns to God as final cause in the incarnation;
which is the most perfect work of God, the crown of the acts of his
omnipotence, the summit of the creative act, the completion of all
grades of existence, and the full realization of the divine archetype.

In Jesus Christ, the creative act is carried to the apex of
possibility. In his human nature, therefore, he is the most
pre-eminent of all creatures, and surpasses them all, not only singly
but collectively. He has the primogeniture, and the dominion over all
things, the entire universe of existences being subordinated to him.
Nevertheless, his perfection is  not completed merely by that which he
possesses within the limits of his individual humanity. He is the
summit of creation, the head of the intelligent universe, the link
nearest to God in the chain of created existences. The universe,
therefore, by virtue of the principle of order and unity which
pervades it, ought to communicate with him through a supernatural
order, so that the gradation in the works of God may be regular and
perfect. The chasm between rational nature in its natural state and
the same nature raised to the hypostatic union is too great, and
demands to be filled up by some intermediate grades. Having taken
created nature, which is by its very constitution adapted to
fellowship between individuals of the same kind; and, specifically,
human nature, which is constituted in relations of race and family,
the Son of God ought, in all congruity, to have brethren and
companions capable of sharing with him in beatitude and glory. Being
specifically human and of one blood with all mankind, it is fitting
that he should elevate his own race to a share in his glory. Being
generically of the same intellectual nature with the angels, it is
also fitting that he should elevate them to the same glory. This can
only be done by granting them a participation in that supernatural
order of intelligence and life which he possesses by virtue of the
hypostatic union; that is, a participation in the immediate, beatific
vision of the divine essence.

This supernatural order is denominated the order of regeneration and
grace. It is cognate with the order of the hypostatic union, but not
identical with it. The personality of the divine Word is communicated
only to the individual human nature of Jesus Christ, who is not only
the first-born but the only-begotten Son of God. God is incarnate in
Christ alone. The union of his created substance with the divine
substance, without any permixture or confusion, in one person, is
something inscrutable to reason. The knowledge, sanctity, beatitude,
and glory of his human nature are effects of this union, but are not
it. These effects, which are due to the humanity of Christ as being
the nature of a divine person, and are its rightful and necessary
prerogatives, are communicable, as a matter of grace, to other
individuals, personally distinct from Christ. {151} That is to say,
sanctity, beatitude, and glory do not require as the necessary
condition of their community ability the communication of a divine
personality, but are compatible with the existence of an indefinite
number of distinct, finite personalities. All those rational
creatures, however, who are the subjects of this communicated grace,
are thereby assimilated to the Son of God, and made partakers of an
adopted sonship. This adoptive sonship is an inchoate and imperfect
state of co-filiation with the Son of God, which is completed and made
perfect in the hypostatic union. The order of grace, therefore, though
capable of subsisting without the incarnation, and not depending on it
as a physical cause, can only subsist as an imperfect order, and
cannot have in itself a metaphysical finality. The incarnation being
absent, the universe does not attain an end metaphysically final, or
actualise the perfection of the ideal archetype. The highest mode of
the communication of the good of being, the most perfect reproduction
of the operation of God _ad intra_, in his operation _ad extra_, which
the Father contemplates in the Word as possible, remains unfulfilled.
Those who hold, therefore, that the incarnation was not included in
the original creative decree of God must maintain that in that decree
God did not contemplate an end in creating metaphysically final. They
are obliged to suppose another decree logically subsequent to the
first, by virtue of which the universe is brought to an metaphysically
final in order to repair the partial failure of the angelic nature and
the total failure of human nature to attain the inferior, prefixed end
of the first decree. Nevertheless, decrees of God are eternal, God
always had in view, even on this hypothesis, the incarnation as the
completion of his creative act; and only took the be occasion which
the failure of his first plan through sin presented to introduce one
more perfect. Billuart, therefore, as the interpreter of the Thomist
school, maintains that God revealed the incarnation to Adam before his
fall, though not the connection which the fulfilment of the divine
purpose had with his sin as its _conditio sine qua non_. If this
latter view is adopted, it cannot be held that the angelic and human
natures were created and endowed with supernatural grace in the
express view of the incarnation, or that the angels hold, and that man
originally held, the title to glorification from Jesus Christ as their
head, and the meritorious cause of original grace. Nevertheless, as
the incarnation introduces a new and higher order into the universe,
elevating it to an end metaphysically final of which it previously
fell short, all angels and all creatures of every grade are
subordinated to Jesus Christ, who is the head of the creation,
reuniting all things to the Father in his person.

This explanation is made in deference to the common opinion, although
the author does not hold this opinion, and in order that those who do
hold it may not feel themselves bound to reject the whole argument
respecting the relation of the creative act to the incarnation.

It is in regard to the doctrine of original grace, or the elevation of
the rational nature to that supernatural order whose apex is the
hypostatic union, that Catholic theology comes into an irreconcilable
conflict with Pelagianism, Calvinism, and Jansenism. These three
systems agree in denying the doctrine of original grace. They maintain
that rational nature contains in its own constituent principles the
germ of development into the state which is the _ultimatum_ of the
creature, and the end for which God created it, and was bound to
create it, if he created at all. They differ, however, fundamentally
as to the principles actually constitutive of rational nature. The
Pelagian takes human nature in its present condition as his type. The
advocates of the other two systems take an ideal human nature, which
has become essentially {152} corrupted by the fall, as their type.
Therefore, the Pelagian says that human nature, as it now is, has in
itself the principle of perfectibility by the explication and
development of its essence. But the Calvinist and Jansenist say that
human nature as it was first created, or as it is restored by grace to
its primal condition, has the principle of perfectibility; but as it
now is in those who have not been restored by grace, is entirely
destitute of it. The conception which these opponents of Catholic
doctrine have of the entity of that highest ideal state to which
rational nature is determined, varies as the ratio of their distance
from the Catholic idea. Those who are nearest to it retain the
conception of the beatific union with God, which fades away in those
who recede farther, until it becomes changed into a mere conception of
an idealised earthly felicity.

The Catholic doctrine takes as its point of departure the postulate,
that rational nature of itself is incapable of attaining or even
initiating a movement towards that final end, which has been actually
prefixed to it as its terminus. It needs, therefore, from the
beginning, a superadded gift or grace, to place it in the plane of its
destiny, which is supernatural, or above all that is possible to mere
nature, explicated to any conceivable limit. At this point, however,
two great schools of theology diverge from each other, each one of
which is further subdivided as they proceed.

The radical conception of one school is, that nature is in itself an
incomplete thing, constituted in the order of its genesis in a merely
inchoate capacity for receiving regeneration in the supernatural
order. Remaining in the order of genesis, it is in a state of merely
inchoate, undeveloped, inexplicable existence, and therefore incapable
of attaining its destination. There is, therefore, no end for which
God could create rational existence, except a supernatural end. The
natural demands the supernatural, the order of genesis demands the
order of regeneration, and the wisdom and goodness of God require him
to bestow on all rational creatures the grace cognate to the beatific
vision and enabling them to attain it.

The radical conception of the other school is, that rational nature,
_per se_ requires only the explication and perfection of its own
constituent principles, and may be left to attain its finality in the
purely natural order. The elevation of angels and men to the plane of
a supernatural destiny was, therefore, a purely gratuitous concession
of the supreme goodness of God, in view, as some would add, of the
merit of the incarnate Word.

These different theories are entangled and interlaced with each other,
and with many different and intricate questions related to them, in
such a way as to make a thicket through which it is not easy to find a
sure path. It is necessary, however, to try, or else to avoid the
subject altogether.

The obscurity of the whole question is situated in the relation of
created intelligence to its object which constitutes it in the
intelligent or rational order. It is evident that a created substance
is constituted an intelligent principle by receiving potentiality to
the act connoted by this relation of the subject to its object, and is
explicated by the reduction of this potentiality into act. The end of
intelligent spirit is to attain to its intelligent object, by the act
of intelligence. In the foresight of this, the exposition of the
relation between intelligence and the intelligible has been placed
first in this discussion.

It is agreed among all Catholic theologians: 1. That created
intelligence can, by the explication of its own constitutive
principles, attain to the knowledge of God as _causa altissima;_ or,
that God is, _per se_, the ultimate object of reason. 2. That there is
a mode of the relation of intelligence to its ultimate object, or to
God, a permanent state of the intuition of {153} God, by a created
spirit, called the intuitive, beatific vision of the divine essence,
which can be attained only by a supernatural elevation and
illumination of the intelligence.

The point of difference among theologians relates to the identity or
difference of the relations just noted, Is that relation which
intelligence has _per se_ to God, as its ultimate object, the relation
which is completed by supernatural elevation, or not? If not, what is
the distinction between them? Establish their identity, and you have
established the theory which was mentioned in the first place above.
Establish their difference, and you have established the second
theory.

If the first theory is established, rational creatures are _ipso
facto_ in a supernatural order. The natural order is merely the
inchoation of the supernatural, cannot be completed without it, and
cannot attain its end without a second immediate intervention of God,
equal to the act of creation, by which God brings back to himself, as
final cause, the creature which proceeded from him as first cause.
This second act is regeneration; and creation, therefore, implies and
demands regeneration. It follows from this, that reason is incapable
of being developed or explicated by the mere concurrence of God with
its principle of activity, or his concurrence with second causes
acting upon it, that is, by the continuance and consummation of the
creative, generative influx which originally gave it and other second
causes existence. A regenerative influx is necessary, in order to
bring its latent capacity into action, and make it capable of
contemplating its proper object, which is God, as seen by an intuitive
vision.

One great advantage of this theory is supposed to be, that it leaves
the naturalists no ground to stand upon, by demonstrating the absolute
necessity of the supernatural, that is, of revelation, grace, the
church, etc. This presupposes that the theory can be demonstrated. If
it cannot be, the attempt to do too much recoils upon the one who
makes it, and injures his cause. Beside this, it may be said that the
proposed advantage can be as effectually secured by proving that the
natural order is actually subordinated in the scheme of divine
Providence, as it really exists, to a supernatural end, without
professing to prove that it must be so necessarily.

The great positive argument in favor of this hypothesis is, that
rational nature necessarily seeks God as its ultimate object, and
therefore longs for that clear, intellectual vision of him called the
beatific. If this be true, the question is settled for ever. Those who
seek to establish its truth state it under various forms. One way of
stating it is, that reason seeks the universal, or the explanation of
all particular effects, in the _causa altissima_, This is the doctrine
of St. Thomas. God is the _causa altissima_, the universal principle,
and therefore reason seeks for God.

Again, it is affirmed that there is a certain faculty of
super-intelligence, which apprehends the super-intelligible order of
being, not positively, but negatively, by apprehending the limitation
of everything intelligible. Intelligence is therefore sensible of a
want, a vacuum, an aimless, objectless yearning for something unknown
and unattainable; showing that God has created it for the purpose of
satisfying this want, and filling this void, by bringing intelligence
into relation to himself as its immediate object, in a supernatural
mode.

In a more popular mode, this same idea is presented under a countless
variety of forms and expressions, in sermons, spiritual treatises, and
poems, as a dissatisfaction of the soul with every kind of good
attainable in this life, vague longing for an infinite and supreme
good, a plaintive cry of human nature for the beatitude of the
intuitive vision of God. "Irrequietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat
in te"--"Our heart is unrestful until it finds repose in thee," is the
language {154} of St. Augustine, which is echoed and reechoed on every
side.

These considerations are not without great weight; nevertheless, they
do not appear to us sufficient to prove conclusively the hypothesis in
support of which they are adduced, or to over-balance other weighty
considerations on the opposite side.

Reason seeks for the _causa altissima_, but it remains to be proved
that it seeks for any other knowledge of it but that which is
attainable by a mode connatural to the created spirit.

Reason is conscious of its own limitation. But this does not prove
that it aspires to transcend this limitation. Beatified spirits are
conscious of their own limitation. Those who are in the lowest grade
are aware of numerous grades above them, and the highest are aware of
their inferiority to the exalted humanity of Jesus Christ, united to
the divine nature in his person. All together, including Jesus Christ
himself, as man, are aware of an infinite incomprehensibility in the
divine nature. In the words of the greatest of all mystic theologians,
St. John of the Cross: "They who know him most perfectly, perceived
most clearly that he is infinitely incomprehensible. To know God best,
is to know he is incomprehensible; for those who have the less clear
vision do not perceive so distinctly as the others how greatly he
transcends their vision."  [Footnote 33]

  [Footnote 33: Spiritual Canticle, stanza vii. Oblate Ed. vol. ii. p. 44.]

Beatified spirits do not feel any void within themselves, or any
unsatisfied longing for the comprehension of the super-intelligible.
Neither do they aspire even to those degrees of clearer vision which
are actually conceded to spirits of a higher order than their own. Why
then should a rational creature necessarily desire to transcend its
own proper and connatural mode of intelligence? The apprehension of
the super-intelligible shows that the intellect cannot be satisfied
with a limitation of itself to a mere knowledge of second causes and
the contingent--that it must think about God, and apprehend in some
way without infinite, eternal, necessary being and attributes of the
creator and first cause of all things. But it does not show that it
must apprehending God in the most perfect way possible, much less in
such a way that he does not remain always infinitely beyond its
comprehension.

The dissatisfaction of the human heart may proceed in great measure
from the fact that God purposely disquiet's it by withholding from it
the good it naturally seeks, in order to compel it to seek for
supernatural good. Another cause of it is, that most persons have
committed so many sins themselves, and are so much involved in the
consequences of the sins of others, that they cannot possess the full
measure even of that natural enjoyment of which human nature is
capable. That the human heart in its misery and unhappiness turns
longingly toward the hope of a supreme beatitude in the contemplation
of God as he is revealed to the saints in heaven, may be owing to the
fact that God, who proposes this beatitude to men, stirs up a longing
for it in their souls by a supernatural grace.

The question, therefore, reverts to this, as has been repeatedly said
already, What is the principle constitutive of the intelligent life
and activity of a created spirit? When this principle is evolved into
act, the created spirits fulfils its type, and realises its ideal
perfection in its own order. Now, according to the preliminary
doctrine we have laid down, this is an active power to apprehend the
image of God in the creation, or to contemplate a created image of God
which is a finite similitude of the infinite, uncreated image of God,
that is to say, the Word. Beatific contemplation is a contemplation of
this infinite, uncreated image without any intervening medium. Yet is
an intellectual operation of which God is both the object and the
medium. It is not therefore the operation which {155} perfects created
intelligence in its own proper order, but one which elevates it above
that order, giving it a participation in the divine intelligence
itself. Created intelligence is perfected in its own proper order by
its own natural operation; and although the intervention of God is
necessary in order to conduct it to that perfection, so that it is
strictly true that a supernatural force is necessary to the
initiation, explication, and consummation of the natural order of
intelligence, yet this does not elevate it to a supernatural mode and
state of activity in the strict and theological sense of the word.
Created intelligence is perfected by the contemplation of the Creator
through the creating, and has no tendency or aspiration to rise any
higher. True, it has an essential capacity to become the subject of a
divine operation elevating it to the immediate intuition of God, or it
never could be so elevated. This is the really strong argument in
favor of the hypothesis that God, if he creates at all, must create an
intelligent order determined to the beatific union. It is equally
strong in favor of the hypothesis, that he must complete his creative
act in the incarnation, because created nature is essentially capable
of the hypostatic union. For what purpose is this capacity? Does it
not indicate a demand for the order of regeneration, and the
completion of this order in the incarnation? It is not our purpose to
answer this question definitely, but to leave it open, as it has no
practical bearing upon the result we are desirous of obtaining.
Presupposing, however, that God determines to adopt the system of
absolute optimism in creating, and to bring the universe to an end
metaphysically final, as he actually has determined to do, this
question, as we have previously stated, must be answered in the
affirmative. There is no metaphysical finality short of the hypostatic
union of the created with the uncreated nature, which alone is the
adequate, objective externisation of the eternal idea in the mind of
God. The metaphysical, generic perfection of the universe demands the
incarnation, with its appropriate concomitants. But this demand is
satisfied by the elevation of one individual nature to the hypostatic
union, and the communication of the privileges due to this elevated
nature to one or more orders of intelligent creatures containing each
an adequate number of individuals. It does not require the elevation
of all intelligent orders or all individuals, but admits of a
selection from the entire number of created intelligences of a certain
privileged class. It is only on the supposition that God cannot give
an intelligent nature its due perfection and felicity without
conceding to it the beatific vision, that we are compelled to believe
that God cannot create intelligent spirits without giving them the
opportunity of attaining supernatural beatitude. And it is merely this
last supposition against which we have been contending.

The view we have taken, that rational nature precisely as such is not
necessarily created merely in order to become the subject of elevating
grace, but may be determined to an end which does not require it to
transcend its natural condition, comports fully with the Catholic
dogma of sanctifying grace. The church teaches that affiliation to God
by grace is a pure boon or favor gratuitously conferred by God
according to his good pleasure and sovereign will. It is not due to
nature, or a necessary consequence of creation. The beginning,
progress, and consummation of this adoptive filiation is from the
grace of God, both in reference to angels and men. It was by grace
that the angels and Adam were placed in the way of attaining the
beatific vision, just as much as it is by grace that men are redeemed
and saved since the fall. If rational nature cannot be explicated and
brought to a term suitable for it, which satisfies all its exigencies,
without this grace, it is not easy to see how it can be called a grace
at all, since grace signifies gratuitous favor. Rather it would be
something due to nature, which the goodness of God bound {156} him to
confer when he had created it. It would be the mere complement of
creation, and an essential part of the continuity of the creative act
as much as the act of conservation, by virtue of which the soul is
constituted immortal. In this case, it would be very difficult to
reconcile the doctrine of original sin, and the doom of those who die
in it before the use of reason, with the justice and goodness of God.
It would be difficult also to explain the whole series of doctrinal
decisions which have emanated from the Holy See, and have been
accepted by the universal church, in relation to the Jansenist errors,
all of which easily harmonise with the view we have taken.

Moreover, the plain dogmatic teaching of the church, that man, as he
is now born, is "saltem negative aversatus a Deo," "at least
negatively averted from God," and absolutely incapable of even the
first movement of the will to turn back to him without prevenient
grace, cannot be explained on the theory we are opposing without
resorting to the notion of a positive depravation of human nature by
the fall, a notion completely irreconcilable with rational principles.
If rational nature as such is borne by a certain impetus toward God as
possessed in the beatific vision, it will spring toward him of itself
and by its own intrinsic principles, as soon as he is extrinsically
revealed to it, without grace. To say that it does so, is precisely
the error of the Semipelagians which is condemned by the church. It is
certain that it does not; and therefore we must explain its inability
to do so, either with the Calvinists and Jansenists by maintaining
that its intrinsic principles are totally perverted and depraved, or
by maintaining that rational nature, as such, is determined by its
intrinsic impetus to an inferior mode of apprehending and loving God
as its last end, which is below the plane of the supernatural.

This view accords fully with the teachings of the great mystic
writers, who are the most profound of all philosophers and
theologians. They all teach most distinctly, that when God leads a
soul into a state of supernatural contemplation it has an almost
unconquerable repugnance and reluctance to follow him, and is thrown
into an obscure night, in which it undergoes untold struggles and
sufferings before it can become fit for even that dim and imperfect
light of contemplation which it is capable of receiving in this life.
Why is it that the human soul turns toward the supernatural good only
when excited, illuminated, and attracted by the grace of God, and even
then with so much difficulty? Why does it so easily and of preference
turn oh wait from it, unless it is, that it naturally seeks to attain
its object by a mode more connatural to its own intrinsic and
constitutive principles?

The conclusion we draw is, that rational nature of itself is capable
of attaining its proper perfection and felicity, without being
elevated above its own order, by the mere explication of its
rationality, and aspires no higher, but even prefers to remain where
it is. The fact that it is in a state which in comparison with the
state of elevation is merely inchoate existence, and is _in potentiâ_
to a state not realised _in actu_, does not show that its felicity or
the good order of the universe requires it to be elevated any higher,
unless it is elected as a subject of elevating grace.  [Footnote 34]

  [Footnote 34: This does not mean that any human being is at liberty
  to choose to decline proffered grace. The human race _en masse_ is
  elected to grace, and at least all those to whom the faith is
  proposed have the proffer of grace, with a precept to accept it.
  Moreover, God has not provided any order except the supernatural for
  mankind in which the race can attain its proper perfection and
  felicity.]

God alone is _actus purissimus_ without any admixture of potentiality.
The finite is always inchoate and potential, because finite. Its very
nature implies what is called metaphysical evil, or a limitation of
the possession of good in act. Every finite nature except that of the
incarnate Word is limited, not only in respect to the infinite, but
also in respect to some other finite nature superior to itself. It's
proper perfection consists in the possession of good, with that
limitation {157} which the will of God has prefixed to it as its term.
The perfection and order of the universe, as a whole, are constituted
by the subordination and harmony of all its parts in reference to the
predetermined end. The individual felicity of a rational creature and
his due relation to the final cause of the universe, do not require
his being elevated to the utmost summit of existence of which he is
capable, unless God has predetermined him to that place. The mere
inert capacity of receiving an augmentation or elevation of his
intellectual and voluntary operation does not give him any tendency to
exceed his actual limit, unless that inert capacity begins to be
actualized, or unless the principle of a new development is implanted
and vitalized. The inert capacity of being united to the divine nature
by the hypostatic union, is actualised only in Christ. If, therefore,
rational nature could not attain its proper end and completion without
the utmost actualization of its passive capacity, Christ alone would
attain his final end. We most certainly admit, however, that the
blessed in heaven all attain their final end and a perfect beatitude,
each one in his own degree. We are not to understand, therefore, that
the relation of the creation to God as final cause consists solely and
purely in the return of the creature to God in the most sublime manner
possible, and that everything which exists is created solely as a
means to that end. If this were so, the hypostatic union of the human
to the divine nature in the person of Jesus Christ would be the sole
terminus of the creative act, the only end proposed by God in
creating. Nothing else could or would have been created, except as a
means to that end. The rest of creation, however, cannot contribute to
that end. The union of the human nature to the divine in Christ and
its filiation to God, by which it is beatified, glorified, and
deified, is completely fulfilled within itself; and the rest of
creation adds nothing to it. If God had no other end in view, in the
reproduction of the immanent act within himself by a communication of
himself _ad extra_, except the hypostatic union, he would have created
only one perfect nature for that purpose. The beatification and
glorification of the adopted brethren of Christ must be therefore
included in the end of creation.

This is not all, however, that is included in it. The supernatural
order includes in itself a natural order which is not absorbed into
it, but which has its own distinct existence. _Gratia supponit
naturam_, grace supposes nature, but does not supersede or extinguish
it. The inferior intellectual operations of our Lord are not
superseded by his beatific contemplation, nor do they contribute to
its clearness of intuition. The operation of his animal soul--that is,
of the principle within his rational soul which contains in an eminent
mode all the perfection that is in a soul purely animal, and adapts
his rational soul to be the form of a body--continues also, together
with the activity of the senses and of the active bodily life. This
operation does not conduce to the perfection of the act of beatific
contemplation, which does not require the mediation of the senses. The
same is true of the inferior, natural operations of all beatified
angels and men. If supernatural beatitude were the exclusive end of
the creation, there would be no reason why these inferior operations
should continue, any more than the exercise of faith, hope, patience,
fortitude, or works of merit, which, being exclusively ordained as
means for attaining beatitude, cease when the end is gained. The
beatific act would swallow up the entire activity of the beatified,
and all inferior life would cease. For the same reason, all corporeal
and material organization would be swept out of the way as a useless
scaffolding, and only beatified spirits, exclusively occupied in the
immediate contemplation of God, would continue to exist for ever.

{158}

This is not so, however. The body is to rise again and live for ever.
The universe is to remain for ever, with all its various grades of
existence, including even the lowest, or those which are purely
material. There is therefore a natural order coexisting with the
supernatural in a subordinate relation to it--a minor and less
principal part, but still an integral part of the divine, creative
plan. There is a _cognitio matutina_ and a _cognitio vespertina_, a
matutinal and vesperal knowledge, in the blessed; the one being the
immediate intuition of the trinity in unity, the other the mediate
intuition of the idea or infinite archetype of creation in God,
through his creative act. There is a natural intellectual life in the
angels, and a natural intellectual and physical life in man, in the
beatific state. The natural order is preserved and perfected in the
supernatural order, with all its beauty and felicity--with its
science, virtue, love, friendship, and society. The material world is
everlasting, together with the spiritual. All orders together make up
the universe; and it is the whole complex of diverse and multitudinous
existences which completely expresses the divine idea and fulfils the
divine purpose of the creator. The metaphysical finality or apex of
the creative act is in the incarnate Word, but the relation to the
final cause exists in everything, and is fulfilled in the universe as
a totality, which embraces in one harmonious plan all things that have
been created, and culminates in Jesus Christ, through the hypostatic
union of the divine and human natures in his person.

In this universe there may be an order of intelligent existences,
touching at its lowest point the highest point of irrational
existence, and at its highest point the lowest in the grade of the
beatified spirits. That inferior order of knowledge and felicity may
exist distinctly and separately which exists conjointly with
supernatural beatitude in the kingdom of heaven. The perfection of the
universe requires that there should be a beatified, glorified order at
its summit. It may even the maintained that this consummation of
created nature in the highest possible end is the only one which the
divine wisdom could propose in creating. Yet this does not exclude the
possibility of an inferior order of intelligence, upon which the grace
elevating it to a supernatural state is not conferred.

We are prepared, therefore, to proceed to the consideration of the
nature and conditions of that grace, as a cure, gratuitous gift of
God, conferred upon angels and upon the human race through his free
and sovereign goodness. From the point of view to which the previous
reasoning has conducted us, the angels and mankind appear to us, not
as mere species of rational creatures conducted by their creator along
the path of rational development by natural law, but as the elect
heirs of an entirely gratuitous inheritance of glory--candidates for a
destiny entirely supernatural. The relation which they sustain to God
in this supernatural scheme of grace will therefore be our topic next
in order.

--------

{159}

Original

SONG.


  What magician pulls the string
  That uncurtains pretty Spring?
  And the swallow with his wing
      Against the sky 1
  Who brings the branch its green,
  And the honey-bee a queen?
      "Is it I?"
      Said April, "I?"
      "Yes, 'tis I."

  What aërial artist limns
  Rock and cloud, with brush that dims
  Titian's oils and Hogarth's whims
       In shape and dye?
  What Florimel embowers
  Lawn and lake with arching flowers?
      "Is it I?"
      Said bright July, "I?"
      "Yes, 'tis I."

  What good genii drop the grains
  Of brown sugar in the canes?
  Who fills up the apple's veins
      With sweetened dew?
  Who hangs the painted air
  With the grape and golden pear?
      Is it you,
      October? You?
      Yes, 'tis you.

  Who careering sweeps the plain,
  Scoffing at the violet's pain.
  Echoing back and back again
      His wild halloo?
  Who makes the Yule-fire foam
  Round the happy hearth of home?
      Is it you,
      December? You?
      Aye, 'tis you.

T. W. K.

--------

{160}


From The Dublin University Magazine,

COWARDICE AND COURAGE.


Shakespeare, the universal teacher, who knew every phase of the heart,
and touched every chord of feeling, has declared aphoristically,
speaking as Julius Caesar:

  "Cowards die many times before their deaths;
  The valiant only taste of death but once.
  Of all the wonders that I yet have heard.
  It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
  Seeing that death, a necessary end,
  Will come when it will come."

Notwithstanding this, fear is one of the strongest impulses of our
nature--fear of discovery, shame, or punishment when we have done
wrong: fear of pain, danger, or death. Dr. Johnson said in
conversation: "Fear is one of the passions of humanity of which it is
impossible to divest it. You all remember that the Emperor Charles V.,
when he read upon the tomb of a Spanish nobleman, 'Here lies one who
never knew fear,' wittily observed, 'Then he never snuffed a candle
with his fingers.'" In opposition to this we may quote an anecdote
told of Lord Howe, when in command of the Channel Fleet. One night he
was suddenly awakened by an officer, who, in great trepidation, told
him the ship was on fire close to the powder-room; the admiral coolly
replied: "If it is so, sir, we shall very soon know it." Some minutes
afterwards the lieutenant returned, and told his lordship he had no
occasion to be afraid, for the fire was extinguished. "Afraid!"
replied Lord Howe, hastily; "what do you mean by that, sir? I never
was afraid in my life."

No emotions of the human frame are more opposite than cowardice and
courage, each taken in its simple sense, yet both spring from the same
sources--physical temperament early training. We do not make our own
nervous system, which is often grievously tampered with or perverted
by silly, ill-conditioned nurses, servants, and teachers, who
frightened children with tales of bugbears, monsters and hobgoblins,
until they scream if left in the dark for a moment, and dare not sleep
in a room by themselves. Pillory or flogging at the cart's tail would
be too mild a punishment for those moral Thugs, who strangle wholesome
feelings in the first dawn of their existence, and supply their place
with baneful impressions, which, strongly implanted in early youth,
grow and strengthen to a period of life when reason on to subdue them,
but frequently fails to do so. Viewed in this light, constitutional
timidity is a misfortune rather than a crime, however contemptible it
may be considered; while mere animal insensibility to danger, which
readily calls for admiration, has no claim to rank as a virtue. We
speak not here of the moral courage which may be engrafted on a nature
originally pusillanimous, by pride, education or a sense of duty and
station. Henry IV., of France, and Frederick the Great, of Prussia,
are illustrious examples of this victory of over matter. Both were
instinctively afraid of danger, and both are recorded as evincing
perfect self-possession and displaying prodigies of valor in many a
hotly-contested field. Henry's flesh quivered the first time he found
himself in action, although his heart was firm. "Villanous nature, I
will make thee ashamed of thyself!" he exclaimed, as he spurred his
horse through a {161} breach before which the bravest veterans paused;
and ever afterward the white plume was recognized as the rallying
point of battle. Frederick turned from the field of Molwitz, and left
his marshals to win the day without him; but it was his first and only
moment of wavering through a life of hard campaigns.

Some natures are so constant that no surprise can shake them. An
instance occurs in the career of Crillon, called by distinction, "The
Brave," in an Army where all were valiant. He was stationed with a
small detachment in a lone house. Some young officers, in the dead of
night, raised a cry that the enemy were upon them, a company by loud
shouts and the firing of musketry. Crillon started from his bed,
seized his sword, and rushed down-stairs in his shirt, calling on all
to follow him and die at their posts like men. A burst of laughter
behind arrested his steps, and he at once penetrated the joke. He
re-ascendant, and seizing one of the perpetrators roughly by the arm,
explained: "Young man, it is well for you that your trick failed. Had
you thrown me off my guard, you would have been the first I should
have sacrificed to my lost honor. Take warning, and deal in no such
folly for the future."

Charles XII. was gifted from infancy with iron nerves. "What is that
noise?" he asked, as the balls whistling past him when landing in
Denmark--a mere stripling, under a heavy fire. "The sound of the shot
the fire at your majesty," replied Marshal Renschild. "Good!" said the
king; "henceforth that shall be my music." And so he made it, with
little intermission, until the last and fatal bullet, whether fired by
traitor or foe, which entered his brain, and finished his wild career
at Fredericshall, eighteen years later.

Murat and Lannes were the admitted paladins of the Imperial army; yet
both once came to a stand-still before the battery which vomited forth
fire and death. "Rascals!" muttered Napoleon, bitterly; "have I made
you too rich?" Stung by the taunt, they rushed on, and the victory was
gained. No epidemic is so contagious as a panic. When once caught, it
expands with the velocity of an ignited train. A celebrated case
occurred in Henry the Eighth's time, at the Battle of the Spurs, in
1513, so called because the defeated force fled with such haste that
it was impossible for the best mounted cavaliers to overtake them.
Thus the killed and wounded made but a poor figure. Then came Falkirk,
in 1746, of which Horace Walpole said: "The fighting lay in a small
compass, the greater part of both armies running away." Then the
memorable "Races of Castlebar," of which the less that is said the
better; then the _sauve qui peut_ of Waterloo; and though last, far
from least, the pell-mell rout of Bull's Run, which inaugurated the
late American war. Livy records, and Sir William Napier quotes the
anecdote, that after a drawn battle a god, calling out in the night,
declared that the Etruscans had lost one man more than the Romans!
whereupon a panic fell on the former, and they abandoned the field to
their adversaries, who gathered all the fruits of a real victory.

There are some who think they can face danger and death until the
moment of trial arrives, and then their nerves give way. In the
biographies of John Graham, Viscount of Dundee, we find it related
that, during the civil wars of that period, a friend of his, a loyal
and devoted partisan of the house of Stuart, like himself, committed
his favorite son to his charge. "I give him to the king's cause," said
the father; "take care that he does not dishonor his name and race. I
depend on you to look after him." In the first action, the unlucky
youth exhibited undoubted symptoms of cowardice. Dundee took him aside
and said  "The service in which we are engaged is desperate, {162} and
requires desperate resolution on the part of all concerned in it. You
have mistaken your trade. Go home, before worse happens." The youth
shed bitter tears, said it was a momentary weakness, implored for
another trial, and promised to behave better the next time. Dundee
relented. The next trial soon came, with the same result. Dundee rode
up to the recreant, pistol in hand, and exclaiming, "Your father's son
shall never die by the hands of the hangman," shot him dead upon the
spot.

Experienced military authorities have delivered their opinion that of
one hundred rank and file, taken indiscriminately--Alexanders at
six-pence per diem, as Voltaire sneeringly designates them--one third
are determined daredevils, who will face any danger, and flinch from
nothing; the next division are waverers, equally disposed to stand or
run, and likely to be led either way by example; while the residue are
rank cowards. Dr. Johnson took a more unfavorable view. At a dinner at
General Paoli's, in 1778, when fears of an invasion were circulated,
Mr. John Spottiswoode, the solicitor, observed that Mr. Fraser, an
engineer, who had recently visited Dunkirk, said the French had the
same fears of us. "It is thus," remarked Dr. Johnson, "that mutual
cowardice keeps us in peace. Were one half mankind brave, and one half
cowards, the brave would be always beating the cowards. Were all
brave, they would lead a very uneasy life; all would be continually
fighting; but being all cowards, we go on tolerably well."

It is difficult to invest with interest a quality so universally held
in contempt as cowardice; yet Sir Walter Scott has succeeded in
obtaining sympathy for _Conachar_, or _Eachin M'Ian_. the young
Highland chieftain, in the Fair Maid of Perth. He evidently conceived
the character _con amore_, and has elaborated it with skill and care.

Montaigne observes of fear that it is a surprisal of the heart upon
the apprehension of approaching evil; and if it reaches the degree of
terror,  and the evil seems impendent, the hair is raised on end, and
the whole body put into horror and trembling. After this, if the
passion continues, the spirits are thrown into confusion, so that they
cannot execute their offices; the usual successors of reason fail,
judgment is blinded, the powers of voluntary motion become weak, and
the heart is insufficient to maintain the circulation of the blood,
which, stopping and stagnating in the ventricles, causes painting and
swooning, and sometimes sudden death. The quaint old essayist then
illustrates by examples. He tells of a jester who had contrived to
give his master, a petty prince of Italy, a hearty ducking and a
fright to boot, to cure him of an ague. The treatment succeeded; but
the autocrat, by way of retaliation, had his audacious physician tried
for treason, and condemned to lose his had. The criminal was brought
forth, the priest received his confession, and the luckless buffoon
knelt to prepare for the blow. Instead of wielding his axe, the
executioner, as he had been instructed, threw a pitcher of water on
the bare neck of the criminal. Here the jest was to have ended; but
the shock was too great for poor Gonella, who was found dead on the
block.

Montaigne also says, that fear manifests its utmost power and effect
when it throws men into a valiant despair, having before deprived them
of all sense both of duty and honor. In the first great battle of the
Romans against Hannibal, under the Consul Sempronius, a body of twenty
thousand men that had taken flight, seeing no other escape for their
cowardice, threw themselves headlong upon the great mass of their
pursuing enemies, with wonderful force and fury they charged, and cut
a passage through, with a prodigious slaughter of the Carthaginians;
thus purchasing an ignominious retreat at the same price which might
have won for them glorious victory.

{163}

But if fear is a destructive, it also sometimes acts in an opposite
sense. Dr. Thomas Bartoline tells us in his history of anatomy, that
fear has been known to cure epilepsy, gout, and ague. He relates that
a woman of condition, who was affected with the tertian ague, was so
terrified by the explosion of a bomb, which was fired off during her
fit, that she fainted away and was thought to be dead. "Having then
sent for me to see her," he adds, "and finding her pulse still pretty
strong, I prescribed for her some slight cordials, and she soon
recovered from her state of weakness without any appearance of fever,
which had afterward no return."

Bartoline says again that a young lady who had a quartan ague for
several months successively, was invited by some of her acquaintance
to take an excursion on the water, with a view to dissipate the
melancholy ideas occasioned by her illness; but they had scarcely got
into the boat when it began to sink, and all were terribly shocked
with the dread of perishing. After escaping this danger, the patient
found that the terror had cured her ailment, and she had no return of
the ague.

A third instance recorded by Bartoline is even more extraordinary than
the two we have already named. A man forty-two years of age, of a hot
and moist constitution, subject to a colic, but the fits not violent,
was seized one evening, about sunset, with an internal cold, though
the weather on that day was unusually warm. Different medicines were
administered to him, but without success. He died within eighteen or
nineteen hours, without the least agitation or any of the convulsions
that frequently accompany the parting agony, so that he seemed to
subside into a placid sleep. His friends requested Dr. Bartoline to
open his body, and it was found that he had died of a mortification of
the punereus. He was a very fat subject, and what was surprising in to
huge and corpulent a body, his bones were as small as those of a young
girl, and his muscles extremely weak, thin, and membraneous rather
than fleshy. While the doctor was making these observations on the
dissected corpse, a brother of the deceased, who had been absent for
sixteen years, and was of the same size, constitution, and habit of
body, entered the room suddenly and unexpectedly. He looked on the
remains of his relative, heard the detail of the circumstances of his
death, the cause of which he saw confirmed with his own eyes, and
reasoned for some time calmly and sensibly on the mournful event. All
at once he became stupefied, speechless, and fell into a fainting fit,
from which neither balsams nor stimulants, nor any of the remedies
resorted to in such cases, could recover him. The opening of a vein
was suggested, but this advice was not followed. All present appeared
as if paralyzed with horror. The patient seemed to be without pulse or
respiration, his limbs began to stiffen, and he was pronounced to be
on the point of expiring. A sudden idea struck Bartoline, for which he
says he could not account, but he said aloud, "Let us recompose the
dead body and sew it up; in the meantime the other will be quite dead,
and I will dissect him also." The words were scarcely uttered when the
gentleman supposed to be _in articulo mortis_ started up from the sofa
on which he had been laid, roared out with the lungs of a bull,
snatched up his cloak, took to his heels, as if nothing had happened
to him, and lived for many years after in an excellent slate of
health.

Fear has been known to turn the hair in a single night from black to
grey or white. This happened, amongst others, to Ludovico Sforza. The
same is asserted of Queen Marie Antoinette, although not so suddenly,
and, as some say, from grief, not fear. The Emperor Louis, of Bavaria,
anno 1256, suspected his wife, Mary of Brabant, without just cause,
condemned her, unheard, for adultery, and caused her chief
lady-in-waiting, who was also {164} innocent, to be cast headlong from
a tower, as a confederate in his dishonor. Soon after this horrible
cruelty he was visited by a fearful vision one night, and rose in the
morning with his dark locks as white as snow.

A young Spaniard of noble family, Don Diego Osorio, being in love with
a lady of the court, prevailed on her to grant him an interview by
night in the royal gardens. The barking of a little dog betrayed them.
The gallant was seized by the guard and conveyed to prison. It was a
capital crime to be found in that place without special permission,
and therefore he was condemned to die. The reading of the sentence so
unmanned him that the next morning he stood in presence of his jailer
with a furrowed visage and grey hair. The fact being reported to King
Ferdinand as a prodigy, he was moved to compassion, and pardoned the
culprit, saying, he had been sufficiently punished in exchanging the
bloom of youth for the hoary aspect of age. The same happened to the
father of Martin Delrio, who, lying sick in bed, heard the physicians
say he would certainly die. He recovered, but the fright gave him a
grey head in a few hours, and this instance of the terror he had
suffered never afterward left him.

Robert Boyle, in his Philosophical Examples, relates the following
incident of the same class: "Being about four or six years since," he
says, "in the county of Cork, there was an Irish captain, a man of
middle age and stature, who came with some of his followers to
surrender himself to the Lord Broghill, who then commanded the English
forces in those parts, upon a public offer of pardon to the Irish that
would lay down their arms. He was casually met with in a suspicious
place by a party of the English, and intercepted, the Lord Broghill
being then absent. He was so apprehensive of being put to death before
the return of the commander-in-chief, that his anxiety of mind quickly
altered the color of his hair in a peculiar manner. It was not
uniformly changed, but here and there certain peculiar tufts and
locks, whose bases might be about an inch in diameter were suddenly
turned white alone; the rest of his hair, whereof the Irish used to
wear good store, retained its natural reddish color."

A sudden shock operates on the memory as well as on the hair. In
Pliny's Natural History we read of one who, being struck violently and
unexpectedly by a stone, forgot his letters, and could never write
again; another, he says, through a fall from the roof of a very high
house, lost his remembrance of his own mother, his nearest kinsfolks,
friends, and neighbors; and a third, in a fit of sickness, ceased to
recognize his own servants. Messala Corvinus, the great orator, being
startled suddenly, forgot his own name, and was unable to remember it
for a considerable time. The same thing happened to Sidney Smith, not
from fear, but from absence of mind. He called on a friend, who was
not at home, and he happened to have no card to leave. "What name,
sir?" said the servant. "That's exactly what I can't tell you," was
the reply.

Augustus Caesar was not a valiant man, in the popular acceptation of
the word. He shrank in his tent from the onset at Philippi, skulked in
the hold of the admiral's galley during the sea-fight with Sextus
Pompey in the Straits of Messina, and was a safe spectator on shore at
Actium. Antony, and even his own friend and lieutenant, Agrippa,
taunted him with his want of courage. He was so terrified at thunder
and lightning that he always carried with him the skin of a sea-calf
as an antidote. If he suspected the approach of a tempest, he ran to
some underground vault until the symptoms passed over. Yet Suetonius
says he once, under necessity, showed a bold front to a danger he
could not avoid. He was walking abroad with Diomedes, his steward,
when a wild boar, which had broken loose, rushed directly toward them.
{165} Thus steward in his terror, ran behind the emperor and
interposed him as a shield betwixt the assailant and himself. Augustus
stood his ground, because flight was barred, and the boar turned tail.
But knowing that fear, not malice, had prompted the conduct of his
servant, he had the magnanimity to confine his resentment to a
perpetual just. Caligula, who affected to contemn the gods, was
equally terrified with Augustus at the least indication of thunder and
lightning. He covered his head, and if the explosions chanced to be
loud and near, leaped from his couch and hid himself under it.

History mentions several sovereigns who loved war, but had no taste
for personal participation in its perils. Charles the Fifth, and his
son, Philip the second, are amongst the number, The leading
characteristic of the latter was cruelty, a disposition generally
associated with cowardice. Diocletian, after he became emperor, fought
more by his lieutenants than in person. Lactantius said of him that he
was timid and spiritless in all situations of danger. _Erat in omni
tumultu meticulosus et animi dejectus_.  [Footnote 35]

  [Footnote 35: Lactant. De Mortibus Persecutorum, c. ix.]

A commander should be self-collected in a battle, calm under a shower
of darts or the whistling of artillery; but to prove his courage, he
is not called upon to charge windmills with the chivalric madness of
Don Quixote, or to slay eight hundred enemies with his own hand, as
recorded of Aurelian and Richard Coeur de Lion. Charles of Sweden and
Attila loved fighting for fighting's sake; for the _certaminis
gaudia_, as Cassiodorus writes; "the rapture of the strife," as Lord
Byron translates the passage. Yet a brave general is not obliged to be
a vulture snuffing blood like the truculent king of the Huns. He can
maintain his reputation for personal courage without jumping alone
into the midst of an army of foes, as Alexander did from the walls of
Oxydrace; or resisting a host of many thousands with three hundred
men, as Charles XII. did at Bender; or of placing his foot first on
the scaling ladder in emulation of the extreme daring of the Constable
Bourbon, under extreme circumstances, at the storming of Rome. Charles
the First lacked _moral_ courage, but he was no craven physically. His
bravery in the field, and calm dignity on the scaffold, went far in
atonement of his political weaknesses and shortcomings.

The mind naturally revolts from sudden or violent death. Yet it has
its recommendations. It is never painful. The important consideration
is lest it should be unprepared for. We mourn the loss of a friend or
relative who is killed in battle more than we do that of one who dies
in the course of nature, or of an incidental fever. We lament a
soldier's death because it seems untimely. A sufferer who languishes
of disease, ends his life with more pain but with less credit. He
leaves no example to be quoted, no honor to be cherished as an
heirloom by his descendants. We affect to be greatly shocked at the
misfortunes or death of a friend or acquaintance, but there is
something pharisaical in this exuberance of sympathy, only we are
unwilling to confess the truth openly.

Foote, who was a scoffer, and in all respects an irreligious man,
said, when very ill, that he was not afraid to die. David Hume, an
_esprit fort_ of a more pretentious character, declared that it gave
him no more uneasiness to think he should not be after this life, than
that he had not been before he began to exist. An ingenious sophistry,
like his essay on miracles. We do not believe that any one ever really
persuaded himself that he was not a responsible being, and not
answerable for his deeds done in the flesh. Sir Henry Halford, in his
essays, expresses his surprise that of the great number of patients he
had attended, so few appeared reluctant to die. "We may suppose," he
adds, "that this willingness to submit to the common and irresistible
doom, arises from an {166} impatience of suffering, or from that
passive indifference which is sometimes the result of debility and
extreme bodily pain."

Themistocles was quite as unwilling to die, although he assigned a
better reason for his love of life. Finding his mental and physical
powers beginning to decay, in such a manner as to indicate his
approaching end, he grieved that he must now depart, when, as he said,
he was only beginning to grow wise. As an instance of superstitious
terror, Plutarch tells us that Amestis, the wife of the great Xerxes,
buried twelve persons alive, offering them as a sacrifice to Pluto for
the prolongation of her own days. Mecaenas, the great patron of
learning, and favorite of Augustus, had such a horror of death, that
he had often in his mouth, "all things are to be endured so long as
life is continued." The Emperor Domitian, from innate timidity, caused
the walls of the galleries wherein he took daily recreation to be
garnished with the stone called phangites, the brightness of which
reflected all that was passing behind him. Theophrastus, the
philosopher, who lived to be one hundred and seven years of age, was
so attached to life that he complained of the partiality of nature in
granting longevity to the crow and the stag beyond that accorded to
man. Plutarch, in his life of Pericles, names a skilful engineer
called Artemon, who was withal so timorous that he was frightened at
his own shadow, and seldom stirred out of his house for fear some
accident should betide him. Two of his servants always held a brazen
target over his head lest anything might fall upon it; and if
necessity compelled him to go abroad, he never walked, but was carried
in a litter which hung within an inch or two of the ground.

We read, in a more recent author, of a certain Rhodius, who, being
sentenced to perpetual imprisonment in a dungeon, by a tyrant, for
indulging in unseasonable liberty of speech, was treated in all
respects like a caged beast, with great torture and ignominy. His food
was scanty and loathsome; his hands were amputated, his face gashed
and disfigured with wounds. In this miserable plight, some of his
friends suggested to him to put an end to his sufferings by voluntary
starvation. "No," he replied; "while life remains all things are to be
hoped for." He clung to mere existence when death would have been a
relief. How are we to reconcile or account for these strange
contradictions? The sum of all appears to be that human nature is a
complex mystery, beyond the powers of man to fathom with the limited
faculties attached to his transitory condition.

Let us turn now to a more attractive quality, courage and, manly
daring as exhibited in life and and death, particularly in the "last
scene of all." _Finis coranat opus_--the end crowns the work. When
Epaminondas asked whether Chabrias, Iphicrates or himself deserved the
highest place in the esteem of their fellow-beings, he replied, "You
must see us die before that question can be answered." His own exit at
Mantinea, in the moment of a glorious victory, was singularly
brilliant, and his parting sentiments illustrated the purity of his
life. The situation finds an exact parallel in the fall of Gustavus
Adolphus, under the same circumstances, at Lutzen. The name of the
patriot who seals with blood his devotion to his cause, on a winning
field, is encircled with and imperishable halo of glory, the thought
of which would stir the pulse of an anchorite. Claverhouse, in Old
Mortality, describes the feeling with true military enthusiasm. "It is
not," he says, "the expiring pang that is worth thinking of in an
event that must happen one day, and may befall us at any moment--it is
the memory which the soldier leaves behind him, like the long train of
light that follows the sunken sun; that is all which is worth caring
for, which distinguishes the death of the brave or the ignoble. When I
think of death, as a chance of {167} almost hourly occurrence in the
course before me, it is in the hope of pressing one day some
well-fought and hard-won field of battle, and expiring with the shout
of victory in my ear; _that_ would be worth dying for, and more, it
would be worth having lived for." And so fell the real Claverhouse on
the field of Killiecrankie, and with him vanished the passing gleam of
sunshine in the fortunes of the master he served so loyally and well.
Had he lived to improve his victory, he would have been in Edinburgh
in two or three days, and it is difficult to say what turn the pages
of coming history might then have taken. As soon as it was known that
he was killed, his army of Highland clans dispersed, and never
collected again. They were held together by his single name, and had
no faith in any other leader.

A heathen poet, Antiphanes, who lived a century earlier than Socrates
or his pupil Plato, and five hundred years before the Christian
revelation, has a remarkable passage to this effect, of which the
following verbal translation is given by Addison in the Spectator:
"Grieve not above measure for deceased friends. They are not dead, but
have only finished that journey we are all necessitated to take. We
ourselves must go to that great place of reception in which they are
all of them assembled, and in this general rendezvous of mankind live
together in another state of being."

Men of the most opposite characters have jested on the point of death.
Sir Thomas More, a Christian philosopher, said to the executioner,
"Good friend, let me put my beard out of the way, for that has
committed no offence against the king."

The following instance, recorded by the Abbé Vertot, in his history of
the revolutions of Portugal, may claim comparison, for intrepidity and
greatness of soul, with anything that we read of in Greek or Roman
lore. When Don Sebastian, King of Portugal, invaded the territories of
Muley Moloch, Emperor of Morocco to de-throne him and set his crown on
the head of his nephew, Moloch was wearing away with a distemper which
he himself knew and felt to be incurable. However, he prepared for the
reception of the formidable foreign enemy. He was so utterly exhausted
by his malady, that he scarcely expected to outlive the day when the
decisive battle was fought at Alcazar. But knowing the fatal
consequences that would happen to his children and people in case he
should die before he put an end to that war, he gave directions to his
principal officers that if he died during the engagement they should
conceal his death from the army, and should ride up to the litter in
which his corpse was carried, under pretence of receiving orders from
him as usual. Before the action began he was carried through all the
ranks of his host, with the curtains of the litter drawn up, as they
stood in battle array, and encouraged them to fight valiantly in
defence of their religion and country. Finding the action at one
period of the day turning against him, and seeing that the decisive
moment had arrived, he, though verging on his last agonies, threw
himself out of his litter. The enthusiasm of his spirit for the moment
conquered the feebleness of his body; he was lifted upon a horse,
rallied his troops, and led them to a renewed charge, which ended in a
complete victory on the side of the Moors. The King of Portugal was
killed. At least, he disappeared mysteriously, and never was seen
again; his body, like that of James the Fourth at Flodden, was not
clearly identified, and more than one pretender from time to time came
forward to personate him; his entire army was dispersed, slain, or
rendered captive. Muley Moloch lived to witness the effect of his
charge, when nature gave way; his officers replaced him in his litter;
he was unable to speak, but laying his finger on his lips to enjoin
secrecy on all who stood around him, died a few moments afterwards in
that posture.

{168}

Fortitude and valor are, after all, more derived from constitution and
example than from any inherent power of the mind. When Sylla beheld
his army on the point of defeat by Archelaus, the general of
Mithridates, he alighted from his horse, snatched a standard from the
bearer, and rushing with it into the midst of the enemy, cried out,
"Here, comrades, I intend to die; but for you, when asked where you
left your general, remember it was at Orchomenus." The soldiers, moved
by his speech and example, returned to their ranks, renewed the fight,
and converted an imminent overthrow into a decisive victory. At
Marathon, Cynegirus, an Athenian, having pursued the Persians to their
ships, grasped a boat in which some of them were putting off from the
shore, with his right hand, holding it until his hand was cut off; he
then seized it with the left, which was also immediately severed.
After that, he retained it with his teeth, nor did he relinquish that
last hold until his fleeting breath failed, and thereby disappointed
the resolute intention of his mind.

The exploits of Mutius Seaevola, who thrust his hand into the fire to
frighten Porsenna, and of Horatius Cocles, who defended a bridge
singly against an army, are familiar to every school-boy. The latter,
in the glowing verses of Macaulay, is a favorite subject of selection
at school speech-days, and for public readings or recitations.
According to the same authority, Plutarch, the heroism of Seaevola had
been anticipated by Agesilaus, the brother of Themistocles. When
Xerxes arrived with his countless hosts at Cape Artemisium, the bold
Athenian, disguised as a Persian, came into the camp of the
barbarians, and slew one of the captains of the royal guard, supposing
he had been the king himself. He was immediately brought before
Xerxes, who was then offering sacrifices upon the altar of the Sun.
Agesilaus thrust his hand into the flame, and endured the torture
without sigh or groan. Xerxes  ordered them to loose him. "All we
Athenians," said Agesilaus, "are of the same determination. If thou
wilt not believe it, I will also suffer my left hand to be consumed by
the fire." The king, awed and impressed with respect for such
undaunted constancy, commanded him to be carefully kept and well
treated. Did one story suggest the other, or are both real  or
fabulous?

Valerius Maximus relates the following anecdote: "After the ancient
custom of the Macedonians, certain noble youths waited on Alexander
the Great when he sacrificed to the gods. One of these, holding a
censer in his hand, stood before the king. It chanced that a live coal
fell upon his arm, and so burnt it that the smell of the charred flesh
affected the bystanders; yet the sufferer suppressed the pain, in
silence, and held his arm immovable, lest by shaking the censer he
should interrupt the sacrifice, or by his groaning disturb the king.
Alexander, that he might still further try his fortitude, purposely
continued and protracted the sacrifice; yet the noble-hearted boy
persisted in his resolute intention." To this rare instance of
fortitude he adds another. "Anaxarchus, a philosopher of Abdera, was
remarkable for freedom of speech, which no personal consideration
restrained. He was a friend of Alexander, and when the great conqueror
was wounded, said bluntly, 'Behold the blood of a man and not of a
god.' But Alexander was too noble to be offended at such a home truth.
It was otherwise with Nicocreon, tyrant of Cyprus, to whose court
Anaxarchus betook himself on the death of Alexander. When the sage
openly reproached him with his cruelties, Nicocreon seized and
threatened to pound him in a stone mortar with iron hammers. 'Pound
the body of Anaxarchus at thy pleasure,' exclaimed he; 'his soul thou
canst not pound.' The tyrant, in a paroxysm of rage, ordered his
tongue to be cut from his mouth. {169} 'Effeminate wretch,' cried the
undaunted monitor, 'neither shall that part of my body be at thy
disposal.' So saying, he bit off his own tongue, and spat it in the
face of his persecutor."

Bacon, in his History of Life and Death, mentions a certain tradition
of a man, who being under the executioner's hands for high treason,
after his heart was plucked from his body, was yet heard to murmur
several words of prayer. He also instances another strange example in
the case of the Burgundian who murdered the Prince of Orange. When the
first part of his sentence, which only related to cutting off his
curls of hair, was carried out, he absolutely shed shed tears; yet,
when scourged with rods of iron, and his flesh torn with red-hot
pincers, he uttered neither sigh nor grown. Before his sense of
feeling became extinct under reiterated tortures, a part of the
scaffold fell on the head of a spectator. The criminal was observed to
laugh at the accident.

It is recorded of Caius Marius, seven times Roman consul, and conquer
of the Cimbri and Teutones, that a short time before his death, in his
seventieth year, a swelling in the leg location the necessity of its
being cut off. To this he submitted without a distortion of the face
or any visible sign of suffering. The surgeon told him the other leg
was as badly affected and peremptorily demanded the same remedy, if he
wished his life to be prolonged. "No," said Marius, "the pain is
greater than the advantage." Something very similar occurred at the
death of General Moreau on the field of Dresden, in 1813. A cannon
ball, as he was in conversation with the Emperor of Russia, shattered
his right knee, passed through the body of the horse, and left his
other leg suspended by a few ligaments. He sat up and coolly smoked a
cigar while undergoing the amputation of the left. On being told that
he must also lose the right, he shrugged his shoulders, and said to
the surgeons, "On with your work, if it must be so; but if I had known
at the beginning, I would have kept my legs and spared your trouble."
He survived only a few hours.

In 1571 Marc Antonio Bragandino, a noble Venetian, who was governor of
Famagusta, in the island of Cyprus, defended that city with
indomitable perseverance during a long siege, which cost Mustapha, the
general of the Turkish army, many thousands of his bravest soldiers.
The promised aid from Venice not arriving in time, Bragandino was
compelled to surrender on honorable conditions, which Mustapha
violated with consummate treachery. He caused the principal officers
to be beheaded in sight of their commander, who was reserved for a
more inhuman punishment. Three times the scimetar was drawn across his
throat, that he might endure the pain of more than one death, yet the
illustrious victim quailed not nor wavered in his intrepid demeanor.
His nose and ears were then cut off, and loaded with chains he was
compelled to carry earth in a hod to those who were repairing the
fortifications. With this heavy burden he was forced to bend and kiss
the ground every time he passed before Mustapha. Still his courage
supported him, and he kept dignified silence. Finally he was lashed to
the yard-arm of one of the Turkish galleys, and flayed alive. He
endured all with unshaken firmness, and to the last reproached the
infidels with their perfidy and inhumanity. His skin was carried in
parade along the coasts of Syria and Egypt, and deposited in the
arsenal of Constantinople, whence it was obtained by the children of
the illustrious hero, and preserved as the most glorious relic in
their family.

We find it written in Baker's Chronicle that King William Rufus, being
reconciled to his brother Robert, assisted him to recover Fort St.
Michael, in Normandy, forcibly held by Prince Henry, afterwards Henry
the First. During the siege, William one day {170} happening to be
riding carelessly along the shore, was set upon by three knights, who
assaulted him so fiercely that they drew him from his saddle, and the
saddle from his horse. But catching up his saddle, and drawing his
sword, he defended himself until rescue came. Being afterwards blamed
for his obstinacy in risking his life for a trifling part of his
equipment, "It would have angered me to the very heart," he replied,
"that the knaves should have bragged they had won the saddle from me."
The same authority tells us that "Malcolm, king of the Scots, a
contemporary of William Rufus, was a most valiant prince, as appears
by an act of his of an extraordinary strain. Hearing of a conspiracy
and plot to murder him, by one whose name is not recorded, he
dissembled all knowledge of it, till being abroad one day hunting in
company with the concealed traitor, he took him apart in a wood, and
being alone, 'Here now,' said he, 'is fit time and place to do that
manfully which you intended to do treacherously; draw your weapon, and
if you now kill me, none being present, you can incur no danger.' By
this speech of the king's the fellow was so daunted, that presently he
fell down at his feet and humbly implored forgiveness; which being
granted, he proved himself ever after a loyal and faithful servant.
This same Malcolm, son of the Duncan who was murdered by Macbeth, was
himself killed at the siege of Alnwick Castle, in 1093. A young
English knight rode into the Scottish camp, armed only with a slight
spear, whereon hung the keys of the castle, and approaching near the
king, lowered his lance, as if presenting the keys in token of
surrender. Suddenly he made a home thrust at the monarch's eye, which
ran into his brain, and he fell dead on the instant, the bold
Englishman saving himself by the swiftness of his horse. From this act
of desperate valor came the surname of Piercy, or Percy, ever since
borne with so much honor by the noble house of Northumberland."

A Dutch seaman being condemned to death, his punishment was changed,
and he was ordered to be left on the island of St. Helena, at that
time uninhabited. The horrors of solitude, without the hope of escape,
determined him to attempt one of the strangest actions ever recorded.
There had been interred that day in the same island an officer of the
ship. The seaman took the body out of the coffin, and having made a
kind of or of the upper board, ventured to see in it. There was
fortunately for him a dead calm, and as he glided along, early the
next morning he came near the ship lying immovable within two leagues
of the island. When his former companions saw so strange a float upon
the waters, they imagined it was a spectral delusion, but when they
discovered the reality, were not a little startled at the resolution
of the man who durst hazard himself on the sea in three boards
slightly nailed together. He had little hope of being received by
those who had so lately sentenced him to death. Accordingly it was put
to the question whether he should be saved or not. After some debates
and much difference of opinion, mercy prevailed. He was taken on
board, and came afterwards to Holland, where he lived in the town of
Hoorn, and related to many how miraculously God had delivered him.

Raleigh's History of the World abounds in anecdotes of undaunted
action. Amongst many others, the following is not the least
remarkable: "Henry, Earl of Alsatia, surname Iron, because of his
strength, obtained great favor with Edward the Third by reason of his
valor, and of course became a mark of envy for the courtiers. One day,
in the absence of the king, they counselled the queen that forasmuch
as the earl was unduly preferred before all the English peers and
knights, she would make trial whether he was so highly descended as he
gave out, by causing a lion to be let loose on him unawares, affirming
that if Henry were truly noble the lion would {171} refuse to assail
him. They obtained leave to the effect that they desired. The earl was
accustomed to rise before day, and to walk in the lower court of the
castle in which he resided, to enjoy the fresh air of the morning. A
lion was brought in during the night, in his cage, the door of which
was afterward raised by a mechanical contrivance, so that he had
liberty of escape. The earl came down in his night gown, with girdle
and sword, when he encountered the lion, bristling his hair and
roaring in the middle of the court. Not in the least astonished or
thrown off his guard he called out with a stout voice, 'Stand, you
dog!' Whereupon the lion crouched at his feet, to the great amazement
of the courtiers, who peeped from their hiding-places to see the issue
of the trick they had planned. The earl grasped the lion by the mane,
shut him up in his cage, and left his night-cap upon his back, and so
came forth, without even looking behind him. 'Now,' said he to them
that skulked behind the casements, 'let him amongst you that standeth
most upon his pedigree go and fetch My night-cap.' But they, one and
all, ashamed and terrified, withdrew themselves in silence."

But the most brilliant deeds and daring of warriors on the
battle-field, stimulated by all the excitements of pride, ambition,
and man's applause, in the estimate of true heroism fall far below the
glory of the patient, unpretending martyr, who dies for his faith at
the stake, amidst the blaspheming yells of his persecutors.

How impressive is the character drawn by Modestus, deputy of the
Emperor Valens, of St. Basil the Great, as he is justly called, whom
he sought to draw, with other eminent bishops, into the heresy of
Arius. He attempted it at first with caresses and all the sugared
phrases that might be expected from one who had words at command.
Disappointed in this course, he tried threats of exile, torture, and
death. Finding all equally fruitless, he returned to his lord with
this character of Basil--"Firmior est quam ut verbis, praestantior
quam ut minis, fortior quam ut blanditiis vinci possit." He is so
resolute and determined, that neither words, threats, nor allurements
have any power to alter him.

A sense of duty, in its high moral definition, ranks far beyond the
mere courage of the soldier, the selfish love of fame, the thirst of
glory, or the desire of personal pre-eminence. The late Duke of
Wellington was duty personified. The following illustrative anecdote
has never, we believe, been in print, and came to the present relater
through a source which vouches its authenticity. The duke was also
reticent, and not given to communicate his arrangements more openly to
his officers than was required for their exact comprehension and the
fulfilment of their instructions. It is generally supposed that Lord
Hill was second in command at Waterloo, and that he would have assumed
the direction of affairs had the great duke been killed or wounded
during the battle. This is a mistake. Lord Uxbridge, afterwards
Marquis of Anglesea, was senior in rank, by the date of his
lieutenant-general's commission, to Lord Hill, and on him the command
would have devolved in the possible and not improbable contingency
alluded to. The duke communicated with him most frankly and cordially
on all professional points, but from family incidents there was not
that perfect unreserve and friendly intercourse in private which
otherwise might have been. On the evening of the 17th of June, Lord
Uxbridge said to Sir Hussey Vivian, his old friend and brother officer
of the 7th Hussars, "I am very unpleasantly situated. There will be a
great battle to-morrow. The duke, as we all know, exposes himself
without reserve, and will, in all probability, do so more than ever on
this occasion. If an unlucky shot should strike him, and I find myself
suddenly in command, I have not the most distant idea of what his
intentions are. I would give the world to know, as they {172} must be
profoundly calculated, and far beyond any I could hit upon for myself
in a sudden crisis. We are not personally intimate enough to allow me
to ask or hint the question. What shall I do?" "Consult Alava,"
replied Vivian. "He is evidently more in the duke's confidence than
any one else, and will perhaps undertake to speak to him." Lord
Uxbridge followed the suggestion, rode over to head-quarters, and
finding General Alava, stated the object of his visit. "I agree with
you," said the Spaniard; "the question is serious; but honored as I am
by the duke's confidence, _I_ dare not propose it to him. I think,
however, that _you_ can and ought to do so. If you like, I will tell
him you are here." Lord Uxbridge, not without reluctance, consented,
and being introduced to the duke's apartments, with some hesitation
stated, as delicately as he could, the matter which disturbed him. The
duke listened until Lord Uxbridge ceased to speak; his features
indicated no emotion; and when he replied, it was without impatience,
surprise, or any alteration of his usual manner. After a short pause
he said, "Who do you expect will attack to-morrow, I or Bonaparte?"
"Bonaparte, I suppose," answered Lord Uxbridge. "Well, then," rejoined
the duke, "he has not told me his plans; how then can I tell you mine,
which must depend on his?" Lord Uxbridge said no more; he had nothing
more to say. The duke seeing that he looked a little blank, laid his
hand gently on his shoulder: "But one thing, Uxbridge," he observed,
"is quite certain; come what may, _you and I will both do our duty_."
And so, with a cordial pressure of the hand, they parted.


--------

ORIGINAL.


SAINT LUCY.


      The giving of my eyes
      In loving sacrifice
      Was my appointed way;
  No soft decline from the meridian day
  Through dusky twilight slowly into dark,
  But blackness, bloody, swift, and stark
      From hands unkind.
      And I was blind.

  Thus reads the story, writ on sacred scroll,
  Of Lucy, virgin martyr: that sharp dole
  Won heaven's eternal brightness for her soul;--
  The blotting out of sunshine, the recoil
  From utter blackness, the heart's gasp and spasm
  Before the unseen void, the imagined chasm
  Of untried darkness, was the martyr toil
  Whose moment's agony surpasses years--
  The love, long years of patience and of tears
  Allotted unto others. "All for all;"
  Not doling out with a reluctant hand,
  But in one holocaustal offering grand,
  Will, senses, mind, responding to heaven's call.

{173}

  "Bought at whatever price, heaven is not dear,"
  Sounds like an echoed chorus full of cheer
  From crypts of mangled martyrs, and charred bones,
  And blood-stained phials of the catacombs:
  And that young Roman girl's adoring eyes,
  One moment darkened, opened in surprise
  Upon the face of God. The cruel, taunt
  Of judges obdurate, the accuser's vaunt,
  The mob's wild shout of triumph deep and hoarse,
  Might still be heard around the bloody corse
  When her sweet soul, in peace, at God's own word
  Had tasted its exceeding great reward;
  To "see as she was seen," to know as known;
  The beatific vision all her own.

  Upon the sacred canon's sacred page.
  Invoked by vested priest from age to age,
  Stand five fair names of virgins, martyrs all,
  As if with some peculiar glory crowned
  That thus their names should crystallize; "their sound
  Is gone through all the earth," and great and small
  Upon those five wise virgins sweetly call
  With reverent wish: Saint Lucy! Agatha!
  Agnes! Cecilia! Anastasia!
  And chanted litany chose names enfold
  In reliquary more precious than mute gold.

  With what a tender awe I heard that name--
  A household name, familiar, dear, and kind.
  Of gentlest euphony--such honor claim!
  Thenceforth that name I speak with lifted mind,
  More loved in friend, because revered in saint;
  And daily as to heaven I make complaint
  Of mortal ills, and sickness, sorrows, woes,
  This one petition doth all others close:
  Saint Lucy, virgin martyr, by thine eyes
  Which thou didst give to God in sacrifice,
  His mercy and his solace now implore
  For darkened eyes and sightless, never more
  To gaze on aught created: by that meed
  Of choicest graces in that hour of need,
  Sweetness of patience and a joyful mind,
  And faithful, gentle hands to guide the blind!
  But more than this, Saint Lucy; thou didst gain,
  By loss of thy young eyes with loving pain.
  The vision given to angels; then obtain
  The lifting up of blinded orbs to where
  God sitteth in his beauty, the All-fair;
  Saint Lucy, virgin martyr, aid our prayer!

------

{174}


THE GODFREY FAMILY;
OR, QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.



CHAPTER V.

IS MERE MATERIAL PROGRESS A REAL BENEFIT, OR A PROGRESS IN THE RIGHT
DIRECTION?

I have already stated that Eugene Godfrey was well introduced on his
entrance at Cambridge. Scientific professors found pleasure in
bringing forward the son of so eminent a patron of literature and
science. But they were disappointed at finding little response in
Eugene's mind to the boastful glory of scientific improvement. "Cui
Bono?" was ever in his heart, and sometimes on his lips, when any new
inventions were proposed to him.

"Supposing we should be able to light our streets and our houses with
this wonderful combination of gases," he would say, "will the light
within be the greater? Supposing we travel without horses at the speed
of thirty miles an hour, can we travel nearer to truth? Improvement!
Is it an improvement to multiply bodily wants, or (beyond supplying
means of actual existence) is it rational to spend so much time in
rendering the body comfortable? Is multiplying luxury a good?"

"It employs hands," would be the reply, "and thus diffuses wealth."

"If that is the only object, riches could be easily scattered without
compelling those who own them to become effeminate triflers."

"But simply to give away wealth without exacting an equivalent, would
encourage idleness," argued the professor.

"And so to benefit our neighbor's morals we yield our own," said
Eugene. "Well, that is new philanthropy, and I am less inclined to
assent to it than ever I was. To keep untrammelled, we must, methinks,
reduce the number of our physical wants instead of increasing them.
Surely there are other modes of benefiting mankind than those which
enervate. The education of the hero is frugal, hardy, temperate almost
to scantiness. Fancy Sesostris or Cyrus lolling at ease in a
spring-patented carriage, propped up luxuriously with velvet cushions!
or think of a hero dressed out in gewgaws! Our minds lose the heroic
element altogether in the picture."

"A good loss," replied the professor! "methinks these warriors make a
great show, but what good do they effect: They destroy the arts of
peace and live on the excitement of vain glory. That excitement over,
they are as weak as other mortals. Hercules playing the distaff at
Queen Omphale's court is a fitting type of a so-called hero's rest."

"Not of all," replied Eugene; "conquerors have been lawgivers, and
good ones too. The passion of glory may not be a good in itself, but
it is better than sensuality. You would not compare Cyrus with
Heliogabalus."

"Not for himself, perhaps, not for his own private dignity; but for
the good he did in the world at large. I think the preference
questionable. Even allowing that the cruelty of Heliogabalus destroyed
whole multitudes, it had not the devastating effect on whole districts
which war ever produces; conquest lays waste large fields, destroys
produce, and brings famine and played in its wake."

{175}

"I am not arguing in favor of war for its own sake, I am only saying
that constant attention to mere bodily comfort must cause the race to
degenerate. He who would rise individually in the scale of existence
must repress bodily appetites, not encourage them; and this, if true
of the individual, must be true of society also: consequently the
introduction of luxury on a system, most eventually prove itself to be
an evil.

"Pshaw!" said the professor, "these theories are well enough in the
closet, but in action they are good for nothing. Why, you destroy
incentive to mental activity, when you debar man from applying it to
useful purposes."

"Useful, meaning increase of luxury?" asked Eugene.

"Well," somewhat petulantly rejoined the professor, "is not the
definition of luxury a good? The rich may please themselves, but the
poor need more comfort than they enjoy; among them diffusion of luxury
must be a good."

"Does that diffusion take place among the poor, as a matter of fact--
at least among the masses? Is not the contrary rather the case? Are
they not rather the ones to _suffer_ from the first fruits of
improvement. Look at the Manchester riots for the good you do;--awhile
ago there was in that town a contented population, sufficiently
provided with food, clothing, shelter, fire, and other real
necessaries; suddenly one of your clever men invents a machine which
makes the rich people's dresses at half the cost, and throws one-third
of the hands out of employ. What good have you done? There is in that
community as much food as before, as much clothing, as much of every
necessary of life! Yet two or three thousand families are suddenly
deprived of the means of subsistence, and driven by despair to break
the peace and disturb the public security, while you are boasting of
the good of physical science. Methinks moral science wants studying
too."

"Oh, these things will right themselves, will find their own level;
other employment will soon absorb the now displaced hands, and all
will be peace again."

"I doubt it: the selfish principle engenders the selfish practice.
Teach the laboring class by example to cater only for their private
gratification, whether that gratification be in vanity,
self-aggrandizement, or luxury; teach them to place all their
happiness in physical good, and then show yourself reckless of their
requirements by an indiscreet introduction of machinery, and an
English edition of the Reign of Terror may ensue."

"But what can be done? You would not stop these new inventions, nor
set a limit to improvement?"

"I would seek a higher principle of action altogether; and before
setting up new insentient machinery, would provide that the highest
_sentient_ machinery, _Man_, should receive due consideration. It is a
manifest injustice, when the interests of the producers of wealth are
rashly sacrificed to increase the luxury of the consumers."

"And what is this new principle, most compassionate sir?'* asked the
professor.

"I do not know, it is precisely that which troubles me. Men are not
the mere money-machines you would turn them to--of that I am well
assured; but what they are and what their destiny is, I have yet to
learn."

The professor laughed, rose and took his leave.

Eugene remained plunged in a profound reverie, from which he was
aroused by the visit of a stranger, who announced himself as the M.
Bertolot introduced to our readers in a previous chapter.

He said that although personally a stranger, yet hearing of Eugene's
residence at Cambridge, he had taken the liberty of calling to inquire
after the welfare of his former friends.

Eugene welcomed him, and assured him that the countess was in good
health and spirits.

"And her amiable daughter?" inquired the old man.

{176}

"Is also well, I hope and believe," said Eugene; "but she leads so
secluded a life, even in our large family, that it is difficult for
those about her to speak with any degree of certainty concerning her."

"Indeed! She is probably scarcely recovered from the shock of her
father's terrible death."

"Perhaps not; but I do not think _that_ is the sole cause of her
seclusion: she is essentially contemplative, and the things of this
world interest her but little. What her ideas are, I do not know, for
she seldom speaks of them, but I think they would be worth the
knowing."

"Probably so," replied M. Bertolot "She is a pure soul, beautiful and
good; of whom we may almost affirm that she scarcely knows what sin
is."'

Eugene looked at the speaker in surprise. "What sin is! What is sin!"
thought he. "Is it aught beside the consequence of error? and how can
we escape error if we cannot light on truth?" His puzzled look was
perhaps his best reply.

"You do not credit me," said M. Bertolot; "you think, and justly, that
all men are sinners; yes, indeed, all, all are so, I spoke but by
comparison: it is rare to find so pure, so simple a soul as is that of
Mademosielle de Meglior; though not sinless, as none can be, she is a
consistent aspirant alter heavenly lore, ever keeping her heart fixed
on the only true source of light and life: at least she was so when I
knew her."'

"She is tranquil and contemplative," said Eugene, "and when she does
speak, often startles us with the originality of her sentiments; but
when you spoke of her as not knowing sin, it was the expression that
astonished me. People in polite life do not often speak of themselves,
or of their friends, as sinners."

"No!" said M. Bertolot; "excuse me then, the expression came as
naturally to my lips as to my thoughts. I intended no offense."

"Nor did you give any: on the contrary, I should be glad to know from
you the principle of Euphrasie's mode of action, if without violating
confidence, you can tell me what it is. She is actuated by motives not
comprehended by those with whom she lives."

"I can give you no other explanation than that I suppose her actuated
by the purest principles of religion. As a child she gave promise of
this: all her thoughts and ideas tended upward. Does she continue so?"

"I never heard her speak of religion," replied Eugene; "she sometimes
speaks very sublimely, though very laconically, of truth being the one
thing to be cared for."

"Ah!" said M. Bertolot, "is it thus she veils herself? But with her
truth, and the worship of the author of truth, must go together. I
know Euphrasie from childhood. I know how she struggled with her
naturally vehement spirit, until, even as a child, she obtained the
mastery. I remember, too, the explanations she sought for most
earnestly, of why our evil tendencies remain to molest us when we
become members of Christ. All that the child learned _once_ she
pondered over, and oftentimes surprised her teachers with her
comments."

"I doubt it not: her remarks are ever original. I have often felt
quite anxious to know the basis of her actions."

"Nay, have you not said already, that it was the love of truth? Her
every thought tends that way, and she early discovered how liable the
practical recognition of metaphysical truth is to be impeded by human
passion. Hence, from childhood upwards, she has been accustomed to
watch over herself, and to check the indulgence of any emotion that
would form a 'blind' between herself, and the object of her adoration.
She is young yet, but I venture to say she will pass by the age of
passion unscathed.*

"Do you mean that she will love?" asked Eugene.

{177}

"Nay, that I cannot exactly affirm," replied M. Bertolot; "but I think
she will never be governed by any passion--be it love, pride, fame,
or ambition. I think she has laid the true foundation in obtaining the
mastery over her feelings; and though she is naturally affectionate, I
am not sure that she would be happy now, if bound by human ties. She
has accustomed herself to live an abstracted life; she would scarcely
be at home in domestic duties."

"Nay, I hope such is not the case!" exclaimed Eugene, more warmly than
he intended, for his latent feelings toward Euphrasie ever and anon
betrayed themselves; and while he scarcely confessed it to himself,
interest in her style of thought colored the course of his own ideas.

M. Bertolot dexterously turned the conversation by reverting to a
former subject. "It were well for mankind," said he, "did they
consider how much passion and prejudice warp the mind, even in the
consideration of abstract truths. Few, very few, keep their own
intellects open for the reception of any such foreign ideas as would
contravene their previous conceptions. Fewer still, give their
neighbors credit for such power to look at facts impartially. This is
an attestation that passion reigns rather than justice. Methinks the
old system of Pythagoras, subjecting youth to moral training as a
necessary preliminary for bringing the intellectual faculties into
harmonious play, were not a bad precedent for this unruly age."

"It would scarcely go down now," urged Eugene.

"Indeed no!"' said M. Bertolot. "The master says it would seem but a
ridiculous phrase in this all-disputing age. All faculties, whether of
mind or body or soul, seem now confounded. Positiveness usurps the
place of reason, and the mere child is allowed to question, instead of
being compelled at once to obey. If the world goes on with this
principle in action twenty years longer, we shall have little men and
women in plenty, but no children left, and then woe to the generation
that succeeds: a generation untrained and undisciplined by wholesome
restraint, with intellects prematurely developed without the adjunct
of self-government, which only moral training can impart. What a world
it will make! Methinks its inevitable tendency is to undue animal
preponderance. It is frightful to think of!"

"I was just making the same remark to Professor K----," said Eugene;
"but though I see the evil, I cannot discern the remedy."

"It is indeed difficult to compass the remedy," said M. Bertolot, "the
departure has been so wide. Men have ceased to distinguish between the
result of mere human intelligence and that of a loftier lore, and they
now use the intellect as the slave of the only good recognizable in
their system, _i. e._ of bodily ease or pleasure. Practically men
ignore the soul and its high destiny. Hence the disorder of the times.
Animalism is essentially selfish, and animalism is the tendency of
modern times--refined, veiled, adorned, with much of intellectual
allurement I admit, but nevertheless animalism thorough and entire."

"I have thought of this before," said Eugene, "but my ideas are as yet
vague and undefined. I want data to go upon some firm ground on which
to plant my feet. The guesses of philosophers content me not."

"Nor should they, my young friend, since, as you say, they are but
guesses, without a sure foundation. But have you heard of nothing
beyond philosophy? Has it never occurred to you that the creative
intelligence has revealed himself to the creature of his formation,
and that through that revelation we are informed of that which it
interests us to know--of our own soul, of the object of our creation,
and of the final destiny of man?"

"I have heard of religion certainly," said Eugene, "but I cannot say I
ever studied it or practised it."

{178}

"No? Then no wonder you are dissatisfied. Your mind is evidently
seeking for truth. Nothing but the great truth can satisfy it. Study
dispassionately the evidences of the truth of the great Mosaic
history. Contemplate the grand position of our first father, Adam,
receiving instruction from God himself concerning the mighty mysteries
of creation, not only of matter and of material forms, but of bright
intelligences created to glorify and adorn the court of heaven, and
who fell from their sublime position. Study man first, fresh in
perfection from the hand of God, living as the _friend of God_,
communing with his Maker in the garden of Eden. Appointed by him to
rule o'er all inferior nature, the entitled Lord of the Creation, the
master of animal existences, and superior in his own person to much of
material influence. Think what it must have been to walk with God, and
have divine knowledge infused into his soul, as also all such material
science as would befit the founder of a mighty race to transmit to his
offspring, over whom he was to reign as prince, father, priest, and
teacher; and then consider what it must have been to find suddenly
that source of knowledge dried up, the door of communication closed,
power weakened, intuitions dimmed, and labor imposed as the price
alike of happiness, knowledge, and of that supernatural communication
which had been man's best and highest privilege: the solution of these
problems will give you the key to many difficulties which perplex
you."

"There are modern theories which agree not with these premises," said
Eugene. "These trace man from the savage upward."

"Yes,' said M. Bertolot, "_the mutum et turpe pecus_ [Footnote 36] of
Horace has found, if not admirers, yet professed believers in this
age.

  [Footnote 36: Dumb and filthy herd.]

A theory contrary to analogy, to evidence alike of history and
tradition, has been assumed, and wondrously has found asserters too.
All mere animals are observed to be born complete--their instincts,
their organization serve but the individual; and though accident may
train an individual to feats beyond his fellows, yet there is no
appearance of new organs being formed to be transmitted to its race.
Now, these modern progressionists, who go back to the time

  'When wild in woods the Noble Savage ran,'

deprive man of his soul, assimilate him to the brutes to make him
perform what brute nature never did perform, namely, _create_ faculty.
Men have lives to laugh at the doctrine of the transmigration of
souls, but methinks the doctrine of the progression to bodily beauty
from monkeys without tails; of barbarians to civilized man without
aid, is to the full as absurd; to say nothing of that comprehensive
power of contemplation which enabled Newton to demonstrate the order
of  the universe, it would be very difficult to understand how
abstract ideas could be latent in the soul of a monkey waiting
development. Besides, by the theory of progression, during the time of
which we have record, say six thousand years, men should be steadily
on the _improve_--both as to arts, science, moral government, legal
government, _self_-government, and bodily development; but we do not
find it so. The ruins of Babylon, of Thebes, and of other great cities
built soon after the flood, attest architectural skill among the
ancients such as is hardly aimed at no. Callisthenes found
astronomical tables reaching as far back as within a few years of the
deluge, in the Temple of Belus, when he accompanied Alexander the
Great on his expedition to the East. And many arts have been lost
altogether that were well known to the ancients. The half-barbarian
Copt erecting his hut amid the fallen pillars and statuary of ancient
Thebes, the Mameluke riding recklessly and savagely amid the pyramids,
that still remain to puzzle the assertor of progression even with the
mere mechanical difficulties of the machinery used for {179} raising
such immense stones to such a height and in such a plain, so distant
from any known quarries. These are hut poor indications of the race
advancing, though individual nations, worked on by a regenerative
influence, may appear to make, nay do make, great improvements in all
respects."

"Do you, then, think that man's tendency is to degenerate?" asked
Eugene.

"Not necessarily, by any means," replied M. Bertolot; "but in
proportion as he departs from the centre of unity, from the truths
once imprinted on the soul of Adam, thence to be transmitted for human
guidance, it will, I think, be found so."

"But," said Eugene, "is Adam's religion yours? Surely he was not a
Christian."

"If not in name and with the same outward rites, yet in reality he
must have been," replied the mentor. "There is but one truth, and the
difference between his creed and ours was that he looked for a
Redeemer to come. We believe in him as having come."

"But was Adam's religion that of the Jews, then?" asked Eugene.

"In creed and in spirit, yes. In form and observance it differed,
because the Jews had typical forms specially given to them, alike to
commemorate their deliverance from Egypt, and to typify their delivery
through Christ from sin. They were living amid idolatrous nations, and
the safeguard of a special ceremonial was needful to them."

"And save in the fulfilment of their expectation, is the Jewish creed
Christian?" asked Eugene.

"As far as it goes it is; the Christian revelation is a fuller
development of the old tradition, a clearer exposition of God; it
destroys nothing of the past revelation, it fulfils and expands. The
Jews were the preservers of the great tradition, transmitted through
the patriarchs to Noah, and by him, through his sons, to the race it
large. The tradition became corrupted by the majority; yet it is found
in some form or other mixed up in all mythologies; and what deserves
remark is, that the further back we trace mythology the purer it
becomes. The early records of all nations tell us of purity,
discipline, and sacrifice to secure purity of morals, and teach of
justice after death, of good and evil spirits, and of the interference
of the deity to check man in his career of evil. Men seem at first not
so much to have denied the true God, as to have associated other gods
with him, and to have changed their worship from seeking such
spiritual union as would render them 'sons of God,' to adoration of
the creator and upholder of physical power, physical grandeur, and
physical beauty. Atheism, and the lowering of man's nature to that of
a mere mortal animal, is an invention of modern times, and has for the
most part only been held by men satiated, as it were, by a spurious
civilization."

"I am but little versed in the Bible," said Eugene, "but I have heard
learned men assert that all the education, so to speak, of the Jewish
nation was of a worldly character; and that though there are passages
of Scripture containing allusions to the immortality of the soul, yet
that doctrine was nowhere definitely asserted, but that, on the
contrary, all the rewards and punishments promised, or threatened,
were of a temporal nature."

"And yet no one disputes that the Jews did, and do believe the soul to
be immortal, as also that they believed, and still believe, in the
traditions concerning the fallen angels, the fall of man, the promised
redemption, and many others. These doctrines, promulgated to all the
world, were kept intact by Abraham and his descendants; and it is a
very general belief that they were renewed in their purity in the soul
of Moses, during that long communion vouchsafed him on Mount Sinai.
The material law for exterior conduct he wrote down; but the spiritual
themes which formed the staple of the expositions given by the rulers
and doctors of the synagogue {180} and which were only figured by the
material types, were probably deemed by the holy lawgiver too sacred
to dilate upon in writing. If, after that forty days' sublimation, his
spirit was so triumphant that he was fain to veil the glory of his
face, we must needs suppose that not the mere written law, or setting
forth the ritual of their worship, occupied his whole attention, but
that his spirit expanded beneath the graces vouchsafed to him, and
that he was, in a sense, made partaker of those spiritual truths which
lie concealed from more materialized minds."

"These facts deserve attention, at any rate," said Eugene; "can you
refer me to authorities within my reach?"

"Indeed, I know not what your resources are, and my own books I have
lost. My memory, too, serves me but treacherously on controversial
subjects; but I think if you will turn to Grotius de Verit. Christ,
you will find him quoting Philo Judaeus in proof of the similarity of
the Christian doctrine with the Jewish."

Eugene handed the book to his friend, who read the passage, of which
the following is the translation:

  "We have still to answer two accusations with which the doctrines
  and worship of Christians are attacked by the Jews. The first is,
  that they say we worship many gods. But this is nothing more than a
  declaration thrown in hatred at a foreign faith. For what more is
  asserted by the Christians, than by Philo Judaeus, who frequently
  represents three in God, and who calls the reason, or word of God,
  the name of God, the framer of the world, neither uncreate, as is
  the Father of all, nor so born as are men (whom both Philo and
  Moses, the son of Nehemanni, calls the angel, the deputy for ruling
  this world); or what more than the cabalists assert, who
  distinguished in God three lights, and indeed by somewhat the same
  names as the Christians do, namely, of the Father, of the Son or
  Word, and of the Holy Spirit. And I may also assume that which is
  confessed by all the Jews, that that spirit which moved the
  prophets, is not created, and yet is distinct from him who sent,"
  etc., etc.

"But," said the old man, starting up and closing the book, "I am
forgetting myself; I came not here to deliver a lecture on theology,
but to inquire after my former friends. Excuse an old man's garrulity.
Adieu!"

"Not yet," said Eugene; "your conversation interests me much; do not
go yet."

"Yes, for to-night I leave you; if you permit me, however, I will
return on another day. Meantime, I would suggest to you one important
reflection. When Almighty God had created all things, and pronounced
them good; when he had formed man from the slime of the Earth, and
rendered him the most perfect of animals, man was not yet quite
complete; and the completion, what was it? No angel had command to
fulfil that wondrous office, nor was it by word that that mysterious
power was called into being: but God breathed, and man became a living
soul. The soul of man is, then, the in-breathing of the divinity
--immortal in its essence, God-like in its affinities. Quench not its
trembling impulses, when it bids you look upward in love and
confidence; but pray--ever pray--fervently, confidently,
perseveringly." This he added with a half-smile, which revealed to
Eugene who had been his former monitor. He then abruptly quitted the
room.



CHAPTER VI.

MODERN PAGANISM

The Duke of Durimond and his fair bride prolonged their tour among the
lakes and mountains of the "land o' cakes" until autumn  begun to show
the fallen leaf. Hester was not a little disappointed at this--she was
impatiently expecting a summons to {181} meet her sister at the dacal
mansion, and she thought the period unnecessarily delayed.

At length the wished-for invitation came, and father, mother, sisters,
brother, aunt, and Euphrasie were called upon to welcome the young
duchess to one of the costliest and most elaborately finished palaces
in England. Hester shouted in glee as the carriage entered the
mile-long avenue of stately trees that formed the approach to the
ducal dwelling. The bevy of liveried servants that awaited their
approach at the hall-door, the quiet, respectful bearing of the
gentlemen servants out of livery who waited within to escort them to
the suite of rooms prepared for their reception--all this was
charming! delightful! only a look from her parents presented the merry
girl from dancing round the house in ecstasy. The entrance-hall itself
was sufficient to send her into raptures. The beautiful marble of the
floor, the large fires burning on each side, the triple row of
balconies, raised one above another, on the three sides within the
hall, betokening the communication of the upper stories with the rest
of the house by some unseen means, and displaying the full height of
the edifice, crowned as it was by a beautifully carved cupola, into
which sufficient skylight was artificially admitted to display to
advantage the figures of the rosy Aurora accompanied by her nymphs,
scattering flowers on her way as she opened the gates of morning,
which subject was skilfully portrayed on the ceiling. They passed
through this, the outer hall, to another, which contained the
magnificent staircase leading to the apartments opening on the
balconies described. To Hester's joy the entrance to their suite of
rooms opened on the first of these, and she could look up to the
painted ceiling and down to the marble floor, and gaze, unrebuked, on
the colossal figures of bronze which appeared to uphold the balconies.

How happy Adelaide must be, mistress of so gorgeous a palace! And
Adelaide was there at the door of the apartments to greet her mother
and her mother's friends. What was there in her manner to damp at once
the ardor of Hester's enthusiasm? Grace, kindness, and dignity were
there! and yet Hester was not satisfied; a chill came o'er her
unawares as she returned her sister's kiss. She mastered herself,
however, sufficiently to express her admiration of the splendid hall.

"Oh, that is nothing," said the young duchess, with a faint smile.
"His grace will introduce you to his hall of sculpture and to the
picture gallery by and by, and then you will be really pleased. I
believe royalty itself cannot boost such master-pieces as Durimond
Castle."

"So I have heard," said Mrs. Godfrey; "but where is the duke, my
dear?"

"He was unexpectedly occupied when you arrived, mamma, but doubtless
he will be here to welcome you immediately."

There was a constraint and melancholy about Adelaide's manner that
struck the whole party, and their pleasure was more than a little
damped as they entered the magnificent apartments prepared for them.

"Here," said the hostess, "you can be as private as in your own house
when you wish it;  and when you desire society you will generally find
some one either in the library, or in the conservatory or
drawing-room."

"Have you many guests?" asked the Countess de Meglior.

"Your friend, the Comte de Villeneuve, came with us from town; he is
not here to-day, though I think the duke expects him to-morrow. He is
absent on some business; there is a strange gentleman closeted with
the duke just now, for whom apartments are ordered; he is a foreigner,
I think; the duke seems to have business with him. He will be our only
visitor today."

{182}

Just then the bell rang to warn the guests it was the dressing hour.
Valets and ladies' maids were in attendance, and though only to join a
family party, state-dresses were in requisition.

Adelaide retired to make her preparations, and the visitors, amid the
luxurious surroundings, felt oppressed with a sadness for which they
could scarcely account, and which they cared not to express, even to
one another.

The duke met them in the drawing-room before dinner, and his gay
manner in some degree dispelled the gloom that had crept over the
party. He inquired kindly after Eugene.

"Eugene, from some cause or other," said Mrs. Godfrey, "keeps away
from home altogether. He spent his long vacation at the lakes, and has
again returned to Cambridge. He has taken a studious fit, I suppose,
and must be allowed to gratify if ."

"And does he not, then, intend to honor us with his company?" inquired
the duke.

"Oh, he will run down for a day or two ere long, I dare say. He must
see Adelaide, of course; but when, he does not exactly say."

Adelaide did not appear displeased to hear this. She turned to her
husband and asked what he had done with his visitor.

"He would not stay, he had an appointment to keep, so we must make up
for all deficiencies ourselves."

The dinner passed away stiffly enough, and as the season was too late
for a walk afterward, the gentlemen, following the then national
custom, passed a considerable time over the bottle, discussing the
politics of the day. It was late in the evening ere they joined the
ladies. They found them in a large conservatory, which was illuminated
in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey's arrival; and in this flowery
retreat sundry self-acting musical instruments were hidden, which,
from time to time, sent forth, as it were unbidden, melodious sounds
and  tuneful harmonies, which, vibrating amid the flowering shrubs
that formed an artificial spring within the glass enclosure,
contrasted pleasingly with the "fall of the leaf" that made all nature
desolate without.

"Art conquers nature here," said Mr. Godfrey, as he entered the
enchanted scene. "We might fancy ourselves in a fairy palace now. What
says my Hester to this?"

"Oh! this is beautiful, indeed! Music, moonlight, love, and flowers
are it 'A glorious combination,'" said Hester, pointing to the moon,
which shone brightly through the windows; but her voice had lost its
usual animation as she made the quotation, for a feeling passed over
her heart, as if one ingredient, and that precisely the most important
one, was wanting; she could not be satisfied that "love" presided in
this abode of beauty and of grace.

The next morning the state rooms of the house were inspected. The duke
was the great patron of the fine arts, and taste shone forth in every
part of the stately edifice that was exposed to view.

The picture gallery and the hall of sculpture were celebrated far and
wide, particularly the latter. Nor were the figures promiscuously
arranged that decorated this scene of art; on the contrary, much care
had been expended to form one harmonious whole. On the dome which
formed the ceiling was painted ancient Saturn devouring his offspring
as they rose into being, and beneath this centre-piece were painted
the war of the Titans against Satan on the one side, and the war of
the giants against Jupiter on the other. Thus far the ceiling. In the
midst of the marble floor stood the mighty Jupiter, armed with his
thunderbolts, majestic in strength and grand in intellectual
sensualism. Beside him, grouped symmetrically and appropriately, were
the legion of subordinate divinities--Venus, attended by the graces;
Apollo, radiant in beauty; Hercules strangling the serpents while he
was yet in the cradle; the Muses in various attitudes, with
appropriate symbols of office. Scarcely a god, goddess, or demigod
{183} could be named who was not here represented. Types of
beauty--sensual, intellectual, and physical; types of grandeur and of
tenor; types of mystery, beneath the veiled figure of the Egyptian
deity, Isis; types of knowledge and of artistic skill were there. All
that man bows before and worships when the sense of the supernatural
is shut, and he learns of _self_ to deify his own passions, was here,
other delineated on the walls or chiselled out in the sculptural
forms. It was ft Pantheon dedicated to all the gods of human sense,
refined by beauty and grace, and polished by artistic merit of the
highest order. Unbounded and unfeigned was the applause elicited from
the party: hardly could they satisfied themselves with gazing on these
perfect forms: even the lack of drapery seemed scarcely a drawback.
Euphrasie, indeed, retired, but she was so strange habitually that her
absence was hardly commented upon; and but for the smile that went
round the circle as she left the hall, might have been deemed
unobserved.

"The true gods of the earth are these yet." said Mr. Godfrey, when the
door had closed behind the young French girl, "and the race has sadly
degenerated since their worship was abandoned."

The young duchess and her sisters looked up in mute wonder at the
speaker, but the duke cried, "Hear, hear!" and the elder ladies tried
to look wise and responsive.

Mr. Godfrey continued: "That is god to a man which his mind worships
and reveres, and which to the extent of his power he strives to
imitate. Julian, the Roman emperor, understood this well. He felt
(what time has proved true) that the human frame must degenerate when
its proportionate and due development ceases to be the primary object
of the legislator. He saw that when, instead of these glorious
physical powers, there is substituted a pale, emaciated figure nailed
to a cross for the glorification of an ideal good, that all nature's
teachings must become confused, and a fake romance lead to decay the
powers that heretofore were so beautiful in their proportions."

"Surely, papa, you do not believe in paganism," said Hester,
wonderingly.

"Yes and no, Hester. In the fables of the personal divinity of
Jupiter, Venus, and Minerva--No! In paganism as the expression of a
grand idea, well suited to man's capabilities, and to his nature--Yes!
You must not confound the hidden meaning of the myth with the outward
expression. The uninstructed multitude will always look to the
outward, and believe the fables as facts, whatever religion they
profess, and often times they penetrate no further; but the learned
look through the myth to the meaning, and the meaning of the pagan
myth is,--Cultivate physical strength, in union with intellectual
power, worship beauty, study and contrast nature. Destroy infirmity:
it is the most humane way, and the most just way. Do not perpetuate
disease. Let all ill-constituted children die. Let the
conquered--_i.e._, the weaker--serve; it belongs to the strong to
rule. To develop the physical frame duly, Lycurgus caused even the
young women to wrestle publicly, without drapery of any kind. Our more
fastidious tastes cramp the form of our women, and distort the figure;
and, worse than this, our perverted theology distorts their intellect,
and makes it afraid even to look at the human form. Again, I say,
Julian was right. The Christianity he forsook has caused not only the
degeneration of human power, but has substituted false ideas of good.
The real has given place to the ideal, and a sickly, romantic,
sentimentalized race has taken the place of the hardy heroes of
antiquity."

And Mr. Godfrey bowed profoundly to the deities before him.

{184}

The duke laughed and clapped his hands. "Well said, Mr. Godfrey, well
said. I hardly knew till now, how great a benefactor I was to the
human race when I collected these statues. Hitherto I have thrown open
my house but once a week for the public benefit. Henceforth I will
direct my steward to allow instructions oftener in this temple of the
true gods of the earth. By the by, I believe there is a very good
chance of restoring this gone-by worship, if, as you say, it consists
in the exaltation of physical power. Science, in its diffusion, is
fixing men's minds on material agencies, very much to the exclusion of
superstitious ideality. We have only to throw in a vein of the love of
beauty, and much will be effected toward bringing back men's minds to
the natural worship, here so beautifully symbolized."

"I believe so," said Mr. Godfrey; "but, meantime, how much evil has
been effected by letting in upon the race so many delicate
constitutions! How shall we restore the hardy races that peopled the
earth, when these mighty types of glory ruled the populations?"

"Indeed, it is difficult to say. Men have accustomed themselves to a
false estimate of mere vitality, as if life without enjoyment were
worth the having. We shall, I fear, find it difficult to persuade
English mothers to destroy their diseased and crippled children for
the good of the public, or to train their daughters in the gymnasium."

"Would you seriously wish it, my lord duke?" asked his wife.

"I hardly know. We are all trammelled more or less with the feelings
our mothers instilled into us. I think Lycurgus a great man, and
perfectly reasonable. Had I been born a Spartan, I think I should have
thanked the gods for it, but now--"

"Now," interrupted Mrs. Godfrey, "you are more nearly a Sybarite. I
know of no one whom a crumpled rose-leaf disturbs more easily than
yourself."

"Nay, Mrs. Godfrey, the _argumentum ad hominem_ is hardly fair; but,
after all, I suppose we must admit that character is geographical and
chronological, besides being modified by individual circumstance. I
think freely, but I am scarcely free to change my character; so in
legislating I must legislate on public grounds for others. It does not
follow that I can keep the law I deem it fitting to make.

"But if you cannot keep it, how can others?" demanded Annie.

"Well asked, my fair sister--asked not only by you, but by others
also, and therefore is it that we must practically legislate not as we
think best, abstractedly, but as nearly best as can be carried out.
So, as the people are not yet ripe for ancient Spartan laws, we must
be content yet a while to diffuse the principle that physical
development, physical beauty, and physical power are the legitimate
objects of human worship. When we have accustomed the people to adopt
these views, the rest may chance to follow. Meantime, I see De
Villeneuve coming up the avenue: excuse me for an instant;" and
somewhat to the surprise of the party, the duke bolted through the
open door that led on to the grounds to meet his friend, who
dismounted when he saw him coming. In deep conference they slowly
approached the house. There was a cloud on the duke's brow, but he
shook it off as he entered and gayly introduced his friend.

"I am afraid De Villeneuve hardly admires these divinities, Mrs.
Godfrey; let us adjourn to the drawing-room."

"Nay, defend yourself, M. de Villeneuve; you will not plead guilty to
not loving art?" said the lady addressed.

"No, indeed, dear madam, his grace is only avenging himself for my
criticisms. I suggested to him the other day that he might get up
another temple of modern art as a supplement to this, and he felt
piqued, I suppose; yet I have found him many times standing rapt
before a Madonna."

{185}

"The gentlemen decided this morning that these were the true gods of
the earth, and that Madonnas and Crucifixions were false, unreal
types, and to be discouraged."

"Not possible!"

"Nay, it is true, they were voting a return to paganism."

"But you, ladies," said M. de Villeneuve, "you, ladies, were not of
that mind, surely?"

"I don't know," said Hester, mischievously, "papa was very eloquent In
lauding ancient institutions."

"But," said the comte, turning very earnestly to her, "he did not tell
you how woman was treated in the olden time, before Mary's _fiat_
repaired the fault of Eve. Women, intelligent, beautiful women, owe
everything to that divine Mother; and if they cast off their religion
it is because the misery is hid from them which the sex was subject to
formerly."

"There is no necessity just now of making it more clear," said Mr.
Godfrey drily.

"No," said the comte; "and yet when I see the tendency of the age, I
often feel that it would be safer did our ladies know the truth. Eve's
fault should at least bring knowledge when knowledge is necessary to
truth. Woman could not help but be fervently religious, did she know
from what an abyss of degradation Christianity has raised her."

Mr. Godfrey turned impatiently to the window. "It is splendid weather
for riding," said he; "suppose we order the horses."




CHAPTER VII.

MARRIAGE OR NO MARRIAGE.


But why was Adelaide so sad? Why was the young duchess apparently most
constrained when with her husband? Why, on the contrary, was he, as
usual, gay, cheerful, and animated? These were questions for a
mother's heart to ask, and yet, uneasy as she was, Mrs. Godfrey asked
them not. She dared not seek the confidence of her daughter, lest
aught should be betrayed which it were better she should not know. She
knew that the confidence of a married woman is sacred even from a
mother, in all that appertains to her husband; and what other secrets
could Adelaide have?

Several days passed, and no clue to the enigma was discovered. Parties
of pleasure were formed, the grounds were traversed, the library
ransacked--literary, scientific, nay political excitement created for
the amusement and entertainment of the guests; but no familiar,
confidential chit-chat gave occasion to the disclosure of the secret
which it was evident was weighing on Adelaide's mind.

One morning, however, Mr. Godfrey shut himself up in the library, in
order to search through some volumes for a passage he desired, and his
daughter entered, turning the key in the door as she did so. Mr.
Godfrey looked up. Adelaide was pale and trembling. He took her hand
and led her to a sofa. In a few moments she partly recovered; yet it
was in a faltering voice that she asked:

"Father, is a marriage with a Roman Catholic valid?"

"Valid? Yes, I suppose so; why not, my dear?"

Adelaide became still more pale, but did not answer.

Mr. Godfrey was alarmed. "How does this concern you, my child?" he
asked.

"Why--why--the duke is then married to another lady," faltered she.

"Impossible!" said the father. "Impossible! he would not--dare not do
such a deed. You have been imposed upon, Adelaide. Tell me the story,
and the authority for it."

"Did you hear of a woman fainting, almost under the carriage-wheels,
on the morning of my marriage, father?"

"I did; what of it, my child!"

{186}

"That woman believes herself to be his wife! She followed us, and
confronted the duke in Scotland in a narrow glen. She watched day and
night to speak to him; her watching was noticed, pointed out to me,
and one day as he was returning home I saw her start up from under a
hedge and stand before him. He evidently sought to avoid her, but she
would not be avoided; she held him by the skirts of his coat till he
consented to speak with her. Unperceived by both I stole near them; I
heard her claim him as her husband; I listened in vain for his denial;
I heard him urge her to go home; I heard him say that he would satisfy
her another time--that it should be all right if she would only
quietly depart; and I heard, too, her indignant refusal to depart
until he had told her his true name, and where he was to be found. 'To
me,' she said, 'you have called yourself Colonel Ellwood, and my boy
has borne that name!'"

"'Let him bear it still,' replied the duke.

"'But is it the right one? is it yours!' she shrieked.

"'I am the Duke of Durimond,' answered he. She fell fainting at his
feet. Unthinkingly, I pressed forward to succor her, thus revealing
that I had overheard the conversation. The duke started, and said,
'This is no scene for your grace; if you will send an attendant from
the house yonder to wait on this poor stranger, it will be kind of
you.' I did as requested, but the agitation of my feelings caused an
illness which detained us a long time in Scotland. I did not like to
inform you of my illness then. The duke would have been kind, but I
liked not to see him near me. Once or twice he tried to explain to me
that the whole was a mistake, but I asked him not to mention it. When
we came to London he again tried explanation, but I told him all
explanation must be to you. He endeavored in vain to shake my
resolution, and at length brought me here and sent for you. A lawyer
was with him in London several times, and a Catholic priest was
closeted with him the day he arrived. I suspect this unhappy business
was the cause of their visits, but I have asked nothing. We have held
little communication with each other since that unfortunate
recognition in Scotland."

"My poor child!" said the father "and was this your honeymoon?"

Adelaide laid her head on her father's shoulder, and wept.

"But why do you think the woman is a Roman Catholic, Adelaid?"

"He told me so one day, and therefore, he says, the marriage is not
valid."

"Perhaps it is so, Adelaide."

"But if it is so, she believes herself his wife, and she is pure,
good, innocent; it is written in her face."

"My poor child?" again ejaculated the father.

How long they sat sorrowing silence they heeded not. Each felt that
whichever hypothesis were true, married or not married, there was
bitterness enough. At length the sound of voices in the hall warned
Adelaide to seek her own apartment. Mr. Godfrey went immediately to
the duke.

"My daughter has been with me this morning, your grace," said he, in
solemn, deliberate tones.

"Ah yes! Well--Mr. Godfrey--well--your daughter is not quite well, I
fear."

"She is seriously unhappy, I am sorry to inform you, my lord duke."

"Unhappy!--ah!--well, well; she has taken a youthful in discretion of
mine somewhat too sorely to heart; but you, Mr. Godfrey, know that
those little affairs are common enough to men of the world."

"My daughter speaks of a previous marriage, your grace."

"Pshaw! some few words she heard have been made to signify too much.
Adelaide is my wife, my duchess. Let her be satisfied on that point."

"It is just on that point she is not satisfied--it is just on that
point that I now require to be satisfied."

{187}

"How can I satisfy you save by denying any other marriage?"

"Has no ceremony ever passed between your grace and another woman who
claims to be your wife?"

"No legal ceremony, upon my honor as a nobleman."

"No legal ceremony; some kind of ceremony has taken place, then?" said
Mr. Godfrey.

"If not a _legal_ one, then none which concerns you. Be content, Mr.
Godfrey, daughter is indisputably a duchess."

"I am not content, my lord duke; I must see this other claimant to the
ducal coronet," said Mr. Godfrey, rising.

"By heaven, you shall not!" answered the duke, rising as suddenly;
"you shall not--indeed you shall not. No, my poor Ellen, no: injured
you have been, but at least I will save you from insult."

"Methinks your grace's words are strange ones to the father of your
ride," said Mr. Godfrey. "Is the peace of your mistress to be
preferred to that of your wife?"

"Let us understand each other, Mr. Godfrey," said the duke; "and to do
that, I must caution you not to say one word in disrespect of the
person you falsely term my mistress. Listen: Fifteen years ago I met a
being, lovely, tender, innocent; before one personating a Romish
priest I called her wife; she knew not, until now, the title was not
legal; for fifteen years I have, as a simple gentleman, sought her
society when weary of ambition and of the selfishness of the world;
for fifteen years have I, at such intervals as I could steal away from
grandeur and false honors, found repose and happiness in the society
of that gentle, that unworldly being. Children have been born to me
and died, all save one, a noble boy--one whom I would gladly train to
deeds of glory, were it that--O Ellen, Ellen!"

"And with such feelings as these, my lord, you dared to lead my
daughter to the altar?" indignantly demanded Mr. Godfrey.

"Yes, and why not?" replied the duke. "Your daughter suffered no
injury. You sought for her not _love_, but a coronet, and that she has
now. Let her enjoy it. I acted not the hypocrite. I promised what I
gave--power, rank, grandeur, and respect; these she has: what cause
is there for complaint?"

"But why, if a peerless beauty were already yours, why seek another
bride, my lord? Why not have made the lady of your love your duchess?"

"Because--because--I knew not her value at first. At first it was her
beauty that attracted me; then her virtue kept me true to her, and I
loved her unworldliness, her want of ambition. To have made her a
duchess would have spoiled my dream of being loved for myself alone.
Besides, Ellen is a Catholic, a sincere one, and never would she
consent that a child of hers should be brought up in the paganism of
these times."

"But why, I must yet inquire, why, with these feelings, did your grace
marry at all?"

"Why? did I not want a duchess in my halls? a pagan heir to my
Pantheon, sir? To whom were these gorgeous collections of heathen
idols, these entailed estates, these titles, honors, to descend?
Ellen's son could not inherit all, even were he legitimate. His
Catholic feeling would turn aside in disgust from much, and English
law would exclude him from office or dignity in the nation. Had I
lived anywhere but in England, perchance my child had risen to compete
with the highest."

"He and his mother still hold, evidently, the highest place in your
affections. And is my daughter for ever to play second part in your
heart, and this incomparable miracle of goodness the first?"

"Your daughter, sir, is to reign supreme, the imperial queen of the
Parnassian deities. Juno-like, she treads her path o'er high Olympus;
all bow to her, and Jupiter himself shall treat her with reverence,
save when she {188} intrudes upon his private moments. She has
bargained for wealth, and power, and pomp, and influence; she has
them: let her be content. Love was out of the 'bargain;' it is useless
now to contend for it, as if it were her due. But for my Ellen, you
misjudge her, if you think that, with the knowledge she now has, she
would ever admit me to her presence again. I do not even know how I
can induce her to accept a maintenance from me--from me, who would
have died to save her, yet who have caused her such bitter pangs! Oh!
I could stab myself from sheer remorse!"

And the dark shade that passed over the features, now convulsed with
mental agony, showed that the words were not ones of mere expression.

Mr. Godfrey paused, yet was his anger not subdued; he had not deemed
that the duke had so much of human feeling in his composition. Worldly
and courtly as he seemed, who could suspect go strong an undercurrent
of deep and passionate emotion?

That this should be there, and not felt for his wife! Mr. Godfrey did
feel this an injury; though, as the duke said, love had not been in
the bargain.

The long pause was at length broken by Mr. Godfrey's saying: "Your
grace must excuse me, but, for my daughter's sake, I must insist on
obtaining evidence that this marriage, which you admit _did_ take
place, was not legal. If I may not approach the lady myself, who can
procure me the evidence I demand?'"

"I know not--unless--stay; I would willingly make one more attempt to
secure Ellen's acceptance of a provision for her child. Hitherto she
has rejected all mediation: not only the lawyer, but De Villeneuve,
and a bishop of her own church, have solicited her in vain to listen
to such an idea; a lady--a Catholic might be more successful. You have
in your family one seemingly as pure and good as Ellen's self--one
holding the same holy faith; if she will consent to undertake the
mission, I will confide to her the secret of Ellen's residence. De
Villeneuve will escort her, but I doubt if she will gain admittance;
none have yet succeeded who went from me."

"You mean Euphrasie, I presume?"

"I do; if you can trust to her report, I shall gladly make her my
ambassadress to treat respecting the future provision to be made for
mother and child."

"I will see her on the subject."

"Tis well; good morning, Mr. Godfrey."

How little do we know of the inward feelings even of those with whom
we fancy ourselves intimate! Here was the cold, heartless man of
pleasure, so-called by the world, so thought of by his father-in-law,
a prey, when left to himself, to the most violent emotions of grief
for the loss of Ellen. Had it been possible at that moment to redeem
her affections by the sacrifice of earthly grandeur, there is but
little doubt that the sacrifice would have been made, for the loss of
that sweet solace had never been contemplated as a necessary
accomplishment to this marriage. For fifteen years he had kept his
incognito in her society as Colonel Ellwood, and as Colonel Ellwood he
meant to visit her still, and to indemnify himself in her sweet
society for the heartlessness and cheerlessness of the ducal mansion.

This dream was at an end; he's incognito had been discovered, and at
once all intercourse was over. The gay and courtly duke felt as if all
interest in life had suddenly vanished from the earth. His outward
demeanor appeared, indeed, unchanged, at least to superficial
observers, but those who looked beneath the surface could detect a
latent disdain for all things; and if the same pursuits still seemed
to engage his attention, it was from habit, or from want of
occupation, not from any relish for the pursuit itself. {189} Little
did the world suspect that his gay and polished manner covered a
broken heart, and that the munificent owner of countless rangers, the
haughty scion of a long line of ancestors, was pining away beneath the
blight which had destroyed is happiness, and was eventually to destroy
his life. But we must not anticipate, rather let us return to our
theme.

Euphrasie heard with surprise and pain of the position of her young
friend Adelaide, but was most unwilling to undertake the negotiation
proposed; it was only at M. de Villeneuve's reiterated assurance that
it was a great work of charity which she demanded of her, that she at
length consented.

On their arrival at the village, some hours' journey distant from
London, and further yet from the duke's residence, M. de Villeneuve
requested Euphrasie to proceed from the hotel alone to Ellswood
cottage, as his presence would be suspicious, and probably prevent her
gaining admittance. A dark-haired, bright-eyed boy was playing in the
garden before the cottage; he came to the gate on seeing a stranger
approach, and as he held the gate in his hand, he said, before
Euphrasie addressed him:

"Mamma is very ill, no one can see her today."

"I am very sorry to hear that. Has she been ill long?"

"Yes, ever since she took a long, long journey, and came back so
tired. She went to find papa, and did not find him," and the child's
voice dropped to a whisper: "I think papa is dead, but I must not tell
her so."

"Why do you think so, my dear?"

"Because he would never stay away so long if he were alive; he never
did before: and when he did stay away he used to leave mamma lots of
money; now she has no money at all, and she is going away from here."

"Where is she going to?"

"I do not know; but she says she must work, and that I must work now
for my living; so I know she must be very poor."

"I want to see your mamma. They say she is very kind. Tell her I am a
stranger--a French girl; that I seek kindness from her."

"Are you poor, too?" asked the little boy.

"Yes, very poor, indeed," replied Euphrasie.

"Then I will ask mamma if you may come in; mamma loves the poor."

When the boy returned he was accompanied by an elderly woman, bearing
the appearance of an upper servant. She addressed Euphrasie
respectfully: "Mrs. Ellwood can see no one to-day, miss; can you send
in your business by me?"

"Not very well, my business is personal; shall I be able to see her
tomorrow?"

"It is impossible to say, but you can call and see; to-morrow you may
be able to find some one who will see you in her stead; she sees no
one herself, but she expects a friend to-night who manages her
business for her."

With this answer she was obliged to be content: she returned to the
hotel where M. de Villeneuve awaited her. "This is a bad business," he
said; "I have been here twice before with no better result, she will
not see strangers."

"You have not seen her, then?"

"No! I have only heard of her, she is almost adored here for her deeds
of kindness and charity. I never knew of a case which excited my
interest so much; it was on her account, not on the duke's, that I
assented to pay this place so many visits. God only can console her!"

* * * * * *

There was a sound of carriages in the night, a very unusual thing in
that secluded village; and in the morning early, again there was the
sound of wheels. M. de Villeneuve strolled to the end of the street;
he shook his head on his return. "We are altogether too late," he
said; "the people {190} say that she is gone; and many are weeping,
for she was dearly loved."

"Shall we not go to the house?" asked Euphrasie.

"There is no harm in making the inquiry, but she is not there."

It was even so: Mrs. Ellwood had departed, fearing that if she
remained there she should be constantly subject to intrusion. In the
parlor into which they were shown, Euphrasie found one whom she was
little prepared to see: it was M. Bertolot. A general grasping of
hands and affectionate recognition took place; and then the old priest
inquired their business. "The bishop sent me here," he said, "because
he could not come himself, and because the poor lady entreated the
utmost secrecy; but what brought you here?"

M. de Villeneuve took up the word: "We came from the duke; his grace
thought our young friend here might find admittance, though we were
all refused."

"His grace need not dream of any such thing; the wrong he has done is
not such as embassies or money can rectify. The lady is a
true-hearted, noble woman, a sincere Catholic; the message that she
has left for him is simply that 'she forgives him, and will pray for
his conversion; but if ever he loved her, she entreats that he will
never more pursue her or send to her.'"

"But how is she to be supported?"

"She trusts in God, who is a husband to the widow, and a father to the
fatherless. The duke's money she will not touch; it is no use to press
the matter, she has a woman's instincts, and that is often better than
a man's reasoning."

"You are severe, father, but this is a case to make you so; may we not
know where she is gone to?"

"No! you may not even know you saw me here; say only you saw her
agent, who gave you her message, and would not tell you her residence.
Never let the duke or the Godfrey family know that the bishop sent me
here."

"You may depend on us, father. But is this all that we are to say to
the duchess? You know the question has been raised respecting the
validity of the marriage."

"The bishop examined that himself; he would have been glad to prove it
a true one, but the scamp who married them was a disguised young
spendthrift, who did not know how to keep out of a debtor s jail in
any other way than by taking that wicked fee; if Mr. Godfrey is uneasy
on that point, he can apply to the bishop, there is his address."

When M. de Villeneuve and Euphrasie returned to Durimond Castle with
the result of this mission, they found Adelaide far less placable than
the more deeply injured Ellen had expressed herself by her message.
She assented indeed to do the honors of the castle, to _reign_
supreme, but she insisted on a virtual separation as the price of her
continuing to wear the title of the Duchess of Durimond.

The duke was in no humor to contend with her; perhaps even he was as
well pleased to have it so. He was careful to surround her with all
imaginable tokens of deference and respect, and told Mr. Godfrey he
would see what time would do to soften his haughty Juno. Soon after he
accepted the office of ambassador to a foreign court, and thus left
his wife at liberty to queen it o'er her vassals at her pleasure.

Meantime we lay before our readers the sad history which occasioned
all this commotion.



CHAPTER VIII.

ELLEN'S HISTORY.

Ellen D'Aubrey was the daughter of an Irish officer, who her mother
(Ellen Carpenter) had married against the wishes of her family. Our
heroine was their only child. {191} Soon after her birth the mother,
Mrs. D'Aubrey, fell into delicate health, and years of pain and
suffering ensued, after which she died, leaving Ellen, then ten years
old, to condole her husband for her loss. This, however, was not so
easy, for Captain D'Aubrey had truly loved his refined and gentle
wife, and the illness she had borne with so much sweetness and
patience had the more endeared her to him; besides which, during that
sickness he had learned many important lessons. Up to that time his
wife, though amiable and affectionate, had thought but little on
serious subjects, and he, though nominally a Catholic, had neglected
his religion. But when sorrow came, and the wife and mother became
aware that though she might linger on a while, she could not regain
health, and must leave behind her those so dear to her, then an
anxiety for future reunion took possession of her. She began to
question her husband of religion, and he, recalling for her solace the
lessons of his youth, became himself impressed with their importance.
Catholic truth and Catholic consolation were poured into the soul of
the departing wife, and having procured her every necessary aid, the
captain imparted himself a great consolation by promising to watch
over the education of their darling child, and endeavor to bring her
up in the faithful performance of her duties as a Catholic Christian,
without endangering her faith by permitting her to frequent schools or
society hostile to her religion.

The noble-hearted captain had scarcely closed the eyes of the being he
held so dear, than he began to consider how he might best fulfil his
promise. He sold his commission, and living on a small annuity which
he possessed, applied himself to develop in his child the powers that
lay enfolded in her soul; but above all, he sought to cherish and to
strengthen religious principle. Well did the little Ellen repay his
care. At that time, in England, there were few exterior aids to
religion. Catholic chapels were few and far apart. One priest attended
many missions, and these but stealthily; but so much the more
sedulously did the captain endeavor to infuse the spirit of religion
into the soul of his child, and to animate her with patience,
meekness, humility, and universal charity. Loving and beloved, she
grew up beneath her father's eye like a beautiful flower,
reciprocating his tenderness, and increasing daily in beauty and
accomplishments. Suddenly a dark cloud lowered above that happy home.
Captain D'Aubrey was seized with a fever, and in three days expired,
leaving Ellen, at the age of sixteen, an orphan, almost penniless,
cast upon the world's cold charity.

Strangers made out her connexions, for Ellen was stupefied by the
blow. Strangers wrote to Mrs. Carpenter, her maternal grandmother, and
before Ellen well knew what she was about she was travelling south
with an old lady, who endeavored in vain to rouse her from her sorrow.

When the captain's affairs were arranged, but little was found
remaining. His annuity ceased at his death. It had just sufficed for
their maintenance; and as the sale of the furniture amounted to very
little, the poor girl was utterly dependent.

Such was the account given by Mrs. Carpenter to Mrs. Barford, her
married daughter, with whom, being herself a widow, she then resided.
Mrs. Barford had married a man whose character was the very reverse of
that of Ellen's father. He was a thorough business-like, money-making
instrument, having no higher idea than to be continually extending his
business, no higher ambition than to be mayor of the city in which he
resided. Already he was a great man in his own estimation, and he
intended that his family should become of importance also. This couple
received Ellen but coldly, though she hardly knew or felt it, for she
was as yet absorbed in grief. Mrs. Carpenter intended to be kind, and
insisted on Ellen's grief being respected. {192} A week or two passed,
then it was proposed one Sunday to Ellen to go with the family to
church. She excused herself. Another week passed--and the same
proposal was repeated. On this she was closely questioned as to the
reason why; and when Mr. Barford came at length to understand that
Ellen was a Catholic, his anger knew no bounds. A Catholic in his own
house! _He_ feed popery! _He_ foster rebellion! _He_ countenance
powder-plots! The thing was impossible! the girl must leave the
house--she would corrupt the children, contaminate the servants,
compromise his respectability, pervert the neighborhood; in short,
breed every kind of disorder and endanger his position. Go she must.
In vain his wife pleaded that the poor girl had nowhere to go to; she
was obliged to summon Mrs. Carpenter to her aid. As the old lady had
plenty of money, Mr. Barford held her habitually in respect,
especially as she could will it as she pleased; therefore, when she
insisted that where she was her grand-daughter should find a home, the
great man yielded, and among themselves they arranged a plan which was
to counteract the evil influence they dreaded. Mrs. Carpenter
undertook to watch Ellen closely, and by degrees to win her from her
papistry: and as there was no papist church in the locality, the
neighbors need not even know what her religion was.

As for powder-plots, the good old lady argued that a girl of sixteen,
without friends, money, or resources, could not effect much against
the government, so she was not uneasy on that score. Silenced, but not
convinced, Mr. Barford, who dared not disoblige his wife's mother,
said no more on the subject to her, but he determined to keep a sharp
lookout, and nip in the bud any incipient conspiracy. But under these
influences, the poor girl's happiness was sadly compromised. Her
grandmother undertook to enlighten her as to the character of these
papists, to show her what a terrible set these unfortunate, benighted
idolaters are, and so to bring her round to the Protestant
establishment. Most horrible tales of conspiracies, plots, martyrdoms,
inquisitorial victimizing, and every species of villanous scheming for
the overthrow of pure religion, were recounted to her. These failing
to make impression, the sin of idolatry was brought home to herself,
and on Fridays the crime of not eating meat was by no means accounted
a small one. A regular series of petty persecutions were commenced,
the children of the family were taught to distrust her; she was not
allowed to make acquaintances in the neighborhood, nor to stir out,
save at her grandmother's side.

The old lady meant well in the part she took in this; she was not
aware of the greater portion of the annoyance Ellen underwent, and she
thought time only was wanted to enable her to throw off the prejudices
of her education. She really liked Ellen for her refinement and
gentleness, and kept her as much as she could about her. She made her
read to her, and wait upon her; and though the books were not to
Ellen's taste, yet this was by far the most tolerable portion of her
existence. But even of this small alleviation, Mrs. Barford grew
jealous; she was greatly afraid that her mother would leave too great
a portion of her wealth to the poor orphan girl, and her harshness
increased in proportion as Mrs. Carpenter's partiality manifested
itself. She did not hesitate to impute the most unworthy motives to
Ellen for paying such kind and respectful attentions to her
grandmother, for Ellen's conduct contrasted too painfully with that of
the unruly children of the household; and when by her reproaches Mrs.
Barford drew tears from the poor girl's eyes, she would bid her "go
and warm herself into her grandmother's favor, by her Jesuitical
caresses and her crocodile tears." {193} Poor girl! it was no wonder
that she became pale and thin and miserable; but instead of being
induced to give up her religion, she clung to it the more, the more
she stood in need of consolation. And thus a year, a long and dreary
year, had passed away. At length a partial respite came. Mrs.
Carpenter was taken sick; Ellen waited on her most assiduously; but
although she could scarcely be spared as a nurse, on account of the
comfort her presence seemed to afford the sick, yet Mrs. Barford's
jealousy, and her husband's ill-treatment, considerably increased.
Measures were often spoken of between this amiable pair, and plans
devised to effect an estrangement between Ellen and her grandmother.
The old lady partially recover, and then Mrs. Barford grew eloquent on
the wonderful effects of a change of air. By dint of manoeuvering, she
at length made the poor sick woman consent to dispense with Ellen's
attendance at the watering-place to which they were bound. Mrs.
Barford went herself to take care of her mother, and her children
accompanied her.

* * * * * * Ellen was now virtually alone, for Mr. Barford was engaged
in his business, and not wish to be troubled with her company, even at
his meals. What a relief! Ellen heard the carriage drive from the door
with a feeling of release from bitter thraldom. How long it might last
she knew not, but certainly for some weeks. She read her own books
--her father's books--so long concealed at the bottom of her chest.
She opened the piano, and sang the hymns of the church. She took out
her sketch-book, and reviewed the seems she had visited with her
father.

At once her spirits rose, her eyes sparkled, her animation returned,
and at the close of the day she retired to rest, for the first time in
that house, with a light and joyous spirit. The next morning she was
up with the lark. She opened her window to inhale the balmy air, and a
gush of joy came over her as she felt that she was secure from
annoyance at least for a time. A hasty breakfast was soon despatched,
and the fragrant, breeze driving in at the window, attracted her
attention to the flowery meadows. Her spirits were too keen to permit
her to sit still, and as the bright sunshine poured in upon her, she
asked herself why she should not enjoy it out of doors; she had been
imprisoned so long, and now there was no one to rebuke or find fault
with what she did. She could not withstand the temptation. "I will go
and sketch the ruins of the abbey," she said, "and meditate on the
times the good old monks were there." Sketch-book in hand she sallied
forth. The streets of the city were soon traversed, and the avenues
leading to the ruins more slowly paced. The morning was one of most
glorious beauty. The birds sang in the new-leafing groves, the busy
bees hummed, and the dew-drops clinging to the tips of the
fresh-springing grass, presented a most dazzling appearance as, waving
in the sunshine, they reflected hues of every color, and freshened
with new life the whole creation. Ellen's spirits were at their
height; yet with somewhat of a solemn step she approached the hallowed
solitudes. None was there save herself--at least she perceived none.
Long she wandered within the precincts trodden by holy feet of old,
and at length sat down on a fallen tree to begin her sketch.

The ruin had formerly been surrounded by a moat; even now one side of
this remained, and communicated with the river. By the side of this,
our heroine took her seat on the fallen tree. How long she sat she
knew not. It was a great delight to her once more to handle the pencil
so long laid aside. She worked as if inspired, and the main features
were at length described with taste and accuracy. In her eagerness she
had untied her bonnet, (which was a close one, covering her face,
after the fashion of those days,) and pushed it slightly back, {194}
thus displaying her animated features, unconscious the while that a
stranger was gazing at her, and that for upward of an hour he had been
tracing her features in his gratified imagination.

At length she rose to depart, but as she was putting up her sketch,
her bonnet fell from her head, and would have rolled into the river
had not the stranger caught it, as it reached the brink, and
gracefully restored it to her. He was older than herself and wore an
officer's uniform. Could there be any harm in thanking him, and in
unfolding, at his request, the sketch which had occasioned the
accident? Ellen thought not of harm. She was unversed in the world's
ways, and had experienced more of its annoyances than its dangers.
Insensibly a conversation was entered into. It was prolonged until the
shadows proclaimed that the sun was verging to the west. The stranger
was evidently pleased and surprised at Ellen's keen sense of natural
and artistic beauty, and at the simple yet poetic manner in which she
clothed her ideas. The themes dilated on touched exactly his favorite
hobby, and it was evidently a gratification to him to find one fresh
in feeling, endowed with genius and beauty, who could appreciate his
feelings and sympathize with his artistic tastes.

Reluctantly he parted with his companion, and on the morrow he seemed
intuitively to know where he should find her, to renew the enjoyment
of the previous day. Another day came, and another, until at length it
became a matter of course that the two should meet. And still it was
only poetry, or music, or painting, that occupied them. Why, then, did
Ellen half surmise that the meeting was wrong? One day she did keep
away, and thought she would try to do so always, but the hours hung
heavily on her hands, and her resolution failed; so the walks
continued.

At length the period for her aunt's return arrived, and not only must
she expect to be virtually imprisoned as before, but the dread of what
her aunt would say when she heard (as surely from some kind, gossiping
neighbor she would hear) of her daily interviews with a strange
gentleman, broke upon her. Why had she not thought of this before? Why
had she yielded to the temptation? All too late those questions now,
and those only who know what it is to live amid insult and neglect can
appreciate her feelings or estimate the temptations to which she was
exposed.

The stranger, who called himself Colonel Ellwood, had travelled much;
he spoke to her of Italy, of Spain, of France; he had brought her a
rosary which the Pope had blessed, and had described to her in glowing
terms many of the ceremonies which he has witnessed. Why should she
distrust him? With tears in her eyes she told him that in two days her
aunt was expected home, and that these interviews must cease.
"Indeed," she added, "I am afraid my aunt will half-kill me when she
finds they have ever taken place."

"Then why not forestall her return by your own departure?"

"And to what quarter of the world should I go?' asked Ellen.

"If, sweet lady, you would trust yourself with me," said Colonel
Ellwood.

Ellen started and shrank back, but the colonel followed her, saying:
"Nay, do me not the injustice to suppose that I would wrong you; the
impression you have made upon me is for life; your happiness, your
honor, are as dear to me as my own soul. It is marriage I offer you--a
_bona fide_ marriage, though a private one. My circumstances at this
moment are peculiar. But fly with me, and a Catholic priest shall
bless our union; I swear it on my honor."

Ellen hesitated, but her very hesitation encouraged hope. The day
passed. Another came. Again Colonel Ellwood urged flight. Again the
fear beset her lest her aunt should hear of these clandestine
meetings. Love, too, for the stranger, who, although {195} unknown,
was evidently refined, cultivated, and well versed in all human
learning, grew rapidly since he had declared his love. To lose him was
to lose everything; for who save he had shown kindness to the poor,
friendless orphan girl? The time passed:--the day was at hand--a
restless day--sleepless night--haunted by the sound of carriage wheels
bringing back her tyrant to her home. Ellen's resolution gave way: two
hours before her aunt's arrival she quitted that dwelling of strife
for ever.

Colonel Ellwood appeared to keep his promise. One in the dress of a
Catholic priest united them in marriage, and to Ellen's fancy that
there was someone of informality in the ceremony, came the ready reply
that it was necessitated by the anomalous position of a Catholic
priest in England.   [Footnote 37]

  [Footnote 37: This was before the Catholic emancipation bill had
  passed.]

She knew little or nothing of the law, and for some time afterward she
resided on the Continent with her husband. Here no doubt harassed her;
love for him excluded doubt, and that love at times nearly reached the
height of adoration. On the other hand, the happiness of geniality,
combined with the high mental culture which her husband loved to
promote, added so intellectual, nay so ethereal an expression to her
naturally handsome features, that his love and reverence increased as
time wore on, and he dared not tell the being who thus fondly loved
him for himself alone, how foully he had deceived her. In his eyes she
was an angel of light; and far from offering impediments to her
fulfilling her religious duties, he delighted in her constancy; though
there were times when a cloud came over him, and he felt as if he were
but he demon of darkness by her side, destined to become the destroyer
of her happiness. At such moments, Ellen, who was in mute amazement at
the paroxysms which assailed him would strive by every endearing art
to charm away his melancholy, and by so doing sometimes nearly drove
him to frenzy; and alarmed her for his sanity, without decreasing her
affection. But these fitful moments passed away. Continental troubles
drove them back to England, and here Colonel Ellwood's difficulty in
keeping his incognito increased. Sometimes he took an abode for her in
the North of Scotland, sometimes in the mountains of Wales; his
restlessness and anxiety distressed and puzzled her, he was not the
same man in England he had seemed on the Continent. He was often
absent, too, for weeks, nay for months together; but this he accounted
for so plausibly on the score of army duties and the like, that Ellen
tried to be satisfied, especially as he carried on a constant
correspondence with her, and always sent her regular and plentiful
remittances. But one circumstance puzzled her even in this--it was
that she had to address all her answers to him under cover to his
lawyer. This person, who knew nothing of Ellen, believed it was a sort
of affair common among the nobility, young and old, and performed the
business part of the transaction faithfully as regarded transmitting
money and letters, while he gave himself no further trouble about the
matter.

The time of discovery arrived but too soon. Ellen's child had been
ill, and she had taken him to the seacoast to restore his health. It
was the first time that she had ever left the residence appointed for
her by her husband without his sanction and permission, and it was the
urgency of the case that prompted her to deviate from this settled
plan. She thought to be gone only a few days, and his last letter had
bidden her not to expect him for a month or two, as pressing business
was to be imperatively attended to; so there was little chance of his
being displeased at the proceeding, indeed he had never been really
displeased with her. She went, then, and on the beach she was
recognized by a lady she did not remember, but {196} who chanced to
have a better memory than Ellen. The lady appeared to be somewhat of a
morose and malignant disposition, and entered into conversation
apparently to gratify some ill-natured feeling. Ellen was annoyed and
would have avoided her, but the other evidently had an object in view.
At last she blurted out:

"So the Duke of Durimond is to be married soon, I hear."

"I do not know," said Ellen, "I have no acquaintance among the great."

"No acquaintance with the Duke of Durimond, madam? Why, surely I saw
you at----Hotel in Inverness-shire with him three years ago."

"In Inverness-shire I was with my husband, but I saw no duke there."

"Your husband, ma'am! the gentleman was called Colonel Ellwood, was he
not? Well, then, madam, the world believes Colonel Ellwood and the
Duke of Durimond to be the same person. But, to be sure, you ought to
know best. I can only say I was told so, often, in Inverness-shire,
and now the duke is gone to marry Miss Godfrey of Estcourt Hall; is
that a secret also to you?"

The woman evidently gloated in the pain she inflicted, and stood
gazing at the victim. Ellen replied not--she was thunderstruck. Then
she deemed it impossible. She turned back to the house, gave up the
lodgings, and returned to her former home. There, making necessary
arrangements, she left her child in the care of trustworthy servants,
and ordering a post-chaise, was driven, as fast as horses could carry
her, to the house of the London lawyer, travelling night and day till
she reached her destination.

The lawyer, Mr. Reynolds, would not reply to her questions. He begged
the lady to go home, saying that Colonel Ellwood would soon be with
her, and that he would be the best person to explain all mysteries.
He, Mr. Reynolds, really was not in a position to satisfy her.

What an answer to an anxious heart! mystery upon mystery! Why, since
they came to England, did these long absences take place? Why did she
not know his address? Why--a long list of whys that sorely oppressed
her heart. What was she to do now? Being thus far, she thought at
least she would go down to Estcourt Hall and try to catch a glimpse of
the Duke of Durimond; she would know then if the report that
identified him with her husband was based on truth.

She turned suddenly on the lawyer: "Where is the Duke of Durimond at
this instant?" Her manner, so unlike her usual calm demeanor, startled
Mr. Reynolds, and put him off his guard.

"I believe, madam, the duke is at the mansion of the Hon. Mr. Godfrey,
at Estcourt."

"What is he doing there?"

"The world reports him as about to be married."

Ellen turned in a resolute manner to the door--the lawyer followed
her. "Be persuaded, ma'am, go home in peace; all will be right in
time, believe me."

Ellen got into the post-chaise, and ordered the driver to proceed to
Sussex without delay. That night she was at Estcourt. The next day, as
we have seen, she approached the carriage, recognized the duke to be
Colonel Ellwood, followed him in his bridal tour, spoke with him, and
then returned, as best she might, to her now dreary home.

The duke sent to her--she received not his messages; he wrote--she
returned his letters unopened; he called on a Roman Catholic prelate
to confess the transaction, and beg of him to take care that Ellen was
suitably provided for; but the bishop, after seeing Ellen and becoming
interested in the story, would not receive any money from the duke on
Ellen's account. He said she refused it, and he could but acquiesce in
her decision. The duke was utterly perplexed.


TO BE CONTINUED.

--------

{197}


Translated from La Correspondant

THE FOUNDERS OF FRENCH UNITY.  [Footnote 38]

BY THE COUNT DE CHAMPAGNY.

  [Footnote 38: Historical Studies. By the Count L. de Carné.]

Our readers are certainly not ignorant of the name or the book of M.
de Carné. The work which he published in 1848, on the eve of the
revolution of February, attracted the interest as well as the
suffrages of all serious times, and the mass of those who read may
know and appreciate it.

The idea of this book is well known. M. de Carné has been struck with
what constitutes the peculiar genius of the French nation, its unity.
He has wished to ascertain and trace the origin of that unity; and has
found it summed up in a few proper names, and has condensed in the
history of a small number of statesmen that of the nation.

Nothing could be more proper. We are the republican of any nation that
God has made, and we are so because the French nation is more strictly
one than any other, and more than any other needs a chief. Abandoned
ourselves, and obliged, willingly or unwillingly, to take each a
personal part in the common action, we are worth very little; but we
are admirable when we are commanded. I do not know if Shakespeare is
right when he calls France the Soldier of God, but what appears to me
certain is that we are much better soldiers than citizens. In France
the citizen is a stupid lout who, three-fourths of the time, lets
himself be led, and miserably led, either by a journal or a spouting
chief of a club; he abdicates himself and consents to be led blindly
by the passions of others. He cries "Harrah for Revolution!" when he
thinks he is only crying "Hurrah for Reform!" and makes a revolution
without intending it, and makes it to the profit of his enemies. The
soldier, on the contrary, finds in obedience the element of his
spontaneity, of his intelligence, I had almost said, of his liberty.
He was but a peasant, very dull and lubberly when he was free; put
upon him the coat of passive obedience, and he acquires abilities
which seem to belong only to liberty. He is prompt, he is sagacious,
he is intelligent; faithful to his commander when his commander guides
him, full of activity and spontaneity, if by chance the commander
fails him. Why is this? Why is the English citizen so intelligent in
commercial and political life, so hampered under the red coat? Why is
the French peasant so stupid when he is taken from his plough, so much
at his ease when in uniform? To this I know no answer, unless it be,
that God has so made us. In France, the soldier is more himself when
under discipline than the citizen in his liberty. It is not, then,
surprising that the history of a people, I will not say so royalist,
but so monarchical in the etymological sense of the word, should be
summed up in the proper names of a few men.

The Abbé Suger, St. Louis, Du Guesclin, Joan of Arc, Louis XI., Henry
IV., Richelieu, Mazarin: such are the personages whom M. de Carné has
selected, and who he shows have gradually effected the development of
French unity. It is in the succession of these names that we can
follow with him that development.

{198}

However, it is not necessary to believe, and M. de Carné does not
pretend it, that these men made French unity. It has been made by
itself. France was really one in fact before being made so by the
government and laws. From the tenth century, when all Gaul was
parcelled out, when the large provinces all belonged to masters
independent in fact, save for the nominal law of vassalage, hardly
acknowledged, this divided nation felt herself already one, felt
herself already a nation. She has been one ever since, in reacting
against the yoke of the Austrasian dynasty of the Carlovingians, she
commenced to reject from her midst the Germanic race, language, and
institutions. She had her language--we find it distinctly in the oath
of 843; she had her capital--that little mud city which began to pass
the arm of the Seine and to spread itself from the island over on the
right bank, was already the centre of French life. She had her
dynasty--that kinglet possessor of a narrow domain, which he disputed
with great feudatories more powerful than he, was already and for all
the king of France. She was already herself advancing to the time when
the grandson of Robert the Strong would make himself obeyed from the
Rhine to the Pyrenees, the _langue d' Oyl_ would become the common
tongue of Christendom, and all the fiefs from Flanders to the
Mediterranean would hold from the great tower of the Louvre.

Thus it seems to me that one of the most important facts in our
history, though little remarked, is the first armed manifestation of
France under Louis the Fat. At the time the Emperor Henry V.
penetrated into Champagne with a German army, the king, who, according
to his own expression, had grown old at the siege of Montlhéry, in a
few weeks found himself at the head of three hundred thousand men,
united as a thick cloud of grasshoppers, who cover the banks of the
rivers, the mountains, and plains. A few weeks more, and the great
vassals, the Count of Flanders, the Duke of Aquitaine, the Count of
Brittany, brought him new reinforcements, and his army, raised to four
hundred thousand men, was double that of the emperor, which was itself
enormous for the middle ages. The political bond, however, which
united those different countries which are to-day called France, was
very feeble. These vassals, present at the camp of Louis the Fat,
rendered him scarcely a ceremonial homage. What bond could unite so
many different populations for the defence of a territory which, at
that epoch, had scarcely a name, if it was not community of origin and
a common aversion to the Germanic domination? The French nation was
then one, even at that epoch, when the king was king of only five of
our present departments at most. She made herself one by herself and
her blood, before being made so by kings and laws.

In all we have been ourselves, and more ourselves than we think. We
are neither Franks nor Visigoths; we are Gallo-Romans. We are Gauls
civilized by Rome, and baptized by the church. The influence of the
Frank domination has been more superficial than was believed in the
last century; the name remains to us, but what else remains? In the
language, which is the great symbol of nationality, the Germanic
element, whether in words or in forms of speech, has evidently been
only secondary; and it has left no traces in the national character.
In institutions the Germanic element dominated for a time, for the
simple reason that it possessed the political power; but it was the
labor of the middle ages, and we can say their glory, to efface it.

In fact, the struggle against feudalism and feudal institutions was,
to speak truly, a national struggle. There were traces of German
domination during four centuries which it was necessary to efface. The
day when France demanded of the house of Robert the Strong a chief,
king or not, but a chief to oppose to the Rhenish sovereignty of the
Carlovingians, that day she commenced, without knowing it, the
struggle against the institutions which grew out of the Germanic {199}
conquest. That struggle was continued under St. Louis, the epoch of
the great radiation of French power, when the Mediterranean was almost
our domain; when we established colonies even on the coasts of Africa;
when our missionaries penetrated even to Thibet; when the sons of
Genghis Khan were in diplomatic relations with us, and when even in
Italy they spoke by preference our language as "the most delightful"
and the most generally understood of any in the world.

In this work the church came to our aid. The great struggle of the
papacy was also against the pride of the Germanic supremacy. It was
against the feudalism planted in the church, against feudatory bishops
who bore armor, and carried the falcon on their wrist, who held their
dioceses as fiefs, and received their investiture from the German
suzerain, and against the kings their patrons, that St. Gregory VII.
wielded the papal power. It was against the institutions of Germanic
barbarism, against the feudal aristocracy, against tests by fire and
water, against private wars and judicial combats, that the church, and
especially the papacy, never ceased to struggle. There was, then,
during a whole century a perfect accord between the kings of France
and the pontiffs of Rome, between the independence of the commons and
the franchises of the religious orders, between the authority of the
legists and that of the councils.

And for these institutions introduced by the Germanic conquests, and
which we in accord with the church combated, what have we in accord
with the church substituted? The institutions proper to our race,
proper to our traditions as a civilized people, proper to our manners
as Christians. For feudalism the idea of direct power such as Rome had
taught, and such as Charlemagne comprehended and attempted to revive;
in other words, for suzerainty sovereignty; for the jurisdiction of
lords was substituted in spirituals that of ecclesiastical judges, in
temporals that of royal justices; consequently, for feudal law the
canon law of Christian, and the civil law of imperial Rome. For the
right of private battle we substituted the possession of arms remitted
to the sovereign alone, as in Rome and in all civilized countries. For
duels and judicial trials by fire and water we substituted trials by
witness, according to the Roman law and the law of the church and of
all civilized nations. In a word, we effaced the traces of Germanic
paganism and barbarism, to become in our laws once more what we were
by blood, Gallo-Romans; what we were by our faith, Christians; what we
still are by our reminiscences, civilized men. Such was the work of
our race from Robert the Strong to St. Louis, of the popes from
Gregory VII. to Gregory IX., of our commons from the first communal
revolt to the enfranchisement of the serfs under Louis le Hutin, of
the church from the day when she proclaimed the truce of God, and
constituted to sustain it a sort of universal _Landwehr_, to that in
which she canonized, in the person of St. Louis, the type, not of the
feudal chief, but of the Christian king. Only from this union of all
forces in reference to a single end, essentially national, legitimate,
and Christian, there was one unhappy exception, that of the nobility,
the heir, whether by blood or position, of the Germanic traditions,
investitures, and institutions, and who became a sort of common enemy.
They were found, in spite of their patriotism, standing apart from the
nation, and unpopular in spite of the many ties which bound them to
the people. The church, royalty, even the legists had their place in
the popular affection, but the nobility had none. They were suspected
by the government and abandoned by it to the suspicions of the people.
Hence they were so much the further removed from the political
tendency of the nation as they were nearer to its political action,
and all the less disposed to co-operate in the work of national
elaboration as they were more open to the seductions of foreign {200}
politics. Hence they could make the war of the Annagnacs in the
fourteenth century, the war of the Public Good in the fifteenth, the
religious wars of the sixteenth, and of the Fronde in the seventeenth;
but it was never theirs to exercise that popular, regular, pacific
action, the action of patronage and defence, exercised by the
aristocracy of England. They had only the choice, on the one hand, of
a selfish, unpopular revolt against the king--a revolt resting on the
enemies of France for its support, or on the other, of service to the
crown, a service which they gloriously and courageously rendered
indeed, but which was a service of perfect obedience, in which there
was nothing to be gained for their order, in which indeed they could
reap glory, but not power. Never has there been a real aristocracy in
France--there has been only an obedient or an insubordinate feudal
nobility.

Thus may be given in brief the sum of the first part of M. de Carné s
book; and this first part foretells what is to follow. The position of
royalty, the nobles, and the commons respectively, was during four
centuries developed only on bases furnished by the middle ages. The
development effected in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries M. de
Carné has personified in Suger, abbot of St. Denis, and St. Louis--an
able and intelligent choice. Suger and St. Louis were two rare
statesmen in an epoch when statesmanship hardly existed. Suger, formed
by the rigid and wise discipline of the church, a full-grown man in
the midst of the childish caprices and inconsequences of his age, a
real statesman, although the minister of a king who was no statesman
at all, was certainly one of the greatest and most intelligent agents
in the national work, of which those even who were its instruments
rarely had the slightest conception. St. Louis rose still further
above his age. He pertained not more to the middle ages by his faith
than by his statesmanship he pertains to our own times. No king ever
labored harder to evolve from its feudal envelope the civil and
political life of France; no king ever studied more diligently to
place royalty on the footing of modern sovereignties, and to fashion
it, as M. de Carné well observes, after the Biblical royalty, rather
than after feudal suzerainty.

M. de Carné is very right, then, in seeking in these two rare men a
serious and matured political plan; but he would have found it
difficult to discover traces of such a plan in others, and perhaps
even the habits of his own mind render him less fitted to judge other
heroes of the middle ages. In the very pages he has written, I see,
indeed, Suger; I see, indeed St. Louis; but I do not see enough of the
middle age itself, of that age of youth with its contradictions and
it's inconsistencies; and M. de Carné it seems to me to be too wise,
too sensible, too logical, and too much of a modern statesman, to
paint it in its true light.

I express here, I confess, a personal impression, not a judgment, and
perhaps a profounder study of the monuments of the middle ages would
give me a different impression. But I own that when I seek the the
middle ages in modern writings, I receive an impression quite
different from that which I receive when I attempt to study them in
their own monuments. With the moderns, not only with M. de Carné, but
with writers who are antiquaries rather than statesman, I find
presented as characteristic of the middle ages profound political use,
or at least a certain power of foresight and calculation in those who
govern; but if I open the smallest chronicle, I discover nothing of
the sort. These kings and these statesmen become only warriors, rude
captains, capable of any devotion--capable also of any violence and
even of any falsehood, rather than of any wise or consistent policy
seriously and steadily pursued. Whether it is merely the result of the
oldness of the language, and the simplicity, so often apparent, which
a still unformed idiom gives to thought, I {201} must say this age has
on me the effect of an age of infancy.

It's tongue stammers, and its diction resembles the _patois_ of our
provinces and the songs of our nurses. In art it had, not without a
simplicity sometimes admirable, that awkwardness and that stiffness
which mark the first toddling walk of children. Its public life was
mingled with puerile ceremonies, with a fantastic symbolism, sometimes
even indecent. Its faith asked for no reason, as asks the mature man;
but felt, saw, understood as does the adolescent; it carried into it
sometimes a puerile superstition which impaired it, sometimes an
admirable simplicity which excludes the wisdom of the doctors, though
not the devotedness of martyrs. It instituted the Feast of Fools and
of Asses. Yet it made the Crusades. It embraced Christian morality
without hesitation and without an objection; it embraced it, forgot to
practise it; while professing good, it practised evil with the
facility of contradiction surpassing even the ordinary powers of human
nature; it was a good Catholic, but scrupled not to pillage the
churches. Its submission it refused in principle to nobody--to the
pope, the king, or the suzerain; and yet never did the papacy receive
more frequent insults, never had royalty such trouble to make itself
obeyed, never were quarrels between superior and inferior so frequent,
as in the middle ages--those ages of submission and of
insubordination, in which the rules of the hierarchy were better
established and less observed than in any other. This contradiction,
this inconsistency, this easy acceptance of the law while it is
asserted only in theory, and this easy forgetfulness of it when it
comes to practice, this subordination of the mind, and this revolt of
the heart, is it not plainly that of boyhood? Boy seldom refuses to
accept the moral truth that is taught him; he does not reject in
theory even the obedience which is exacted of him; but, at a given
moment, it costs him nothing to contradict that truth in practice, and
to fail in that obedience; he denies never the law; he unceasingly
breaks it.

It is true, that when we rise to a certain general point of view,
nothing appears better regulated than the mediaeval society.
Regularity, far from being defective, was in excess. A manifold
foresight multiplied the laws. The church and the state, feudality and
the commons, sovereignty and suzerainty, had each their codes,
complicated and provident as those of a society in which right and
interest are complicated and run athwart each other. Decretals, bulls,
decisions of councils, feudal assizes, royal charters and commercial
charters, laws and regulations of all kinds, embarrass us by their
number much more than they sadden us by their absence. And the
definitive result of the whole is a grand and admirable effort of
Christian wisdom to establish in this world the reign of justice and
peace. No right is denied, no interest is sacrificed, no power is
without its limit, no liberty without its defense. Relations of the
king to the subject, of the suzerain to the vassal, of the master to
the serf, all are regulated there on the basis, so often forgotten, of
reciprocal rights and duties. Never, perhaps, have the conciliation of
order and liberty, hierarchy and the equality, the powers of the chief
and the rights of the inferior, been conceived in so happy a manner.

I said _conceived_, not effected; for if we come to the fact, the rule
fails to be translated into reality, or, rather, is so often broken
that it may be said not even to exist; all relations become violent;
master and serf, suzerain and vassal, king and subject, whose mutual
relations were so well settled in law, are in a continual struggle
against one another. That magnificent edifice presented us in theory,
with the pope and the emperor at its summit, and in which the lowest
serf holds his place, is in reality as unsubstantial as the fairy
castles seen in our dreams.

{202}

When I speak thus of the middle ages, I speak only of the lay society;
I do not speak of the cloister and the church. They judge very
improperly the middle ages who identify society in them with the
church. The church was then, as now, not of her age. She struggled
against it, and was more or less sullied on the points on which she
came more directly in contact with the world--that is, in the secular
clergy, and even the episcopacy, and more completely herself only when
the cloister, the distance of places, and the diversity of origin
removed her farthest from the feudal society--that is to say, in the
religious orders and the papacy. I regard as a veritable chimera that
dream, sometimes entertained, of a Europe gentle and submissive,
obedient to the least word of the papacy, and conducted peaceably by
the staff of St. Peter--in the ways of ignorance and barbarism, say
unbelieving historians--in the ways of happiness and salvation, say
Catholic writers. Both delight in this dream; the former because they
would ruin the church by throwing upon her the responsibility of the
crimes and vices of the middle ages; the latter because they would
restore those ages by identifying them with the church. But I ask them
to tell me at what time, during what year, what day, or what hour only
this general submission existed? I ask them to tell me if there was a
single day, a single minute which did not bring to the church her
combat, not merely against kings and feudal lords, but against
nations, and not only on one point of Europe, but on a thousand?--if
once only this temporal jurisdiction of the papacy over the world was
exercised otherwise than at the point of the sword--the sword of
steel, as well as the sword of speech?

This middle age, this docile child, this innocent lamb, which allows
itself to be led gently and blindly by the shepherd's crook, I find
nowhere; I see indeed a child, but a hard and rebellious child, who
seldom bends, rarely except to threats, and who, however humbly he may
and, finds it no fault to straighten himself immediately after. Alas!
the infancy of a people is not the infancy of men. The infant man has
his physical weakness, which permits him to be controlled, and in
restraining protects him. The infant people, for its misfortune, has
all the passions and all the material forces of the full-grown man,
and by the side of this formidable infant, the papacy to me appears
different in everything, different by its supernatural life, which
lifts it above the human condition, by the maturity of its
intelligence, which elevates it above this youthful world, by the
traditions of the Italian civilization which raises it above this
world, still sunk in barbarism. It is divine in the midst of men,
adult in the midst of children, Italian in the midst of these Teutons,
Roman in the midst of these barbarians, civilian in the midst of these
soldiers.

And by this, it seems to me, is justified, even if not otherwise, the
political part played by the papacy in the middle ages. When it is
demanded by what right it pretended to the temporal government of
Europe, I answer unhesitatingly, by

  "The right that a spirit vast and firm in its designs
  Has over the gross spirits of vulgar men;"

or, at least, the right which maturity has naturally over youth,
science over ignorance, reason over unreason. The mature man, whom
chance has placed in the midst of indocile and imprudent children, has
over them by his age and reason alone a part, at least, of the rights
of a father and a teacher. Only, with the father or teacher physical
force supports this right, while to the papacy it was wanting, and
could be supplied only by the sanctity of its character, the authority
of it's words, and the intrepidity of its government.

{203}

This will be for ever its glory. The glory of the church is far less
in having reigned than in having fought. That temporal dominion of the
Holy See was never in the state of a peaceable, regular, acknowledged
sovereignty. It was only a form of the unrelenting warfare which the
church sustained against evil,--one of the phases of her never-ending
combat, one of the arms of her ceaseless struggle. The church has
fought either without auxiliaries, or with auxiliaries always ready to
abandon her; she herself wields not the sword of the flesh, and is
never sure that those who do handle it in her name will not turn it
against her; sometimes saved by kings and menaced by the people,
sometimes aided by the people and crushed by kings, she has fought her
fight without having, in reality, any other human power than that of
her dangers, the sufferings, the exile, the captivity, the
humiliations, the death of her pontiffs. She has never completely
triumphed, but she has never fainted. She has never completely teamed
the lion she combated, but she has been able to soften him. She has
never been a peaceful and happy mother in the midst of submissive
children, a pacific queen in the midst of devoted subjects; she has
been rather an unwearied combatant, according to his word who said, "I
am calm to bring the world not peace, but a sword."

But the moment must come when the child becomes a man. The struggle
then changes front. The man is not better than the child; properly
speaking, he is not wiser or more reasonable: he has simply more order
in his life, and more logical sequence in his conduct. A sort of human
respect induces him to study to maintain greater harmony between his
principles and his actions; when he has a good theory,  he tries
oftener than the child to have a good practice; and oftener when his
conduct is bad, he concocts a bad theory to justify it. To use a
well-known word, he practices his good maxims or he _maxims_ his bad
practices, as the grace of God in him and his conscience are stronger
or weaker. This accord with himself, which is the characteristic, at
least the pretension, of the mature man, makes alike his greatness and
his littleness. The church, when society is matured, has to combat
doctrines rather than passions, ideas rather than vices. The middle
ages were, then, the infancy of Christian nations; should we say the
sixteenth century--the age of passion, of effervescence, of revolt, of
lapses--was the age of youth? Is the present age the age of maturity
or of decrepitude? This, five hundred years hence, our descendants may
be able to determine.

It still remains to know whether the childhood of a people, like the
childhood of individuals, ought not to be regretted rather than
disdained, and whether it does not charm us more by the memory of its
joys than it humiliates us by the memory of its weaknesses. If the
childhood of the individual is not capable of crimes, it is not any
more capable of great deeds; the childhood of a people, on the
contrary, although it may have its gentle and simple side, has also
its heroic and sublime side. It was so with the child-people who
passed the Red Sea, or fought under the walls of Troy. They are
child-men for whom the Pentateuch was written, and who inspired the
Iliad. They are child-men, our ancestors, who reconquered the tomb of
Christ, who carried faith even to the depths of China, and who with
Joan of Arc chased the English from France. They were not souls free
from all blemish, nor hands never sullied; very often the brutality of
their manners repels us, and we are borne, in seeing them, like the
tender souls in those iron ages, to seek refuge in the shadow of the
cloister, in order to find there, at least, peace, delicacy of heart,
dignity of intelligence, and serenity of soul. But they were really of
those to whom much is forgiven, for they loved much. Among their
contradictions they had this grand and noble contradiction--that of
having committed great faults, and yet preserving the love of God; of
being soiled with vice, and yet not abandoned to it; of having removed
far from the Lord, {204} but having never despaired of his mercy; of
being very hard and very cruel, and yet preserving a loving fibre in
their hearts, and tears in their eyes. After all, if these men were
children, they were the children of whom it is said, "Of such is the
kingdom of heaven." If the middle ages had vices, they had also faith:
the world in ripening has lost the faith, and retained the vices.

Here is what, as it seems to me, may be said of the middle ages, after
what M. de Carné has said, and by the side of what he has said. It may
not be without some advantage to place this very different view by the
side of the political view, which he has so well developed. I repeat
it, that considering only the two types of Suger and St. Louis, he
comprehends them, for they come within his sphere; he has, perhaps,
not so well comprehended the medium in which they lived, or perhaps he
partially forgets it.

We must now follow France and Europe in that more manly, or senile,
epoch of their life, which M. de Carné after having given us sketches
of Du Guesclin and Joan of Arc, personifies in Louis XI., Henry IV.,
Cardinal Richelieu, and Mazarin. These are already times which touch
very closely our own. The work of Henry IV., of Richelieu, Mazarin,
and Louis XIV., has crumbled almost under our own eyes, and in many
respects their spirit is still living in our midst. The proof is in
the fact that it is still the object of attack, Richelieu especially.
Louis XIV. is discussed with all the vehemence of a contemporary
controversy. This indeed is not the case with M. de Carné. There is
not, perhaps, in his book an appreciation more calm, more dignified,
more grave than that of the policy of the great cardinal.

He has justified this policy. He shows with an evidence that seems to
me incontestable, that, setting aside the severity of certain acts,
setting aside the last months of a premature old age, when weariness
of power began to obscure his lofty intellect, Richelieu could have
done hardly otherwise than he did. The nobility, it must be said, a
little in all times, and very much for a century, had yielded to a
deplorable spirit of faction. Whether it dreamed, like the Calvinistic
gentlemen of the sixteenth century, of a resurrection of feudalism;
whether in its eyes, as in those of the Duke of Rohan, was zoning the
plan of an aristocratic republic; or whether, as more frequently
happens, all its ambitions were individual, and that the alliances it
formed were only the coalitions of dissatisfied pretensions, always is
it certain that it was in an eminent degree incapable of a serious and
well-defined policy. It could not even be national, and for fourscore
years there was not a chief of the party who did not seek his support
in England or in Spain, and who did not treat in the beginning of his
revolt with foreigners, as he counted at its close on treating with
his king. The commonalty, though more national, had not a whit more
case for the necessary conditions of regular political action. The
parliament incontestably formed the head all the Third Estate: it was
the most dignified post, the highest placed, the gravest, and the most
capable of affairs; and yet the parliaments interfered in politics
only with the littlenesses and caprice of children, the conceit of
youngsters, or the timidity of old men; by turns submissive and
rebellious, idolaters of absolute power, and rebels to every
government; rash and timid, rebelling and begging pardon.

The cardinal has been almost always reproached for having established
royalty without a basis; but this basis, where was he to find it? Was
it ever in his power to create it? Could he found a political
aristocracy, respecting the laws, and protecting the people, where
there was only a turbulent, unpopular, and unstatesmanlike nobility?
Could he erect on French soil a House of Commons, animated at once
with the spirit of legal obedience and of constitutional resistance,
{205} at a time when it did not exist even in England, and where there
were only citizens ready to revolt, as was proved in the time of the
League, and ready to submit, and even to worship power, as was proved
under Henry IV., but wholly incapable of resisting without rebelling?
At least, it will not be said that at all hazards, and without taking
any account of these facts, the cardinal should have inaugurated in
France something like the charter of 1814, or that of 1830, which
would be very much like reproaching Hannibal for not using gunpowder,
and Christopher Columbus for not using steam!

Richelieu felt that all force, that every principle of peace,
grandeur, and unity, was at the time in royalty. Royalty was in the
sphere of things possible, or imaginary, the only regular, and even
the only popular power. Outside of it there were only resistances, or
rather attacks, more or less inconsequent and factious. The liberties
of the middle ages, such as they had then, could appear only as
turbulent and irregular liberties, incompatible with that order and
that regularity which were a necessity for the genius of the cardinal
and his age. Richelieu rendered absolute that power which alone could
be a protection, well the others would be only sources of danger. In
doing this he abolished no liberties, for there were then no liberties
in the modern sense of the word. He had little else than privileges to
suppress, and absolute monarchy conferred more privileges then it
destroyed. We had only insubordinations to quell, and misdeeds to
punish. That, in this struggle, his untempered severity amounted even
to cruelty, sometimes odius, and almost always useless, M. de Carné
does not deny, and I concede it even to a greater extent, perhaps,
than he would approve; but what had been the triumph of the party, or
rather of the contradictory parties? What monarchy--national,
constitutional, and legal--could have resulted from the victory of
those great lords, leagued together, and constantly intriguing against
the government ever since the death of Henry IV.; sometimes open
rebels, sometimes submissive; ever uniting, or separating, allying
themselves at the the exigency of the moment; enemies to their friends
of yesterday, faithful to-day with the factious of the morrow,
Protestants with Catholics, Catholics with Huguenots, Frenchmen with
Spain! What a magnificent bill of rights the Duchess de Chevereuse
would have drawn up for Louis XIII. to sign!

Richelieu did the only thing which in his time was possible, and that
is the justification of the political order which he founded. But his
work was not complete, and was not completed, I dare add, solely
because it was sanguinary. The blood shed, as M. de Carné well says,
was not so abundant as is commonly believed; twenty-six men in all
perished on the scaffold. How many politicians have the reputation of
great benignity, who have put to death a much larger number! But on
more than one occasion Richelieu's proceedings were odious, his
cruelty refined, his vengeance useless. It belonged to a man of quite
another nature to finish the work which he, with less violence, might
have accomplished. The cardinal, when he died, left feudal opposition
humbled, but living area The blood of Montmorency had implanted still
more hate than fear. All the uneasy and restless forces, which, with
no purpose, or only that of personal satisfaction, agitated France for
nearly a century, crushed by the hand of the cardinal, drew themselves
up anew when he was no longer there, and made themselves immediately
felt and feared, under the reign of a child, the regency of a Spanish
woman, and the ministry of an Italian. The work, then, was not
complete, and the last germ of that aristocratic faction had not been
extinguished on the scaffold of Cinq-Mars.

{206}

M. de Carné, who overrates Richelieu, greatly underrates Mazarin.
Certainly, the man had less grandeur, and was more sullied; there were
defects in his genius, and undeniably dark shades in his character;
his morality was certainly of a low order, but his intellectual power
was something marvellous. I am astonished to see that foreigner, that
adventurer, that man who was never popular, that minister with greedy
and grasping instincts, triumphing over enemies which the great
cardinal had not been able to subdue, surviving the spirit of faction
that had survived Richelieu,--to see him accomplish the work which
Richelieu had not been able to accomplish by violence; and
accomplishing it without having to reproach himself with erecting a
single scaffold. This Italian, so furiously decried, who on
re-entering Paris, after his victory, had not a word of anger to
utter, nor a vengeance to inflict on any one; who re-established in
their seats the magistrates of Parliament who had set a price on his
head; who, vilified to satiety by the men of letters, tranquilly, and
without ostentation, restored to them their pensions; who granted to
the grandees of the kingdom--who were his enemies--nearly all they had
asked, except their independence; this man, in all this, may indeed
have been more able than generous, but I much like that kind of
ability, and regard it as worth imitating. And what is curious, is
that, from that minister, so many times dishonored, from that peace in
which the factious were so well treated, from that struggle in which
royalty was often so hard pressed, and in which it was so often forced
to give way, royalty itself came forth stronger, more absolute, more
venerated, more adored, than it was left by the lofty struggle
maintained by Cardinal Richelieu, and in which his victories were
ratified by the hangman.

It is in this way that monarchy was established in France; and, be it
said in passing, without recurring to the necessity and legitimacy of
this work, it has produced, in spite of its many imperfections and
excesses, the most normal epoch in our history since that of St.
Louis. This epoch had only brief duration, and it is sometimes, said,
that what is called the ancient _régime_, was only a period of
transition. I grant it. In this passing world, what century is there
that is not a century of transition? When is it that the nations can
stop, pitch their tents, and say, "It is good to be here?" I remember
still all in my youth, the defunct Saint-Simonian school, which,
perhaps, is not so defunct as is supposed, divided the history of the
world into critical periods and _organic_ periods; but as for its
organic periods, they could not tell where to find them. It is the
same with us all. I see, indeed, in history, times of passage, but not
the time of sojourn; and I know not any century in which it might not
be said with as much truth has in our own, "We are in the moment of
transition." But if ever there was really an organic epoch, it was
that of which we speak. If any age could really pass for a normal age,
not indeed for the perfection of its virtue, but for the plenitude of
its principle, it would certainly be the age of Louis XIV. That was
essentially, in good and in evil, in greatness and littleness, in its
good deeds and in its evil deeds, in its legitimate honor and in its
idolatrous apotheosis, the age of royalty.

On many sides, certainly, this age is open to attack: yet neither men
nor human institutions are to be judged after an absolute type. The
greatest must miserably fail, if so judged. All judgments of human
things our relative. When we place a life, in age, a rule, any
institution whatever, by the side of the ideal type which are
imagination forms to itself, nothing is to be said; that life is
stained, that period is wretched, that _régime_ is odious, that
institution is detestable; but if we compare it with that which has
been before, after, or contemporary with it, or even that which would
have been humanly possible to put in its place {207} Our judgment is
more indulgent, because less absolute. It is our glory, but also our
error, to bear in ourselves a certain passion for the beautiful and
the good, which can find no satisfaction in this world; to form to
ourselves in everything, an ideal type superior to all human power to
realize; to have in us the measure of heaven, which we very clear that
Louis XIV. was only a poor knight, Bossuet only a common-place writer.
Homer a street-singer, Raphael a dauber by the side of the king, the
orator, the poet, the painter, of which we dream in our imagination.

That _régime_, inaugurated by Richelieu, confirmed by Mazarin, and
glorified by Louis XIV., had, doubtless, its baseness as every other,
but not more than others. It had its cruelties, and they were often
inexcusable; it had a greater and more fundamental wrong still, that
of pushing power to excess, and exaggerating its rights, as well as
deifying the person of the sovereign. Human powers have all a limit,
however absolute they may claim to be; and whether collected in a
single hand, or dispersed among many--whether they are vested in the
people, in an assembly, or in one man alone, the sphere of their
action is no greater. Power has its limit in right, and this limit
cannot be passed without guilt; it has its limit in fact, and against
that it cannot dash its head without breaking it.

This was its fault, and it was cruelly expiated. We say, however, that
the monarchy of Louis XIV. perished less by his fault than by that of
his successor. Louis XV. inherited a royalty in its plenitude,
surrounded by the profound respect of the nation. Louis XlV. had died
unpopular, but he left the throne popular. The public calamities were
charged to the man, not to the monarchy. I know not in all history a
king more beloved, more venerated, more adored as king and
independently of his personal qualities, than was Louis XV. A child at
first, then a young man, without other personal merit than that of
leaving Cardinal de Fleury to govern, Louis XV., during twenty years,
gathered in peace the fruits of royalty. More humane than Louis XIV.;
as selfish indeed, but selfish in another manner; not taking like him
his royalty in earnest, and instead of accepting it as a dignity
almost divine, regarding it as a private estate he had a right to
enjoy without being under the slightest obligation to look after its
management, Louis XV. took pleasure in squandering the treasures of
popular respect and affection which his predecessor had bequeathed
him. France persisted in respecting his royalty as long as she could.
Neither the scandals of the Regency, less public than they have become
for posterity, nor the succession of court influences, not yet sunk to
the baseness of the later years, though beginning to approach it; nor
the indolence and the corruption of that prince who hardly ever opened
a letter on business, hardly ever spoke in council, and hardly ever
went to the army; nor that egotism of the man crudely paraded in the
place of the egotism of the king professed by Louis XIV. as a
religion--nothing of all this disgusted the country, so marvellously
had France been imbued with the love and worship of royalty by
Richelieu, Mazarin, and Louis XIV.!

The corruption of ideas was slowly effected. The eighteenth century
did not begin in 1700 nor in 1715, it was only beginning in 1750. The
first irreligious book which gave much scandal was that of Toussaint
in 1748. Up to that time Voltaire had restricted himself to some timid
allusions against priests mingled with many flatteries of the court;
the Pucelle was written but not published. Twenty-eight years after
the death of Louis XIV., at the time of the illness of Metz, was still
seen a thing unique perhaps--a whole country, not only the nobility
and the court, but the citizens, the people, all those who were most
disinterested in regard to royal favors, were seen {208} praying with
a tenderness truly filial that God would leave to them a king who had
reigned for twenty-eight years without having done anything, and
wresting from Providence, so to speak, by the force of supplications,
a life steeped in debauchery. This great and sincere testimonial of
monarchical enthusiasm, which remained so deeply rooted in the memory
of our fathers, was given, I say not to the worst, but certainly to
the least meritorious of all our monarchs.

It is necessary, then, to render to our country this justice, that, if
it came at length to despise power, it was because in spite of itself
it was driven to it by power itself. It needed that this so solemn
mark of filial devotion should be returned by continued indolence and
corruption. It needed more than thirty years of the cynical workings
of this royalty to erase from the heart in which it was so deeply
rooted, the taste and the worship of royalty. They who, in seeking the
semi-metaphysical, semi-political causes for the fall of the monarchy
of Louis XIV., think they find the principle of its ruin in the manner
of its constitution, may, in certain respects, be right, but they
should tell us how it could have been constituted differently.
However, they seem to me to count for too little the abuses so
flagrant and so prolonged, which were made of it.

Neither am I among those who accuse the France of the old _régime_ of
servility. Its love for royalty may have been excessive, but it was,
at least, sincere; and if sincere it was not servile. We may be guilty
of idolatry towards those we love, but we can be guilty of servility
only towards those we love not. Royalty, I admit, was regarded as a
demi-god, but they who really worship the false god do it in good
faith. Our fathers were, perhaps, fanatics, but they were not slaves.
The great English lords who, in the eighteenth century, traversed
France in a post chaise, in order to attend the court at Versailles,
and to pass several weeks in Parts, doubtless judged the country to be
inhabited only by the cowardly slaves of an Asiatic despot;--they
found no House of Commons, no speaker nor usher with the black rod. In
the same way, Sterne, seeing at a play a man who annoyed his neighbors
and whom the guard ordered to leave, was confounded by the arbitrary
proceeding, and could not comprehend that the citizen did not maintain
by his fists the right to disturb the performance. It was a country
judged on the surface by the habits of mind of another country during
About the same time, another Englishman,  [Footnote 39] who did not
journey in a post-chaise, who went on foot from village to village,
playing the flute for the peasantry, holding disputations in the
monasteries, and thus paying his reckoning, judged France a little
differently. He came very near, God forgive him, envying it, and
preferring it to his own country! He met here not miserable slaves,
but happy men, satisfied with themselves, and satisfied with all the
world. The current money in this country, according to him, was not
silver; was not the material favors of the government; was not, or, at
least, was not only, pension and place; it was a vain money, no doubt,
like all human riches, but a money, at least, more delicate and more
noble. "Society here finds its life in HONOR. Praise gained by merit,
or obtained by an imaginary worth, is the money which passes current
from hand to hand, and by a noble commerce passes from the court to
the camp and the cottage." France, which for the others was the
country of servitude, was for him the country of honor.

  [Footnote 39: We need hardly tell our readers the person referred to
  here was an Irishman--Oliver Goldsmith. (Ed. C.W.)]

In reality it is hardly for us to be ashamed of the servitude of
forefathers. It is true, more mature than they, we no longer either
worship or respect authority; but we count it no fault to beg its
favors. We crowd around the altar, though we no longer believe in the
god. Every revolution has shown us the ante-chambers {209} invaded in
turn by a cloud of conquerors, revolutionists, or conservatives,
monarchists or republicans, all men have profound conviction, of a
well-tried self-respect, a liberalism true as steel, and an
independence as firm as iron, but who nevertheless came to beg their
bit from the budget Since we came into the world, four times, at
least, have we seeing this hideous quarry to which (we must render all
justice to our equalitarians) all classes, high or low, rich or for,
lettered or unlettered, have flocked with a harmony truly democratic.
We now no longer conceive of a public service which is not paid for, a
state function which is not an income, a position which has not its
money value. Have we the right, in good faith, to be ashamed of the
times when they said not _places_ but _charges_, because the public
service was considered not a position but duty? Have we the right to
attack even that court and that finance of aforetime, stained, I
grant, with cupidity and adulation, but not otherwise than in all
times, and are still the classes that approach power? Have we the
right, above all, to attack the whole of that society much less greedy
of the favors of power, much more independent of it than we are
ourselves,  that bourgeoisie who loved so much its king from whom it
had nothing to expect, except the suppression of a fourth of its
revenue? Those magistrates who gave their last penny for the right to
rise at five o'clock in the morning, and pass the forenoon in the
audience, well to-day the lowest deputy finds himself poorly paid by
two thousand francs for rising at ten o'clock? That provincial
nobility, poor, obscure, disdained, who had all the charges of
aristocracy without its benefits, and who esteemed themselves but too
happy when, after twenty years of service in order, where they left
their patrimony at first, then an arm, a leg, their brothers and
cousins, they obtained from the bounty of the king their discharge,
and permission to retire to their homes with the cross of St. Louis,
and the brevet of Brigadier-General; crippled, impoverished, but
endeavoring, if possible, to "preserve a fortune sufficient to enable
their children to replace them"? We, citizens and freemen, do we even
for much money, what those servile beings did for a little honor?

I have passed here a little beyond the work of M. de Carné, who stops
with Mazarin. He will pardon me, even thank me, for not permitting
myself to go farther still, and to broach the hackneyed subject of
1789. I have elsewhere had occasion to set forth my views on that
subject, by the side of M. de Carné's, happy to agree with him in many
respects, though more severe, perhaps, in my judgment of that
revolutionary movement than he is. The tendency of minds toward
reforms might have been legitimate, but the way taken to effect them
was false, and in my eyes infected with evil from the first. In fact,
the groundwork of French unity, which M. de Carné represents for us
with so much love, what has been its use, if, after the labor of so
many centuries, it could be attained only by a national convulsion,
the most violent, perhaps, which has figured in history? Civil
equality, unity of territory, reform in legislation, were they not
already sufficiently prepared by St. Louis, Charles VII., Louis XI.,
Richelieu, and Louis XIV., and was it necessary that they should be
purchased by the revolt of the _jeu de paume_, by the blood of
Versailles, and by the crimes of the reign of Terror? Were our
countrymen not criminal, at that epoch, in repulsing a past in which
they might, on the contrary, have found a firmer support for the
reforms needed?

Be that as it may, I cannot but thank M. de Carné, in the name of all
those who still read, for the work which he achieved in 1848, and for
the return which he has just made to his former studies. Whoever we
may be, and whatever may be the present, it is not necessary that it
should absorb us. As the spectacle of the present age serves to
explain past ages, so should a return to the past cool and calm in our
minds {210} the agitation of the present. Of this freedom from
contemporaneous reflection, M. de Carné has given us a noble example.
On two or three points, at most, the statesman of our times is a
little too perceptible. I much doubt, for instance, if in the
sixteenth century, the Balafré could have founded in France a dynasty
and a citizen royalty like that of Louis Philippe. Still it might have
been had the Balafré been a cadet of the Capetian family, and if the
dynasty of the Valois had been for forty years shaken by two
revolutions. What strikes me, on the contrary, in the history of the
League, and what appears to me one of the greatest proofs of the
spirit of nationality and of loyalty which then reigned in the
commonalty, is the repugnance which they always manifested to
accepting a foreign dynasty, the timid and reluctant manner with which
the proposition was made, and the unpopularity with which it was
received. At the time of the League, the nation wished two things
which then seemed irreconcilable--Catholic royalty and French loyalty;
it wished, so to speak, an impossibility, but it willed it with
decision and perseverance, and that impossibility it obtained.

But, save these slight traces of the man of the present, M. de Carné
has been able, with rare facility, to identify himself with past ages;
he has known how to take from erudition what was necessary to
enlighten his political point of view, without suffering it absorb
him. He has been perfectly able in surveying all these different
subjects to identify himself by turns with each of them. Without
neglecting details and without losing himself in them, without
disdaining to speak to the imagination, and without suffering himself
to be carried away by the fascinations of the picturesque, without
abandoning himself to political theories, and without dispoiling
history of them, he has in turn as fully known his Abbot Suger, his
St. Louis, is Du Guesclin, and each one of his heroes, as if he had
never studied else. He makes himself master of each one of these
subjects in brief time, but with a sagacity worth more than time, and
with a quick perception of the dominant idea which often escapes the
simple erudite. He has not me what is called a philosophical history,
a task become facile and commonplace, and he has not made what is
still more easy, purely contemporary politics _à propos_ of the past;
he has not made a history, if by history we understand the detailed
recital of events; but he has known how to keep constantly at his
disposition the philosophical view which illuminates history, the
political sense which helps to judge it, and the knowledge of facts
which is its foundation. He has not made a history, but he has made a
luminous summary, and given us a necessary complement of all the
theories of French history.


----------

MY TEARS.

  Ah me! how many precious tears for naught I've wept;
            And thus my soul did cheat.
  Would I, like Magdalene, had treasured them, and kept
            Their wealth for Jesus' feet.

------

{211}

LEGEND OF COUNT JULIAN AND HIS FAMILY.

BY WASHINGTON IRVING.


Many and various are the accounts given in ancient chronicles of the
fortunes of Count Julian and his family, and many are the traditions
on the subject extant among the populace of Spain, and perpetuated in
those countless ballads sung by peasants and muleteers, which spread a
singular charm over the whole of this romantic land.

He who has travelled in Spain in the true way in which the country
ought to be travelled--sojourning in its remote provinces, rambling
among the rugged defiles and secluded valleys of its mountains, and
making himself familiar with the people in their out-of-the-way
hamlets and rarely visited neighborhoods--will remember many a group
of travellers and muleteers, gathered of an evening around the door or
the spacious hearth of a mountain venta, wrapped in their brown
cloaks, and listening with grave and profound attention to the long
historic ballad of some rustic troubadour, either recited with the
true _ore rotundo_ and modulated cadences of Spanish elocution, or
chanted to the tinkling of a guitar. In this way he may have heard the
doleful end of Count Julian and his family recounted in traditionary
rhymes, that have been handed down from generation to generation. The
particulars, however, of the following wild legend are chiefly
gathered from the writings of the pseudo Moor Basis; how far they may
be safely taken as historic facts it is impossible now to ascertain;
we must content ourselves, therefore, with their answering to the
exactions of poetic justice.

As yet everything had prospered with Count Julian. He had gratified
his vengeance; he had been successful in his treason, and had acquired
countless riches from the ruin of his country. But it is not outward
success that constitutes prosperity. The tree flourishes with fruit
and foliage while blasted and withering at the heart. Wherever he
went, Count Julian read hatred in every eye. The Christians cursed him
as the cause of all their woe; the Moslems despised and distrusted him
as a traitor. Men whispered together as he approached, and then turned
away in scorn; and mothers snatched away their children with horror if
he offered to caress them. He withered under the execration of his
fellow-men, and last, and worst of all, he began to loathe himself. He
tried in vain to persuade himself that he had but taken a justifiable
vengeance; he felt that no personal wrong can justify the crime of
treason to one's country.

For a time he sought in luxurious indulgence to soothe or forget the
miseries of the mind. He assembled round him every pleasure and
gratification that boundless wealth could purchase, but all in vain.
He had no relish for the dainties of his board; music had no charm
wherewith to lull his soul, and remorse drove slumber from his pillow.
He sent to Ceuta for his wife Frandina, his daughter Florinda, and his
youthful son Alarbot; hoping in the bosom of his family to find that
sympathy and kindness which he could no longer meet with in the world.
Their presence, however, brought him no alleviation. Florinda, the
daughter of his heart, for whose sake he had undertaken this {212}
signal vengeance, was sinking a victim to its effects. Wherever she
went, she found herself a byword of shame and reproach. The outrage
she had suffered was imputed to her as wantonness, and her calamity
was magnified into a crime. The Christians never mentioned her name
without a curse, and the Moslems, the gainers by her misfortune, spake
of her only by the appellation of Cava, the vilest epithet they could
apply to woman.

But the opprobrium of the world was nothing to the upbraiding of her
own heart. She chained herself with all the miseries of these
disastrous wars--the deaths of so many gallant cavaliers, the conquest
and perdition of her country. The anguish of her mind preyed upon the
beauty of her person. Her eye, once soft and tender in its expression,
became wild and haggard; her cheek lost its bloom and became hollow
and pallid, and at times there was desperation in her words. When her
father sought to embrace her she withdrew with shuddering from his
arms, for she thought of his treason and the ruin it had brought upon
Spain. Her wretchedness increased after her return to her native
country, until it rose to a degree of frenzy. One day when she was
walking with her parents in the garden of their palace, she entered a
tower, and, having barred the door, ascended to the battlements. From
thence she called to them in piercing accents, expressive of her
insupportable anguish and desperate determination. "Let this city,"
said she, "be henceforth called Malacca, in memorial of the most
wretched of women, who therein put an end to her days." So saying, she
threw herself headlong from the tower, and was dashed to pieces. The
city, adds the ancient chronicler, received the name thus given it,
though afterward softened to Malaga, which it still retains in memory
of the tragical end of Florinda.

The Countess Frandina abandoned this scene of woe, and returned to
Ceuta, accompanied by her infant son. She took with her the remains of
her unfortunate daughter, and gave them honorable sepulture in a
mausoleum of the chapel belonging to the citadel. Count Julian
departed for Carthagena, where he remained plunged in horror at this
doleful event.

About this time the cruel Suleiman, having destroyed the the family of
Muza, had sent an Arab general, named Alahor, to succeed Abdalasis, as
emir or governor of Spain. The new emir was of a cruel and suspicious
nature, and commenced his sway with a stern severity that soon made
those under his command look back with regret to the easy rule of
Abdalasis. He regarded with an eye of distrust the renegade Christians
who had aided in the conquest, and who bore arms in the service of the
Moslems; but his deepest suspicions fell upon Count Julian. "He has
been a traitor to his own countryman," said he; "how can we be sure
that he will not prove traitor to us?"

A sudden insurrection of the Christians who had taken refuge in the
Asturian mountains, quickened his suspicions, and inspired him with
fears of some dangerous conspiracy against his power. In the height of
his anxiety, he bethought him of an Arabian sage named Yuza, who had
accompanied him from Africa. This son of science was withered in form,
and looked as if he had outlived the usual term of mortal life. In the
course of his studies and travels in the East, he had collected the
knowledge and experience of ages; being skilled in astrology, and, it
is said, in necromancy, and possessing the marvellous gift of prophecy
or divination. To this expounder of mysteries Alahor applied to learn
whether any secret treason menaced his safety.

The astrologer listened with deep attention and overwhelming brow to
all the surmises and suspicions of the emir, then shut himself up to
consult his books and commune with those supernatural intelligences
subservient {213} to his wisdom. At an appointed hour the emir sought
him in his cell. It was filled with the smoke of perfumes; squares and
circles and various diagrams were described upon the floor, and the
astrologer was boring over a scroll of parchment, covered with
cabalistic characters. He received Alahor with a gloomy and sinister
aspect; pretending to have discovered fearful portents in the heavens,
and to have had strange dreams and mystic visions.

"O emir," said he, "be on your guard! treason is around you and in
your path; your life is in peril. Beware of Count Julian and his
family."

"Enough," said the emir. "They show all die! Parents and children--all
shall die!"

He forthwith sent a summons to Count Julian to attend him in Cordova.
The messenger found him plunged in affliction for the recent death of
his daughter. The count excused himself, on account of this
misfortune, from obeying the commands of the emir in person, but sent
several of his adherents. His hesitation, and the circumstance of his
having sent his family across the straits to Africa, were construed by
the jealous mind of the emir into proofs of guilt. He no longer
doubted his being concerned in the recent insurrections, and that he
had sent his family away, preparatory to an attempt, by force of arms,
to subvert the Moslem domination. In is fury he put to death Siseburto
and Evan, the nephews of Bishop Oppas and sons of the former king,
Witiza, suspecting them of taking part in the treason. Thus did they
expiate their treachery to their country in the fatal Battle of
Guadalete.

Alahor next hastened to Carthagena to seize upon Count Julian. So
rapid were his movements that the count had barely time to escape with
fifteen cavaliers, with whom he took refuge in the strong castle of
Marcuello, among the mountains of Aragon. The emir, enraged to be
disappointed of his prey, embarked at Carthagena and crossed the
straits to Ceuta, to make captives of the Countess Frandina and her
son.

The old chronicle from which we take this part of our legend, presents
a gloomy picture of the countess in the stern fortress to which she
had fled for refuge--a picture heightened by supernatural horrors.
These latter the sagacious reader will admit or reject according to
the measure of his faith and judgment; always remembering that in dark
and eventful times, like those in question, involving the destinies of
nations, the downfall of kingdoms, and the crimes of rulers and mighty
men, the hand of fate is sometimes strangely visible, and confounds
the wisdom of the worldly wise, by intimations and portents above the
ordinary course of things. With this proviso, we make no scruple to
follow the venerable chronicler in his narration.

Now so it happened that the Countess Frandina was seated late at night
in her chamber in the citadel of Ceuta, which stands on a lofty rock,
overlooking the sea. She was revolving in gloomy thought the late
disasters of her family, when she heard a mournful noise like that of
the sea-breeze moaning about the castle walls. Raising her eyes, she
beheld her brother, the Bishop Oppas, at the entrance of the chamber.
She advanced to embrace him, but he forbade her with a motion of his
hand, and she observed that he was ghastly pale, and that his eyes
glared as with lambent flames.

"Touch me not, sister," said he, with a mournful voice, "lest thou be
consumed by the fire which rages within me. Guard well thy son, for
blood-hounds are upon his track. His innocence might have secured him
the protection of heaven, but our crimes have involved him in our
common ruin." He ceased to speak and was no longer to be seen. His
coming and going were alike without noise, and the door of the chamber
remained fast bolted.

{214}

On the following morning a messenger arrived with tidings that the
Bishop Oppas had been made prisoner in battle by the insurgent
Christians of the Asturias, and had died in fetters in a tower of the
mountains. The same messenger brought word that the Emir Alahor had
put to death several of the friends of Count Julian; had obliged him
to fly for his life to a castle in Aragon, and was embarking with a
formidable force for Ceuta.

The Countess Frandina, as has already been shown, was of courageous
heart, and danger made her desperate. There were fifty Moorish solders
in the garrison; she feared that they would prove treacherous, and
take part with their countrymen. Summoning her officers, therefore,
she informed them of their danger, and commanded them to put those
Moors to death. The guards sallied forth to obey her orders.
Thirty-five of the Moors were in the great square, unsuspicious of any
danger, when they were severally singled out by their executioners,
and, at a concerted signal, killed on the spot. The remaining fifteen
took refuge in a tower. They saw the armada of the emir at a distance,
and hoped to be able to hold out until its arrival. The soldiers of
the countess saw it also, and made extraordinary efforts to destroy
these internal enemies before they should be attacked from without.
They made repeated attempts to storm the tower, but were as often
repulsed with severe loss. They then undermined it, supporting its
foundations by stanchions of wood. To these they set fire and withdrew
to a distance, keeping up a constant shower of missiles to prevent the
Moors from sallying forth to extinguish the flames. The stanchions
were rapidly consumed, and when they gave way the tower fell to the
ground. Some of the Moors were crushed among the ruins; others were
flung to a distance and dashed among the rocks; those who survived
were instantly put to the sword.

The fleet of the emir arrived at Centa about the hour of Vespers. He
landed, but found the gates closed against him. The countess herself
spoke to him from a tower, and set [illegible] at defiance. The emir
immediately laid siege to the city. He consulted the astrologer Yuxa,
who told him that for seven days his star would have the ascendant
over that of the youth Alarbot, but after that time the youth would be
safe from his power, and would effect his ruin.

Alahor immediately ordered the city to be assailed on every side, and
at length carried it by storm. The countess took refuge with her
forces in the citadel, and made desperate defense; but the walls were
sapped and mined, and she saw that all resistance would soon be
unavailing. Her only thoughts now were to conceal her child. "Surely,"
said she, "they will not think of seeking him among the dead." She led
him therefore into the dark and dismal chapel. "Thou art not afraid to
be alone in this darkness, my child?" said she.

"No, mother," replied the boy; "darkness gives silence and sleep." She
conducted him to the Florinda. "Fearest thou the dead. my child?" "No,
mother; the dead can do no harm, and what should I fear from my
sister?"

The countess opened the sepulcher. "Listen, my son," said she. "There
are fierce and cruel people who have come hither to murder thee. Stay
here in company with thy sister, and be quiet as thou dost value thy
life!" The boy, who was of a courageous nature, did as he was bidden,
and remained there all that day, and all the night, and the next day
until the third hour.

In the mean time the walls of the citadel were sapped, the troops of
the emir poured in at the breach, and a great part of the garrison was
put to the sword. The countess was taken prisoner and brought before
the emir. She appeared in his presence with a haughty demeanor, as if
she had been a queen receiving homage; but when {215} he demanded her
son, she faltered and turned pale, and replied, "My son is with the
dead."

"Countess," said the emir, "I am not to be deceived; tell me where you
have concealed the boy, or tortures shall wring from you the secret."

"Emir," replied the countess, "may the greatest torments be my
portion, both here and hereafter, if what I speak be not the truth. My
darling child lies buried with the dead."

The emir was confounded by the solemnity of her words; but the
withered astrologer Yuza, who stood by his side regarding the countess
from beneath his bushed eyebrows, perceived trouble in her countenance
and equivocation in her words. "Leave this matter to me," whispered he
to Alahor; "I will produce the child."

He ordered strict search to be made by the soldiery, and he obliged
the countess to be always present. When they came to the chapel, her
cheek turned pale and her lip quivered. "This," said the subtile
astrologer, "is the place of concealment!"

The search throughout the chapel, however, was equally vain, and the
soldiers were about to depart, when Yuza remarked a slight gleam of
joy in the eye of the countess. "We are leaving our prey behind,"
thought he; "the countess is exulting."

He now called to mind the words of her asseveration, that her child
was with the dead. Turning suddenly to the soldiers he ordered them to
search the sepulchres, "If you find him not," said he, "drag forth the
bones of that wanton Cava, that they may be burnt, and the ashes
scattered to the winds."

The soldiers searched among the tombs and found that of Florinda
partly open. Within lay the boy in the sound sleep of childhood, and
one of the soldiers took him gently in his arms to bear him to the
emir.

When the countess beheld that her child was discovered, she rushed
into the presence of Alahor, and forgetting all her pride, threw
herself upon her knees before him.

"Mercy! mercy!" cried she in piercing accents, "mercy on my son--my
only child! O Emir! listen to a mother's prayer and my lips shall kiss
thy feet. As thou art merciful to him so may the most high God have
mercy upon thee, and heap blessings on thy head."

"Bear that frantic woman hence," said the emir, "but guard her well."

The countess was dragged away by the soldiery, without regard to her
struggles and her cries, and confined in a dungeon of the citadel.

The child was now brought to the emir. He had been awakened by the
tumult, but gazed fearlessly on the stern countenances of the
soldiers. Had the heart of the emir been capable of pity, it would
have been touched by the tender youth and innocent beauty of the
child; but his heart was as the nether millstone, and he was bent upon
the destruction of the whole family of Julian. Calling to him the
astrologer, he gave the child into his charge with a secret command.
The withered son of the desert took the boy by the hand and led him up
the winding staircase of a tower. When they reached the summit, Yuza
placed him on the battlements.

"Cling not to me, my child," said he; "there is no danger." "Father, I
fear not," said the undaunted boy; "yet it is a wondrous height."

The child looked around with delighted eyes. The breeze blew his
curling locks from about his face, and his cheek glowed at the
boundless prospect; for the tower was reared upon that lofty
promontory on which Hercules founded one of his pillars. The surges of
the sea were heard far below, beating upon the rocks, the sea-gull
screamed and wheeled about the foundations of the tower, and the sails
of lofty caraccas were as mere specks on the bosom of the deep.

"Dost thou know yonder land beyond the blue water?" said Yuza.

{216}

"It is Spain," replied the boy; "it is the land of my father and my
mother."

"Then stretch forth thy hands and bless it, my child," said the
astrologer.

The boy let go his hold of the wall; and, as he stretched forth his
hands, the aged son of Ishmael, exerting all the strength of his
withered limbs, suddenly pushed him over the battlements. He fell
headlong from the top of that tall tower, and not a bone in his tender
frame but was crushed upon the rocks beneath.

Alahor came to the foot of the winding stairs.

"Is the boy safe?" cried he.

"He is safe," replied Yuza; "come and behold the truth with thine own
eyes."

The emir ascended the tower and looked over the battlements, and
beheld the body of the child, a shapeless mass, on the rocks far
below, and the sea-gulls hovering about it; and he gave orders that it
should be thrown into the sea, which was done.

On the following morning the countess was led forth from her dungeon
into the public square. She knew of the death of her child, and that
her own death was at hand, but she neither wept nor supplicated. Her
hair was dishevelled, her eyes were haggard with watching, and her
cheek was as the monumental stone; but there were the remains of
commanding beauty in her countenance, and the majesty of her presence
awed even the rabble into respect.

A multitude of Christian prisoners were then brought forth, and Alahor
cried out: "Behold the wife of Count Julian! behold one of that
traitorous family which has brought ruin upon yourselves and upon your
country!" And he ordered that they should stone her to death. But the
Christians drew back with horror from the deed, and said, "In the hand
of God is vengeance; let not her blood be upon our heads." Upon this
the emir swore with horrid imprecations that whoever of the captives
refused should himself be stoned to death. So the cruel order was
executed, and the Countess Frandina perished by the hands of her
countrymen. Having thus accomplished his barbarous errand, the emir
embarked for Spain, and ordered the citadel of Ceuta to be set on
fire, and crossed the straits at night by the light of its towering
flames.

The death of Count Julian, which took place not long after, closed the
tragic story of his family. How he died remains involved in doubt.
Some assert that the cruel Alahor pursued him to his retreat among the
mountains, and, having taken him prisoner, beheaded him; others that
the Moors confined him in a dungeon, and put an end to his life with
lingering torments; while others affirm that the tower of the castle
of Marcuello, near Huesca, in Aragon, in which he took refuge, fell on
him and crushed him to pieces. All agree that his later end was
miserable in the extreme and his death violent. The curse of heaven,
which had thus pursued him to the grave, was extended to the very
place which had given him shelter; for we are told that the castle is
no longer inhabited on account all the strange and horrible noises
that are heard in it; and that visions of armed men are seen above it
in the air: which are supposed to be the troubled spirits of the
apostate Christians who favored the cause of the traitor.

In after-times a stone sepulcher was shown, outside of the chapel of
the castle, as the tomb of Count Julian; but the traveller and the
pilgrim avoided it, or bestowed upon it a malediction; and the name of
Julian has remained a byword and a scorn in the land for the warning
of all generations. Such ever be the lot of him who betrays his
country!

Here end the legends of the conquest of Spain.

------

{217}

ORIGINAL.

RECENT EUROPEAN EVENTS.


When it is said that the church is independent of time and its events,
and can subsist and operate under all forms of government, and in all
stages of civilization, it is not meant that she is indifferent to the
revolution of states and empires, or cares not how the state is
constituted, or the government administered. Subsisting and operating
society, though not holding from it, she cannot be indifferent to its
constitution, either for her sake or its own. It may be constituted
more for less in accordance with eternal justice, or absolute and
unchanging right, and therefore more or less favorable to her catholic
mission, which is to introduce and sustain the reign of truth and
right in the state and the administration as well as in the individual
reason and will.

Far less does the independence of the church, or her non-dependence on
the political order and its variations, imply that politics, as is but
too often assumed, are independent of the moral law of God, and
therefore that statesman, civil magistrates, and rulers are under no
obligation to consult in their acts what is right, just, or
conformable to the law of the Lord, but only what seems to them
expedient, or for their own interest. All sound politics are based on
principles derived from theology, the great catholic or universal and
invariable principles which govern man's relation to his Maker and to
his neighbor, and of which, while the state is indeed in the temporal
order the administrator, the church is the divinely instituted
guardian and teacher. No Christian, no man who believes in God, can
assert political independence of the divine or spiritual order, for
that would be simply political atheism; and if men sometimes do assert
it without meaning to deny the existence and authority of God in the
spiritual order, it is because men can be and sometimes are illogical,
and inconsistent with themselves. Kings, kaisers, magistrates, are as
much bound to obey God, to be just, to do right, as are private
individuals, and in their official no less than in their private acts.

The first question to be asked in relation to any political measure
is. Is it morally right? The second, Are the means chosen for carrying
it out just? If not, it must not be adopted. But, and this is
important, it is the prerogative of God to overrule the evil men do,
and to make it result in good. "Ye meant it for evil, but God meant it
for good." Hence when things are done and cannot be recalled, though
not before, we may lawfully accept them, and labor to turn them to the
best possible account, without acquitting or approving them, or the
motives and conduct of the men who have been in the hands of
Providence the instruments of doing them. Hence there are two points
of view from which political events may be considered: the moral--the
motives and conduct of those who have brought them about; and the
political--or the bearing of the events themselves, regarded as facts
accomplished and irrevocable, on the future welfare of society.

If we judge the recent territorial changes in Italy and Germany from
the moral point of view, we cannot acquit them. The means by which the
unity of Italy has been effected under the house of Savoy, and those
by which {218} that of Germany has been placed in the way of being
effected under the house of Hohenzollern, it seems to me are wholly
indefensible. The war of France and Sardinia against Austria in 1859,
the annexation to Sardinia of the Duchies, and the AEmilian provinces
subject to the Holy See, the absorption by force of arms of the
kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and the still more recent war of Italy
and Prussia against the same power, resulting in the mutilation and
humiliation of the Austrian empire, and possibly in depriving the pope
the remainder of his domain, are, I must hold in every sense
unjustifiable. They have been done in violation of international law,
public right, and are an outrage upon every man's innate sense of
justice, excusable only on that most detestable of all maxims--the end
sanctifies the means.

But regarded from the political point of view, as facts accomplished
and irrevocable, perhaps they are not indefensible, nay, not unlikely
under divine Providence to prove of lasting benefit to European
society. I cannot defend the _coup d'état_ of Napoleon, December 2,
1851, but I believe that the elevation of Louis Napoleon to the French
throne has turned out for the benefit of France and of Europe. I
condemned the means adopted to effect both Italian and German unity,
but I am not prepared to say that each, in view of the undeniable
tendency of modern politics, was not in itself desirable and demanded
by the solid and permanent interests of European society. Taken as
facts accomplished, as points of departure for the future, they may
have, perhaps already have had, an important bearing in putting an end
to the uneasiness under which all European society has labored since
the treaties of Vienna in 1815, and the socialistic and revolutionary
movements which have, ever since the attempted reconstruction of
Europe after the fall of Napoleon, kept it in continual turmoil, and
rendered all government except by sheer force impracticable.

The tendency of European society for four or five centuries has been,
on the one hand, toward civil and political equality, and on the
other, toward Roman imperialism. European society has revolted against
mediaeval feudalism, alike against the feudal aristocracy and the
feudal monarchy, and sought to revive the political system of imperial
Rome, to place all citizens on the footing of an equality before the
law, with exclusive privileges for none, and to base monarchy on the
sovereign will of the nation. It would be incorrect to say, as many
both at home and abroad have said, that European society has been or
is tending to pure and simple democracy, for such has not been, and is
not by any means the fact; but it has been and is tending to the
abolition of all political distinctions and privileges founded on
birth or property, and to render all persons without reference to
caste or class eligible to all the offices of state, and to make all
offices charges or trusts, instead of private property or estates.
Under feudalism all the great offices of the state and many of the
charges at court were hereditary, and could be claimed, held, and
exercised as rights, unless forfeited by treason or misprision of
treason against the liege lord. It was so in France down to the
revolution of 1789, and is still so in England in relation to several
charges at court, and to the House of Peers. The feudal crown is an
estate, and transmissible in principle, and usually in fact, as any
other estate.

Since the fifteenth century this feudal system has been attacked,
throughout the greater part of Europe, with more or less success. It
received heavy blows from Louis XI. in France, Ferdinand and Isabella
in Spain, Henry VII. in England, and Maximilian I. in Germany. The
tendency in this direction was resisted by the Protestant princes in
Germany, leagued against the emperor, the Huguenot nobles and the
Fronde in France, and by the whig nobility in England, because while
it {219} strengthened the people as against the crown, it equally
strengthened the crown against the nobility. The British reformers
to-day, under the lead of John Bright, are following out this European
tendency, and if successful, will abolish the House of Peers,
establish civil and political equality, but at the same time will
increase the power of the crown, and establish Roman imperialism,
which the Stuarts failed to do, because they sought to retain and
strengthen the feudal monarchy while they crushed the feudal
aristocracy.

But for the king or emperor to represent the nation and govern by its
sovereign authority, it is necessary that the nation should become a
state, or body politic, which it was not under feudalism. Europe under
feudalism was divided among independent and subordinate chiefs, but
not into sovereign independent nations. There were estates but no
states, and the same proprietor might hold, and often did hold,
estates in different nations, and in nations even remote from one
another, and neither power nor obedience depended on national
boundaries or national territory. There was loyalty to the chief, but
none to the nation, or to the king or emperor as representing the
national majesty or sovereignty. Hence the tendency to Roman
imperialism became also a tendency to nationality. Both king and
people conspired together to bring into national unity, and under the
imperial authority of the crown, all the fiefs, whoever the suzerain
or liege lord, and all the small principalities that by territorial
position, tradition, language, the common origin, or institutions of
the inhabitants, belonged really to one and the same nation.

The first of the continental powers to effect this national unity was
France, consisting of the former Gallic provinces of the Roman empire,
except a portion of the Gallia Germana now held by Belgium, Holland,
and the Germanic governments on the left bank of the Rhine. The
natural boundaries of France are those of the ancient Keltica of the
Greeks, extending from the Alps to the Atlantic ocean, and from the
Mediterranean sea to the English channel and the Rhine. France has not
yet recovered and united the whole of her national territory, and
probably will never be perfectly contented till she has done it. But
after centuries of struggle, from Philip Augustus to Louis XIV., she
effected internally national unity which gave her immense advantages
over Italy and Germany, which remained divided, and which at times has
given her even the hegemony of Europe.

The defeat of the first Napoleon, the restoration of the Bourbons, and
the treaties of Vienna in 1815, arrested, and were designed to arrest,
this tendency of modern European society under all its aspects, and
hence satisfied nobody. They prevented the free development and play
of the tendency to national unity and independence, re-established
aristocracy, and restrained the tendency to equality, and reasserted
monarchy as an estate held by the grace of God and inviolable and
indefeasible, instead of the representative monarchy, which holds from
the nation, and is responsible to it. Those treaties grouped people
together without any regard to their territorial relations, natural
affinities, traditions, or interests, without the slightest reference
to the welfare of the different populations, and with sole reference
to the interests of sovereigns, and the need felt of restricting or
guarding against the power of France. A blinder, a less philosophical,
or a more ignorant set of statesmen than those who framed these
treaties, it is difficult to conceive. The poor men took no note of
the changes which had been produced during four or five hundred years
of social elaboration, and supposed that they were still in full
mediaeval feudalism, when people and territory could be transferred
from one suzerain or one liege lord to another, without offending any
political principle or any sentiment of {220} nationality. Of all
legislators in the world, reactionists suddenly victorious, and not
yet wholly recovered from their fright, are the worst, for they act
from passion, not reason or judgment.

From the moment these treaties were published a social and political
agitation began in nearly all the states of Europe. Conspiracies were
everywhere, and the revolutionary spirit threatened every state and
empire, and no government could stand save as upheld by armed force.
Bold attempts at revolution were early made in Naples and Spain, which
were defeated only by foreign intervention. Hardly a state was strong
enough in the affections of its people to maintain order without the
repressive weight of the Holy Alliance, invented by Madame Krudener,
and effected by the Emperor Alexander and Prince Metternich. Austria
dominated in the Italian peninsula, France in the Spanish, and Russia
in Poland and Germany; Great Britain used all her power and influence
to prevent the emancipation of the Christian populations of the East,
and to uphold the tottering empire of the Turks. The Holy Father was
at once protected and oppressed by the allied powers, especially by
Austria; the people everywhere became alienated from both church and
state, and serious-minded men, not easily alarmed, trembled with fear
that European society might be on the eve of a return to barbarism and
oriental despotism.

Matters grew worse and worse till there came the explosions of 1830,
driving out of France the elder branch of the Bourbons, detaching
Belgium from Holland, and causing the final extinction of the old and
once powerful kingdom of Poland, followed by revolutions more or less
successful in Spain and Portugal. Force soon triumphed for the moment,
but still Europe, to use the figure so hackneyed at the time, was a
smouldering volcano, till the fearful eruptions of 1848 struck
well-nigh aghast the whole civilized world, and conservatives thought
that the day for social order and regular authority had passed away,
never to return. Anarchy seemed fixed in France, the imperial family
in Austria fled to Innspruck, and the Hungarians in revolt, forming a
league with the rebellions citizens of Vienna and the Italian
revolution, brought the empire almost to its last gasp; the king of
Prussia was imprisoned in his palace by the mob, and nearly every
petty German prince was obliged to compromise with the revolutionists.
All Italy was in commotion; the Holy Father was forced to seek refuge
at Gaeta, and the infamous Mazzinian republic, with the filibuster
Garibaldi as its general and hero, was installed in the Eternal City.
Such had been the result of the repressive policy of the Holy
Alliance, when Louis Napoleon was elected president of the French
republic.

It is true, in 1849 the revolution was suppressed, and power
reinstated in its rights in Rome, Naples, Tuscany, the Austrian
dominions, Prussia, and the several German states; but everybody felt
that it was only for a moment, for none of the causes of uneasiness or
dissatisfaction were removed. The whole of Europe was covered over
with secret societies, working in the dark, beyond the reach of the
most powerful and sharp-sighted governments, and there was danger
every day of a new outbreak, perhaps still more violent, and equally
impotent to settle European society on a solid and permanent
foundation, because the revolution was, save on its destructive side,
as little in accord with its tendencies and aspirations as the Holy
Alliance itself.

The cause of all this uneasiness, of this universal agitation, was not
in the tyranny, despotism, or opposition of the governments, or in
their disregard of the welfare of the people more hostility to them;
for never in the whole history of Europe were the governments of
France, Italy, Germany, and {221} Austria less despotic, less
arbitrary, less respectful of the rights of person and property, less
oppressive, indeed more intelligent, or more disposed to consult the
welfare of the people--the French, Prussian, and Austrian systems of
universal popular education proves it--than during the period from
1815 to 1848; and never in so brief a period has so much been done for
the relief and elevation of the poorer and more numerous classes. The
only acts of government that were or could be complained of were acts
of repression, preventative or punitive, rendered necessary by the
chronic conspiracy, and perfectly justifiable, if the government would
protect itself, or preserve its own existence, and which, in fact,
were not more arbitrary or oppressive than the acts performed in this
country during the late rebellion, by both the general government and
the confederate government, or than those practiced for centuries by
the British government in Ireland. Nor was it owing entirely or
chiefly to the native perversity of the human heart, to the impatience
of restraint and subordination of the people, who were said to demand
unbounded license, and determined to submit to no regular authority.
Individuals may love licence and hate authority, but the people love
order, and are naturally disposed to obedience, and are usually far
more ready to submit to even grievous wrongs then to make an effort to
right them.

The cause in France was not that the Bourbons of either branch were
bad or unwise rulers, but that they retained too many feudal
traditions, claimant the throne as a personal estate, and, moreover,
were forced upon the nation by foreign bayonets, not restored by the
free, independent will of the nation itself. Their government, however
able, enlightened, and even advantageous to France, was not national;
and while submitting to it, the new France that had grown up since
1789 could not feel herself an independent nation. It is probable that
there is less freedom for Frenchmen in thought and speech under the
present régime than there was under the Restoration or even the King
of the Barricades and his parliament; but it is national, accepted by
the free will of the nation, and, moreover, obliterates all traces of
the old feudal distinctions and privileges of caste or class, and
establishes, under the emperor, democratic equality. Individuals may
be disaffected, some regretting lost privileges and distinctions, and
others wishing the democracy without the emperor; but upon the whole
the great body of the people are contented with it, and any attempt at
a new revolution would prove a miserable failure. The secret societies
may still exist, but they are not sustained by popular sympathy, and
are now comparatively powerless. The socialistic theories and
movements, Saint Simonism, Fourierism, Cabetism, and the like, fall
into disrepute, not because suppressed by the police, but because
there is no longer that general dissatisfaction with the social order
that exists which originated them, and because the empire is in
harmony with the tendencies of modern European society.

In Italy the cause was neither hatred of authority nor hostility to
the church or her supreme pontiff, but the craving of the people, or
the influential and controlling part of them, for national unity and
independence. In feudal times, when France was parcelled out among
feudatories, many of whom were more powerful than the king, their
nominal suzerain; when Spain was held in great part by the Moors, and
the rest of her territory was divided into three or four mutually
independent kingdoms; when England was subject to the great vassals of
the crown, rather than to the crown itself; when Germany was divided
into some three hundred principalities and free cities, loosely united
only under an elective emperor, with little effective power, and often
a cause of division rather than a bond of union between them; {222}
and when the pope, the most Italian of all the Italian sovereigns, was
suzerain of a large part of Italy, and of nearly all Europe, except
France, Germany, and the Eastern empire, the division of the peninsula
into some half a dozen or more mutually independent republics,
principalities, or kingdoms, did not deprive Italy of the rank of a
great power in Europe, or prevent her from exercising often even a
controlling influence in European politics, and therefore was not felt
to be an evil. But when France, Spain, Austria, and Great Britain
became great centralized states, and when in Switzerland, Holland, the
British Isles, Scandinavia, and North Germany the rise of
Protestantism had weakened the political influence of the pope, these
divisions reduced Italy, which had been the foster-mother of modern
civilization, and the leader of the modern nations in the arts of war
and peace, in commerce and industry, in national and international
law, in literature, science, architecture, music, painting, and
sculpture, to a mere geographical expression, or to complete political
nullity, and could not but offend the just pride of the nation. The
treaties of 1815 had, besides, given over the fairest portion of the
territory of the peninsula to Austria, and enabled her, by her weight
as a great power, to dominate over the rest. The grand duke of Tuscany
was an Austrian archduke, the king of the Two Sicilies, and even the
pope as temporal prince, were little less, in fact, than vassals of
the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine.

Italy felt that she was not herself, and that she could be herself and
belong to herself, own herself, as our slaves used to say before they
were emancipated, only by expelling Austria and her agents from
Italian territory, and uniting the whole peninsula in a single state,
unitarian or federative, under a single supreme national government.
For this Italian patriotism everywhere sighed, agitated, conspired,
rebelled, struggled, was arrested, shot, hung, imprisoned, exiled, and
filled the world with its complaints, the story of its wrongs and
sufferings. It was not that Italy was badly governed, but that she was
not governed by herself, was governed by foreigners, or at least by
governors who would not, or could not, secure her national unity and
independence, without which she could not become the great European
power that she aspired to be, and felt herself capable of being. The
Fenians do not agitate and arm against England so much because her
government in Ireland is now--whenever it may have been formerly--
tyrannical and oppressive, as because it is not national, is not
Irish, and offends the Irish sense of nationality, far stronger now
than in the time of Strongbow or that of the confederate chieftains.
Through the armed intervention of Napoleon III. in 1859, and the
recent alliance with Prussia against Austria, Italy has no got what
she agitated for, national unity and independence, though at the
expense of great injustice to the dispossessed sovereigns, and is free
to become a great European power, if she has it in her, and her
chronic conspiracy is ended. She has obtained all that she was
conspiring for, and is satisfied: she has gained possession of
herself, and is free herself to be all that she is capable of being.

The Germans, also, were uneasy, discontented, and conspiring for the
same reason. The Bund was a mockery, formed in the interest of the
sovereigns, without regard to the people or the national sentiment,
and in practice has tended far more to divide and weaken, than to
unite and strength the German nation, both on the side of France and
on that of Russia. Germany, in consequence of the changes effected in
other nations, was, like Italy, reduced to a geographical expression.
Austria in the south was a great power, Prussia counted for something
in the north, but Germany was a political nullity. The Germans aspired
to national unity, and attempted {223} to obtain it in 1848 by the
reconstruction, with many wise modifications, of the old Germanic
empire, suppressed by Napoleon I. in 1806, but were defeated by the
mutual jealousies of Prussia and Austria, the withdrawal of the
Austrian delegates from the Diet, and the refusal of the King of
Prussia to accept the imperial crown offered him by the Diet, after
the withdrawal of Austria. What failed to be legally and peaceably
effected 1848 and 1849, has been virtually effected by Prussia in this
year of grace, 1866, after a fortnight's sharp and fierce war, not
because of her greatly overrated needle-gun, but because Prussia is
more thoroughly German than Austria, and better represents the
national sentiment.

The success of Prussia must be regards, I think, not only as breaking
up the old confederation, and expelling Austria from Germany, but as
really defecting German unity, or the union of all Germany in a single
state. The states north of the Main, not as yet formally annexed to
Prussia, and those so of that line, as yet free to form a southern
confederation, will soon, perhaps, with the seven or eight millions of
Germans still under Austrian rule, in all likelihood be absorbed by
her, and formed into a single military state with her, and transform
her from Prussia into Germany. It is most likely only a question of
time, as it is only a logical sequence of what has already been
effected. Austria ceases to be a German power, and must seek
indemnification by developing, as Hungary rather than as Austria,
eastward, and gradually absorbing Roumania, Herzegovina, Bosnia,
Servia, and Bulgaria, and placing herself as an impassable barrier to
the advance of Russia southward in Europe. This she may do, if wise
enough to give up Germany, and to avail herself of the vast resources
she still possesses; for in this she would probably be aided by Great
Britain, France, and Italy--all deeply interested in preventing Russia
from planting herself in Constantinople, and gaining the empire of the
world. Turkey must fall, must die, and European equilibrium requires a
new and powerful Eastern state, if the whole of Europe is not to
become Cossack.

The independence and unity of Italy, and the union of Germany in a
single state, had become political necessities, and both must be
effected as the means of putting an end to what European writers call
"the Revolution," and giving internal peace to European society. No
doubt they have not been thus far effected without great violence to
vested rights; but necessity knows no law, or is itself law, and
nations never have been and never can be arrested in their purposes by
vested rights, however sacred religion and morality teach us to hold
them. National and popular passions can be controlled by no
considerations of right or wrong. They sweep onward and away whatever
would stay their progress. If the possessors of vested rights opposed
to national union, independence, or development, consent to part with
them at a just ransom, the nation is ready to indemnify them
liberally; but if they will not consent, it will take them all the
same, and without scruple.

I say not that this is right; I pretend not to justify it; I only
state what all experience proves that nations do and will continue to
do in spite of religion and morality. Ahab was willing to pay a round
price for Naboth's vineyard, but when Naboth refused to sell it at any
price, Ahab took it for nothing. But these political changes, regarded
as accomplished and irrevocable facts, and setting aside the means
adopted to effect them, and the vested rights violated in obtaining
them, are not morally wrong, and are in no sense threatening to the
future peace and progress of European society, but seem to be the only
practicable means that were left of preventing it from lapsing into
certain barbarism. They seem to me to have been needed to render the
{224} European governments henceforth able to sustain themselves by
the affections and good sense of the people, without being obliged to
keep themselves armed to the teeth against them. International wars
will, no doubt, continue as long as the world stands, but wars of the
people against authority, or of subjects against their rulers, may now
cease for a long time to come, at least in the greater part of Europe.
The feudal system is everywhere either swept away, or so weakened as
to be no longer able to make a serious struggle for existence; and
save Ireland, Poland, and the Christian populations of the East, the
European nations are formed, and are in possession of their national
unity and independence. The people have reached what for ages they
have been tending to, and are in possession of what, in substance,
they have so long been agitating for. The new political order is
fairly inaugurated, and the people have obtained their legitimate
satisfaction. Whether they will be wiser or better, happier or more
really prosperous, under the new order than they were under the old,
we must leave to time to prove. Old men, like the writer of this, who
have lived too long and seen too much to regard every change as a
progress, may be permitted to retain their doubts. But changes which
in themselves are not for the better, are relatively so when rendered
necessary by other and previous changes.

The English and American press very generally assert that the Emperor
of the French is much vexed at the turn things have taken in Germany,
that he is disappointed in his expectations, and defeated in his
European policy. I do not think so. The French policy since the time
of Francis I. has been, indeed, to prevent the concentration and
growth of any great power on the frontiers of France; as the papal
policy ever since the popes were temporal sovereigns, according to
Tosti in his Life and Times of Boniface VIII., has been to prevent the
establishment of any great power in the immediate neighborhood of
Rome. That this French policy and this papal are defeated by the turn
things have taken is no doubt true, but what evidence is there that
this is a defeat of Napoleon's policy, or is anything else than that
he both expected and intended? When he entered on his Italian campaign
against Austria in 1859, he showed clearly that he did not intend to
sustain the Papal policy, for his purpose was the unity no less than
the independence of Italy. He showed, also, no less clearly, that
while he retained traditional French policy of humbling the house of
Hapsburg, he did not intend in other respects to sustain that policy;
for he must have foreseen, as the writer of this, in another place,
told him at the time, that the unity of Italy would involve as its
logical and necessary sequence the the unity of Germany. We can
suppose him disappointed only by supposing he entertained a policy
which he appears to have deliberately made up his mind to abandon, or
not to adopt.

After the Italian campaign, and perhaps before, the unity of Germany
was a foregone conclusion, and if effected it must be either under
Austria or under Prussia. Napoleon had only to choose which it should
be. And it was manifestly for the interest of France that it should be
under Prussia, an almost exclusively German power, rather than under
Austria, whose non-Germanic population was three times greater than
her Germanic population. If the unity of Germany had been effected
under Austria with her non-Germanic provinces, Germany would have
constituted in central Europe a power of nearly seventy millions of
people, absolutely incompatible with the European equilibrium; but if
effected under Prussia, it would constitute a state of only about
forty millions, not a power so large as to be dangerous to France or
to the peace of Europe. France has nothing to fear from a Prussian
Germany, for she is amply able to cope with her, and the first war
between the two powers would restore to France her natural {225}
boundaries, by giving her all the territory on the left bank of the
Rhine, and thus make her commensurate with the ancient Keltica.

France is too strong in her unity, compactness, and extent, as well as
in the high spirit and military genius of her people, to think of
precautions against Germany. The power for her to guard against is
Russia, embracing a rapidly increasing population of upward of seventy
millions, and possessing one-seventh of the territory of the globe.
She has no other power to fear, since Austria is separated from
Germany. Prussia, capable of becoming a great maritime power, and
embracing all Germany, not only rescues the smaller German states from
Russian influence and intrigue, but becomes an efficient ally of
France, in the west, against Russia, and far more efficient and
trustworthy an ally than Great Britain, because a continental power,
and more exposed to danger from the common enemy. While Prussia
becomes a powerful ally in the west, Austria, by being detached from
Germany, and too weak to stand without alliances, becomes a French
ally in the east; and the more ready to be so, because the majority of
her future population is and must be of the Slavic race.

Napoleon's policy, it seems to me, has been first, to drive Austria
out of Italy and detach her from Germany, for the security of France;
and then to organize pan-Germanism against pan-Slavism in the West,
and an Austrian, or rather, Slavic or Hungarian Empire, embracing the
Magyars and Roumans, against pan-Slavism in the East. With these two
great powers, having as against Russia a common interest with France,
the Emperor of the French, the ally and protector of the Latin
nations, will be able to settle the terrible Eastern question without
suffering Russia to receive an undue accession of territory or power,
and also without the scandal of sustaining, in order to please Great
Britain and save her Indian possessions, the rotten empire of the
Turks, and preventing the Christian nations it holds, through the aid
of the western Christian powers, in subjection, from working out their
freedom and independence, rising to national dignity and influence.

Such, briefly stated, has been, I think, substantially the policy of
Napoleon, since he became Emperor of the French; and the recent events
in Italy and Germany so strikingly accord with it, that one cannot
help believing that they have been dictated by it. It seems designed
to give measurable satisfaction to the principal nationalities of
Europe, as it secures undisputed preponderance to no one, and
humiliates no one over much. It may, therefore, be said to be a policy
of peace. It is a policy, if carried out in all its parts, that would
enable France, Prussia, Italy, Austria, to isolate Russia, and at need
Great Britain, from Europe; but it robs neither of any of its
territory or inherent strength, and is hostile to neither, unless one
or the other would encroach on the rights of others.

Will this policy be carried out and consolidated I know not. It is
substantially in accordance with the tendencies of modern European
society; the most difficult parts of it have already been effected,
and we have seen no movement on the part of either Russia or Great
Britain to assist Austria to prevent it. Napoleon had succeeded in
isolating Austria from Europe, and almost from Germany, before he
commenced his Italian campaign in 1859. Should Napoleon die suddenly,
should Russia or Great Britain interpose to prevent Austria from
expanding eastward before she has recovered from her losses in being
expelled from Italy and Germany, and should France, Germany, and Italy
refuse to act as her allies, or should she herself look to the
recovery of what she has lost, rather than to the development of what
she retains or has in prospect, the policy might fail; but these are
all improbable contingencies, except the first; yet even Napoleon's
death would not seriously {226} affect the unity and independence of
Italy, or the unity of Germany, as much as the South Germans dislike
the Prussians. This age worships strength and success.

The most doubtful part of this Napoleonic policy is the part assigned
to Austria in the future; and the part the most offensive to the
Catholic heart, is that which strips the Holy Father of his temporal
dominions, annexes them to the kingdom of Italy, and leaves him to the
tender mercy of his despoilers. The Holy Father, sustained by the
general voice of the episcopacy, has said the maintenance of the
temporal sovereignty is _necessary_ to the interests of religion; but
he said this when there was still hope that it might be retained, and
he, of course, did not mean that it is _absolutely_ necessary at all
times and under all circumstances; because that would have made the
principal depend on the accessory, and the spiritual on the temporal.
Moreover, religion had existed and flourished several centuries before
the popes were temporal sovereigns, and what has been may be again.
Circumstances have changed since the Holy Father said this, and it is
not certain that, as it is not a Catholic dogma, he would insist on it
now.

Of course the change is to be deeply deplored, especially for those
who have effected it; but is there any possibility, humanly speaking,
of re-establishing the Holy Father in his temporal rights? I confess I
can see none. It is a great loss, but perhaps some arrangement may be
entered into with the new Italian power, which, after all, will enable
the Holy Father still to reside at Rome, and exercise independently
his functions as the spiritual chief of Christendom. Italy has more
need of the pope then the pope has of Italy, and Victor Emmanuel, at
worst, cannot be worse than were the Pagan and Arian Caesars. No
Catholic can ever despair of the church. At present the temporal, to
all human ken, seems to have triumphed over the spiritual, and
politics to have carried it over religion. Yet the triumph cannot be
lasting, and in some way the victory won will prove to have been a
defeat. God will never forsake his church, his beloved, his bride, his
beautiful one, and the Lord will not suffer Peter to sink when he
walks upon the waters. Peter's bark may be violently tossed on the
waves, but the very independence of the church prevents us from
fearing that it will be submerged. In what way the future of the
papacy will be provided for, it is not for us to determine or to
suggest. We cheerfully confide in the wisdom of the Holy Father,
assisted as he will be by the Holy Ghost.

--------

{227}


From The Sixpenny Magazine.

THE SUMMER DAYS ARE GONE.

  The flowers that made the summer air
    So fragrant with their rich perfume,
  Alas! are gone, their leaves so fair
    Lie faded in their autumn tomb.

  The branches now are almost bare,
    Where summer song-birds made their homes;
  Where trees are green, where flowers are fair,
    Once more the happy birds have flown.

  To distant lands o'er sunny seas
    The songsters bright have taken wing.
  To warble on that warmer breeze
    The notes they sang to us in spring.

  Her autumn robe of red and brown
    Once more the gliding year puts on,
  And yonder sun looks colder down
    Since the bright summer days are gone.

  The stars, the glory of the night,
    Look on us still with silvery eye--
  Shine on us still as clear and bright.
    But not from out the summer sky.

  The chilly breezes of the north
    Tell us it is no longer spring,
  And winter's hand is reaching forth
    To wither every verdant thing.

  So even like the birds the flowers.
    When dearest things of life have flown.
  Then in the heart's deserted bowers
    The naked branches stand alone.

  Oh, then, alas! no breath of spring
    Can breathe the living verdure on.
  No sun will shine, no birds will sing--
    For ever is the summer gone.

  But when the heart beats high and warm.
    And kindred hearts its throbbing share.
  It heeds not winter's clouds nor storm,
    But summer tarries always there.

--------

{228}

From The Lamp.

UNCONVICTED; OR, OLD THORNELEY'S HEIRS.



CHAPTER XII.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.


The tidings that Old Thorneley's missing will was found fell like a
thunderbolt upon Wilmot and his lawyers, Smith and Walker; and their
genuine astonishment was a matter of equal surprise to me. In my own
mind I had felt convinced that Lister Wilmot had had a hand in the
suppression of that will; and if I hardly dared in my heart to believe
him guilty of, although suspecting him at least of complicity in, the
death of his uncle, I never doubted but that he knew of the existence
of this last testament, and knowing it, had destroyed it. In my own
mind I had, during many hours of solitary reflection, of the most
scrutinizing study of every fact and circumstance connected with all
these past events, arrived at a conclusion that some unknown link
united Maria Haag and Lister Wilmot together, and that the double
mystery of the murder and the lost will lay buried secret in their
hearts. But there was no mistaking the undisguised and overwhelming
amazement with which he received the communication of Merrivale and
myself. We made it in person to him before Smith and Walker; and I can
only say that his manner of receiving it exonerated him at once in my
eyes from suspicion of his having had anything to do with the theft or
concealment of that will.

Of course on either side legal proceedings were commenced: Merrivale
on the part of Hugh Atherton undertaking to prove the genuineness of
the recovered document; Smith and Walker for Lister Wilmot endeavoring
to repudiate it. In less than a week they were all "hard at it."
Meanwhile, the will, as stolen property found by the police, was
lodged with them; meanwhile, Inspector Keene had once more
disappeared, and this time we all knew that the purport of his absence
was the apprehension of Mrs. Haag; meanwhile, the heir to all this
mine of disputed wealth played with his childish toys, laughed his
crazy laugh, and jabbered his idiot nonsense, without the ray of
intelligence crossing his for witless brain; meanwhile, Hugh Atherton
roamed far over the broad treacherous ocean--an exile and a wanderer,
the victim of a cruel and shameless plot--ignorant of the brave
loving heart that was following him so near, all of the tender eyes,
the faithful hand, that would bid him welcome on that foreign shore.

Unwilling as I was to leave London just then, where my presence was at
any moment necessary, the affairs of one of my best and oldest clients
summoned me to Liverpool for a couple of days, and I took a
return-ticket thither from the Saturday to the Monday after that last
memorable visit from Inspector Keene. Who shall ever dare to doubt the
special Providence ordering and overruling every event, every
circumstance of our lives, however trivial and unimportant they may
seen at the moment of their occurrence? That journey of mine, which
outwardly had not the smallest bearing or reference to the story I am
telling, was in reality the beginning of the end.

Travelling by an early training, I arrived in Liverpool about three
o'clock. After engaging a bed at a hotel near the station, and
refreshing my inner man, I set off immediately on the business {229}
which had brought me thither. This lay asked some of the great
shipping offices in Tower Buildings, close to the docks. Coming out of
one, I noticed a man following me. Suddenly my arm was touched, and
looking round I saw Inspector Keene.

"God bless me! Who'd have thought of seeing you here?"

"And who'd have thought of seeing you, sir? I don't suppose you ever
expected it would be so, Mr. Kavanagh, but you and I have hunted the
fox together, and now you and I will be in at the death."

"You mean to say you have traced the housekeeper?"

"That's just precisely what I do mean, sir."

"Where is she?"

"Not a stone's throw from here."

"And you have her in charge?"

"Not yet, sir, not yet. I have but just obtained a warrant for her
apprehension from the sitting magistrate, and I am on my way now to
announce the agreeable tidings to her."

"Had you trouble in tracking her?"

"An awful deal, sir. She was all but gone; her passage taken to
America, and the vessel is to sail to-night. The news of my finding
the will must have reached led her in Lincolnshire, for I've followed
her across the country here; and then I lost sight of her, and only
found her trail this morning. But she's safe now; the house is watched
on all sides. Strange enough, sir," said the inspector, lowering his
voice, "there's been another after her too."

"Another man?"

"Yes, sir. I've caught sight of him from time to time, dodging and
watching and following her as cute and as silently as any of _us_; and
if his name isn't Bradley, well, mine isn't Keene, and I'm not one of
her majesty's detective officers."

"Shall I go with you, Keene?"

"Do, sir; it may be like a satisfaction to you to see the end of it."

We turned into a by-street, narrow, ill-paved, and dark, where the
houses were high and overhanging, and fashioned like those in little
obscure foreign towns, that nearly meet overhead. Before the door of
one a policeman stood, apparently engaged only in his ordinary duty of
looking up and down the street; but from a glance of intelligence that
passed between them I knew he was on special service--the special
service being to watch that identical house. The door opened by a
simple latch, and the inspector's hand was on it, when the policeman
stepped back, and whispered to him. Keene paused for a moment, and
then turned to me. "_He_ is in there;" and I knew he meant the man who
was likewise following Mrs. Haag--the man Bradley.

"Follow us," said the detective to the officer on duty; and opening
the door, we passed down a narrow dark passage and proceeded up the
stairs, quietly, stealthily. We had gained the first landing, and
Inspector Keene's foot was on the stair to ascend the second flight,
when a loud, piercing cry broke upon the stillness--the cry of agony.
In a moment we had cleared the stairs and stood before a door on the
left. Keene turned the handle. _It was fastened from inside_.

He shook it with a strength I had not thought he possessed, and
demanded admission. There was no answer. Again it rattled on its
hinges, and I thought it would be too weak to resist my strength.
"Give way, Keene!" I cried; "I can break it in;" and retreating to the
further end of the landing, I ran and brought my whole weight to bear
against it. Useless! _Another weight_ was strengthening it on the
inside. And then a shriek yet more piercing, more agonized than before
rang through the house, and footsteps were heard from below and above
of people hurrying to the spot. We once more strained at the door. O
God! would it never give way? I turned to the policeman. "You ought to
be powerful; let us both run together." I felt a giant's strength
within me; and as our feet crashed against the wood it bunt open,
{230} and we were precipitated into the room, almost falling over the
body of Mrs. Haag, prostrate on the ground, weltering in a great pool
of blood. A large clasp-knife lay beside her, red up to the very hilt;
and by the window, with his arms folded, stood a man of large, heavy
build, with dark gipsy features and lowering brow--a man who in the
prime of youth might have been of comely form and handsome
countenance, but who now, with the wear of more than fifty years'
familiarity with crime and evil, bore more indelibly printed in his
face the felon and the convict than ever the mark branded, but hidden,
upon his shoulder could betray. With one glance at the miserable woman
lying on the floor, the inspector sprang toward the man, who stood
motionless, and staring at the body of his victim, and laying his hand
on his arm he said, "Robert Bradley, I arrest you for this attempt to
murder your wife, and for unlawful escape from penal servitude." No
expression crossed the man's face--only the same dull, stony gaze.

"Do you hear?" said Keene, giving him a little shake; "and say nothing
to criminate yourself now." There was no answer. "Policemen, do your
duty:" and two advanced from the crowd now gathered in the room and on
the stairs. They slipped the handcuffs on his unresisting hands, and
then proceeded to lead him away. Meanwhile I had knelt down beside the
unfortunate woman, and was feeling her heart and pulse. She still
lived. "Send for a surgeon instantly," I cried; and a dozen of the
lookers-on instantly scampered off to do my bidding. Then, with one
cry of anguish, the prisoner burst from his captors and flung himself
down beside the woman he had murdered. He raised his manacled hands,
and tried to draw her head toward him and pillow it on his breast.

"O Molly, Molly, I've killed thee; I've killed thee!" There was a
faint moan. "She's my wife, gentlemen; before God, she's my wife. I
wanted her to come away with me and let us hide together, for we've
both done bad enough; but she wouldn't--she bade me begone: she spoke
so harshly, she looked so cruelly with her cold eyes--and I was mad,
mad--and I struck her. Molly, Molly!"

With difficulty he was torn away, dragged out of the room and borne
off by the police; then we lifted the almost lifeless body of his wife
and laid her on the bed. How far she had been injured I knew not as
yet; but something within seemed to tell me she had received her
death-wound. I said as much to Inspector Keene when the room was
cleared a little from the crowd, and he, I, and one or to women, who
said they lived in the house, only remained. In less then a quarter of
an hour two surgeons were on the spot, and we left them with the woman
to make the necessary examination.

"This is indeed being 'in at the death,'" I said to the inspector as
we stood outside.

"Yes, sir; yes. And I have been a consummate fool not to have foreseen
what would happen." I saw he was looking unusually pale and agitated.

"How could you help it?" I asked.

"I ought to have given orders not to have allowed _him_ to go into the
house. I made over-sure of all being right."

"Depend upon it, Keene," I replied, "neither you nor any one else
could have warded off what was _to be_. Another and a mightier hand
than any human one has been in this. We may not question God's
providence."

The inspector was silent. He could not get over it.

"If the worst comes to the worst," I said, "we must be ready to have
her confession taken down. Surely she will speak at the last."

"Not if I judge her rightly, sir; she will make no sign now."

"Nay, I trust she will. If what we guess at is true, it is too
terrible to think she will die with that upon her soul."

{231}

"She is a Catholic, sir, I believe; she'll tell her priest, but what
use is that to us?"

"If she does _that_, there will be no fear."

Keene shook his head despairingly. "I never made such a mull in my
life before."

Just then one of the surgeons came out. We both eagerly turned to him
with the same question: "Will she die?"

"Who can tell? While there is life there is hope. The wounds are very
dangerous ones. There is little chance for her; still there _is_ a
chance. I am going now for instruments and dressings to my house close
by. She ought to be in the hospital, but we dare not remove her. The
sole hope is in staunching the bleeding; it has stopped for the
moment, but the least motion will cause it to break out afresh. Who
knows anything of her? who is responsible in the matter? We have heard
no particulars as yet."

Keene explained in a few words all that was necessary.

"Can you tell me where to find the nearest Catholic priest?" I asked
him as he went away.

"In the next street to this there is a small chapel. I know the priest
attached, and excellent man, though he is a papist. Pardon me; perhaps
you are the Catholic?"

For the hot blood had rushed to my brow involuntarily, not for the
man's words, but at the grave thoughts which passed through my
mind--the hope,  the fear of what those ministrations I was going to
seek would do for the wretched woman lying in that room.

"I am a Catholic," I said briefly; "but say anything you like, I don't
mind. I'll come out with you, and you'll show me the way to find this
priest."

I found and brought him--Father Maurice. He was a man who had grown
old and grey in the care of souls, who had stood by many a death-bed,
had been called to witness the penitence of many a dying sinner; never
had his services been more needed than now. On our road I briefly
related to him the circumstances, and all I knew of the poor creature
to whose side he was hastening.

When we arrived, they told us she had been conscious for a few
moments, but was now again insensible; that during that lucid interval
she had murmured a name which sounded like Wilmot. "Send for Mr.
Wilmot," the doctor had understood her to say. Keene and I looked at
each other.

"Telegraph for him," I said.

"Would he come, sir, do you think?"

"Telegraph in Mrs. Haag's name. Simply say, 'Danger; come
immediately.' That may bring him. He will get it in time to catch the
night-mail."

Keene departed.

The room opposite the one where the injured woman lay was vacant, and
I took possession of it, knowing that the inspector would station
himself on the spot. Presently the two surgeons came in, and conferred
together for some minutes in low tones. Then they turned to me and to
the priest, who waited there likewise.

"We have probed and dressed the wounds, but she lies perfectly
unconscious at present; two nursing sisters from the hospital have
been sent for to take charge of her, and it will be necessary for one
of us to remain here during the night. There is just a hope and no
more. What we have most to fear is internal haemorrhage. She may
probably linger out the night, or even a day or two, in the event of
no favorable change taking place. But her state is most critical."

"I shall go home and make arrangements for remaining here during the
evening and night, if it is necessary," said Father Maurice in his
quiet, determined way.

I expressed my thanks.

"There is no need," he said; "if all is well in the end, I shall have
my reward."

{232}

When Inspector Keene returned he told me he had dated the telegram
from my hotel, and that it would be best for me to return there by and
by, and await the arrival of the night train. It was then between six
and seven o'clock.

How that long evening passed I know not. There we sat, we three
men--Inspector Keene, Father Maurice, and I--saying very little to one
another, and the prevailing silence only broken by the low whispering
sounds of the priest as he said his office, and the hushed footsteps
of the surgeon, who remained coming in and out from time to time.

Oh! would she ever wake from that terrible unconsciousness? would no
power of mind, no strength of body, no grace of soul ever be given her
to unlock all the dark secrets of her heart, to clear the innocent and
proclaim the guilty? Must she go down to her grave without one act of
sorrow, unshrived, uncleansed, without a moment in which to make
reparation for the terrible past, for all that world of shame and
suffering that had fallen so crushingly upon guiltless heads?

It was just upon ten o'clock, and I was preparing to leave for my
hotel, when Mr. Lovell, the surgeon, came in and beckoned to Father
Maurice. They left the room together, and soon the surgeon and the two
nurses came in. The former stooped down and whispered to me, "She
asked to have a priest sent for, and I told her one was here. It
seemed a relief to her. She has not been conscious more than five
minutes."

The inspector looked across at me with an inquiring glance. I think he
had grown suspicious of me, and feared I was conniving at some
concealment about her confession.

"As soon as my _prisoner_" (laying a stress on the word ) "comes to
her senses, sir, I ought to be told. There's something to be got out
of her before she gives us the slip, and I'll have no interference in
the matter." The inspector spoke roughly. I took him aside.

"Keene, if you ever want to get at the bottom of what lies on that
wretched woman's soul, believe me we have taken the best means to
attain that object in allowing her to see Father Maurice."

"But _he_ won't tell what she's said, bless you; I've seen them
imprisoned for it. Not a word, Mr. Kavanagh, not a syllable, sir,
shall _we_ here?"

"Very likely not from him. But _he_ will make _her_ tell."

The inspector stared at me with a cynical smile on his lips.

I continued: "Do you think _I_ have no interest in wishing to probe
that woman's soul, in longing--ay, with a longing you cannot
understand--to know who committed that black crime which has robbed me
of my dearest friend? Man, what is there at stake with you in
comparison with _him_ who has been driven from his fatherland and his
home? What is _your_ little professional vanity to compare with what
_he_ has lost--name, fame, position--everything most dear to him save
one?"

"God bless you, sir, and you're right!" said the little man, wringing
my hand; "and you'll please to excuse me. For hang me but I think I'm
jealous of those priests. They seem to ferret out in one talk what it
costs us detectives days and nights to hunt for, and puts us on our
wits' ends. And one ain't a bit the wiser for it after all; they _do_
keep it snug, to be sure. I'd give much to know their dodge."

"Ah, inspector, it's a 'dodge' neither you nor I possess. But leave
this in God's hands. If there is anything that ought to be made known
publicly, it _will_ be known."

In a quarter of an hour Mr. Lovell went into the sick-room, and soon
after Father Maurice came back to us. It was curious to see the
suspicious glance which Keene cast upon him.

"I have warned her of her state," said the priest. "She seems to wish
to make a statement to some proper person; Mr. Lovell advises that she
should be allowed some rest now. Of course you will judge of what is
best to be done, having the poor woman under your charge;" and he
looked across at the inspector.

{233}

Keene colored up and shuffled his feet. "Of course it's as you and the
other gentlemen think proper, sir," he said; then plucking up his
courage, "There's a deal she's got to tell which _ought_ to be known
in _proper_ quarters, though I know that gents in your profession
ain't fond of letting on what they hear. But I'm responsible in this
instance to government, sir; and I hope you'll remember it."

"Just so," said the priest coolly, but with an amused smile; "and it
is in the presence of lawful authority, or proper witnesses, that she
must make her statement, or, as you would call it, confession."

Inspector Keene was shut up. "Never heard tell of such a thing in all
my life," I heard him mutter to himself; "this one can't be a Roman."

I waited for another report from the surgeon before leaving; and when
he came in he said she had rallied a good deal, and that he thought no
further change for worse would take place during the night; so I left,
desiring that I should be sent for if anything did occur. The mail was
due at half-past three in the morning, and there was all the
probability of Wilmot travelling by it if the telegram had reached him
in time. I determined to sit up and meet the train at the station.

At a little after three I was on the platform, pacing up and down in
the chilly air of the early morning; the stars shone through the
glazed roofing, and the moonlight mingled cold and pale with the
flaring gas. Save a drowsy official here and there, I was alone--alone
waiting for mine enemy. And yet but little of enmity stirred my heart
in that still hour--only pity, deep unutterable pity. I had never
liked Lister Wilmot much, even in old times; and of late--well, what
need to think of it, though his sins had been great? But somehow the
remembrance of past days stole over me--days when he and Hugh and I
had been young; of pleasant hours passed together in social
intercourse, of merry-meetings, and all the joyousness of young men's
lives. Yes, even with the thought of Hugh Atherton before me, I felt
softened toward the wretched man for whom I waited then. Shame,
disgrace, and ignominy were awaiting him, and I was to lead him to it.
After all he was a fellow-man, though he had disgraced his manhood. At
last, with a whistle and a shriek, the train rushed into the station.
I ran my eye along the line of first-class carriages, and presently
saw a slight figure with fair hair alight on the platform. In a moment
I stood before Lister Wilmot, and I never can forget the unearthly
color which overspread his face as his eye fell on me. Had he been
armed, my life had not been worth much in that moment.

"_You_ here!" he hissed between his teeth.

"Yes, Mr. Wilmot; I am here to meet you."

"Then you sent that telegram, curse you!"

"No, not I, but Inspector Keene. Some one is dying, and has need of
you." Perhaps my solemn face revealed something to him of the truth,
for a change passed over his countenance.



"Who is it?" he asked with white, quivering lips.

"Mrs. Haag."

He threw up his arms wildly above his head. "Dying! O my God!" Then,
turning to me, "How was it?" he asked.

I hesitated for a moment in pity. "She met with an accident," I said
at last, not daring to tell him more at once.

"Where is she?"

It never seemed to occur to him that it was strange I should be there;
the one piece of news I had imparted had stunned him with its shock.

{234}

"I will take you to her," I answered, and putting my arm in his, led
him off to a cab in waiting. He never spoke all the while we drove to
the house in Cross street, where the housekeeper lay, and when we got
down suffered me to lead him up-stairs like a child. Inspector Keene
met us at the door.

"I'm thankful you've come, sir; Mr. Lovell sent off a message to the
hotel half an hour ago. The priest is with her."

"How is she?" uttered Wilmot in hollow tones.

Keene answered: "There's been a change; I don't know more. She has
asked again for you," turning to Wilmot.

Mr. Lovell came in.

"Is this the gentleman, Mr. Wilmot?" he asked.

"Yes," I  replied.

"Then whatever she wants to say had better be said now."

Inspector Keene touched me on the arm.

"You must take it down in writing, sir; here's pen, ink, and paper.
You, Mr. Lovell, and I must sign it."

"Yes, yes. I will"

And we entered the room.

The housekeeper's face was turned from us when we came in. One hand
lay outside on the coverlet--that white, well-formed hand, that looked
more like a lady's than a servant's.

At the foot of the bed stood Father Maurice, and a nurse was bending
over the prostrate form and wiping the moisture from the brow. She
must have heard us enter, for she looked round, pale, ghastly, in the
wretched light of the fire and candles. The surgeon went first, then
Inspector Keene, then I and Wilmot. She marked each one as we
approached the bed, eagerly, wistfully. At first Wilmot shrank behind
me, and my tall frame hid him from view. Her lips moved.

"Where is he?" I heard her murmur. "Where is Lister Wilmot?"

The surgeon approached her with a glass.

"You must drink this; it will give you strength to speak."

He lifted her head, and she swallowed it; then turned her face once
more toward us.

"Lister, are you there?"

He stood forward, but did not go near her.

"I am here."

She gave a low moaning cry.

Father Maurice went to her.

"Say what you have to say now, my poor sister, and make your peace
with God."

"Raise me up a little," she said to the surgeon; and they lifted her a
little on the pillow. Then in low broken tones, with many a pause for
strength and breath, with the dews of death standing upon her pallid
brow, with the vision of life and judgment to come nearing her moment
by moment in the presence of us all, Maria Haag made the confession of
her life.





CHAPTER XIII

THE HOUSEKEEPER'S CONFESSION.

"They tell me I am a dying woman; and though I feel as I never felt
before, I can hardly realize it. I never thought to bring myself to
save the words I am going to say, to tell the story I am going to
tell. All my life long I have been a wicked woman. I don't ask your
pity--I do not want it; and if you now feel pitiful, seeing me lie
here, when you have heard all, you will turn from me with loathing and
spurn the miserable creature before you. No, I never thought it would
come to this--that I should wish to tell out the sins of my life. But
I have listened to words this night that I have not heard since the
days of my childhood, from the lips of that good man, and they have
done what nothing else could do. I could fancy myself a child once
more, kneeling at my mother's knee and saying the 'Our Father;'
lisping the prayers I have never dared to teach _my child_. My child!
O God, {235} will he not curse his mother, knowing what she is, and
what she has made him? My child, who will rise up in judgment against
me at the last day, because in loving him I have worked his ruin!
Better he had died, my fair-haired boy, nestling his baby head against
my breast, cooing his baby cry in my ear, than live to be what I have
made him. Better far we both had perished--mother and son--and been
buried in one grave; the angels would not have veiled their faces then
as they veil them now. Life and strength are ebbing fast, fast from
me; and if I want to say all that I have to say--all the crushing load
of guilty knowledge that lies upon my soul--I must hasten on. Lift me
up a little more--it is hard to get breath--and turn my face from the
light, sister. I can bear it better when it is dark. I go back to the
beginning. One is standing there who has a right to know all I have to
tell."

"I am a Belgian by birth, a native of Antwerp. My father was clerk in
the custom-house there, and I was his only child. He and my mother
lavished their love and their all upon me, and I received a very good
education. At seventeen I met Robert Bradley; he was mate on board an
English merchant-vessel. My parents looked down on him, but he loved
me, and soon my heart was bent on him. We ran away together and were
married at Plymouth. I never saw father nor mother nor my native place
again. They died soon after; I broke their hearts. A year after our
marriage my baby was born: it was the first joy unmixed with pain I
had known since I left Antwerp when the boy was placed in my arms; it
was the last I was ever to have. Six months after his birth Robert got
into trouble; trouble that brought him in danger of the law. His
employers dismissed him, and we were fated to quit Plymouth, where I
had lived since our marriage whilst he was at sea. The little savings
Robert had put by were soon gone, like his character, and we had to
tramp, tramp, till we came to London. There he got temporary
employment on the river; but he was changed. He was no longer like the
Robert of old days, the man I had loved and for whom I had forsaken
everything. Poverty pinched us very sorely; but if he had been what he
was when I first knew him I would have minded nothing. But he degraded
me, and I felt he would degrade my child. It was all I cared for
now--my little boy; let him remember that. Oh! let him remember it,
that he was all I loved and cared for! For more than a year we
struggled on through misery untold. Robert drank terribly, and this
vice brought out the coarseness of his nature, the low habits he had
contracted amongst his seafaring associates. At last, when it came to
seeing my boy wanting bread, I could bear it no longer; and one day I
left the wretched hole where we lived, and with the child in my arms
walked away from London. Miles away I wandered beyond the Surrey
hills, with a little money in my pocket and my best and only gown on
my back, lying down to rest in the sweet hay-fields or by the
woodside, for it was summer-time, till at last one early morning I
reached a little village, and sought rest and shelter at a small
farmhouse. I found both, and I likewise found friends--or rather my
child did. He was fair and winning with his baby beauty, and the
mistress of the house took to him, having just lost hers. I stopped
some months, helping her in all her household duties, for I was very
thrifty and handy, and I earned my own bread and the boy's. But his
future troubled me. I wanted money to educate him, to set him forward
in life; and I determined to go into regular service. When my friends
heard of this they offered to take charge of my little one, whom they
loved as if he had been their own. So it happened that when I came
across an advertisement for a married woman to take charge of a city
merchant's house in London and act as housekeeper to him, I answered
it. I referred to the people I lived {236} with and to the clergyman
of the parish, and finally was engaged by Mr. Gilbert Thorneley.
Perhaps the low wages I asked induced him to take me; perhaps having
seen me, his keen shrewdness detected there was a story that was mine,
and so could trade upon it and grind me down. Anyhow I entered his
service in the spring of 1832. Of my husband up to that time I had
heard nothing. I assumed my maiden name, and carefully concealed every
clue to finding either myself or my child. The kind people who had
taken charge of the boy were named Wilmot. He was christened Robert;
but they gave him the name their dead child had borne, and he went by
the name of '_Lister Wilmot_.' I made no objection; it helped to
conceal him from his father."

There was the movement of a violent shiver in the form that stood next
to me, and a low muttered sound; I did not catch the words, but the
dying woman must have heard something, for she paused and half turned
her head, as if listening. Then after a moment she continued her
narration:

"I have no need to describe to you Gilbert Thorneley's character. What
right have I now, with death so close to me, to malign the dead! And
yet I must tell, because it is part of the burden I am laying down,
all the hatred, the contempt I felt for him as I got to know his
meanness, his low cunning, his niggardly ways. The clerks he kept on
miserable salaries, the workmen he employed and ground down to the
uttermost farthing, all knew and told me of the heaps of wealth that
were flowing into his coffers; how sum upon sum accumulated in his
hands; and how his name was a byword and a proverb for a rich and
prosperous man. And one hundredth part of that wealth had bought me
the only joy I ever craved now--union with my child, and security for
his future! I brooded over this in long lonely hours, brooded until I
grew mad, until Satan entered into me, and I turned my face from God.
Just at this time my master was away from home for many weeks. I did
not know where he went, or on what business; but on his return he made
two announcements to me: first, that he had bought a house and estate
in Lincolnshire; and secondly, that he was going to be married. I
replied I supposed he would now no longer want my services. To my
surprise and dismay, he answered me by saying he should require me to
go down to his new house and act there as housekeeper. He added he had
discovered all about me, where my child was, and the whole story of my
husband; that I was now in his power; if I would serve him faithfully
I should never want for money, and that my boy should be forwarded in
life. If I refused, he would make everything known, and put Robert on
my track. I consented to remain in his service, and to do all that he
required.

"I went down shortly into Lincolnshire to the Grange; and there he
brought home his young bride. By this time I had got to know many of
his secrets. I had sold myself to him and he paid me; handsomely
enough for him, considering the miser that he was. His wife was not
happy--how could she be? She was kept shut up in that dismal Grange
from month to month, without a soul to speak to save him or me. He did
not want _her_, he wanted her fortune. That has been told before. To
spy upon her, to watch her, was my office down in those dreary fens;
to walk with her, to attend her in her drives, never to lose sight of
her except when with him. If she had liked me, if she had shown any
kindness to me, I would have been her friend, and shielded her from
the tyrant whom she called husband. But she treated me with
haughtiness--undisguised contempt; me, who had her in my power. I
have hot blood and passions in me, cold and phlegmatic as I seem; and
she roused the passion of hatred within me. During my residence in
Lincolnshire, my husband traced me out through an accidental
circumstance. We had one interview. {237} He entreated me to return to
him; but I would not. He threatened to keep and eye on me, to watch
me. I dared him to it. Afterward I found that I had been foolish to
brave him. A year after her marriage Mrs. Thorneley bore her first
child; but before that an event occurred which influenced and sealed
her fate. I detected her in two stolen interviews with a cousin of
hers, an officer in the army. My master believed that when her aunt
died she had no living relative left. I bear witness now that nothing
passed at those interviews that all the world might not have heard;
but I used my knowledge of them with Mr. Thorneley. I have said before
he wanted her money and not her, and this cousin turning up frightened
him. He accused her of all that was most shameful, egged on by me. I
was the richer for it. I had now a goodly sum put by for my boy. Then
the heir was born; a weakly, puling child. You know what he grew up to
be--an idiot. Mrs. Thorneley was very ill; I knew her husband did not
wish for her recovery. I did not suspect he absolutely wished her
death. At last she died--suddenly. Only he and I were in the room, _I_
was that '_other person_' spoken of by him to Mr. Kavanagh. She died
by prussic acid administered to her by him; and _I_ discovered it.
Henceforth _he_ was in _my_ power, not I in his. I kept silence, and
the matter was hushed up with money.

"The baby was left to be nursed at the Grange; and my master and I
returned to town. Once more I settled down to my old duties in the
city house, bearing in my breast the knowledge of my master's fearful
secret. All sense of right and wrong, all conscience, was deadened
within me; the secret was mine--mine to turn into gold and riches for
my child. I went down to visit him at the farm in Surrey; and as I
pressed him in my arms I whispered to him of what he should be--a
grand, rich gentleman.

"Two years after this time my masters widowed sister, Mrs. Atherton,
died; and he adopted her only child, Hugh. I saw that this would prove
either an aid or an obstacle to my plans. Very little, I found, was
known about Mr. Thorneley's family; he had come to London as a lad,
from a distant part of England. One evening I sought him, and opened
my scheme to him. I had him in my power, terribly, irremediably; and
he consented to it. I was to bring my boy away from Surrey, and he
would adopt and bring him up as the child of another sister, with his
nephew, Hugh Atherton. He was to retain the name of Lister Wilmot.

"Excepting during occasional hasty visits to the Grange, Mr. Thorneley
never saw his son and heir. The child had been born an idiot; that he
would ever be otherwise was hopeless.

"I went down to the little farm and brought away my boy--my little
Robert. For two years he had never seen me, and had forgotten his
mother. I brought him away from his friends, from all the pure, simple
influence that surrounded him there, from the innocent joys of country
life, from the wholesome atmosphere of honest toil and labor--brought
him up to dwell in the abode of one whose hands were dyed with crime,
brought him within the baleful influence of his mother's teaching. Too
late now--too late; but as I see it all at this moment, it had been
better to beg, better to die, than have brought him within the shadow
of that man's gold.

"Once more my husband burst upon me. He was jealous, he said, jealous
of my master, and he insisted upon knowing where his child was. With
false promises I got rid of him. It was late in the evening when he
came and went. He had a companion with him--an ill-looking Irishman,
named Sullivan. That night the house was broken into. Being roused, I
surprised one of the burglars retreating; he was the image of my
husband, and yet it was not he, I felt convinced. But it gave me an
idea. If I could swear to him and he were taken, he would be
transported, and I should be free from {238} him, at least for a time.
I helped Inspector Keene to detect him by means of anonymous letters,
and then swore to his identity. He was condemned and sentenced to
twenty years' penal servitude. I have not much more to tell, up to
last October.

"The two boys grew up together into young men--one the real, the other
the pretended nephew of Mr. Thorneley--and as his joint heirs. Of his
own son nothing was seen, nothing heard; he might have been dead, but
that I knew he was not. If Lister Wilmot had only succeeded to
one-half of Gilbert Thorneley's fortune his future would have been
amply, brilliantly provided for. I coveted more for my son; he coveted
more for himself. In those days he never knew I was his mother; but I
had tended him when a child, and he used to confide in me. It was the
only sweetness I ever tasted amidst the cup of bitterness I had
prepared myself. He was proud and ambitious; I dared not tell him who
he was. So he grew up in ignorance of our relative positions--he, the
reputed nephew and joint heir of the richest man in England; I, his
mother, that man's housekeeper and servant. He confided in me; and
shortly after Mr. Hugh Atherton's engagement to Miss Leslie, I wormed
from him that he too loved her. This and some money difficulties he
got into at that time were harassing him sorely. I could not see my
boy suffer and not try to help him--I could not see him thwarted in
his love; and one day I went to his chambers and told him I possessed
a secret of his uncle's, and would use it in his favor. He then said
how jealous he was of his cousin, how fearful he felt lest Atherton,
being Thorneley's favorite nephew, should at last be left sole heir.
That evening I once more sought my master; and using all the power I
had over him, extorted from him an oath that, with the exception of a
nominal sum left to Mr. Atherton, a will in favor of my son as his
sole heir should be made on the morrow. This was done. That will was
read on the day of the funeral. After making it my master never seemed
well or at ease; and day by day, hour by hour, I watched him in fear
and dread lest he should revoke it. We were both hurried on
mysteriously to our fate.

"On the 23d of October last Mr. Thorneley received a visit from Mr.
John Kavanagh in Wimpole street. I misdoubted the object of the
interview; watched, listened, and overheard in great part what took
place. The sending for the two men servants, and their saying on
returning to the kitchen that they had been signing their names to
something which looked like a will, confirmed my suspicious. Then the
devil once more entered into my soul. What! after all my toil, my
watching, my sufferings; after having bartered my salvation for this
mess of pottage, should my boy be cast adrift upon the world when the
old man died, and not inherit a penny of the money he had been taught
to consider rightfully as his own? Never. Perish rather and die. Die!
The word haunted my brain and rang in my years--die! Who should die
but he, the old miser? Then a terrible resolve got possession of me,
and I dressed myself and went out. The history of that evening is
known to you all. _I_ was the woman who met Mr. Kavanagh Vere street;
_I_ was the women who entered the chemist's shop and the poison; _I_
was the woman who sent the money to James Ball and bade him not
identify me. I saw the meeting between Mr. Atherton, whom I hated, and
Mr. Kavanagh, whom I hated also, because he was his friend. I heard
the whole of their conversation and then the future opened out to me,
lighted by the flames of hell. I went home; and scarcely had I arrived
when first Lister came, and then Hugh Atherton. I heard them talking
together; I heard my son say he trouble about money, and that he was
going to ask for some. That was well. I had poisoned the old man's
mind, and told him days before that Atherton was leading Lister into
extravagance; that {239} only my son had gained Miss Leslie's
affections, he should never have come upon Mr. Thorneley's for a son.
He was irritated against his nephew; this evening was the crisis. What
I have related explains his words to Mr. Atherton.

"At nine o'clock I took up his usual refreshment. Ale _was_ poured out
in a glass, and into the ale poured out I emptied the paper of
strychnine bought at the chemist's. Strangely enough, I did it
unobserved by Barker. He little thought there was need to watch me.
Strangely, too, Mr. Atherton never noticed that I spoke to Lister as I
left the study. I said to him in a low voice: 'Don't give your uncle
his ale to-night; let him get it himself'.' The results were what I
foresaw. Lister never stirred, and Mr. Atherton handed the glass to
his uncle. I put the paper in the pocket of Mr. Atherton's overcoat as
I passed through the hall on my way down.

"In the night I went into the dead man's room, took his keys, sought
and found the will in the escritoire in his study. Mine were the
footsteps heard on the stairs by the cook. I took the will and
concealed it up in my bedroom, effectually as I thought; but it seems
not. This is the history of that night of the 23d of October last;
this is the mystery of Gilbert Thorneley's death. He was murdered by
_me_."

The feeble voice ceased, and the weary head sank lower upon the hello.
We thought the end had come, and both priest and surgeon hastened to
the dying woman's side. But it was not so; her task was not yet done.
After an interval of many minutes she rallied again. Whilst she had
spoken Wilmot gave no sign, save that one shuddering movement. I had
rapidly taken down her confession in shorthand, standing just as we
had entered, grouped at a little distance from the bed; and when she
was silent I looked round at her son beside me. There he stood with
his arms folded, motionless and rigid, his eyes fixed on the ground,
his lips drawn tightly together, set and firm, and a dark heavy frown
upon his brow. His face was deadly pale. "God move his heart," I
inwardly prayed as I looked at him; for it was like gazing on a block
of granite. Presently I heard Father Maurice say to her, "Are you able
to speak without pain? You have said all that is necessary."

"No, no!" she replied, "not all;" and turned her face, on which the
shadow of death was gathering fast, toward us once more. How long she
had been unburdening her soul we had taken no count, and the grey dawn
was stealing in at the window as she spoke again. It was opposite the
bed.

"Will you undraw that curtain, sister?" she said; "I should like to
look once more upon the sky before I die. It is very long since I
dared to lift my face to it without dread; there seemed to be an eye
looking down upon me with such terrible anger. It is gone now, the
great fear. Can this be peace that is stealing over me? Peace for such
as I?"

Father Maurice stooped down and spoke to her in a low tone, and I saw
her hands fold together and her lips move. In a few moments she spoke
once more. Her mind was wandering. "Robert! where is my boy?" and she
started forward. "It is growing dark; why doesn't he come? Lister!"

Oh! the anguished longing of that cry, as if the mother's heart went
out and broke with yearning! Would he, _could_ he resist that appeal?
"Mother!" I saw a wild movement beside me, and a figure rushed forward
and flung himself on his knees by the bed. I saw him encircle the
dying woman in his arms and press his lips passionately to hers. She
laid her hands round his neck and smoothed his face, just as if he had
been a child. "Robert, my little Robert!" The intervening years had
passed away to her mind; the memory of crime and sin {240} was taken
from her, and only the consciousness of her child's presence was with
her. "Forgiveness!" we heard her murmur; and she drew her son's head
yet closer to her breast. Then there was a dead stillness. Once more
the surgeon approached and touched Lister Wilmot on the shoulder. He
raised his head a little, and the arms that clung round his neck fell
powerless on the coverlet.

"She has fainted," said Mr. Lovell. Lister knelt on whilst
restoratives were being applied, with his face buried in his hands.
After a while consciousness came back; her eyes opened, and lighted up
with a gleam of ineffable joy as they fell upon her son's bent head.
She passed her hand caressingly over his hair, and then let it rest
upon his shoulder.

"This is more than I deserved," she said; and her voice was fainter
than when last she had spoken. "I ought not to have such happiness as
this. Are you there, Mr. Kavanagh?"

"Yes, I am here;" and I went up to the bedside.

"I have done grievous wrong to your friend Mr. Atherton. Can you, can
he forgive me?"

I told her yes, freely from my heart, and I knew I might say so from
_him_. She moved her hand restlessly over Wilmot's hair, and a
momentary look of trouble crossed her face.

I asked her if she had anything else to say to me; not to fear. That I
prayed the Almighty Father to forgive her, even as I forgave any
trouble she had caused me.

"My son, my poor boy! What will be done to him? He is innocent of the
crimes I have revealed--innocent of the murder, innocent about the
will."

Then a broken, hollow voice answered, "No, mother--not entirely. I
suspected there was something wrong, but the temptation to profit by
it was too strong."

She looked more troubled; and I thought she glanced at me piteously,
imploringly.

"Do not let that disturb you. You may trust Atherton. Nothing will be
done against your son. Die in peace."

"Robert, don't kill me! I have not got him here. He is safe. Little
Robert, little baby! kiss me, kiss poor mother. It is very dark. I
cannot see him;" and the poor hands wandered over the coverlet. We
drew near, and the low solemn tones of the priest were heard saying
the prayers for the dying. The red streaks of early morning shed their
faint glow on the dying woman's face; her lips moved, and Wilmot
passing his arm beneath her head, raised her a little on his shoulder;
she stole her arm up round his neck, and we heard the words, "Forgive!
Mercy!" There was a long struggling sigh, a gasp for breath; the
blue-grey eyes opened once more and looked toward the eastern sky,
then closed in death.





CHAPTER XIV.

EXEUNT OMNES.

This story which I have then telling, acted now long years ago, was
wearing to an end. The unfortunate housekeeper's confession cleared up
almost entirely what had mystified and baffled our inquiries for so
many months; and, standing beside his mothers bier--the mother who
had loved him all too well for her peace--Lister Wilmot, in the depth
of his humiliation and the grief which the tide of natural affection,
so recently aroused within him, had wakened, added what little was
wanting to throw complete light upon the dark mystery of the past.

On the day before the remains of his unhappy parent were consigned to
the grave, as he took his last farewell of the corpse, he told me his
own story, his temptation and his fall. Alas! for him the sins of his
parents had returned with double vengeance upon his head; the evil in
them had reproduced itself in him. Deluded with the belief that {241}
he was the heir to immense wealth, he had given full swing to his
besetting vice--gambling. The billiard-table, the gaming-house, and
that curse to young man, secret betting clubs and societies, had been
his familiar though unknown resort. There, too, he had met with and
fallen into the meshes of a creature but too familiar to the
frequenters of such places--a man (if such can claim pretence to
manhood) mature in years, even to gray hair; one of those who gain the
substance which supports their infamous lives by sponging upon the
young, by in tangling in their web young men destined to be the pride
and hope of high-born families with stainless lineage; or the scions
of noble houses; or the youth of houses not less noble, though perhaps
more in the sense of present deeds than departed worth; or sadder and
more shameful still, the young man who is the only son of his mother,
and she a widow, her sole stay and support. Into such hands did Wilmot
fall when he met the man Sullivan or De Vos. Through him he became
mixed up in some disgraceful gaming affair; and De Vos used it to get
him more thoroughly into his power, and upon the strength of it to
extort money from him. Then came his real but misplaced attachment to
Ada Leslie, and consequent jealousy of Hugh Atherton. An affection
requited might have been his salvation; unreturned and hopeless, it
became his moral ruin. Deeper and deeper he plunged into vice, faster
and faster he gambled. None save those who haunted the same scenes as
himself knew how far he was involved, how far lost; none even
suspected a tithe of it, save one. But the mother's eye, the mother's
heart could not be deceived. She whom he had been taught to look upon
only as his uncle's housekeeper, who had nursed and tended and petted
him as a child--she saw the care and trouble of his mind; she sought
and won his confidence to a great extent. He told her he was
overwhelmed with debt and difficulty, and she urged him to apply to
Mr. Thorneley for a sufficient sum to free him at least from danger.
That application was to be made on the very evening of the murder. She
hinted to him darkly that she had the means of forcing Thorneley to
give what he required, and that she would risk everything and hesitate
at nothing for his (Wilmot's) sake. The first suspicion which entered
his mind that she had indeed not scrupled even at the worst, was on
the morning after Old Thorneley was found dead. This had strengthened
more and more; but the temptation of his opening prospects, of the
princely fortune which he found he alone was inheriting, dazzled,
blinded him, and stupefied his conscience. A yet greater inducement to
evil lay in the alluring thought that if the murder of Old Thorneley
were saddled upon Hugh Atherton, and his disgrace, his banishment, if
not his death secured, there might be a chance of winning in time Ada
Leslie's affections for himself. To this end he had labored,
ostensibly endeavoring to establish belief in Hugh's innocence, and
acting as his best friend, but in reality undermining Mrs. Leslie's
faith in him by the most subtle diplomacy, and shaking, by the most
specious representations, Hugh's trust in and friendship for me. With
Ada alone he had met entire defeat. Steadfast and unwavering had been
her solemn, unqualified declaration that her affianced husband was
guiltless; steady and unwavering likewise--God bless her for it!--had
been her childlike trust in her old guardian. And this maddened him.

Then came Hugh's acquittal, accompanied by public censure and public
disgrace. Here was a loophole through which a ray of hope gleamed upon
Wilmot's dark soul. Atherton writhed beneath the shame that had fallen
upon him with all the anguish of a keenly sensitive nature; and Wilmot
played his game with this. He lost no opportunity of making Hugh feel
his position; constantly, though skillfully, {242} he brought before
him the shadow that was over him, and would artfully represent to him
the magnanimity of Miss Leslie's conduct in wishing to share his
blighted name and fortune. Hugh's first proposition of emigrating he
had opposed outwardly, working in the dark to bring about its
realization; and when Hugh was actually gone, he felt at last that the
field was clear for him. Wilmot described his rage at finding that I
had outwitted him as ungovernable, his desire for revenge burning and
deadly. Then came the discovery of the will. Of its existence he had
in truth been ignorant; and though suspecting some complicity in the
matter on the part of Mrs Haag, once possessed of Old Thorneley's
money, he had buried his suspicions in his own breast. Three days
after the will was found by Inspector Keene, he received a letter from
the housekeeper. In it she told him of their relationship in brief
words, with no further explanation; she said that the discovery of the
missing document involved her in serious trouble, and that she was
hastening to Liverpool to catch the first vessel for America. Then he
felt for the first time that his heyday was over, that the worst might
shortly come; and he too began hasty preparations for leaving England
secretly. In the midst of these came the telegram from Liverpool, and
the subsequent tragic events.

This was the epitome of what Lister Wilmot (I keep his assumed name)
told me the day before his mother's funeral. I said to him, "You have
not explained one thing. Why, when I went down to the Grange, did you
send De Vos to follow me and drug the coffee?"

"I did not," he said. "I knew absolutely nothing of it." And at such a
moment I felt he was speaking the truth. He continued: "I have not
seen De Vos for months; and I believe he has left the country."

I found afterward that another person was to clear up this remaining
item of the mystery.

Of Wilmot I have little more to tell. In the abyss of his humiliation
and degradation the message of divine mercy reached his soul; in the
depths of his heart, chastened and and purified, he listened and
responded to its whisper. So far as Hugh Atherton was concerned he
went scatheless; and through the generosity of the man whom he had so
deeply injured, he was enabled eventually to emigrate to the same land
whither his unfortunate mother was flying for refuge when she met her
death. But before that he had a duty to perform, a stern, hard duty of
pain; and he set his face to the work resolutely, unshrinkingly.

In the Liverpool prison late Robert Bradley the elder, biding his
trial for the murder of his wife; and from his lips we were to learn
yet more to complete the history of the past. Once, and once only, the
father and son met. In the bitterness of his trouble and his newly
wakened penitence, Lister had turned and clung to the one who had
ministered to his dying mother, and in Father Maurice, after God, he
found his best friend. At his request the old priest went with him to
that single interview with his father.

"I never meant to kill your mother, Robert," the convict said to his
son. "Heaven is my witness, I never had a thought of harm to her when
I went after her in Cross street. I loved her, ay, I loved her, little
as you may think it now. I loved her though she left me, though she
hid my boy away, though she brought him up not know his father; though
she branded me with a crime I never committed, and got me sent to
prison and chains, and a life in comparison with which death will be
sweet; though she spurned me and defied me, I loved her with all the
might of my heart, all the passionateness with which I loved her when
she came to me a fair young bride. Away in that penal settlement,
amongst that hideous gang, beneath that burning sky, I had longed and
thirsted more for one look at her face, for one touch of her hand,
then {243} ever longed for a drop of water to slake my parching thirst
or cool the fever of my lips. They tell me she has revealed the story
of our lives--all is misery and shame. I have heard a few particulars.
In one thing I believe I have wronged her; I thought her guilty of
Mrs. Thornely's death; I thought she wished to usurp her place. I used
the threat of what I suspected to induce her to make out with me; but
she spurned me from her; she told me she would die on the gallows
rather than live with me again; and then the madness seized me; I
struck her--once--twice--and killed her."

Of all that passed in that single meeting between the two Robert
Bradleys little was heard; it was not meet that much should be known.
They met solemnly, in bitterness, in shame, with agony in either
heart, with a world of anguish, of feelings surging over their souls
to which they dared not give utterance. They parted solemnly, but in
peace: the son who had never you known his father until now--and then
in what a terrible manner! the father who had never looked on his
child since the time when he had taken him on his knee and listened to
his infant prattle. Parted, never more to meet on this side the grave.

I saw the convict once or twice before his trial came on, and I found
from him that he had known Sullivan of De Vos all his life. That he
was on his wife's track when she went down to the Grange, and De Vos
was with him. That the latter, seeing I was bound thither likewise,
and having reason to fear me both for his own and Bradley's sake, had
given me the stupefying dose in my coffee at Peterborough Station,
trusting to the results which did really happen. That it was his
appearance which must have alarmed his wife and caused her to
relinquish her visit to the Grange. Further than that he could give me
no information. Strangely enough, the bad companion of the father had
proved the bad companion of the son, though in totally different ways.
There is nothing more to tell of Robert Bradley. He was tried,
condemned, and sentenced to death; but the sentence was commuted to
transportation for life by the exertions of his son. Father Maurice
had the satisfaction of receiving from his lips the assurance before
he left the Liverpool Docks bound for his final journey, that he
accepted his sentence as the only expiation he could make for his long
career of sin.

And what of those who were once so near and dear to me--dear still,
though far away, Hugh Atherton and Ada, now for many years his wife--
what of them! We never met again; humanly speaking, we never more
shall meet upon this earth. There is a writer--to my mind the essayist
_par excellence_ of this age, with power to touch the finest chords
and sound the most hidden depths in the heart of man--who says that he
knows no word of equal pathos to the little word "gone." And it is the
word which expresses the long blank, the great vacuum of all these
latter years since they went away--since they have been among the
"gone." And how is it, you will ask, my readers, that still they
should be far away when all the storms and clouds which had shadowed
their horizon passed away, and the sunshine and fair blue sky once
again greeted them? Well, it was in this wise:

Tidings of all that took place in Liverpool were instantly forwarded
to Hugh Atherton at Melbourne, and we thought we should welcome them
all back to England ere long; but he did not come--he never will come
now. He wrote that the thought of returning to England was
insupportable to both himself and Ada; that they would remain where
they were, and where he had received the greatest happiness of his
life--his true and tender wife. They settled in Australia, some miles
from Melbourne, doing much for the new colony in the way of
usefulness; and Hugh devoted {244} himself to the interests of his
adopted country. His name is well known there, and it is coupled with
everything that is good and great. I hear sometimes from them, most
often from Ada. Her mother died a few years ago, and she has lost two
children. They have three living, two boys and a girl; the youngest
boy is called John after me. She would have it so. No, the old
friendship between me and Hugh has never been rekindled into the same
warmth; we are friends, but not the friends of yore. I do not blame
him; he was blind, blind; and so we drifted away from one another, or
rather he from me. It was just one of those clouds which come between
human hearts because they are human; and then we see through a glass
darkly whilst earth clings so closely about us. By and by all will be
clear. He thought I should have confided his uncle's secret to him or
Merrivale under the circumstances. Perhaps I ought. If I was mistaken,
if I kept my solemn promise to the dead too rigidly, God pardon me; I
did it for the best. But we may make mistakes in our shortsightedness,
in our finite views, in our imperfect comprehension of events over
which we have no control, and in which we have very little hand. If he
outlives me, he will perhaps know this; and the knowledge of it, the
memory of our ancient friendship will bring back the tenderness of his
heart for me; he will feel, I pray not too sadly, that he also was
mistaken when he withdrew the trust and confidence that never before
heaven had for one moment been betrayed.

Some years ago I buried Gilbert Thorneley's idiot son; he lived with
me up to the time of his death, harmless, but irrational to the last.
It was a satisfaction to his guardian that with me he would receive
every kindness and attention; and the poor fellow died in my arms,
repeating in his indistinct and childish manner the words I had taught
him to address to his Father in heaven--he who had never known a
father's love on earth.

I am alone in my old study, and I turn to write the last page of my
story.

The stillness of evening is creeping on afast, and the fire burns low;
before it lies old Dandie--he is blind now and stiff with age. Neither
he nor I can ramble out far into the country lanes, or across
Hempstead Heath, as once we used. Years have come and gone, and the
little golden circlet on my finger has grown thin and worn, but it
will last my days. Shadows of the past are around me, and voices of
the past are busily whispering in my ear. What is this that has fallen
upon my hand? O Ada! is this "worse than foolishness," the tears
should rush to your old guardian's eyes when he thinks of you, and
writes your name for the last time? Nay, that has passed--past with
the bygone years that have rolled on into eternity. A little longer,
and the dark strait that divides us from our beloved shall "narrowed
to the thread-like mere;" a little longer spent in hope and patience,
and then the hand will come. Not now, Hugh--not now, Ada: I shall see
you by and by.


--------

{245}

Original.

DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONALITIES.


Each age through which civilized humanity has passed, has its special
characteristic. If, as most people admit, the nineteenth century has
inaugurated a new era in the history of mankind, the characteristic of
that era will be found in the rapid strides which the various races
are making toward the attainment of a national existence. This
development of nationalities is not, however, peculiar to our time; on
the contrary, through its entire course modern history presents the
same scene--a scene varied indeed and often interrupted, but
preserving its unity to such an extent as to justify us in discerning
therein a law of Providence. The constant yearning of each individual
after happiness is used by philosophers as a proof that he is destined
to one day attain it, and we are not quite sure that the noble
aspirations of the great popular heart do not indicate on the part of
the great Ruler a design to one day furnish it with a realization of
its hopes. The individual attains his end in the future world--the
people in the present. Those who respect but Little the popular
feeling call it mercurial. They are right. Dash some mercury on the
ground, and observe how the particles you have separated float wildly
on the surface as though seeking to be reunited. Do you see how
naturally they coalesce when brought in contact? There is an affinity
most perfect between these particles, and so there is between peoples
of the same race. Both were originally separated by violence, and the
process of reunion is in both quite natural. Modern history presents
no picture more vivid than that of the disintegrated peoples of the
earth slowly but uniformly tending toward a reunion of their separated
portions. Just now the figures seem more distinct--they stand out in
such bold relief that prejudice herself perceives them. A gigantic
war, commenced and finished almost with the same cannon's roar, has
knocked out the keystone of a governmental fabric once admired for
symmetry, and rulers see that in their structures they must imitate
those architects who seek for stones that fit well one with another.
People say that Beelzebub once gave a commission to a painter, for the
portrait of his good dame Jezebel, and that when the poor artist
despaired of picturing a countenance fit for the queen of hell, the
fiend turned to a collection of handsome women, and taking a nose from
one, an eye from another, mouth from another and complexion from
another, he manufactured so foul a visage, so dire an expression, as
to cause the votary of art to die outright. Various fishes make a very
good chowder, and various meats, well condimented, produce an
excellent _olla podrida_; but history shows that the various races
into which it has pleased God to divide mankind, cannot be
indiscriminately conglomerated without entailing upon the entire body
chronic revolution, with all its attendant evils. If you can so merge
the individual into the country as the United States have done with
their cosmopolitan population, no difficulty will be experienced; but
if you take various peoples and fit them together as you would a
mosaic, the contact will prove prejudicial to their several interests,
and powers {246} which would have otherwise developed for the good of
the body corporate, will either lie dormant or exercise a detrimental
effect upon the neighboring victims of short-sighted policy. Something
more than interest is felt in noticing the way in which the peoples
now enjoying national existence have attained so desirable an end; we
are enabled to thereby judge, with something like accuracy, of the map
those who will come after us must give of the world. So long as man is
man, just so long will it be in one sense true, that history repeats
herself; but we do not believe in that system of Vico which would make
of her a mere whirligig--introducing now and then something new to
certain portions of mankind in rotation, but nothing new to the world
in general. Such a system might satisfy that conservative of whom some
one has said that had he been present at the creation, he would have
begged the Almighty not to destroy chaos; but our prejudices are
against it, and though in avowing some prejudice we are pleading
guilty to the possession of a bad thing, we think that in this case
history will turn our fault into a virtue. We do not contend that
modern times present a picture of national development according to
the system of races so uniform as to contain no deviation whatever,
but history does show us that such deviations have been more than
counterbalanced by subsequent changes. The general rotundity of the
earth cannot be denied, because of the inequalities of its surface.
The American Republic furnisher us with no conflict of races on
account of the fact already alluded to. The various peoples of Asia
and Africa scarcely afford us a theatre for observation if we take our
stand upon modern history, since for all practical purposes they are
yet living in the days of Antiochus. Europe shows us a field worthy of
research, for there were thrown together the mongrel hordes of Asia
and the North, and with their advent and to the music of their
clashing weapons a new scene unfolded itself to the gaze of man. With
the fall of the Western empire commence all reflections upon modern
history, for then dawned our era by the release from the unnatural
thraldom of the Roman Caesars of the innumerable peoples of the earth.
To notice the manner in which these tribes grouped themselves into
national and integral existence is our present purpose. In the early
summer of 1866, had we been asked to classify the peoples of Europe,
we would have spoken as follows: The nations of Europe worthy of
consideration, and which are now regarded as united or "unified," are
France, England, Spain, Sweden and Norway, and Russia proper. The
nations as yet disintegral are Germany and Italy. The disnationalized
peoples are those of Ireland, Poland, Hungary and her dependencies,
Venice, Roumania, and Servia. Europe may hence be regarded as composed
of, 1st, nations which are _in se_ one and undivided and leading
therefore a national existence; 2d, peoples not under are you foreign
to themselves, but still not one with others of the same stock; 3d,
peoples governed by foreign nations. Of this latter class the most
prominent evil is furnished by the heterogeneous Austrian empire, to
compose which a draft is made on Hungary and the Hungarico-Sclavic
dependencies, on Germany, on Poland, and on Italy. The late war has
changed the situation somewhat, but the classification may remain
unchanged.

The first class of nations became integral by the grouping to gather
of peoples of common origin; and the steadiness with which they
pursued their destiny and the easy manner in which they consummated
it, cause us to believe that the others will yet attain a like end. Up
to the time of Alfred, England was composed of seven kingdoms. The old
Briton stock had been hidden in the mountains of Wales, and the
Anglo-Saxon race, which held undisputed sway over the land, became
one. France, now {247} the most unified of all nations, was for
centuries the meet distracted. In A.D. 613, she was composed of four
kingdoms: Neustria, Austria, Bourgogne, and Aquitaine. After the
conquest of Neustria, Austrasia conquers Aquitaine in 760. The Romans
found a new power in the north, but the people bear ill the yoke. The
French kings give them the aid of their arms, and after various losses
and successes Charles VII., in 1450, unites the regions definitively.
The powerful duchy of Burgundy, which, for five hundred years, impeded
the unity of France, was at length united to the crown in 1470. Spain,
once composed of Leon, Castile, Aragon, and Navarre, was not unified
until 1516. Scandinavia (Sweden and Norway) was, before the tenth
century, composed of twelve states. It was then reduced to two, Sweden
and Gothia, while in the thirteenth century these two were united. In
1397, the "union of Calmar" added Norway, and to-day the probabilities
are not very small for the annexation of the remaining Scandinavian
power, Denmark. Especial attention is merited by Russia proper, by
which term we mean the nation so called exclusive of her foreign
conquests, Finland, Lapland, Poland and her dependencies, Caucasus,
and Georgia. The groundwork or foundation of this people in blood,
language, and customs, is Sclavic. The proper name of the nation is
Muscovy. When, in the middle of the fifteenth century, Ivan lV. shook
off the Tartaro-Mongol yoke, the Muscovites commenced that headlong
career of annexation and amalgamation which in four centuries has
united more than twenty once independent Sclavic peoples, and has
formed what is now denominated the Russian nation. Although not
directly coinciding with him, we must here allude to the prediction of
the first Napoleon that in a century Europe would be either Republican
or Cossack. We half suspect that he leaned toward the first horn of
his dilemma, and we do not think he imagined that his second should
include a physical sway of Russia over Western Europe. If, however,
the lance of the Cossack seemed to him to weigh heavily in the balance
of power, history sufficiently justified him to prevent our regarding
his remark as absurd. When he saw that either by force or persuasion
the Sclavic peoples were being slowly but surely united, he might
naturally regard as probable the incorporation of the remaining
Sclaves of Poland, Bessarabia, Roumania, and Servia. Thirty years
after he so talked, Bessarabia went the way of her sisters, and
Roumania and Servia are year by year nearing St. Petersburg. We do not
think, however, that history will warrant the application of
Napoleon's theory to Poland and her dependencies, although they are
Sclavic. When history shows us the innumerable tribes of Europe, left
free by the fall of the Western empire, little by little grouping
themselves by races and situation, so that in a few centuries are
formed the nations now integral, she informs us that if such groupings
were sometimes violent, they were still conquests _sui generis_. They
were not _national_ but _political_. The great Baron de Jomini, in his
_Precis de l'Art de la Guerre_, insists most strongly upon the
importance of a general understanding whether the war he is about to
undertake be a national or a political war. We think the principle is
just as important for the historian. A national war is one of a people
against another; a political war, of a dynasty against another, either
to revenge an insult or to extend its own domain. The effects of a
national war are terrible, and the prejudices engendered are not
easily eradicated; those of a political war are light, while there are
entailed but few prejudices since the people have had no voice in the
matter. In a political war the people are not conquered--they merely
change masters, and often instead of receiving any injury {248}
experience a great benefit. Thus, when Ivan of Moscow conquers
Novgorod, the Sclaves of Novgorod are not conquered--a dynasty falls
and not a people. Such a conquest leaves behind it no heart-burnings
in the masses, while, on the contrary, if the people united were
hitherto not only disintegrated but also disnationalized, it is a
consummation by all devoutly wished. Poland, however, belongs to
another category, owing to the religious antipathy existing between
her and Russia. So great has this hatred of late years become, that
the war for the incorporation of the unfortunate kingdom is at last
national, not political--a war of peoples and not of kings. Such a war
cannot be terminated by annexation--nothing can end it but an
annihilation of the popular spirit. Let us bear in mind, then, that if
modern history shows us a gradual development of nationalities and of
unity in national government, there are certain principles according
to which changes are wrought. But how is it with the two nations of
Europe as yet disintegral? Have they hitherto tended toward unity? An
impartial and conscientious study of their history convinces us that
they have been uniformly nearing the goal which more fortunate nations
have already reached.

In the eighth century Italy was, the Roman States alone excepted,
entirely in the hands of the barbarian. From A.D. 1050, however, the
two Sicilies commenced to enjoy a half-autonomous existence, there
being but a personal union by means of a common sovereign between them
and the countries whose rulers successively wore the Sicilian crown.
In 1734 the kingdom became independent, and thus in this part of the
peninsula was made the first step to unity, namely, independence of
foreign rule. Parma became independent of the foreigner while under
the sovereignty of the Farnesi in 1545. Tuscany became independent in
828, and with the exception of eighty years, during which the German
emperors usurped the investiture of the duchy, remained so. The small
republics need no allusion. Venice was independent from 697 to 1797.
The Milanais was always more or less subject to the empire. Savoy and
Piedmont were ever independent. Italy was slow in becoming free from
foreign domination, but not so slow in the concentration of her
strength. The innumerable states and principalities of which she was
once composed gradually amalgamated, until in 1859 there were but
seven; two hundred years ago there were twelve really independent of
each other, and many more virtually so. We do not intend to touch upon
the question of Italian unity in its bearings upon the independence of
the Holy See. God will work out the problem long before any
disputation of the point could come to a conclusion. This, however we
feel, that if Providence has guided the peoples of Europe in the way
of national development, it is for the good of man and in aid of true
progress; and if in the case of Italy no compromise can be effected
without injury to Holy Church, the future of Italy will prove that she
has not attained the end of other countries; but history will show
that until now she has tended to it. When studying the facts of
history, one should not allow his feelings to blind his perception of
the scenes that pass before him, for his insincerity would prevent his
being a successful defender of any cause however good.

A few reflections upon German history as bearing upon the theory of
national developments cannot but interest us, both on account of the
late war, and on account of the apparent objection accruing to our
position from the fact of Germany's seeming to be an example of a
great nationality slowly disintegrating herself.

The history of Germany may be divided into three periods: 1st, under
the "Holy Roman Empire" until the rise of Prussia; 2d, under the same
from the rise of Prussia until 1806; {249} 3d, under the Confederation
until the present day. In the first period there were an immense
number of principalities, rivals not only of each other, but but also
of him who held the imperial sceptre. The emperor depended so much
upon his foreign vassals for his influence that he could scarcely be
regarded as a German sovereign governing German states. Suddenly
Prussia arose from nothing, and with majestic strides overran nearly
all the north; then for the first time the Germans beheld a power of
respectable strength, essentially German. When a nation is divided
into many parts, its first step toward unity is the acquisition of a
centre toward which all may tend. We pass by the origin of Prussia
since we are dealing with facts and not principles at present. We know
it is the fashion with a certain school to excite sympathy for Austria
by alluding to Albert of Brandenburg; but as we are of those who
believe that a man's own sins are scarcely less discreditable to him
than those of his ancestors, and have our memory fresh with
recollections of the long unbroken chain of outrages which the House
of Austria, when powerful, heaped upon the Church of God, we ask to be
excused if we allow no false sentimentality to intrude upon us. The
rise of Prussia and the interest manifested in her by the unitarian
party, forced the emperor and the secondary princes to be more German,
less foreign, in their policy. This second period, therefore, had
elements of unity which were wanting in the first. The third period,
however, gave something more. In 1806 Napoleon I. bade Francis II.
abdicate his title of Emperor of the Romans, and assume that of
Emperor of Austria, and then disappeared even the name of that which
for two hundred years had been a shadow. Then came the federal union
of all the German, and only the German provinces--a confederation in
which the interests of Germany might be consulted without prejudice
from foreign connections--a union full of faults, we confess, and in
many respects a sham, but yet an advance toward national unity.

We know of no records by means of which we can ascertain the exact
number of independent states with which Germany was accursed under the
feudal system, but we know that after Prussia had swallowed up many
there were before 1815 nearly a hundred. Before the late war there
were thirty-seven. How many there are now the telegraph has not
informed us, but we imagine the number has become small by degrees and
beautifully less.

Since 1815 the march toward German unity has been more steady and more
uniform than at any other period. The pressure exercised upon Austria
by Prussia, upon the secondary princes by their people, has forced
them to seek German rather than foreign alliances, to study German
more than dynastic or local interests. The Zollverein, the Reform
associations, the hue and cry openly made about unity, the very
entrance of Austria into the Holstein war, and latterly the alliance
between the liberals and a statesman whose principles they have
uniformly opposed, all indicate the popular effervescence, and excite
a suspicion that ere long Germany will be united. All the machinery of
which governments can avail themselves is used by Austria and the
secondary princes to ward off the danger which menaces them.

The friends of the system of which Austria is the last important
standard bearer, give us a bit of news which, if true, would be
interesting, since it would be the first time we could conscientiously
receive it, that the cause of the Kaiser is the cause of the church;
that to his banner are nailed her colors. The jackal follows the lion
to pick up his leavings, but his eating them does not make him a lion.
The fact of the matter is, that the history of the church gives so
painful a picture of her struggles with kings and princes, that it is
to us a matter of complete indifference whether the {250} victory be
won by the impersonation of military autocracy, or by the sickly
anomaly now catching at straws for an extension of life--unless,
however, the victory of the former were to vindicate the principle
that the peoples of the earth have rights to claim, and were to result
in the end in the collapse of its winner, and the leaving thereby of a
powerful nation in the hands of popular government. If this latter
consummation is reached, we shall be ready to do what we can to attach
the children of the church to a particular government, for we believe
that then the church will have in Europe more than ever a fair show,
so to speak, at humanity. The church is for the people, and for them
alone--when she approaches a king, she approaches him as a man--and
she need fear but little from those for whose interest she lives. The
popular heart quickly conceives an affection, and is seldom mistaken
in its impulses.

We have alluded to an opinion held by some that Germany is an example
of a great nationality disintegrated after centuries of integral
existence. If history deals with words and not with facts, if empty
titles and enthusiastic notions are criterions of national condition,
then that opinion is correct; but if the calling the Emperor of China
the Child of the Sun gives him no solar affinity, we must hold the
contrary one. The ancient so-called unity of Germany was not only an
empty word, but the very title Emperor of Germany had no foundation in
law. When the imperial crown was transferred from the French
Carlovingians to the House of Saxony, its mode or conditions of tenure
were not changed by the Holy See. Just as Charlemagne, though Emperor
of the Romans, was not Emperor of France, but as before King of the
Franks, so Conrad of Franconia, Otho of Saxony, and their successors
were emperors of the Romans, and mere feudal superiors of the other
German princes. If, in the lapse of time, the holder of the sceptre of
the "Holy Roman Empire" (which alone was the legal title from which
imperial rights derived) came to be called Emperor of Germany, the
title did not originate in law, but in the common parlance of the
Italians, French, and English, who recognized in the emperor a foreign
Prince, and who--at least the two latter--being naturally repugnant to
the universal monarchy system, constantly insisted upon the emperor's
primacy being as to them purely honorary. So much for the title. As
for the Holy Roman empire itself, nothing to prove the ancient unity
of Germany can be deduced from it. The public law of the middle ages
was based upon the principle, then the foundation of all economy, of
sacerdotal supremacy and princely subjection--a blessed thing for
humanity at that time by-the-by, which thus found some protection from
the tyrants who then ruled the earth. European government became
hierarchical; at the head stood the pope, then came the emperor, then
kings, etc. Now, according to the titles of courtesy in use at the
time, it might be supposed that France and England were subordinate to
the emperor, yet their constant history proves them to have been
independent of his sceptre. If, then, this so-called resurrection of
the western empire was purely nominal, was it merely honorific? Was
there no authority attached to it? If there were none, especially as
to Germany itself, of a part of which the emperor was a hereditary
prince, we would conclude at once that as Europe could not then be
called one, so could not Germany. Our proposition, however, is not so
self-evident.

There was an authority resident in the imperial sceptre over the
princes of Germany, but for all matters all practical importance it
was, with the exception of a few privileges, the same as that enjoyed
over Italy, Hungary, Bohemia, etc, viz., that of right of investiture.
If, however, from this fact of imperial suzerainty any argument can be
gathered for the ancient unity of Germany, we must say that at the
present time Egypt, Roumania, and Servia are {251} one with Turkey,
Liberia one with the United States. If before the late war Germany was
not integral, it was not so under the ancient system. Then it had an
emperor, in our days it had a federal diet--the emperors' decisions
were generally laughed at, while the decisions of the diet were
respected when allowed to decide. Nor, while speaking so disparagingly
of the imperial power, do we allude to the time when the imperial
dignity had become a mere puppet show--to the period between the rise
of Prussia and the annihilation of the title. We need not confine
ourselves to the time when the great Frederick could laugh at his
"good brother, the sacristy-sweep," trying to rival his power; the
same want of efficacious influence was ever felt from the day when
Conrad accepted the diadem--one only period excepted, that of Charles
V., and even he was wanting in force, and was obliged to succumb to
his powerful "vassals." The history of no country, either in Europe or
in Asia, can afford an example of such persevering strife for
ascendancy as that which the princes of Germany presented, either
among themselves--the emperor a spectator--or united in factions
against him and his factions. The imperial dignity was in some things
great, and over some periods of its existence there is a halo of
glory, but only in its external relations. The Hohenstaufen emperors
were by inheritance both internally and externally powerful princes;
their principality of Suabia and their immense possessions of the
Palatinate furnished them such a number of personal vassals that they
did much toward making the imperial sceptre respected, while there
kingdom of Sicily and lordship of Milan caused them to be feared
without. But then it was not the emperor who was feared, but the
Prince of Suabia, the Count Palatine, the King of Sicily, and lord
suzerain of Milan and Tuscany; just as under the Habsburgs and the
Lorraines it was not the emperor but the Archduke of Austria, King of
Hungary, of Lombardy, of Naples, of Illyrium, who, by means of his
personal and hereditary states in foreign lands, commanded that
respect from his German rivals which a purely German emperor never
extorted. The unity of Germany under the Holy Roman Empire was
therefore not of fact. It was an idea--quite poetical certainly, but
still an idea.

When we consider the obstacles which had to be surmounted by those
peoples who have already attained a national existence, we must fain
believe that those who are yet panting for it will not be long
disappointed. Roumania and Servia have been for centuries dreaming of
independence, but we must remember that only at a recent period did
civilization commence to act upon their peasantry. Even now many of
the boyards seem to be removed scarcely a generation from their Dacian
ancestry. All the Sclavic peoples of Eastern Europe have much to
acquire before they can be called fully civilized. The tyranny,
however, to which they owe most of their backwardness has of late
years very much diminished, and already they commence to ask
themselves the question which has so long preoccupied other minds, Are
the people created for the ruler, or is a ruler established for the
people? When men commence to think seriously on such subjects, action
is not far off. Bucharest and Jassy have been the scene of tumults
which have made many a European conservative cry out that nothing but
an iron rule will benefit the Roumanian--that Roumanian nationality
will prove a seminary of trouble for Europe. We believe in lending a
helping hand to a degraded people that they may in time raise
themselves to the level of their fellows--we would deem ourselves
worse than their tyrants if we regarded the passions which tyranny has
engendered as an excuse for that tyranny's perpetuation.

{252}

A bright day seems to have dawned for Hungary--at least so think the
Austrian wing of the Hungarian patriots. For these gentlemen the
ungermanization of Austria means that Pesth is to be the capital of a
new heterogenous empire. They should remember those long years during
which they mourned the short-sighted policy which drowned Hungarian
nationality for the benefit of Germany, and reap from them a knowledge
of other sins they will commit if they repress those nationalities
which are as sacred as their own. Heaven cannot bless those who claim
liberty for themselves and deny it to others.

And in the midst of this conflict of the peoples of the earth for real
or imaginary rights, how fares the church of God? Excellently well,
for no change man will here below experience can ever unman him. So
long as there are people on the earth, so long will there be souls to
save, and the church will be ever on hand to do the work. But there is
more to be said. Of those people who are now so strenuously laboring
in the cause of liberty, a large proportion are outside of the church.
Many of them are working from a pure love of justice, as God has given
them the light to see it, and if they are true to their natural
convictions the supernatural will yet be engrafted upon them. It
cannot be denied, however, that there are many who throw their weight
into the scale of liberty as for they think Catholicity is in the
other scale, and that they will hence contribute to weakening the hold
the church has upon man. Would they could live to see the day when
liberty shall have triumphed--were it only to realize the true mission
of that church they now so bitterly hate! From the day the church
entered upon her glorious career she has been constantly contending
with the potentates of the earth. Her first struggle was with brute
force, and she triumphed. Her second contest was more terrible, for
the means brought against her were more insidious. Under the pretext
of honoring her, the gods of the earth encircled her limbs with golden
chains. How pretty they seemed, and how complacently some of her
members regarded them! How anxiously some yearn after them yet! But
they were torn away, and--great providence of God!--by those who
thought to thus ruin her. Her enemies say she yearns for that society
now disappeared. Has she forgotten how much those struggles cost her?
Gentlemen of the liberal world, you are mistaken if you think the
church fears the success of your designs. You are another illustration
of the truth of the saying, that God uses even the passions of men to
further his ends. When you will have succeeded in obliterating all
artificial distinctions of caste and privilege, and will have actuated
your vaunted ideas of liberty and equality, the church will confront
you, and thrusting you aside, will render real what with you would
always be an idea--fraternity. Those who now applaud you will lift
from the church their eyes of suspicion and jealousy, and will realize
how greatly you were mistaken when you called her retrograde and
tyrannical.

--------

{253}

PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN REVELATION



BY REV.  JAMES A. STOTHERT.


If the philosophers of the nineteenth century are proud of its
scientific character, it is not without reason; if they congratulate
themselves on having penetrated further into the secrets of nature
than their predecessors, the impartial judgment of future times will
confirm the opinion. It is no ordinary age that has, in the first half
of its course, produced men of the first eminence in every branch of
science, and contributed discoveries, remarkable alike for their
intrinsic value, and their influence on the welfare of mankind. The
progress of the physical sciences, since the year 1800, has been rapid
and unprecedented; some of them have assumed a character and position
entirely new, in consequence of the number and brilliancy of the
discoveries, and the importance of the principles unfolded in relation
to them. Another era in the history of chemistry opened with Dalton's
atomic theory, aided by the amazing industry of Berzelius, in its
practical application; the labors of Davy, in reducing the number of
simple elements by means of voltaic electricity, and Faraday's patient
and even-advancing discoveries in the wide field of electro-magnetism,
have developed chemical science to an extent, and in a direction,
which a former generation would have deemed fabulous. During the same
period, geology has been rescued from neglect, and from serious
charges of unsound tendencies, and been placed in deserved rank among
the sciences by the eminent labors Smith and Buckland, of Sedgwick and
Delabeche, of Lyell and Murchison, and Miller. Thee stamp of the age
has been put on the science of optics by the discovery of the
polarization of light by Malus; by the subsequent extension and
perfection of that discovery by Brewster and Arago; and, more
remarkably still, by the profound investigations and independent
research of Young and Fresnel, on the subject of the wave theory of
light. Zoology, especially in its bearing on geology and the history
of the earth, has been carried to astonishing perfection, by the
intuitive genius and sagacity of Cuvier and Agassiz and Owen and
Forbes. In the history of astronomy, the queen of the sciences, the
nineteenth century must be ever memorable as that in which was first
established the appreciable parallax of some among the stars commonly
called fixed; at once spanning the hitherto illimitable abyss which
separates the solar system from those distant luminaries, and opening
up to human intelligence clear and better defined views of the
vastness of the universe. The names of Bessel, Struve, and Argelander,
of Airy and Lord Rosse, and the two Herschels, are associated with
observations and discoveries, for which future ages will look back to
our time with admiration and gratitude. The more recent observations
of Herschel on Multiple Stars may be assumed to have established, the
existence of the great law of gravitation in regions of space, so
remote from our sight, that the diameter of the earth's orbit, if
searched for at that distance, through telescopes equal to our most
powerful, would be invisible. The circumstances attending the
discovery of the most distant planet, Neptune, are perhaps the most
extraordinary proof of the high intellectual {254} culture of our
time. Another planet, Uranus, its next neighbor, had been long
observed to be subject to perturbations, for which no known cause
could altogether account. By an elaborate and wholly independent
calculation of these disturbances, and a comparison of them with what
would have resulted from all the known causes of irregularity, two
mathematicians, Leverrier in France, and Adams in England, were
enabled, nearly at the same time, and quite unknown to each other, to
say where the disturbing cause must be, and what must be the
conditions of its action. They communicated with practical
astronomers, and told them where they ought to find a new planet;
telescopes were directed to the spot, accurate star-maps were
consulted, and there it was, the newly discovered planet Neptune,
wandering through space, in an orbit of nearly three thousand millions
of miles' semi-diameter. Other discoveries had been the result of good
fortune, or the reward of patient accuracy and untiring perseverance;
here discovery was anticipated, and directed by the conclusions of
purely mathematical reasoning.

The nineteenth century, little more than half elapsed, can also point
with satisfaction to numerous observatories in both hemispheres,
where, in nightly vigils and daily calculations, the accumulating
observations and details are amassed and arranged, which for years to
come are to guide the mariner through the pathless seas, and to
furnish materials for future generalization in regard to the laws of
the physical universe; where untiring account is kept of those occult
and variable magnetic influences which permeate the surface of our
globe and the atmosphere around it, to which the distinguished
Humboldt first urged attention, and in the investigation of which the
names of Kater and Sabine are conspicuous. In chemical laboratories at
home, and on the continent, the progress of investigation into the
internal constitution of matter is so extensive and so fruitful in
results, that as we were lately informed by an eminent chemist, it is
hardly possible even for a professional man to keep up to the mark of
weekly discovery. The triumphs of steam-power in connexion with
machinery; the perfection attained my modern engineering, and the
multiplication of its resources; the wonderful results produced by the
combination and division of labor, illustrated by the completion of
vast works, and the supply of materials for our world-wide commerce;
and, not least of all, the application of the electric current to the
transmission of messages, originally suggested by a Scotsman, in the
year 1753,  [Footnote 40] and perfected by Wheatstone and others, the
influence of which, in flashing intelligence from one side of the
world to the other, is not improbably destined to act more powerfully
than that of steam and railway communication, on the future history of
mankind; all these valuable in enduring evidences of the scientific
preeminence of our age, are no inconsiderable or unreasonable cause of
elation and self-congratulation among contemporary philosophers. There
never was a time when juster views on the subject of physical science
were more generally diffused among the community at large; when a
readier ear could be gained for any new and well-supported claims of
science; when the public mind thirsted more eagerly for fresh draughts
from the fountain of knowledge; or when more competent persons were
engaged in providing means for satisfying this universal thirst.
Scientific societies are numerous and active; mechanics' institutes,
philosophical associations, athenaeums and other reunions alternating
kindred nature, are organized and flourishing in every large town in
the country, for the purpose of conveying a little rill of this
coveted knowledge to the tradesmen and artisans in the short intervals
of their daily toil. The very credulity with which some {255}
unscientific and preposterous theories of motion have been lately
accepted and believed by multitudes of educated persons, and which
Faraday has the merit of first boldly denouncing, is another proof of
the desire of something new in physics, which animates large masses of
thinking men, and which is often much more developed than their power
of distinguishing what is true from what is false, or empirical, in
the philosophy of nature.

  [Footnote 40: See Scots Magazine, February, 1753.]

The contemplation of this picture of the nineteenth century suggests a
question of some moment: What is the relation of this scientific
development to revelation? What influence is it likely to have on the
conclusions of faith? A simple mind, or a simple age, receives these
implicitly: will the influence of science on either dispose, or
indispose it, to similar confidence? Are modern discoveries likely to
throw a reasonable doubt on the province of revelation; or are they
more likely to reflect light upon it, and establish its landmarks?

This is a question of the last moment. The age is bent on acquiring
knowledge; it is justly elated by its progress in search of this
precious gift; and, all the while, its dependence on the great truths
of revelation is not less than that of a simple age. Faith, if ever
necessary, is not less so now, than when all the brilliant discoveries
of our era lay in the folds of the future time. They will not, with
all their brilliancy, direct and save one human soul, or illuminate
the obscure region which lies beyond the grave. If science must
dissolve the charm of belief, alas! for the elation of our age at its
own high attainments; better had it been for it that the ancient
ignorance of physical laws had never then dissipated, than that its
dispersion should have been so dearly purchased.

Of course, by revelation, the author must be understood to mean the
whole will of God, revealed to the world, and taught by the Catholic
Church; as well that part of it which Protestants reject, as the
mutilated part of it which the greater number of them are agreed in
accepting; all the doctrines peculiarly and distinctively belonging to
Catholicity, together with others which it holds and teaches in common
with all calling themselves Christian. What relation, then, we ask,
has the modern advance of science to this undivided sum of revealed
truth? Is it one of hostility or of harmony, of illustration and
confirmation, or of antagonism? Is physical science the handmaid, or
the enemy of faith?

(1.) Now, a very great number of persons, understanding revelation in
the sense in which we have defined it, would answer this question by
saying that science is the enemy of revealed truth, as maintained by
the Catholic Church; that the more generally scientific and accurate
ideas of the laws and constitution of the physical universe are
diffused, the more difficult must grow the belief of sensible men,
claimed by the Catholic Church for apparently impossible exceptions to
those laws. We can even imagine some good Catholics, little versed in
scientific pursuits, of the same opinion, and therefore jealous of
this general craving of the people for secular knowledge. Among the
Protestants of this country it is currently believed that the Catholic
Church is as keenly and doggedly opposed to science as science is to
her; that her unchanging policy has always been to keep her children
in ignorance, so as the more easily to subdue their intelligence to
her bidding.

(2.) An answer of a different kind we should expect to receive from a
numerous class of friends, and from a few opponents; namely, that the
relation of science to revelation is one of indifference, as they
belong to spheres of knowledge totally distinct and independent. A few
remarks on each of these answers will best introduce the author's own
attempt at a solution of the question.

{256}

As to the first: well informed and candid inquirers into the truth of
things are beginning slowly to perceive that the Catholic Church has
been misrepresented, as invariably the enemy of science; especially in
the critical and much agitated controversy of the geocentric and
heliocentric theories of the planetary motions, which has been chosen
as the weakest point of attack. Two writers of the highest eminence in
science, with no religious bias whatever toward Catholicity, have
given remarkable testimony on this subject. Sir David Brewster in his
Life of Galileo has adopted a tone of fairness to the Catholic Church,
unhappily rare in Protestant treatment of such topics in general. We
do not think he has done full justice to Galileo's Roman judges; but,
at least, he has given the Roman pontiffs some credit for their
patronage of men of science. We recommend the whole life to the notice
of our readers, and shall cite the following passage from it. After
mentioning the pension granted to Galileo by Pope Urban VIlI., in
1624, Sir David adds: "The pension thus given by Urban was not the
remuneration which sovereigns sometimes award to the services of their
subjects. Galileo was a foreigner at Rome. The sovereign of the papal
state owed him no obligation; and hence we must regard the pension of
Galileo as a donation from the Roman pontiff to science itself, and as
a declaration to the Christian world that religion was not jealous of
philosophy, and that the church of Rome was willing to respect and
foster even the genius of its enemies."  [Footnote 41]

  [Footnote 41:  Martyrs of Science, ed. 1846, p. 68.]

The other writer whom we shall cite is a no less celebrated authority
in science than the present astronomer royal, who, while condemning
the treatment which Galileo received at the hands of the Roman
Inquisition, is free to admit that Rome did not always oppose science;
and even this qualified admission, from so eminent a person, is worth
a good deal to our purpose. His remark is this: "This great step in
the explanation of the planetary motions was made by Copernicus, an
ecclesiastic in the Romish Church, a canon of Thorn, a city of
Prussia. The work in which he published it is dedicated to the pope.
At that time it would appear that there was no disinclination in the
Romish Church to receive new astronomical theories. But in no long
time after, when Galileo, a philosopher of Florence, taught the same
theory, he was brought to trial by the Romish Church, then in full
power, and was compelled to renounce the theory. How these two
different courses of the Romish Church are to be reconciled, I do not
know. But the fact is so."   [Footnote 42]

  [Footnote 42: Airy's Lectures on Astronomy, p. 85.]

We are not concerned at present with Galileo's unhappy story, farther
than to remark, that there is as usual much to be said on the side of
his Roman judges, which is perhaps nowhere so well said as in the
pages of the Dublin Review, No. IX., July 1838. The views there
advanced have never been called in question; we may therefore assume
that they are substantially unassailable. As to the general question
of the assistance which the Catholic Church has lent, directly or
indirectly, to science, we should like to know what other church, or
body of ecclesiastics, has done anything in this field compared with
the labors and the successes of the Society of Jesus alone. The names
of Clavius and Kircher, of Boscovich, De Vico, and Pianciani, may
stand for a memorial of the prosperous union of science and Catholic
revelation.  [Footnote 43]

  [Footnote 43: F. Christopher Clavius, S. J., an eminent German
  mathematician and astronomer, was employed by Gregory XIII. in the
  reformation of the calendar. His Gregorian Calendar, published in
  1581, tardily adopted in Protestant countries, and now regulates our
  system of leap-years. His collected mathematical and scientific works
  amount to five volumes folio. He was killed in 1612, page 75.

  F. Athanasius Kircher, S. J., also a native of Germany, was a
  diligent cultivator of science. His works, in twenty-two folio and
  eleven quarto volumes, embrace learned and original treatises on
  many recondite branches of physical science; on Magnetism, Optics,
  Acoustics, Geography, etc., etc. He filled the chair of Mathematics
  in the Jesuit Roman college, and laid the foundation of its
  extensive and valuable museum. He died in Rome, in 1680, at the age
  of 79.

  F. Roger Joseph Boscovich, S.J., a native of Ragusa, filled the
  chair of Astronomy in the Jesuit Roman College for thirty years, and
  was highly distinguished for the depth, originality, and variety of
  his aquirements in Natural Philosophy. He published several valuable
  treatises on the philosophy of Newton, on optics, etc. He is best
  known out of Italy for his ingenious theory of the molecular
  constitution of matter: a theory which the increasing knowledge of
  more modern philosophy has only confirmed. After the suppression of
  his order in 1778, he was welcomed to Paris, and taught philosophy
  there for a time; he returned to Italy, he died at Milan, in 1787,
  page 73.

  F. De Vico, S.J., was also an eminent astronomer in the Jesuit Roman
  College. His discovery of several comets introduced him to the circle
  of men of science. When the Jesuits were driven from Rome in 1848,
  he was received with open arms in the United States; but, unhappily
  for science, he died in London a very few years ago, while procuring
  instruments for his observatory in the far West. He was highly
  esteemed and beloved by his pupils, of whom there are many in this
  country.

  F. Pianciani, S.J., for many years taught chemistry in the Jesuit
  Roman College. He is admired for the simplicity of his manners no
  less than for the valuable contributions he has made to the nature
  of chemical science. Besides all larger and smaller treatise on it,
  he has published a work on the cosmogony of Moses; and we believe,
  is still preparing other treatises for the press.]

{257}

As to the second solution of our question--that science and
revelation are indifferent, because entirely dissimilar to each other
in nature and objects; it appears to us that analogy points quite the
other way. For, (1.) they both have a common origin in the will of
God; and it is not unreasonable to expect that they shall exhibit some
traces of common principles. And this, especially, if we direct our
attention to the difficulties which lie in the way of our acceptance
of the conclusions proposed to us by either; if they are actually
found to resemble each other in many of these, their relation can no
longer be considered one of indifference. Nay,  on the principles on
which Dr. Joseph Butler constructed his immortal work, if revealed
truth proceeds from the author of nature, we may expect to find the
same difficulties in it as we find in nature. And, conversely, it is
no objection to the divine origin of revealed truth, that its
reception implies difficulties as great as the acceptance of the facts
and laws of nature presupposes us to have overcome. And, (2.) we may
argue from the mutual analogy of other sciences to one another; how
dissimilar soever they appear to a superficial observer to be, there
is a community of principles, and of general laws, which binds them
together, and connects them with their common origin in the divine
mind. This idea is, as many of our readers are aware, beautifully
developed by Mrs. Somerville in her charming work on the Connexion of
the Physical Sciences.

From these preliminary remarks, the author's own solution of the
question of hostility, or indifference, between science and revelation
may be gathered; namely, that though in their nature, objects, and
details widely separated, yet they are linked together by a thousand
delicate ties, unperceived by a careless observer, but well repaying
elaborate study. Science is the true handmaid of Revelation, doing
service to the superior nature, but exhibiting tokens of a commission
to do so, imparted to her by the divine creator of both. The author
has devoted some attention to this interesting subject; and at some
future time, if granted health and leisure, he hopes to state and
illustrate his views more at large, and in a more permanent form;
meanwhile he proposes briefly to sketch some of the conclusions and
trains of thought suggested to him by these studies; confining his
remarks entirely to those portions of revealed truth which are the
exclusive property of the Catholic Church, and which are generally
known in the Protestant world as popish doctrines, such as the Blessed
Eucharist; the question of Miracles in general; and all that is
supernatural and imperceptible to the senses in Catholic belief.

I. A preliminary difficulty lying in the way of belief in the
supernatural character of revealed religion, is the flat contradiction
which it apparently gives to the evidence of the senses, the manifest
discrepancy between what is alleged and proposed to our belief, and
what is seen with our eyes, and appreciated by other sensuous organs.
{258} Modern science, however, is as inexorable in her demands on
human credence, in defiance of the senses, as was ever revelation on
the assent of faith. The senses have their empire much restricted by
the canons of our philosophers. For, (1.) it is fully established that
each organ of sense is susceptible of one class of impressions only,
which it passes on to the sensorium, or seat of thought. Thus the
organ of vision admits and communicates impressions of light alone;
that of hearing, impressions of sound, or of the wave of air set in
motion by the cause producing sound, and no others. The organs of
taste and smell, in like manner, have their own classes of
susceptibilities, which, again, are not the same as those belonging to
the nerves of touch. For every other class of impressions than its
own, each organ of sense is absolutely inert and useless. The eye can
take no cognisance of sound, nor the ear of light: if the eye can feel
a touch, it is because certain parts of its structure are furnished
with branches of the nerves of touch; and so of the rest. Electricity
alone seems to have the remarkable power of exciting in all the organs
of sense, sensations proper to the nature of each; in the eye, for
example, a flash of light; distinct sounds; a phosphoric odor, a
peculiar taste, and a pricking feeling, in the same person at the same
time.  [Footnote 44]

  [Footnote 44: Sommerville's Connexion, etc., § xxix. p. 339.
  Carpenter's Manual of Physiology, § 932.]

Again, (2.) sensations arising from those impressions are so
exceedingly complex, that we attribute many more of them to each
separate sense than really belong to it. By habit we have become so
much accustomed to associate several of those impressions together, as
to be unable, without difficulty, to analyze them, and to separate the
simple results of the sensuous impression from the more complicated
judgments which experience and reason add to it, and by which they
interpret it. The eye, for example, receives and conveys impressions
purely and solely of light, and its absence, including those of color,
which belong to light. Form, extension, sense of distance, etc., are
no part of the simple impression made upon the eye, and through it
upon the mind, further than they influence the condition of the light,
as by bounding it, shading it, etc. These belong exclusively to the
sense of touch, combined with experience, so as to be suggested,
without actual contact, by certain conditions of light. An
inexperienced eye, looking for the first time at a plain surface, as a
disc, or at a cube, or a ball, would see only the color, and the edges
where that changed. It could not enable the mind to judge how far the
object was distant; nor why the light and shade were differently
disposed in each; why the light reflected from the disc was uniform,
and bounded by a circle, while that from the ball was softly shaded,
though bounded by a circular line similar to the disc; nor why the
light coming from the cube was divided and bounded by straight lines
and sharp angles. To judge of these peculiarities, and their meaning,
touch must come to the aid of sight; and afterward memory will recall
the conclusions of former experience; and comparison will enable the
reasoning mind to form a judgment regarding the shape, size, and
distance of the object. In a similar manner, the organs of hearing
convey impressions of sound alone; distance, direction, exciting
cause, are quite out of the province of its information. Sight and
touch, and experience and judgment, all enter into the complex
information, now communicated to a practiced observer. This fact is
strikingly exemplified in musical sounds. A skillful musician will
tell you the notes and chords composing a series of such sounds, in
which an uninformed and unpractised ear will be able to detect nothing
but concord or this court. Thus Mozart, at two hearings, was able to
note down the score of Allegri's _Miserere_. Thus, too, there are many
substances which we of {259} by taste, as it is supposed, but which
are in reality operative on the sense of smell. For instance, if the
nose is held while eating cinnamon, we shall perceive no difference
between its flavor and that of a pine shaving.  [Footnote 45] The same
fact is observed with regards to many aromatic substances: if held in
the mouth, or rubbed between the tongue and the palate, the nostrils
being all the while dosed, their taste is hardly, if at all,
recognized; but it is immediately perceived on reopening the nasal
passages. Thus, too, the wine-taster closes his mouth, and sends the
aroma of the wine through his nostrils. Other substances, again, there
are, neither aromatic nor volatile, taste very strongly irritates the
mucous membrane both of nose and tongue, as mustard does, for example,
just as it would the skin, if applied long enough externally. Such a
sensation, therefore, as the taste of mustard, evidently belongs to
the organs of touch, differing in degree of sensitivity only. Hence we
are taught that the substances properly the objects of the sense of
taste, are those only which produce sensations purely and exclusively
gustative, perceived neither through the nose nor through the nerves
of touch, but acting on the tongue and palate only. Salt, sugar,
quinine, tannin, and citric acid, types of the saline, saccharine,
bitter, astringent, and sour, are said to possess sapid properties.
[Footnote 46] From these simple considerations it appears undoubted
that the province of each separate organ of sensation, and its
resultant impressions on the mind, are much limited, when compared
with the wider empire attributed to them by popular language and
opinion. Reason is ever correcting and enlarging the simple
impression, adding the conclusions of experience and judgment and
comparison to the primary suggestions of the sensation; making
allowances for what is faulty or imperfect; measuring circumstances,
and comparing all the conditions of the impression with each other,
before even an approximately true result can be arrived at.

  [Footnote 45: Herschel's Discourse on the Study of Natural
  Philosophy, § 72.]

  [Footnote 46: Carpenter's Manual of Physiology, § 945.]

Further (3.) there is much in nature of which the senses totally fail
in giving us any information whatever. "None of the senses," says Sir
J. Herschel, "gives us direct information for the exact comparison of
quantity. Number, indeed, that is to say, integer number, is an object
of sense, because we can count; but we can neither weigh, nor measure,
nor form any precise estimate of fractional parts by the unassisted
senses. Scarcely any man could tell the difference between twenty
pounds, and the same weight increased or diminished by a few ounces;
still less could he judge of the proportion between an ounce of gold
and a hundred grains of cotton by balancing them in his hands."
[Footnote 47] Nay, even in their own proper and peculiar province, the
senses are singularly deficient in certain kinds of information,
especially when comparison is involved. "The eye," says the same high
authority, "is no judge of the proportion of different degrees of
illumination, even when seen side by side; and if an interval elapses,
and circumstances change, nothing can be more vague than its judgment.
When we gaze with admiration at the gorgeous spectacle of the golden
clouds at sunset, which seem drenched in light, and glowing like
flames of real fire, it is hardly by an effort we can persuade
ourselves to regard them as the very same objects which at noonday
pass unnoticed as mere white clouds basking in the sun, only
participating, from their great horizontal distance, in the ruddy tint
which luminaries acquire by shining through a great extent of the
vapor of the atmosphere, and thereby even losing something of their
light. So it is with our estimates of time, velocity, and all other
matters of quantity; they are absolutely vague and inadequate to form
a foundation for any exact conclusion."   [Footnote 48]

  [Footnote 47: Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy,§ 117.]

  [Footnote 48: Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy,§ 117.]

{260}

Again (4.) there is a large class of phenomena whose causes, and even
whose existence, are far too remote or too minute to be revealed to us
by our senses. What are telescopes and microscopes, but the means
which science ingeniously devises to supply this innate and
irreparable deficiency of our organs of sense? Satirists of the middle
age, and its scholatic philosophers, have said that they would dispute
as to the number of spirits that could dance on the point of a needle.
Modern science shows us, in the infusoria, animals of perfect
formation, endowed with functions suited to their condition, many
thousands of which could pass at once through the eye of the finest
needle; a million of which would not amount in bulk to a grain of
sand. No less wonderful is the world of minute existence, revealed by
the microscope, in a drop of stagnant water. It is a world within
itself, an epitome of the earth, and its successive geological races.
A variety of microscopic creatures make their appearance, and die; in
a few days, a new set succeeds; these disappear in their turn, and
their place is occupied by a third race, of a different kind from
either of the former--the remains of all of them lying at the bottom
of the glass.  [Footnote 49] "If for a moment," says Humboldt, "we
could yield to the power of fancy, and imagine the acuteness of our
visual organ to be made equal to the extreme bounds of telescopic
vision, and bring together that which is now divided by long periods
of time, the apparent rest which reigns in space would suddenly
disappear. We should see the countless hosts of fixed stars moving in
thronged groups, in different directions; nebulas wandering through
space, and becoming condensed and dissolved like clouds, the veil of
the milky way separated and broken up in many parts, and motion ruling
supreme in every portion of the vault of heaven, even as on the
earth's surface, where we see it unfolded in the germ, the leaf, and
the blossom, the organisms of the vegetable world. The celebrated
Spanish botanist, Cavanilles, was the first who entertained the idea
of 'seeing the grass.' He directed the horizontal micrometer threads
of a powerful magnifying glass at one time to the apex of the shoot of
a bambusa, and at another, on the rapidly growing stem of an American
aloe, precisely as the astronomer places his cross of network against
a culminating star."   [Footnote 50] Without speculating so deeply in
what is distant and hidden, the very atmosphere in which we live and
breathe is imperceptible to every one of our senses, except, indeed,
when viewed through its whole depth, to that of sight in the blue
color of the sky, or indirectly to that of touch, by the resistance
which it offers to the hand, or the face, in passing rapidly through
it, or when it is set in motion by the wind. We perceive its effects,
indeed, in the modifications which the phenomena of light and sound
undergo, in consequence of its action upon them; in the barometric
column, and in a thousand other physical and chemical agencies which
attest the presence of the atmosphere, and the important functions
which it performs in our terrestrial economy. But as far as sight or
hearing, taste or smell, are affected by it, directly, it has
absolutely no existence.

  [Footnote 49: Somerville's Physical Geography; II., xxxii. 348,
  note.]

  [Footnote 50: Cosmos, I. 189, 40.]

Modern science, indeed, coming to the aid of the senses, can enable
them to attain the results of an almost inconceivable acuteness. Thus
while quantity and comparison are inappreciable, or nearly so, by the
unaided organs of sense, balances have been constructed with a
sensibility so exquisite, as to turn with the thousandth part of a
grain, and yet pretend to no extraordinary degree of merit.
[Footnote 51]

  [Footnote 51: Herschel's Discourse on the Study of Natural
  Philosophy, § 338.]

{261}

By the aid of an instrument called a spherometer, which substitutes
the sense of touch for that of sight, an inch may be divided into
twenty thousand parts; and the lever of contact, an instrument in use
among the German opticians, enables them to appreciate quantities of
space even yet smaller.  [Footnote 52] Instruments have been devised
capable of measuring intervals of time equal to the 1/1000 part of a
second. By the revolution of a toothed wheel, striking against a piece
of card, human ear is enabled to appreciate a sound which lasts only
1/24000 of a second, and thus to measure that extremely minute
interval of time. [Footnote 53] Wheatstone, in the course of his
experiments on the velocity of the electric fluid, constructed an
apparatus which enables the eye to perceive an interval equal to less
than 1/1000000 of a second of time. The exact value of this almost
infinitesimal interval was ascertained and measured by the known
effect of a sound of high high pitch upon the ear.  [Footnote 54] It
is unnecessary to multiply such examples; but so many we have adduced,
for the purpose of demonstrating the extent of the world of physical
observation which lies forever concealed from the natural organs of
sense. We owe this knowledge of their incapacity for more than a very
limited range of observation to the inventions of science, applied to
remedy and supplement this very incapacity. Thus science tells tales
against the human senses, of which a less inventive and informed age
could never have even dreamed.

  [Footnote 52: Herschel's Discourse on the Study of Natural
  Philosophy, § 338.]

  [Footnote 53 Somerville's Connexion, etc., § xvi. p. 147.]

  [Footnote 54: Ib., § xxviii. p. 325.]

Once more, (5.) the senses are not only restricted in their sphere of
action, and incapable of penetrating beyond a certain limit into the
mysteries of physical nature, but even within their own proper
province of observation their indications are constantly false and
erroneous; so that if we were implicitly to receive and adopt these
indications, without due correction, our notions of the constitution
of nature would be singularly wide of the truth. As they appear to the
naked eye, the sun and moon seem nearly of the same size; flat discs,
about as large as the crown of a hat. Uncorrected sense teaches us no
more; it furnishes no means of measuring either their absolute or
their relative distance. But from other sources, we learn that one is
about four hundred times further off than the other; that the mass of
the one would fill a space bounded by double the orbit of the other;
and that the centre of the sun is nearly half a million of miles
nearer our eye than his limb, or the bounding line of his disc, a
space equal to more than twice the distance of the moon from the
earth. The limits prescribed to himself, forbid the author to enlarge
on this interesting portion of his subject, which, however, he regrets
the less, that any one anxious to follow it out, will find an
excellent paper on "Popular Fallacies," in Lardner's Museum of Science
and Art, January 1854; a new scientific and popular serial, which has
started under the best auspices, and deserves to be widely circulated.

Did space permit, we might illustrate the fallacious teaching of the
senses regarding the phenomena of nature, by the corrections made
necessary in every scientific observation, as to the position of
distant objects, in consequence of the refraction or bending of the
rays of light in their passage through the air, which has the effect
of making distant objects in space seem higher than they really are;
of the correction necessary for the aberration of light, depending on
the time taken to transmit it from a distant object in space; together
with others which enter into the daily experience of the observers of
nature. Other circumstances also materially influence the impressions
conveyed through the organs of sense. Thus a person going into an
ordinarily lighted apartment from the dark night, will be painfully
affected by the brightness of the light {262} for a few moments; while
another, entering the same room from a brightly illuminated chamber,
will hardly be able for a moment or two to see anything. [Footnote 55]
If we plunge our hands one into ice-cold water, and the other into
water as hot as it can be borne, and after letting them stay a while,
suddenly transfer them both to a vessel full of water at blood heat,
the one will feel it hot, and the other cold. If we cross the two
first fingers of our hand, and place a pea in the fork between them,
moving and rolling it about on a table, we shall be fully persuaded,
especially if we close our eyes, that we have two peas.  [Footnote 56]
The other senses are similarly affected by circumstances, so as to
convey erroneous impressions. Mrs. Somerville sums up the evidence on
this head in one word, when she remarks that, "a consciousness of the
fallacy of our senses is one of the most important consequences of the
study of nature. This study teaches us that no object is seen by us in
its true place." [Footnote 57] And elsewhere she adds, "A high degree
of scientific knowledge has been necessary to dispel the errors of the
senses ." [Footnote 58] Herschel has the following remark in his
Outlines of Astronomy:  [Footnote 59] "No geometrical figure, or
curve, is seen by the eye as it is conceived by the mind to exist in
reality. The laws of perspective interfere and alter the apparent
directions, and foreshorten the dimensions of its several parts. If
the spectator be unfavorably situated, as, for instance, nearly in the
plane of the figure, they may do so to such an extent as to make a
considerable effort of imagination necessary to pass from the sensible
to the real form."

  [Footnote 55: Carpenter's Manual of Physiology, § 93.]

  [Footnote 56: Herschel's Discourse, § 72.]

  [Footnote 57: Collection of Physical Sciences, § xxv. p. 264.]

  [Footnote 58: Ib.,  § iv. p. 37.]

  [Footnote 59: Chap. i. §78.]

There is one form of illusion to which the senses are liable, so
remarkable and irremediable as to deserve a moment's notice; we mean
their erroneous testimony regarding motion. We have the authority of
Sir. J. Herschel for saying, that "there is no peculiar sensation
which advertises us that we are in motion. The rough inequalities in
the road are felt as we are carried over them, by the successive
elevation and falling of the carriage; but we have no sense of
progress if we are prevented from seeing surrounding objects. The
smoother the road, and the faster the speed, the less able are we to
feel our motion forward. Every one must have felt this in night
travelling by the railway, or in a tunnel. In a balloon, with a steady
breeze, which merely propels, without gyration or oscillation, the
motion is described as a sensation of perfect rest. The same is
observed on shipboard, in still water or a calm. Everything goes on as
if on land."  [Footnote 60] To complete the illusion, nothing is more
common than apparently to transfer our own motion to the stationary
objects around us. This is peculiarly observable at railway stations,
when a train first gently moves off. If another training is standing
near, and parallel to our own, it is impossible to tell which is
moving, our own, or the other in an opposite direction, without
calling in the age of a third object, to correct the doubtful or
erroneous impression, by the direction in which it seems relatively to
change its place; or by examining the wheels of the other training. In
the same way, many persons, while witnessing a panorama, are painfully
affected by the shifting of the scenes, which conveys to them an
impression as if the room were going round, and the picture remaining
stationary. It was this illusion of the senses, as to motion, that
perpetuated to a very late date the capital error regarding the
supposed circulation of the sun and planets round the on moving; the
dispelling of which, by Galileo and subsequent observers, was the
greatest triumph ever achieved my philosophy over the empire of the
senses.

  [Footnote 60: Outline of Astronomy, § 15, 16.]

{263}

The simple matter of fact is this, that our senses were given us for a
certain definite and practical end, not for the acquisition of
universal knowledge. We use them thankfully within their own domain,
but we should err by inferring that their indications are the measure
of the true, or of the whole constitution of things: their teaching
falls far short of what exists in the universe of material nature;
into the world of spiritual existence and operation they have no
mission to enter. Catholic doctrine, therefore, is in no worse
position, as regards the contradictions of the senses to the results,
than is the great mass of scientific knowledge; to deny the one is as
unphilosophical as to deny the other, merely because the organs of
sense fail to appreciate it, or afford indications directly contrary
to it.

--------

ORIGINAL.



HOME AT LAST.

  They gathered 'round the dying stranger's bed,
  They heard his words, yet knew not what he said--
          "Oh! take me home!"

  With earnest looks they pressed his feverish hand,
  And sorely grieved they could not understand--
          "Oh! take me home!"

  The busy host forgot his clamoring guests.
  Wistful to answer this of all requests--
          "Oh! take me home!"

  The good-wife scanned the stranger's pallid face,
  And wept. But to his meaning found no trace;
          "Oh! take me home!"

  The hostess' fair-haired daughter stood apart,
  "What can he mean?" she asked her beating heart;
          "Oh! take me home!"

  "Whence had he come? His name?" None knew. And yet
  He speaks in tones I never can forget--
          "Oh! take me home!"

  With timid step she softly neared the bed,
  And took his hand. The stranger raised his head,
            And deeply sighed.

  Weeping, she sang a simple, childish rhyme.
  He smiled and said: "Jetzt bin ich endlich heim!"   [Footnote 61]
            And then he died.

  [Footnote 61: I am home at last.]


----------

{264}



Translated from the Etudes Religieuses, Historiques et Littéraires.


THE OLD OWL.


When I was living in my native village, about twenty years ago, I made
the acquaintance of an old owl who lived in one of my forests. One of
my forests I say, and with good reason; for I was the only being who
could appreciate them, although a few landed proprietors in the town
were wont to make clearings therein, on the plea of having bought them
and paid down certain moneys in the presence of our notary public.
Therefore in my forest dwelt my owl, who was a personage of mature
years, and had first attracted me by the singular similarity of his
tastes and opinions with mine. Our first meeting took place under
rather peculiar circumstances. One evening, after belaboring my brains
over some enigmatical Persian verses for hours, I left the house,
still conning over an enigmatical hemistich; and strolling on until I
gained the edge of the forest, plunged in without noticing whither I
went. I might have wandered about all night, lost in the mazes of this
mysterious satire, had not the sweet odors of a cherry tree in full
blossom attracted my attention, penetrating through the olfactory
nerves to the inmost recesses of my brain; even to the bump of
pedantry itself. This brought me to myself; and astounded to see how
far I had wandered at that late hour, I turned to go home at once; but
the tangled path and deepening shadows threw me into confusion, and at
the end of a quarter of an hour I found myself completely lost. "Never
mind," said I, yielding gracefully to circumstances, "this is just
what I meant to do;" so on I plunged, through brake and thicket, until
I reached the confines of the forest, where an ancient ruined castle
frowned down upon the valley, with my little village sleeping at its
feet. I sat down by one of the towers to rest, but had hardly drawn
one long breath, when there came a flapping of wings about my head,
and raising my eyes I beheld--_monstrum horrendum_--an owl. He flew to
the left of me, fanning my cheek with his heavy grey wings.
Superstitious as an ancient, I turned instinctively that he might be
on my right and, so dreadful seemed the omen; but hardly had I yielded
to this involuntary impulse, when good breeding warned me that the
self-love of the work hermit might be wounded;--for an owl has
feelings as well as other people. But I was mistaken, he replied to
the insult only with a disdainful laugh; and perching himself on the
top of the tower, glared at me out of his red eyes with an expression
of profound pity.

The laugh irritated me; so I said, wishing to recover his respect if
possible, (and here in parentheses be it said that this narrative is
addressed, not to those who maintain that animals cannot speak, but to
sympathetic beings who enjoy the singing of birds in the woods, and
understand their mysterious language; who know what various emotions
their songs express; who listen, in short, with reverence to the
accents of nature and respond to them;--to such of these we tell this
authentic tale, begging the vulgar herd to withdraw from the
audience.)

Then I said to the owl, "Pray pardon my silly rudeness; I merely
obeyed an instinctive feeling, without the least intention of annoying
you; on the contrary, it would really grieve me if you doubted the
high esteem in which I hold you."

{265}

"Where's the good of excuses?" said he, shaking his head; "if you
really wish to serve me, take yourself off and leave me in peace."

"I cannot go," said I, "until you pardon my offense."

"And if I did pardon you", rejoined he, "what use would it be? But
I'll do no such thing. I cannot forgive you for being a man, or for
being here. Begone! you are a miscreant like the rest of your kind."

"You are a miscreant yourself!" retorted I, "and very unjust and
distrustful to boot. I never injured the smallest creature--I have
been the unfailing defender of birds' nests against children and
fowlers. I have incurred the contempt of mankind by my
knight-errantry. At least I ought to be treated with common civility
by those whom I have loved and protected."

"Oh, well! well! well!" said he, "don't say any more about it. You are
young, and seem to be well-meaning enough. I will trust you and rue
the indiscretion at my leisure."

"You must have been unfortunate," I remarked respectively, "to have
grown so distrustful."

"What's that to you?" he answered shortly; "my wretched story will do
you no good if you are destined to remain innocent; and if you are to
become like other men, it will not touch you."

"Nay," said I, thinking to tickle his vanity by a neatly turned
complement, "it would teach me wisdom and prudence. What less could I
learn from the favorite of Minerva and the protector of Athens?" But
my Timon's wisdom was proof against assault, and he replied:

"You think probably to flatter me, but I never knew the goddess you
mention. She was, I am told, is exceedingly turbulent person,
continually whirling and setting up her heroes by the years. And what
were the Athenians but a set of frivolous, shattering magpies,
incapable of forming a sound idea, or of putting it in execution if
they had."

"You seem to have a great contempt for mankind," said I, rather
abashed at the failure of my little complement. "What has shaken your
faith in us, if I might venture to ask?"

"That is a long story," answered he; "but I will tell it to you one of
these days if you and death can wait so long."

"Why not now? Everything is at rest; even the squirrels are sound
asleep, coiled up in the beech boughs, unmindful of you and me."

"No, no," said he snappishly, "I'm too tired to think now. Besides, I
don't know you, nor what you would be at with your teasing questions.
Go away and let me alone."

Fearing to vex him further and rouse his suspicions, I bade him
goodbye and retreated, promising to return the following night. The
next evening, just after sunset, I turned my steps toward the forest,
and heard as I drew near the tower my poor hermit shooting out into
the darkness his dismal cry houloulou! houloulou! which was answered
by a dreary echo.

"Poor old soul!" said I to myself, "it is frightful even to hear him,
his cries are so full of hatred, menace, and irony. Either he is
wicked or--" but I was standing at the foot of the tower and the voice
of the solitary called out: "Oh! is that you? It never occurred to me
that you would be so punctual. I must confess that your exactness
charms me."

And from that hour the anchorite and I were bound together by the
strongest friendship. He told me that from the first he had felt drawn
to me by a singular sympathy, but had vigorously resisted the
attraction for fear of fresh disappointment. His words shocked me by
their harshness, but our disputes were always friendly and his rebukes
were administered with a fatherly tenderness which touched me
extremely.

{266}

"But," said I one evening, "what would become of society if we adopted
your maxims? The noblest friendship, the most heroic devotion, would
be but deceitful snares. We should see in our companions only knavery,
hypocrisy, and treachery beneath a fair outside. And at this moment
you are not in harmony with your theories, for you are confiding in me
without dreaming that while I speak to you I may be planning your ruin
and destruction."

He smiled, and I believed him convinced; but a moment after the
doleful theme was resumed, and he was preaching his lamentable
doctrines as if I had not interrupted him.

"You are sincere and perhaps even virtuous now," he said. "But that is
no more than your duty, so you deserve no credit. I am so old in
experience that sometimes my wisdom seems to have been bought with
every drop of blood in my veins, and with every hope of happiness.
Now, this is the fruit of my experience, which I will give you, and
you can digest it at your leisure. Have no friends--live by
yourself--never marry--live in a village rather than in a city, and in
a forest rather than in either. You laugh, but let me tell you that it
is no laughing matter, as you will find when you know the world as
well as I do; and you will know it one of these days, when experience
has come too soon and death too late for your prayers."

So spake the misanthrope, and I replied: "We must take men as they are
and life as we find it; remembering that other people's faults are
sooner seen than our own, and that they have as much reason to shun us
as we have to despise them. God made us to live with our
fellow-creatures, and if each person followed out your dismal precepts
the world would become a vast solitude--a living tomb to engulf
humanity."

"Alas! young man!" was his mournful reply, and it was only by dint of
entreaty that I at last discovered the grounds of his grief and
disappointment. One beautiful evening lie told me his story. The
forest was radiant with a sunset glow; and the little birds were
hopping about and building their nests in the branches of the trees,
twittering and singing in the fulness of their joy.

"I was born," said he, "in the very place where I live to-day, for the
one illusion, the supreme consolation that I have left, is a love of
my native land. I was hatched in that crumbling old tower yonder
covered with moss and ivy. My two brothers came into the world with
me, and it was a dream of ours that we would go through life together,
always sacrificing private interest to mutual happiness: promises
suited to infancy and destined to be forgotten before youth had fled.

"We were the pride of our parents' hearts, and as we grew from day to
day our mother gloried in our size and beauty--our father in the
fancied promise we gave of strength and virtue. One day, when we had
grown old enough to take a little care of ourselves, our parents
addressed these words to us: 'In another month, little ones, you will
need our help no longer, and will enter boldly upon life. Now listen
to our directions: if we should die before you are old enough to take
care of yourselves, go to our neighbor, the old owl, who lives in the
oak that was struck by lightning last year, and who comes to see you
sometimes. He will be father and mother in one to you, if a parent's
place can be supplied. And another piece of advice: never let a silly
curiosity prompt you to leave this wood and go in search of new
places. Beyond this forest you would find treachery, misfortune, and
death. Now mind and remember our words when we are taken from you, and
never forget the father and mother who have love you so dearly.'

{267}

"All this made us cry so bitterly that we could hardly speak. The
words had a dreadful sound, though we did not know what they meant.
'What was it all about?' thought we; and yet with a sense of dread and
ill omen, we promised with tears to follow their device. We pledged
ourselves to everything, and thought our fidelity unimpeachable--for
childhood has such unbounded faith in itself. Our parents rejoiced in
our docility, and for several days our happy life continued unclouded.

"One evening they went out as usual to get food for us after saying
goodbye very tenderly. For a long time we awaited their return in
vain, and fell asleep at last worn out with watching and listening.
When we awoke they had not come back, and we asked each other in
terror if this could be the eternal separation they had spoken of. The
ruins rang with our cries, and the mocking echo sounded to our excited
fancy like the laugh of some mysterious enemy. Then hunger came to add
bodily misery to our sufferings; and I made up my mind that I, as the
eldest, was bound to sacrifice myself to save my little brothers.
Telling them to keep up their courage and wait for me patiently, I
threw myself boldly out of the nest and flew off in search of the old
friend of my mother and father. By help of all sorts of landmarks, I
succeeded at last in finding the shattered oak, but he, alas! was not
there; and trembling with fatigue I perched myself on a bough to wait
in dumb resignation for whatever might come next. A few hours had
taught me life's bitterest lesson, and I felt a century older than the
day before. At length, hungry and tired, and crazy with grief, I made
my way back to my brothers, who were waiting to tell me good news. Our
old friend, our only protector now, was with them. From his hermitage
he had seen his two poor friends pursued by an eagle and torn with his
cruel claws. Then he had remembered us and flown to our nest, bringing
food for us all. So my strength was restored, and I awoke once more to
the full vigor of life and suffering. When the first anguish of grief
passed away, it was only to leave room for fresh trial and
disappointment. One day--it was in the beginning of June--I heard the
birds singing in the foliage, I saw on every side living beings
enjoying life in the great forest, and the thought came to me for the
first time that I too might mingle in the festival of nature. I flew
out of the nest and perched quietly on an oak that stood at the edge
of the glade where all the little birds had met together for a
concert. They were listening to a linnet; every one was attending in
silence to her joyous notes, and all, even to the nightingale, were
filled with admiration for the pretty songstress. And I too admired
her. I too was penetrated with love for all these little birds who
looked so kind and good. 'How sweet it would be to live among them!'
thought I, and I determined to give up solitude and come with my
brothers to live among them, to be their friend and admirer. Love
seemed so sweet! Admiration of others so ennobling!

"Such were the thoughts in which I was luxuriating while the linnet's
song lasted. When she ended, I was still rapt in attention and cried
out: 'Oh! how beautiful, how exquisite that is!' Hardly were the words
uttered when they discovered me. In an instant I was surrounded,
hustled, assailed, insulted in a thousand discordant voices.

"'An owl! an owl! Gracious, how ugly he is! What a queer sort of a
_dilettante_! Just look at his solemn face and his great beak! and his
great round eyes! and is feathers! He's too hideous--what a fright!
There's a _connoisseur_ for you! Ugh! the brute!

"'Let's peck him,' said the gentle nightingale.

"'Yes, yes, hurrah! let's peck him well!' assented the thrush.

"And then they all crowded round me--nightingales, woodpeckers,
linnets, thrushes, blackbirds, tomtits, even to the turtle doves and
wood pigeons themselves. I felt the strokes of twenty beaks fall upon
me. It was like a quarry. 'Alas!' thought I, 'can such cruelty be
allied to such genius?' And I struggled wildly, stupefied, panting,
powerless amid the furious rattle. At last I succeeded in disengaging
myself {268} and flew away in desperation to hide from my persecutors.
Now at last I knew what evil was, and I asked myself, with odd
simplicity, you will say, if it was not the contrary of good. It was
true, then, as I had heard so often, that there were wicked beings in
the world! Could it be true? And while such thoughts whirled
confusedly through my unlucky brain, I flew to confess my defeat to my
old friend.

"'Oh, well!' said he, 'I don't blame you; you yielded to an impulse of
youthful confidence and learned a valuable lesson. Do you suppose that
I don't see as well as you that spring is fair and this forest
beautiful, and the linnet's song enchanting, and that everything bids
us be happy? I know it all very well, and yet I stay all alone in my
hole while everything outside is singing and rejoicing. You would not
believe my words, perhaps you will believe your own experience. You
thought there was no wickedness in the world, only innocence and
virtue? Well, your ignorance came from a kind heart, and, after all
you are happier in being good than your enemies in being victorious.'

"'But--just heaven! why did nature make these wretches so beautiful?
or rather, why did she make such beautiful creatures so wicked? Why is
not the perverseness of their hearts to be read on their faces?'

"'Ah, my son, that is a vexed question that many persons have agitated
before now, and that no one has succeeded in solving. Why has nature
made the good ridiculous and the wicked handsome? The best way is to
resign ourselves to what we cannot understand.'

"'And then,' said I, 'they said I was ugly enough to scare anybody.
But that cannot be true, for I look like my brothers, and my
brothers--"

"'No, my son,' answered the hermit, smiling sadly, 'no, you are not
ugly; nothing on earth is ugly excepting cruelty and vice. The
beautiful goldfinch, with his ash-colored throat and yellow wings, was
ugly to-day, and the linnet too, and all the pretty little birds who
tormented you so. Yes, they are hideously ugly; their hearts are black
as night, lovely though the plumage may be that covers them.

"'Then am I condemned to close my heart to love forever? Must I live
alone because there is wickedness around us?'

"'Alone, always alone,' he answered, 'otherwise you will have neither
rest nor happiness. But don't fancy that you have any cause for
lamentation or complaint on that account. See life, once for all, as
it really exist, and accept reality instead of pursuing phantoms.
Would you have every one resemble you? is every creature by to be the
hero of some dream of yours? Ah! I see that you are not cured even
now.'

"He was right; I was not cured, if you choose to say so. Of course I
had to confess that the small birds were wicked, that they were as
cruel as they were pretty, and that I must distrust and avoid them.
But I sought all kinds of plausible explanations of this incongruity.
I said that they had received from nature genius instead of virtue,
and that I had no more right to complain of their cruelty than they
had to ridicule my ugliness (for ugly I certainly must be) or my harsh
voice.

"And having persuaded myself of the truth of this, I flew away and hid
myself in the gloomiest part of the forest, weeping over my loneliness
and in deceived hopes. And now my eyes were opened to another
delusion. To the society of my two brothers I had looked for
consolation in every trouble, but before long they declared that one
hole was too narrow to satisfy their desires, and that they must seek
their fortune elsewhere. In vain did I use and elder brother's right
in dissuading them from this mad design. In vain I reminded them of
the fate of our parents who had perished in spite of every possible
precaution, and showed them how much more they would be exposed in
thus throwing themselves in the way of danger. Nothing influenced
them--not even the memory of our vows of {269} mutual fidelity, not
even any entreaties that they would not leave me alone in this dreary
solitude. One--the youngest and handsomest, my especial favorite--was
possessed by some crazy longing for travel and foreign adventure. He
dreamed of some land of promise where all would be good and happy; and
on the faith of these dreams he left us one day, bidding good-by to
his country, his cradle, and his only friends, to go in search of the
Utopia he longed to find. I never saw him again. Did he find the
object of his desires? Did he die on the journey? I know not; but one
thing we may be sure of--that fate cheated him of his wild and
ambitious hopes.

"My other brother left me to follow a scatter-brained young
screech-owl who had entangled him in her fascinations. He established
himself with her in a neighboring wood, but parted from me with a
thousand protestations of eternal friendship and devotion.

"And thus I found myself in that enviable solitude which my sage
friend had recommended to me--left to myself and my own sad thoughts.
I only went out toward evening to look for food, and then returned to
my gloomy hole and left it no more. But isolation, instead of making
me courageous, only disgusted me more and more with the life I was
leading. From the depths of my retreat, I used to watch with envy the
gaiety and animation of other birds. Not that I dreamed of joining in
their mirth, for my own experience of their society had taught me to
keep at a safe distance; but the sight of their enjoyment led me to
believe that I might find companionship quite as agreeable without
leaving my own circle. I mingled more and more among the other owls of
the forest; I visited them in their own homes, and counted the hours I
spent with them and their families as so much gained against grief and
dullness. My most intimate friendship was with a highly respectable
family who lived not far from my castle, and especially with a young
owl, the fourth child of venerable parents who had known and valued my
unhappy father. Her sweetness and innocence made her very lovely in my
eyes. What was it to me that her beak was too hooked, her eyes too
hollow, and her head angular! beauty is the form of the ideal, not a
material regularity. While autumn lasted I visited her every day at
the hole of her aged parents, and before long we were bound together
by ties of indestructible love. In the midst of our happiness winter
separated us. What is winter? Why should this spoil-sport intrude on
our fairest days? And yet, after all, nature has a right to be cruel
and mischievous, since all her children are so! For several months I
was parted from her whom I loved; but as soon as spring returned she
became my companion, and I brought her home to my bower, which was to
serve me now as a nest and as the cradle of my children. There we
spent blissful days, the happiest perhaps of my life. Soon the nest
was full; two newly hatched little ones raised their bald heads, and
filled the air with infantile cries. With what solicitude we watched
over them! what care and anxiety we felt for these darling little
creatures! At last we had the happiness of seeing them open their eyes
and look up at us with that knowing air of intelligence so enchanting
to young parents. I thought that happiness was restored to me, and
that fate was tired of persecuting me. 'What matters now,' said I,
'the cruelty of the world and its unjust disdain? Do I need any other
happiness than this?

"It seemed as if we could see the children grow from day to day, and
their good health, noble mien, and cheerful disposition were fast
filling our cup of happiness to overflowing. One day their mother went
out in search of food, leaving me to watch the nest, for they were as
yet too young to be trusted alone. Hour after hour passed on, and yet
she did not return. I became very uneasy as I remembered my parents'
fate, and at last, telling the children to be very {270} quiet and
prudent, I sallied forth in search of her. Soon she appeared, flying
toward me at the utmost speed of her rushing wings. 'At last I have
come,' she cried, 'let us be grateful for my escape! A falcon has been
chasing me for two hours past, and I only eluded his pursuit by hiding
in the hollow of a tree. We must get back to the children as quick as
possible.' And we hastened back to the nest. As we approached the
tower, we heard--oh, horror!--sharp cries of pain, and recognized in
those screams the voices of our little ones; on we plunged, distracted
with fear; and saw the falcon--it was he--rising up into the air
clutching in his horrid claws one of our children, the little
creature's blood dropping down about us, while he struggled and cried,
'Mother!--Father!'--and then all was still, and the falcon sailed away
out of sight.

"You think that was enough, but not so. When we reached the nest and
looked for the other one, there we found his poor little body
stretched on the wall, torn open with a frightful wound. What shall I
tell you? Wild with grief, we wandered for days about the forest,
insensible to rain or wind, to hunger or thirst, even to the mocking
sneers of the birds who hunted us, pecking at us and tearing out our
feathers. What did we care for that or anything else?

"At last my companion said: 'If you have no objection, let us leave
forever this hateful wood, which has brought us such misery and
bitterness. Let us give up this odious world and find some other
home.' 'But where would you have us go?' I asked. 'If we have not
found peace in this retreat, why should we find it anywhere else? We
could not be more completely hidden in any other place than we have
been here, and yet here we have been discovered. I don't feel like
beginning a new life nobody knows where.' 'Let us go among human
beings,' answered she. 'There, at least we shall find goodness,
generosity, and greatness. Just think how admirable their towns and
villages are! To be sure I can only judge them by hearsay, but I have
every reason to suppose that we should meet with a cordial reception.
The very day the falcon chased me I took refuge in a hollow oak, and I
listened to the talk of two men who were sitting at the foot of the
tree. You never heard anything so beautiful as their words! Anybody
could see that they were the kings of the animal creation. They were
complaining of the mice that make such havoc among their bins and
granaries. Let us go and deliver them from these pests.' 'You have
convinced me,' I replied. 'Yes, we will go to mankind an serve them
faithfully. How they will respect us and reward our services.' And so
after taking a sad farewell of our old friend and adviser, who saw us
depart with many forebodings of evil, we winged our way through the
forest. Toward evening we reached its outskirts and saw before us a
village. We had reached our new country.

"We chose one of the largest barns in this village for our home, and
at once opened a desperate warfare against the rats and mice who were
attracted thither in large numbers by the provisions. This novel mode
of life brought us so much occupation and distraction, that we had no
time to dwell upon our grief. Our courage rose once more, and we used
to say to each other: 'What sublime beings men are! How grand are all
their actions! They are born ignorant and they know everything! They
are born feeble and they conquer nature!' These perfections formed the
subject of our morning talks when the night's work was over, their
hospitality and goodness, our faithful devotion to them, and the
gratitude it could not fail to win.

{271}

"Little by little we became familiarized with our position and enjoyed
it. The more we studied human nature the more we admired it's
clemency, justice, and rectitude. One evening we ventured cautiously
out of our retreat, and looked about the village. Before each window
hung cages filled with solitary prisoners. There I recognized the
cruel nightingale, the linnet who had caused me so much anguish, and
many other birds who had been in the habit of tormenting us in the
forest. We returned home enchanted with our expedition. 'Here at last
we have found justice,' cried I. 'In this happy land the wicked are
punished for their cruelty and prevented from doing further mischief;
while the good are left free and happy. Why, there was not an owl to
be seen among the prisoners! We have reason to be grateful that at
last we have reached a haven of rest and tranquility.'

"We at once decided that I should go in search of our old friend, and
induce him to share our happiness. 'Poor soul!' we said, 'at last the
destiny which he has so long sought is within his reach. Now, at last,
he will see that our hopes of final happiness were not mere dreams.'

"A few nights after I set out on a visit to our friend in his obscure
retreat. We parted full of joy in thinking of the good old solitary,
whose last days we were to make so peaceful. I flew at full speed, and
reached the wood without fatigue. Full of hope, and picturing the
pleasant surprise my coming would arouse in him, I entered his
dwelling quite suddenly, exclaiming, 'Here I am, father; I have come
to take you away from this place, and show you that happiness which
you have always treated as a chimera.' 'Is it you, my son?' he said
with joyful astonishment, but in a weak, choked voice; and I saw that
a great change had come over him. A shutter ran through me. 'Oh, yes,
it is I,' replied I cheerfully. 'We have not forgotten you, and we
shall not be able to enjoy our happiness unless you are there to share
it with us. Come, I will tell you the rest on the way. But what ails
you that you do not move?' 'Nothing, my son; it will soon be ended.
Before this day closes I shall be cured.' 'Cured!--why, are you ill?
you who were so strong and hearty!' 'The illness from which I am
suffering has always afflicted me,' he said, 'but the time of cure has
come; the physician is at hand.' 'The physician! what physician?'
'Death,' he answered in a hollow voice. 'Death!' cried I, 'what do you
mean? would you leave us? we cannot live without you. Oh, come away!
come with me! have you no pity on me?' 'Pity! yes, child, I pity you
for your youth, and because you do not stand where I stand now. It is
you who have no pity in holding me back from my repose. Let me rest,
my son, in the eternal peace of nature.'

"His head dropped forward heavily. He was dead. Dead at the moment
when I offered him the accomplishment of hopes long since abandoned.

"I flew away horror stricken, as if an enemy were tracking me to
destruction; but what I fled from was planted in my heart never to be
uprooted. The night fell--one of those dreary autumn evenings when
cloud and mist contend for mastery. With a heart oppressed with grief,
I returned to the scenes I had passed through so gayly a few hours
before. What had I left? Parents, brothers, children, friends, all
dead--my opinion alone remained to sustain and comfort me; to be
consoled and supported.

"Absorbed in these gloomy ideas, I reached the confines of the
village. Afar off I recognized the hospitable roof that had given us
shelter, and my heart beat with joy in spite of my affliction. But who
were that troop of children gathered before the barn door? What did
these cries of joy, and stamping of feet, and clasping of hands
portend, and the smiling old folks looking on and encouraging their
sports? Of course it must be some pure and virtuous amusement since
children joined in it, so I flew on with a sense of kindly interest.
As the distance lessened, I thought I saw--I {272} knew I saw a bird
banging with outstretched wings on the born-door--nailed there,
bleeding, dead. Oh! heaven's justice! my companion murdered! dead!
butchered! And that before the eyes of nature, under the light of
heaven! And no protesting voice raised from the bosom of the earth! I
hung about there, staring at the horrid sight with my heart turned to
stone within me. As night deepened the children dispersed, and then I
fell upon that inanimate form like a wild beast, and fastened upon the
nails with beak and claws to tear their prey from them. My furious
struggles only served to lacerate me till I bled; and all the time the
dead thing looked at me; its cold, fixed glassy eyes glared at me with
a cruel irony that scared me from the place. Yet night and day I
wandered about the barn, and night and day watched that dreadful
object, until at the end of two weeks madness relieved me of reason
and self-consciousness. Then I went away with a heart bubbling over
with hatred of humanity. Oh, that I could have clutched the human race
in one single body within these claws, to tear out its eyes, devour
its heart, and fling the carrion to be the sport of winds and
tempests!

"The thread of my life was broken. What more had I to do with the
earth, that wicked stepmother who gives us light only to make its
glare insufferable. With frantic speed I rushed through the valley,
and paused only when fatigue and hunger forced me to rest. I stopped
on the margin of a little stream shaded by bushy alders, while the
turf along its edge was strewn with wheat. I drew near to eat, but
hardly had I touched the earth when I felt myself caught and held
fast, 'Well,' thought I, 'man would be unworthy of his name if he did
not use all his splendid gifts for the destruction of others. At least
I will thank him for ridding me of life.' And then I fell into a
gloomy stupor, and became indifferent to everything around me, while
in my memory there arose visions of childhood--of the old nest in the
tower of my parents, and the pretty little brothers whom I had vowed
never to part from; and as my heart swelled with the woeful regrets
these images brought up to me, I suddenly caught sight of the fowler
running toward me in all haste, and at the same instant I beheld my
brother--my brother whom I had never seen since our childhood. A
transport of joy came over me; now I was safe, and he it was who would
release me. We would fly away somewhere together and begin life over
again. Divine hope! it restored strength and courage to me. 'Brother,
brother!' I cried anxiously, 'here I am--come this way. Don't you see
me?' He turned his eyes toward me. 'Why, is that you? Caught in a
trap, aren't you? I really wish I had time to stop and help you, but I
am in full chase after a young owl who has given me considerable
encouragement. You had better get out of that snare pretty quick, for
the keepers coming. Good-by till we meet again.'

"And now anything, everything seemed possible, explicable, credible.
All my other miseries faded away in view of this lie against
friendship, this insult to humanity, this blasphemy against pity.

"But after all is said and done, the instinct of life is of all
feelings the most irresistible. A moment before I had loathed
existence; now, when I saw the fowler draw near, I struggled wildly
with beak and claws and wings to save myself. In the presence of death
the sun looked bright to me once more, and life again seemed good. A
few more desperate springs and struggles and I was free--flying
whither? to my native forest, where I had first known misery and
disappointment, now my only companions. There all would be unchanged,
I thought, except myself. I only should be hopeless, I alone gloomy
and silent amid the undying joys of serene nature. But--ah me! when I
reached the old place disappointment was lying in wait for {273} me
there too. The dear old nest was gone; the wall had crumbled away and
was strewing the mountain-side. The kindly ivy that sheltered us once
was crawling on the earth; the beeches had decayed and scrub bushes
choked up the place where they had stood. Everything in me and in
nature was dead, and so nothing was left but to bid good b to memory
and joy--aye, and to trouble too, for the matter of that.

"This was my last deception. From that day to this I have stagnated
here, learning, hoping, fearing nothing' Joy and sorrow are so far
away in the past that they seem never to have belonged to me. And this
is peace."

There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of my oppressed
breathing. At last the owl said, with a weary sigh:

"You wished to know my story. There it is, and you are welcome to the
lessons it may give you. In the mean time I can only say that I pity
you--pity your innocence, your candor, and your destiny."

And I replied, "You are right. I know life now, and its promises shall
never delude me."

He smiled and repeated, "I pity you."

This history impressed me profoundly. I rehearsed the miserable
details, and saw in his life my own. I was the credulous being who had
trusted implicitly to life. The wretch who had sown kindness among his
fellow men and reaped contempt, was again myself. Was I then to
clamber the rocky path to the end only to see hope receding in the
distance? Society became to me every day more unbearable; I avoided my
companions with horror, and their railleries, which up to that time I
had borne with indifference, seemed like so many poisoned arrows aimed
at my heart. Intercourse with my old friend only increased my contempt
for men and existence; yet in tins mute revolt against nature and
humanity, I selected him as the sole confidant of my woes, and
invariably left him with a heart more bitter and oppressed than
before.

One day, toward sunset, I was wandering through the great arches of
the forest, going as usual toward the retreat of my bosom friend. A
serious silence was creeping slowly down from the tree-tops. The birds
were still, the winds asleep; no sound or sign of life to be anywhere
discerned, except the crushing of dried leaves beneath my tread. And
as I went dreaming on amidst this solitude, I heard in spirit the
melody of Nature dropping through the tender evening air, and I tried
to give it words in this little song:

  When Spring with loft maternal hand
    Spreads all the earth with green,
  And 'gainst the sun's too ardent gaze
    Weaves many a leafy screen,

  Build your neats, bright-plumed minstrels,
    Forgetting not to praise
  The bounty that so lavishly
    Sheds gladness on your ways.

  Think not, in missing old-time friends,
    Some favorite bower or hedge,
  That Nature has misused her power,
    Or broken a sacred pledge:

  This is Spring's immortality;
    Youth must replace decay.
  Grieve not that your turn too must come:
    Less brief than bright your day!

  Build your nests then, my chanters sweet:
    Bloom flower, vine, and tree:
  Let no discordant wail disturb
    Spring's song of rapturous glee.

I reached the hermit's cell. He was not there as usual, crouched on
the edge of his nest; and I called to him, thinking he had fallen
asleep or wandered off, as he sometimes did, into a thicker gloom to
meditate. No answer. I stood on tiptoe and looked uneasily into his
retreat. There I saw in the confusing obscurity a greyish, motionless
mass. I laid my hand upon it, and what was my horror to find my
friend, my owl! I turned in upon him the last beams of the sun, hoping
to rouse him. Alas! the light did not penetrate his eyeballs; the rays
did not warm his frigid form. I lifted him up; the head dropped
lifelessly, the wings were rigid, the shrivelled claws were cramped
and clenched with the death struggle. He was dead! he suffered no
longer.

{274}

I replaced him in his hole and stopped up its mouth with stones and
turf, sweeping a great branch of ivy across this improvised tomb. When
the wall crumbles, soft verdure will shield those poor remains. Oh! my
dear, tired owl! I could only give thee a tomb; sleep well and
peacefully therein! And so I turned away, thinking of my old friend
and of his reverses, precepts, sufferings, and misanthropy.

"Such is the term of existence," said I "so end our joys and our
pains." But higher and higher in my soul swelled the song of the
forest, until I cried, "This is the voice of God, and he cannot lie:"
and entering into myself I understood at last the merciful and
providential law that governs nature, attaching to each suffering a
consolation, to each pang a hope. To what was my contempt of life
leading me? To the gradual debasement of my being, to a forgetfulness
of the duties that God imposes on his creatures. Man is made for
struggle, and he who deserts the field is a coward. If his strength
fails, can he not draw fresh force from prayer? Does our Heavenly
Father ever forget his weary children? Yes, life is a hard, rough
road, but it leads straight to a goal where the sanctified soul shall
find reward and rest. My poor owl might well feel sour and
exasperated, since death meant to him only the peace of nothingness;
but man has other destinies, and rebellion is for him unjustifiable
revolt. What matter passing trials to him who is to possess eternity?
Should we not blush at our cowardice when we remember that the
infinite God is our consoler?

And all these grave thoughts anent a poor bird of whom nothing is
left but a bunch of feathers! Well! there are days when a slight
emotion makes the human heart spill over, like a full vase overflowed
by one drop too much.

--------

ORIGINAL.

SONNET.


  And thou wouldst live for ever, poet soul
  In love of human kind! What must thou do?
  Look o'er the past, scan well whose worth is true--
  Not those mere forms that with the ages roll--
  And say what readst of them on Time's bright scroll:--
  "Names faint or fading, save a fadeless few,
  Like rare Etruscan colors, ever new."
  Yet tell me, seer, how shine the favored whole:--
  "Some glitter as the icy mountain peak
  Remote, whence flow a thousand generous streams:
  Some glow as morn or even, or blushing cheek
  Of one beloved, or angels known in dreams;
  These touch upon the universal--speak--
  Lo! Nature, Love, Religion, are the themes."

------

{275}

From The Month.

THE MUSÉE RETROSPECTIF IN PARIS.


It is probable that there has never been an Exhibition so singular in
its contrasted contents, so rich in market value, prepared so abruptly
for submission to public inspection, as that which, during the latter
half of the year 1865, was to be seen in the Palais de l'Industrie in
Paris, under the name of "_Musée Retrospectif_" In a general way, its
character may be comprehended in England by a reference to the
Kensington Museum Exhibition of 1862, from which its conception was
drawn, and which it outstripped. Like that Exhibition, it came into
existence in especial connection with an institute the primary object
of which is to promote the cultivation of art in connection with
manufactures. This was formed in Paris three years ago, under the
title of "_L'Union Centrale des Beaux Arts appliqués à l'Industrie_;"
and under circumstances not a little curious, and not a little
gratifying to those who have led on the great movement of improvement
in art for the last quarter of a century in England. They will find
that it has come to pass that the best leading spirits among our great
rivals have felt and admitted, with no little alarm, the success of
that movement, and the formidable competition with which it has
threatened their previous preeminence. The simplest and most sincere
evidence of this appears in the published Report of M. Prosper Merimée
in reference to the London Exhibition of 1862, and the adoption of its
sentiments by the conductors of that admirable periodical, _La Gazette
des Beaux Arts_. In that Report M. Merimée, who was official reporter
for the French section of the International Jury, thus expresses
himself:

  "Since the Universal Exhibition in 1851, and even since that of
  1855, immense progress has taken place in Europe; and although we in
  France have not remained stationary, we cannot conceal from
  ourselves that our lead has become less sensible, and is ever
  tending to its termination. It is our duty to remind our
  manufacturers that, however successful they may have been on this
  occasion, they may possibly sustain a defeat, and that at no very
  distant date, if from the present moment they fail to address all
  their energies to the maintenance of a preeminence which can only be
  secured by an incessant aim at perfection. English industrial
  produce more especially, so markedly behindhand in point of art
  previous to the Exhibition of 1851, has made in the course of ten
  years _prodigious advancement_; and if it should so continue its
  onward movement, we might find ourselves unexpectedly surpassed."

This startling avowal from an authority not to be contravened led,
among other consequences, to such reflections as the following: "The
contact of England and France, rendered so frequent by the Universal
Exhibitions of Paris and London," observes the _Gazette des Beaux
Arts_, "will not be without its use in reference to a regenerative
movement now in contemplation, to which we wish to draw the attention
of our--so contiguous to us in locality, so severed in habits--we
have learned how much can be done by a few men of resolute
purpose--citizens generously devoted to the public good, and
unrestricted in their freedom of action. This lesson was well
condensed in the words, often quoted, of a sovereign who has passed a
portion of his life in England, {276} and has brought from thence
certain English conclusions; namely, 'Individual initiative, urging on
its plans with indefatigable ardor, saves Government from monopolizing
the management of the vital energy of the nation. . . . Stimulate,
then, among individuals an energetic spontaneity for promoting all
purposes having in view the beautiful and the useful.'"

The result of the very pregnant views thus unreservedly avowed has
been an effort in emulation of that much-commended individual vigor of
operation; and accordingly a small band of artistic and literary
Frenchmen, led on by a distinguished and very zealous architect, M.
Guichard, constituted themselves the nucleus of a society the great
aim and object of which is an incessant application of the most
effective means for fertilizing the wide domain of native art and
manufacture, so as to sustain it in its present rich power of
productiveness. They have assumed the name of _L' Union Centrale des
Beaux Arts appliqués â l'Industrie_. They have instituted a museum for
the collection and exhibition of all manner of objects akin to their
undertaking, where lectures are to be systematically delivered to the
same end.

In fine, they have developed so rapidly in their proceedings, that
they have designed, and we may say founded, a college wherein special
education and special distribution of honors are to be dispensed to
students of industrial art. Until a suitable structure for this has
been erected, within which the Society will establish its centre of
action, its headquarters are in that quaint and spacious square in the
Marais de St. Antoine Quartier of Paris, the Place Royale; noted for
its clever white marble equestrian statue of Louis XIII., and recently
deriving a melancholy interest from being the death scene of Rachel.

In addition to these great projects for permanent organization, of
which the germs will be found at the Adelphi and South Kensington,
that special Exhibition of 1862 in the latter quarter, the success of
which was so extraordinary, and we may add the influence of that noble
display of mediaeval ecclesiastical art which which was to be seen at
Malines in 1864, were the occasions of suggestions which fell most
productively upon the zealous minds of our projectors. It was deemed
expedient in the councils of the Place Royale, that Paris too should
have its "Retrospective" exhibition. The French government, eschewing
all jealousy of this independent association, lent its help as soon as
application was made: and Marshal Vaillant placed at its disposal
abundant space for the proposed undertaking in the large saloons of
the Palais de l'Industrie.

It was not, however, without some apprehensions of success in their
experiment--without some nervous misgivings as to the realizing of
ways and means, and winning the loan of the treasures of antique vertu
from their possessors, that they entered upon their work. However, _en
avant_ was the word, and full success ensued. The undertaking had the
good fortune to win favor in four quarters of immense influence--the
Emperor, Prince Czartoriski, the Marquis of Hertford, and the Messrs.
Rothschild. When this became known, it acted as an "open sesame" to
the masters of lesser stores; and from that time streams of
undreamt-of and unhoped-for valuables came pouring in upon the
society, until at length an inconvenient overflow seemed imminent, and
it became necessary to select and decline. The ultimate result,
however, was, that the accommodation of twelve large saloons was
absolutely exhausted by the contributions; and it has been estimated
that the whole might realize on sale something like a million and a
half of  pounds sterling.

It was a patent defect of this Exhibition, that works of the same kind
were not classed together. This was in consequence, doubtless, of the
exactions of contributors. Each proprietor of a collection of
treasures, however various and unconnected their contents, required,
both for safety's sake and with {277} a pardonable vanity, that his
own galaxy should shine apart The spectator, therefore, was for a
while bewildered in discerning the various elements of this vast and
most miscellaneous collection.

A small, neatly arranged selection of stone-weapons stood as a
foundation for the whole. From this we had to pass by a prodigious
bound--for the next element was excellence itself, the masterpieces of
Greece. The collection of these, if brought into one range and
receptacle, would have been sufficient to constitute a most valuable
Museum of statuettes, vases, and other objects--some of perfect
beauty. We cannot in a brief sketch like this attempt any detailed
description, which could but be tantalizingly imperfect. We may make a
statuette of Minerva, thus noted as No. 98 of the catalogue: "_Athène
Toromachos; reproduction du Xoanon, conservé dans le Temple
d'Erechthée. Bronze fondu en plein, du travail le plus archaïque. Un
des plus vieux bronzes grecs connus_." With what pardonable veneration
might not the lover of the Greek marvels of art bend over this, "one
of the oldest Greek bronzes known"!

Another violent leap of transition brought us from the schools of
Phidias and Praxiteles to the middle ages and the renaissance period.
Here, again, the contributions were profuse. In the former the ivories
were of much interest--diptych, poliptych, and single subject--in
which the deep sincerity of sentiment of their era struggled through
and gave sterling value to imperfect art. All these, as well as the
larger portion of other works of the same time, were connected with
sacred subjects. Although not equal, upon the whole, the Malines
collection, there was here abundant food for deep meditation and
admiration. Here, as there also, was a commemoration of the murder of
St. Thomas--a reliquary in the form of a rectangular box of silver,
gilt and embellished with niello, its cover pyramidal, topped with a
large garnet stone, surrounded by a setting of pearls. On either
larger side was pictured the slaying or the entombment of the martyr,
with inscriptions. Figures of angels completed the ornaments of this
choice work, which has been attributed, with some doubt, to a German
hand of the twelfth century.

Numerous works in iron, of the twelfth century, many of great beauty
--others in brass, silver, and gold, together with specimens of enamel
and jewelry, of middle-age handling, were exhibited on this occasion.
Few, however, of the curiosities of this period drew more attention
than the manuscripts in simple scroll or illuminated. The greater
portion of these came from the collections of M. Ambroise Firmin Didot
or M. Le Carpentier. The Marquis de Ganay sent one article worth a
hundred others, viz., the Books of the Gospels which had belonged to
Charlemagne, and which, as tradition tells us, were wrung from the
abbey of St. Maurice d'Argaune in the civil wars of the fourteenth
century. On one side of its binding was a gold plate, impressed with
the figure of Christ Blessing--a work of the ninth century. It was
also adorned with a set of uncut precious stones, added in the twelfth
century. Near to this were the Gospels, written in the eleventh
century at the monastery of Ottenbeuren in Swabia, in characters of
gold and silver. A copy of Josephus, from Saint-Tron in the province
of Lemberg, Belgium, of the twelfth century, was also extremely fine.
An Italian manuscript of the fourteenth century was also there,
written on vellum, with ornamental capitals and miniatures--the
revelations of St. Bridget Among these precious works not the least
singular was a _Livre d'heures_ on vellum, having 330 pages,
illustrated and ornamented with as many different subjects. Of these,
fifty-six were taken from the Dance of Death. This was a work of the
fifteenth century, and, strange to say--whether in melancholy jest or
otherwise--had been presented by Louis XV. to his physician Dr. Mead.
The works of the renaissance and subsequent period, in this
collection, {278} were most numerous in what may be termed miniature
objects--light branches and lovely blossoms springing from the great
main trunks of painting and sculpture. For them chiefly, so full of
winning instructiveness, this _Musée Retrospectif_ would seem to have
been especially got up. They appeared in forms of gold, silver, and
much more cherished bronze, in ivory, and again the happier vehicle
wood, in crystal and in glass, in steel, in gems and miniatures, in
enamelled terra cotta, in furniture, in time-pieces, in tapestry, and
numberless other ways.

The bronzes, scattered among the collections on every side, were
admirable. The miniature model of an equestrian statue--a condottiere
leader by Donatello--was universally felt to be a model in that most
difficult branch of art. It excited an absolute _furore_ amongst the
critics. In contrast to its graceful swing of boldness, there was a
_basso relievo_ from an unknown hand, representing the figure of
Charity--a draped female figure--clasping a child to her bosom
caressingly, while other fondlings of the like age cling round her
neck and her knees. Exquisite sweetness of expression is here found
united to perfection of form and masterly arrangement of elaborate
drapery. Yet the author is wholly unknown. Numerous statuettes
sustained the honor of this class. We pass them to note three
busts--full size--which could not fail to arrest the attention and
command the deep admiration of every amateur or artist who passed
through these saloons. The first was that of Beneviani, an Italian
noble of the fifteenth century; the second, of Jerome Beneviani, a
poet and philosopher of the sixteenth century; the third, of the great
Buonarotti. The rigid adherence to nature, full of sincere force of
expression, impressed on all three, compelled one to pause and ponder
and commune with character so deeply significant. Such busts leave
impressions not easily to be effaced, and are most instructive to the
sculptor.

The great strength of this Exhibition lay, however, not so much in the
subjects to which we have alluded as in its singular profusion of
examples in the vast field of pottery and Limoge enamelling. It is
probable that never have so many and such various specimens of both
these branches of art been hitherto brought together. It is but just
to say, that by far the greater part of the voluminous array had
attached to it the names of Baron G. Rothschild and M. Alphonso
Rothschild. Every variety of pottery or porcelain having any claim to
reputation (with the exception of our own English works) seemed to
have here, in one quarter or another, its representative.

Here were Moorish and Hispano-moresque vessels, comparatively rude in
design and tinting, from which the great susceptibility of Italian art
drew its first inspirations. Then came the majolica, in all its
progressive modifications; the varnished sculpture of Luca della
Robbia; the relievo of Palissy, of which we had here every contrasted
variety of subject, and all the different schools of Italy fully and
most interestingly illustrated. The value attached to some of the
rarer specimens might be thought fabulous were we not familiar with
the extravagances into which the long-pursed amateurs are led, in
their devotion to the singular, if not the unique. Thus there appeared
in the treasury of the Rothschilds a morsel--a small candlestick--of
the almost extinct _faience_ of Henry II., to which, it was affirmed,
the value of forty thousand francs was attached. If the whole thirty
or so subsisting specimens of this rarity were swept away, what, in
point of general grace of form, elegance of linear detail, or delicacy
of color, would be lost to the world? Something infinitesimally
inconsiderable. Around this precious relique there was a wondrous
profusion of Limoges enamels, belonging to various persons, and
exhibiting in every degree the beauties of that exquisite specialty of
{279} art applied either to portraiture or five historic or sacred
subject. These, indeed, deserve to be cherished with watchfulness and
affection.

Among other contributions to this Exhibition were a large collection
of fine Chinese and Japanese curiosities, to which with great truth
the title _Retrospectif_ could be affixed. They combined admirably
great strength of construction with charming delicacy of
embellishment.

In contrast to all these gentler productions of human genius came the
special contribution of the emperor, presenting art and ingenuity as
handmaidens to war--not as ministering to the amenities or luxuries of
peace. In other words, it gave, in review, a complete array of the
heaviest heavy armor of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries--some
thirty suits, standing cap-à-pie--illustrating the period when almost
the entire frame of the man militant was encased in metal plates;
when, consequently, to fall in battle was but too much after the
fashion of Lucifer--never to rise again, unless as a prisoner, or
unless assisted from mid mêlée by the smart hands of some sturdy
squire, and thus once more restored to the perpendicular on the back
of that singular hippogriff, a horse in armor. In this collection of
panoplies the variety of helmets was most striking--some singularly
extravagant in their steel contour, and all with as little
accommodation as possible for the functions of breathing or seeing. A
few offered most ludicrous mockeries of the human face divine, a nose
alone projecting in Roman ruggedness: truly an iron joke. Among the
rest, a German tournament-casque was conspicuous. It belonged to the
second half of the seventeenth century, was wholly of silver, and
richly ornamented both in carving and indenture. This gem of the
collection was, it appears, a present from the empress to the emperor.

The armor of the central and most conspicuous group in the saloon had
the like honor. It presented a knight on horseback--man and horse in
full panoply, and an attendant man-at-arms. It seemed intended to
unite the aspect of lightness with genuine metallic strength. A
tradition is connected with it: that at a period when the progressive
development of the fatal use of fire-arms, of cannon, arque-buss,
petronel, and pistol, had gradually weakened faith in the utility of
the chivalric steel coat, Louis XIII. and his potent minister Cardinal
de Richelieu were both staunchly true to the olden creed of the olden
time, where

  "None of your ancient heroes
    Ere heard of cannon-ball.
  Or knew the force of powder,
    To slay their foes withal;"

and it was thought expedient by both that his majesty should have this
splendid model-suit made, in order to use influence of the most potent
kind against the new martial heterodoxy. The progress of time has
proved how vainly the recalcitrant effort was made. The great
explosive agent has prevailed--until at length, in our own time, the
management of the _bouches à feu_ is the beginning and end of all
scientific strategy; and even the cuirassier--the last of the
steel-clads--is surmised to be on his last legs.

While thus on one side of this saloon these numerous examples of armor
were ranged--a terrible show--and the helmets occupied, in close
muster, an encircling shelf, the _arme blanche_ had its honors
sustained by a series of radiating groups attached to the walls, in
which blades of Italy, Germany, and France, with matchless Toledo
rapiers, showed their quality unsheathed. The thrilling simplicity of
the cold gleaming steel in these deadly implements was, in many
instances, strangely contrasted with the exquisite artistic
elaboration of ornament upon their hilts. This anomaly was completed
by the adoption, for this purpose, of subjects taken from Holy Writ,
and the most tender illustrations of religious charity, sculptured in
gold or silver, or tinted in the most delicate enamel. Thus we found
{280} upon one the for phases of the Prodigal Son's career admirably
composed in miniature _basso relievo_. One sword of this kind could
not fail to hold attention. It had been sent to Henry IV. by the pope
on his abjuration. On its pommel two metals were inserted--the one
having for its subject the Crucifixion, the other the Resurrection. On
other metals, combined with the hilt, were represented the
Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi,
and the Circumcision. Finally the portrait of Henry himself was
introduced supported by Angels.

Here also was the blade of a different man, and of a different import,
once grasped by the strong hand of Charles XII. Of Sweden, vigorous
for cut, or subtly tempered for trust [thrust?]. No mincing ornament
of delicate tracery embellished its hilt; but it was appropriately
wreathed with oak foliage in iron, and it bore an interlaced cipher of
C's, surmounted by the words, _Soli Deo gloria_.

This weapon,

  "A better never did itself sustain
  Upon a soldier's thigh,"

was worn by Charles at Bender, and was given by him to General
Mayenfelt. It was presented to the Emperor Louis Napoleon by the
present King of Sweden.

Associated with these specimens of the _arme blanche_ were
well-preserved examples of the cross-bow and earlier invented
fire-arms, with their attendant accoutrements; the whole forming an
extremely rich set of illustrations of the centuries to which it more
especially referred.

Take it for all in all, this room was pregnant with suggestion. No
extraordinary susceptibility of imagination was required for one
lingering over its relics to shadow forth fearful episodes without
number of tale or history connected with these crowded weapons of
slaughter.

Independent of this splendid collection of arms, there were many
others among the miscellanea of the Exhibition. By far the finest
belong to the Marquis of Hertford, figuring conspicuously in the
chamber specially devoted to _chefs-d'-oeuvres_ contributed from that
nobleman's collection; and evidencing that it was not alone on
masterpieces of painting that it could depend for its well-merited
celebrity. The most prominent arms here were Circassian helmets and
sabres, all fresh in brilliant preservation, as if they had just come
from the anvil or workshop; the former more particularly remarkable
for their exquisite inlaid golden tracery, the latter for their
gorgeous richness of minute carving. These, with many other specimens
of Oriental ornament--creeses, poniards, or scimitars, here enclosed
in glass cases--almost compelled one to the conclusion that in the
East there is a more delicately inventive genius for ornamentation
than can be found in Europe. This we may again see exemplified in the
carpets of Persia, the shawls of Cashmere, and in the muslins of
Hindostan, gleaming with fire-fly splendor of metallic foliage.

Having dwelt on the specialties of warlike equipment, the footsteps of
the visitor were led to the last of the saloons, and found it
dedicated, in almost monumental melancholy, to reminiscences of Polish
royalty. Members of the Czartoriski family, Prince Ladislaus, and the
Princess Iza, had furnished forth almost all the contents of the
cases, which lined three sides of the apartment. A very copious
miscellany of jewelry and ornaments in gold and silver--some singular
for their artistic beauty, and others for their quaint antiquity--was
here to be seen. Of special note amongst the former was a charming
morceau of jewelry, wherein the letter A, standing for Auguste, was
set in diamonds, and supported by two exquisite enamel infant figures,
attributed to the hand of Benvenuto Cellini. Also a chain which had
belonged to Maria Louisa Gonzaga, enameled and enriched with pearls
and precious stones. {281} For purity of taste this could impeach with
the best French works of its class of the sixteenth century. It was
not, however, with a critic's eye, but with painful historic musing,
that one contemplated these objects. Here was the ivory sceptre of
King Frederick Augustus; and here also a flagolet, in the like ivory,
that had been fingered and blown by the same sovereign. Here a great
silver goblet, with portraits inserted in its indentures of two kings,
Sobieski and Korybut. Here a fair cross of sapphire and a chain of
Anne de Jagellon; and here, not the glass slipper, but the
crimson-velvet shoe--thick, as if the Chinese model--of good Queen
Hedwige. Here was the most splendid of field-marshal's batons--as long
again as those of modern times--of ebony enriched with diamonds, and
bearing a kingly cipher. Here were a brace of pistols that once had
been clasped by the vigorous hand of Saxe; and here a watch and chain
recall to mind the poets tribute--

  "And freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell."

These gems and all this orient pearl and gold once gave brilliancy to
scenes such as are long since passed away from the festivities of
Poland. These veteran sword-blades vainly remind us of the noble race
of warriors by whom the reckless Turk was swept back from the walls of
Vienna, and the possible conquest of Europe arrested. They all,
however, tell the old and ever-to-be-repeated tale. Like other
valuables of Royal Association, with which this _Musée Retrospectif_
was in every quarter redundant--forgetting that pretty, ivory-piped
_cornemuse_ or bagpipe, knotted with its still unfaded green ribbons,
which once made music to the touch of Marie Antoinette--they express
with mute melancholy eloquence the stern old apothegm, _Sic transit
gloria mundi_.



--------

MISCELLANY.

_The Colosseum and St. Peter's_--Now when I recall my impressions of
Rome, I find only two that efface or at least predominate over the
others: the Colosseum, the work of the Roman people, and St. Peter's,
the master-peace of Catholicism. The Colosseum is the gigantic work of
an almost superhuman people, who, in a ferocity of pride and pleasure,
erected only such buildings as contained an entire nation, rivaling
nature, if possible, in massiveness and duration. The Tiber would have
drained the mud of its banks, that the Colosseum might command it
forever. But St. Peter's is the work of a thought, of a religion, of
an entire humanity, at an epoch of the world. Not an edifice simply to
contain an ignoble people, but a temple admitting all of philosophy,
of prayer, of grandeur--every aspiration of man. The walls themselves
seem to rise and grow, not in proportion of a people, but a God.

Michael Angelo alone has understood Catholicism, and in St. Peter's
has given it its most sublime and complete expression--an apotheosis
in stones, the monumental transfiguration of the religion of Christ.
The architects of gothic cathedrals were sublime barbarians--Michael
Angelo a philosopher in conception. Saint Peter's is itself
philosophical Christianity from which the divine architect chases
darkness and superstition, and bids enter the imperishable stream of
beauty, symmetry, and light. In its incomparable beauty--a temple that
might serve any worship, a temple deistical, if I may use the word
applied to stones--God himself reclothed in his splendor. Christianity
itself might perish, but St. Peter's would still remain the eternal,
universal, and rational temple of whatever religion succeeded
Christ's, provided that religion was worthy of God and humanity. The
most abstract Temple that ever human genius, inspired by divine ideas,
has constructed here below. {282} When one enters, one knows not if it
is ancient or modern. No detail offends the eye, no symbol distracts
the thought. Men of all religions enter with the same respect;
sufficient to know the idea of God alone pervades it, and none other
could occupy the place.

Change the priest, take away the altar, detach the pictures, carry off
the statues--nothing is changed, it is always the house of God, or
rather, St. Peter's is to him alone the great symbol of that eternal
Christianity, which in influence and sanctity is but the germ of
successive developments of the religious thought of all men and every
age; and in proportion as God has illuminated it, so it opens to
reason, communicates with him in this light, enlarges and elevates
itself in proportion to the human mind, growing endlessly, gathering
all people in a unity of adoration more and more rational, and making
of each form of divinity an only God, of each age a single religion,
and of all people a single humanity. Michael Angelo is the Moses of
monumental Catholicism, and as such will one day be understood. He has
constructed the imperishable arch for the future--the pantheon of
divine reason.

LAMARTINE.



_Oriental Translation Committee_.--An attempt is being made to
resuscitate the operations of the Oriental Translation Committee. The
Oriental Translation Fund was established in 1828 by several Oriental
scholars and others interested in Eastern literature, "for the
translation and publication of such works on Eastern history, science,
and _belles lettres_ as our inaccessible to the European public in MS.
form and indigenous language." This scheme received at first very
considerable support, and the reigning sovereign has from its
commencement always been the patron of the undertaking. During a
period of thirty-two years the committee have published, or aided in
the publication of more than seventy translations. Of these many are
highly valuable, all are curious and interesting, and several of them
are of such a nature, that without the aid afforded by the Society
they could scarcely have been undertaken. The Sanskrit translations
include those of the Sankhya Karika, Rig Veda, and Vishnu Purana.
Among those from the Arabic, are found the travels of Ibn-Batuta, and
of the Patriarch Macarius, Al-Makkari's history of the Mohammedan
Dynasties in Spain, and the extensive Lexicon of Hajji Khalfa. There
are also on the list translations from the Persian, Syriac, Ethiopic,
Armenian, Chinese, and Japanese languages. For the last two or three
years no work has been issued from the press of the society, nor is
any one preparing for publication; but as there are signs in the
literary world of a renewed interest in Oriental learning, the
committee invite[s] the special co-operation of all those who are
anxious to bring the East and West into a still closer communion with
each other--_London Reader_.



--------

NEW PUBLICATIONS.


ELEMENTS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW.
By Henry Wheaton, LL.D., Minister of the United States at the Court of
Prussia, corresponding member of the Academy of Moral and Political
Sciences in the Institute of France, honorary member of the Royal
Academy of Sciences at Berlin, etc. Eighth Edition, edited, with
notes, by Richard Henry Dana, Jr., LL.D. 1 vol. 8vo., pp. 749. Boston:
Little, Brown & Company. 1866.

Whoever will examine Fulbecke's Pandects of the Law of Nations,
published at London in 1602, which the author styles the first, to his
knowledge, that hath been written on this subject, and compare it with
the first addition of Wheaton's International Law, published in 1836,
must be astonished at the great progress which has been made in this
most interesting science in a period of two centuries and a third. But
a glance at Dana's Wheaton will satisfy the most superficial Inquirer
that the last thirty years have still more fully develop the
principles of that code of law which professes to find the nations of
the civilized world.

Mr. Dana has well and faithfully performed a duty, requiring for its
proper {283} and efficient discharge talents of the highest order. He
has produced a book which will be read with interest, not only by the
professional man, but by the general reader; for he treats on subjects
that the people of the United States are, at the present time, and
have been for the last five years, more nearly concerned with than
ever before in the history of their government. And as the work is
edited with signal ability, it is the more to be regretted that, in a
Treatise on International Law, Mr. Dana has deemed it proper to
incorporate his own political opinions on a question not of
International, but of American Constitutional Law.

On pages 82 and 85, in a note on the United States as a supreme
government, the editors says:

The United States "is a new state or government, acting directly upon
each individual, by its own officers and departments, in the execution
of its own laws. Within its sphere it acts as if there were no
separate states in existence. _It is also the final judge in a dispute
between itself and a state as to the limits of its sphere of action."_

"The civil war saw the final and complete establishment of that
construction of the Constitution which makes the United States a
_State_ in the scientific sense of the term, having direct authority
over each citizen, to be exercised by its own officers independently
of the states; and a right to the direct allegiance of each citizen,
from which no state action can absolve him; _with the right to
determine the limits of its own jurisdiction_; with no appeal from its
decision except through constitutional methods of altering the laws,
or the administration, by the ballot, or through public revolution."

The editor entirely ignores the theory that the federal government is
one of delegated powers, as well as the 10th article of the amendments
to the Constitution, by which it is declared that "the powers not
_delegated_ to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited
by it to the states, are _reserved_ to the states respectively, or to
the people." If the federal government has this exclusive right to
determine the limits of its own jurisdiction, then has this provision
of the bill of rights become nullity. Besides, the argument is an
illogical one; if it be once admitted the powers of the federal
government are _delegated_ powers, it is difficult to maintain the
theory that either an individual, or a government acting by virtue of
delegated powers, is competent to decide, without appeal, on the
extent of the powers delegated. There is always this great question to
be solved, Have the people delegated such a power? If not, how can the
determination of the federal government, that the people have done so,
be construed to confer it?

If Congress should, by statute, enact that the presidential term of
office should continue during the life of the incumbent, and the
executive should ratify the act, and the judiciary decide that it was
a constitutional exercise of the powers delegated, inasmuch as the
federal government has the exclusive right to determine the limits of
its own jurisdiction, would any sane man believe that this could give
efficacy to such a gross usurpation?

But it is useless to follow out the argument; the mere statement of
the principal is its own reputation.

Nor has the Civil War just ended established any such principle.
Slavery has been abolished as a result of the war, but this has been
done under the forms of the Constitution. The heresy of secession has
also been overthrown forever; this, however, has been accomplished,
not by virtue of any power in the federal government to determine the
extent of its own jurisdiction, but because the majority of the people
of the North have decided in favor of such a construction of the
Constitution, upon a point left undetermined at its formation, upon
which two great parties have ever since held opposite views, and which
could only be settled by the _ultima ratio regum_; there being no
other tribunal to which they could submit their differences.

The civil war was not waged for the purpose of enlarging the powers of
the federal government, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or
interfering with the rights or established institutions of the states;
as was emphatically declared by both branches of Congress in 1861; and
its effect has been simply to maintain the authority of the
constitution, with all the powers which it confers, and all the
restrictions which it imposes, unabridged {284} and unaltered. No such
authority having been previously vested in the government, it cannot
be assumed as one of the results of the civil war.

Putting aside, however, this only blemish upon a great work, we
desired to call particular attention to the masterly manner in which
Mr. Dana has treated the great topics of the day.

His note on the Monroe doctrine will well repay perusal, as it is a
subject on which much apprehension exists in the public mind. This
enunciated of American policy, he shows to have consisted of two
points: 1. That inasmuch as the whole of the American continent is now
within the territorial limits of some one or other civilized power, it
is no longer open to colonization by European nations.  2. That the
United States will view, as an unfriendly act, any attempt on the part
of European powers to interfere for the purpose of controlling the
political affairs of any of the American States, or to extend to them
the operation of the European political system. The question is well
worth the study of the statesman, and it is ably treated in this work.

Another question of more than common interest, especially to our
naturalized citizens, is the extent to which the government of the
United States will afford them protection in foreign lands. The
doctrine extracted by Mr. Dana from the cases of Martin Koszta, Simon
Tousig, and others, is, that the government will afford protection to
a domiciled resident of the United States whilst travelling in a
foreign country, under her passport, against any arrest or seizure by
the government of his native sovereign, in any event except that of a
voluntary return to his place of birth; but in such case he will not
be protected against military service owing by him to his native
sovereign at the time of his emigration.

The case of the Trent, in which Messrs. Mason and Slidell, the rebel
commissioners to Great Britain and France, were removed from that
vessel, at sea, by the commander of an armed vessel of the United
States, and brought in as prisoners of war, is the subject of a
learned note by Mr. Dana. He considers this case to have settled but
one principle: "that a public ship, though of a nation at war, cannot
take persons out of a neutral vessel, at sea, whatever may be the
claim of her government on those persons." A doctrine always held by
the government of the United States, and one which they were glad to
see authoritatively established on a claim made by that of England.

We have not space to point out in detail the many interesting
questions discussed in Mr. Dana's learned notes, such as those of
Intervention, Mediation Extradition, etc. But we cannot, injustice to
him, omit a reference to the question now agitating the public mind,
arising out of our reclamation on Great Britain for compensation for
the ravages of the Alabama and other Confederate privateers, fitted
out in the ports of that country. The question at issue is a somewhat
different one from what is generally supposed. Our own supreme court
has decided that it is no breach of neutrality, in the absence of any
treaty stipulation, or local statute, to build, arm, and equip a
vessel of war, and send her, under American colors, to the port of a
belligerent, with the _bonâ fide_ purpose of there offering her for
sale as a commercial enterprise; though she may be subject to capture
by the other belligerent, as contraband of war. Mr. Dana, after a
thorough examination of the authorities and of the diplomatic
correspondence between the two governments, thus sums up the points at
issue:

  The United States claims reparation from Great Britain for injuries
  done to her commerce by cruisers under the rebel flag, for the
  following reasons:

  1. Because Great Britain made a precipitate and unwarranted
  recognition of belligerency of the rebel power, and thereby
  established in law, and to some extent brought about in fact, a
  state of things which made possible and probable the illegal acts of
  individuals complained of.

  2. Because the measures taken by the British Government to prevent
  the sailing of vessels from British ports, fitted and equipped
  therein in violation of her neutrality, were tardy and feeble, as
  well as ineffectual; whether this arose from mistakes of law in the
  advisers of the crown, or bad faith, or incapacity in inferior
  officials, or from the insufficiency of the Acts of Parliament,
  being purely an internal question, with which the United States were
  not bound to deal.

  3. Because Great Britain did not seize and detain or disarm these
  vessels, or refuse them asylum, or otherwise deal with them in such
  manner has the law of {285} nations authorized her to do, after
  their fraudulent escape from the original ports.

  4. Because the British Government refused even to suggest amendments
  of her Acts of Parliament in any respect whatever, or to introduce
  the subject to Parliament when their inefficiency had been proved,
  and the government had then requested so to do, not only by the
  United States, on terms of reciprocity, but by citizens interested
  in preserving neutrality.

  5. Because the government had neglected or refused to prosecute
  citizens of the so-called Confederate States who work openly
  residing in England as agents for that power, and notoriously
  engaged in fitting out vessels in violation of British neutrality,
  though abundant evidence had been furnished to authorize
  proceedings.

  6. Because, by reason of this course of the British Government, the
  rebels had been able to set forth and maintain an effective force of
  steamers cruising against American commerce, having asylum and
  making repairs and getting coal and supplies in British ports;
  built, fitted out, armed, and manned in and from England, and never
  even expecting, or pretending to visit a port of the confederacy,
  when otherwise they would scarcely have had a single cruiser; the
  result of which had been a most effective belligerent aid to the
  rebellion, and the great advantage to England and detriment to the
  United States of driving from the seas the greater part of the
  American mercantile marine, heretofore the equal and rival of Great
  Britain, and transferring the commerce of the world to the British
  flag.

The British Government replies:

  1. That the recognition of belligerency was justifiable, and made
  necessary at the time it was done, and dictated by a duty to the
  United States as well as to Great Britain: and that the United
  States gained by it the rights of blockade and search.

  2. That the government acted in good faith and with reasonable
  diligence in in enforcing its laws for the preservation of it's
  neutrality; and that, if subordinate officials failed in capacity or
  diligence in particular cases, their acts or failures being but a
  part of the entire proceedings otherwise proper and effective, the
  nation cannot be expected to hold itself responsible their remote
  consequences, in the way of making compensation for acts done by
  belligerents out of the jurisdiction.

  3. That the government did seize and prosecute, in her colonial
  ports, vessels which were charged with being fitted out at home in
  violation of neutrality; and that she was not bound by the law of
  nations to refuse asylum to, or seize or disarm or insist on the
  disarmament of vessels afterward commissioned as public ships of war
  of a belligerent visiting her ports, on the ground that they had been
  originally, and before their commissioning as vessels of war, fitted
  out in her jurisdiction in violation of her neutrality.

  4. That the government was not satisfied that the Acts of Parliament
  had proved inadequate to such an extent, and after so full trial, or
  that any amendment would be likely to improve them so materially as
  to justify the United States in charging the refusal to attempt
  their amendment as a want of good faith.

  5. That the government had judged in good faith, on the advise of
  competent counsel, whether, in cases suggested, prosecutions against
  individuals should be instituted.

  6. That if vessels fitted out and dispatched from Great Britain ever
  so clearly in violation of her neutral rights, had fraudently
  escaped, without bad faith on the part of the government. Great
  Britain was not responsible for acts of hostility done by such
  vessels beyond her jurisdiction. Her duty was fulfilled if she
  restored any prizes such vessels might bring within her
  jurisdiction.

  7. That it was inconsistent with the dignity and honor of the
  government to submit to arbitration claims of another government,
  the decision of which involved a question whether the advisers of
  the crown had correctly interpreted the law, or the executive
  officers of the crown had acted with diligence, good judgment, or
  good faith.

The points we have thus briefly noticed are but a few of the most
important ones which are fully discussed by Mr. Dana; for a proper
appreciation of his labors we must refer the reader to the book
itself, with the assurance that it will well repay the time devoted to
its perusal. It is no ephemeral production, but a good, solid, and
deeply interesting work, which will long preserve its place as a
landmark in the literature of the nineteenth century.

{286}

LIFE OF SAINT CECILIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR. By the Reverend Prosper
Guéranger, Abbé de Solesmes. Translated from the French. 12mo, pp.
404. Philadelphia: P. F. Cunningham. 1866.

This work from the pen of the learned Benedictine will, no doubt, be
warmly welcomed, both because of its authorship and its own intrinsic
merit. It will take its rank, however, rather among works of profound
hagiological research than as a contribution to popular biographies of
the saints. The history of the life and martyrdom of St. Cecilia
occupies but a very small portion of the volume. The rest is devoted
to the confirmatory testimonies to her life afforded by the liturgies
of the church, both Greek and Latin, the history of her relics and of
the Roman basilica erected in her honor, and the homage paid to her
throughout Christendom in literature and the arts. All this is of the
greatest interest and value, and no little thanks are due to the
eminent author for his labor and research. As a life of Saint Cecilia
it does not satisfy us. The style is crude and laborious, and lacking
in the elements of a finished biography. The author has collected
materials which would have come from the hand of a Wiseman or a Newman
a masterpiece of literary art, a living picture of the life and times
of one of the most illustrious saints of the church. But he does not
appear to know how to take advantage of the treasure which he has
gathered together with so much painstaking labor. Hence the scenes in
the life of Saint Cecilia furnished him by the quaint and charming
descriptions in the "Acts" of the saint--her espousals, the vision of
the angel seen by her husband, the martyrdom of the two brothers
Valerian and Tiburtius, her own interrogatory before the Roman
prefect, and sublime death--scenes replete with varied interest, and
affording matter for the most powerful dramatic description, and
presented to us in the tamest and rudest style. What, for instance,
can be more commonplace than the following: Valerian, in presence of
Cecilia and the angel, is assured by the heavenly visitor that in
return for his consent to the vow of virginity made by his saintly
spouse, any request he might make will be granted him. The young man,
overcome with gratitude, threw himself at the feet of the divine
messenger, and thus expressed his desires: "Nothing in life is more
precious to me than the affection of my brother; and now that I am
rescued from peril, it would be a bitter trial to leave this beloved
brother exposed to danger. _I will, therefore, reduce my requests to
one_: I beseech Christ to deliver my brother, Tiburtius, as he has
delivered me, and to perfect us both in the confession of his name."

The translation we should judge to be a faithful one, and is, in the
main, correct English. We hardly see how it could be much improved
considering the formal unsympathetic style of the original; but we
wish that in certain descriptive passages the historical present had
been preserved throughout, or altogether avoided. We are surprised to
see the authors styled upon the title page as the _Reverend_ Prosper
per Guéranger, _abbé de Solesmes_. It is not common to attach the
title of Rev. to the name of authors and prelates of such note as Dom
Guéranger, and abbé de' for 'abbot of' is not in good taste.

A fancy portrait accompanies the volume, representing Saint Cecilia
with a harp, which ill accords with the Antiphon quoted on the
title-page: "_Cantantibus organis, Cecilia Domino decantabat_," and
which is, moreover, so completely at variance with all representations
of her by both ancient and modern artists, and we would willingly
dispense with that; but the book is, for the reasons we have assigned,
of such value, that we thank the enterprising publisher for the
opportunity afforded the American public of perusing the work in
English.


SPANISH PAPERS AND OTHER MISCELLANIES,
hitherto unpublished or uncollected, by WASHINGTON IRVING. Arranged
and edited by PIERRE M. IRVING. 2 vols., 12mo. With a portrait after
Wilkie. New York: G. P. Putnam. Hurd and Houghton. 1866.

In the first of these volumes we are presented with a choice selection
of papers by the illustrious author, consisting of several charming
Spanish legends, illustrative of the events of the conquest of Spain
by the Moors, the greater portion of which is newly published. The
second volume contains some early contributions to the Morning
Chronicle, when the author was but nineteen years of age. These were
his first essays in print, but they are none the less remarkable for
the fine humor they display, and for which he became so much admired
him after years. {287} The biographical sketches, which follow, of
Captain James Lawrence, Lieutenant Burrows, Commodore Perry, and
Captain David Porter possess no little historical value; and the
extended memoir of the child poet, Margaret Miller Davidson, the
younger sister of the well-known youthful authoress, Lucretia Maria
Davidson, is full of the most touching and romantic interest. A number
of reviews and miscellaneous papers close these volumes, which need no
further praise from us than to say that they are all marked with the
genius of Washington Irving. We have been so much charmed by the
perusal of the Spanish legends that we could not refrain from placing
one of them entire before our readers--the Legend of Count Julian and
his family. It will be found in the pages of the present number of THE
CATHOLIC WORLD. The form in which the publication is given is as
credible to the publishers, as it is worthy of the  interesting
matter.




LAURENTIA: A Tale of Japan. By Lady Georgiana Fullerton. (American
Reprint) Baltimore: Kelly and Piet, 174 Baltimore street. 1866.

Lady Georgiana Fullerton consecrates her high intellectual gifts and
finished culture with a noble devotion to the sacred cause of the
Catholic religion. In her latest story of Laurentia, she has chosen
her theme from the comparatively unknown history of the Catholic
Church in Japan, and appears to have derived her materials chiefly
from the work of F. Charlevoix on that subject.

F. Charlevoix's History of Christianity in Japan is one of the most
intensely interesting books we have ever read, and unfolds a page in
the annals of the church equalling the records of the first three
centuries in glory. The persistent misrepresentation and suppression
of truth, which the enemies of the Catholic religion make use of just
so far as the credulousness of the public will permit, have hitherto
kept the facts in regard to this topic under a veil of mist. This veil
is lifting, however, and is destined soon, we trust, to disappear
before the rays of truth.

Lady Fullerton's story is well adapted to awaken attention to this
subject, if the general apathy and aversion to all Catholic literature
does not prevent its being read. Its incidents are mainly historical,
with just enough of embellishment and portraiture of imaginary
characters and incidents to make it life-like. It is written with that
ardor of feeling and in that glowing style, chastened by good taste,
which are characteristic of Lady Georgiana's productions. As a work of
art it is not equal to her master-piece, Constance Sherwood. The
events described are, however, so replete with the highest and most
absorbing interest, that one feels no inclination to advert to the
mere artistic merit of plot, style, or description. It combines the
fascination of a well-written sensation novel, with the utility of a
solid book of spiritual reading. We recommend it to all who read
anything at all except the daily papers, and advise all parents,
whether they read or do not read themselves, to give it to their
children. The latter, we are sure, will not find it hard to take.



VIGNETTES, Biographical Sketches of Madame Swetchine, La Soeur
Rosalie, Madame Pape Carpentier, Madame Lamertine, etc. By Bessie
Rayner Parkes. London and New-York: Alexander Strahan. 1866.

These sketches are all full of interest, some of them most touching
and beautiful. The life of La Soeur Rosalie cannot fail to win
admiration from every heart. The most wretched faubourg of Paris was
the scene of her labors; here with heart and hands, with every power
of soul and body, she labored year after year, never weary, but simply
and quietly performing a work which man has been proud to honor, a
work which God alone fully knows. We quote a short passage describing
the funeral of La Soeur Rosalie:

  "She was followed to the grave by a multitude such as could be
  neither counted nor described: every rank, age, and profession was
  there; great and small, rich and poor, learned men and laborers, the
  most famous and the most obscure. Instead of going straight toward
  the church, the body was borne through the streets where she had
  been accustomed to visit, and women and children who could not walk
  in the great profusion fell on their knees and prayed. A band of
  soldiers surrounded the bier and rendered military honors to the one
  who lay upon it, for she had been decorated with the Cross of the
  Legion of Honor."

{288}

This lowly Sister of Charity felt not that her sphere was narrow, but
her love, her energy, and activity found everywhere opportunities;
they never failed her, she never failed them. This life of Sister
Rosalie alone would give interest to any volume of biographies; but
several others have almost an equal interest, particularly that of
Madame Swetchine, a noble Russian lady. She embraced the Catholic
faith, spent many years of her life in Paris, associating with the
noblest spirits of the day--Lacordaire, Chateaubriand,
Montalembert--by all of whom she was admired with a sort of tender
reverence. Though influencing for many years the highest circles of
Parisian society, her life was most simply, humbly, and devoutly
Christian. The sketch of one of our own countrywomen, Harriet K. Hunt
of Boston, who has done much toward enlightening the women of the
working classes by her lectures on physiology, is also pleasantly
given. We think our authoress has shown in this volume that women have
power to do a great work, and that this work can easily be found, and
easily done, if but the heart and soul are in it. The volume is
beautifully gotten up.


THE SHAM SQUIRE, AND THE INFORMERS OF 1798, with a View of their
Contemporaries. To which are added jottings about Ireland seventy
years ago. By William John Fitzpatrick, J.P., Biographer of Bishop
Doyle, etc., etc. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 379. Boston: Patrick Donahoe.

In THE CATHOLIC WORLD for April last, page 122, will be found an
article entitled: "Ireland, and the Informers of 1798." That article
gave a synopsis of portions of "The Sham Squire," of which the copy
under notice is a reprint from the last Dublin edition. It is a
curious book, and contains many highly interesting incidents of the
rebellion of 1798; of the death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Emmet, and
other Irish patriots of that day. The facts disclosed show that
through bribery and the spy system, England succeeded in crushing out
all efforts for Ireland's independence, even better than her ministers
hoped. This system of bribery, however, is not peculiar to Ireland, as
many writers have asserted; but is the same in all countries, and in
all times. It has been used in this country by both sides in the late
or, with as much success as it ever was in Ireland. The only
difference being that the Irish patriots never had money to use for
such a purpose, while England had plenty, hence her success. The book
is well worth reading, and throws white on many disputed points of
Irish history, especially that portion of it relating to 1798.



FIRST PRINCIPLES: A letter to a Protestant friend asking information
about the Catholic Church, by the Rev. G. H. Doane. New York: P.
O'Shea, Publisher, No. 27 Barclay Street. 1866.

The title of this pamphlet speaks for itself. It is a plain statement
of the difference between Catholics and Protestants on the way pointed
out by Christ to find true Christianity.


LAWRENCE KEHOE, New York, will soon publish a new volume of Sermons by
the Paulist Fathers. It will contain several Sermons by the late
Father Baker.


MESSRS. JOHN MURPHY & CO. announce a new edition of "Good Thoughts for
Priest and People." By Rev. Father Noethen.


RECEIVED:

From J. J. O'Connor and Co., Newark, N. J. Curious Questions. by Rev.
Henry A. Brann, D.D. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 292.



D. and J. Sadlier and Co., New York. Disappointed Ambition; or,
Married and Single. By Miss Agnes M. Stewart 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 248.


Wanted to purchase, at this Office, several copies of Branchereau's
"Praelectiones Philosophicale." Second Edition.

--------

{289}

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. IV., NO. 21.--DECEMBER, 1866.

------

ORIGINAL.

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.

THE STATE OF PROBATION--IT'S REASON
AND NATURE--THE TRIAL OF THE ANGELS.

In our preceding number we have endeavored to show what is that order
of regeneration or supernatural grace, in which rational nature, and
through it all nature, attains the end of creation metaphysically
final. The position we have taken is, that the creation returns to God
as final cause through the hypostatic union of created nature with the
divine nature in the person of the incarnate Word, and the
participation in this union by angels and men who are elevated through
grace to the rank of sons of God.

We have now another problem to deal with. The Catholic doctrine
teaches that angels and men are not brought to their destined end, in
view of which they were created, by an immediate, indefectible
operation of divine power alone; but by a concurrence of this divine
operation with the spontaneous, contingent, and defectible operation
of their own free-will. Moreover, that in consequence of the
contingent, defectible operation of the second cause which is
concurrent with the first cause, a multitude of angels and men finally
and irremediably fail to reach their destination.

This statement of the relation of the rational creature to God as
final cause, involves a number of the most difficult and perplexing
questions. The reason for placing creatures in a state of probation by
which their eternal destiny is decided, the relation of divine
foreknowledge to contingent events, the conciliation of the efficacy
of grace with the liberty of the will, the nature of free-will itself,
the reason for permitting the existence of evil, predestination, and
similar vexed questions, start up at once to trouble and compound the
feeble human intellect.

They are all summed up in the problem of probation. The creature is
placed in a state where he is to decide in a certain brief span of
time, by his own voluntary choice, his eternal destiny; this destiny
including the alternative of the attainment or the forfeiture of
supreme beatitude. What reason can be given for this? Why is the
rational creature defectible or liable to fail of reaching his
destination? Why does God place him in a state of probation, knowing
his defectibility? Why is it that some fail and others do not fail to
attain their destination?

{290}

A de-Christianised and de-Catholicised philosophy cannot get even a
plausible solution of this great problem, and the problems arising out
of it. It must either deny the problem, or throw out some ingenious
guesses which satisfy no one. It is wholly at fault, always has been,
and always will be. With those who deny the whole problem, by denying
the whole supernatural order, we have nothing to do at present; for we
cannot raise anew questions already discussed. We are concerned only
with those who would admit the moral order of the universe; and these
admit the existence of a period of probation, although some of them
may extend the limits of this probation indefinitely, and doubt or
deny some of its consequences.

The very notion of probation springs from the notion of a free will,
permitted and even compelled to choose between good and evil. Now, why
is the created will permitted and even compelled to exercise this
prerogative which is too often the occasion of the greatest injury to
its possessor?

A certain class of philosophers answer this question by asserting that
it could not possibly be otherwise. They exaggerate beyond all measure
this liberty of choice as something essential to all voluntary
operation. They have no conception of any moral goodness, virtue, or
sanctity, except that which is the product of this continual striving
to make a right choice between two rival objects of desire, the good
and evil. They even extend their notion so far as to include God; as
if he were in a kind of infinite state of moral probation, amenable to
a standard or law above himself, and only preserving his holiness by a
continual effort of will to choose among various possible
determinations that which is most perfectly conformed to this
standard. Of course, then, when he created intelligent spirits like
himself, he was obliged to leave them to their liberty of choice. They
could not become holy or happy in any other way. Indeed, according to
this system, they must remain in this state of moral probation for
ever. There is no conceivable way of determining them to good without
destroying the liberty of will which is essential to a rational
nature. The only immutability of will possible is that which arises
from a confirmed, long-continued habit of choice. Therefore God has
not absolutely determined the wills of his rational creatures to good,
because he could not. He has left them with the power and exposed to
the risks of wrong choices because he could not help it.

This solution of the problem must be rejected as completely
unsatisfactory. God is good, and is blessed, by his nature. The human
nature of Christ is holy, impeccable, and beatified, by its hypostatic
union with the divine nature. The Blessed Virgin was impeccable from
the instant of her immaculate conception. The holy angels and just men
made perfect have finished their moral probation, and are in an
unchangeable state. The perfection of the intelligent nature,
therefore, so far from implying, excludes liberty of choice between
good an evil. If this be so, this liberty of choice is an
imperfection. Why, therefore, did God create rational existences with
this imperfection? Without doubt he could have given them
impeccability. He could have elevated them to a state of perfection
without requiring them to pass through any probation. He could have
placed all rational creatures at once in the state of beatitude, and
kept all sin an evil out of the universe. Why, then, is evil allowed
to enter?

Moreover, _whence_ and _what_ is evil? How is it possible that there
should be any evil? Extrinsic to the being of God which is the
absolute good, nothing does or can exist, except that which God has
created after the similitude of his own being, and which, therefore,
participates according to its measure in his goodness. Besides, God
has created all things in view of an end. Being infinitely wise, he
{291} knows how to attain this end through his works, and being
infinitely powerful, he is able to do it. Being also infinitely good,
only good can terminate is volition. Therefore, if evil were possible,
he could not will to actualize it; and if, by an impossible
supposition, it could come into actual existence without him, he must
will to destroy it. The superficial theology and philosophy which
dates from the Reformation, is tied up here in a Gordian knot, which
no skill can unravel. It contains two dogmas which are absolute
contradictions: creation, and the substantive essence of evil. These
two can never coexist in harmony. One or the other must be modified or
given up. Either the dogma of creation must be so far given up as to
admit of some eternal self-existent _materia_ in which lies the
essential principle of evil, or the substantive existence of evil must
be denied. Those who deny or impair the first, have ceased to be
Theists in the strict and proper sense of the word, and are already
moving toward Pantheism. Those who deny the second, throw up with it
the conception of a moral order in the universe, of a state of
probation, strictly so called. There is no Theistic, Christian
philosophy of any depth or comprehensiveness on these topics, except
that which is included in the theology of St. Augustine, St. Thomas,
and other great Catholic writers.

It is well known how completely the ancient philosophers were befogged
in regard to the nature and origin of evil. Plato taught that the
_materia_ out of which God formed the universe is eternal, and that,
from an inherent intractability in its essence, it is incapable able
of perfectly receiving the of the divine ideas. The constructor of the
universe was, therefore, hindered from realizing his ideal and fully
executing his design by the defectiveness of his material. He was like
an architect who has only soft, crumbling stone, or a sculptor with
veined marble. From this source, according to Plato, is all the evil
existing in the universe.

The Persians, whose great master was Zoroaster, resorted to the theory
of two subordinate creators, both the offspring of the Supreme Being,
one Ormusd, being good, and the other Ahriman, being evil. All that is
good in the creation comes from the first, and all the evil from the
second of these great master-mechanics. Ahriman is destined, however,
to be eventually converted, with all his liege subjects, his botched
workmanship will be repaired, and the universe will come all right in
the end. This ingenious theory left out, however, one essential point;
namely, how Ahriman came to have an evil nature, since he was created
by the good God as well as Ormusd, and how he and his works could
become good, if they were essentially evil.

Manes and the Manichaeans carried their dualism to a point of more
complete consistency, and more absolute absurdity. They taught the
existence of two eternal, self-existing principles, one good, the
other bad, who are engaged in perpetual warfare. Spiritual existences
proceed from the good principle, corporeal existences from the evil
one. Human souls, having been in some way allured into corporeal
forms, are polluted by them and involved in evil. It is necessary for
the soul to disengage itself from matter, and it will then be fit to
return to the supremely good being from whom it proceeded.

Any system which teaches that evil has anything essential or
substantive, must give up the pure dogma of creation. For it is
inconsistent with that dogma to suppose that God can create anything
essentially evil, or that any creature can create anything, or that
any substance essentially good can become essentially evil by
corruption; since corruption produces no new substance, but modifies
substance already existing.

{292}

_Whence_, then, and _what_ is evil? What can there be as an
alternative of good before the intelligence and will of a rational
creature to form the material for a dilemma, and oblige him to
exercise a faculty of choice? Where is the substratum of a state of
probation?

Metaphysical evil, or that evil which is included in the metaphysical
essence of all created things, is merely the limitation of their
possible good. Simple being, _ens simpliciter_, is alone the absolute
good in possibility and in act. Jesus Christ has said, "There is one
good, God."  [Footnote 62] In actual existences, evil is merely a
recession from God. It is only relative, and negative, therefore, and
expresses the absence of that good which exists in some other
creature, or in God. In created existences, good is relative and
positive, and evil, or the absence of good, is relative and privative.
It is a mere deficiency, but nothing substantive, any more than
darkness, cold, or vacuity are substantive.

  [Footnote 62: St. Matt. xix. 17.]

If we can suppose, therefore, a certain good proposed to a rational
creature as attainable by his free volition, with a power to the
contrary, we have the necessary conditions of a state of moral
probation. That is, the possibility is proved of a certain good being
made contingent on the voluntary choice of rational creatures; and
with it, the possibility of this good being forfeited by the
deficiency of this choice. This answers the question whence and what
is the possibility of evil as the concomitant risk annexed to a state
of probation. It is only necessary, therefore, to show that we can
make this supposition, by explaining how the will can be constituted
in an equilibrium between this proffered good and some other object,
with complete liberty to incline itself to either.

That other object cannot be an essentially evil object, for there is
no such thing in existence. It must be, then, an inferior good. In the
state of probation the will is inclined to all kinds of good
indifferently, and capable of choosing any which the intellect judges
to be best or most desirable. It is capable of making a false choice,
because the intellect is capable of making a false judgment.
Intelligent spirit has self-dominion where it is not determined by
intrinsic necessity. It is lord over its own acts. It can determine
its own judgments and volitions. And this makes it a proper subject of
precept and moral obligation, capable of being placed in a state of
probation.

It may appear very difficult to understand how this can be, but our
own consciousness and practical experience give us an intimate sense
of it's truth. Let us take, then, a familiar example in illustration.

A child is capable of appreciating the good of delicious fruit, the
good of approbation and reward, the good of play and amusement, and
the good of knowledge. His parents allow him to eat peaches under
certain restrictions, and forbid him to eat them without their
permission. They allow him to play at certain times and under certain
conditions, and forbid him all other amusement and recitation. They
require him to devote a certain time to study, and to apply himself to
this study with diligence. It is plain that the will of the child is
in equilibrium toward all the various kinds of good in respect to
which he receives precepts from his parents, and is thus placed in a
state of probation, the issue of which is in great measure left to the
arbitration of his own free choice. He can determine himself to obey
his parents for the sake of their approbation and rewards, or to
disobey them for the sake of eating forbidden fruit. He can determine
himself to study for the sake of knowledge, or to neglect it for the
sake of play. When he determines himself to the inferior, sensible
good, he does so by a false judgment, that in the particular instance
the present sensible enjoyment is best for him for most desirable. Yet
he has power to the contrary, and both can and ought to make a right
judgment. He is determined to neither side by any {293} necessity, but
determines himself and destroys the equilibrium of his will by a free
choice, by virtue of his self-dominion. The necessity of exercising
this self-dominion proceeds from imperfection of nature. It is easily
conceivable that his nature, if it were rendered more perfect, would
determine him always to prefer the approbation of parents, and of his
own conscience, of the pleasure of eating fruit, and the pleasure of
knowledge to that of play.

This illustrates our present point, and shows how the imperfection of
an intelligent creature, which makes him capable of false judgments in
regard to the eligibility of different objects of volition, renders
him a fit subject of probation.

But why is he created in this imperfect state, and obliged to run the
risks of a difficult and dangerous probation? It is evident that God
might easily pour such a flood of light upon his intelligence that he
would be incapable of making a false judgment, and communicate to him
such a degree of felicity in the enjoyment of the true good, that his
will would be rapt away without effort beyond all possibility of
attraction from any inferior objects. He might communicate the
beatific vision simultaneously with the first act of reason, as the
does to those infants who are translated to heaven in their infancy.
Thus he might secure the eternal beatitude of all intelligent
creatures without placing any of them in probation.

It is evident that God must have a reason for establishing a state of
probation, and that this reason must involve some great good to be
attained by it. This reason is, also, in part intelligible to us. So
far as we can understand it, it is, that God and the creature are more
glorified through the elevation of created nature to supernatural
beatitude, when the created nature concurs with God as First Cause, by
its own activity, as Second con-creative cause, in the highest manner
possible. It is the will of God that beatitude should be the prize of
merit, and merit implies liberty of choice. Supernatural beatitude is
a pure boon from God to the creature, not due to him as simply
existing. Therefore, God may bestow it on whom he pleases, and upon
any conditions he pleases to establish. As probation implies
imperfection, and the creature is created for his proper perfection,
when he attains it probation must cease. The period of probation must
therefore be limited. It must be also a real, _bonâ fide_ probation;
that is, the attainment of beatitude must really depend on the right
use of the term of probation. Consequently, when the term of probation
has expired, those who have failed in it must be left to the eternal
consequences of their own voluntary error. That species of virtue
which makes an intelligent creature capable of attaining supernatural
beatitude is itself supernatural, and therefore impossible without
divine grace. When this grace is lost, there is no natural power to
regain it. Sin is therefore in itself irreparable. It can be repaired
only by a second supernatural grace. If this grace is not conceded,
there is no second probation, but the sinner must remain perpetually
in that state to which his sin has reduced him. If this grace is
conceded, and the limits of probation are extended, those who fail
finally and pass out of the fixed period of probation must also remain
perpetually in that state to which they have reduced themselves by
their own free and voluntary election.

Another great difficulty here presents itself, namely: it appears that
the fulfilment of the divine purpose is left to the contingencies of
second causes, and at the mercy of the arbitrary wills of creatures.
God appears to be like one who makes his plans in the dark, without
being able to know what their success will be, or to take efficacious
measures for securing their success. For how can he foresee future
events that are purely contingent on the free choice of created wills?
How can he predetermine an end, to be infallibly accomplished, when
this accomplishment is contingent on the free arbitration of the
creature? {294} The Catholic doctrine teaches that a multitude of
angels and men destined to supernatural beatitude finally fail of
their destination. Does not this failure partially thwart the divine
plan, mar his work, and deprive his universe of its perfection?
Although the divine plan has a partial success, through the
concurrence of a certain number of angels and men with the divine
will, is not this success even due to hap-hazard? Must we not suppose
that the divine plan ran the risk of a complete failure, so far as the
co-operation of free-will is concerned?

It is evident that these suppositions are all incompatible with the
essential attributes of God. He must necessarily have a perfect
foreknowledge of all things that will ever come to pass. He must also
have supreme dominion over his entire creation, and be able to
accomplish all his purposes without any liability to be thwarted by
his own creatures. He must have decreed from eternity whatsoever he
does in time through his creative act.

Therefore some, overwhelmed by the difficulties which encompass the
doctrine of the freedom of the created will, in its relation to the
divine, have adopted the part denying it altogether. The denial of
free-will, however, makes the state of probation, and the entire moral
order of the universe, with its retributions, completely illusory and
fantastic. It is a denial of a fact of universal human consciousness.
Whoever makes it ought to become a pantheist at once, and maintain
that all individual existences are mere emanations of the divine
substance.

The Catholic doctrine distinctly proclaims both the divine
foreknowledge and decrees, and also the liberty of choice in the
created intelligent nature. A Catholic theologian, therefore, cannot
dispose of the difficulty in the case, by summarily denying either
side of the dogmatic truth. St. Thomas Aquinas, with those who follow
his school strictly, endeavors to resolve the difficulty by the
hypothesis of a physical premotion of the will, or an efficacious
grace, which has an infallible connection with a right choice, but yet
leaves the will to make this choice freely and with power to the
contrary. God has therefore predestined, by an infallible decree, all
those to whom he gives this efficacious grace, to the attainment of
beatitude. His foreknowledge is also explained as the knowledge of his
own determination through which all events, even contingent, are made
certain.

This system has a certain hypothetical finish and completeness about
it, and it appears to vindicate the supreme dominion of God over all
contingent existences, second causes, and events taking place in time,
more effectually than any other. It fails, however, to reconcile with
the attributes of God the freedom of the created will and the state of
probation. For, according to this system, the will, although in
equilibrium, and intrinsically capable of motion to either side,
cannot put itself out of equilibrium by its own self-determining
power, but needs a previous, efficacious concurrence of the divine
will, in order to pass from the potentiality of choice to the act of
choice. All acts of the created will are, therefore, determined by the
will of God as efficient cause. If this is consistent with the liberty
which is necessary to the created will, that it may be second and
con-creative cause in concurrence with the first cause to the effect
of its own beatitude, God could infallibly determine all rational
creatures to beatitude without infringing on their liberty. The
creature could evolve into act all its causative activity, free-will
could receive its fullest scope, the principle of merit and reward
could be fully exemplified in the universe, without risking the
eternal destiny of a single individual, or permitting even the
smallest sin to be committed. It become very difficult, then, on this
hypothesis, to explain the permission of sin, and the eternal loss of
so many millions of rational creatures. The reason usually given, that
sin is an evil incidentally necessary to a system of probation, {295}
permitted on account of the greater good attained through the
probation of free-will, falls to the ground, and we have never yet
seen any other satisfactory reason substituted for it.

It may be true that, without this hypothesis, the foreknowledge of God
and his supreme dominion over his creation are more incomprehensible.
This is no decisive argument, however, provided that these divine
attributes can be shown to be intelligible without thus said
hypothesis.

First, in regard to the divine foreknowledge, it is argued that God
cannot foresee that which is purely dependent on the created will,
unless there is some cause or ground of certainty that there will
shall actually place the effect which is foreseen. This cause or
ground of certainty can only be the divine determination to concur
efficaciously with the will, that it may infallibly place the foreseen
act.

To this it is replied, that God foresees all contingent, future
events, by a kind of knowledge called the super-comprehension of
cause. Knowing completely all causes, he knows all there effects in
them. This does not explain, however, his knowledge of the
self-determining acts of the will, since in these the same cause is in
equilibrium to opposite effects. It is better explained, we think, by
the theory of Suarez, that God sees all things in their objective
verity. He knows with certainty all that depends on the
self-determining action of free-will, because he directly beholds the
free-will determining itself. There is no succession in God. He
coexists from eternity and in eternity to all the successive periods
of created duration. What we call future is equally visible to God in
eternity with the past. There is no more difficulty, therefore, in his
knowing from all eternity all future contingent events, than there is
in our knowing anyone of these events in the time of its taking place,
or after it has happened.

But, it is further argued, if God knows the acts of his creatures by
an immediate vision of them in their objective verity, he is perfected
by the creature, which is incompatible with his essence. God is the
adequate object of his own intelligence; therefore he knows all things
in himself.

God is the adequate and sole object of his own intelligence in the act
of simple intelligence in which his essential being in the Three
Persons is constituted. Created existences are not included in this
act, and the knowledge of them is not perfective of the being of God.
God knows them in himself by the knowledge of vision, _scientia
visionis_, and sees them in himself as in a mirror. This perfection of
vision, by which God sees and knows all things which exist, is a
perfection proceeding from his infinite intelligence, not given to him
by the creature. The creature is its terminus, but the changes of the
terminus affect itself alone, and do not make the essential attribute
of God less immutable or infinite. The same objection might be made to
the statement, that created existences are the terminus of the divine
volition or love. The essential act of volition or love is completed
in the act of God _ad intra_, or his infinite love of himself. Yet God
loves the creature, delights in the love of the creature, wills the
beatitude of the creature. That he may do this, the existence of the
creature as the terminus of his volition is necessary as the _conditio
sine quâ non_. It might be said, then, that the existence of the
creature, and his act in loving God, is perfective of God. It is not.
For it is altogether distinct from that which is the terminus of the
divine act of love, in which the perfection of the being of God is
constituted, viz.: from the essence of God itself. God has the
plenitude of love in himself, and it remains the same whether more or
fewer created existences are its recipients. So the infinite power of
vision in God is the same, whether more or fewer created existences or
acts of existing agents come within its scope. There is no objection,
therefore, to the theory {296} respecting the science of God, which
maintains that he knows all future contingents which depend entirely
on his divine decree in that decree, all that depend on second causes
determined of necessity to produce certain effects in his
supercomprehension of cause, and all that depend on free-will in his
foresight of the self-determination of free-will. The whole
incomprehensibility of this foreknowledge is reduced to an identity
with the essential incomprehensibility of God, as eternal and as
coexisting to all the successive periods of time.

Secondly, as regards the divine supremacy over creation, and the
ability of the Sovereign Creative Spirit to bring the universe to an
end predetermined by himself.

It is argued, that if we reject the Thomist hypothesis, we reduce
everything to the hap-hazard of capricious, eccentric, lawless
free-will, which makes it impossible to suppose any plan regularly and
infallibly carried out through the medium of second causes, in the
universe.

This is not so. Free-will is not mere lawless caprice, directed by
mere accident. It is directed by intelligence, and acts according to
the law of motives. It must choose the good, and can never choose that
which is evil, _ratione mali_. Since, by a law of its probation, the
real chief good and the apparent chief good are presented before it in
such a way as to leave it in equilibrium toward both, without any
dominant or necessitating motive toward either, it makes the motive on
one side preponderant by its exercise of self-dominion. This is not by
chance or caprice. It is by the exercise of intellect, and through the
impulse of powerful motives. Its circle of variability is restricted,
and its determination is capable of being influenced by intellectual
and moral considerations. It is perfectly evident that a man, even
without the slightest power of exercising any determining influence on
the wills of other men, can nevertheless, without infringing on their
perfect liberty, reason them into a co-operation with himself in
carrying out a plan, or persuade them into it by proving its
advantages before them. Much more, then, is God able to bring a
sufficient number of angels and men to a voluntary co-operation with
himself to secure the success of his great design. It is in this way
that God manifests his infinite wisdom and divine art, by arranging
all things with such consummate and complex skill and harmony, and
directing all things from end to end by such a wise far-reaching
Providence, that he is able to bring out in the end the desired
result, through the concurrence of free, con-creative second causes.
It may be said that, since all angels were free to reject the
beatitude proffered to them, God, in creating them and giving them
this freedom, exposed his plan to the risk of being completely
thwarted by their unanimous refusal to comply with the terms of their
probation. The same might also be said of mankind.

We must understand, however, that, although Almighty God does not
deliberate, change, modify, watch for results, make experiments,
profit by experience, devise new expedients, like a man of creative
genius, and although his creative art is one, simple, and from
eternity, yet it includes in itself in an eminent mode all these
operations of the finite intelligence. If by an impossible
supposition, God had delegated creative wisdom and powered to a
created spirit, such as Arians fancied the Logos, and others the
Demiurgus, to be; and this mighty intelligence had proceeded to
execute his task in the same manner, but on a grander scale, that men
execute great undertakings, and we should endeavor to describe the way
in which he accomplished his work, we should have a correct though
imperfect representation of the actual operation of Almighty God in
the execution of his works _ad extra_. The conceptions we are able to
form of the operation of God are all analogical. We cannot transcend
{297} these analogies. And although we know them to be imperfect and
inadequate, yet we know also that they have all the verisimilitude
necessary to give us true conceptions. In this way we understand that
God knew all the risks to which his plan was exposed, and made
provision for them. Wherever it was necessary, he protected his
designs from the risk of failure through the non-concurrencc of second
causes. For instance, having determined to create a heaven containing
a multitude of beatified spirits, and foreseeing that a certain number
of those who were destined to this high position would forfeit it by
sin, he took this into the account in determining the number to be
created, and the conditions of the trial through which they were to
pass. A profound theologian, who was of the strict Thomist school, the
late Bishop of Philadelphia, expressed to the author on one occasion
the opinion, that only the lower orders of angels were made liable to
sin. He thought that the higher orders received a grace incompatible
with sin, though not with merit, and that Lucifer was therefore the
chief, not of the Seraphim, but of the Archangels. On this
supposition, the risk of sin was confined within narrow limits, so far
as the angels were concerned. Whether this be a well-grounded
hypothesis or not, it is evident that these pure and exalted spirits,
possessing the highest natural intelligence, being impelled to good by
their nature, having received the gift of supernatural grace, and
having the prospect of a still greater glory before them, were very
likely, speaking after a human mode of thought, to make the requisite
act of concurrence with the divine will and thus secure their
confirmation in grace. In other words, there appears to be an _à
priori_ probability that at least a great number of them would do so.
We know that, in point of fact, a great number of them did, and,
according to the common opinion, much the largest portion of the whole
number who were tried.

Now, this to us apparent probability was a certainty to God, as
clearly known before as after the fact. In view of this certainty he
created them and placed them in the state of probation. He foreknew,
also, how many would fail, and therefore, if his purposes required it,
could easily create such a multitude that the angels who fell would
not be missed from their ranks. Those who fell did indeed thwart the
benevolent designs of God, so far as their own particular persons were
concerned. But these designs were conditional, as respecting
individuals, and were made in full view of the actual event. God could
not be thwarted or disappointed in regard to his grand design, because
this did not depend on any particular individuals.

So in regard to men. Jesus Christ as man, and the Blessed Virgin, on
whom the fulfilment of the divine plan absolutely depended, were
absolutely predestined, and rendered impeccable; Jesus Christ by
nature, and the Blessed Virgin by grace. If any other particular
individuals were placed in a position which required it, they too
received a grace which gave them immunity from any liability to fail
in their necessary concurrence with the divine will as second causes.
A vast multitude of human beings are elevated to beatitude without
running any of the risks of probation. Adam, it is true, was able to
thwart the first design of God in regard to the mode of bringing the
race to its destination. But he could not thwart God's ultimate
design, because he was able to accomplish it by another mode.
Particular men, in vast numbers, are able to thwart the designs of God
toward themselves. But they cannot thwart his designs toward the race.
For he is able to regulate and order times, events, and circumstances,
and to continue creating generation after generation, until, by moral
means alone, he has completed the number of his saints and peopled
heaven sufficiently to fulfil his purpose. Moreover, if necessary, he
can always {298} touch the springs of the will directly, and determine
it to any act which he has positively decreed must be performed. He
can also modify, restrict, alleviate, set aside, or shorten the risks
of probation, according to his own good pleasure, in regard to any or
all of men, with an infinite and infallible wisdom.

But it is again argued, that according to this view, God is not the
absolute cause of all things, nor the absolute sovereign over all
things. The created will has an independent sovereignty of its own,
and God is dependent in certain things on his creatures, obliged to
modify his plans and to condition his decrees to suit their
determinations.

This is not a conclusive argument. It is a maxim of philosophy, that
_causa causae est causa causati_; the cause of a cause is the cause of
that which is caused; _i.e._, caused by this second cause. God is the
creator of free-will, and his perpetual influx gives it always the
power of choosing and acting. Free-will is not, therefore, an
independent, but a delegated and dependent sovereign. God can deprive
it of the opportunity of choosing, or frustrate its determinations. It
is sovereign within a limited sphere, because God has chosen to create
it and give it sovereignty.

If God is absolute sovereign, can he not concede to a creature the
power to do his own will within a certain sphere, if it [is] his
sovereign pleasure to do so? Can he not determine to do certain things
on the condition that the creature uses his free-will in a certain
way, if he pleases? He has pleased to do it. He has made his eternal
decrees with a full view of all that his creatures would do before
him. All the incidental and partial evil resulting from the misuse of
free-will in the universe he has foreseen, and determined to permit.
He has decided on his great plan, notwithstanding the incidental evil,
in view of a greater universal good. Not that sin and evil are
necessary means of the greatest good, or directly conduce to a greater
good than that which could exist in a universe without sin; but that
the concession of the liberty on a grand scale, the particular and
incidental misuse of which occasions sin and evil, is the necessary
means to that greater good. The greater good itself is the obedience,
homage, love, service, and fidelity given to God by a multitude of
creatures who have been left free to sin, and who have not sinned, or
not sinned irremediably and finally.

We conclude, therefore, _pace tantorum virorum_ who have maintained
it, that the theory of the strict Thomists on this point is not
conclusively established. To our mind, the theory which is in
accordance with the philosophy of the great fathers before St. Thomas,
with that of the Scotists in the middle ages, and with that of the
most prevalent Catholic schools since the Jansenist controversy, is
the more probable one. According to this theory, in a system of strict
probation, a physical premotion, or a grace efficacious _in se_ and
_ab intrinseco_ is not metaphysically necessary in order that
free-will may actually concur with the divine will to secure the
permanence of the creature in a supernatural state. Nothing is
necessary beyond liberty of choice and the grace which gives power to
elicit supernatural acts. When the angels passed through their
probation, therefore, we cannot go behind the exercise of their
liberty in choosing or rejecting the proffered boon of celestial
glory, to seek a deeper cause, determining some to choose and not
determining others. They were free to choose; and being free, some
shows wisely and well, others foolishly and ill. So, also, with Adam.
He might have stood, but he did not. He had the power to choose, and
he chose wrongly. By the very same power he might have chosen rightly,
without any additional Grace, The _arbitrium mentis_, the exercise of
free self-dominion, is the only reason that {299} can be given. This
prerogative is indeed mysterious and inscrutable. We do not pretend to
have removed all difficulty of comprehending it. But it is
incomprehensible to us in our present state of imperfect intelligence,
because the soul itself is an inscrutable mystery. Its relation to the
divine will and operation is a mystery full of inexplicable
difficulties. But it is because of that ground mystery of mysteries,
the coexistence of God and the creation, which was the insoluble
enigma of all ancient philosophy. The great Aristotle saw the
difficulty so clearly which is involved in the relation of a
contingent world to the necessary being of God, that, unable to find
an ideal formula which could unite the two terms by a dialectic
relation, he denied all relation between them. He affirmed the
existence of God and of the world. But he affirmed also, that the
world exists independently of God, as self-existent, eternal, and
necessary. Moreover, that God has or can have no knowledge of the
world. For, he argued, God can have no knowledge of the world unless
the world is the object or terminus of the divine intelligence. But if
the world is the object of the divine intelligence, God is not perfect
as intelligence in himself alone, but is conditioned and perfected by
that which is inferior to his own being. Thus we see that the
objection to the divine foreknowledge of the contingent in its
objective verity which is found in scholastic theology, is one derived
from Aristotle, and that the extremely subtle and acute reasoning of
St. Thomas and the Thomists were directed toward a reconciliation of
the Aristotelian philosophy with the Catholic dogmas. The difficulty
lies in the creative act of God, which is a mystery not fully
comprehensible by human reason, and, therefore, not fully to be
explained by any hypothesis or theory of philosophy. The activity of
free-will as concurrent, con-creative cause with God approaches the
nearest of anything in creation to the creative act of God, and,
therefore, is the most mysterious and incomprehensible fact of
psychology. It is incomprehensible in itself, and it complicates still
further the incomprehensibility of the creative act of God. It is not
strange, therefore, that there should have been such a long and still
unsettled controversy in the Catholic schools respecting this topic,
since the church has hitherto abstained from deciding it. Still less
can we wonder that non-Catholic schools, having no fixed dogmas or
authoritative formulas of doctrine to check the spirit of private
speculation, go round and round continually, involving themselves more
hopelessly every day in entanglements from which they can never
extricate themselves.

The explanation we have endeavored to set forth as the most probable
will, we think, commend itself to the minds of most of our readers as
the most intelligible and satisfactory which can be given. If a better
one can be furnished by some one more competent to the task, we shall
welcome it. Meanwhile, we leave what we have written to find what
acceptance it may.

It will be seen at once, by those who are at all versed in these
matters, that, according to the theory we have proposed, the
predestination of those who attain eternal life as the term of a
period of probation is consequent on the foresight of their fidelity
and merit, at least as a general rule. It does not follow from this,
however, that we reject the doctrine of efficacious grace. As this
doctrine is immediately connected with the points we have been
examining, we will give it a brief consideration now, in order to
avoid returning to it hereafter.

In the Thomist theology, efficacious grace means a grace distinct in
its own nature from sufficient grace. Sufficient grace gives the power
to elicit a supernatural act, efficacious grace gives the act itself.
It is therefore efficacious _in se_ and _ab intrinseco_. {300} This
notion of efficacious grace is derived from the philosophical notion
of the previous and efficacious concurrence of the will of God with
every act of free-will, in the exercise of the faculty of choice.
According to this philosophy, it is impossible for this faculty, as it
is for every second cause _in potentia_ to its proper act, to pass
from potentiality into act without a special movement from the first
cause.

The contrary hypothesis, sustained by Molina, the great body of the
Jesuit theologians, Thomassinus, and the generality of modern Catholic
authors, is, that the grace which is auxiliary to the will in
eliciting free supernatural acts, is not efficacious _ab intrinseco_,
but is made efficacious by the concurrence of free-will. This implies
a different notion of divine concurrence from the one just stated,
according to which the influx of divine power into free, spontaneous,
active second causes gives merely an aid which is indeterminate,
leaving free-will to its own election among two or more terms upon
which it can direct this indeterminate aid. When an artilleryman
sights his gun, the divine power which supports and gives efficiency
to all natural laws and forces must propel the ball. But this divine
power stands ready at his disposal, and will propel the ball in
whatever direction, toward whatever point, he selects. So it is with
the choice of free-will.

We have already indicated our adhesion to this latter hypothesis. It
is far more in accordance with the doctrine of the Fathers, Latin as
well as Greek, including St. Augustine himself, than the other. The
former one was wholly unknown to the Greek Fathers, and does not
appear in the Latin Fathers before the Pelagian controversy. Even
after this period it appears, in the writings of St. Augustine and
others of his school, in an entirely different form from that which
was given to it by St. Thomas. That is to say, it is applied to the
case of fallen man, who is supposed to need an efficacious grace on
account of the weakness of his will, and to receive it as a special
gift of mercy through Christ. The perseverance of those angels who
stood their trial successfully is attributed, not to a grace
efficacious _ab intrinseco_, which was withheld from the other angels,
but to a right use of the same grace which was equally conceded to
all, and abused by some. So, also, the fall of Adam is attributed
simply to his failure of concurrence with a grace which needed only
his concurrence in order to become efficacious, but was frustrated of
its effect by his abuse of his own free-will. Moreover, all that St.
Augustine says about efficacious grace in fallen man is reconcilable
with the doctrine of congruity and sometimes directly favors it, as is
proved by Antoine and others who have written in vindication of his
theology from Jansenist perversions. This doctrine of congruity has
been introduced in order to explain more satisfactorily the perfect
liberty of the will, without denying the existence of efficacious
grace differing _in actu primo_, or antecedently to the consent of the
will, from grace merely sufficient. Although the opinion that the
actual efficacy of divine grace is to the sought exclusively in the
consent of the will has not been condemned, it has nevertheless been
received with disfavor and generally rejected. It is commonly taught
that God confers, whenever he pleases, upon men, a grace which
infallibly secures their co-operation, and their final perseverance.
In our view, this doctrine can the sustained by ample and certain
proofs from Scripture and Tradition, and is the only one which can be
completely developed in consonance with the decisions of the church,
especially those of the Council of Trent respecting final
perseverance.  [Footnote 63]

  [Footnote 63: Si quis _magnum illud usque in finem perseverantiae
  donum_ se certo habiturum, absoluta et infallibili certitudine
  dixerit, etc. A. S.

  If any one shall say that he will certainly have that _great gift of
  perseverance to the end_, with an absolute and infallible certitude,
  etc.

  Si quis dixerit, justificatum vel sine _speciali auxilio Dei,_ in
  accepta justisia perseverare posse, vel cum eo non posse. A. S.

  If any one shall say that the justified man either can, without a
  _special aid of God_, persevere in the justice he has received, or
  can not persevere with it, let him be under the ban. De Justif. Can.
  16-22.]

{301}

The reason why certain graces are actually infallible in their effects
is to be found in their congruity he to the character, disposition,
and circumstances of the subject, and in their multitude. The
necessity for them is not a metaphysical but a moral necessity. The
fragility of our nature is such, that although a grace merely
sufficient makes us metaphysically capable of persevering without sin,
we are you sure to become wearied, and through fickleness, weakness of
purpose, changeableness, etc., to break down somewhere. Our own
consciousness and experience teach us that we need a divine and
protecting arm to encompass us continually and secure us against
ourselves, and they incline us to utter that prayer of the Divine
Liturgy: "Compelle, Domine, rebelles voluntates nostras:" "Compel, O
Lord, our rebellious wills." God, who knows human nature perfectly,
can, in a thousand ways, by ordering the circumstances of life,
shortening or prolonging it, regulating the influences which act on
the character, alluring or terrifying the heart, illuminating the
mind, impelling without coercing the will, and adapting his influences
with infinite wisdom to the special state of the soul, convert whom he
will, sanctify whom he will, give perseverance to whom he will, and
still gain his point with the free consent and concurrence of the
creature. "Non est volentis neque currentis, miserentis est Dei:" "It
is not of him who willeth or of him who runneth, but of God who
showeth mercy." The difficulty may still be raised, that God withholds
these graces of congruity and the gift of perseverance from those who
do not in the first instance accept the proffered Grace, or who do not
finally persevere. But this is removed by the doctrine so ably and
strenuously advocated by St. Alphonsus Liguori, that common grace is
sufficient to enable one to pray fervently and do ordinary good acts;
and that by prayer, with the use of other facile means, efficacious
graces and the gift of perseverance may be infallibly obtained from
God.

We may now return to our theme of the state of probation originally
established by God for those who were made candidates for supernatural
glory. We have endeavored to clear our track of difficulties impeding
the clear view of the truth that God established this probation
through goodness and love, or with the simple view of communicating
the greatest good to the creature.

The principle questions respecting probation having been already
discussed, there remains now but one, viz.: what was the precise and
specific nature of the trial to which rational nature was subjected.
This divides itself again into two, one respecting the trial of the
angels and the other respecting the trial of man.

The angels, according to the doctrine of St. Thomas and theologians
generally, were created at the summit of intelligent being, incapable
of error or false judgment in their natural, intellectual operation,
and therefore impeccable in the natural order. Supernatural grace was
conferred upon them simultaneously with their creation, although, as
F. Billuart holds, they may have concurred actively to the reception
of this grace, by a spontaneous act preceding all deliberation. Grace
made them capable of eliciting supernatural acts, but did not
determine them to those acts without the free concurrence of their
will. Their intelligence must have been, therefore, left in a certain
obscurity as regards the supernatural object, in order that an error
of judgment should be possible, or even an act of deliberation
terminating in a free volition. What the precise object of
deliberation and choice was cannot be certainly and precisely
determined. It must in some way have presented the alternative of
either eliciting a supernatural act by the aid of the obscure
supernatural {302} light, or of falling back on the free, natural
operation of intelligence. God must have exacted some act of homage to
his sovereign will, disclosed some condition as the indispensable
prerequisite to obtaining the crown of supernatural glory, which the
natural intelligence of the angels could not see to be just and right
without the aid of a supernatural light. This light was given, clear
enough to enable the will, by a strong voluntary effort, to determine
itself to act by this light, in preference to its natural light; dim
enough to allow the will to turn from it voluntarily, and find in its
natural light a plausible reason for withholding its submission to the
supreme will. Certain passages of Scripture, and the common
traditional Catholic doctrine, indicate that the angels who fell, fell
through pride, and that Lucifer, in particular, their chief spirit, in
some way aspired to a resemblance with God. Some have thought that he
desired to become God. St. Thomas, however, says that this is
impossible, because his intelligence was too perfect to permit him to
conceive such a thought. He explains the sin of the angels to have
consisted in a refusal to accept supernatural glory as a pure boon
from God, and a wish to attain beatitude by the exertion of their own
natural powers.

The most plausible supposition, in our view, is one that may be said
to be contained under the more generic statement just given. It is,
namely, that the angels were tried by the revelation of the
Incarnation. The union of the Second Person of the Trinity with human
nature, the elevation of human nature to divine glory and honor, the
obligation of doing homage to Jesus Christ, as King, and to the
Blessed Virgin, his mother, as Queen of Angels, was revealed, as the
crucial test of the absolute obedience of the celestial spirits.
According to their natural reason, and natural love of their own
nature and kind, it would appear to them a violation of order and
justice to pass them by, in order to assume an inferior nature partly
corporeal and animal, into a hypostatic union with the Godhead;
elevating this nature above their own, which was the highest in the
natural order. Supernatural light suggested to them that God, as
sovereign, had a right to bestow his supernatural gifts according to
his own will, and, as infinitely wise, must have a secret reason for
apparently inverting the order of nature in establishing the
supernatural order of the universe. Those who voluntarily submitted
themselves to the decree of God were rewarded by an illumination which
disclose to them the wisdom and goodness of the decree of the
Incarnation, and the glory which they themselves as well as the whole
universe would receive from it; and thus became incapable for ever of
erring in their judgment respecting the highest good, and consequently
of swerving from it through sin. Those who fell turned their minds
away from the supernatural light toward the consideration of their own
private good, and the glory of their own persons and their own order.
They revolted at the idea of being subordinated to human nature, and
desired that the angelic nature should be the subject of the
hypostatic union. Lucifer, in particular, as their chief, desired that
he himself might be assumed into union with the Word, exalted to the
throne of the universe, and deified. He and his associates demanded it
from God as a right due to their natural dignity, and thus rebelled
against his sovereign majesty, were cast out of the celestial sphere,
and forfeited for ever the crown of supernatural glory. Hence their
enmity to the Incarnate Word, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to the
human race. Hence their efforts to establish their own supremacy over
man, and the continual conflict which the holy angels and the children
of God on earth must wage against them in the sacred warfare for the
triumph of Christ's kingdom upon earth. This brings us to the
consideration of human probation, a topic which must be reserved for a
future number.

------
{303}


From the Dublin University Magazine



MISSAL-PAINTING.  [Footnote 64]

  [Footnote 64: _Authorities_: Plinii Nat. Hist.; Cornel. Nepos;
  Giraldus Cambrensis; Anglia Sacra; Brompton's Chron.; Humphreys' Art
  of Illumination and illuminated Books of the Middle Ages; Sylvestre
  Paléographic Universelle (Sir F. Madden's edition); Muratori Antiq.
  Ital. Mediaevi; Lanzi Hist. of Painting; Baldinucci Notizie;
  Froissart's Chronicles; Mrs. Jamieson's Life of Our Lord; Cotton.
  MSS.--Claud. B iv.--Faustina, B vi.--Galba, A xviii.-Nero, C
  iv.--Tiber. A ii., C vi.--Vesp. A i.; Harleian MSS. 2904, 5102,
  7026, 2900, 2846, 2884, 2853; Bib. Regia, 2 A xxii., 1 D i., 2 A
  xviii., and 2 B vii.]


The review of monastic literature which we can present in the limited
space of a single paper must necessarily be a concise and condensed
one, a mere skeleton of the superstructure, not exhaustive but rather
suggestive of the sources where information may be found by others who
may care to investigate the merits or demerits of a subject about
which there have been such varying representations. A complete history
of monastic literature would occupy as many volumes as this essay will
pages, for it would not only necessitate a review of certain portions
of the literature of every civilized country in Europe, but to a great
extent at some periods of the whole of European literature. The
materials of history, the hymnology of the church, the elements of
science, art, and the very woof, as it were, of modern literature,
were all handed down to us by that great institution, whose fate as it
chanced in England we are endeavoring to delineate. We have hitherto
striven to make this investigation a fair and impartial one, based
upon facts not as represented by the biassed pens of Protestant
historians, but upon facts gleaned almost entirely from the works of
men who lived and died in the bosom of that church of which this
institution was the cherished offspring. Still more unreasonable is
the prejudice of many who refuse to award any meed of praise to the
literary labors of monasticism, who look upon the monk as a lazy,
sensual, selfish misanthrope, who have heard of the dark ages and are
therewith satisfied that they must have been totally
dark--intellectual obstinates who wilfully shut their eyes and
maintain there is no light. We may have doctrinal prejudices,
theological prejudices, social prejudices, against monasticism, but
these things ought not to prevent a reasoning man from paying his
homage to the genius which may be found in its works. Genius is
universal; it is not confined to any doctrine, for it is found in all
doctrines; it is not limited to any age, for it is common to all ages;
it does not flourish merely under enlightened and free governments,
for it has lived triumphant through the dull oppression of tyranny;
riches cannot create it nor poverty crush it out: it is born in the
hovel; it is nurtured on bleak mountains; it will flourish even under
the weary training of indigence and wasting toil: like air, light, and
beauty, it is the free, the unbought gift of God.

We have already in a former chapter described the scriptorium, or room
adjoining the library, where books were copied and multiplied by monks
chosen for that work. We will only add to that description what we
glean from the rule of St. Victor--that no visitors were allowed to
go into the scriptorium except the abbot, the prior, the sub-prior,
and the precentor--that the abbot ordered what books were to be
transcribed, and that the writers were appointed by him. At all
periods it was a great ambition amongst the monks to be a {304} good
transcriber and decorator of manuscripts. Not only was it a matter of
distinction but a sure path to promotion; many who have worked well in
the scriptorium were rewarded for their services with abbacies and
bishoprics. In the thirteenth century a monk of the monastery of St.
Swithin, at Winchester, was recommended for the vacant abbacy of Hyde,
as being well versed in the glosses of the sacred text, a skilful
writer, a good artist, and clever at painting initial letters.

In this scriptorium was cultivated and brought to perfection an art
which has been the admiration of all subsequent ages, but which
printing completely swept away, and failed to supply anything adequate
in its place--that art is called illumination. It has a career of its
own, and a value as a beautiful eloquent monument in the history of
the church, and under these two phases we shall proceed to investigate
this first part of the literary labor of monasticism.

The art of illuminating manuscripts was not, as has been supposed,
originated by Christianity, though it was brought to perfection under
its sway. There are two periods in its history, the first goes far
back into the remote past, to the times of the Egyptian papyri,
sixteen centuries before Christ, and the second period commences with
the chrysography or writing in gold of the Greek manuscripts, between
the fifth and eighth centuries after Christ. The more ancient rolls of
Egyptian papyri are written in red, with a reed, decorated by rude
drawings similarly traced, representing mystical scenes of the
Egyptian mythology--some of these papyri, however, are of higher
finish, being elaborately painted, gilded, and extending to the length
of sixty feet. There is preserved in the museum of the Louvre a
specimen of the plain style of papyrus, ornamented with illustrations,
drawn in outline. It is said to be one of those rituals which are
often found enclosed in mummy coffins; it is about forty feet in
length, and is in a good state of preservation. There are directions
on it for the illuminator, such as were adopted also by the Christian
penmen. In the corner of the space left for illumination there was
inserted a small sketch of the subject to guide the artist. The French
recovered also a specimen of the superior kind of papyri at Thebes, in
1798.  [Footnote 65]

  [Footnote 65: Published entire by the Imperial Government, in a work
  called Description de l'Egypte, 1812.]

It consists of a number of religious scenes, comprising many figures
of human beings and animals, drawn with a pen, and brilliantly
colored. It is about forty-four feet in length, though imperfect. It
is more than probable also that the Romans had some knowledge of the
art of illustrating manuscripts. The passage usually quoted in support
of this theory occurs in the Natural History of Pliny,  [Footnote 66]
where we are told that Varro wrote the lives of 700 Romans, which he
illustrated with their portraits.

  [Footnote 66: Marcus Varro benignissimo invento, insertis, voluminum
  suorum fecunditati non nominibus tantum septingentorum illustrium
  sed et aliquo modo imaginibus non passus intercidere figuras aut
  vetustatem aevi contra homines valere, inventor muneris etiam diis
  invidiosi, quando immortalitatem non solum dedit verum etiam in
  omnes terras misit ut presectes esse ubique et claudi
  possent.--PLINII: Nat. Hist. lib. xxxv., c. 2.]

But there is also an account of a similar work by Pomponius Atticus,
recorded by Cornelius Nepos, who tells us that Atticus wrote about the
actions of the great men of Rome, which descriptions he ornamented
with their portraits.  [Footnote 67]

  [Footnote 67: Namque versibus qui honores rerumque gestarum
  amplitudine ceteros Romane populi praestiterunt exposuit: ita ut sub
  singulorum imaginibus facta magistratus qui eorum non amplius
  quaternis quinisve versibus discripserit.--CORN. NEP.: Atticus.]

It is impossible to fix the time when the art of Christian
illumination sprung up, but most probably it occurred when the ancient
fashion of rolled manuscripts gave way to something more like the
present book form; that is, instead of one long narrow sheet of some
forty or sixty feet, a number of square sheets placed upon each other,
and sewn together at the back. The ancient manuscripts were rolled
either {305} upon one or two rollers. The second roller was adopted
for the convenience of the reader, who might roll off his manuscript
as he read it from one to the other; thus one roller was placed at the
end of the MS. round which it was rolled first, then a second roller
was attached to the commencement of the MS., and upon this the reader
rolled it off as he read; it was the duty of the librarians to roll it
back again for the convenience of the next reader. As long as this
mode prevailed there could be no elaborate painting or gilding of
MSS., such as we are familiar with, and this is attested by the fact
that the MSS. of this rolled form which were dug up from Herculaneum
and Pompeii have no trace of decoration. But in the very earliest
specimens of the book form which came into vogue early in the second
century of the Christian era, there were decorations of various
degrees of richness. The Discorides in the Vienna Library, and the
celebrated Virgil of the Vatican, said to have been executed in the
fourth century, are among the earliest specimens of illuminated MSS.
Still the miniature prevailed in these, the decorations in the
Discorides being very simple, but absent altogether in the Virgil,
whilst the miniatures are large and clear. Decoration, however, was
prevalent in that early time, for St. Jerome, who lived in the fourth
century, complains of the abuse of this art of filling up books with
ornamented capital letters of an enormous size. It is there for in
this fourth century that we find a marked advance in the art of
illumination. The most valuable books were written in gold and silver
inks by scribes who were called chrysographi; the vellum was stained
with rose colored or purple dye, to throw up the gold and silver
letters. One of the most valued authorities on the text of the New
Testament is the version by Ulphilas, the Gothic bishop, who lived in
the early part of the fourth century. A copy of this in letters of
silver, with the initials in gold, was executed in the fifth century,
and is now preserved in the royal library at Upsal, under the
well-known title of the Codex Atgenteus. Some of the MSS. of this
period were written on a blue ground in silver, with the name of God
in gold. This magnificent form of copying was devoted principally to
the Gospels and Scriptures generally. To this succeeded as an
influence of Byzantine luxury the style of writing on a gilded ground
in letters of black. During these early periods miniatures formed the
principal features of the ornamentation, but toward the seventh
century, two centuries after the fall of Rome, a change came over the
style of art, and miniatures gradually gave way to more elaborate
decoration. In this age, too, the initial letter sprang up. In the
most ancient manuscripts it was not distinguished from the text, but
from the seventh to the eleventh century separate capital letters of a
large size were the characteristics of the volumes most decorated. It
is to this period that the origin of the various schools of
illumination may be traced. Rome had succumbed to barbarian violence,
and her arts, though decaying, still exerted an influence upon this
new style of painting, then in its infancy. That influence was
naturally stronger in Italy, and therefore the early illuminations of
the Italian school bear traces of the old Roman style. In France the
same influence was manifest, mixed up with national peculiarities, and
this school was consequently called the Franco-Roman. Miniatures now
were gradually displaced by intricate ornamentation, interlaced
fretwork, or twining branches of white or gold, on a background of
variegated colors. But far away in the distant west, in a country
which had never been under Roman domination, and was therefore free
from Roman influence, a style of art rose up of a purely original
character. Historical research has placed it beyond question that in
these remote times Ireland was far in advance of other nations in the
scale of civilization. Her fame had extended over Europe, her
monasteries were adorned {306} with men of great piety and learning,
who were the trainers of the leading spirits of the age. She was the
first to break through the dense darkness of the times, and as she
gave Christianity to Scotland, so she also imparted to the Saxons the
art of illumination. The very earliest mention we have in the history
of our country of an illuminator is of Dagaeus, abbot of Iniskeltra,
who lived in the early part of the sixth century, and died about 587.
Adamnanus, the Saxon abbot of Iona, retained Genereus, who had taught
illumination in the Irish monasteries, to impart that knowledge to the
Saxons; and in the eighth century another Irish monk, Ultan, is
mentioned as having a great reputation as an illuminator of MSS. Bede
also confirms this fact of Irish civilization, for he asserts that it
was the custom to send youths out of England into Ireland to study at
her monasteries. It was from Ireland, then, that the Anglo-Saxons
learned the art of illumination.  [Footnote 68] Later in the tenth
century, a style, peculiar and original, was started, it is said by
Dunstan, who was a great illuminator, which consisted in a novel use
of the foliage, quite distinct from all other styles. It prevailed to
the end of the Saxon rule, and is known by the name of Opus Anglicum.
One of the finest specimens of the Anglo-Saxon school is extant in the
Cottonian library, in the shape of the Durham Book, or St. Cuthbert's
Gospels; it was the work of Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne, in honor
of St. Cuthbert; its execution extended from the year 698 to 721; it
is peculiarly a Saxon piece of art, and belongs to that species known
as "tesselated" Giraldus Cambrensis, who wrote in the twelfth century,
speaks of having seen a similar MS. at Kildare, which was called The
Evangelisterium.  [Footnote 69]

  [Footnote 68: Mr. Noel Humphreys, in is beautiful little work upon
  the Art of Illumination and Missal Painting, has given, as a
  specimen of this Anglo-Hibernian school, a page from the Gospels of
  Maelbrigid Mac Durnan, the MS. of which is preserved in the Lambeth
  MSS.]

  [Footnote 69: Inter universa Kyldariae miracula nil mihi
  miraculosius occurrit quam liber (ut alunt) Angelo dictante
  conscriptus. Continet hic liber quatuor Evangelistarum juxta
  Hieronymum concordantiam: ubi quot paginae fere sunt tot figurae
  diversae variisque coloribus distinctissimae. Hic majestatis vultum
  videas divinitus impressum, hinc mysticas Evangelistarum formas:
  nunc senas nunc quaternas nunc binas alas habentes. Hinc acquilam,
  inde vitulum hinc hominis faciem inde leonis ailasque figuras pene
  infinitas. . . . Haec equidem quanto frequentius et diligentius
  intueor semper quasi novi obstupco semperque magis ac magis
  admiranda conspicio.--GIRALD CAMB.: Topogr. Hibern., lib., ii., c. 88.]

The finest specimen of English illumination of the tenth century is
the Duke of Devonshire's celebrated Benedictional, by St. AEthelwald,
bishop of Winchester, written and painted between 963 and 984. The
first page is a magnificent picture of a number of glorified
confessors; it was written by a monk, of whom we shall speak
hereafter. Up to the twelfth century decorations were the peculiar
characteristics of illumination, although some Saxon MSS. written
during those periods have pictures drawn in outline; but the great
point in all richly illuminated MSS. was the initial letter, and every
effort of art was exerted to make that as rich and magnificent as
possible. After that time we find these initial letters ornamented
also with drawings of the human form, animals, birds, etc, in addition
to the foliage which had hitherto predominated. The coloring of the
period was richer also, and these MSS. so decorated with pictures were
called "historiated," and led by degrees to the fine historical
illuminations of subsequent centuries. Gradually these initial letters
became larger and longer, until their tales reached nearly the whole
length of the page. They were then carried round the bottom, until out
of this progression of the initial letter arose what is called the
"Gothic bracket"--and ornamentation like a clasp which ran round three
sides of the page. During the fourteenth century miniatures were again
introduced, and were improving and becoming more finished up to the
middle of the sixteenth century. The Gothic bracket was also extended
gradually, until it at last embraced the whole page, and became {307}
one of the great features of of subsequent illumination--the "border."
In these borders all kinds of subjects were crowded--foliage,
flowers, birds, animals, and miniatures, and toward the end of the
fifteenth century a background was added, first in parts, and
ultimately entirely. A work which appeared in the thirteenth century
exerted, however, a great influence over the art of illumination, even
down to the time of its decline, three centuries later. It was a
series of meditations on the life of Christ, known as St. Bonaventura,
by John Fidenza, and the minute descriptions it gave of the various
scenes of which it treated formed a sort of ideal, the influence of
which may be traced in nearly all subsequent treatment of similar
subjects, and accounts for their general uniformity. During the
Byzantine period illuminating was confined to manuscripts of the
Scriptures, the works of the fathers, and books for the services in
the church. To these were then added volumes for private devotion,
such as Horae, or prayers four hours and holy days, sometimes called
Missals. Legends, history, and poetry followed, and in the fourteenth
century the works of Chaucer and the Chronicles of Froissart opened a
vast field to the illuminators for the delineation of battles, sieges,
religious ceremonies, public events, and scenes of domestic life. Some
copies of classical authors also were then illuminated, until by the
end of the fifteenth century nearly every kind of formal document was
illuminated, including charters, wills, indentures, patents of
nobility, statutes of foundations, and mortuary registers. But the
printing-press was looming in the distance, and the death-knell of
this beautiful art began to toll. Its fall, which was inevitable, was,
however, gradual. Men could not be weaned at once from these
illuminated books, and a sort of temporary alliance between the two
arts was effected. The earliest printed books were illuminated, spaces
which had been formerly left by the copyist were now reserved by the
printer, and the whole work when it left his hands was given over to
the artist; then the subjects were engraven on wood, and transferred
to the vellum by means of ink and the press; but the manuscript style
was still preserved, and the closest imitation of written volumes was
retained by the early printers, and with such dexterity that it is not
an easy thing to detect some of the earliest printed books from
manuscripts. Perhaps the last effort to illuminate a book by the
printer's art to the extent of the older MSS., was an edition of the
Liturgy, brought out in 1717 by John Short, entirely engraven on
copper plates. The pages were surrounded by borders, and embellished
with pictures and decorated initial letters. Even down to the early
part of the present century books were printed with ornamental initial
letters, and borders on the top and bottom of each page, both of which
may be seen occasionally in the present day, more especially in books
issued from presses which seek to revive the antique type and style.
In concluding this portion of our sketch, we may mention another
characteristic of early MS. writing which exists in some of our books
in present use. If we take up an edition of a Greek classic printed
some forty or fifty years ago, or even less, we shall find it almost
unintelligible, from the number of contractions used in the printing;
and if we go further back still, we shall find these contractions more
numerous. It arose in the eighth or ninth century; the scribes
introduced in the copying of Greek MSS. a system of contraction called
tacygraphy, by which two, three, or more letters were expressed by one
character, which was termed "nexus litterarum." The editors of the
early period of printing adopted them in their type, and they
continued in use down to the beginning of the present century.

{308}

As we have thus given a condensed review of the history and
development of that most beautiful art of illuminating MSS., we shall
proceed to describe the details of the work as it was carried on for
centuries in the various monasteries in Europe. The parchment was cut
into sheets of the required size, and prepared for the copyist in the
following manner--They were first rubbed over with the powdered bone
of the cuttle-fish, or with the ashes of a certain kind of bone or
wood burned and pulverized; a wheel with sharp teeth at equal
distances was then run down each side of the sheet, and lines ruled
across from point to point between which the matter was to be written;
it was then handed to the scribe, who began his work. In the ancient
manuscripts there is to be found no paging or table of contents. The
whole work was divided into packets of parchment sheets, each
containing about four leaves; these packets were sometimes marked with
a number temporarily on the first page, which was cut off when the
whole was bound. At the end of each section of leaves the scribe wrote
the word with which the next section should commence, a practice
continued by printers under the title of "catch-words." If a
manuscript contained several treatises on different subjects, a list
of contents was appended, the initial word of each tract, and the
number of sections. As soon as the copying was finished, the work of
illustration commenced. The outlines were traced with a pencil made of
silver, or brass with a silver point; then the metallic outlines were
gone over with a fine quill pen, dipped in a preparation of lampblack
and gum. There are many MSS. extant originally intended to be
illuminated, but from some unknown cause have come down to us in this
unfinished state of outline sketches. The next step was to wash in the
shades with ink and water of three degrees of strength; at this point
the gilding was done, in order that the burnishing might not interfere
with the colors. The raised or embossed gold grounds were done first
by laying the metal leaf on a thick smooth bed made of fine plaster,
carefully ground; they were then burnished, and if it were intended to
decorate these raised gold grounds with engravings or patterns cut in
the metal, that was done as the next stage. After this the large
masses of flat, painted gilding were added and the colors laid on with
the utmost care as to the tint. The last process, which was intrusted
only to superior hands, was that of diapering, pencilling, inserting
brilliant touches of gold and white, and in fact finishing the whole
work. These two forms of gold work, the embossed and the flat, are to
be found in perfection in MSS. of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. They prepared their gold with great care. In the fourteenth
century the gold leaf was ground with honey carefully washed, and the
powder mixed with gum water. In a treatise written by Theophilus,
[Footnote 70] the pulverization of gold for painting forms a difficult
process; he directs that the pure gold should be filed into a cup, and
then washed with a pencil in the shell of a sea fish, after which it
is to be milled in a mortar made of copper and tin, with a long pestle
worked by a strap and wheel.

  [Footnote 70: THEOP.: De Diversis Artibus.]

Then the gold filings are to be milled in water for two or three hours
and gradually poured off. The powder thus produced was to be tempered
with isinglass and laid on a ground of red lead, mixed with the white
of an egg; after this it was burnished with a bloodstone, a shining
horn tablet being placed under the gilded picture. The Anglo-Saxons
used to rub gold filings in a mortar with sharp vinegar, and then
dissolve them with salt and nitre. The principle colors used,
according to Theophilus, were vermilion orpiment, Greek green,
dragon's-blood, granetum carminium, saffron, folium, brunum, minium,
white and black. After they had ground their colors on a slab of
porphyry, they placed them in covered glass vessels under water, which
not only only preserved them from dust, but {309} kept them always
soft and ready for use. The old painters never touched their colors
with iron, but used as a palette-knife a thin blade of wood. They made
their own pencils and brushes, the pencils being made of minever
tails, set in quills, and the brushes of the bristles of the white
domestic pig, bound to a stick. When a manuscript had passed through
all these stages of copying and illuminating, it had to be bound, a
work also done in the scriptorium. The sacred MSS. at an early period
were bound between two wooden boards, covered with engraved plates of
gold and silver set off with crystals and rubies. But the usual
binding of volumes for the services for the church was in the skins of
deer, sheep, and calves, pieces of which were stretched over the
boards, and the leaves were sewn together by the same material cut
into strips. The ecclesiastics were forbidden to indulge in the
pleasure of the chase, although the love of that sport was a universal
passion, and it was with great difficulty they could be restrained
from joining in such diversions; but Charlemagne granted permission to
priests to hunt for the purpose of procuring deer-skins to bind books.
Grants were made to monasteries by other sovereigns of a certain
number of skins annually. The corners of the covers of large
service-books were protected by plates and bosses of metal; there was
a metal center with a large projected hemisphere on each side, and
across the book were too strong loops of leather for the purpose of
lifting it when closed. The service-books of the church were
necessarily very large, because they were placed on a high sloping
shelf, around which the choristers stood while the precentor, standing
behind them, turned over the leaves with a staff from above their
heads. Such are a few of the details of the art of illuminating
manuscripts, which flourished in the monasteries from the eighth to
the eighteenth centuries, when it died in Europe under Louis XIV. The
schools of this art, which sprung up from its cultivation, may be
enumerated by six denominations, as shown in the following table:

GREEK or BYZANTINE, from the eighth to the tenth century: the
_Irish-Saxon, Anglo-Saxon, Franco-Saxon_, and the painting of _Russia_
belong to this school.

EARLY ROMAN, tenth to the fourteenth century, which includes also the
_Anglo-Norman_.

ITALIAN, fourteenth to sixteenth century, including the _Spanish_ and
_Portuguese_.

EARLY FRENCH, fourteenth to seventeenth century, under which may be
ranged the _later English_.

FLEMISH, GERMAN, AND DUTCH, from the close of the fifteenth century.

LATER FRENCH, during the seventeenth eighteenth centuries.

We have already remarked that a genius for illumination and excellence
in copying were at one time sure recommendations for promotion. The
memory of men too who had spent their lives in this occupation were
tenderly cherished; and two incidents preserved in history attesting
the fact we shall mention. Baldinucci, in his History of Painting,
gives an account of two brethren in the Camaldulan Monastery, Degli
Angeli, at Florence, who were most indefatigable copyists. Dom Jacopo
Fiorentino made his appearance at the Monastery of Degli Angeli, in
the year 1340; he is described as a monk of holy manners who, when he
was not engaged in monastic duties, spent all his time in copying. He
acquired an extraordinary expertness and elegance in writing the
peculiar character used in the books of the choir. His talents were
appreciated, and Dom Jacopo was seldom idle. He wrote twenty massive
choral books for his own monastery, the largest ever seen in Italy,
and a great many others for Rome, Venice, and Murano. His fame spread
abroad, and after his death the brethren of the order preserved {310}
the right hand of this scribe, which had done so much good work, as a
lasting memorial of his name. Dom Silvestro, another monk living in
the monastery of Degli Angeli at the same time, excelled in miniature
painting, and to his lot fell the decoration of those very books, as
they issued from the facile pen of Dom Jacopo. His work was thoroughly
appreciated by the great artists of the best ages of Italy. Lorenzo
the Magnificent, and Leo X., his son, were pleased to accord their
admiration. When he died his right hand was also embalmed. Although
this work of copying and illuminating was carried on generally in the
scriptorium of the monastery, yet occasionally a monk had a room to
himself for the purpose, bearing the same name. Giraldus Cambrensis,
in his Life of St. David, tells us that the great bishop commenced
writing a copy of St. John's Gospel in gold and silver letters in his
own scriptorium at Menevia:

  "Scriptorium suum locumque laboris."   [Footnote 71]

  [Footnote 71: Anglia Sacra, vol. ii., p.635.]

Many of the names of great illuminators are lost in oblivion, but some
have been preserved. Of these, as our investigation is more
particularly into the monachism of our own country, we shall dwell
more largely upon those men who were born on British soil. We have
already adverted to the peculiarly advanced state of the Irish
monasteries in the very earliest times. There can be no doubt that
both as missionaries and educators they took the lead in those remote
periods. Muratori, the groat Italian historian of the middle ages,
mentions Ireland as surpassing other nations in the west in the career
of letters,  [Footnote 72] and we have already quoted the testimony of
Bede.

  [Footnote 72: Muratori--Antiq. Ital. Medii AEvi, Dissert. 43.]

We shall therefore commence our review of the English art of
illumination with the name of the Irish abbot already alluded to, as
the first upon record, _Dagaeus_, abbot of Iniskeltra, who died about
the year 587, and excelled not only in writing, but in binding and
decoration. The next in order is the monk _Genereus_, an Anglo-Saxon,
who had both studied and taught in the Irish schools; his services
were retained by Adamnanus to teach the Saxon monks in the monastery
of Iona; and the third, as we have before mentioned, is an Irish monk,
_Ultan_, who, at the end of the eighth century, was renowned as an
illuminator. The seed fell upon good soil, and bore abundant fruit,
for we next read of _Eadfrith_ and _Ethelwold_, both abbots of
Lindisfarne, and bishops of Durham, who, early in the eighth century,
wrote and illuminated the magnificent copy of the Gospels in golden
letters, to the honor of St. Cuthbert, which is now preserved in the
Cottonian Library at the British Museum, and known as the Durham Book.
There is good reason to suppose that _Dunstan_ excelled in
illumination. In a manuscript in the Bodleian Library, there is a
drawing purporting to be by his hand--a figure of Christ appearing to
the prelate, who is prostrate at his feet. _Godeman_, whom we have
also mentioned, was chaplain of Ethelwold, bishop of Durham, at whose
instigation he undertook the task of writing and illuminating the
celebrated Benedictional, which is preserved in the Duke of
Devonshire's library. In return for this work, Ethelwold made him
abbot of Thorney. He flourished about 970. _Ervenius_, a monk of St.
Edmonsbury Abbey, was renowned as illuminator, about ten years later.
In a life of Wulstan, Bishop of Winchester, written by William of
Malmesbury, we are told that Ervenius was his tutor, and that young
Wulstan was first attracted to letters by the beautiful illustrations
of a sacramentarium and Psalter, from which he was taught. "Thus,"
says the biographer, "the youth Wulstan acquired, almost by miracle,
the chief heads of the most precious things, for while those lustrous
beauties entered in at the apertures of his eyes, he received the
{311} knowledge of sacred letters into his very part."   [Footnote 73]

  [Footnote 73: Habebat tunc (Wulstan) magistrum Ervenium nomine, in
  scribendo et quidlibet coloribus effingendo peritum. Is libros
  scriptos Sacramentarium et Psalterium quorum principales literas
  auro effigiaverit puero Wulstano delegandos curabit. Ille
  preciosorum apicum captus miraculo dum pulchritudinem intentis
  oculis rimatur et scientiam literatum internis haurit
  medullis.--GULIEL. MALMS.: _De Vita Wulstan, in Ang. Sacra_, vol.
  ii., p. 224.]

A similar instance is recorded in the life of Alfred, who, when a
child, was drawn toward books by the charm of the illustrations. In
Brompton's Chronicle we are told that _Osmund_, the Bishop of
Salisbury, in the year 1076, did not disregard the labor of writing,
binding, and illuminating of books.  [Footnote 74]

  [Footnote 74: Ipse episcopus libros scribere, illuminare et ligare,
  non fastidiret.--Brompton Chron. ann. 1076.]

Eadwinus, a monk of Canterbury, in the middle of the twelfth century,
has left a monument of his labors behind him, in the shape of an
elaborate psalter, preserved in Trinity College, Cambridge. At the end
of this psalter are two drawings, one of Christ Church and the
monastery at Canterbury, and the other a full-length portrait of
himself. In the same volume are many historical figures, with initial
letters in gold, silver, and vermilion. We include in our list
_Matthew Paris_, the historian, who, although he is supposed to have
been a Frenchman, yet passed his life in St. Alban's monastery, wrote
an English history,  [Footnote 75] and may at least be taken as a
naturalized, if not a born Englishman.

  [Footnote 75: Or rather a continuation of one, the first part of it,
  from 1066 to 1235, is attributed to Roger of Wendover, who was in
  the same monastery. William of Rishanger continued it to the year
  1273, from the point where Matthew Paris leaves off (1259), but the
  whole is frequently quoted as by Matthew Paris. The probabilities
  are greater in favor of his being an Englishman than the contrary.
  His works were admired by the early Reformers, for the bold and
  vigorous manner in which he wrote upon ecclesiastical affairs.]

He is reported to have had a good knowledge of painting, architecture,
and the mathematics. The history which is called Historia Major, up to
the year 1235, was in all probability the work of another. Matthew
Paris wrote the continuation, and copied the whole as it is now in the
British Museum, and illustrated it. The next English name rescued from
the oblivion of the past, is that of _Alan Strayler_, who was also a
monk of St. Alban's, about the year 1463. His work is contained in a
volume called the Golden Register of St. Alban's, extant in the
Cottonian library.  [Footnote 76]

  [Footnote 76: Cotton MSS.--Nero, D vii.]

It is a record of the benefactors of the monastery down to the year
1463. His own portrait is inserted as a benefactor, inasmuch as,
according to the text, "he had given to the adorning of the present
book very much labor, and had also remitted a debt of 3s. 4d. due to
him for colors." Beneath his portrait are two lines in Latin, to the
effect that--

  "The painter, Alan Strayler, here is given.
  Who dwells forever with the choir of heaven."

There are many other portraits of royal and noble personages, holding
their respective donations. About thirty years afterward died an
eccentric recluse, _John Rous_, called the hermit of Guy's Cliff. He
was chantry-priest at a small chapel, founded by Guy, earl of Warwick,
at Guy's Cliff, and from the austere solitary life he led there,
acquired the appellation of the "hermit." He was an antiquary and an
historian. He wrote a life of Richard Beauchamp, fourteenth earl of
Warwick, and illustrated it with fifty-three large drawings, executed
with a pen, which style of sketching in those days was called
"tricking," or "drawing in trick." This MS. is still to be seen in the
Cottonian collections.  [Footnote 77]

  [Footnote 77: Cotton MSS.--Julius, E iv. ]

Rous spent his time in the study of history and genealogy, and wrote
and ornamented several manuscripts, one of which was a roll of the
earls of Warwick. This is the last Englishman who is recorded to have
attained to any excellence in the art of illumination. We must not
omit some of the most prominent of foreign artists who distinguished
themselves in this study, and in the thirteenth century _Orderico_,
canon of Sienna, is mentioned as being one of the most renowned.
Lanzi, in his History of Painting in Italy,  [Footnote 78] gives a
description of one of here's MSS., which is preserved in the library
of the academy at Florence, decorated with initials, ornaments, and
figures of animals, painted by him in 1213. The names of two
celebrated illuminators are mentioned by Dante in his Divine Comedy.

  [Footnote 78: Lanzi--Hist. of Painting, book ii., Siennese School.]

{312}

_Oderigi d'Agubbio_, whom Dante wrote of, was born at Agubbio, near
Perugia, and died about the year 1300; he was the friend of Giotto and
Dante at Rome. He was introduced by Giotto to Benedict VIII., for whom
he illuminated many volumes. _Francis of Bologna_, the other mentioned
by the poet, was also in the employ of Benedict, and executed many
works for the Papal library. There is an account in Baldinucci of one
_Cybo_, who lived in the fourteenth century, and is better known as
the Monk of the Golden Islands, from his custom of retiring from his
monastery at Lerino every spring and autumn to an island in the
Mediterranean off the coast of France, for the wise purpose of the
contemplation of nature. "He would walk abroad," we are informed, "not
only to contemplate the beautiful prospects offered by the shores of
those islands, the mountains, villages, and the sea itself, but also
the birds, the flowers, the trees, the fruits, the rarer fishes of the
sea, and the little animals of the earth, all of which he would draw
and imitate in a wonderful manner."  [Footnote 79]

  [Footnote 79: Baldinucci--Notizie de' Professore del Disegno.]

Would that such an inspiration might steal over the minds of some of
our modern artists! In 1433, according to Lanzi, flourished one _Fra
Giovanni da Fiesola_, a Dominican friar, who attained to great fame as
an illuminator. Then from the monastery of Degli Angeli came again
another artist _Dom Bartolommeo_, abbot of St. Clement, who was a
painter from youth. Vasari speaks of books and beautiful illustrations
executed by him for the monks of Sante Flora and Lucilla in the Abbey
of Arezzo, and in a missal given to Sixtus IV. Two great French
illuminators come next up on the scene, one of whom, _Andrieu de
Beauneveu_, is mentioned in the Chronicles of Froissart.  [Footnote
80] One of his works, called Le Petit Psautier, was valued at eighty
livres, about £120 of modern English money. Another of his works was
The Great Hours of the Duke de Berri, fac-similes of which will be
found in the works of Sylvestre and Noel Humphreys.  [Footnote 81] He
died in the year 1416, leaving a volume of Hours behind him
unfinished, which was bought by the French government for 13,000
francs. The other French artist was _Jean Foucquet_, a native of
Tours, who is spoken of as one of the glories of the fifteenth
century. His principal works were the illumination of a book called
L'Anciennrté des Juifs, and the Hours of Anne of Bretagne, two
specimens of which may be found in Mr. Noel Humphrey's excellent work
before alluded to.  [Footnote 82] The greatest artist in the Italian
miniature was _Don Giulio Clovio_, whose advent closes the history of
the art in the fifteenth century. The incidents of his career may be
found in Vasari; they are eventful; he was driven into a monastery in
early life, when the Spaniards devastated Rome in 1527. He through up
the cowl some years after by the Pope's permission, and went into the
service of Cardinal Grimani, for whom he executed many of his best
works. An office of the Virgin occupied him nine years in painting; it
is still extant in the Musco Borbonico at Naples. He also illuminated
a copy of Grimani's Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans:
this is now in the Soane Museum. In Sylvestre's Palaeography,
[Footnote 83] is a copy of one of Clovio's miniatures from the MS. of
Dante's Vision, now in the Vatican.

  [Footnote 80: Chroniques de Floissart, vol. iv., p. 71, Lyons.]

  [Footnote 81: Paléog. Univ., plate 195: Madden, ii. 544-7.
  Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages, plate xxi.]

  [Footnote 82:  Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages, plates xxxi.
  and xxxii.]

   [Footnote 83: Sylvester--Paléog. Univ.. plate 162.]

{313}

Another splendid relique of this artist consists of a large miniature
of the crucifixion, executed for Gregory XIII.; it was brought from
the Vatican during the campaigns in Italy, in the time of the French
Revolution, by the Abbé Celotti. He was called the Michael Angelo of
painters, and died in 1578, at the advanced age of eighty. His last
days were spent in peace, as Vasari tells us "he does not study or do
anything, but seek the salvation of his soul by good works, and a life
spent wholly apart from mundane affairs." _Godefroy_ and _Dutillet_
were two distinguished French illuminators of the sixteenth century,
and _Johan Banzel_ of Ulm, is the one with whom Vasari concludes his
anecdotes of painting. This list is scanty enough, and there can be no
doubt that hundreds of names have sunk in the oblivion of the times;
devotees to this beautiful art, and victims to the negligence with
which the art-historians of the times treated their labors; they
slumber in their unknown graves, but their works exist to the
admiration and speculation of modern times. We have given a very
cursory and rapid review of the rise and development of this most
beautiful art; the most beautiful thing that mediaeval Christianity
has bequeathed to us. We have  endeavored also to give a few names of
such of our countrymen who excelled in its exercise, and it only
remains to say a few words upon its use, as a  work of refined piety,
before we proceed to glean a few historical lessons as to the
doctrinal development of the church, to be drawn from these art
expressions of different periods, for there is nothing upon which a
nation or a community stamps the characteristics of its individuality
more clearly than upon its art.

These illuminations have a great historical value, as evidences of the
life of the times. Were it not for them the past as a life would be
lost to us. We should be almost ignorant of the modes and manners of
existence of our ancestors. We might have descriptive representations
of the deeds they did, but their customs, their habits, their
amusements, and their interior existence would have been lost to us
forever. It is that which enables us to put as it were a soul into
history, to revive a past life in our minds, to resuscitate it, and
make it live again before us; all this, but for the preservation of
illuminated MSS., would have been irretrievably lost. It is from them
alone we can see the customs of the domestic life of our ancestors,
their habits at home, at table, in the field, in society, for those
pictures, though executed to represent a life of Eastern and Biblical
incident, have this peculiarity about them, that the paraphernalia of
the scenes are in keeping with the times of their execution; so that
unconsciously these monks, when decorating their psalters and their
missals, have handed down to us the very best illustration of the
written history of their times.  [Footnote 84]

  [Footnote 84: I know of no better evidence of the value of these
  MSS. than the excellent and valuable work compiled by Mr. Thomas
  Wright, a great authority on Saxon antiquities, called The Domestic
  Manners and Sentiments of the Middle Ages in England. The work is
  compiled principally from these sources, the illustrations are
  copied from ancient MSS., and it contains a repertoire of nearly all
  that can be gleaned from them, forming a picture of the life of
  Saxons, Normans, and early English, as it was sketched by
  themselves--a most valuable work, both for the historian and general
  reader.]


We have hitherto reviewed this labor as a work of art, but we must not
forget its higher and nobler motive. Art may be kindled by the fire of
ambition or the love of gain, but the motive which inspired the
monastic illuminator was a far higher one. Whatever we may think of
what we sometimes call the folly of spending years in illustrating a
gospel or a psalter, we must be driven to the conclusion that as these
monks were situated, it was a work of devotion. No other feeling could
prompt them to give their lives to such a labor, because it was labor
unrequited. In our times, or in fact in all times, men will accomplish
marvels for money, but these men were paid nothing for their labor,
not even the flattery of admiration. In the {314} early periods of the
art, it is true that in one or two cases an illuminator was made an
abbot or a bishop, but those cases were so exceptional that scarcely
half a dozen instances could be found in history of such honor being
conferred upon an obscure monastic artist. The works over which they
spent their long days and longer nights were sent into the church for
use; gems of art they were, but exhibited to no public admiration, to
no applauding critics; there they lay hidden in monastic libraries, in
church vestries, in convent chests, to moulder in obscurity for the
amusement and commercial speculation of an after age, when the life
they embellished had died out in the world, and it should become
impossible to ascertain the names of the men whose busy fingers were
plied with such magic skill. Nothing but devotion could have prompted
such labor as that, and how are we to say that in the eyes of the
Almighty the devotion which could spend years lovingly over the
embellishment of a gospel, to illustrate it with the choicest
productions of genius, and to offer up to it all that was beautiful
and good in thought, fancy, and execution--how are we to say that such
an offering may not have been, under the circumstances in which they
were placed, as acceptable in the eyes of God as the limited devotion
of modern life, with its mechanical modes, its periodical days of
worship, amid long intervals of sin? The devotion of modern times may
sometimes manifest itself in the erection of hospitals and churches,
but we are not always sure that such deeds are free from the taint of
ostentation of wealth or jealousy of hated heirs--to flaunt the one or
to balk the others; but the devotion which found vent in
missal-painting and copying the scriptures by hand in the dark ages
must have been pure; for we cannot, even by the most prejudiced
investigation, discover any sordid or ambitious motive for it. Where
there is no payment we may rest assured that labor is a labor of love.
The best proof of the fact is the difficulty to get people to
illuminate missals now. It was an exquisitely beautiful art, and ought
not to have died out so completely. Latterly however, in the church,
to the scandal of vigilant Protestants, there has been a sort of
attempt at a revival of mediaevalism; it has become the vogue to
appeal to the fathers to sing mediaeval hymns, and to decorate the
corners of prayer-books and the interiors of churches with mediaeval
art; but it has proved to be more a revival of mediaeval forms than
mediaeval devotions. It has also become fashionable to study
illumination--an elegant amusement for an idle hour--and many have
tried it as an art, but it has failed both as an art and a work; as an
art, even in these days of art excellence, it has failed, and as a
work, it has not been pursued with that avidity to bring success,
because the modern stimulant is wanting--it pays not; it is lifeless,
automaton-like, a dead body galvanized, missal-painting without
devotion.  [Footnote 85] But in our admiration of the genius and piety
of these monastic artists we must not overlook one great fact, that
this art is not only a representation of the interior life of the
nation, a representation of its manners, customs, and modes of
existence, but it is also a reflection of the state of the church at
each successive period. Chroniclers may differ in their accounts,
historians may quarrel with each other, but the history which a church
rights in its art and literature, in it's sculpture, painting, and
poetry, is traced, as it were, by the events themselves, and graven by
the very fingers of time.

  [Footnote 85: It must be borne in mind that the author of this paper
  is a Protestant, and we believe a minister of the Church of England.
 --Ed. C. W.]

We take up a manuscript supposed to be written about the year 900.
[Footnote 86]

 [Footnote 86: Cotton MSS.--Tiberius, A H. ]

{315}

It is an evangeliarum. It contains a picture of St. Matthew,  with his
left hand resting upon a desk, and his right holding a pen. On the
next page is the word "Liber," the beginning of the gospel written on
a crimson ground in letters outlined in vermilion and gold; at page 72
there is a picture of St. Mark; all the evangelists are delineated,
but no other figures. In a Psalter,  [Footnote 87] written in the year
1000, the same simplicity prevails. It is written in capital letters,
with an interlinear Anglo-Saxon version. The title-page contains the
figure of Christ in the act of blessing, but the principal picture,
which occupies a whole page, is a representation of David in his
youth, playing on a lyre-shaped psalter, accompanied by six smaller
figures, below which are two others dancing. In another Psalter
[Footnote 88] of the same period there is a picture of the
crucifixion, with Mary, the mother of Jesus, on the one side, and St.
John the Baptist on the other. A Psalter of the year 1000,  [Footnote
89] very fully illuminated, is a fine specimen of the purely Biblical
nature of the illustrations of that period. The calendar at the
beginning contains a representation of three persons at a table, and
two kneeling attendants. On page 7 is a youthful Christ, holding a
large scroll, upon which the word "vita" is written; also God the
Father, as creator of the world, in the Mosaic type; the figure is
hidden up to the face by a globe, and from the mouth issue two blue
lines, representing streams of water, over one of which a dove
hovers--one of the oldest specimens of this conception of the
Almighty. Another representation, on the next page, is the figure of
David tearing open the lion's jaws; then the temptation of our
Saviour--the devil is represented as having a beaked nose and claws.
On page 10 is the washing of the disciples' feet, with an angel
descending from heaven with a cloth. Page 14, Christ appearing to Mary
Magdalene. On page 18, the Last Judgment, in which Christ is most
prominent, holding in one hand a horn, and in the other a cross; below
him is the Book of Life open, and at his side are two large angels
blowing trumpets. Page 30 contains David playing on the psalter; and
on page 114 there is a large figure of Christ, holding in his left
hand the Book of Life, in his right a sceptre, with which he is
piercing the jaws of a lion beneath his feet, and a dragon at his side
is biting the lion (see Psalm xci. 13).

  [Footnote 87: Cotton MSS.--Vespasian, A i.]

  [Footnote 88: Harleian MSS., 2904.]

  [Footnote 89: Cotton MSS.--Tiberius, C vi.]

One of the most interesting specimens of the opening of the eleventh
century (1006) is a manuscript called AElfric's heptateuch, in
Anglo-Saxon.  [Footnote 90] Its principal subjects of illumination are
the fall of angels, the first person in the Trinity enthroned,
Lucifer, the days of creation, the creation of Adam, the fail, and the
expulsion from Paradise. But we wish to call attention to the close
resemblance of the Saxon of that period to our modern English. We
shall quote a passage from the Anglo-Saxon text, which might almost be
translated by the same words in modern English. The passage is Genesis
iv. 9, 10. The Saxon runs: "Tha cwoeth drihten to Caine, hwoer is Abel
thin brothor? Tha answarode he and ewoeth, ic nat. Segat thu sceolde
ic minne brothor healdon? Tha cwoeth drihten to Caine, hwoet dydest
thu? thines brothor blod clypath up to me of eorthan." Which may be
rendered in English by almost the same words, thus: "Then quoth the
Lord to Cain, where is Abel thy brother? Then answered he and quoth, I
know not Sayest thou should I hold my brother? Then quoth the Lord to
Cain, What didst thou? thy brother's blood crieth up to me off the
earth."

  [Footnote 90: Cotton MSS.--Claudius, B iv.]

In the first half of the eleventh century, representations of the
Virgin are multiplied in the MSS. of the period, though not yet as the
predominant figure. In a Psalter of that date  [Footnote 91] we have a
representation of David in prayer; then Christ enthroned, with angels
around him; below in a row are eleven heads; and below all, the Virgin
and twelve Apostles in full-length figures.

  [Footnote 91:  Cotton MSS.--Galba, A xviii.]

{316}

In the representation of the ascension, Christ is the main figure
borne up by two angels, and below are two other angels and the Virgin
with her hands raised in prayer. In a picture Bible   [Footnote 92] of
this period, she is again introduced.

  [Footnote 92: Cotton MSS.--Nero, C iv.]

Page 8 contains a representation of the root of Jesse--below lies
Abraham, then David, and next the Virgin, above all is Christ; but at
page 20, we have the death of the Virgin, and the Virgin enthroned in
heaven. In the thirteenth century MSS., we find the Virgin taking the
most prominent position, and Christ represented as a child; saints,
too, creep into the illuminations, more especially Thomas à Becket,
whose murder appears to have been always diligently inserted by the
monks in their MSS., as we shall see. In a Psalter   [Footnote 93] of
the year 1200, among many other pictures, is a burial of a saint in
his episcopal mitre; and the anointing of David is followed a few
pages after by the murder of Thomas à Becket.

    [Footnote 93: Harleian MSS., 5102]

In Matthew Paris's History of the English nation (died 1259), there is
a picture of the Virgin enthroned as the queen of heaven, with Christ
as a little child; she is bending her crowned head, with her hair
flowing down, toward the child, pressing her cheek against his, while
with her right hand she gives him a fruit. In a Psalter   [Footnote
94] of the same period we find the annunciation of the Virgin, the
visitation of the Virgin, and the Virgin crowned, with Christ again as
a little child.

   [Footnote 94: Biblia Regia, 2 A xxii]

In a copy of the Vulgate  [Footnote 95] the fourth page is full of
pictures; there is the Virgin, with Christ as a child, St. Peter on
one side, and St. Paul on the other; below is St. Martin, above the
crucifixion, with the Virgin and St. John; above that are two cherubim
and quite above all, in the position formerly accorded to Christ, is a
representation of the coronation of the Virgin.

  [Footnote 95: MSS. Regia, 1 D  i.]

In the fragment of a lectionary  [Footnote 96] executed for Lord
Lovell by one John Siferwas, a Benedictine monk, there is on the
title-page a portrait of Lord Lovell looking at a book, upon the cover
of which is a picture of the coronation of the Virgin; on the inner
border of page 3, there is the Virgin as the queen of heaven, holding
the child with her robe in the left hand, and a sceptre in her right.

  [Footnote 96: Harleian MSS., 7026]

After three or four more representations of her, we meet with the
presentation of the Virgin; in the centre is the Virgin crowned by the
first person of the Trinity, who is represented as having a long white
beard; another with the Virgin and child upon the moon, surrounded
with rays; on page 23, the Virgin surrounded by the pope, bishops, and
others, and on page 27, the birth of the Virgin. The office of the
Virgin was confirmed by Pope Urban II, at the Council of Clermont
There are several of these offices extant. In an office of the Virgin
and prayers   [Footnote 97] of the date 1420, we find pictures of John
the Baptist, St. James of Compostello enthroned, St. Thomas Aquinas,
also enthroned, and St. Francis of Assisi receiving the stigmata or
wounds of Christ.

  [Footnote 97: Bib. Regia 2 A xviii.]

On page 11, the Virgin and child seated on a bench with St. Anna; on
page 13 St. Catherine, page 15 St. Margaret, and page 21 the
annunciation. In another office of the Virgin,  [Footnote 98] we find
the evangelists, the annunciation and visitation of the Virgin, the
murder of Thomas à Becket, St. Catherine, St. Margaret, the scourging
of Christ, adoration of kings, and in the most prominent picture the
coronation of the Virgin, in which she is represented as being
supported by an angel while the Almighty is pointing with his right
hand to a cherub who, accompanied by two angels is about to place the
crown on her head.

  [Footnote 98:  Harleian MSS., 2900.]

{317}

At the conclusion there is a picture of the Virgin on a throne with
the child Christ. There are several offices of the Virgin in the
Harleian collection,  [Footnote 99] but we shall only notice one more,
which bears date from 1490 to 1500.  [Footnote 100]

  [Footnote 99:  Harleian MSS., 2646, 2884, 2858, etc.]

  [Footnote 100: MSS. Addit., 17012.]

On pages 20 and 21 are autographs of Henry VII. and Henry  VIII.,
which will justify the supposition that it belonged to both. Its
illustrations include, among other things, the murder of Thomas à
Becket, St. George and the Dragon, St. Christopher, the Virgin and
child, with St. Anna, St. Catherine, St. Barbara, and St. Margaret.
There is a religious poem, illustrated with miniatures, and bearing
date from 1420 to 1430,  [Footnote 101] which elaborately delineates
the intercessorial attributed to the Virgin.

  [Footnote 101: Cotton MSS.--Faustina, B vi.]

The picture in which this is set forth is a remarkable one. In the
lower part of it is a man dying on a bed, at the foot of which stands
death, in the usual form of a skeleton, making ready to pierce the
heart of the dying man with a spear, and there is a black demon, with
a hook reaching toward him; at the head of the bed is an angel
receiving his soul, which is represented as a naked infant; about is
the Virgin, with a crown upon her head, baring her bosom to Christ,
and imploring him, by the breasts which nourished him, to take pity
upon the soul of the dying man. They are both kneeling before the
Almighty, and Christ is represented in a red mantle as showing his
wounds, in token of granting his mother's request. The Almighty is
represented as seated upon a throne, robed in a blue mantle, and
having the usual long white beard; he is lifting his hand in
benediction. An idea was set on foot that the Virgin had fainted at
the crucifixion; and in some of these later manuscripts she is
represented in the act. In a Psalter   [Footnote 102] Page 256, there
is a picture of the crucifixion, with the Virgin in the act of
fainting.

  [Footnote 102: MSS. Regia, 2 B vii.]

Mrs. Jamieson in noticing this fact in her History of Our Lord as
exemplified in Art, has remarked that it was condemned by Catholic
writers themselves. Thomas Cajetani wrote of it as "indecens et
improbabile;" and other writers are quoted by Molanus, who inveighed
against it, and stigmatized it as a thing "temerarium, scandalosum et
periculosum."

But it was at the period of the Reformation, and after then, that
these treasures of art suffered, and the natural iconoclasm of human
nature broke out. Men gazed around them upon gorgeous temples,
decorated with splendid paintings, stained glass windows, marvellous
sculpture, and to their zealous minds it was all idolatry; and they
tore down frescoes, destroyed paintings, overturned altars, broke up
statues, and burned sacred books to exterminate error if possible, not
by the powers of truthful preaching and godly lives, but by the
battle-axe and the bonfire; not by uprooting error itself, so much as
by beating down and destroying its mere evidences.

It was in consequence of this iconoclasm that much of the art
productions of Christianity has been lost to us; nay, much of
literature and history also, for in the sack of a monastery little
discrimination was used, save as to precious metals. We frequently
read of valuable books and manuscripts being consigned to the flames,
but the cups, chalices, the contents of the coffers, invariably found
their way to the treasury. We must always remember this, that human
nature was not wholly confined to Roman Catholics, but that there was
a considerable amount of it among the Reformers. Still, in spite of
iconoclasm, in spite of misguided zeal, sufficient has escaped
destruction, and been preserved to our inspection, to convince us of
the beauty of those arts which sprang up in the wake of Christianity,
though they did ultimately become tainted with human error. And we may
see in all this {318} painting and sculpture, poetry and music, the
marvellous adaptability of Christianity as a regenerator and
stimulant, how it takes up what is good in the world--genius, skill,
love, devotion, and starts them into new channels, with increased
vigor and nobler aim. It took up philosophy, purged it of its errors,
and of philosophers made fathers; it took up science, and bid it labor
to alleviate human suffering, and assuage the physical condition of
humanity; it took up art, and not only embellished it, but gave it an
inexhaustible realm of subjects--a realm in which it has been laboring
ever since, and though improving advancing in each age, will never
exhaust its treasures; it has been, as it's Founder declared it should
be, the salt of the earth; it has rescued the world in moments of
darkness and danger, aroused it from apathy and indifference, purged
it, stimulated it, sent it on in the right way, and brought it back
again when it had peevishly wandered; and not the least evidence of
its purifying, elevating effects upon the fine arts is this, which we
have been endeavoring to describe in the rise and development of
missal painting, that beauty of cloistered: holiness.

--------

From The Month.

THE FAIREST FAIR.

(FROM ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS.)



  "My beloved is the mountains,
  The solitary wooded valleys."
     --_St. John of the Cross_.


  I.

  Mountains, that upward to the clouds arise,
    Odorous with thyme, whereon the wild bees linger,
  Jewell'd with flowers of a thousand dyes.
    Their petals tinted by no mortal finger;
  How solemn in their gray-worn age they stand,
    Hills piled on hills in silent majesty!
  Lofty and strong, and beautiful and grand:
    All this and more is my belov'd to me.


  II.

  Come forth into the woods,--in yonder valley.
    Where rippling waters murmur through the glade;
  There, 'neath the rustling boughs of some green alley,
    We'll watch the golden light and quivering shade:
  Or couch'd on mossy banks we'll lie and listen
    To song-birds pouring forth their vernal glee.
  Wave on, ye woods; ye faery fountains, glisten:
    But more, far more is my beloved to me.

{319}

  III.

  Know ye the land where fragrant winds awaken
    In spicy forests hidden from the eye:
  Where richest perfumes from the boughs are shaken,
    And flowers unnotic'd bloom and blush and die?
  Sweet is th' eternal spring that there reposes
    On wondrous isles that gem the sunny sea,
  And sweet the gales that breathe o'er beds of roses:
    But sweeter far is my belov'd to me.

  IV.

  The roaring torrents from the ice-cliffs leaping--
    I see them foaming down the mountain side,
  Through the green dells and valleys onward sweeping,
    They fill the hollows with their mighty tide:
  Their voice is as the voice of many waters;
    Onward they rush, exulting to be free;
  But ah! their thunder fails, their music falters:
    Far more than this is my belov'd to me.

  V.

  A gentler sound wakes in the hush of even.
    The whisper of a light and cooling breeze;
  It stirs when twilight shades are in the heaven,'
    And bows the tufted foliage of the trees;
  It fans my cheek; its music softly stealing
    Speaks to my heart in loving mystery.
  Ah, gentle breeze! full well thou art revealing
    The joy that my beloved is to me.

  VI.

  Night comes at last, in mystic shadows folding
    The nodding forest and the verdant lawn,
  Till the day breaks, and Nature starts, beholding
    The golden chariot of the coming dawn:
  Then on each bough the feathered chanters, waking,
    Pour forth their music over bush and tree.
  Cease, cease your songs, ye birds; my heart-strings breaking
    Lack words to say what Jesus is to me.

  VII.

  Yea, all the fairest forms that Nature scatters.
    And all melodious sounds that greet the ear;
  The murmuring music of the running waters.
    The golden harvest-fields that crown the year,
  The crimson morn, the calm and dewy even,
     The tranquil moonlight on the slumbering' sea,--
  All are but shadows, forms of beauty given
    To tell what my beloved is to me.

--------

{320}


THE GODFREY FAMILY; OR, QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.



CHAPTER IX.


RELIGION--PHILOSOPHY: WHICH IS THE TRUTH?

But we must return to Cambridge. Eugene made inquiries respecting his
late visitor, M. Bertolot, and finding that he taught his own language
as a means of subsistence, he applied to him for instruction, not
indeed to learn the language, which he knew how to read already, but,
as he said, for practice in speaking and so forth.

"I will come to you," said Eugene, "for lessons in your philosophy;
you shall give them to me in French. I will write them down, you will
correct the phraseology, and thus I shall improve in two departments
at once."

"I will teach you French, if you desire it, my young friend," said M.
Bertolot, "and by conversation, or any other mode you may desire; but
to enter on moral or mental philosophy is quite another affair, and
might lead to results unexpected on your part. I am not quite prepared
to promise formal instructions on these subjects at this early stage
of our acquaintance; my views might shock your preconceived ideas."

"Fear not for that," said Eugene, "my preconceived ideas, if ever they
were definite, are now confused; that mind acts upon mind,
irrespectively of matter, seems the only clear thought I have on the
subject. Further than this all is blank. The mesmeric agencies of
which we hear so much, and the appearances of spirits, in some
instances well attested, seem to prove mental rinses to be direct; but
what more do they prove? I have sometimes fancied that the nursery
tales may be true, and that it is possible that angels of light and
demons of darkness do exist, and that we are operated upon at times by
spiritual agencies not detected by our senses."

"Some of the wisest of the earth, even among the pagans, have held
this opinion," replied M. Bertolot, "and, as I told you in our first
interview, the traditions of the fallen angels were handed down to the
Jews, and dealings with any one of them prohibited. Sorcery and
witchcraft were considered 'sins' in the Mosaic law, although the
generation of the present day scouts such ideas as beneath the dignity
of the human intellect, and ascribes every discovery in knowledge to
the progress of human intelligence alone."

"Yet," said Eugene, "history might teach all students that the
best-laid schemes have often been overset by apparently inadequate
exterior causes. The pagan doctrine of the 'Fates,' which evidently
exercised a vast influence over men's minds, must have originated from
their perception of the fact, that human wisdom cannot absolutely
dispose events; preordination or the counteracting influence of
invisible agencies, has formed more or less an ingredient in every
rational belief, ancient as well as modern. But does it follow from
this that supernatural agencies are at work? may it not be a delusion
in principle as well as in form; for that the form was erroneous in
heathenism at least, I suppose we must acknowledge, since heathenism
is exploded now.

{321}

"I suspect," said M. Bertolot, "that instead of originating, as you
have supposed, from human observation of facts, that the doctrine of
the 'Fates' is but a corruption of the doctrine of divine providence
handed down by primitive tradition. When paganism is considered at
first sight, it seems strange to modern ideas, that we term it an
_invention_, or a growth, or material embodiment of our abstract
deduction from reasoning on observation. But what if it were none of
these things? What if it were simply a perversion of the primitive
traditions? A materializing, so to speak, of spiritual doctrine? It
has often been asserted that beneath the veil of all myths, positive
knowledge might  be discovered by a thinking soul. If this be true,
as, to a certain extent, facts seem to warrant our acknowledgement,
then in the latent truths that are supposed to be hid beneath the
mystic words, we may faintly trace the ancient pristine traditions,
defaced first by the material shape they wear, but more, much more, by
their fixing the attention of the world on animalism and materialism,
as the true ends of existence."

"I do not quite understand you," said Eugene.

"I will explain by reference to Bible history," said M. Bertolot.
"Man's first sin of disobedience appears to have disturbed the
relationship of his soul previously held with superior intelligences,
nay, to have disordered his own organization, and to in the sway to
inferior appetites rather than to the superior part of the soul, which
primarily subjected these inferior appetites to its control. The
primal order united the soul to God, and necessarily then all his
faculties were equipoised and his passions held in subjection. That
union destroyed, the passions rose, fierce and uncontrollable; first
man having become a rebel, begot the second, who was a murderer
through envy of his brother's spiritual superiority. Since then
tradition says that only through violence done to the disordered
passions, by humility and patience and long toil, can the pristine
order be restored and the primal supremacy of soul regained. This is
the office of true spirituality. Paganism also treats of good
lost--and of well-being to be acquired through prayer to the immortal
gods; but the good it supposes lost, is that of bodily gratification,
or of power, or grandeur, and its gods are propitious only when they
avert the sufferings which should discipline the soul and prepare it
for the reception of the regenerative truth."

"Something of this," said Eugene, "I have heard Euphrasie say; but she
would not explain her words, and they came to us like enigmas which we
could not solve."

"The solution cannot be comprehended by all," said M. Bertolot; "a
preparation of mind is necessary ere we can solve the enigmas of
history; and melancholy, indeed, are the facts presented. Look at the
first events. Piety, which is another word for the endeavor to seek
reunion with God, was renewed in the race of Seth, and, through them
the pristine traditions were preserved. But soon these sons of God
looked on the daughters of men and saw that they were fair, and again
spirituality was overpowered, and the race lost itself in sensuality,
and was destroyed by the flood. To the eight who survived, of course,
the traditions were known, and Noah, priest, patriarch, king of the
new race, lived three hundred and fitly years after the flood, to bear
a long testimony to their truth. But the perversity of the human
inclination was too strong. Man's choice had been to know good and
evil; evil could only be known by separation from God, and it would
seem as if he were fated to have his choice gratified; it was
inevitable at any rate, if he must know evil. Accordingly we find that
even one hundred and thirty-three years before the death of Shem, who
had witnessed the deluge, and who lived five hundred years after it,
in order to perpetuate the memory of it in the minds of men, it was
necessary to set apart Abraham, by special provision, to keep intact
the spiritual {322} meaning of the traditions of true religion.
Already had the creature again taken the first place in human
affection, to the neglect of the Creator. Already impersonations of
human passion had arisen and mixed themselves with the traditions they
received from their fathers. These traditions they hid under the false
imagery that stole into their hearts; but perverted and debased though
they may be, they form the basis of whatever truth may be discoverable
under the garb of my theology, and the peopling the world with
invisibly acting spirits is one of these notions which the heathens
did not invent, but only perverted."

"I think I see what you mean," said Eugene; "but tell me if your
philosophy has discovered why man himself is such an enigma, such a
compound of loftiness and meanness, so grand in idea and so poor in
execution? Why is truth so difficult, seeing that it is so necessary
to him?"

"Man is a fallen being," mournfully responded the mentor. "The divine
spark once inbreathed, though dimmed and clouded, still prompts to
high hopes and high deeds; but severed from God, he can effect nothing
to satisfy himself. That reunion is in fact the sole aim and object of
existence. None other can satisfy the inward yearning. How that
reunion is to be accomplished revelation comes to tell us, for human
philosophy was at fault, and the first step I have already pointed out
is prayer."

"There are many religions," said Eugene, "and how is the true one to
be known?"

"Nay, that question is beyond philosophy, and philosophy was to be the
subject of our interviews. I will assist you in distinguishing the
functions of the mental faculties, but at the present stage of the
inquiry I will not forestall your conclusions. We have already seen
that the nature of man is compounded, and that his physical nature is
the inferior portion of that compound, his moral and spiritual nature
the highest. Intellect is the servant of one or the other, according
as to which is accorded the predominance, and it is because that
predominance is so often given to the inferior part of our being that
we must be so surely on our guard against an undue bias; not but that
even our spiritual and moral qualities need also to be watched, for
pride and egotism corrupt even these. In fact, man's life here is the
only that of an exile consequent his being born, severed from truth,
his true end of being, but the consequences of that severing causes
his life to be one struggle to replace his faculties in their pristine
equilibrium, and to accord to each its fitting office. As for
instance, when giving to the spiritual that precedence which is due to
it we must beware lest we employ it to any other purpose than the
worship of 'The True.' There is a spurious spirituality as well as a
spurious morality."

"But why do you distinguish morality from spirituality? Will not one
term comprehend both?"

"Scarcely, since morality means the relationship of man to man:
spirituality, his relationship to God. The law of God may and does
regulate man's morals in those persons who acknowledge that law; but
were man to live without God, as is too often the case, he must have
laws to regulate his intercourse with his kind; that is the spiritual
man necessarily acknowledge the moral law, but the moral man does not
necessarily acknowledge the spiritual law."

"And what, then, is the sanction of the moral law?" asked Eugene.

"Apart from the spiritual law, it must be regulated by reason,"
returned his friend.

"But," said Eugene, "reason differs in different minds; nat, in
different localities. Turkey sanctions what England condemns, and
ancient Sparta taught her children to practice what all Europe would
now punish them for doing."

{323}

"Probably; but that only proves that there is no absolute certainty
for man, when relying on his own unassisted light. Nevertheless, law
does exists, and must exist, to keep society together, and to protect
life and property. To be consistent, it should propose itself a
definite purpose, and frame its rules to meet that purpose. As persons
are not agreed on spiritual matters, and as life and property can be
protected without their so agreeing, modern lawgivers incline to leave
out of the question the higher law appertaining to the interior life,
and to legislate purely on materialistic principles; provided they do
not by legislation contravene that higher law or compromise its
principles in any degree, no mischief can come of such a course; but,
unfortunately, a neutral position is a difficult one to uphold.
Unconsciously, as it were, man infringes the conditions sooner or
later, and the anomaly of enforcing the worship of 'reason' at the
point of the bayonet is enacted again and again?"

"And what part does reason take in religion?" asked Eugene.

"A most important one," said his friend, "since reason is a direct
gift of God to man, and all natural gifts, when unperverted, have a
direct co-relation to a spiritual gift. Man's nature is not changed by
spiritual Grace, it is sanctified, purified, elevated, replaced in the
position of grace in which Adam was created, or rather in the
superadded grace of the redemption. Reason, consequently, must examine
the evidences concerning the truth of facts presented to her--must
demand by what authority they are assumed to be facts--must compare
them with other facts--examine, prove, judge. But remember, reason
does not create facts, and may not ignore them when proved, however
contrary in the ordinary course of our experience. The Eastern despot
caused the traveler to be strangled because he asserted that he had
seen water in a solid form. So, many a man strangles the evidence of a
fact, because he assumes the fact itself to be beyond belief."

"Can you give me any rules respecting the exercise of reason?" asked
Eugene.

"Beware, in the first place, of confounding it with actual experience.
Experience is, having personal evidence of fact, as true history is
having our neighbor's evidence of the same. But the facts must be
ascertained before we can reason upon them, otherwise we may draw
conclusions from false premises. But in sifting evidence regarding
facts, beware of rejecting any on the sole ground that they are not of
ordinary occurrence, or of a class within the personal experience of
yourself or your neighbor. Incredulity is as great a folly as
credulity: let each question rest on its individual merits, and
receive the investigation due to its importance. In the second place,
remember that the process of establishing a fact is essentially
different from reasoning on that fact when established. The latter is
common to all, but the evidence which establishes facts acts
differently on minds of different dispositions. Thirdly, a certain
series of facts already assumed to be established, often appears to
throw light upon and render probable, or even self-evident, another
series of facts which, without their precursors, would be of doubtful
authority. But that which it is most difficult to realize is, that
certain states of the mind render it easier to admit the probability
of certain facts than certain other states; so that ere we proceed to
the investigation of foreign ideas, we must, as far as in us lie,
examine ourselves as to the impartial state of our dispositions,
divest ourselves of any prepossessions founded on the lower principles
of our being."

"As for example?" said Eugene.

"As for example, my young friend, we take the proposition already
discussed this evening: 'Man is a fallen being!' This is either an
historical fact or a falsity. Now some men persist in rejecting all
agency that is not in accordance with the ordinary {324} consequences
observed to occur in the material portion of the creation,
consequently they deny the primary fact as matter of history, though
compelled by experience to admit that man often falls _de facto_.
This, they say, is in consequence of his non-observance of nature's
laws, the knowledge of which provided he acted on that knowledge would
remedy this weakness. The knowledge of physics is, then, to these
minds, a necessary and important ingredient in what to them
constitutes virtue, while physical ignorance must, by the same theory,
bring with it vice and misery."

"The history of the creation given by Moses is to such persons a
sublime myth, conveying no other idea than that it presents a splendid
manifestation of beauty, power, and grandeur. The aim and object of
these men is necessarily materialism--the contentment of animal
existence; and while this is their aim, their mental vision cannot see
the doctrine of the fall of man from spiritual life. Convince these
men, however, of their own inherent spiritual affinities, which,
though now in abeyance, are ready to be called into operation if only
they will that they should be so called--let them experience the
yearning for higher life, which now lies dormant if not dead within
them, then will the cloudy myth become reality, and the falls _de
facto_ be viewed as the necessary result of the original fall from
spiritual unity. A new vigor will be infused into the frame, and a
desire to re-establish the pre-existing supernatural relationships
will become the absorbing interest. The rationalist will become a
Christian, not by force of human reasoning, but because a change has
taken place in his disposition, in his aspiration."

"But does the reception or apprehension of truth, then, depend on
human disposition?" asked Eugene. "Should not truth be self-evident,
or be at least demonstrable to those whom it concerns?"

"To pure natures doubtless it is so," said M. Bertolot, "but I need
not point out to you that facts of every-day occurrence show us that
man's nature is no longer pure, and therefore is it that he is blinded
by prejudice and five bent of his inclination. Few have been found
willing to lay aside the pride of rank, the demands of human comfort,
and the conceit of human learning, and come like little children to be
taught by the inspired angel of truth."

"I, at least, would like to try," said Eugene. "Would that the angel
of truth were to be found!"

"Pray! and you may find him yet!" replied M. Bertolot.

"Prayer is your constant theme, I perceive," said Eugene, smiling.

"It is man's most constant friend, and the powerful preserver of his
soul," replied M. Bertolot. "Man's soul is by its origin aspirative,
panting after reunion with God, even when ignorant of the cause of his
disquietude. The soul has faculties which need gratification, and can
be gratified only in God. These faculties are nourished by prayer, and
to prayer is annexed the promise of being heard; but then we must
accept and fulfil the conditions."

"And what are those conditions?" asked Eugene.

"The prayer must be humble," said his friend, "diffident of self,
confident in God; and it must be accompanied by a firm resolve to let
no private bias, no motive of interest, interfere with the
inspirations sent in answer. The influences exercised over us by the
exterior world, with all the empire of physical enjoyment, must be
ready to give way as soon as they interfere with the recognition of
the divinity speaking to our souls, as this interference is most
fatal; for the 'fall of man' in the first place, the rise of paganism
in the second, and in the third place the failure of the Jews in
recognizing the spiritual character of our Lord's kingdom, all arose
from this undue empire of self-love, of private interest, latent or
patent, in the human soul. And this empire must be subdued ere we can
hope to regain our position as 'sons of the eternal and essentially
spiritual God.'"

{325}

"And yet," said Eugene, "we are of flesh as well as of the spirit, and
the demands of the flesh are loud and manifold."

"Yes, and to a certain extent they must be gratified, or life would
fail. Only, let the body be the servant and not the master of the
soul. Let the object of existence be reunion with God, not the mere
gratification of animalism. This aspiration, or this object--and, I
may say, this alone--forms the distinctive mark between paganism and
true religion. It is not the outer idol that injures the soul, but the
inward feeling that is directed to false worship; that accords to
beauty,  glory physical power, and animal gratification, the inward
adoration due alone to God, the creator, redeemer, sanctifier. Have I
made myself understood?"

"I think so," said Eugene; "and by this measure, the great mass of
population must be as essentially,  pagan as they were in the days of
Mars, Jupiter, Bacchus, and Apollo."

"I fear many will be found so," said M. Bertolot. "Men appear to be
more eager than ever they were for exterior improvements; they are
fast losing hold of the aspirations of the past; they have destroyed
old theories, and substituted new philosophies and new remedies for
evil that our sapping the very foundations of spiritual truth in men's
minds. Yet man cannot utterly stifle his inward yearnings, nor
annihilate his spiritual affinities. The soul who rejects the true
worship bows, although unconsciously, to inferior agencies, and animal
magnetism and spirit-rappings provide their poisoned food for the
sickly appetite, and exercise their baneful empire ever the craving
souls who reject the hallowing operations of religion. Meantime the
world is in a miserable state of trouble and confusion."

"Yes," said Eugene, "but modern philosophy ascribes this state to
ignorance, and says a proper educational development would obviate
all. If so, what becomes of the fall of man?"

"If so! rather a large if," said M. Bertolot. "The world is nearly six
thousand years old, and is it but now to begin to discover truth? and
is that beginning to be the laying aside of all received traditional
lore? Well! it is a new era, and everything will wear a new aspect
soon. It is as though it were in the councils of the Most High, that
every form of man's folly and self-seeking should have full
development. Good, if he learn at last that from God alone, by
supernatural means, comes true light to the soul. Good, if when all
other means have been tried and found to fail, he seek it there at
last. Good, if at length he recognizes the fact, that the soul's
proper sphere is divine, is supernatural; that it is a consequence as
legitimate for the purified soul to tower above, to command matter, as
it is for heat to melt ice. Good, if he become aware that from the
Eternal alone proceeds light and warmth and power and due action, and
that the human soul, the proper recipient of these graces, cannot
exercise its own proper vitality (so to speak) without these gifts
from God, which form at once its nutriment and its stimulus. Now, the
unbeliever uses not the means, consequently feels not the divinity
stir within him; and that positive inertia of his spiritual existence
is the great cause of his remaining an unbeliever. It is as though a
man were to refuse to believe that equal proportions of sulphuric acid
and of water, being mixed together at the temperature of fifty
degrees, the compound will immediately acquire a temperature as high
as boiling water, and not believing it possible, he refuses to test
it, and so remains unconvinced. Nevertheless, the rise of temperature
in this case is as certain a fact in chemistry as the fact in theology
is certain, of the rise in the soul, when it approaches God by the
means he himself has appointed."

{326}

"But," said Eugene, "if I understand you theologians aright, it is the
prayer of faith that pierces the clouds. How am I to attain this
faith?"

"Begin with the graces which you have already: I mean that of a
sincere desire of truth, and that of the consciousness that you have
not truth in actual possession yet. These two facts of your mind are
gifts immensely great. Follow them closely and in simplicity, and
greater results will follow. They contain already the germs of faith,
and if you are true to their teachings you will be led to throw
yourself, in child-like abandonment, into the arms of God, and
contentedly follow where he leads. Your yearning for truth will then
be gratified."

"And how am I to discover which historic facts are true? By divine
light also?"

"Divine light will aid you even here. Yet in this case you must use
the best human means you can command. You must study the evidences,
examine the prophecies, and contemplate the manner in which these
prophecies have been fulfilled. You must endeavor to penetrate the
spiritual meaning of all the types, of all the allusions. You must
mark well the connection between the old law and the new law, and
distinguish the essential differences between what revelation from God
_is_, and that which is simply man's idea of what a revelation from
God should be. Study the developments of heathenism, modern as well as
ancient; you will find more similarity than at first appears on the
surface: and you will also easily trace therein, the divine truth,
borrowed from the first traditions, and from the developments of
revelation, which mingled with their perversions form the basis of
their system, a system which is built on a materialized version of a
spiritual teaching, which, parted from the centre of good, went astray
by following its own fancies, relying on its own unassisted judgment.
Finally, meditate sedulously the truths of the religion taught at the
foot of the cross. Do not wait till you believe ere you do this, but
learn what religion is as taught by Christian apostles; then, if you
reject Christianity, you will at least know what you reject, and if
you embrace it you will find many of your difficulties melt away, as
if the very atmosphere dissolved them. But through every process,
'pray.'"

"I will," said Eugene, "certainly I will; until I have found the truth
it is but reasonable that I should submit to your guidance. Yes, for a
while I will study, meditate, pray, and endeavor to keep my mind
unbiassed." Mentally he added, "Yes, Euphrasie, I will endeavor for a
while to forget all that could bias me--even you."




CHAPTER X.

SCENE IN THE CASTLE CHAPEL

So absorbed, indeed, did Eugene continue to be in these pursuits, that
home influences and home affairs seemed to have passed from his mind
altogether. The long vacation he spent at the lakes, studying works
which certainly college authorities did not put into his hands, and
which his father would scarcely have sanctioned. On his return to
Cambridge he found M. Bertolot absent for a considerable time, so his
studies continued unaided in the theological direction.  This enabled
him the better to elude the eyes of observation, and as his father's
so was one of the least likely to be affected by "superstition" of any
kind, his peculiar mode of passing his time passed unnoticed, only the
surprise seemed to be that in the classes he did attend he took so
very slight an interest; in fact, he passed for an indolent young man,
while in fact reading hard and meditating deeply on themes forbidden
by the University regulations. From these dreams of his own fashioning
he was one day unpleasantly awakened to a sense of his connection with
the outer world by a letter from Mr. Godfrey, detailing in a somewhat
bitter {327} spirit, the transactions we have related in a previous
chapter, and requesting him take an early opportunity of visiting
Adelaide. Mr. Godfrey stated that himself, Mrs. Godfrey, Annie, and
Hester were about to return home, but that Adelaide declined to return
with them; she wished neither to be pitied nor wondered at, when the
duke's absence should become publicly known. She felt equal to keeping
up the state becoming her rank, and had invited her aunt and Euphrasie
to domesticate themselves with her for some months to come, which
arrangement her friends deemed a very suitable one.

Eugene was deeply moved, for family ties had ever been strongly felt
by him and to the transient disgust excited by his sister s conduct in
consenting to marry the duke, now succeeded warm sympathy for the
annoyance and mortification she endured. Indignation against the cause
of it was, however, useless. The duke was gone, and Eugene would have
felt some difficulty in reconciling a "call of honor" under the form
of a duel with the new philosophy upon which he was so intent: so it
was well for him to be out of the way of temptation. His agitation did
not, however, escape the observation of his friend, who being just
returned from his trip, happened to call on him on the same morning on
which he received Mr. Godfrey's letter. Briefly, and in strict
confidence, Eugene explained the cause.

"Nay, take it quietly, my young friend," said M. Bertolot. "It is a
grievous misfortune, I grant, but let us leave the result in God's
hands; good may come of it yet."

"I think I ought to go and see Adelaide."

"Without doubt; and your aunt, too, will welcome you."

"And will you not accompany me also? Your presence would be most
acceptable to Euphrasie and to her mother."

"Why--if I thought I should not be intruding--"

"I will ascertain that," said Eugene; and he wrote to his sister of
his proposed visit, and of his desire to bring a friend with him.

The return of post brought a cordial invitation to both. Accordingly,
they set out for the castle together, and received a most flattering
welcome from the inmates. For many days all went happily--very
happily. Eugene's natural disposition was gay and joyous, and this
ever made him an agreeable companion. At all times every member of the
family had been fond of this representative of a gentle house; but at
this particular juncture his unaffected cheerfulness rendered him
especially acceptable to the duchess.

Yet, when the first excitement was over, there were many things about
him which puzzled, even while they interested her. She began to feel
uncertain as to whether she understood him. That which seemed a joke,
_en passant_, on reflection appeared to contain some hidden meaning.
The castle itself was a continual theme with him. The number of its
large, unoccupied chambers, which he bade her find inhabitants for
among those whose dwellings were so scant of room that they could not
even observe the decencies of life: the vast grounds, almost untrodden
by human feet, among which he was always pretending to seek for
concealed hermitages; then the retinue of gentlemen and ladies who
were called servants, but whose principal occupation, Eugene insisted,
was to make work for others;--these were a never-failing source of
raillery. All these things, which flattered Adelaide's pride, seemed
to him but subjects of mere banter, and certainly did not excite that
reverence for the "state" in which she lived which she expected and
desired. Then there was M. Bertolot, a poor French teacher, nowise
elated by the condescension with which she, one of the greatest ladies
in the land, entertained him. Calm, self-possessed, he received her
attentions with as much {328} quiet dignity as if he were her equal.
Certainly he did not pay her homage; and as homage was precisely that
for which she had married, she could scarcely avoid feeling a little
aggrieved on the subject, or feeling as if she had been defrauded of
something that was her due; though her natural good sense forbade her
from showing her sensitiveness to her guests.

The castle was very large--so large, in fact, that Adelaide had never
entered all the chambers. More than half of it had been dismantled,
and was generally kept locked. An old steward who kept the keys alone
knew all the intricacies of that part of the house, which he asserted
had, in ancient times, lodged a large body of retainers, and that it
could now, in case of necessity, accommodate whole regiments of
soldiers.

One day, in a merry mood, Eugene proposed to his sister to escort her
through her own house on a tour of discovery. She assented. The house
was in the form of a quadrangle, enclosing a flower garden of
considerable size. In the midst was a reservoir, into which a
water-god, exquisitely sculptured in marble, was pouring a continual
jet of water. Marble pillars supported the upper story of the mansion,
forming beneath an arched and cloistered walk round three sides of the
garden. Already had Eugene spent hours here in meditation, for it was
ever cool, shady, and sequestered; and it being understood that here
the family alone were admitted, the servants consequently kept aloof.

"Beautiful cloisters those would make," said Eugene. "When you
exchange your ducal coronet for a nun's veil, Adelaide, and your
jewelled chain for a rosary, you can come here and tell your beads.
Your convent is provided already."

"What an absurd idea!" said the duchess.

"Nay," said Eugene, "such things have been, and may be again."

"Nonsense! this age is too wise for that"

They passed on. Even Eugene was surprised at the extent of
accommodation in the furnished and inhabited part of the building. The
old duke had so divided the place that  he and his duchess had had
their separate establishments under one roof, without being cognizant
even of each other's proceedings. For the last years of their lives
they had met only on state days and on state occasions.

Adelaide now inhabited suite of rooms occupied by the former duchess.
Until to-day she had never entered those set apart for the duke.

A shudder ran through her veins as as she traversed them, for
something seemed to whisper her, that here, to another duke would die
like the former--married, yet wifeless--and that the entailed
dwelling, with its vast grounds and cherished heirlooms, would pass
away from her altogether.

Eugene saw his sister turned pale, and guessing something of what was
passing in her thoughts, led her hastily down a narrow staircase, on
the opposite side to which he had entered. He opened another door,
which brought them into a secluded shrubbery, which he had never
before observed. They walked a few yards, and then came to a low,
vaulted archway. They entered, for the key was in the lock; and though
the door turned somewhat heavily on its rusty hinges, they easily
pushed it open. Another door presented itself, and that, too, was
unlocked. Wondering, they entered. Stealthily, yet scarcely knowing
why they were so hushed, they moved forward, and found themselves in a
small, deserted chapel Stained glass was in the windows; the stone
altar yet remained; fluted pillars marked the aisles; a large cross
was wrought in one of the walls, in stone work; but the seats and
ornaments were gone. A damp, earthy smell pervaded the place. Adelaide
was chilled and drew back.

"Nay, stay one moment," pleaded Eugene. "I will open the window. Let
us see what this place is."

{329}

They approached, but suddenly they perceived Euphrasie on her knees,
in a niche formed in the wall, while M. Bertolot, seated on a step
beside her, seemed in the very act of raising his and over her in
benediction.

Adelaide started as if an adder had stung her. She suppressed a shriek
and hastily turned away. Eugene followed and reverently closed the
door.

The duchess was too much annoyed to speak. She was moody for the rest
of the day, but made no remark on the subject which occupied her
thoughts. The day after, Eugene was reading near her, while Euphrasie
was seated by the window, employed in working embroidery, when the
duchess began, in a somewhat bitter tone:

"Well, Eugene, in one thing you have disappointed me. You used to the
so fond of art; and your visits to the Pantheon have have been so very
few, and so very short, that I wonder what is the matter with you.
What objection can you have to what all the world terms
master-pieces?"

"None at all--indeed none, my dear sister. Your statuary is
magnificent, unrivaled." This was said in a deprecating tone, for
Eugene earnestly wished to avoid discussion. "There can be no fault to
find with the Pantheon. It is I who am to blame. I am out of taste
just now. Jupiter and Mars have ceased to interest me. My taste for
paganism has had its day, I presume. We cannot always be wrapt up in
the same things."

But the duchess was not satisfied with this answer. It rather
increased her annoyance, and she replied in the same bitter tone:

"I marvel to hear you and Euphrasie condemn idolatry, while she is on
her knees before an image for hours together, and you see no idolatry
in that."

"Mademoiselle de Meglior does not worship images that I am aware of,"
said Eugene, somewhat startled at this burst, "though to keep her mind
concentrated on one idea, she may possibly make use of them."

"And what is that but idolatry?" said his sister; "how many of the
pagans, think you, would mistake a statue of Minerva for Minerva
herself? Their statues were but types to recall ideas."

"Yes, but the ideas themselves were false; Paganism was the worship of
physical power, the deification of materialism. True religion is the
direct converse of this. It is the elevation of the soul to
spirituality, the recognition of a spiritual God, who created man for
his own glory, endowed him with spiritual life, for the express
purpose of keeping him strictly united to himself. The centre of the
one system is self or concupiscence. The worship rendered is the
worship of fear, or for the promotion of self-gratification. The
centre of the other system is God, by whom all things are made, in
whom they still exist, and for whom they should exist in will, as well
as in act. One is paganism, the other is Christianity."

"And what may you mean by concupiscence, most learned Theban?" asked
the duchess.

"Concupiscence is such a love of self as prevents us from making God
the first object of our love," responded Eugene.

"And you, in sober earnest, profess to think it possible to love God
more than yourself?"

"I think men have done so," said Eugene, "though they have been but
few, when compared to the world's masses."

"Men have loved their whims and fancies to an astonishing degree, I
know," said the duchess; "fanaticism has abounded on the earth, but
fanaticism is, after all, only a species of madness; I know not
whether it be curable or not."

"Do you, then, think it a sort of madness to endeavor to find the true
and living God, and having found, to worship him? That, surely, is not
your grace's meaning?" There was a slight contempt in Eugene's tone as
he said this; his sister was nettled and answered coldly:

{330}

"Man's spirit is naturally superstitious, I think: that is the secret
of all this nonsense about worship. He is ignorant, and fears and
trembles. Enlighten him, and he will walk upright and rely on himself
alone."

"And what is man, that he should rely on himself alone?" responded
Eugene; "a being weaker than the lower animals, needing even more
protection than they do to defend him from the inclemency of the
weather, and obliged to labor to provide food sufficient for himself,
while the food of calves and goats grows beneath their feet. When
young, man is powerless; when sick, powerless; when old, powerless;
nay, without aid he is usually powerless."

"But man generic," said the duchess, "can aid this greatly.
Combinations might be formed which would remedy this individual
powerlessness. Such, they tell me, are in contemplation; and when
formed, superstition will be crushed under the chariot-wheels of
improvement in man's physical condition."

"It might," said Eugene, "if any degree of mere animal enjoyment could
content man, but it cannot. Let man surround himself with luxury to
the highest possible degree, there will still be the feeling that a
higher life exists for him. Man's soul, the divine spark inbreathed by
God, can rest only in God. Glimpses of high destinies still float
around us, and in our unsatisfied longings--unsatisfied when most
provided for--we find the pledge that we were made for higher
things."

"Mere Platonic crudities these, my dear brother," said the duchess,
with a smile. "Beware! you are on a dangerous path; themes like these
have misled many a noble mind. And look! Euphrasie is smiling an
assent to your mysticisms; she thinks you are already half-way on the
road to Catholicity."

"No matter by what road we are led, provided we arrive at truth,"
responded Eugene. "But you are mistaken in your conjecture; I have not
been studying Platonism but Christianity."

"It may be Christianity is but a form of Platonism," said the duchess:
"at least many learned men have so asserted. What Christianity was
intended to be by its founder I can hardly make out; but it seems to
have borrowed largely from the mystics as it travelled through
philosophy."

"Nay," said Eugene, "to me that appears a gratuitous assumption. That
to a superficial observer there may be some grounds of resemblance
between the ideas of spirituality, abstractly considered, entertained
by the mystics and by the Christians. I grant--as also that, to a
certain extent, man may be capable of deducing these abstract ideas
from observation of nature's workings. Nature is a manifestation of
the spirit of God, consequently there always must exist a certain
correlative teaching in nature corresponding to a higher spiritual
teaching, though man's blindness will not always perceive it; but this
is only an exterior relationship. The spirit of Christianity enfolds a
principle which natural philosophy does not touch."

"A principle which is the mere creature of human imagination." said
the duchess; "nay, I might say it is the offspring of discontent. Man
is dissatisfied with his lot, and frames a heaven for the future. He
were more wisely employed in remedying the present evil."

"If it were possible, you should say, sister. How many evils can man
avert? Do we not suffer, from natural predisposition, diseases of
various kinds? Do we not suffer in our affections from the misconduct
of others? And do not the majority suffer an enforced toil, which
absorbs their time, and leaves them neither energy nor leisure for
speculative thoughts? They must work or die. Now, philosophy would but
render a man discontented with this state of things--a state which
leaves the toil to one, and the enjoyment, supposititious perhaps, but
still {331} apparent enjoyment to another. Force can compel it--the
force of unsatisfied nature; but Christianity hallows it--sanctifies
it--by teaching how all apparent hardships may nourish virtue and
unite the soul to God."

"Nay, I do not dispute that religion is necessary for the vulgar,"
said Adelaide.

"And are the vulgar to have the highest portion? Christianity is the
exaltation of the soul--paganism, the worship of the body. In that
case, I would rather cast in my lot with the vulgar."

"If it were but true," said Adelaide.

"Become poor, lofty lady, and you will feel its truth. Perchance
luxury is a kind of anodyne to a human being, so that he does not feel
his soul when under its influence. Become poor; toil, day after day,
for a scanty pittance, and you will find yourself asking if man is
only a laboring animal. Become poor, and the soul will speak to you of
power and aspiration, and ask why is this sense of loftiness unused.
It will ask you why every faculty has its legitimate sphere in which
to act, and the soul alone remain without a sphere. Perhaps we need
something of this experience before we can feel the stirrings of the
divinity within us--before we are prepared to comprehend the truths
of religion. Certain it is that the gospel was sent peculiarly to the
poor, and that the refined trifles which occupy the minds of the rich,
prevent their attending to the inward voice of the spirit."

"Why, Eugene! you are qualified be a Methodist preacher. This is mere
rant and cant. Religion takes no such exalted standing in the minds of
the vulgar. The Methodist has some pet theory to save his soul,
without troubling himself about good works at all; and the Catholic
tells his beads and sets up his images in the very style of paganism.
They say that at Rome the adoration of the Virgin Mary has taken the
place of the worship of the goddess Venus--where is the gain there?"

"The patroness of purity in exchange for the goddess of
lasciviousness! Nay, surely, sister, that exchange must be a blessed
one. What I have been trying to express all along is, that all that
makes us do homage to the animal nature--all that worships the merely
physical--is paganism; while all that represses carnality, promotes
purity, and leads us out of ourselves to unite us to God, is Christ's.
The union of the saints in Christ is not idolatry; it is but an
additional means of glorifying God by showing forth, in united prayer,
the triumph of Christianity over death itself."

"Do hold your tongue, Eugene. Let us have no more of this. Sometimes
you are a Catholic, sometimes a Methodist; but in either character you
will be disowned as my father's son. The idea of your disgracing a
line of philosophers by such stale trumpery!"

Eugene laughed; and as he saw no other way of closing the debate he
quitted the room, which Madame de Meglior was just then entering. But
the duchess, seriously annoyed, turned sharply round upon Euphrasie.

"I suppose," said she, "you have been putting these foolish notions
into the boy's head. Beware, if you make a Catholic of him you will
destroy the peace of a whole family; but that, I suppose, is a
secondary consideration to making a convert."

"Indeed, your grace--" replied Euphrasie.

"Nay, do not deny it, whether by words or looks or acts, 'tis all the
same; there was no Catholicity in the family until you came into it,
and now I clearly see some means must be used to prevent its
spreading."

"But," said Madame de Meglior, "in this instance you have forgotten
that Eugene is almost always at Cambridge; how does my daughter's
religion influence him there?"

"I do not know, but you see it has; the boy was well brought up, was
rational and intelligent; and now to adopt these follies! He, the
representative of my father's house, too!"

{332}

Madame de Meglior was now vexed, but she ventured no reply; it was
impolitic to offend the duchess. She liked Durimond Castle better than
Estcourt Hall; secretly she hoped that Euphrasie had made an
impression on Eugene's heart. She would like to have seen them
married, and she well knew that Euphrasie would not marry one out of
the pale of the church. Religion was, to madame herself, nothing. She
was a no-thinker, not an unbeliever: she had lived nearly all her life
in France, among people who sometimes went to mass for form's sake,
and who called themselves Catholics, and she could not comprehend the
bitter feeling with which her countrymen regarded the Catholic Church.
She thought children should be taught religion; it made them dutiful,
and for her part she did not see that her husband's daughter was
inferior to her nieces. She, however, smothered her vexation, as she
said:

"You think too much of these vagaries, my dear niece. This is the age
of tolerance; we must be lenient to youthful folly."

"This is a serious folly, aunt," replied the duchess. "It would make a
commotion throughout the kingdom, were my father's heir to turn
Catholic."

"Yet the wars of the Pretender are long since at an end. Europe
scarcely knows whether a representative of the Stuart line is living.
It is time these feuds should cease. I thought 'freedom of thought'
was the watchword of the Godfrey family."

"What freedom of thought is there in Catholicity?" asked the duchess.

"Nay, that I know not; but I think freedom of thought means that each
one may be of the religion he thinks best."

"He must not be a Catholic," said the duchess; "at least, not
outwardly. He may think as he likes, of course; no one can hinder
that."

"Is that the toleration of England, may it please your grace?" said
Madame de Meglior, banteringly.

"It is. Why should he be allowed to destroy the political influence of
the family, to mar the marriage of my sister, to bring a slur on a
respectable name?"

"I had not thought of that," answered madame; and for the first time
she pondered whether it was really an evil that Euphrasie should be a
Catholic.

After this conversation, slight as it was, Euphrasie became more and
more resolved; till then, though scarcely to be called intimate, she
had been at least friendly with Eugene Godfrey. Now she avoided him
when she could do so without positive rudeness. The Countess de
Meglior, who began to watch her closely, could only perceive that her
passion for solitude was ever on the increase, but her obedience to
herself never faltered. Madame de Meglior, though but little given to
reflection, now discovered that this was a very convenient disposition
for her step-daughter to cherish; for, had she wished to be brought
forward in the great world of fashion, like other girls of her age,
madame's pride would have been wounded at not being able to do this in
the proper form for her, as the daughter of a French nobleman. She
felt glad, then, that, considering how matters stood, the girl had not
forgotten her convent education, and resolved for the present to let
her pray and meditate unmolested, feeling sure that, when their
estates were restored to them, Euphrasie would become like the rest of
the world among whom they moved. As for Eugene, she had penetration
enough to discover that Euphrasie's bashfulness rather tended to fan
his flame than to extinguish it.

M. Bertolot, who was also watching the young people with much
interest, did his best, on the contrary, to induce Euphrasie to open
her mind to Eugene; but in this he experienced so much difficulty at
first, that he began to think he must abandon the design, when
accident came most unexpectedly to his aid.

{333}

The period drew near when their visit was to conclude, and on the day
previous to the one fixed for their departure, the duchess, who had
recovered her good humor, proposed a pleasant party to a ruined
monastery some few miles distant. There were many Young people of the
party, and they dispersed themselves in groups about the grounds. M.
Bertolot gave his arm to Euphrasie, and began to explore the ruins
after a methodical fashion. The walls were of great extends, many of
the rooms remained entire, and much of the plan could be trace; they
made out the site of the community room, the chapel, refectory,
bakehouse and so forth, and were descanting on the probable locality
of other apartments when Eugene joined them. "This must have been a
magnificent place," said he.

"History says it was large and well endowed," said his friend. "What
say you Euphrasie," he continued, "shall we rebuild it for your
friends?"

"It is too large," said Euphrasie.

"Nay, we will suppose an indefinite number of nuns, and the enclosure
wall shall be placed wherever you direct."

"Even then it would be too grand, too magnificent for the votaries of
St. Clare."

"You will not accept it, then?"

"No; unless I might build on another scale. Our holy foundress loved
to seem poor as well as to be poor."

"And yet," said Eugene, "there are some magnificent convents in the
world."

"Yes", said Euphrasie; "some orders have them exteriorly grand, but
St. Clare loved everything to be plain and poor, even the church."

"And why?" asked Eugene, "surely a magnificent church is a great
adjunct to religion. St. Peter's at Rome is the glory of the world."

Euphrasie looked as if about to reply, but she checked herself.

M. Bertolot,  however, observed the movement, and said, "Nay, tell as
your thoughts, Euphrasie."

"I am not sure they are correct," she replied.

"Leave us to judge of that. Speak them as they are."

"If I should scandalize you," said Euphrasie.

"Scandalize? Nonsense! Tell us your idea."

"Well, then," said the young lady, "although splendid edifices have
often been erected by the piety of the faithful, and though in all
ages it has been accounted a good work to adorn the House of God, I
believe that our holy foundress, who was ever watchful over the
interior spirit, thought there might be danger of exciting vanity even
in that respect, and on that account desired poverty for her daughters
in every arrangement. Our own dear reverend mother often inculcated
upon us the remembrance of the words of God, 'I will not give my glory
to another,' and it seems as if there were a special temptation to man
to indulge vain-glory when undertaking any vast exterior work for
religion. The most splendid temple that the world ever saw, that of
Solomon, lasted barely four hundred years; its founder fell into
idolatry, and the worshippers were carried into captivity in
punishment for their sins. The second temple had been built scarcely
six hundred years when the frequenters of that temple, urged on by the
priests, crucified the Lord of Life. It seems dangerous for man, in
this his fallen state, to deal personally with magnificence of his own
creation; he is too easily puffed up to render it safe for his soul.
Therefore is the first beatitude for the poor in spirit, who desire no
grandeur."

"Thus thinking, you disapprove of St. Peter's at Rome!" add M.
Bertolot.

"Disapprove! nay, reverend father, you well know I should not dare to
disapprove of aught that the church has sanctioned. The church has
every kind of disposition to deal with, and {334} in her wisdom
follows St. Paul's advice, in becoming innocently all things to all
men, that she may gain some to Christ. I was merely referring to our
own dear community, who strive after the spirit of our great
foundress. Among these, I have seen some weep when the desecrations
have been described to them of heretics taking luncheon baskets within
the very walls of St. Peter's, and using the place as a lounging
apartment or gossiping room. Again, I have seen others to whom that
magnificent church of Rome would bring most saddening thoughts, to
whom it appeared as a monument of the great schism which rent the
seamless garb of Christ into nameless divisions; where not only the
shade of Luther haunts the fancy, but that of the monk Tetzel also,
who paltered with the doctrine he was sent to preach."

M. Bertolot shook his head. "You view these matters too strictly," he
said; "all men are not like the good nuns, accustomed to practise
interior recollection so perfectly they can dispense in a measure with
exterior aids; to most souls, exterior appliances are useful and
necessary accessories to devotion. The mass of mankind must not be
judged of by likening them to the inmates of a convent; there is a
wider gulf between than you have any idea of."

"Nay, I remember my father's death," said Euphrasie, mournfully; "but,
reverend father, was it not you who told me that, in those terrible
disturbances, the _riches_ of the church attracted the wolves to the
sheepfold, and that the _treasures_ of the religious houses occasioned
the thieves to enter and take possession?"

"True! Too true! my child; yet will the piety of the worshipper ever
seek to adorn the house of God, and the richness of the shrine be an
indication of the fervor of that piety. It is alike the pleasure and
the duty of the votary thus to enrich the house of God."

"But," interrupted Eugene; "Mademoiselle Euphrasie speaks of herself
as if belonging in a convent already. If not indiscrete, may I be
allowed to say that I presume we are not to take that supposition '_au
pied de la lettre?_'"

Euphrasie blushed and looked at M. Bertolot, as if asking him to speak
for her; but he only said, in and kind of half-whisper:

"Speak for yourself, my child; it is necessary to be explicit."

"Then," said Euphrasie, "I believe you may receive the in fact
literally. I was brought up with the dear nuns, and have always
believed myself called to be one of them. I still cling to the hope of
seeing them again."

"But in this country," said Eugene, "how can you be a nun?"

"I do not know; but when it was certain our convent was to the broken
up, the superioress said to us: 'As the habit does not make the none,
so dear children, neither does the abode. For his own wise purposes
Divine Providence now separates us; but the spirit of prayer, the
spirit of recollection, of obedience, of meekness, of chastity and
poverty, you all can sedulously cherish still; and if it seems to you
that the circumstances are unfavorable, remember that God seeth not as
man seeth, and he knows best what will most contribute to his glory
and our sanctification. Remember, too, that, to a soul living in God,
exterior circumstances are has nothing; so, still, wherever you are,
be faithful to God and to St. Clare.'"

"But you surely are not a vowed nun, mademoiselle?"

"No, but my resolution is taken, and I feel that it will never
change."

Eugene's brow clouded, and he felt a heaviness at the heart which
oppressed him greatly. Moodily he walked by their side until they
joined the rest of the party, but for the rest of the day he was as
silent as Euphrasie herself was wont to be.

The duchess wondered what had come over him, but no remark was made on
the subject. The next day he and M. Bertolot returned to Cambridge.

{335}


CHAPTER XI.


THE DUKE AND DUCHESS BEFORE THE WORLD.


The Godfrey family had returned home depressed and saddened. Over Mrs.
Godfrey's spirit, in particular, a shade seemed cast, which but
deepened as time passed on. She was a true mother, and worldly as were
her ideas, her affections were very deep. Attached to her husband,
attached to her children, she felt Adelaide's position even more than
Adelaide herself appeared to do, for the affections of the young bride
were by no means of so fervent a character as were those of her
mother, and her pride and haughtiness were incomparably greater.
Indeed, it were difficult to prove that the young duchess was a great
sufferer at the present time. She exercised despotic way over the
vassals (as she proudly termed them) of her lord's domains, was
generous, and in return was much beloved and gladly greeted with that
homage which was dearer to her than aught else.

At the end of six months the duke returned. He resided chiefly in
town, but when in the country he occupied the suite of apartments
fitted up for the former duke. He presented his wife at court, stayed
with her, and assisted her in doing the honors during the festivities
of a London season; behaved to her in public with the most respectful
attention, listened to every suggestion, and gratified to the best of
his power every wish she expressed. Nothing, in fact, could be better
than his conduct to his wife before the world; and whatever that world
might conjecture, the polite and dignified behavior of both the
parties concerned gave it little to talk about. To Mr. Godfrey the
duke gave full authority in the settlement of all matters in which his
daughter was concerned; and as she appeared contented, who could have
a right to find fault? After remaining a few months at home, the duke
again departed on the business of the embassy, and this time he stayed
much longer abroad. But as Adelaide did not complain, the remarks made
were soon hushed into silence.





CHAPTER XII.

THE PRINCIPLE OF SOCIAL EQUALITY PUT TO THE TEST.


Madame de Meglior continued to reside with her niece, and made herself
so agreeable, that the arrangement promised to become permanent.

Euphrasie continued to exhibit the same impassive exterior; in
appearance she was but the slave of her mother's will. The duchess
regarded her as almost a nonentity, at least after the fears excited
by Eugene's religious tendencies had in some measure subsided.

But Annie! "a change had come o'er the spirit of her dream." She,
always disposed to romance, was unguarded now. Formerly, Adelaide had
acted as a check upon Annie's fondness for equality, fraternity,
liberty. Now that that restraint was withdrawn, she imprudently
allowed Alfred Brookbank to treat her more and more as an equal. It is
doubtful whether, even if she had reflected, she would have foreseen
the consequences, for in her most republican moods, she never forgot
that she was a Miss Godfrey of Estcourt Hall; and though to amuse
herself and pass away the time, she was willing enough to discuss
equality and the "rights of man," she certainly expected to receive
full credit for the condescension in allowing to an inferior the
privilege of such "free discussion" with herself. Home was dull, her
sister gone, and her cousin gone too: her mother was always ailing
now, and her father, ever newly absorbed by some pet plan, kept his
darling Hester {336} constantly at his side. Annie was alone, and
somewhat desolate: Alfred Brookbank always on the look out for an
excuse to bear her company and amuse her. Annie was becoming
accustomed to his attentions, without attaching any more definite
meaning to them than she would to the attentions of any one of the
numerous dependents of her father's house, when, one day, he took
advantage of a private interview to make a formal profession of love.
This was indeed a surprise; for, though any one else might have
expected it, Annie had never once thought of such a probability.
Marriages in her family had always been conducted so differently.
Besides, she had never looked on Alfred as other than patronized. She
had not dreamt of such presumption, though she had allowed him freely
to broach in her presence his doctrine of the "inherent equality" of
such individuals as are of equal calibre of intellect, and of the
right of all mankind at large to freedom and equality. Her manner of
receiving this declaration was certainly not very flattering; for she
drew herself up in a somewhat haughty manner, and replied that the
proceeding was so unexpected, so uncalled for, that she did not know
how to answer it, for Mr. Alfred must be aware that the difference in
their social position rendered such a proposal unanswerable.

"To one of ordinary mind, perhaps," said Alfred, somewhat chafed; "but
to one like yourself, endowed with an understanding above the petty
conventionalities--"

"I am not above recognizing my duty to my family, Mr. Alfred, and you
must be aware that no one member of it would consent to this."

"Nay, if you only allowed me to hope I had any interest in you, I am
sure Mr. Godfrey would not refuse your wishes."

"I have no wish to trouble him on the subject," was the cold
rejoinder, somewhat haughtily expressed.

"I may not hope then--"

"You may hope nothing on this subject whatever. Let it be dropped now
and forever. If I can aid your prospects--"

"You will patronize me. Thank you, Miss Annie, but patronage from you
would suit my temper badly. I had thought there was one being in the
world superior to the influences of prejudice, of conventional
distinctions; but you, too, deem me an inferior, because I boast not
of paltry wealth or of gentle descent. Inferior as you deem me, you
shall yet feel my power--yes, my power!"

His language and his told were those of a madman, and his flashing
eyes gave him a frenzied appearance. Trembling with rage, the quondam
lover left the presence of his adored, meditating in bitterness the
most direful revenge.

Had Annie put any faith in his professions of love to herself, she
would have been undeceived by this burst of rage. Love had not
animated him--that was apparent enough; his disappointment was but a
foiled ambition; yet after permitting upward of two years' attentions,
conscience told her he should have met with a less haughty rebuff. The
retrospect showed her she had encouraged him. She had then partly
drawn upon herself a merited rebuke. She could but acknowledge this,
and, humiliated, Annie would willingly have done her part in repairing
the evil she had occasioned by promoting his advancement in life but
this was beyond her power. The next news she heard was that Alfred
Brookbank had prevailed on his father to advance him a large sum of
money, and had set sail for America.

Time passed on. Estcourt Hall became duller every day, and beyond the
arrival of a new family in the neighborhood there was nothing of
interest outside. This family consistent of a dowager Lady Conway,
her son and daughter. They had purchased "a place" near the sea for
the benefit of Lady Conway's health. Their own estates, or rather the
son's estates, were in a neighboring shire.  They {337} were not
intellectual, but they were wealthy and of good family, and in time an
intimacy sprang up between them and the Godfreys, none knew how or
why, and in a few months after, to the surprise of every one, "The
Morning Post" announced that Sir Philip Conway, Bart., had led to the
altar Miss Annie Godfrey, second daughter of E. Godfrey, Esq., of
Estcourt Hall.

The marriage was strictly private. Eugene left Cambridge for a day or
two to be present at it, but he soon returned to college. Of the
nature of his studies no one guessed. He did go in for honors, as his
father would have wished. Nevertheless his tutors made a good report
of him, and the  secluded life he led made many suppose that he was
pursuing very deeply some pet hobby of his own.

Indeed, this was partly true; for although at his first return to
Cambridge he was much dejected, he soon began to reflect that
Euphrasie was very young; that she not only was now completely
dependent, but that she was likely to continue so; and that the most
unlikely thing that could happen, was the gratification of her wish to
enter a convent. He trusted to time to teach her this, and a new hope
sprang up within him, and that, too, at the very moment that his
friend M. Bertolot, began to hope he had mastered his feelings for
Euphrasie, and become reconciled to the inevitable separation.

Eugene spoke not of his love, but with renewed ardor he addressed
himself to study the most important relationships that can exist for
man. Guided by the counsels of M. Bertolot, he mastered the evidences
of Revelation and then assured himself that that revelation, _once
given_, was divinely protected: that that which was intended to shed
light on the human soul, darkened by sin, was not a dubious _ignis
fatuis_, subject to human vagaries, but an unerring guide and an
unfailing lamp. We will not follow him through his arguments now, as
we shall have occasion to make him speak for himself on a future
occasion.

Time passed on. Annie had been married a year or more. Truth to say,
she was somewhat _ennuyée_ at present. Her husband resided chiefly on
his estate, and this was at some distance from Estcourt Hall. There
was little society in the neighborhood, and Sir Philip's tastes
corresponded very little with her own.

The young baronet was perfectly well-intentioned, but neither refined
nor cultivated. The society of his farm-bailiff, the walk to the
fatting-stalls, the talk about the respective fattening qualities of
turnips and mangold-wurzels, the speculations on the relative value of
farm-yard manure, of guano, or of soot, and dissertations whether each
or all should be applied as top-dressing or should be worked into the
soil; such were his occupations, and sooth to say, he excelled in the
pursuits he had adopted. No beasts at Smithfield could show finer
points than Sir Philip's: no farm was in finer model order: his tanks,
his barns, his under-drainings, and his irrigations, together with his
prize cattle of every description, were the admiration of the
agricultural world. He was truly a "lord of the animal creation," and
he prided himself on being so. Of intellectual culture he had small
appreciation; but as he had great ideas of order, and deemed himself
master by right of "the masculine being the most worthy gender,"
(which was the only idea he retained from his Latin grammar, that had
been vainly endeavored to be flogged into him at school,) he would ill
have brooked interference with his rights. To him, a wife was a
necessary appendage, nothing more; as to allowing a woman to dictate
to him, the thing was absurd. He was "a lord of creation," and though
he wished the world to pay due respect to Lady Conway, because she was
his wife, yet it is questionable whether he himself would have allowed
a woman a voice on any {338} subject beyond those connected with
domestic economy, and even here he reserved to himself the power of
veto. He loved his wife, certainly, because he thought it was a part
of his duty to do so; besides, he really had some sort of animal
affection for her. Annie was well-made, of good birth, well-educated;
to say the least, he was as proud of her as he had been of the animal
which had won him the first prize at the Smithfield cattle-show. It
was part of his system to have the best specimens of animal existence
domesticated on his estate, and Annie did not disgrace his other
stock.

But Annie; poor Annie! She was alone in the world, though surrounded
by everything that could procure bodily ease or bodily enjoyment. She
had horses to ride, she had a carriage to ride in, she had gardens and
hot houses, plantations and shrubberies; but to her cultivated mind
where was the response? To the poetry that strove within her for
expression, where was the listener?

   "The thought that cannot speak Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and
   bids it break!"

But Annie's was not a spirit to be easily broken. Naturally
expressive, she would have sought interest even among the cottagers,
had not her husband's jealousy forbidden it. He was a _magnifico_, and
he liked not that his wife should be more popular than himself. He
wished to gain the name of being a liberal benefactor to his laborers
and cottagers, and would not share his reputation even with the being
to whom he had plighted his faith for life. Annie was thus thrown on
her own resources. Brought up intellectually, she found a resource in
books; and though at times cast down, she rallied again, for youth is
buoyant, elastic, hopeful, and a literary taste carries in itself a
wonderful power of compensation. But Annie was no dreamer, and the
ideas that suggested themselves demanded action, which as yet they
were denied: yet Annie read on, and thought on. The time for action
will one day surely come, she thought.

"Lady Conway," said Sir Philip one day at the breakfast table, "do you
know any thing of a Mr. Alfred Brookbank?"

Annie almost started; she certainly changed color, but Sir Philip was
not observing her; so she answered, "Yes--no--yes; that is, Sir
Philip, the family lived at Estcourt, and sometimes visited at the
Hall."

"He has bought old Gordon's land, and is about to become our dear
neighbor."

"Indeed! How did he get the money? He was poor when I knew him."

"He has made very fortunate speculations in America; besides which he
succeeds to his father's property".

"Is Dr. Brookbank dead?"

"He is, and has left a considerable sum behind him; he economize
unknown to his family, it seems."

"But even so, there is an Elder brother."

"No, he died in America; of this there is certain news."

"In America!" said Annie. "I did not know he was ever there".

"No? Well, it seems he ran off with a neighbor's wife, took her to
America, got tired of her, left her, and went off to the woods. There
he lived some time, but one day was found at the foot of some rapids,
drowned."

"But how did his family know this?"

"Some stranger to that district identified the body and gave evidence
before the presiding magistrate, after which they searched the shanty
in which the man had lived, and found papers corroborative of his
being Walter Brookbank, and these papers, with sundry articles, they
sent home to his family, according to the address given by the
stranger, and they were found to have belonged to Walter."

"Strange concurrence of events! Who was the stranger?"

"He gave his name as William Jones."

{339}

"Jones! I suppose Smith, Brown, or White would have served his purpose
equally as well?"

"Why do you suppose that Jones was not the man's name, my lady?"

"I do not know, only it seems to me a most improbable tale."

"Improbable! Why, the family believe it, at any rate."

"And the second son is to be established in the neighborhood?"

"Yes; he intends to occupy himself in superintending land. I have some
thoughts of employing him myself."

"I thought you said he inherited considerable property."

"Yes, but he has determined to let his mother enjoy the income arising
from the paternal estate, and has also promised to care for his
sisters' fortunes. Dr. Brookbank died intestate, it seems, but this
young man says that shall make no difference. He appears to be
actuated by very high principle".

Annie did not answer. She was uneasy; especially at the idea of
Alfred's managing her husband's affairs. She feared some sinister
motive. Her husband noticed the discontented expression of her
countenance.

"Do you not like Mr. Alfred Brookbank?" He asked.

"Well, I hardly know," said Annie; "but at least I do not consider him
a man of business. He was not when I knew him; besides, he is young
for an agent; an older man might suit you better, Sir Philip."

"I am not sure of that; old men are apt to be obstinate and to have
plans of their own; I choose to look into my affairs myself, and to
make my own arrangements; so that his inexperience signifies but
little, provided he is industrious, and that his American success
proves him to be."

Annie knew not what objection to offer, and a dark foreboding came
over; was this in any way diminished when, some few weeks afterward,
Mr. Brookbank was announced, and Sir Philip, instead of receiving him
in his library according to his wont with gentlemen visitors, directed
him to be shown into the parlor, in which he and Lady Conway were
sitting. Annie would have escaped had it been practicable, but as her
departure would have attracted Sir Philip's observation, she thought
it more prudent to remain.

Alfred entered, and his bearing was so respectful, so distant, that
Annie would have been reassured, had she not felt that at intervals,
when Sir Philip was not looking, Alfred fixed his eyes upon her with
the gaze of a basilisk; and once when she chanced to look at him she
thought the expression of his features perfectly demoniacal. What she
had to fear she knew not, but that she did fear something was certain.

It was not only Alfred that had come to reside in the neighborhood;
his mother and two sisters accompanied him. The rectory of Estcourt
had passed to another, and there was no mansion on the paternal acres
suited for the refined tastes of the family, so they had come to
reside with Alfred in his newly purchased dwelling. A certain degree
of visiting between the families would have been necessary for old
acquaintance sake, but more soon became inevitable from the ascendency
which Alfred shortly obtained over the mind of Sir Philip. He
flattered himself into the baronet's good graces, and made himself so
agreeable that Sir Philip began to think it impossible to live without
him. Annie tried in vain to stem the torrent of intimacy, that
threatened almost to domesticate Alfred in her house. Sir Philip was
far too wise a man to be governed by his wife, so he listened to none
of her remonstrances; and at times there was a look of triumph, as
well as of hatred, in Alfred's features, that made her almost tremble
in his presence. Annie was naturally strong-minded, yet she could not
overcome this sensation, which was almost a martyrdom, particularly as
she suspected Alfred was aware of the torment she underwent. She wrote
to {340} her aunt, who was still at Durimond Castle, to request that
she and Euphrasie would come and spend some time with her, hoping to
gain courage in their society, and perhaps protection; but the answer
was unpropitious:

"The Duke of Durimond had returned home seriously unwell, and at that
moment it would be improper and unkind to leave the duchess without
society."

Annie must, then, endure life as best she could. Alfred found himself
visiting at Sir Philip's on terms of apparent equality, and often a
party was made up of such society as the neighborhood afforded,
expressly for the purpose of introducing the family so obnoxious to
Annie. Nay, she was in a manner compelled to take her turn in visiting
them, repugnant as it was to her feelings.

On these occasions Annie behaved with condescension and politeness,
but with nothing more. She received Alfred with the most formal
courtesy; he returned her salute with one of apparently the most
profound respect. Few more words were interchanged than were
absolutely necessary.

It was the current opinion that Lady Conway liked not the society of
her inferiors, and Sir Philip, participating in the idea, strove to
combat it, although he was no leveller in general; but in Alfred's
case he thought the prejudice she entertained ought to yield to such
superior merit.

One evening a social party met at Sir Philip's. Singing and dancing
were going on; but Alfred was unusually dull, he could not be
prevailed upon to join in any amusement. The baronet, fancying his
wife's coldness might have had some influence in producing this
effect, said to her in the hearing of all the party:

"My lady, was Mr. Brookbank so dull when he visited at Estcourt Hall?
Did he never sing to you there?"

"Mr. Brookbank has a very fine voice," was the reply; "I have often
heard him sing beautiful melodies."

"Nay, then, call upon him, in memory of 'Auld lang syne,' to sing for
you, my lady; no other has the power to arouse him to-night."

Annie turned to Alfred and said in a dignified manner, "You here Sir
Philip's request, Mr. Brookbank; will you consider it mine?"

Alfred started, looked at her, and bowed. He answered in a tone so low
that only she could hear its purport:

"You have asked for a madman's song, my lady; what else can memory
produce?"

Declining the offer of an accompaniment, he seated himself at the
piano, and drew forth notes so wild, so terrific, that the whole party
were electrified; then assuming the mien and gesture of one crazed in
his intellect, his loud and clear voice gave full force to the
following:

  Oh! bid me not recall the past,
    Though calm appear my features now
  Hid though from sight the fevered blast,
    That caused the spirit's overthrow.

  'Tis not in mortal power again
    Youth's buoyant transport to recall;
  'Tis hushed--forever hushed--the strain
    That could with Schilling the heart enthral.

  Visions of truth  have passed me by,
    Mocking the sense, with shapes unreal,
  Filling each pulse with melody,
    Thrilling the heart with joys ideal.

  And freedom, independence, love.
    In dreams have risen to my sight--
  In dreams essayed my heart to prove.
    They vanished at return of light.

  And earth is all unholy now.
    Venal its joys!--its highest bliss
  To lay that false ideal low--
    To crush the hope of happiness.

  Love gone! one wish doth yet remain--
    One thought the maddened brain to whet:
  Joy vanished! Its fell rival--pain--
    Forbids the spirit to forget.

  Pain, pain triumphant, speaks of power
    To seize the serpent's foulest sting.
  Therewith to bid the tyrant cower.
    Back to return the poisoned spring.

  Yes! I'll unveil those mocking forms,
    Those shapes of grace, all seat from hell;
  I will reveal the latent storms
    That 'neath the placid surface dwell.

  Thus proudly I'll unveil deceit;
    Thus fearfully I'll stifle pain--
  The mask torn off--made known the cheat--
    Ne'er shall the false one rest again!

  With trust destroyed, with pleasure gone,
    Earth yields the soul no fitting mate;
  But  standing fearless and alone
    The vengeful spirit lives--_to hate_.

{341}

The emphasis that was given to this wild song struck terror to the
hearts of the hearers, especially as the singer himself seemed frantic
with excitement When it was finished a pause ensued, as if all present
wanted to take breath; and Sir Philip found voice to say:

"Why, where on earth, Brookbank, did you learn such a ditty as that?
You have absolutely frightened the young ladies; they think you half
mad, yourself."

"It is the lay of a madman in good earnest," said Alfred, "he who
composed it was crazed by disappointed love; I sing it now and then as
a warning to young ladies not to be too cruel."

He looked round the room for Annie as he spoke; but Annie was no
longer there; every line of that song had spoken volumes to her, in
telling her what a bitter enemy she had raised, and as the last word
vibrated on the singer's lips, she left the apartment. When she
returned she was very pale. She felt conscious that Alfred was
watching her every movement, and that feeling made her miserable.


TO BE CONTINUED.

------

From Chambers's Journal.

AUTUMN.


  Autumn is dying, alas! Sweet Autumn is near to her death;
  All through the night may be felt her languid scented breath
  Coming and going in gasps long-drawn by the shivering trees,
  Out on the misty moors, and down by the dew-drenched leas.

  Autumn is dying, alas! Her face grows pallid and gray;
  The healthy flush of her prime is momently fading away;
  And her sunken cheeks are streaked with a feverish hectic red,
  As she gathers the falling leaves, and piles them about her bed.

  Autumn is dying, alas! Her bosom is rifled and bare;
  Gone is the grain and the fruit, and the flowers out of her hair,
  Whilst her faded garment of green is blown about in the lanes,
  And her ancient lover, the Sun, looks coldly down on her pains.

  Autumn is dying, alas! She lies forlorn and alone;
  The little chorusing birds have a broken, unhappy tone
  As they fly in a crowd to the hedge when the evening mists arise,
  To curtain the bed of death, and shadow the closing eyes.

  Autumn is dying, alas! But to-night the silent cloud,
  Dropping great tears of rain, will come and make her a shroud,
  Winding it this way and that, tenderly round and around,
  Then catch her away in its arms from the damp, unwholesome ground.

  Autumn is dead, alas! Why alas? All her labor is done,
  Perfected, finished, complete, 'neath the wind and the rain and the sun;
  All the earth is enriched--the garners of men run o'er;
  There is food for man and beast, and the stranger that begs at the door.

  Look to thy life, O man! Swiftly approaches the night;
  Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with all thy might.
  Labor right on to the end: let thy works go forth abroad;
  Then turn thy face to the sky, and enter the "joy of thy Lord."


------

{342}


From The Dublin Review.


PROTESTANT PROSELYTISM IN EASTERN LANDS   [Footnote 103]

  [Footnote 103:
  1. The Gospel in Turkey, being "the Tenth and Eleventh Annual
  Reports of the Turkish Missions-Aid Society." Published at the
  Society's Office, 7 Adam Street, W.C.; at Nisbet's; and Hatchard's,
  London. 1864-5

  2. The Lebanon: a History and a Diary. By David Urquhart. London;
  Newby. 1860.

  3. Journal of a Tour in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Greece. By
  James Laird Patterson. M.A. London: Dolman. 1852.

  4. Prospectus of "the Syrian Protestant College." Issued by "The
  Turkish Missions-Aid Society." London. 1865.]


There are few impartial and well-informed Protestants who will not
confess that their missions throughout the world have invariably
proved to be utter failures. No matter to what sect or denomination
they belong, or from what country or association their funds are
derived, Protestant missionaries, as preachers of that gospel about
which they speak so much, never have converted, and we believe never
will, convert the heathen save by units and driblets, hardly worthy of
mention. In India, in Turkey, in Africa, among the South-Sea
Islanders, and the Red Indians of America, the result of Protestant
missionary labor is the same wherever it has been tried. The people to
whom their missionaries are sent may, and often do, become more or
less civilized from intercourse with educated men, and often learn
from those who wish to teach them higher matters, some of the arts and
appliances of European life. Some few certainly embrace what their
preachers deem to be Christianity; and occasionally, but very seldom,
small communities of nominal Christians are formed by them. But to
bring whole regions of the inhabitants to the foot of the cross--to
convert whole nations to Christianity--to prove that their converts
have embraced a system in which a man must do what is right as well as
believe what is true--are triumphs which have hitherto been reserved
for the Catholic Church, and for her alone.

But, even humanly speaking--and quite apart from all considerations of
the truth as existing only in the ark which our Lord himself
built--can we wonder at these results? Are there any who have
sojourned in, or even past through the lands where missionaries of
both religions work, and have not compared the Catholic priest with
the Protestant minister who has come out to preach the gospel in those
countries? Take, for instance, and up-country station in British
India. Is there a Protestant missionary in the place? If so, he is a
man with considerably more than the mere script and staff of apostolic
days in his possession. As wealth goes among Englishmen in the East,
he is perhaps not rich; but he is nevertheless quite at his ease, and
certainly wanting for nothing. He has his comfortable bungalow; his
wife and children are with him; the modest one-horse carriage is not
wanting for the evening drive of himself and family; nor is the
furniture of his house such as any man of moderate means need despise.
He has a regular income from the society he represents; and his
allowances are generally such as, with a little care, will allow of
his living in great comfort. And, finally, if he falls sick, too sick
to remain in the country, the means of taking him home again to
England or America are forthcoming at a moment's notice. He is
generally a good linguist; for having nothing else to do daring six
days of the week, he devotes much of his time to the study of the
vernacular. {343} He is respected by the European officers of the
station; for he is often the only person they ever see in the shape of
a clergyman. He is almost always an honest, upright man, with little
or no knowledge of the world, and, if possible, less of the natives to
whom he is sent to preach. This, however, does not matter; for, except
among his own personal servants, he makes no converts, and has but few
hearers. There is no positive harm in him, but as little active good.
He is a fair sample of a pious-minded Calvinist, but is certainly no
missionary, as Catholics understand the word. So far from having given
up anything to come out to India, both he, his wife, and
his--generally very numerous--offspring are much better off than if he
had remained in his native Lanarkshire or Pennsylvania. If he belongs
to the Church of England, he is very often a German by birth, and
appears to have "taken orders" in the establishment without having for
a moment abandoned his own peculiar theological views. Some few
Englishmen--literates, hardly ever University men--are to be found
here and there, as English Church missionaries; but these are and far
between, nor do their labors often show greater results than those of
their Presbyterian fellow-laborers. Even Dr. Littledale  [Footnote
104] speaks of "_the pitiful history of Anglican missions to the
heathen_;" and he might with great truth have extended his verdict to
the missions of every other denomination of Protestantism.

  [Footnote 104: See The Missionary Aspect of Ritualism, in the Church
  and the World. (London: Longmans.)]

In contrast to the Protestant, take the European Catholic missionary
in the East, as apart from the native-born priest. He is invariably a
volunteer for the work, either a monk or a secular priest, who
aspiring to more severe labor in his Master's vineyard, has chosen the
hard and rugged path of a preacher of the gospel in pagan lands. As a
general rule, you will probably find him living in an humble room in
the native bazaar, and depending for his daily bread upon the charity
of his flock, or the contributions of any English Catholic officer or
civilian who may happen to be in the neighborhood. He is Catholic in
his nation as in his creed; for you may find him French, Belgian,
Italian, Spanish, Irish, or English. The present writer has met a
French nobleman and the son of a wealthy Yorkshire squire laboring and
preaching as Jesuit Missionaries to the natives of India and the poor
Irish soldiers who form so large a portion of every garrison in that
country. Is it, then, to be wondered at if, notwithstanding their
superior means and far greater worldly "respectability," the
Protestant missionaries do not succeed as ours do; or rather, that
whereas our missions are never without fruit, theirs seldom show forth
even a few sickly leaves? But the simple fact is, the missionary
spirit--or rather the spirit which leads a man, if he believes that
duty to God calls him to abandon family, wealth, comfort, health, nay,
life itself--never has, and never can be, understood by Protestants,
whether climbing the heights of ritualism, or sunk in the depths of
Socinianism. Catholics are often angry with Protestants, because the
latter are uncharitable respecting monks, priests, and nuns. Catholics
are wrong in being angry. Hardly any person who is not a Catholic can
understand the spirit which moves men and women to make such
sacrifices for the love of God, and counts the loss as so much gain.
The very idea of these acts is to him as color to one who has been
blind from his birth: he not only cannot understand it, but you cannot
explain it to him. This is a truth to which every convert will bear
testimony, after his eyes have been opened to the truths of God's one
and only Church, and which even few of those who have been Catholic
from their youth upward can realize.

But notwithstanding "the pitiful history" of Protestant missions to
the heathen, the work of these gentlemen in that direction is not
deserving of {344} other sentiment than that of pity. If men will
labor in fields where they can bring forth no harvest, and if others
will pay them for doing no good, the affair is theirs, not ours. They
never can do harm to the Church in those regions, for they achieve
neither good nor evil to any one, further than by giving the natives
in places where there are no Catholic missionaries a very erroneous
idea as to what the duties of a Christian teacher ought to be. Not so,
however, in those countries where Protestantism has sent its
emissaries to undermine the faith which flourished among the
inhabitants centuries before the very name of Protestant was known or
heard of. To help such undertakings, "The Turkish Missions-Aid
Society" was established and is kept up, and it is to the two reports
of that society at the head of the list of works under notice, that we
would call the especial attention of Protestants, even more than
Catholics, throughout England.

The "Laws and Regulations" of "The Turkish Missions-Aid Society" are
divided into nine clauses, and in the second of these we are told
that--

  "The object of this society is not to originate a new mission, but
  to aid existing evangelical missions in the Turkish empire,
  especially the American."

What these "evangelicals" missions are, and to whom the "American"
missionaries are sent, we shall see presently. As a matter of course,
the society is supported by the very cream of "evangelical"
Protestantism, having Lord Shaftesbury for its President, Lord Ebury
as Vice-President, and Mr. Kinnaird as Treasurer. The subscriptions
are very large indeed, and from the "statement" furnished by the
report for 1864-65, we find that no less a sum than £24,672 5_s_, has
been sent out to the East for "native agencies" alone, since the
commencement of the society, now about eleven years ago; this, of
course, being all in addition to the very heavy sums and comfortable
salaries furnished by the American society, called the Board of
Foreign Missions, by which these missions and missionaries are
maintained.

It would appear that the "fields" occupied by these American missions
are five in number, and the present condition of them is thus
summarized in the eleventh, the latest, annual report, now before us:

  [Transcriber's note: The column titles are
  abbreviated as follows:
  MS.--Missionaries
  NA.--Native assistance
  SAOS.--Stations and Outstations
  CH.--Churches
  CM.--Church Members
  SCH.--Schools
  ASA.--Average Sabbath Attendance
  SMF.--Scholars male and female]

Fields       MS.  NA.   SAOS.  CH.    CM.  SCH.   ASA.    SMF.

Western      45   73     45    19    512    37    1569   1615
Turkey

Central      19   54     27    14    998    26    3125   1717
Turkey

Eastern      21   74     50    14    403    51    2201   1889
Turkey

Syrian       24   37     22     8    200    25     650    548

Nestorian    16   81     36     0    529     0    3000      0

Total       125  320    120    55   2642   139   10545   5100


These "missions" have been at work, some more, some less time; but a
fair average for the whole would be about twenty-five years. It will
be observed that in the five "fields" there are but 2,642 "church
members,"  or what, among Catholics, would be termed communicants. The
individuals who come under the head of  "Average Sabbath Attendance,"
can no more be termed Protestant then his grace the duke of Sutherland
can be called a Catholic because he was present at the funeral of
Cardinal Wiseman. But we will grant, for the sake of argument, that
the 2,642 "church members" are earnest, consistent Protestants. If so,
and taking into calculation only the funds furnished by the Turkish
Missions-Aid Society, as quoted above, these converts I'm not very
valuable, for they have only cost something less than ten pounds each.
But if to the £24,672 5_s_., we add all that the American Board of
Missions has paid in the same period as salaries for missionaries, for
"native assistants," for schoolmasters, rents, building of churches,
printing, books, and the passage-money of missionaries and their
families to and from the East, we shall find that there is not one of
these individuals whose conversion has not one way and another cost
around three thousand pounds. At this price {345} they ought to be
staunch anti-papists, for their religion has been a very high-priced
article.

Let us turn for a moment to the second book on the list at the head of
this article. No one who has read a line of the well-known Mr.
Urquhart's many writings on political questions, will ever accuse him
of Catholic tendency on any subject. He is not a bigot, indeed; nor,
again, does he ever defendant the past history of Protestantism, for
he is too well read to uphold what every honest man, with the
knowledge of an ordinary school-boy, must condemn. In oriental
matters, moreover, Mr. Urquhart has his peculiar views; but as these
have nothing whatever to do with the questions of Protestant and
Catholic, missionary or non-missionary, we may fairly accept what he
says on the subject as the testimony of an impartial witness. Here,
then, is what he writes respecting the Catholic clergy and the
sectarian missionaries in Syria and Mount Lebanon:

  "The Roman Catholic regular and secular clergy are established here
  as in any other Roman Catholic country; that is to say, they are
  pastors of flocks, and not missionaries, The Protestants have no
  flocks, and _they are sent with a view to creating them_.
  TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS are yearly subscribed in the United
  States for that object, and the missionaries come here having to
  justify the salaries they receive."--_The Lebanon_, vol. ii. p. 78.

The italics in the above quotation are our own, and we have thus
marked the words in order to draw attention to what every traveller in
the East, not that with the "pure gospel" media, has borne testimony.
But let us return once more to the "statement" of the five missionary
"fields" occupied by the Americans in the East. Mr. Urquhart would
never make an assertion like the above without chapter and verse for
what he says; and when the writes that TWENTY-FIVE THOUSANDS POUNDS
are yearly subscribed in the United States to support their
missionaries in the East, we may very safely consider the statement to
be true. We cannot, however, suppose that for this enormous sum the
missions in Syria only are meant, for then each one of the two hundred
"church members" with which that land is blessed would cost a small
fortune in himself. But at the same time it is impossible not to allow
that he must mean the American missionary establishments in the East
generally--the five "fields," of which a "statement" has been copied
above, and the total of whose "church members" amounts to 2,642. And
even with this calculation it will be seen that every Protestant
communicant costs the pretty little _annual_ sum of about £9 10_s_.
for his conversion, and subsequent religious instruction. We are given
to finding fault, and not unnaturally so, with the cost of the
Established Church in Ireland; but what is this when compared with the
price of the "Gospel in Turkey"? It is doubtful whether--apart,
perhaps, from some other Protestant missionary "field" of which we are
yet ignorant--the religious instruction of any people in the known
world costs as much. It is as if each ten individuals had a curate
entirely to themselves, and each hundred "church members" a very
well-paid private Anglican rector of their own. No wonder that we are
told the Syrian Protestant converts think highly of their new creed,
"the Gospel of Christ," as it is modestly called. In a country where
everything is more or less measured by a monetary standard, a convert
for whose spiritual well-being £9 10_s_. per annum is paid must
believe himself to be in a state of exaltation, considering that had
he remained in his own church, his Maronite, Greek, Greek Catholic, or
Armenian priest--having to say mass every day, to attend to some one
or two thousand parishioners probably scattered over a large
district--would consider himself very fortunate indeed if he had a
stipend of two thousand piastres a year, or about £20, of which more
than half would be paid in corn, oil, or fruits. {346} The fathers of
the Jesuit mission in Syria are allowed a thousand francs, £40, for
the travelling expenses, clothing, table, etc., of each priest when
engaged on missionary work away from the house of his community; how,
then, is it that the American missionaries cost so very much more? We
will take up our quotation from Mr. Urquhart again, at the point where
we left off:

  "They (the American missionaries) have town-house and country-house,
  horses to ride and an establishment and a table which speaks well
  for the taste of the citizens of the United States. These are
  results obtained by exertion and combination, and which, affording
  enjoyment in their possession, prompt to efforts for their
  retention. The persons thus raised to affluence and consideration in
  a fine and luxurious climate would have to sink back to hard
  conditions of life, if not to want and destitution. This relapse
  presents itself as the consequence of failing in the creating of
  congregations, or at least of supplying to those who subscribe the
  funds plausible grounds for expecting that the consummation was
  near. Looking at the country, nothing can be more painful and more
  hopeless than the contest: nowhere is an ear open. As to converting
  the Turks, they might just as well try to convert the Archbishop of
  Canterbury.

* * * * * *

  "As to converting the Jews, it would be much better for the United
  States to send missionaries to Monmouth-street. There remain, then,
  but the Maronite, the Greek, the Greek Catholic, Armenian, and
  Nestorian churches, that is to say Christians, to convert. From the
  pre-existing animosities among the Christians, the missionaries
  could not so much as open their mouths to any of the members of
  these communities on the subject of religion, and therefore it is a
  totally different course that they have adopted. They have offered
  themselves as schoolmasters; not as persons depending for
  remuneration on their claims to the confidence of parents, and on
  their proficiency; but supplying instruction gratuitously, and
  adding thereto remuneration to the scholars in various shapes. Their
  admission in this form has been forced upon the people by the
  Turkish government. The condition, however, has been appended to it,
  that they should not attempt to interfere with the religious belief
  of the pupils. This has been going on for years; the money
  continuing to be supplied on the grounds that Protestant
  congregations are being created, and the proceeds enjoyed by the
  missionaries on their undertaking that they shall not create them.

  "The statistical under-current is, however, veiled or disguised from
  the men (the missionaries) themselves. The one generation has, so to
  say, succeeded the other. The new men come out occupied with their
  zeal, not caring critically to examine the position in which they
  stand, in entering at once on a contest already engaged. They are
  filled with contempt for everything around them; and to religious
  zeal, itself a sufficiently active impulse, is superadded the
  necessity of furnishing reports for public meetings and periodicals
  in America--reports which, failing to contain statements proselytes
  secured, have at last to supply narratives of contests undertaken
  and martyrdom endured."--_The Lebanon_, vol. ii. pp. 79, 80.

Our author has, in the foregoing paragraph, certainly touch most of
the weak points of Protestant missionary working. Even a cursory
analysis of the reports before thus confirm every word of this
quotation from his book. Like every Protestant account of missionary
work, the Turkish Missions-Aid Society's Reports are interlarded with
scriptural quotations, having always the same significance--that the
time for seeing the results of the labor has not yet come, but soon
will be; or, as Mr. Urquhart puts it, they supply to those who
subscribe the funds, plausible grounds for expecting that the
consummation is near.

Some years ago, a grand case of _quasi_ martyrdom was reported that
Exeter Hall, and must have been worth much money to the societies who
furnish missionary funds for the East, both in England and America. It
was the cause of many questions being asked, and much correspondence
being furnished, in both Houses of Parliament. Dispatches were
written, the Turkish Government threatened, and the life of Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe, who was then our representative at the Porte,
made a burden to him for a time with extra work. The story was that
some American Protestant missionaries, when "preaching the Gospel" on
Mount Lebanon, were stoned and otherwise ill-treated, being finally
turned out of the village in which they resided; some of them being
badly wounded. The tale was well told, but, like other histories of
the kind, was allowed to the forgotten {347} as soon as it had served
its purpose. Here is Mr. Urquhart's version of the affair, gathered as
it was in the country itself, is not unlikely to prove the true
version of the story:

  "The missionaries arriving at Eden (a village not far from the
  celebrated cedars of Lebanon, the inhabitants consisting entirely of
  Maronite Catholics) entered a house, and disposed themselves to
  occupy it. The master of  the house told them that he would not and
  could not receive them. They persisted, threatening him in the name
  of the Turkish authorities. A great commotion ensued, and the
  people, with the fear of the Turkish authorities before their eyes,
  devised a plan for dislodging the missionaries by unroofing the
  house. A roof in the Lebanon is not composed of tiles and rafters;
  to touch a roof is a very serious affair, not to be undertaken in
  wantonness. The people had the satisfaction of seeing the
  missionaries mount and depart without any act on their part which
  would expose them to after-retribution."--_The Lebanon_, vol ii. p.
  82.

I said before, Mr. Urquhart is one of the very last men who could be
accused of any leaning toward Catholicism, still less of any affection
toward the native Christian population of Syria and Lebanon. Of this
his volumes bear witness in every chapter. But in a dozen instances he
proves what we have so often heard asserted by travellers returned
from these regions, that the people do not want, and do not wish for,
the American missionaries, and would far rather be without them. Also
that wherever these Protestant apostles are located, their presence is
a continual source of trouble and annoyance, by causing quarrels among
the people, and that their sojourn in the land is most certainly not
conducive either to the glory of God on high, or of peace on earth to
men of good will. That their so-called mission has been a most
complete religious _fiasco_, is pretty well proved by the returns
which at page 308 we copy from these reports. If the reader will but
turn back to it, he will find that with twenty-four missionaries and
thirty-seven native assistants, the number of "church members" in the
Syrian "field" amounts to no more than two hundred, and this after the
Americans have worked as missionaries in this "field" for the last
quarter of a century or more. Surely no clearer proof than this is
wanting for endorsing what Mr. Urquhart has said above respecting the
way and the reason why these religious undertakings are puffed up, and
"plausible grounds" given for expecting that the consummation of
"gospel" triumph is at hand.

There is, perhaps, no Christian population in the world more united as
a body, more attached to their clergy, more faithful in their holding
to the See of Peter, or more orthodox in every particle of their
faith, than the Maronites of Mount Lebanon. To illustrate, even in the
most superficial manner, the history and ritual of this singular
people would extend this paper far beyond our limits. Suffice it to
say that upward of ONE THOUSAND years before the discovery of America,
the holy sacrifice of the mass was offered up in their churches, and
matins, lauds, vespers, and complins sung every morning and evening in
their sanctuaries, just as at the present day. Their name is derived
from that of St. Maroun, a holy hermit, who, in the fourth century,
when the heresies of Eutyches and the errors of Monothelism were so
common throughout the East, preserved the inhabitants of Lebanon and
the adjacent parts from those influences. "The Maronites," says Mgr.
Patterson, in his work, which is the third on our list at the head of
this paper,--

  "The Maronites maintain that they have never swerved from the
  Catholic faith, and love to assert that their Patriarch is the only
  one whose spiritual lineage from St. Peter, in the see of Antioch,
  has been unbroken by the taint of heresy or schism." (P. 389.)

Their secular clergy number about 1,200, and the regulars, inhabiting
sixty-seven monasteries, comprise some 1,400 monks, priests, and lay
brothers. They have besides fifteen convents, in which there are about
300 nuns.

{348}

  "The blessings of education (continues the same author) are widely
  diffused among the Maronites. Almost all are able to read and write;
  and though few even of the clergy can be called learned, they are
  all sufficiently instructed in the most necessary things, and
  especially in the practical knowledge of their faith. Offences are
  rare among them, crimes almost unknown. The number of the Maronites
  of Lebanon appears to be about 250,000. In 1180, William of Tyre
  estimated them at more than 40,000; in 1784 Volney placed them at
  115,000; and Perrier, in 1840, at 220,000. Elsewhere they are hardly
  to be found; the largest number I know of is at Cyprus, where there
  are about 1,500. A few also are found at Aleppo and Damascus, and
  some at Cyprus.

* * * * *

  "There are (among the Maronites of Lebanon) four principal colleges
  for the education of the clergy. The most ancient is that of Ain
  Warka, in which between thirty and forty pupils are educated. They
  are taught Arabic (their vernacular), Syriac, which is the
  liturgical language of this rite; logic, moral theology, Italian,
  and Latin. Six exhibitions for the maintenance of as many scholars
  at the College of Propaganda were attached to this college. At the
  time of the first French occupation of Rome, the funds which
  provided for them were seized, and have never been restored; but the
  pupils still go to Rome, and many of them are to be met with in the
  higher ranks of the Maronite clergy." (P. 388.)

It is then to turn this people, and these priests, from the faith
which they have so long and so honestly held, and from the spiritual
paths in which they have walked for at least fifteen hundred years,
that respectable black-coated American gentlemen, whose experience of
life has been confined to Boston or New York, are sent over and
maintained by the funds furnished by the zealous evangelicals of
England and the United States. No wonder if those to whom they come
would rather be without them. With the people whom they are sent to
"convert" they have not a single idea in common. The very vernacular
of the country has to be studied and learnt by them (an undertaking of
at least two or three years, as Arabic is perhaps the most difficult
language in the world for an adult to acquire a proficiency in),
before they can preach or even converse with those whom they wish to
teach what they themselves deem, the truths of eternal life. Without
the most remote approach to a thing like a ritual, and without even
the barest liturgy to recommend them, they come among a people who
from very very infancy are perhaps more familiar with the meaning and
teaching of earnest ritualism than any nation on earth. Mr. Urquhart,
in the quotation we have given elsewhere, says of  the American
missionaries, that "as to converting the Turks, they might just as
well try to convert the Archbishop of Canterbury;" might he not have
said the same as to the converting of the Maronites? From the 200
"church members," which the returns of the Turkish Missions-Aid
Society state as the result of the "missionary" labor on the Syrian
"field" during the quarter of a century and more which the work has
been going on, if we deduct the personal servants of the twenty-four
missionaries, and of thirty-seven native assistants, how many will
then be left as real, true, and earnest converts from their own faith
to that which the American missionaries would teach them? "It has to
be observed," says Mr. Urquhart, "that the proselytism carried on is
not, as is supposed in Europe, against  unbelievers, but between
Christians;"   [Footnote 105] and surely here is proselytism of the
kind forced upon a people against their will, by the inhabitants of
another far-off country, who would do very much better if they spent
their yearly £25,000 among themselves, in "converting" the thousands
of worse than pagans to be seen daily in the streets of every great
town of England and America, and whose "faith" is from time to time
shown in their "works."

  [Footnote 105: The Lebanon, vol ii. p.79.]

We have no desire to hold up to the ridicule they deserve the absurd
canting sentences and so-called scriptural ejaculations with which the
of the Turkish Missions-Aid Society is interlarded. All who have
perused similar documents must be well acquainted with the way in
which {349} verses from Holy Writ are made to serve _£. s. d._ by  the
writer. Nor do we wish to make our readers laugh I reproduce some of
the "pious" anecdotes which are to be met with in these pages. Thus it
may, or may not, be true that at Nicomedia "a few years ago all was
darkness and bigotry;" but it can hardly be taken what the French
would call "_au sérieux_" that two Armenian priests in this locality
were "awakened" by reading an Armeno-Turkish translation of The
Dairyman's Daughter, and that, since the conversion of these
gentlemen, a flourishing church, with a large congregation, has been
gathered together, and a home mission formed to carry the Gospel to
the towns and villages around.   [Footnote 106] Also, from a personal
knowledge of the facts, we permit ourselves to doubt whether the
so-called "missionary" work in Constantinople has been, to say the
least of it, judiciously carried on; and whether, about two years ago,
the zeal without knowledge on the part of the missionaries did not
very nearly cause a rising of the whole Mahometan population, and a
general massacre of all the Christian population in that city. Nor--on
the testimony of Anglicans, Presbyterians, and other Protestants--can
we subscribe to the eulogium sung in praise of "the excellent Bishop
Gobat." We have far more serious matters to deal with as regards the
American missions in Syria and the East, and of which, if they are in
the least degree consistent, Protestants more than Catholics whom it
really does does not concern, would do well to take heed.

  [Footnote 106: See Tenth Annual Report of the Turkish Missions-Aid
  Society. p. 10.]

In the appendix to his "Tour," Mgr. Patterson has, with a fairness and
impartiality of judgment which cannot the too highly praised,
investigated the question as to what it is that the native Protestants
in the East really believe with the process of their so-called
"conversion" is complete. And it may not be out of place here to that
mention that the present writer, who has lately returned from a
residence of nearly ten years in those countries, entirely and to the
letter agrees with what this author has stated. Were it allowable to
mention names, he could also adduce the authority of many Englishmen
who have resided in Smyrna, Constantinople, Beyrout, Damascus, the
Lebanon, and other parts of the East, all of them Protestants, most of
them attending every Sunday the English ministrations of the American
missionaries, and some of them even communicants in their churches.
The evidence of these is varied in different points, but, as a whole,
certain pages of Dr. Patterson's appendix might serve as a precis of
the various opinions which these gentlemen have spoken, and which the
writer himself has formed during his prolonged residence in the East.
Be it, however, noted, that the objections here raised are not against
the American missionaries themselves, but against the result of their
labors, as well as against those of other Protestant missionaries--
wherever throughout these lands their labors have produced any fruit
whatever in the shape of "converts."

  "Most true it is," says Mgr. Patterson, "that though large sums are
  expended yearly by Protestants for their missions, the result is
  nevertheless small indeed; but yet a great work is being done (I
  sincerely think unintentionally) by those establishments. _The faith
  of hundreds and thousands in their own religion is being shaken,
  without any other faith being substituted for it_.  [Footnote 107]
  The missionaries' reports are full of expressions to the effect that
  many persons come to them, declaring their readiness to hear what
  they had to say, and their disbelief of their own national or common
  faith; and yet the 'converts' registered by themselves may be told
  in units, or at most by tens. Accordingly, I never came in contact
  with 'liberals' in politics or religion, whether Jew, Christian, or
  Gentile, who did not commence the conversation (on the supposition
  that I was a Protestant) by declaring their disbelief of this or
  that current dogma of their faith; and in all such cases I found I
  was expected, at a _Protestant_ to applaud {350} and admire their
  lamentable condition of mind. I repeat, most emphatically, that I
  never saw a single person of this description who had one doctrine
  to _affirm_. The work of the Protestant missions is simply
  descriptive. In Turkey it is detaching Mohammedan subjects from
  their allegiance to their spiritual and temporal head; in Greece it
  is introducing the mind of youth to the conceit of private judgment;
  in Egypt it does the same for the Copts; and in Mesopotamia for the
  Nestorians. The missionaries report that, among the Jews, they
  prefer to have to do with the rationalists rather than with the
  Talmudists; and acting on that principle everywhere, they first make
  a _tabula rasa_ of minds, on which they never afterward succeed in
  inscribing the laws of sincere faith or consistent practice." (P.
  456.)

  [Footnote 107: The italics an our own, and we give them to mark the
  pith of the whole question, with which nearly all Protestants, as
  well as every Catholic we have met, that have inhabited Syria,
  Palestine, or the Holy Land for any time, most fully concur.]

Here, then, we have, in a few words, an account of what the teachings
of the Protestant missionaries in the East result in. They take away
the faith that is in these people, and give them nothing in return.
[Footnote 108] In other and plainer words, the end of all this
teaching, and preaching, and denouncing of "popish" doctrines, is
simple unbelief or infidelity, embellished with Scriptural verses and
the current cant of the evangelical school. Do the subscribers to the
Turkish Missions-Aid Society contemplate this as one of the results of
their liberal donations? Is _this_ what the society put forth so
boldly as the "Gospel in Turkey?" Is it for such a change that the
traditions mounting to within less than four hundred years of our
Lord's sojourn on earth, preserved as they are by a people living in
the land which he inhabited, are to be cast off? Surely, even from the
most enthusiastic of the evangelical school, these questions can have
but one answer.  [Footnote 109]

  [Footnote 108: An English official who had resided upward of
  twenty-five years in Syria, and who is a very earnest Protestant,
  told the present writer exactly the same. "The American
  missionaries," he said, "destroy the faith these native Christians
  had, but give them no other in return. The consequence is, that they
  invariably become more rationalists."]

  [Footnote 109: About four years ago, a party of English travelers
  were journeying over Mount Lebanon. While halting at a roadside
  "khan," they were accosted by a native who spoke English very well.
  They asked him who he was, and where he had learnt their language.
  He said he was, or had been, servant to one of the American
  missionaries, naming the gentleman, and that he was "a good
  Protestant." One of the ladies present put a few questions to him,
  and among others, asked him what he now believed of the Virgin Mary?
  "_That_ for the Virgin Mary," said the miscreant, spitting at the
  same time, and using an Arabic gesture indicating the utmost
  contempt. The lady--an Anglican, not a Catholic--of course dropped
  the conversation, feeling too disgusted to continue it. Some days
  afterward she related that anecdote to the wife of an American
  missionary; but the latter was not at all shocked, merely making the
  remark. "I guess the the man had got rid of his old superstitions."
  Is this what they call evangelizing the native Christians?]

And let not the subject be either misunderstood or blinked. Take any
dozen Englishmen really conversant with the ways of the country and
the ideas of the inhabitants; let them all the Protestants, and even
be of those who, finding no other Protestant ministration, attend the
chapels of the American missionaries. Of the twelve, certainly nine
will tell you that, although well-meaning and honest made in their
way, the preaching of the Protestant missionaries in the East holes
down but never builds up belief, and that in sober truth the native
Protestant "converts" are but so many free-thinkers--theoretical
Christians, but practical infidels. There is, with respect to this
part of our subject, one more extract from Mgr. Patterson's book,
[Footnote 110] which, although somewhat lengthy, we find so much to
the purpose, with respect to some of the questions of the day, that we
copy it entire:--

    [Footnote 110: No one interested in the present spiritual state of
    the East should be without this volume, and every traveller to
    Palestine--Catholic or Protestant--should take it with him.]

  "The Protestant sects of the West (says our author) are represented
  in the East by missions of several denominations; but since they all
  represent but one principle, namely the denegation of spiritual
  authority as the basis of belief, it is unnecessary to to
  distinguish them here. At first sight it might appear that the
  Episcopalians, or representatives of the Anglican establishment,
  should command a distinct notice, since they have one point (that of
  episcopal superintendence) in common with the Eastern sects; but
  when is considered, not merely that the fact of their having real
  bishops is denied by all sects of the East,  [Footnote 111] as well
  as by the Catholic Church, {351} but that they themselves entirely
  repudiate any claims which might be founded on their supposed
  possession of an apostolic commission and authority through the
  episcopate; and when, moreover, it is remembered that a few persons
  who think differently on these points are wholly unrepresented in
  the East, it seems evident that the distinction would be unreal.
  Further, the Protestant missions in the East are mainly supplied by
  ministers in the communion of the Establishment in England, but
  often not episcopally appointed or ordained, and in all cases a
  perfect the equality is admitted between such as are so appointed
  and those who are not. Hence the Anglo-Lutheran 'Episcopalians,' the
  independents, the American Congregationalists, etc., act in unison,
  and on one principle. They teach that the belief they advocate in
  certain doctrines is to be acquired by each individual through a
  perusal of certain writings, and must be held by him as the result
  of convictions proceeding from his own investigation of those
  writings, which they assert to be the inspired word of God. This
  procedure they call 'the right of private judgment.'

    [Footnote 111: This, be it remembered, was written in 1852, ten
    years before the recent attempt at union on the part of certain
    Anglicans with the Greek Church. What Mgr. Patterson says is the
    simple truth, and is confirmed by numerous conversations which the
    present writer had, during a ten years' residence with several
    patriarchs and numerous bishops, priests, and deacons of the
    Greek, Armenian, Nestorian, Copt, and Jacobite sects. All these
    clergy hate the very name of Rome, but they acknowledge she has
    real bishops and a real priesthood; while one and all deny that
    the Anglican Church as neither. The English Book of Common Prayer,
    translated into Arabic, is very often met with throughout the
    East, but it does not appear to have impressed the Oriental
    Churches, whether in communion with the See of Peter or not, very
    favorably respecting the Established Church of this country. The
    Thirty-nine Articles they regard with especial horror, as showing
    the church to be heretical at core. Nor have the members of the
    Anglican Church and Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem done much to
    remove this impression, but rather the contrary.]

  "But the very terms of the Protestant principle, thus represented,
  involve, not merely a disregard of existing authorities, but also of
  that which presents that system for the acceptance of Eastern
  Christians. Those, however, who advocate its claims are not usually
  to be bound by the laws of consistency in logic. Though they will
  have every man to read the Sacred Scriptures (that is, _their_
  version of them) and to judge for himself, they have also a few
  doctrines, built on them, as they suppose, to which they attach an
  importance equal to that ascribed by Catholics to the dogmas of
  faith. Of these, the chief is what they term 'justification by faith
  only' the doctrine which teaches that man is accounted (but not
  made) fit for eternal life in the divine presence, by a _subjective_
  act or sentiment of the mind, called by them 'faith.' This 'faith'
  is not the 'faith' of theological writers, but a persuasion, or
  enthusiastic feeling, on the part of the individual, that he is
  saved from eternal death by sacrifice of the cross. Laying such
  stress as this view does on a persuasion, or feeling of the mind, it
  might be expected that other acts of the mind would be regarded by
  those teachers as of cognate importance. With singular
  inconsistency, however, they regard all such acts, whether of love,
  hope, or fear, or the like, as not only unimportant or indifferent,
  but even sinful in fact or tendency. The one operation of the soul
  to which they attach salvation is that of persuasion that itself is
  saved. To account for so arbitrary a distinction, they allege that
  this persuasion is not a natural gift, but a divine grace--or,
  rather, the divine grace; for in it are contained, and from it flow,
  all those good results which Catholic writers call 'graces;' such as
  humility, charity, hope, etc. This extraordinary and almost
  inexplicable doctrine, they consider not only conveyed in Holy
  Scripture, but the whole sum and substance of its teachings; and
  they allege portions of the epistles of St. Paul, in which he
  declares that man is not justified by works, done irrespectively of
  the divine sacrifice of the cross, to prove that all works or acts
  of the mind (saving always the one act of persuasion, which they
  call 'faith') are valueless and ineffectual to work out salvation.
  The teachers of this view among us are often pious persons, who act
  morally from natural good feelings; but the Eastern mind is too
  consistent and too voluptuous to imitate them. If it is possible,
  they say, to attain salvation by means of a sentiment so pleasant,
  we regard it as quite unnecessary to add to it supererogatory
  performances disagreeable to our inclinations." (P. 453.)

Here, in sober fact, and if we will only give things their right
names, is one of the chief reasons of such "conversions" as take place
in the East to Protestantism. An oriental mind is difficult to fathom
at once; but take any of the professed Protestants in Syria or other
parts of Turkey, clear away all the rubbish they have learnt to talk
in imitation of their new teachers--separate if you can (and it is
merely a matter of time and patience) all the prating about "the Lord
Jesus," and "the blessed Scriptures," the "teaching of the Spirit,"
and suchlike spiritual mouthings, from what are the actual thoughts of
the individual and the real reasons for his change, and you will
invariably find at the bottom of his mind the all-prevailing idea,
that of what use are confession, penance, private prayer, fasting,
giving alms, and other good works, when salvation can be accomplished
by the far more easy and pleasant process of a mere sentiment of the
mind, which any man can train his understanding into believing when he
wishes to do so. And these, be it understood, are the best of the
converts. As Mgr. Patterson says of them:--

{352}

 "Such persons as I am alluding to have really embraced the principle
 on which Protestantism rests. They have thrown off the authority of
 their own belief, not to accept the formula of another, but to reject
 all authority. They are like the German 'philosophic' Protestants, or
 the French universitaries of the West--their conduct is often
 irreproachable, but their belief is a blank, and their principles
 distinctly Antinomian, even when they themselves do not put them in
 practice. I maintain that to one class or other of these all the
 proselytes made to Protestanism in the East belong. They are either
 worthless persons, who are happy to substitute an easy-simulated
 sentiment for whatever amount of discipline their communion imposed,
 or they are 'philosophers,' sceptics, and infidels. The reports of
 these allegations, and the existing state of religious and political
 parties in the East, give scope for these results." (P. 453.)

There are, however, two other reasons, which also act powerfully upon
such natives of the East as come under the influence of Protestant
missionary teaching, and of which when they have abandoned their own
creed, they take especial pride in the possession. The one is the
notion which they imbibe from certain misquotations of Holy Writ, as
well as from ill-judged (even looking at it from a Protestant point of
view) teaching on the part of their new pastors; namely, that every
man is "a priest unto God," and that once a Protestant and a
"church-member," they are as high in spiritual rank, and far superior
in "saving faith" to those whom they formerly regarded and respected
as their clergy. The idea is, of course, utterly false, and childish
in the extreme, to our views. But the native mind can only be judged
by its own standards of worth, and the fact remains as we have said.
That the Protestant missionaries would knowingly foster such notions
it would be uncharitable to believe; but that such is another result
of their teaching there can be no doubt whatever. The missionaries
themselves, however, see very little indeed of their congregations,
small as they are, save at prayer-meetings and preachings once or
twice in that week. It is a curious fact, but one which has struck
many even of those who have not yet found courage to knock and ask for
admittance into the Catholic Church, that in proportion has a sect, or
people, or nation, stray far from unity of the one true fold, so to
their pastors and teachers neglect and despise that visiting and
looking after their flocks, which forms with us such a prominent part
of every parish priest's or missionary's duty. The High-Church
Anglican Protestant clergymen--although still very far short of what
is done by our clergy--come next to the Catholic priest in this work;
and as we descend the scale of Protestantism, we find the practice
more and more rare, until I the Socinians such acts of supererogation
on the part of their preachers are never heard of. With Protestant
missionaries in the East the practice is exceedingly rare: perhaps it
is regarded as an infringement upon true religious liberty?

The third reason which has often--very generally, if not
always--influence in making the native of Syria, Palestine, or other
Eastern lands embrace Protestantism, is that when he has done so, the
fact of his being a proselyte puts him indirectly under the
"protection" of the English or American consul, if such an official
there is--and there generally is one--within even a couple of days'
journey from the convert's place of abode. Not that the individual is
at once put on the rolls of the English or American subjects. Such was
some years ago the practice; but now for very shame's sake this has
been altered. But, as the English consuls-general, consuls, and
vice-consuls have a sort of standing order to "protect" all
Protestants against the tyranny or ill-usage of the local authorities;
and as every native Protestant has nearly always some grievance which
he makes out to be an injustice committed on him _because he is_ a
Protestant, so his complaint invariably finds its way to the English
consulate, and either the chief of the office or one of his native
dragomen deems it imperative upon him to interfere, if not officially,
at any rate officiously, with the pasha or other authority of the
place. {353} As a matter of course the complaint is listened to,
and--justice or not justice--the "protected" of the consul gets what
he calls justice, but which his opponent often deems the very reverse.
For, be it remarked, that, as a general rule in the East, "justice"
means obtaining what you want, not what is yours by law or equity.
Your complaint, and what in Europe we call justice, _may_ be on the
same side. If so, all the better; but if not, you will term your view
of the affair "justice" all the same; and, if you don't get what you
want, you are unjustly treated. This sort of administration is but too
often ruled by the consuls, and the "converts" know full well how to
make use of it. No one who has not lived in the Turkish dominions can
imagine the power which an European consul or vice-consul has in those
countries. Mr. Urquhart has done good service in exposing this evil,
which is, in point of fact, one of the chief reasons why the Ottoman
Empire has been gradually but surely verging toward ruin since the
foreign consular power became virtually far greater than that of the
local authority. Of this interference of one country in the affairs of
another, Mr. Urquhart says, it presents "a terrible prospect for the
human race; for it involves the extinction of each people, and the
absorption ultimately of the whole in some one government more
dexterous than the rest." All the chief governments of Europe have
been more or less guilty of this meddling with the executive of
Turkey, but notably England, France, and Russia, in whose hands every
local pasha is a plaything, to be tossed here and there at will.
England says--or, rather, each English consul says for her--that he
most interfere, else French influence would be too powerful in the
province or district. France returns the compliment, and declares that
England--that is, the English consul--is such a deep diplomat that,
unless she uses her influence, England would be paramount in the
place. Russia, on the other hand, declares that she must maintain her
_prestige_, else the Turks would say of their old enemy that she had
fallen in the scale of nations. This interference in the
administration of the Ottoman empire is thus described by Mr.
Urquhart:

  "In other countries it has been known as diplomatic representations
  made in regard to principles; here (that is, in Turkey) it is
  administrative. It bears upon the taxes, the customs, the limitation
  of districts, the administrative functions, the parish business, the
  selection and displacement of functionaries, the operations of the
  courts of law--whatever is included under the word 'government'
  belongs here to 'interference.' This operation is exercised with
  authority, without control, without responsibility. The discussions
  in reference thereto are carried on between the functionaries of a
  foreign government; and as that foreign government can enter upon
  the field only by an act of usurpation, its position is that of an
  enemy. Every act is directed to subvert and to disturb; the object
  of each individual is of necessity to supersede the legitimate
  authority of the native functionary with whom he is in contact.

  "Thus it is that the administrative interference, which has in Syria
  replaced the diplomatic, is carried on through consuls." (Vol ii.
  pp. 349, 360.)

Hitherto this work of "interference" has been carried on by our
English consuls in Syria in very much the same way as it has by their
Russian and French colleagues, no better, but no worse. At any rate,
in all matters of influencing religious affairs, directly or
indirectly, they have held perfectly aloof. But if we are to judge
from a document lately put forth by the Turkish Missions-Aid Society,
the title of which stands at the end of the list of books and
pamphlets that heads this paper, either an entire change has in this
respect come over our policy, or else several of our Anglo-Syrian
official must be acting in direct disobedience {354} of the wishes of
the Foreign office. We allude to an appeal for the building of "A
SYRIAN PROTESTANT COLLEGE," together with a prospectus of the same,
and a list of the "_Local Board of Managers_," among which, to their
shame be it said, appear the names of Mr. Geo. J. Eldridge, her
majesty's consul-general in Syria; Mr. W. H. Wrench, her majesty's
vice-consul at Beyrout; Mr. Noel Temple Moore, her majesty's consul at
Jerusalem; and Mr. E. T. Rogers, her majesty's consul at Damascus.
That there can be no real desire or want for such an institution in
the country, and that the very appeal for help to found it is about
the most outrageous piece of pious impudence that has ever been
published, even in the name of sectarian so-called religion, will
appear upon a further examination of this document. We will do the
American missionaries the justice of saying that no Englishman would,
or could, ever have had the _toupé_ to ask for money for such a
purpose; the whole document bears the unmistakable impress of "smart"
New-England. As we have shown before, from the "summary" of American
Missions Statement given elsewhere, copied from the report of the
Turkish Missions-Aid Society, the number of Protestant "church
members" on the Syrian field is two hundred; this, too, after nearly
thirty years of missionary "labor" in the country. And now these same
missionaries come forward and modestly tell us that "more than £20,000
have already been secured and invested in the United States" for the
building of this proposed "institution," and that "it is proposed to
raise an equal amount in England, the income annually going to the
support of the College." The president of the proposed college, and
_ex-officio_ president of the board of managers, is an American
missionary, the Reverend Dr. Bliss, and among the members of the board
are the names of some thirteen or fourteen other missionaries of all
sorts. The trustees, who "are to have the general supervision of the
institution," reside in New York, where we should imagine they will be
able, from their proximity to the college in Syria, to supervise the
whole affairs exceedingly well. With these, or with such persons as
have parted with their money for such a pious folly, we have nothing
to do. But as regards the English officials, it is another matter and
Protestants, as well as Catholics must agree that men holding the
positions they do in a country where religious discord is the bane and
curse of the land, have no business to mix themselves up with an
undertaking which is purely and wholly got up for the purpose of
proselytism. Had the subscription been to build a Protestant chapel or
church, or to endow any such establishment for the use of the English
residents in Syria, it would have been a very different matter. To
lend their names to any such undertaking these gentlemen would you a
perfect right; but to give their official sanction to a scheme which
is but a renewed campaign on the religion of the country, and as
English government officers to say that they--and consequently the
government they represent--approved as consul-general and consuls of a
wholesale sectarian converting shop, is nothing less than a
prostitution of the name of this country in Syria. The "dodge" is a
good one; the American missionaries, notwithstanding their "tall"
pious talk in missionary newspapers, have actually done nothing toward
perverting the native Christians of Syria. Two hundred "church
members" in nearly thirty years is at the rate of seven converts a
year less than the third of a convert every twelve months for each the
twenty-four missionaries. This pay. Even American subscribing
"Christians" will, after a time, cease to contribute for what brings
forth so little fruit. Something must be done; and therefore they have
started the idea of this "Syrian Protestant college," having got the
promises of these {355} consular gentlemen to countenance it as they
have done.

Did these proselytizing consuls, before they allowed their names to be
made use of in this prospectus, read the third paragraph of the
document, in which we are coolly told that "THE ENEMIES OF
CHRISTIANITY, PROFESSED INFIDELS AS WELL AS PAPISTS, FULLY ALIVE TO
THE ADVANTAGES TO BE GAINED FROM THE PRESENT STATE OF THE COUNTRY, ARE
ADOPTING BOLD AND ENERGETIC MEASURES TO FORESTALL PROTESTANTISM IN
BECOMING THE EDUCATORS OF THIS VAST POPULATION"?

Or, if they _did_ read it, did it not strike them that there was an
insolence, as well as an amount of sickening cant and implied
falsehood, throughout these words which ought to have prevented them,
as _English gentlemen,_ to say nothing of their official character,
from countenancing such a concern? Have English consuls in Eastern
lands so far lost whatever teaching they may have had as to forget
that, taking all her majesty's subjects throughout the world, the
"Papists" are very nearly as numerous as the Protestants; and that to
class them "infidels," and call them "the enemies of Christianity," is
an insult--to say nothing of the loud vulgarity and the utter untruth
of the assertion, which there can be no excuse for any English
gentleman, far less any English official, to lend his name to? In
this, every person with the slightest pretension to the name of
gentleman or an educated man, no matter what may be his religious
persuasion, must agree with us. And to talk of "Syrian Protestantism,"
with its two hundred "church members" amidst a population of half a
million native Christians, and three times that number of Moslems,
being "forestalled" in "becoming the educators of this vast
population," is much as if the Mormons in London were to complain that
the English Church was "forestalling" them in being the educators of
the capital of England. The Latter-day Saints of the metropolis bear a
much larger and not at all less respectable proportion to the rest of
the population of London, than the Protestant "converts" of Syria do
to the rest of their fellow-countrymen.

Three excuses may be put forth in defence of these consular gentlemen
who have thus disgraced the country they serve. It may be
asserted--1st, That if French, Russian, and Austrian consuls give
official protection to Catholic and Greek religious establishments, it
is quite lawful for English authorities to do the same to Protestant
undertakings. 2dly, That "the Syrian Protestant college" is to be got
up for literature, the sciences, jurisprudence, and medicine, and not
for religious purposes. And, 3dly, That they have allowed their names
to be made use of without reading over the prospectus. Of these the
third and last excuse is the only one that will hold water for an
instant; and for their sakes we hope it may be true, poor and lame as
such a plea would be for official men. As regards the first of these
pleas, which we have put into the mouths of the defendants, it is
quite true that the French, Russian, and Austrian consuls have and do
afford official protection to Catholic and Greek religious
establishments, but the cases are by no means parallel.

To quote again the words of Mr. Urquhart:--"The Roman Catholic regular
and secular clergy are established here (in Syria) as in any other
Roman Catholic countries;  [Footnote 112] that is to say, they are
pastors of flocks, and not missionaries. The Protestants have no
flocks, and they are sent with a view of creating them."

  [Footnote 112: The same may be said of the Greek clergy, who have
  many and very large congregations--in the country--in some parts
  much more numerous than the Maronites or other Catholic churches.]

We wonder what this writer would have said could he have seen a
"Syrian Protestant college" proposed as a means toward this
much-desired end, or could he have foreseen that four {356} English
consuls could ever have went their names--officially, too--to such a
combination of Little Bethel and "smart" American doings. Nor will it
suffice to say that this institution is not being got on foot for the
express purpose of proselytism, more or less direct. In paragraph
number eight we are told that--

  "The college will be conducted on strictly protestant and
  evangelical principles."

What _that_ means, we all know; also--

  "It will be open for students from any of the Oriental sects or
  nationalities who will conform to its laws and regulations."

That is to say, any student belonging to the Latin,  [Footnote 113]
Maronite, Greek Schismatical, Greek Catholic, Armenian Catholic,
Armenian Schismatical, or other Eastern church, will be admitted to
this college, provided he attends "Protestant" and "evangelical"
preachings and prayers, and is humble-minded enough to hear the faith
of his fathers denounced every day as one line of "the enemies
Christianity," and "Papists" lovingly asked with "professed infidels."
And in the very next sentence we are further informed that--

    [Footnote 113: In the East, European Catholics, and all others who
    use the European or Roman Ritual, are called "Latins;" while the other
    Oriental churches in communion with the See of Peter are
    distinguished by their respective names--Maronites, Greek
    Catholics, Armenian Catholics, Syrian Catholics, Chaldeans, and
    others. The whole are termed "Catholics," and there is nothing of
    which they are so proud as their intercourse with Rome and the
    centre of unity. Of the various schismatical and heretical sects,
    there is not one that assumes the name of "Catholic" except
    certain of the "advanced" school English Established Church.]

  "It is hoped that a strong Christian influence will always centre in
  and go forth from this institution; and that it will be instrumental
  in raising up a body of men who will fill the ranks of a
  well-trained and vigorous 'native ministry;' become the authors of a
  native Christian literature; supply the educational wants of the
  land; encourage its industrial interests; develop its resources;
  occupy stations of authority, and in a large degree aid in carrying
  the Gospel and its attendant blessings wherever the Arabic language
  is spoken."

With the help of one English consul-general, two English consuls, and
one English vice-consul, this may be in a certain measure be done:
yes, and _will_ be done; for consular influence in those lands is all
powerful. But without it, no: without this English state-help the
"Syrian Protestant college" will wither, and only bear fruit in such
proportion as have done the "Protectant churches" in Syria, with their
twenty-four missionaries, their thirty-seven native assistants, and
their two hundred communicants, after nearly thirty years labor in the
Syrian "field."

After the extracts we have given from the prospectus, can there be any
doubt as to the proselytizing intentions of this
American-Syrian-Protestant-evangelical institution? or can there be
two opinions as to the propriety of English gentlemen and English
officials degrading themselves and their office by becoming connected
with such an undertaking? We observe, by the way, as a curious
coincidence in the prospectus, that the name of the New-York Treasurer
to the board of trustees of this proposed college is William E. Dodge;
and that the Rev. D. Stuart Dodge, of New York, has been appointed one
of the professors. Would it not have been better and more appropriate
if her majesty's consuls at Beyrout, Damascus, and Jerusalem had left
all this evangelical speculation to men of like name and calling? It
is true that when the prospectus was drawn out, and these English
officials allowed their name to be made use of, Lord Palmerston was
prime minister, and Lord Russell ruled over the foreign office. That
the Shaftesbury power with the first, and the well-known tendencies of
the author of the Durham letter, may have had some influence with
these individuals in their official character is possible, nay,
probable; but should gentlemen, English gentlemen, ever have allowed
their names to go forth as patrons and directors of this unholy
humbug? A private individual may lend his influence to whatever scheme
he likes to patronize; but a public servant and above all an English
public servant in Turkey--has no right whatever to be so liberal with
his patronage.

{357}

One word more ere we have done with the "Syrian Protestant college."

At the head of the list of subscribers to this proposed institution is
£1,000 from "The late Syrian asylums' committee." If we are rightly
informed, that money was subscribed from the residue of a fund which
was instituted in 1860 to afford assistance to the sufferers from the
Syrian massacres. To this fund Catholics, Protestants, Greeks, and
Jews subscribed, with the express stipulation and understanding that
no part or portion of it was to be used for any religious purpose
whatever. The fact was, that the chief managers of the fund in Syria
were American missionaries, and subscribers to it were afraid that the
money would be used for proselytizing purposes. After a time the great
misery of the Syrian Christians came to an end, and no further relief
was required: but there still remained an unused balance of about
£1,200 of this fund in the banker's hands. If what is reported in
London be correct--and we have very good reason for believing it to be
so--who was it that gave authority for this £1,000 to be given as a
donation to the Syrian Protestant college? To question regards not
only the Catholics, Greeks, and Jews of London, Manchester, Liverpool,
and other towns in England that subscribed to this fund, but also
those belonging to a large--and we are thankful to say a very
large--class of our Protestant fellow-countrymen, who, however much
they may differ from us in matters of faith, are enemies to religion
being made a cloak for fraud, and are honest and honorable in their
dealings between man and man. If this £1,000 which heads the list of
subscriptions in the Syrian Protestant college was really given from
the money which in 1860-61 was gathered together as "the Syrian relief
fund," a gross and most infamous breach of trust has been committed,
and all men should beware how they in future contribute to anything in
which the American Oriental missionaries have any influence.

But where have the projectors of this college learned geography? They
tell us that the establishment will be "LOCATED IN BEYROUT, the
seaport of Syria, a city rapidly growing in size and importance, and
OCCUPYING A CENTRAL POSITION IN RESPECT TO ALL THE ARABIC-SPEAKING
RACES."

The capitals are our own, for we would note these words as bringing a
new light in geographical discovery. That Beyrout is by far the most
pleasant, nay the only pleasant, town in Syria to reside in--that
there is more society, and particularly what the promoters of this
undertaking would call more "Christian" society, we fully admit. That,
on account of its proximity to the sea, it is far more healthy than
most towns in Syria, and that from the number of its European and
native Christian inhabitants it is far safer to reside in, and much
more exempt from the chance of any Moslem outbreak taking place,
cannot be denied. But that it occupies "a central position in respect
to all the Arabic-speaking races," is simply, and very grossly untrue,
as a glance at any school-boy's atlas would show. It would be about as
correct to assert that Plymouth or Falmouth held "a central position
in respect to" the rest of England. If the promoters of "The Syrian
Protestant college" are so very anxious to diffuse the great blessings
of their faith and literature "wherever the Arabic language is
spoken," would not Damascus, Mosul, Aleppo, Antioch, or even Bagdad,
be more central than Beyrout? To reside in any of these places would
not be so pleasant, but it would be more missionary-like, and would
certainly save the money of the subscribers, Beyrout being by far the
most expensive town in all Syria to live in.

But men of American sectarian preacher stamp never knew and never will
know what a missionary spirit is. It is foreign to their habits as
well as to their creed. When we hear of {358} American Protestant
missionaries going forth with barely a change of clothes; when we
learn that they abandon father, mother, family, house and home to
preach the Gospel; when we read of half a score of them undergoing
martyrdom, as did two Catholic bishops and eight priests in Corea, an
account of which was published in the Times of the 27th August
last--when, in fine, we hear of their taking lessons in their work
from the Jesuits, the Lazarists, the Capuchins, the Dominicans, or any
other of those religious orders which have shed such lustre upon the
church in all ages--it may then become a matter of discussion whether,
notwithstanding their gross errors in faith, they have not something
of the missionary spirit among them. At present we can only look upon
them as do all the Moslems, the native Christians, the Jews, and
nineteen-twentieths of the European population in the East, namely,
that they drive a very flourishing trade, and enjoy very comfortable
incomes: but that the work they are paid for doing has neither the
self-denial of man nor the blessing of God to make it prosper.
Protestant missions throughout the world have ever been, are, and ever
will be, most miserable failures. Dr. Littledale was, at any rate,
candid when he spoke of "the pitiful history of Anglican missions to
the heathen;" but he might with equal truth make mention of the
wretched results of Protestant missions throughout the world. That
unison of mawkish sentiment and Biblical phrases selected at random,
which commonly goes by the name of "cant," may certainly influence
weak-minded persons to subscribe to visionary schemes of a Protestant
conversion of Oriental Christians. But exposure must come sooner or
later, and with it the beginning of the end of subscriptions. Some
years ago the American missionaries gave up the "field" they occupied
at Jerusalem; would it not be as well if they conferred a similar boon
on the Syrian and Lebanon districts? The churches against which they
are chiefly engaged in preaching have their own bishops, their own
clergy, and their own missionary preachers from Europe. These latter
are not engaged in perverting men from another quarter, but--at the
request, and with the full concurrence of the native bishops and
clergy--they build up and repair the breaches in the sheep-fold, and
help in driving away the wolves that would enter. There may be--there
are--sheep that go astray from time to time, but considering all
things--and particularly now that the sectarian influence of English
consuls in Syria has been brought to bear on the "work"--these are few
indeed. The Maronites and other sects in communion with St. Peter's
successor, form part and parcel of God's one only true and holy
Catholic Church, against which, we have His word, the gates of hell
shall never prevail.  [Footnote 114]

  [Footnote 114: The fact of four English consuls allowing their names
  to go forth as patrons of a Protestant College, which is to be got
  up for the perversion of native Christians, is so utterly at
  variance with the general practice of our government, that we must
  express our surprise it has been overlooked at the Foreign Office.
  We cannot imagine Lord Stanley lending even a tacit sanction to such
  an outrage of the feelings of the native Syrian Christians.]

In his work upon "Mount Lebanon," from which we have already quoted,
Mr. Urquhart relates a conversation which he had with a certain
Maronite bishop, which seems so _apropos_ that we give it entire:--

  "I wish you to know [said the bishop] that we are not attached to
  France. France is to us on oppression from which we would be most
  happy to escape; we have proved this by acts, but no account is
  taken of them. How France came to be considered our protector is an
  old story, into which it is needless to enter. The connection
  awakened against us the hatred of the Turks and of the Greeks, and
  to it may be attributed the past suffering of our people from both.
  Here and in the other parts of Syria, in Egypt and in Cyprus, from
  the middle of the last century to the close of the campaign of
  Napoleon, we reckon that the blood of 40,000 Maronites has been shed
  by the Turks or the Greeks. This is the debt we owe to French
  protection. When, in 1840, the French government sent to us to
  require us to support Ibrahim Pasha and Emir Beshir, we gave a flat
  refusal. {359} M. ---- came to Saida, and sent a message to the
  Patriarch (of the house of Habesh), who sent his own secretary to
  give him the answer, which had been decided on by the bishops and
  chiefs, which was, 'The Maronites have heard much of, but have never
  seen, the fruit of the protection of France, and could not, in the
  hope of it, expose themselves to the risks they were now required to
  run.' Then the English government sent to us an agent (Mr. Wood),
  accompanied by M. Stendel, on the part of the Austrian government,
  proposing to us to accept the protection of Austria in lieu of that
  of France. We declined to make any application for such protection;
  _and we complained to Mr. Wood of the interference in our religion
  of the Protestant missionaries which made us look with suspicion on
  the intentions toward us of the English government. He assured us
  that the English government was opposed to all missionary schemes,
  and suggested that we should draw up a petition to the Turkish
  government, requesting the missionaries to be prohibited from
  entering the country, promising that the English ambassador would
  obtain from the Porte an order to that effect. Satisfied with these
  assurances, we aided in the expulsion of Mehemet Ali, although he
  had every way favored the Maronites._

  _"The promised order respecting the missionaries never came, England
  set up a Protestant bishop (in Jerusalem), and obtained from the Porte
  the formal recognition of the Protestants as a body."_(Vol. ii pp.
  261, 262.)

The italics in this quotation are our own. They show pretty plainly
whether or not the missionaries are welcome to the natives of Syria.
But what will these same natives say now, when they see our
consuls-general and consuls coming forth as the official patrons and
promoters of Protestant missionary proselytism? If it be true--and we
have certainly always looked upon it as one of the rules of our
government--that the English government "_is opposed to all missionary
schemes,_" how is it that the consul-general in Syria, the consul at
Jerusalem, and the consul at Damascus, are allowed to take upon
themselves the office of "managers" or "local directors" of the
Protestant Syrian college?

--------

ORIGINAL.


DELIA.



  There is a darkness which is still not gloom,
  And thou, poor child, whose young but sightless eyes
  Catch no glad radiance from the summer skies--
  Worse, still, neglected in thy blindness, whom
  Those nurtured like thee in the self-same womb
  Have cast on strangers, strangers truly wise,
  Since more than waif of gold such charge they prize--
  Hast found a joy what others find a doom.
  Thou knowest the way unto the chapel door,
  And, kneeling softly on its blessed floor.
  Thou art no longer blind; the _Presence_ there
  Reveals itself to thy adoring prayer;
  Hours fly with thee that altar's Guest before,
  Till, cowards, we envy what we would not share.

------

{360}

Original.

MADEMOISELLE DE MONTPENSIER.


How shall we tell in a few words the story of one whose career
extended over sixty-six years? Our heroine's name calls up a picture
of the most brilliant period in French history. A thousand images
arise of pageantry, of genuine magnificence, of jewelled and gilded
wretchedness. Life seemed like a great magic lantern exhibited for her
private amusement; scene after scene passed before her eyes with a
pomp unknown in these days of tinsel splendor; but most welcome of
all, ever returning, never palling, was the slide that presented to
her view La Grande Mademoiselle, the contemplated bride of half the
sovereigns in Europe.

Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans was born in the palace of the Louvre, May
29th, 1627. Fairies met her on the threshold of the world and endowed
her with all earthly goods--boundless wealth, a cheerful temper, keen
wit, excellent health, and a fair share of beauty. Was it a kindly or
a spiteful fairy who crowned these gifts with a vanity that nothing
could undermine or overthrow? This self-love afforded the only
unfailing enjoyment of her long life; but as it made her throw aside
as unworthy of her every scheme of happiness suited to her rank, and
carve out a destiny for herself in defiance of all authority, the
fairies must decide the question, not we.

"The misfortunes of my house," she says, "began soon after my birth,
for it was followed by the death of my mother, which greatly
diminished the good fortune that the rank I hold would have led me to
expect. The great wealth which my mother left, and of which I am sole
heiress, might well, in the opinion of most people have consoled me
for losing her. But to me, who feel now of what advantage her
superintendence of my education would have been to me, and her credit
in my establishment, added to her tenderness, it seems impossible
sufficiently to regret her death."

This passage from her "Mémoires" exhibits several of Mademoiselle's
peculiarities: a certain blunt, abrupt mode of expressing her exact
meaning, an egotism that makes her lose or gain a test of the
importance of events, and a right-minded honesty which saved her from
the worst errors of her time.

No unmarried daughter of France had ever enjoyed so magnificent an
establishment as was now accorded to the heiress of the house of
Montpensier. The Tuileries, where she lodged, being connected by a
gallery with the Louvre, the little motherless child was under the
supervision of Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria, as well as of Marie de
Medicis, who expended more tenderness upon this grand-daughter than
she had ever on her own children. Mademoiselle regarded her royal
grandmother with great partiality. She used to say when the Duchess of
Guise was quoted: "She is only a distant grandmother, she is not
queen."

Marie de Medicis left France in disgrace in 1633, followed by
Monsieur, whose career was a series of petty intrigues, from which he
invariably emerged unscathed, leaving his accomplices to bear the
consequences of their folly. Very different was the spirit of his
daughter. At six years old she was taken to see the degradation of Duc
d'Elbôeuf and Marquis de {361} la Vienville from the order. On being
told that their disgrace was owing to devotion to her father, she wept
bitterly, and wished to retire, saying that she could not with
propriety witness the ceremony. Ten years later Monsieur supped with
her, enlivened by the music of the twenty-four royal violins. She
writes: "He was as gay as if MM. de Cinq Mars and de Thou had not been
left behind on the road. I confess I could not look at him without
thinking of them, and amid my own joy the sight of his contentment
pained me." Is not a certain reverence due to this generous daughter
of a mean-spirited intriguer, and to one who, with untrammelled
liberty, remained virtuous in the court of Louis XIV.? That her
unspotted character was not the result of coldness, is proved by her
foolish devotion to Lauzun. If pride was her safeguard, at least some
human praise should be given to so high an estimate of royal
greatness.

The king and queen were untiring in tender attentions to Mademoiselle.
She writes: "I was so accustomed to their caresses, that I called the
king _petit papa_, and the queen _petit mama_, really believing her to
be so, because I had never seen my own mother." After enumerating the
various little girls of quality who came to play with her, she adds:
"I was never so occupied with any game as to be inattentive if a
reconciliation with Monsieur was mentioned. Cardinal Richelieu, who
was prime minister and master of affairs, was determined to control
this matter; and with proposals so degrading to Monsieur that I could
not listen to them without despair. He said that to make Monsieur's
peace with the king, his engagement to Princess Marguerite de Lorraine
must be broken, that he might marry Mademoiselle de Combalet, the
cardinal's niece, now Madame d'Aiguillon. I could not help crying when
it was mentioned to me, and in my anger sang, in revenge, all the
songs I knew against the cardinal and his niece. It even redoubled my
friendship for Princess Marguerite, and made me talk of her
incessantly."

Gaston d'Orleans returned to France October 8th, 1634, and his
daughter went to Limours to receive him. Wishing to test her filial
memory, for he had left her at the age of four or five years, he
appeared before her without the _cordon bleu_ which distinguished him
from the members of his suite. "Which of these gentlemen is Monsieur?"
she was asked, and without hesitation sprung to her father's arms; a
proof of fidelity which touched him deeply, that being of all
qualities the one most likely to excite his surprise. Nothing was
spared for her amusement, even to the gratification of her desire to
dance in a _ballet_. A band of little girls of high rank was composed,
with a selection of lords of corresponding stature. The magnificent
dresses and appointments satisfied even Mademoiselle's ambition. In
one figure birds were introduced in cages, and set free in the dancing
room. One unlucky songster became entangled in the dress trimmings of
Mademoiselle de Brézé, Cardinal Richelieu's niece, who began to cry
and scream so vehemently as to introduce a new element of amusement
among the assembly. The accident recalls a similar one which occurred
at the time of this lady's marriage with the Duc d'Enghien, afterward
the great Condé. There was a ball afterward, where Mademoiselle de
Brézé, who was very small, fell down while dancing a _courante_,
because, in order to make her look tall, they had put such high-heeled
shoes upon her feet that she could not walk. Clearly her sphere of
success was not destined to be the ball-room. Poor little soul! she
played doll for more than two years after her marriage, and was sent
to a Carmelite convent to learn to read and write during her husband's
absence in Roussillon with the king.

Mademoiselle gives a graphic account of a journey which she took in
1637. The events recalled, with the {362} emotions they excited in her
at the time, show an acuteness of perception far beyond that of most
children of ten years old. Her sentiments are too virtuous not to
demand a brief notice. "Arrived at Champigny, I went first to the Holy
Chapel, as a place to which the memory of my predecessors, who had
built and founded it, seemed to summon me, that I might pray to God
for the repose of their souls." A little later we hear of her at the
Convent of Fontevrault. The abbess was a natural daughter of Henri
IV., and the nuns lavished every attention upon their guest,
delighting to honor her with the title of "Madame's niece." Their
devotion bored our princess greatly, and would have made her ill but
for a grain of amusement to be derived from the simplicity of the poor
ladies. But fortune, Mademoiselle's unfailing friend, soon relieved
her from this monotony. Two ladies-in-waiting, Beaumont and
Saint-Louis, instead of going into the church, explored the convent
court-yards. Terrible cries attracted their notice, and were found to
proceed from a poor maniac, confined in a dungeon, according to the
ill-judged practice of those days. After amusing themselves with her
extravagances, they went to find their little mistress, that she might
share the enjoyment. "I broke off a conversation with the abbess and
betook myself in all haste to the dungeon, which I did not leave until
supper-time. The table was wretched, and for fear of suffering the
same treatment the next day, I begged my aunt to let my officers
prepare my meals elsewhere. She made use of them after that day, so
that we fared better during the rest of our visit. Madame de
Fontevrault treated me the next day to a second maniac. As there was
not a third, ennui seized upon me, and I went away in spite of my
aunt's entreaties." And this was the child who, at five years old,
wept over the degradation of two of her father's followers. Through
life, her best impulses seem to have had root rather in a sense of her
own dignity than in compassion for others.

More easily understood is her enjoyment of the royal hunts, during the
days of Louis XIII.'s attachment to the virtuous Madame de Hautefort.
"We were all dressed in colors, mounted upon hackneys richly
comparisoned, and each lady protected from the sun's rays by a hat
covered with plumes. The chase led past several handsome houses, where
grand collations were prepared for us, and on our return the king sat
in my coach between Madame de Hautefort and me. When in a good humor,
he entertained us very pleasantly with many topics. At such times he
allowed us to speak freely of Cardinal Richelieu, and proved himself
not displeased by joining in the conversation."

His eminence was destined to fall more deeply than ever into disgrace
with Mademoiselle in 1638. The dauphin was born at the château of
Saint-Germain-en-Laye, September 5th of that year; and his cousin,
who, like any other little girl, enjoyed being in the royal nursery,
used to call him "her little husband." This amused the king
exceedingly, but Cardinal Richelieu viewed the matter more seriously.
Mademoiselle was sent home to Paris. On the way, she was taken to Ruel
to see the minister, and there received a grave reprimand for the
indiscretion of her language. "He said I was too old to use such
terms; that it was unbecoming in me to speak thus. He said so
seriously to me things that might have been addressed to  a reasonable
person, that, without answering a word, I began to cry; to comfort me,
he gave me a collation. None the less did I go away very angry at his
words."

If this rebuke had made a deeper impression upon Louise de Bourbon,
her biographer's task would be a more grateful one. The naïveté with
which she reveals all her matrimonial castles in the air would be
incomprehensible if these schemes had not been purely ambitious; as
free {363} from sentiment as a military stratagem or a commercial
speculation.

At fifteen Mademoiselle met with a great loss in the death of her
excellent _gouvernante_, the Marchioness of Saint-Georges. She speaks
of this trial with more tenderness and less egotism than one might
have anticipated. "I learned, on awaking in the morning, how ill she
was, and rose in haste that I might go to her and show by various
attentions my gratitude for her noble performance of her duties toward
me ever since I came into the world. I arrived while they were
applying every possible remedy to revive her, in which they succeeded
after repeated efforts. The viaticum and extreme unction were brought,
and she received them with every evidence of a truly Christian soul.
She responded with admirable devotion to each prayer: no subject of
surprise to those who knew bow piously she had lived. This over, she
called her children to her, that she might bless them, and asked
permission to give me, also, her benediction, saying that the honor
she had enjoyed of being with me from my birth made her venture to
take the liberty. I felt a tenderness for her corresponding to all
that she had shown toward me in the care of my education. I knelt
beside her bed, with eyes bathed in tears; I received her sad farewell
and kissed her. I was so touched by the thought of losing her, and by
the infinite number of good things she had said to me, that I did not
wish to leave the room until her death. She begged that I might be
taken away, and her children too; she was too much agitated by our
cries and tears, _and testified that I alone was the subject of any
regrets the was capable of feeling_. I had hardly returned to my own
room when the agony began, and she died in fifteen minutes."

Mademoiselle retired to the Carmelite convent of Saint Denis, until
Monsieur should select another governess. She requested that the place
might be given either to Mademoiselle de Fieique or Mademoiselle de
Tillières (both "persons of quality, merit, and virtue, and relations
of her own"), hoping earnestly that the choice might fall upon
Mademoiselle de Tillières. Her wishes were thwarted, and the Countess
de Fiesque entered upon the task with Spartan firmness. An illness of
six months' duration vanished miraculously when the news of her
appointment was announced, we are told with sarcastic emphasis.

Whether governess or pupil suffered most in this connection, it would
be hard to say. Mademoiselle de Fiesque had an aggravating system of
petty supervision, and Mademoiselle a fixed determination to elude it.
On one occasion when our princess had been shut up in her room by the
tyrant's orders, she managed to escape, stole the key of Mademoiselle
de Fiesque's private apartment, and locked her in. "She was hours in
uneasiness before a locksmith could be found; and her discomfort was
all the greater because I had shut up her grandson in another room,
and he screamed as if I had maltreated him."

But we should soon tire of these reminiscences, did they not bring
upon the stage personages more important than Mademoiselle
herself--hard as it would have been for her to think so.

In 1643 we find the _dramatis personae_ much changed and extended.
Louis XIII. has passed away, making so good an end, that we wonder at
the grace of God to see how noble a death may close an insignificant
career. Richelieu has been succeeded in Mademoiselle's ill graces by
Cardinal Mazarin. Louis XIV. is a precocious, ignorant child of nine
years old. The cabal of the _Importantes_ has arisen and declined, and
two seditions in Paris, founded upon slight provocation, have proved
the populace ripe for the Fronde. Henrietta Maria and her children are
refugees at the French court, and Mademoiselle, with her enormous
possessions, is considered an eligible match for the Prince of Wales.
As Charles Stuart in the character of an unsuccessful suitor is a
novel topic, no {364} apology is needed for introducing at some length
the history of his courtship.

The court was at Fontainebleau when his royal highness arrived in
France; and their majesties went to meet him in the forest. His mother
presented him first to the king and then to the queen, who kissed him,
after which he bowed to the Princess of Condé, and to his cousin. "He
was only sixteen or seventeen years old; quite tall for his age, with
a fine head, black hair, brown complexion, and quite a good figure."
One unpardonable sin he had in Mademoiselle's eyes; that, not speaking
French in the least, he could not shine in society. Clever talk she
enjoyed keenly even in childhood, Monsieur's brilliant conversation
had fascinated her.

The Prince of Wales worked diligently to produce an impression upon
his cousin's flinty heart, which (shall we confess it?) was wasting
itself away in an unrequited attachment for the imperial throne. Many
a suitable match did Mademoiselle reject, because the untimely death
of two empresses kept her in a fever of hope and expectation. In vain
was it represented that the emperor was old enough to be her father;
that she would be happier in England or Savoy. She replied
disinterestedly that "she wished the emperor, . . . that he was not a
young and gallant man; which proved that in good truth she thought
more of the establishment than of the person." In vain did Charles
Stuart follow her about bareheaded, ministering mutely to her love of
importance. In vain did he hold the flambeau this side and that, while
the Queen of England dressed her for Mademoiselle de Choisy's ball.
His _petite oré_, as they called the dainty appointments of a
gentleman's dress in those days, were red, black, and white, because
Mademoiselle's plume and the ribbons fastening her jewels were red,
black, and white. He made himself torchbearer again while she arranged
her dress before entering the ball-room; followed her every step,
lingered about her hotel until the door closed behind her: all in
vain, because at nineteen our heroine had the discretion to prefer a
middle-aged emperor, firmly seated on his throne, to an exiled prince
of seventeen.

His gallantry was so openly exhibited as to excite much remark. It
lasted all winter, appearing in full force at a celebrated
entertainment given at the Palais Royal toward the close of the
season. Anne of Austria herself arrayed her niece upon this location,
and three whole days were devoted to preparing her costume. The dress
was covered with diamonds, and red, black, and white tufts; and she
wore all the crown jewels of France, with the few that still belonged
to the Queen of England. "Nothing could have been more magnificent
than my dress that day," she assures us; "and there were not wanting
those who asserted that my fine presence, fair complexion, and
dazzling blonde hair adorned me more than all the jewels that
glittered on my person."' Mademoiselle does not exaggerate her charms.
Though not strictly handsome, her noble bearing and charming coloring
produced all the effect of beauty.

The dancing took place in a large theatre, illuminated with flambeaux,
and at one end stood a thrown upon a daïs, which was the scene of
Mademoiselle's triumphs. "The king and the Prince of Wales did care to
occupy the throne; I remained there alone; and saw at my feet these
two princes and all the princesses of the court circle. I was not in
the least ill at ease in this position, and those who had flattered me
on entering the ballroom found matter the next day for fresh
adulation. Every one I had never appeared less constrained than when
seated on that throne;" and the imperial hopes being at their height,
she adds: "While I stood there with the prince at my feet, my heart as
well as my eyes regarded him _du haut en bas_. . . The thought of the
empire occupied my mind so exclusively, that {365} I looked upon the
Prince of Wales only as an object of pity."

The conclusion of this romance belongs really to the interval between
the first and second Fronde, but we insert it here for the sake of
convenience, pleading guilty of the anachronism. In 1649 we find
Mademoiselle again persecuted to marry her cousin, then Charles II.
"L'Abbé de la Rivière said that I was right, but that it must be
remembered that there was no other match for me in Europe; that the
emperor and King of Spain were married; the King of Hungary was
betrothed to the Infanta of Spain; the archduke would never be
sovereign of the Low Countries; that I would not hear of any German or
Italian sovereign; that In France the king and Monsieur (d'Anjou) were
too young to marry; and that M. la Prince (Condé) had been married ten
years and _his wife was in good health_."

A courier was sent to their majesties to announce the King of
England's arrival at Péronne, and the count went forward to meet him
at Compiègne. Mademoiselle had her hair curled for the occasion, and
was bantered by the regent gently upon the pains she had taken to
please her suitor. "Those who have had admirers themselves understand
such things," replied her royal highness tartly, referring to the
foibles of her majesty's youth.

The royal personages met within a league of Compiègne and alighted
from the carriages. Charles saluted their majesties, and then
Mademoiselle. "I thought him much improved in appearance since he left
France. If his wit had seemed to correspond to his person, he might
perhaps have pleased me; but when the king questioned him in the
carriage concerning the dogs and horses of the Prince of Orange and
the hunting in that country he replied in French. The queen spoke to
him of his own affairs, and he made no reply; and being questioned
several times about grave matters which greatly concerned himself, he
declined answering on the plea of not being able to speak our
language.

  "I confess that from that moment I resolved not to consent to this
  marriage, having conceived a very poor opinion of a king who at his
  age could be so ignorant of his affairs. Not that I could not
  recognize my own blood by the sign, for the Bourbons are beings
  greatly devoted to trifles and not much to solid matters; perhaps
  myself as well as the rest, being Bourbon on both sides of the
  house. Soon after we arrived, dinner was served. He eat no ortolans,
  and threw himself upon a huge piece of beef and a shoulder of
  mutton, as if there had been nothing else on the table. His taste
  did not seem to me very delicate, and I felt ashamed that he should
  show so much less in this, than he had displayed in thinking of me.
  After dinner the queen aroused herself and left me with him: he sat
  there a quarter of an hour without uttering a syllable: I should
  like to believe that his silence proceeded from respect rather than
  from absence of passion. I confess frankly that in this interview I
  wished he would show less (respect). Feeling rather bored, I called
  M. de Comminges to be third party and make him speak; in which he
  fortunately succeeded. M. de la Rivière said to me: 'He looked at
  you all dinner time, and is still looking at you incessantly.' I
  answered, 'He will look a long time without attracting me if he does
  not speak.' He replied, 'Ah! you are concealing the charming things
  he has said to you.' 'Not at all,' said I. 'Come near me when he is
  devoting himself, and you will see how he sets about it.' The queen
  arose; I approached him, and, to make him speak, I asked after
  several persons of his suite whom I had seen; all which he answered,
  but _point de douceurs_. The time came for him to go; we all went in
  a carriage to escort him to the middle of the forest, where we
  alighted, as we had done on his arrival. He took leave of the king
  and came to me {366} with Germin (Lord Jermyn), saying: 'I believe
  that M. Germin, who speaks better than I do, has explained to you my
  wishes and intentions; I am your very obedient servant.' I replied
  that I was his very obedient servant, Germin made me a great many
  compliments, and then the king bowed and left me."

After the battle of Worcester, Charles II. reappeared in Paris and
made a third trial for his cousin's hand. "I thought him very well
made and decidedly more pleasing than before his departure, though his
hair was short and his beard long, two things that change people very
much. He spoke French very well." All went smoothly for some time:
Mademoiselle received from her royal suitor all the douceurs for which
she had formerly listened in vain; and frequent assemblies at her
rooms made them very intimate. But her will was too vacillating to
allow of her coming to any definite decision, and Charles was at
length wearied into giving marked evidence of his displeasure. "The
first time I saw the queen after my interview with Germin, she
showered reproaches upon me. When her son entered (he had always been
accustomed to take a seat in my presence), they brought forward a
great chair in which he seated himself. I suppose he thought to make
me very angry, but I did not care in the least." Indeed, it would have
been an ingenious tormentor who had found a vulnerable spot in
Mademoiselles vanity.

As Queen of England, Louise de Bourbon would have found room for the
legitimate exercise of her best faculties. As an unmarried princess of
immense wealth, she became the tool of men who did not scruple to use
her courage, magnanimity, and energy for their own ends, and requite
her generosity with neglect. Let us follow her adventures in the days
of the second Fronde, and see to what exertions a love of bustle and
notoriety could urge a princess accustomed to seek her own ease in all
things.

The first Fronde took place in 1648, and was directed by the coadjutor
archbishop of Paris, Monsieur M. de Retz, who acted under the
influence of two motives: a desire to supplant Mazarin, and rule
France himself; and an enthusiasm for constitutional liberty. Our
space being limited, we will not pause to reconcile these two
aspirations. The court left Paris by night for St. Germain.
Mademoiselle accompanied the queen, and made herself useful as a
medium of communication with the populace of Paris, who loved her for
being a native of their city. She describe the royal destitution with
graphic frivolity, and is exceedingly merry over this siege, in which
the besiegers starved for want of the luxuries they had left behind
them in the beleaguered city.

In the second Fronde, which broke out about two years later
(1650-1652), the position of affairs is altered. M. de Retz appears in
the character of mediator, and Mademoiselle casts her lot with the
rebels.  The princes of the house of Condé seize the opportunity to
avenge insults offered to them by Mazarin, and Gaston d'Orleans joins
the Frondeurs--perhaps in order to avoid the trouble of leaving Paris.

Skilful writers have left accounts so voluminous of those troubled
times, that they rise before us rather in a series of living pictures
than as historical records. That midnight conference in the oratory,
between fair, queenly Anne of Austria and the little dark, misshapen
coadjutor;  Mazarin threatening Condé; and he, with curled lip and
reverential mockery, leaving the ministerial presence with the words,
"Farewell, Mars!"--the quelled populace, streaming hour after hour
through the king's bedchamber, while his mother's beautiful hand holds
back the velvet hangings, that each one may look upon the sleeping boy
and know that he has not fled from Paris--all is before us as if it
{367} happened yesterday. The chief actors with their talents and
foibles are better known to us than to their contemporaries; and the
French nation is today as it was then--ready to be won over by any
clever bit of scenic effects.

Mademoiselle and Condé, who had hitherto been sworn foes, came to a
formal reconciliation in 1651, and being bound together by their
detestation of Mazarin, welcomed the outbreak of the second Fronde.
Anne of Austria declined the company of her niece on leaving Paris,
and she was thus left to the flattery of those who well understood the
right use of her folly and her strength.

The golden moment of her career arrived. Orleans must be secured to
the Frondeurs, or Condé, coming from Guyenne, would find the line of
the Loire cut and the enemy master of the position. Monsieur was firm
upon two points: that he would not leave Paris himself, and that his
private troops should occupy the position best fitted to protect him
if the royal army should attack Paris. His daughter, who had been
longing for an opportunity to distinguish herself, offered to go to
Orleans in place of the duke, and on Monday, March 25th, 1652, left
Paris amid the benedictions of the people. A contemporary MS. journal
says: "About noon Mademoiselle's carriages assembled in the court of
the Orleans palace, ready for the campaign; she wore a gray habit
covered with gold, to go to Orleans. She left at three o'clock,
accompanied by the Duke de Rohan, Madame de Bréanté, Countess de
Fiesque, and Madame de Frontenac." Monsieur sneered at the project,
and said her chivalry would not be worth much without the common sense
of Mesdames de Fiesque and Frontenac--her _maréchales de camp_, as
they were called between jest and earnest.

Upon the plains of Beauce the young amazon appeared before the troops
on horseback, and was received with enthusiasm. "From that time," she
says, "I began to give my orders;" and a little later at Toury, where
she was joyfully welcomed by a crowd of officers: "they declared that
a council of war must be held in my presence. . . .  That I must
accustom myself to listening to matters of business and war; for
henceforth nothing would be done except by my orders."

Arrived before Orleans, Mademoiselle found closed gates and small
disposition to grant admittance. The unfortunate city government,
pressed on one side by Frondeurs and on the other by royalists, asked
only leave to remain neutral. The rebel army had been left at some
distance from Orleans for fear of alarming its inhabitants, and _M. le
gouverneur_, learning that the attacking party was a lady, sent out a
tribute of confectionery, "which seemed to me amusing," remarks
Mademoiselle.

At last, tired of waiting upon the governors indecision, her royal
highness went out with her ladies for a walk, much against the
judgment of her advisers--or ministers, as she called them. The
rampart was edged with people, who cried, on seeing her, "Long live
the king and princes, and down with Mazarin!" And she answered, "Go to
the Hotel de Ville and make them open the gates;" with other
exhortations of the same kind, occasionally mingled with threats, "to
see if menaces would move them more than friendship."

Now it so happened that before her departure from Paris, M. le Marquis
do Vilaine, a noted astrologer, had drawn the princess into Madame's
private room, and imparted to her the following prophecy: "All that
you shall undertake between Wednesday noon, March 27th, and Friday
will succeed; and you shall even at that time accomplish extraordinary
things." This prediction was in her pocket, and anxiously as she
disclaims all faith in it, we may believe that it encouraged her to
make efforts which gave no apparent promise of success. When, toward
evening, she stood outside the {368} Porte Brulée, did not M. de
Vilaine's horoscope rise in her estimation? The river was crossed and
the bank ascended by the aid of some chivalrous boatmen, an improvised
bridge of boats, and a little more scrambling than would seem
consistent with royal dignity. "I climbed like a cat, grasping at
brambles and thorns, and springing over hedges without hurting myself
in the least. * * Madame de Bréanté, who is the most cowardly creature
in the world, began to cry out at me, and at every one who followed my
steps; making great sport for me." Outside the gate, a group of
bargemen worked under Mademoiselle's inspiriting direction; inside
were citizens, urged on by the Count de Gramont, to tear down the
planks; while the guards looked on in armed neutrality. When the two
middle planks were torn off from the transverse iron bars, Gramont
signed to the princess to come forward. "As there was a great deal of
rubbish, a footman took me up and passed me through the hole, where no
sooner did my head appear than they began to beat the drums. I gave my
hand to the captain and said: 'You will be glad to be able to boast
that you let me in.' Cries of 'Long live the king and princess, and
down with Mazarin!' were redoubled. Two men took me and placed me in a
wooden chair. I don't know whether I sat in the chair or on the arms,
the rapture of my delight set me so completely beside myself. Every
one kissed my hands, and I was ready to die with laughter to find
myself in such a position." And so the city was taken, and
Mademoiselle earned the title of Maid of Orleans, all in an
afternoon's frolic. If she thought to retain command of Paris in a
fashion so amusing, the battle of Porte Saint Antoine must have
undeceived her.

The heroine was received with rapture on her return to Paris. She was
assured by Condé that the wish of his heart was to see her queen of
France, and that no treaty should be concluded without especial
consideration for her. No one can be more uninteresting than her royal
highness when elated by success, we must confess; but an hour of trial
was approaching that should develop for the first and last time in her
life, truly grand and heroic qualities. Until the 2d of July, 1652,
Mademoiselle had given no signs of feminine feeling except by
exhibiting those foibles which are popularly supposed to be especially
characteristic of women. But on that day, as she hurried through the
streets of Paris, carrying hope to every one she met--consoling poor
Guitant, shot through the lungs, pausing to speak a word of comfort to
the wretched Rochefoucauld, and putting new heart into the great Condé
himself, we recognize sympathies worthy of a better development than
they ever received. During a pause in the battle M. le Prince came to
her in a pitiable condition, covered with dust and blood, his hair
tangled and his cuirass dented with blows. Giving is naked sword to an
equerry, he flung himself down upon a seat and burst into tears
"Forgive my emotion," he exclaimed; "you see a desperate man before
you. I have lost all my friends; Nemours, La Rochefoucauld and
Clinchamp are mortally wounded."

Mademoiselle was able to assure him that these reports were greatly
exaggerated, and Condé, restored to himself, sprang upon a fresh horse
and galloped off to his post. The battle was at its height. Paris had
simultaneously attacked at the Porte Saint-Denis and the Faubourg
Saint-Antoine. Inquiring the whereabouts of Turenne, M. le Prince
rushed to the faubourg, knowing that where the marshal commanded there
must Paris be most in peril. Soon came the tidings that the barricade
of Piepus had been forced. At the head of a hundred musketeers he
threw himself upon the barricade, and drove the enemy back in its own
dust. Never had the conqueror been greater than on that useless,
terrible 2d of July.

{369}

The next meeting between Mademoiselle and Condé was full of triumph.
They parted, she to betake herself to the towers of the Bastile, he to
the belfry of Saint-Antoine. Toward Bagnolet in the valley the
princess saw the king's troops gathering for a fresh attack. Having
communicated with Condé through a page, she left the Bastile, giving
stringent orders that, in case of necessity, its cannon should be
turned upon the royal army; and returned to her post near the gate to
invigorate the soldiers with wine and brave words.

There was indeed need for encouragement. Frondeurs were falling back
in dire extremity--royalists pressing forward, hopeful, and
strengthened with reinforcements. The hours of the Fronde seemed
numbered--when heights of the Bastile blazed forth a flash of light;
the cannon thundered out in quick succession--the royal army paused,
reeled, and retreated in amazement. Mademoiselle had saved the day,
and "killed her royal husband," as Mazarin expressed it. Henceforth
she was to be more than ever an object of distrust to the queen and
minister. But though this victory lent a dignity to the last days of
the Fronde, there was no principle of stability in the party. Weak
policy, quarrels, treachery on their side--opposed to them, Mazarin,
whose keen perception told him that temporary withdrawal from the
ministry would insured unlimited power in the future; and Turenne,
with double the forces of Condé,--nothing was fairly matched except
the courage of the two parties.

The Fronde came to an abrupt end, and every one was left to make his
own terms. Mademoiselle had shown disinterestedness, courage, and
humanity worthy of a better cause. The fruits which she reaped were a
notice to leave Tuileries, and the refusal on her cowardly father's
part to protect one whom the king had condemned. There appear to have
been about eight years and a half enforced banishment from court,
which she spent on her numerous estates, amusing herself with writing
romances, portraits (then in vogue) and her Mémoires, which she
continued until within a few years of her death. M. Sainte-Beuve tells
us that the style of her imagination belongs rather to the close of
Louis XIII.'s reign, and to the Hôtel Rambouillet, than to the poorer
literary period of Louis XIV.

And now, having given a faint delineation of Mademoiselle during her
prosperous and fêted youth, and during the days of the Fronde, which
we are inclined to regard as the period at which she gave most
evidence of kinship with her grandfather, the great Henry; we pass on
to a time when fortune ceased to favor her, and the world began to
hustle her about, as roughly as it does common mortals. La Grande
Mademoiselle, who had hitherto looked upon human griefs and passions
as upon a brilliant theatrical spectacle, was destined at last to
leave the royal box, and figure on the stage herself for the diversion
of her fellow creatures. An amusing afterpiece this exhibition seemed
to her contemporaries; but to us, who have not suffered from her airs
of superiority, there is a certain pathos in this genuine devotion
lavished upon the wrong object at an age when such blindness is simply
absurd. That heart of adamant which had looked above kings and princes
to covet the imperial crown, fell prostrate in the dust before a
colonel of dragoons, a member of the royal household. Alas for pride
of race!

Mademoiselle was forty-three years old when the conviction seized her
that it would be well to marry, that M. Lauzun was the most attractive
person in existence, and that for once it would be pleasant to receive
the love of some one worth loving. That M. Lauzun admired her seemed
evident, but how to give an opportunity for expression to one whose
sense of reverential duty always kept him at a distance?

One day they had an interview in the embrasure of a window, the first
of many similar ones, in which she consulted him about her proposed
alliance {370} with Prince Charles of Lorraine. The tactics of our
modest suitor are worthy of all praise. "By his proud bearing he
seemed to me like the emperor of the world," writes Mademoiselle,
whose circumstantial account must be pressed into few words. "Why
should she marry," he reasoned, "since she had already everything that
could embellish life? The position of queen or empress was little more
exalted than her own, and would be encumbered with burthensome duties.
True, in France she could raise some one to her own rank, and unite
with him in untiring devotion to the king, who must ever be her first
object in life. It was easy to build a castle in the air, but how to
find a companion worthy to share it with her, when no such being
existed? A woman of forty-three had three resources: a convent, a life
of strict retirement apart from court and city, and finally marriage.
Marriage would insure liberty to enjoy the world at any age, but it
might be at the cost of her happiness." Hints only plunged him into
reverential silence. At last the secret was revealed by writing; then
comes incredulity met by protestations, and finally amazed conviction.
"What! would you marry your cousin's servant? for nothing in the world
would make me leave my post. I love the king too well, I am too much
attached to my position by inclination, to leave it even for the honor
you would confer upon me." And when she assured him that his devotion
to the king only endeared him the more to her (for loyalty appears to
have been the mainspring of their attachment), he answered: "I am not
a prince; a nobleman I am assuredly, but that will not suffice for
you;" and she replies, "I am content; you are all that would become
the greatest lord in the kingdom, and wealth and dignities are mine to
bestow upon you," etc., etc, etc.

The story is well known. Louis XIV., after much hesitation, gave his
consent to the marriage. Mademoiselle was to confer great wealth upon
Lauzun, together with the sovereignty of Dombes, the duchy of
Montpensier, and the county d'Eu; always with the agreement that he
should not resign his post at court, but unite with her in exclusive
devotion to the king.

The night before the wedding day Mademoiselle was summoned to his
majesty's presence, with directions to pass directly to his room
through the in _garde-robe_. '"This precaution not a good omen. Madame
de Nogent remained in the carriage. While I was in the _garde-robe_
Rochefort entered and said, 'Wait a moment.' I saw saw that some one
was introduced into the king's room whom I was not intended to see.
Then he said 'Enter,' and the door was closed behind me. The king was
alone, and looked unhappy and agitated. He said, 'I am in despair at
what I have to tell you. I am told that the world says I have
sacrificed you in order to make Monsieur de Lauzun's fortune. This
will injure me in the eyes of foreign powers, and I ought not to allow
the affair to proceed. You have good reason to complain of me; beat me
if you like, for there is no degree of anger I will not submit to, or
do not deserve.' 'Ah!' I exclaimed, 'who do you mean, sire? it is too
cruel! but whatever you do to me, I will not fail in the respect due
to you. It is to strongly implanted in my heart, and has been too well
nourished by Monsieur de Lauzun, who would have given me these
feelings if I had not already been actuated by them, for no one can
love him without acquiring them,' I threw myself at his feet, saying:
'Sire, it would be kinder to kill me outright than to place me in this
position. When I told your majesty of the affair, if you had bade me
forgot it. I would have done so, but think how I shall appear in
breaking it off now that I have gone so far! What will become of me?
Where is Monsieur de Lauzun?' 'Do not be uneasy; nothing will happen
to him.' 'Ah! sire, I must fear everything {371} for him and for
myself, now that our enemies have prevailed over the kindness you felt
toward him.'

"He threw himself on his knees when I knelt, and embraced me. We
remained thus three-quarters of an hour, his cheek pressed to mine; he
wept as bitterly as I did: 'Oh why did you give time for these
reflections? Why did you not hasten matters?' 'Alas! sire, who would
have doubted your majesty's word? You never failed any one before, and
you begin now with me and Monsieur de Lauzun. I shall die, and I shall
be glad to die. I never loved anything before in all my life, and I
love, and love passionately, the best and noblest man in your kingdom.
The joy and delight of my life was in elevating him. I had thought to
pass the rest of my days so happily with him, honoring and loving you
as much as I do him. You gave him to me, and now you take him away,
and it is like tearing out my heart. This shall not make me love you
less, but it makes my grief the more cruel that it comes to me from
him whom I love best in the world."

Mademoiselle's suffering in this scene was heightened by the fact that
a suppressed cough outside the door revealed to her the presence of an
unseen witness. She rightly suspected it to be the Prince de Condé,
and reproached the king with just indignation for subjecting her to
such a humiliation.

His majesty bore her reproaches very patiently, and dismissed her with
the assurance that further discussion would not alter his decision.
"He embraced me and led me to the door, where I found I don't know
whom. I went home as quickly as possible, and there _je criai des
hauts cris_."

Lauzun, sure of his hold upon her royal highness, and fearing to lose
ground with the king, yielded with admirable resignation to the royal
decree. His favor at court seemed for awhile greater than ever; but
suddenly, for reasons never made public, he was disgraced and sent to
the Castle of Pignerol. Mademoiselle spent the ten years of his
imprisonment in faithful efforts to procure his release, and purchased
it finally by an immense donation to the Duke du Maine, a son of
Madame de Montespan. It was a success bitterly to be deplored. Any one
more odious than Lauzun after his release, it would be difficult to
imagine. Peevish, grasping, slovenly, and ungrateful, he hung about
Mademoiselle's establishment; using the power which a private marriage
had undoubtedly given him with an insolence that turned her love to
disgust.

The spirit of a courtier alone remained to recall the Lauzun of former
days. When the princess announced to him the death of Marie Thérèse,
he cried: "'People deserve to be imprisoned who spread such
falsehoods; how dare they say such things of the queen?' . . . At last
they showed him the letters, and he had to agree that queens are
mortal like other people."

In 1684 Mademoiselle and Lauzun parted in mutual displeasure. She
rejected his efforts at conciliation, and the last entry in her
Mémoires is the following: "M. de Lauzun was living as usual in
obscurity, but exciting notice, and often concerning matters which
annoyed me. When I returned from Eu in 1688, my people were dressed in
new liveries. One day, when I was walking in the park of----"

"Mademoiselle knew life late," says M. Sainte-Beuve; "but in the end
she know it well, and passed through every stage of experience. She
felt the slow suffering which wears out love in a heart, the contempt
and indignation that crush it, and reached at last that indifference
which finds no remedy or consolation except in God. It is a sad day
when we find that the being whom we have loved to adorn with every
perfection and load with every gift is _so poor a thing_. She had
years to meditate upon this bitter discovery. She died in March, 1693,
aged sixty-six years."

{372}

Lauzan, with characteristic insolence, appeared at the general in the
mourning of a widowed husband. The king sent the Duke of Saint-Aignan
to bid him withdraw. "At such a moment I cannot listen to the voice of
pride," was the reply; "I am absorbed by my grief, and could wish to
see the king more occupied with his own." He remained to the close of
the ceremony.

The magnificent obsequies were interrupted by a more serious
disturbance. An urn, in which part of the remains were carelessly
embalmed, exploded with a tremendous noise, frightening all the
assistants. It was said that not even death could come to Mademoiselle
without some ludicrous circumstance.

This princess began life with advantages such as fall to the lot of
few human beings. What did she leave behind her in the world? A
hospital and seminary under the charge of Sisters of Charity; a very
fair literary reputation, founded chiefly upon her Mémoires, which,
though not elegant in style, are truthful, graphic, and clear; and a
character without spot or blemish, in an age when such characters were
rare. Her written confessions afford ample material for cutting
criticism, but it would be an unkindly task to turn her own artillery
upon herself.

------

PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN REVELATION.



BY REV. JAMES A. STOTHERT.


II.

The advance of science has thrown some light on a subject of extreme
difficulty and abstruseness: the relation of the qualities or
accidents of matter to its substance. It is a subject of extreme
difficulty, into which it seems not permitted to man to penetrate
beyond the surface; but in regard to which much ignorance and
misapprehension have been dispelled by the observations and deductions
of modern philosophers. There are certain external marks or notes by
which we recognize certain material things, as their form, their
color, their hardness or softness, etc. One thing we call wood,
another iron, a third wax, and so on. These external notes or marks by
which we distinguish bodies are called their qualities, accidents, or
properties. Underneath them there is the substance of the material
thing, of which we have no means whatever of knowing anything. What it
is that constitutes the difference between wood and iron, in their
substance, must remain for ever a secret to our senses. We can
perceive that one is harder, heavier, colder, then the other; but
these observations go no further than the external qualities of the
two bodies; regarding their absolute substance, or internal
constitution, we have no possible means of forming a judgment. For all
that we know, it may be the same in all bodies, or it may be as
various as the simple elements of matter, now limited by chemists to
about sixty, or it may be much more various. It is one of the
mysteries of matter which will probably never be disclosed to the eye
of man in this life.

Not only is the nature of material substance thus unknown to us,
except through the external qualities, or accidents, which represent
it; but we are informed by science that most of these qualities are
the result of circumstances wholly distinct from their subject. A
complete revolution in popular ideas has in part been achieved, in
regard {373} to the permanence and immutability of these qualities of
matter. Nothing seems more natural than to say that a red rose must be
always red, a violet always blue, or that the size, shape, etc., of
material bodies are inseparable from their existence. Yet Proteus
himself was not more various in his shapes, than are the violet and
the rose in the varieties of color of which they are so susceptible.
Color, in fact, has no existence at all in the material object which
we look at; it is a condition of the ray of light which enters our eye
after reflection from the object, or after passing through it. Some
objects absorb one or more parts of the three-fold visible ray of
white light, and transmit or reflect to our eye only what remains of
its constituent parts; some objects send the whole ray, undecomposed
to the eye, and we call them white; others absorb it altogether, and
they are said to be black. But all bodies, whatever their original
color, that is, whatever part of the white ray they send to the eye,
after absorbing the rest, may be made to appear of any color, by
viewing them under the influence of variously colored light; which
proves that their color exists not in themselves, but in the light
which falls upon them, and on which their substance acts in some
unknown way.

Sir John Herschel's testimony on this subject is very explicit.
"Nothing at first can seem a more rational, obvious, and
incontrovertible conclusion, then that the color of an object is an
inherent quality, like its weight, hardness, etc.; and to see the
object, and to see it of its own color, when nothing intervenes
between our eyes and it, are one and the same thing. Yet this is only
a prejudice; and that it is so is shown by bringing forward the same
sense of vision which led to its adoption, as evidence on the other
side; for when the differently colored prismatic rays are thrown, in a
dark room, in succession upon any object, whatever be the color we are
in the habit of calling its own, it will appear of the particular hue
of the light which falls upon it: a yellow paper, for instance, will
appear scarlet when illuminated by red rays; yellow, when by yellow;
green, by green; and blue, by blue rays; its own (so called) proper
color not in the least mixing with what it so exhibits."   [Footnote
115] In like manner, other qualities of matter have no absolute
existence, independent of circumstances. Twenty solid inches of sea
water, if subjected to a pressure equal to that at a distance of
twenty miles below the surface, would be reduced in volume to nineteen
inches.  [Footnote 116] A globe, an inch in diameter, consisting of
air of the ordinary density at the earth's surface, if it could be
removed into space one radius of the earth, say 4,000 miles, would
expand into a sphere exceeding in radius the orbit of Saturn, as Sir
Isaac Newton has calculated. Hence the tail of a great comet, such as
that observed in 1843, and which extended from its nucleus 200
millions of miles,  [Footnote 117] may, for aught we know, consist
only of a very few pounds or even ounces of matter, expanded to a
degree of tenuity to our minds almost inconceivable.  [Footnote 118]
The same agent, heat, modifies the extension and form of matter in
totally opposite ways; making clay contract and lose in volume, while
expanding water, and still more largely air. Extension, or form,
therefore, is subject to great modification by change of
circumstances; nor is weight less so. A pound weight of matter at the
earth's equator weighs heavier at the poles; or, which is the same
thing, a pendulum oscillates faster at the poles than at the equator.
If removed to the planet Mars or Mercury, a pound of matter would lose
half its weight; if to the surface of Jupiter, it would weigh nearly
three times heavier.

  [Footnote 115: Discourse, etc. §71.]

  [Footnote 116: Somerville's Physical Geography, I., chap. xvi. p.
  318.]

  [Footnote 117: Hind's Comets, p. 22.]

  [Footnote 118: Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy, chap. xi. §559, note.]

{374}

If there is one quality more than another characteristic of solid
rock, it is the immobility of its parts; as mobility is a distinctive
feature of water and vapor. Yet experiments in crystallization have
demonstrated the existence of mobility even in solid bodies, in an
unimaginable degree. Mrs. Somerville remarks, that "we are led, from
the mobility of fluids, to expect great changes in the relative
position of their molecules, which must be in perpetual motion, even
in the stillest water and the calmest air; but we are not prepared to
find motion to such an extent in the interior of solids. That their
particles are brought nearer by cold and pressure, or removed further
from one another by heat, might be expected; but it could not have
been anticipated that their relative positions could be so entirely
changed as to alter their mode of aggregation. It follows from the low
temperature at which these changes are effected, that there is
probably no position of inorganic matter that is not in a state of
relative motion."  [Footnote 119] And elsewhere, in her Physical
Geography, the same high authority assures us that "nothing can be
more certain than that the minute particles of matter are constantly
in motion, from the action of heat, mutual attraction, and
electricity. Prismatic crystals of salts of zinc are changed in a few
seconds into crystals of a totally different form by the heat of the
sun; casts of shells are found in rocks, from which the animal matter
has been removed and its place supplied by mineral; and the
excavations made in rocks diminish sensibly in size in a short time if
the rock the soft, and in a longer time when it is hard; circumstances
which show an intestine motion of the particles, not only in their
relative positions, but in space, which there is every reason to
believe is owing to electricity; a power which, if not the sole agent,
must, at least, have cooperated essentially in the formation and
filling of mineral veins."   [Footnote 120]

  [Footnote 119: Connection of Phys. Sciences, § 14, p. 125.]

  [Footnote 120: Phys. Geog. I, ch. xv. pp. 288, 289.]



In the language of the older treatise on science, glass is said to be
transparent: gold, coal, etc., opaque, that is, incapable of
transmitting light. But there is no substance known to modern
discovery which, if sufficiently attenuated, is not capable of being
seen through. Opacity, therefore, has no real existence as a quality
of matter; it depends only on condition and circumstances. Hardness or
softness in like manner, are easily separable from the substance of
matter. Clay in its natural state is soft, apply heat to it and it
becomes hard; wax is naturally hard, but becomes soft and ductile when
warmed. Thus our knowledge of the internal constitution of material
substance, through the medium of its external qualities, is in the
highest degree uncertain, variable, and often erroneous. For there is
not one of those external notes or Marx, which we call qualities,
which cannot be changed or modified in such a way as seriously to
derange the accuracy of our observations. Enough of accuracy has been
secured for the purposes of our daily life; but, like the senses, our
knowledge of the relation of quality to substance was never intended
to carry us through the boneless field of knowledge, or enable us to
pronounce with certainty regarding the nature, the difference, or the
identity of substance, merely from the indications given us by its
apparent qualities. These are truly accidents; things which do not
affect the essence of matter; but connected with it in an evanescent
way, liable to sudden change, and totally baffling our attempts to
establish any certain criterion of substance by means of our
observations on its qualities.

Recent observations in chemistry have still further demonstrated the
impossibility of arriving at any knowledge of the internal structure
of matter from its appearances. The delicate tests invented by
chemists, in order to detect the difference between substances which
appear to every human sense the same, though they effect their purpose
with marvelous ingenuity, yet fail in indicating the ultimate reason
for their efficiency.

{375}

Thus syrup extracted from the sugar-cane, or from plants yielding
similar sugar, looks in every respect the same as that extracted from
the juice of the grape. The refinements of modern chemistry, however,
have pointed out several tests to distinguish one from the other.
[Footnote 121] And in a beam of polarized light there is provided a
test as subtle as any contributed by the aid of chemistry. In the
instance of cane sugar, the plane of polarization revolves to the
right; in grape sugar, it revolves to the left. Of this subtle agent,
Mrs. Somerville remarks, when stating this interesting fact, that '"it
surpasses the power even of chemical analysis in giving certain and
direct evidence of the similarity or difference existing in the
molecular constitution of bodies, as well as of the permanency of that
constitution, or of the fluctuations to which it may be liable."
[Footnote 122] The same delicate test of polarization enables us to
distinguish reflected light,  such as the moon's, from the light which
issues from a self-luminous body, like Sirius. But in all these
instances, the ultimate rationale of its indications still remains
veiled in impenetrable darkness; and with it, any knowledge of the
internal substance of matter.

  [Footnote 121: Brande's Lectures on Organic Chemistry, p. 153.]was it

  [Footnote 122: Connexion of Physical Sciences, § xxii, p. 214.]

It is, however, in the mysterious facts to which chemists have given
the names of Isomorphism, Isomerism, and Allotropism, that we perceive
the most direct and remarkable contribution of modern scientific
research to the defence of Catholic revelation. Chemistry enables us
to penetrate further than any other science into the secret operations
of Nature; and strange insight has been thus obtained into the
identity of substance under two or more external appearances; and of
the existence of two or more substances of distinct character under
identical appearances. A few words will not be idly devoted to a
description of these terms, and of the results associated with them.

Isomorphism expresses the phenomenon in crystallization established by
Gay Lussac and Mitscherlich, of different compounds assuming the same
crystalline form. The generally received law of this process had
hitherto been, that the same substances invariably crystallize in
forms belonging to one system, different substances, in forms
belonging to another. Cases had indeed been observed, before the
discovery of Isomorphism, in which the same element had been seen to
crystallize in two forms, belonging to different systems, not
geometrically connected. Sulphur, for instance, crystallizing from its
solution in the bisulphuret of carbon, assumes a geometrically
different crystalline form from sulphur when melted by heat, and
allowed to consolidate as it cools. But these and a few other similar
cases had been explained as depending on a different arrangement of
the particles, due most probably to a difference in the temperature
during the operation. They were not thought to interfere with the
general law of the same substance always assuming the same crystalline
form. The two eminent philosophers just mentioned ascertained beyond a
doubt that, in many instances, compound substances, in the process of
crystallizing, assume the same or a cognate form, though their
elements are totally different. Thus chloride of sodium (sea salt),
sulphate of alumina and potash (alum), and many other compound
substances equally dissimilar, crystallize in the form of the cube and
its congeners. Other crystalline forms also are found to be common to
many differently constituted compounds. "To these groups of analogous
elements," says Professor Gregory, from whose work, On Inorganic
Chemistry, we have abridged this account, "the name of Isomorphous
groups has been given, as there is every reason to believe that as
elements they possess the same form; and the phenomena of identical
form in compounds of different but analogous composition, have
received the name of Isomorphism. Two elements {376} are said to be
isomorphous, which either crystallize in the same form, or may be
substituted for each other in their compounds, equivalent for
equivalent (the other elements remaining unchanged), without affecting
the form of the compound. We can hardly doubt that not only the salt,
but the acids are really isomorphous, and would be found so if we
could obtain them all in crystals; and we have the same reason to
conclude that the elements of these acids are also isomorphous; that
arsenic and phosphorus, sulphur and selenium, for example, crystallize
in the same form."   [Footnote 123]

  [Footnote 123: Inorganic Chemistry, Ed. 1853; pp. 38 _et seq_. ]

The converse of this phenomenon is also included among the discoveries
of modern science; the same substance is sometimes observed to
crystallize in two different forms not geometrically allied; and the
occurrence of this new exception to the received law of
crystallization is called Dimorphism.

Isomerism is the term employed to represent another exceptional class
of facts, observed by later chemists to interfere with the general
rule, that analogy or similarity of composition implies analogy in
form and external properties. Two or more compounds, formed of the
same element, in the same relative proportions, and having, therefore,
the same composition in 100 parts, are often found entirely distinct
and unlike in all their properties. Such bodies are called Isomeric.
"The discovery of Isomerism," says the same eminent chemist, "however
unexpected, is entirely consistent with the atomic theory, of which it
is merely a special case. Isomerism is of very frequent occurrence
among organic compounds, owing, no doubt, to their unusually large
atomic weights, since the numerous atoms of the elements afford much
scope for isomeric modifications; and, doubtless, this principle plays
an important part in the processes of organic life and growth, as well
as in decay."   [Footnote 124]

  [Footnote 124: Ib. p. 43, 44.]

More remarkable than all of these exceptions to hitherto established
laws is the discovery of the existence of simple elements under
totally dissimilar forms. Thus sulphur exists under three distinct and
incompatible forms, or modifications, called Allotropic. Carbon
likewise in three; the diamond, which is crystallized in octohedrons,
and is limpid and transparent; graphite, which is black, opaque, and
crystallized in prisms; and common charcoal, lamp-black, etc., which
is black and quite amorphous. Phosphorus has two allotropic forms: one
crystallized, white and transparent, and easily set on fire; the
other, deep reddish-brown, amorphous, and inflamed with much less
ease. Each of these elementary bodies thus assumes appearances as
dissimilar as if they were totally different bodies, possessed of a
physical character quite unlike each other. Well may Professor
Gregory, after this summary of the subject, add: "the occurrence of
such marked differences in the properties of elementary bodies is very
remarkable, and of great interest in reference to the molecular
constitution of matter; but the subject has not yet been fully
investigated."  [Footnote 125]

  [Footnote 125: Inorg. Chemistry, pp. 44, 45.]

The speculations of another very distinguished chemist, Professor
Faraday, in this field of recent observation, are worthy of place in
this collective testimony of modern science, to the imperfect
acquaintance with the ultimate constitution of material substance
attainable by any amount of study of its external properties or
appearances. "There was a time," says this eminent philosopher, "and
that not long ago, when it was held among the fundamental doctrines of
chemistry, that the same body always manifested the same chemical
qualities; excepting only such variations as might be due to the three
conditions of solid, liquid, and gas. This was held to be a canon of
chemical philosophy, as distinguished from alchemy; and a belief in
the possibility of transmutation was held to be impossible, because at
variance {377} with this fundamental tenet. But we are now conversant
with many examples to the contrary; and, strange to say, no less than
four of the non-metallic elements, namely, oxygen, sulphur,
phosphoros, and carbon, are subject to this modification. The train of
speculation which this contemplation awakens within us is
extraordinary. If the condition of allotropism were alone confined to
compound bodies, that is to say, to bodies made up of two or more
elements, we might easily frame a plausible hypothesis to account for
it; we might assume that some variation had taken place in the
arrangements of their particles. But when a simple body, such as
oxygen, is concerned, this kind of hypothesis is no longer open to us;
we have only one kind of particle to deal with; and the theory of
altered position is no longer applicable. In short, it does not seem
possible to imagine a rational hypothesis to explain the condition of
allotropism as regards simple bodies. We can only accept it as a fact,
not to be doubted, and add the discovery to that long list of truths
which start up in the field of every science, in opposition to our
most cherished theories and long received convictions."  [Footnote
126]

  [Footnote 126: Lectures on Non-Metallic Elements, pp. 115, 116.]

Those persons who have resisted the evidence of Catholic revelation on
the _primâ facie_ ground that sound philosophy and a knowledge of the
physical phenomena of nature are directly opposed to some of its
doctrines, must begin, we should think, to feel their position a
little less impregnable than it seemed before such sentiments as these
were warranted by the actually established facts of modern science.
With such evidence of its recent fruits, we may be well satisfied to
watch with interest and congratulation the progress of philosophical
inquiry conducted in such a spirit; not so much for our own sakes, to
whom, indeed, no analogies afforded by any human science could add
anything in the way of confirmation to what we have been taught by
divine testimony, transmitted through the church of Christ to our
remote age; but for the sake of the erring and the doubting among the
intellectual minds of our fellow-countrymen; with the hope that their
attention might be arrested and turned in the direction plainly enough
indicated by such analogies. With one more extract, we must take leave
of Professor Faraday's highly interesting volume; only begging as many
of our readers as are interested in such pursuits to purchase it, and
study it for themselves. After pointing out the difference between
common and allotropic phosphorus, he continues: "We can scarcely
imagine to ourselves a more complete opposition of qualities than is
here presented in these two conditions of phosphorus; an opposition
not limited by merely physical manifestations of density or
crystallographic form, but recognizable through all the phases of
solution, thermal demeanor, and physiological effect The metamorphosis
has, in fact, been so complete, that we can only demonstrate the
allotropical substance _to be_ phosphorus, by reducing it to its
original state, and subjecting it to ordinary tests. If the forces
determining its constitution had been so balanced that the power of
reduction were denied to us, then the substance we now call
_allotropic phosphorus_ must necessarily, according to the strictest
propriety of logic, have been admitted to be not phosphorus, but some
other body. It is impossible, rationally, to deny that such permanent
incontrovertibility may not lie within the power of natural laws to
effect. That we are not aware of such an example, cannot be accepted
as a proof of its non-existence; and analogy, the guidance to which we
refer when direct testimony fails, is in favor of the affirmative."
[Footnote 127] From the great powers of analysis at the command of
this distinguished physicist, directed as much by the courage as by
the wisdom and the candid spirit of true philosophy, it is impossible
to say {378} what further insight into the constitution of matter may
not hereafter be obtained. Such an instance is surely of itself a full
justification of our sanguine hopes for the future of science in its
relation to what has been revealed by eternal and unchanging truth.

  [Footnote 127:  Lectures, etc., pp.42, 43.]

Rather by way of indication than of summary of the reflections
suggested by these inquiries, we would ask, how is it that the almost
illimitable extension of gross material elements should be accepted
without hesitation, while the possibility of the spiritual and
glorified body of the Lord existing, without division or
multiplication of itself, in every Catholic tabernacle, and also in
heaven, is regarded as so wildly impossible, and even monstrous a
conception, as to be scouted at the bare mention of it? When
philosophy expects us to believe that black, crumbling charcoal, and
the hard, shining diamond, are one and the same simple substance, why
should it be thought in the nature of things so incredible as at once
to preclude all further examination of the evidence on which it rests,
that the substance of the Child of Bethlehem, of the risen and
ascended Lord, and of the most holy eucharist, are one and the same.
We are far from saying that the mode of existence is the same in all
these instances; we only claim for revelation what is conceded to
science; that appearances should not be held, _in limine,_ conclusive
of the question, nor be allowed to outweigh or prejudice other
evidence; for in every province of the universe of knowledge things
are not what they seem. If what exists, or may exist, is to be limited
by what human organs of sense can perceive, the boundaries of
knowledge shrink into the narrowest compass: the eye and ear of an
infant are enthroned as the judges of the constitution of nature;
discovery and the progress of science are no more, or would never have
been; mankind would yet be sunk in the imbecility of its primitive
ignorance.



III.

Next to the fallacious testimony of the human senses, and the hidden
nature of material substance, the subtle influences at work in the
physical world seem very remarkably to indicate some curious analogies
between the constitution of matter in its finer forms, and the nature
of spiritual agencies. Recent analysis of the solar beam, for
instance, has revealed rays hitherto unknown, because invisible to the
acutest vision unaided by the appliances of science, and for long
concealed even from its piercing scrutiny, but yielding at last to the
refinements of modern investigation. These invisible rays have been
proved to exercise most important functions in nature; in the
germination and vegetation of plants, and other widely multiplied
physical processes. There are few who have not heard much of the
magnetic and electric currents which permeate every portion of the
surface of the globe and its surrounding atmosphere; but we imagine
that not so many are aware of the powerful influence which they
possess in the economy of our planet. "There is strong presumptive
evidence," says Mrs. Somerville, "of the influence of the electric and
magnetic currents on the formation and direction of the mountain
masses and mineral veins; but their slow persevering action on the
ultimate atoms of matter has been placed beyond a doubt by the
formation of rubies, and other gems, as well as various other mineral
substances by voltaic electricity."  [Footnote 128] And, in another
place, in the same instructive work, she remarks, that "it would be
difficult to follow the rapid course of discovery through the
complicated mazes of magnetism and electricity; the action of the
electric current on the polarized sunbeam, one of the most beautiful
of modern discoveries, leading to relations hitherto unsuspected
between that power and the complex assemblage of visible and invisible
influences on solar light, by {379} one of which nature has recently
been made to paint her own likeness."  [Footnote 129] These
influences, for all their subtlety, have a real, appreciable
existence, and fulfil a definite and beneficent end. A curious example
of the subserviency of the invisible magnetic current to the wants of
men is mentioned by Humboldt as having occurred to himself, in one of
his voyages off the west coast of South-America. Bad weather had
prevailed for several days, so as to shut out all view of land, or of
the sun and stars. The crew were in expectation of making a particular
port on that coast: on consulting his dip-needle, the scientific
passenger discovered that the ship had passed the latitude of its
destined port; the ship's course was altered, and much delay and,
probable, danger avoided.  [Footnote 130] Nor are the agencies
destructive to human life less subtile or recondite. Various miasmata
of a pestilential character defy every refinement of chemical analysis
to detect the cause of their mischievous operation, or the difference
of their elementary constitution from that of pure and wholesome air.
The most universal, and, as far as our knowledge serves, the most
important of all physical influences, that of gravitation, is also the
subtlest and most occult; traversing the vast regions of space with
instantaneous speed, and pervading the remotest fields of the great
universe of matter; penetrating without sensible interval of time to
distances far beyond the utmost reach of human thought, with a force
which maintains the stars of heaven in their courses, and gives
stability to every known material system.

  [Footnote 128: Physical Geography, II., chap. xxii. pp. 92.]

  [Footnote 129: Physical Geography, II., xxxiii. pp. 400, 401.]

  [Footnote 130: Cosmos, I. 171; III. 139.]

If these occult agencies in the material world are recognized as
fulfilling their mission, for all their secrecy and subtlety, or
rather, by means of these very characteristics, why is the possibility
of a hidden yet efficient agency in the spiritual world denounced as a
heresy against common sense and sound philosophy? The physical system
of things has its great laboratory of decomposition and reconstruction
kept in operation by these unseen influences; it is indebted to them
for the maintenance of its existence. Science rejoices to measure them
by their admirable results, to detect their operations in their
sensible effects. Why must the sacramental system revealed in the
spiritual world be with equal justice refused its claim to an agency
hardly more subtle? Philosophers admit the truth of observations in
these occult natural agencies, and have no doubt of their real
existence; why do they so contemptuously regard the result of our
observations in those which are secret and spiritual, when our
observations are as numerous, and their evidence as good?



IV.

The whole question of the relation of space and time becomes one of
vast interest and importance, in connection with a common objection
made to the possibility of our holding communication with the saints
and angels in heaven, as Catholics are taught to believe they may.
Across a space of such unknown vastness, it is alleged that the idea
of transmitting a wish or a prayer is contrary to every principle of
philosophy. Now, assuming, what indeed has never been proved, that the
heaven of the blessed is as remote from our daily path as some
maintain it to be, and without entering here into the abstract
question as to whether the idea of space or of time is the older and
simpler, some considerations are suggested by the study of modern
scientific principles, which may throw light on the objection just
staled, and may help us to ascertain its real worth.

It is evident that time and space may be made a measure of each other.
The distance from one point in space to another may be expressed in so
many units of time, say a minute, an hour, or a day, required to
traverse the intervening distance at a given velocity. Hence, if
velocity of motion {380} from point to point be represented by the
simple formula of (Space/Time) we obtain two other formulas
representing; time and space, respectively, in terms of each other.

  Thus,  if   Velocity = Space/Time

  Then,   Time = Space/Velocity

  and   Space  =  Time X Velocity.  [Footnote 131]



    [Footnote 131: For example, call Velocity 40 miles and hour, and
    Time 10 hours; then Space = 40 X 10 = 400 miles; or call Space 400
    miles, Velocity being the same, then Time = 400/40 = 10 hours.]

There is a little instrument much valued by philosophical observers,
but of no great intricacy in itself, which is at once an unerring
measure of space and time; we mean a common pendulum oscillating
seconds in a given level, say of London, at a given level, say of the
sea, other conditions, as of the thermometer, etc., being the same.
This instrument, beating seconds, is an invariable measure of length;
in the latitude of London, for example, at the level of the sea, with
thermometer at 62° Fahr., it is invariably 39.1393 inches long. And,
conversely, provide such an instrument of the length just mentioned,
and set it a-going; its oscillations will exactly measure out one
second of time. Further, as a measure of length, it enables us to
ascertain the weight of a cubic inch of water, in parts of a pound
troy, whence the imperial standards of weight and capacity are
derived. Hence a pendulum is a constant representative of space, in
its length; and of time, in its oscillation. At any point on the
surface of the globe, a rod of a certain given length will invariably,
in similar circumstances, beat seconds; and a rod, beating seconds as
it swings, will invariably measure a certain fixed length, according
to the latitude. Why it does so, does not enter into our arguments
now; it is enough that the fact is ascertained, and is one of the very
commonest application to practise. Every good house-clock is evidence
of it In the same town, for instance, the seconds' pendulums of all
regularly-going clocks are of equal length to the minute fraction of
an inch; and all pendulums, of the same length exactly, keep the same
time exactly. In other words, space is made a measure of time, and
time is a measure of space.

We said, just now, that space may be represented in terms of time, and
time in those of space, the rate of Velocity being given. London is
said to be ten hours from Edinburgh, when the transit is made at the
rate of forty miles an hour. "As long as it would take to go to
London," may be given as an expression equivalent to ten hours, at the
same rate of motion. But vary that rate, and the terms used instantly
represent very variable quantities. Ten hours from London, at the rate
of a pedestrian travelling his four miles an hour, represent an
insignificant distance of only forty miles; "as long as it would take
to go to London" now expresses a period of a hundred hours, or more
than four days. But take the wings of light, and instantly the
distance supposed, if expressed in terms of time, dwindles to a minute
portion of a second; even this is long, if you measure the space by
the flash transmitted along the electric wire. Leaving the
comparatively insignificant spaces on the surface of the globe for
those vaster distances which divide planet from planet and from the
sun, the time of 8 minutes 3.3 seconds, which the solar light takes to
travel from its source to our globe may be taken as an expression of
its distance from that luminary. Nay, there is a rate of velocity
surpassing all these, bridging over the vast span of Neptune's orbit,
for example, or the vaster diameter of a comet's path, in a unit of
time too minute for the subtlest human instruments or calculations to
appreciate. We mean the force or influence of gravitation, which,
ever since the first moment when the sun and the planets were created,
has been passing instantaneously from the centre of the solar system
to every part, {381} even the most distant, of his wide empire, and
back again from its furthest point to his centre.

Now, it is evident that if you undertake to express the distance of
sun from planet in terms of the time, at this rate of velocity, it is
reduced to nothing. The sun is as effectually present, for instance,
in his all-important gravitating influence, at every instant of time,
in the planet Neptune, nearly three thousand millions of miles away,
as the hand of the schoolboy is present at the end of his sling, while
he whirls it round his head, and retains the stone in its place by the
string. Cut the string, and the stone flies off; suspend for an
instant the influence, or force, or attraction, or whatever you please
to call it, which binds Neptune to the sun, and he flies off in a path
more eccentric than any comet's.

There are two ways of spanning distance: one by actual, bodily
transit; another by the transmission of an impulse or wave, propagated
and repeated along the space intervening, in some medium more or less
mobile or subtle. The planetary motions are good examples of the
actual translation of bodies through space: this earth of ours
sweeping along, in its orbit round the sun, at a rate of something
like nineteen miles in a second, or 68,000 miles in an hour, besides
its rotatory motion on its axis of 24,000 miles every day. The planet
Venus exceeds this velocity, travelling at the rate of 80,000 miles an
hour; while Mercury, in the same time, accomplishes 109,360 miles.
Even this inconceivable velocity is far surpassed by the comet of
1843, which, with a tail two millions of miles long, and a nucleus
apparently larger than our globe, swept round the sun, at its
perihelion, at the rate of 366 miles, or nearly the distance from
Edinburgh to London, in one second.  [Footnote 132]

  [Footnote 132: Outline of Astronomy, §590, 593.]

Velocities of impulse exceed those of bodily translation; that is,
supposing we may class among examples of wave motion the transmission
of sound, light, electricity, and perhaps gravitation. Dr. Lardner
mentions his having, on one occasion, in company with Leverrier,
written a message by electric telegraph, at a distance of more than a
thousand miles, and at the rate of 19,500 words in an hour, or of 5.5
words in a second.  [Footnote 133] At a similar distance, and indeed
at a much greater, a steel bar may be made to vibrate fourteen
thousand miles in a second.   [Footnote 134] Such a velocity evidently
far surpasses the power of human comprehension. Even in regard to the
less rapid transmission of light, the eminent astronomer Bessel
candidly confesses that "the distance which light traverses in a year
is not more appreciable to us, than the distance which it traverses in
ten years. Therefore, every endeavor must fail to convey to the mind
any idea of a magnitude exceeding what is accessible on the earth."
[Footnote 135]

  [Footnote 133: Museum of Science and Art, part viii. p. 116.]

  [Footnote 134: Ib., Part ix. p. 201.]

  [Footnote 135: Quoted, Cosmos, iii. 85.]

Now, even supposing that we are acquainted with all the methods which
exist in nature for spanning vast distances, and if, as we have shown,
distance may be expressed in terms of the time taken to travel over
it, or transmit a communication across it, the thought forcibly
occurs. What is distance, if viewed apart from the means at disposal
for overpassing it? A friend in the next room is not nearer us than
another in the next continent, if in the same interval of time we can
communicate with either. To be sure, one of them we might see sooner
than the other, but sight is no necessary means of communicating; the
blind are forever debarred from it. Man can communicate with man, even
materially, without either sight or hearing; and far beyond the range
of either.

But who shall be bold enough to say that other and subtler methods of
communication may not exist in the material universe? or that the
world of spirit has none more vivid than those subtle currents which
permeate the world of matter? To a generation or two ago, the means of
transmitting intelligence, which are now quite familiar to us, would
have seemed fabulous; a little further back in the history of Europe,
their discovery might have involved the penalty due to witchcraft. If
the passage of a material impulse across the wide orbit of Neptune
unites him intimately at every moment with the sun, is there any
distance that can be said absolutely to present an impassable gulf to
the intercourse of spirit with spirit? Or, can it be said that some
such means of communication do not, and cannot exist, because human
senses do not perceive them, nor human intelligence comprehend them?
Transmission by impulse surpasses in velocity every known instance of
actual, bodily translation: why must what we yet know of the former be
fixed as the limit of what is possible? Why may there not be some
means of communication surpassing in swiftness the flash of the
lightning, or the influence of gravitation, as far as it exceeds the
sweep of the comet or the slow progress of the pedestrian? Why must it
be pronounced an idle dream, that we may hold one end of a chain of
impulses vibrating from earth to heaven, lying along the future track
of our emancipated and purified spirits?

And pursuing analogy one step further, it is no severe demand on the
imagination to conceive that the universal presence of God, which
embraces and interpenetrates the immensity of space, may be, to the
subtle and vivid impulses from spirit to spirit, what, in another
order of things, the elastic ether of the planetary and sidereal
spaces is to vibrations of material creation; that it may fulfil for
those similar functions of propagation and transmission. In him who is
everywhere, at every instant, and forever, intelligence may easily be
conceived to pass between the remotest points of space, with a speed
not slower than coexistence itself; for any him there is no passage or
motion either in time or space; he is the one indivisible Eternal,
here and now.

V.

We are forcibly struck, while referring to the discoveries of modern
science, with the very slender ground on which the mass even of
educated persons accept their most astonishing and improbable results.
How many persons of all those who talk, with much fluency and show of
knowledge on subjects of physical science, have tested, by their own
observation, the truth of one of the phenomena which they converse
about? How many persons, for instance, who tell us that light and heat
in the same ray have been separated, have actually proved it by
personal experiment, or even seen it proved by another? How many
persons are there at this moment in England and Scotland who have
verified by their own observation and calculation the size and figure
of the earth, or its distance from the sun and moon; not to mention
other more intricate problems in physics, of which they have no
personal knowledge whatever? The mass of mankind are content to
receive these things on sufficient testimony of men competent, or whom
they deem competent, to inform them on such subjects. Here, at least,
in the domain of science, there is no exaltation of private judgment,
no rebellion against scientific authority; and it is a wise and a just
arrangement that it should be so. There are not many men, in any age,
furnished with the intellectual outfit necessary for such
verifications; a lifetime would not be sufficient to enable one man to
accomplish them all. Sir John Herschel has the following admirable
remarks, which are very much to our present purpose. "What mere
assertion will make any one believe, that in one second of time, in
one beat of a pendulum of a clock, a ray of light travels over 192,000
Miles, and would therefore perform the tour {383} of the world in
about the same time that it requires to wink with our eyelids, and in
much less than a Swift runner occupies in taking a single stride? What
mortal can be made to believe, without demonstration, that the sun is
almost a million times larger than the earth? and that, although so
remote from us that a cannon ball shot directly toward it would be
twenty years in reaching it, yet it affects the earth by its
attraction in an appreciable instant of time? But what are these to
the astonishing truths which modern optical inquiries have disclosed,
which teach us that every point of a medium through which a ray of
light passes is affected with a succession of periodical movements,
regularly occurring at equal intervals, no less than five hunted
millions of millions of times in a single second? That it is by such
movements, communicated to the nerves of our eyes, that we see; nay,
more, that it is the frequency of their recurrence which affects us
with the sense of the diversity of color. That, for instance, in
acquiring the sensation of redness, our eyes are affected four hundred
and eighty-two millions of millions of times; of yellowness, five
hundred and forty-two millions of millions of times; and of violet,
seven hundred and seven millions of millions of times in a second.
These are nevertheless, conclusions to which any one may most
certainly arrive, who will only be at the trouble of examining the
chain of reasoning by which they have been obtained."

If Theology, or the science of God and his revealed will, is, as might
have been expected, not less, but more recondite than any other, as
its objects are vaster, more remote from human understanding, than
those of any other science; surely, on philosophical principles, it is
not unreasonable that authority should have its weight here, also, and
equal measure at least to be dealt to all. Yet the modern world is
agreed in ridiculing and denouncing the principle of authority in
religious matters, as the bane of human society; and in exalting
private judgment and opinion, as the Christian's only ultimate appeal
in the matter. Apply this principle of independence to any other
science, to any subject of human knowledge, or to any object of
intelligent inquiry; and a race of sciolists, pedants, and sceptics
would inevitably result. The authority of great names in science would
lose all its just honor; there would be no system, no progress in
observations; thousands of persons, incompetent to do more than deny
the conclusions of the learned and the able, would refuse their assent
to these, till the impossible time should arrive, when, by actual and
personal investigation, they should be pleased to pronounce judgment
on the accuracy of these conclusions; life would be consumed in
negation; mutual trust and deference to superior knowledge and
capacity would be annihilated. Whether in this incompatibility of
private judgment with its best interests, and even with its stability,
Revelation is very different from Science, we leave to the study of
our readers, and to their observation of the fine gradations of
independent judgment which conduct from Luther to Strauss; the former
of whom began by denying the pope, and the latter ended by impugning
the divinity of Jesus Christ.



VI.

The principle of authority and its correlative, subordination and
dependence, is represented, in a remarkable manner, in the
constitution of physical nature, especially in the province of
astronomy. It is a remark of Dr. Whewell in his Bridgewater Treatise,
[Footnote 136] "that the relations among the planets is uniformly, not
co-ordinate, but subordinate. Satellites are subject to the influence
of their primaries; primaries to that of the central sun; the central
sun itself to a higher and more distant centre; in a sublimer material
hierarchy, ascending in gradations of {384} immense numerical
magnitude; and thus while insuring the stability of the whole
planetary and stellar systems, ultimately, as every analogy teaches
us, making one grand centre of revolution and subordination, at a
point of space whose distance we cannot even imagine."

  [Footnote 136: Bohn's Edition, p. 175.]

In his remarks on the Third Law of Kepler, namely, that the squares of
the times of planetary revolution round the sun are proportional to
the cubes of their mean distances from that central luminary, Sir J.
Herschel has the following pertinent observations, "Of all the laws to
which induction from pure observation has ever conducted man, this
third law, as it is called, of Kepler, may justly be regarded as the
most remarkable, and the most pregnant with important consequences.
When we contemplate the constituents of the planetary system, from the
point of view which this relation affords us, it is no longer mere
analogy which strikes us--no longer a general resemblance among them,
as individuals independent of each other, and circulating about the
sun, each according to its own peculiar nature, and connected with it
by its own peculiar tie. The resemblance is now perceived to be a true
_family_ likeness; they are bound up in one chain--interwoven in one
web of mutual relation and harmonious agreement--subjected to one
pervading influence, which extends from the centre to the furthest
limits of that great system; of which all of them, the earth included,
must henceforth be regarded as members."  [Footnote 137 ]

  [Footnote 137: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. ix §489.]

The remarks of the same great philosopher on the systems of double
stars, in a later part of his work on astronomy, bear still more
directly on the view we are proposing. "It is not with the revolutions
of bodies of a planetary or cometary nature round a solar centre, that
we are now concerned; it is with that of sun round sun--each, perhaps,
at least in some binary systems, where the individuals are very
remote, and their period of revolution very long, accompanied with its
train of planets and their satellites, closely shrouded from our view
by it the splendor of their respective suns, and crowded into a space
bearing hardly a greater proportion to the in enormous interval which
separates them, than the distance of the satellites of our planets
from their primaries bear to their distances from the sun itself. A
less distinctly characterized subordination would be incompatible with
the stability of their systems, and with the planetary nature of their
orbits. Unless closely nestled under the wing of their immediate
superior, the sweep of another sun in its perihelion passage round
their own might carry them off, or whirl them into orbits utterly
incompatible with the conditions necessary for the existence of their
inhabitants. It must be confessed that we have a strangely wide and
novel field for speculative excursions, and one which it is not easy
to avoid luxuriating in."   [Footnote 138]

  [Footnote 138: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. xvi. § 847.]



VII.

The phenomena of nature or suggest an interesting view all of law in
general, which we shall in a few words faintly outline. It is
constantly urged as an objection to the doctrine of revelation
regarding the Blessed Eucharist, for example, that it is contrary
philosophy, inasmuch as it assumes and implies the suspension of a
universal law, which connects certain definite accidents or qualities
of matter invariably with their corresponding substance; for in the
Holy Eucharist the properties, qualities, or accidents of one
substance are attached to another.

By a "_Law_" in physics no more can be understood than a deduction
from a sufficiently large series of observed facts, establishing, from
long and tearful and extensive observation, a uniformity of result in
the same given circumstances. Some laws are said to be "empirical,"
which though derived from careful noting of invariably {385} recurring
phenomena, enunciate no principle, or rationale, but merely the
numerical result of observation. Thus Kepler's three laws of planetary
motion, and Bode's law of planetary distances from the sun, are
instances of law simply and confessedly empirical. Newton's law of
gravitation is said to furnish the principle which is involved in
Kepler's formula of details; because once Newton's law is admitted as
governing planetary motion, what Kepler observed of the movements of
the planets, can be deduced by calculation. It would be perhaps more
philosophical, in the present state of our knowledge, to regard even
the most apparently elementary and fundamental law as only empirical,
and the ultimate principle as lying deeper than any known law. In this
view, a law like that of Newton's demonstrating, would be said to lie
only one step nearer the ultimate principle than the earlier and more
empirical. Probably there is no ultimate principle nearer than the
divine volition.

In fact, the law of gravitation is now regarded by philosophers as
something short of the ultimate solution of material attraction and
repulsion; they are groping their way, at this moment, to something
more universal than that law, as may be gathered from the following
observations of Sir J. Herschel: "No matter from what ultimate cause
the power which is called gravitation originates--be it a virtue
lodged in the sun, as its receptacle, or be it pressure from without,
or the resultant of many pressures or solicitations of unknown fluids,
magnetic or electric ethers, or impulses--still, when finally brought
under our contemplation, and summed up into a single resultant energy,
its direction is _from_ many points on all sides _toward_ the sun's
centre."  [Footnote 139]

  [Footnote 139: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. ix. §490.]

Whence is this uncertainty about the probable nature of this force?
Because, universal as it has been thought, it fails in certain
circumstances, as in some electrical conditions, and within very small
distances; when the relation of material particles to one another is
one of repulsion, and not of attraction. Take another law, as it is
called, that fluids will always rise as high as their source, and no
higher. The phenomena of capillary attraction prove that this law does
not hold in all cases. The chemical law of atomic combination is
sometimes found signally to fail. Physical laws, therefore, like
these, are good only as far as they go; there are limits to their
application.

Why may not this be true in regard to the law which is said to
militate against the doctrine of the blessed Eucharist? It may hold
good for a thousand instances, and may fail in the next, like other
physical laws; and that instance may be the very one of this revealed
doctrine. _Exceptio probat regulam_ is a sound rule in a certain
sense; it tells the other way, however, when the absolute
impossibility even of an exception is maintained in regard to any
physical law.

But, in fact, we see that this law of relation between quality, or
accident, and substance, is very uncertain in its application to many
conditions of matter. Modern discovery has much diminished the number
of the properties, or qualities, of matter; and has proved that even
these are by no means constant in the same substance, nor always
variable in different substances; so that one substance often looks to
every sense, like another, wholly different; and "behaves," like it,
in a variety of ways; while the same substance has sometimes more than
one mode of appearance. There is, in fact, no law of uniformity
between material substance and its properties; if there is any law on
the subject, it is the other way; and the result of discovery seems
clearly to demonstrate that we know absolutely nothing of the nature
of substance.



VIII.

Closely connected with this view of law is the interesting subject is
{386} throughout nature, but especially in the motions and temporary
disturbances in the heavenly spaces, and which afford, in fact, the
best evidence of the stability of the vast system of creation. A
variation is observed in the ellipticity of the earth's orbit, for
instance, of which one evident proof is the acceleration of the moon's
motion round her primary; it might seem as if, at some vastly remote
period in future time, the total derangement of our planetary system
must ensue; but calculation has assured us that there is a point, far
short of that, at which there will occur a change; and in the lapse of
ages things will return to their original condition. Thus beyond an
exception to law there is still Law existing supreme, regulating the
conditions and the term of such exceptional existence. In a similar
manner, the law of storms, as it is called, establishes the dominion
of definite order even in the confusion and mad fury of the tropical
hurricane; so definite, and so completely under the control of
observed rule, that navigators are provided with certain instructions
for evading the overwhelming force of those terrible visitations. We
think of these cycles of apparent exception and departure from
established order, in the physical world, when we hear objections made
against this or that apparent anomaly in the spiritual and moral
government of God; till the principles and laws of one government are
proved wholly unlike those of the other, we imagine a secular
variation not impossible in the one as it actually exists in the
other; and we can endure even a temporary eclipse of the outward glory
of his church, the prevalence of her enemies against her, for a longer
or a shorter time; the exile of her chief pastor; the triumph of
iniquity in her glorious capital; convinced that erratic trains of
events like these are subject to law in the permission of him who
governs as he made the universe of matter and of mind, by an act of
his sovereign and omnipotent will.



IX.

From what has preceded, one or two general reflections occurred to an
intelligent mind, somewhat to this effect. It seems that the  horizon
of science has never been long stationary, and is now opening wider
then at any former period. Every science has passed through many
strange phases of empiricism, before reaching the philosophical basis
on which it now rests. All of them are disclosing facts and analogies
undreamed of by our grandfathers. A very few years make a book on
chemistry or physiology old and out of date. We are posting on to
further knowledge; strange and unimagined relations between matter and
matter, and still stranger between matter and mind, are no doubt
awaiting the detection of future discoverers; our children, or their
children, will know more than we. A single sentence of Professor
Faraday's reflections on the subject of Allotropism, is sufficient to
open a wide view of the possible career of science. "The philosopher
ends," he says, "by asking himself the questions, In what does
chemical identity consists? In what will these wonderful developments
of allotropism end? Whether the so-called chemical elements may not
be, after all, mere allotropic conditions of purer universal essences?
Whether, to renew the speculations of the alchemists, the metals may
the only so many mutations of each other, by the power of science
naturally convertible? There was a time when this fundamental doctrine
of the alchemists was opposed to known analogies; _it is now no longer
opposed to them, but only some stages beyond their present
development._"  [Footnote 140]

  [Footnote 140: Faraday's Lectures, pp. 105, 106.]

Is it safe to trust to what are considered to be indications of
physical truth in a contest with moral evidence when the limits of
physical knowledge are so floating and ill defined? Is it safe to
erect barriers of supposed physical laws against the entrance of
conviction regarding the truths of {387} revelation, when recent
discovery has established so much that tells on the side of faith;
when it has overturned so many old philosophical objections to it;
when future discovery may, and seems likely to push the advantage of
revelation still further into the domain of matter; when its
indications have so many analogies to the doctrines of revealed truth?
We are sure, at least, that future discovery can take from us no
advantage which we at present derive from our knowledge of physical
laws; it cannot fail widely to extend that advantage, by enlarging our
acquaintance with the laws of nature.



X.

The natural termination of our reflections is the consideration of how
short a way we yet see into the constitution of Nature; how far we are
still from reaching the secrets of her vast operations. "After all,
what do we see?" asks Admiral Smyth, in his _Cycle of Celestial
Objects_. "Both that wonderful (stellar and nebular) universe, our
own, and all which optical assistance has revealed to us, may be only
the outlines of a cluster immensely more numerous. The millions of
suns we perceive cannot comprise the Creator's universe. There are no
bounds to infinitude; and the boldest views of the elder Herschel only
placed us as commanding a ken whose radius is some 35,000 times longer
than the distance of Sirius from us. Well might the dying Laplace
exclaim, 'That which we know, is little; that which we know not, is
immense.'"  [Footnote 141] If, on the one hand, the discoveries of man
in every department of material knowledge prove him to be in genius
and intelligence only "a little lower than the angels," the boundless
expanse of undiscovered worlds of investigation in his own and distant
systems may well abate his enthusiasm, and make the greatest
philosopher acknowledge that we as yet know only in part.

  [Footnote 141: Vol. ii. Bedford Catalogue, p. 303.]

If so, partial knowledge of the laws of divine government can never be
a safe or a philosophical guide to direct us in accepting or rejecting
whatever comes to us claiming to be from the author and sustainer of
that government, as revelation does. It can never be safe even as a
preliminary guide; as an ultimate rule to test the value of
revelation, it is totally disqualified. Till we know all, we can say
nothing of what is possible or impossible, probable or the reverse. We
can understand a person to whom the claims of revelation on his assent
were new and strange, hesitating to accept it at all, till its
credentials had been examined, and their evidence ascertained; but
once that process is concluded, and a revelation established, we
cannot understand a philosophical mind, in the elementary state of
human knowledge, proceeding to select from the sum of revealed truth
what seems to it intelligible, and accepting that, while rejecting
whatever it considers to be the reverse; and maintaining that, because
it cannot comprehend the mysterious things of revelation, therefore
they cannot be from God. The only course, at once safe and
philosophical, is to accept the whole of what is presented to us,
without questioning its coincidence, or otherwise, with our previous
views of what is likely or befitting; with our present notions of what
is intelligible. To our limited knowledge it may seem in its doctrines
unintelligible, imperfect, perhaps even contradictory: clouds of
doubts may seem to hover over it; storms of conflicting principles and
laws and assumptions, subversive, as we think, of the course of
nature, may now rage about its path. But ascend the mountain-top, and
the clouds are left far beneath; the roaring of the storm cannot be
heard so high. Descend a little way into the deep, and the agitation
of its surface ceases; silence and order and everlasting rest are
established there. So the deeper we penetrate into the knowledge of
God, as manifested in his material government, or the higher we ascend
in contemplating his modes {388} of action in nature, the nearer we
shall approach to the vision of that perfect harmony and nice
adjustment of every part of his vast creation, the full disclosure of
which will recreate our intelligence in the light of his eternal
beauty. It cannot be matter for wonder, then, that we rejoice at every
new step in science, at every discovery of the secret powers of
nature. We welcome the advance of physical science as a pioneer of the
ultimately victorious progress of revealed truth, which shall
demonstrate its intimate harmony with all that is known of the divine
operations in the constitution of nature.

Meanwhile, we can afford to wait "till the day breaks and the shadows
flee away." The veil will one day be withdrawn, and we shall see, eye
to eye. Influences and agencies which it has not yet been given to man
even to imagine, will then be disclosed, around us and within us; as
when the eyes of the prophet's servant were opened, and he beheld his
master surrounded with chariots of fire and horses of fire. Things
will then be seen as they are, in the day of the manifestation of the
sons of God. We can afford to wait for that day. We feel within us,
already, much that we cannot account for, on natural principles;
strong presentiments, and instincts of the supernatural and eternal
order of things, are ever and ever crossing our path, stirring us with
strange and sudden and mysterious power; disposing us for the
revelations of the final day. A day of wonder; a day of benediction;
but not for those who have refused to believe because they could not
see, but for Christ's simple little ones, who were content to believe
before, or without seeing; for whom it was enough that the great
Creator had spoken to them by his Son, and since by his church; more
than enough, that, even here, they could recognize the subservience of
philosophy to faith; that they could perceive "in outward and visible
things the type and evidence of those within the veil."

------

THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE HYMN.



Copied from a print of the Blessed Virgin in a Catholic Village in
Germany. Translated into English by E. T. Coleridge.

  Dormi, Jesu! mater ridet
  Quae tam dulcem somnam videt,
    Dormi, Jesu! blandule!
  Si non dormis, mater plorat,
  Inter fila cantans orat,
    Blande, veni, somnule.


  Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling:
  Mother sits beside thee smiling;
    Sleep, my darling, tenderly!
  If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
  Singing as her wheel she turneth;
    Come, soft slumber, balmily!

--------

{389}

Original.

CELTIC ANTHOLOGY AND POETIC REMAINS.


There is no people, the annals of which may not be separated into
three distinct periods, namely: the period of heroes and epico-poetic
narration; the period of myth, fable, and apotheosis; and the period
of realistic and definitive history. Or, to range the whole in the
order of historical sequence, the three distinctive phases of
race-annals may be formulated as follows:

  1. The period of myth and apotheosis--which, among the European
  races especially, constitutes the beginning of history.

  2. The period of heroes and poetic annals--which forms a kind of
  transition period.

  3. The period of realistic definitive history, untinted with
  imaginative glories--the beginning of which indicates the point in
  race-history at which literary civilization commences.

To the analysis of the first we apply the term _mythology_; but for
the second it happens that there is no term--unless we may be
permitted so to deepen the sense of the word _anthology_ as to include
within its sweep of definition, not only poetic extracts, but poetic
material and the logical analysis of that material. For the purposes
of this paper, therefore, the word will be used in the sense
suggested, as including the poetic material of a people, and the
discussion of any anthological idiosyncrasies therein manifested.

The use of the word being permitted--it happens that, however
intricate and various in details, the _essential_ data of anthology
are everywhere the same in classification, and everywhere susceptible
of the same logical analysis. Without here pausing to specify reasons,
which may be more conveniently specified hereafter--this division
into classes of _data_, needful because as yet no logicalization has
been here attempted, may be effected with tolerable precision by
recurring to the usual analysis of a people's poetic material. The
analysis of these _data_--anthological because imaginative and
poetic--may, therefore, be exhibited thus:

  1. Mythology and semi-historical or moralistic fable.

  2. Poetic annals and ancient waifs of ballad and song.

  3. Household legends, fairy stories, and superstitions.

In the region of mythology the data have been collected and collated
with considerable thoroughness, especially by German _savans_; in the
region of poetic annals, only the general details have been subjected
to analytic scrutiny; and in that of household lore and legend, saving
the collection of the Brothers Grimm, little has been effected in
comparison with the importance of the subject. Enough has been done,
however, to demonstrate, not only the applicability of the fore-made
classification, but also the singular analogical resemblance in minute
details which exists between the household legends of any one people
as compared with those of any other, and which, in analogy at least,
points to the original historical unity of the human race.

Nor is the analogy which bespeaks this unity to be limited to the
general analysis of class. Amid the vagaries of mythology and
apotheosis, amid the epic-annals of heroes and demi-gods, and, in
short, amid the more minute imaginings and superstitions {390} of
every people may be traced curious and often startlingly singular
analogical resemblances.

The Edda, weird, Northern and Gothic in the _ensemble_ of its
imaginings, reproduces, otherwise nomenclated, the mythology of the
Greek and of the Roman; the dim bat-winged Athor of mystical Egypt,
who presided under the shadows of the pyramids over the creation of
beauty, reappears, less mystically aureola'd, in the classical
_mythos_ of Venus; and the ghoul of the desert-inhabiting
Saracen--most Arabic of all Arabs--haunts the woodlands and
waste-places of Germany, as illusive and wine-dispensing Elle-maid; in
short, in all forms of superstition and in all moods of anthology
there is an essential unity--a unity having its root in the general
unity of the human imagination. For, the imagination, however through
the operation of local causes its dreams may be tipped with
rainbow-tints or imbued with shadowy sublimity--is one in the
ever-varying rhythm of its creations, and one in the vague palaces of
fantasy which it uprears. Valleys and palaces of ideal loveliness it
may evoke--visions to which Poe weds expression in the weird imagery
of his Haunted Palace:

  "And travellers in that happy valley,
  Through two luminous windows, saw
  Spirits moving musically
  To a lute's well-tunéd law;"

Or, again, valleys and palaces of lunatic ghastliness and
superstition--visionary lunacies, which Poe graphically, though
somewhat metaphorically, depicts in his own modification of the above
rhythm-painting:

  "And travellers now within that valley.
  Through the red-litten windows, see
  Vast forms that move fantastically
  To a discordant melody."

But, whether the music be discordant or well-tuned, the humanity of
its note cannot be mistaken; and whether the creations of the human
intellect be palaces of loveliness or pagodas of ghastliness, they
still bear the unmistakable impress of man's toiling after the
ideal--of the vague, restless, and unsatisfied yearning for the lost
ideal of his being, to compass which he toils and struggles and
dreams. In this essential unity of human imagination is grounded the
essential unity of the _data_ of anthology, and hence its marvellous
and minute analogical resemblances.

Anthology having never been reduced to definitive system, it happens
that no little of its critical material exists only in lumbering and
uncollated masses. Indeed, not a little of that which might have been
valuable as material has been permitted to rot in mildewed
manuscript--for need of appreciation of its real value on the part of
scholars--instead of having been (as it should have been) treasured
and preserved, as the pabulum of thought and science; and yet more
remains uncollected, and will so remain until a more valid
comprehension of its value shall have been impressed upon the minds of
spectacled professors who are usually the last to comprehend that in
the comprehension of which they ought to be first. But,
notwithstanding this apparent apathy and neglect on the part of the
learned, there are, still, certain problems of history which can only
be unriddled with this key--that of comparative anthology--as, for
instance, the exploits of Joan d'Arc; a hundred riddles of mental
philosophy there are, which can not be unravelled without it; and, in
every language, multitudes of words are based, as to their peculiar
shades of significance, upon anthological criticism. Thus the
_nightmare_ is the _demon which haunts the night_; the _Huguenots_
were _imps of the woods_--from _Hugon_, the demon of the
woodlands;--and not not as a learned dean supposes the _people
eidgenossen_; and a _seer_ is simply a _see-er_, that is, one who has
the gift of the second sight.

{391}

A minute knowledge of anthology--we here use the term to denote that
blossoming of events and moral ideas into imaginative forms, which
constitutes most of that which we denominate the poetic material of a
people, is, therefore, in the highest degree necessary to the proper
comprehension of--

  1. Historical criticism.
  2. Comparative philology.
  3. Mental philosophy--especially in those moods of mind of which
  modern civilization furnishes no examples.

To take a familiar illustration. It has been over and over
demonstrated that, unless we deny the validity of the common
principles of historical evidence, to admit the existence of that
peculiar imaginative faculty denominated "second sight" is a
necessity. Nor is the faculty, if its existence be admitted,
necessarily to be accounted a preternatural gift--being simply the
logical result of the cultivation of certain impulses of human
intellect seldom, in the experiences of modern society, evoked into
activity; being, in fact, the logical deduction of that scenery which
surrounded the Highlanders of Scotland, and of that mood of mind which
was their prevailing habit. Civilization develops no sublimity of
mental strength, except in the region of reason. Moral sublimity is
not developed by communion with streets and avenues. Neither is
imaginative insight--that which, in ultimate deduction, is
inspiration--an inhabiter of palaces. Born of crags, of' mountains,
and of the lurid and ghastly grandeur of the tempest--the imaginative
insight is the lightning of the mind, and like the lightning at
midnight reveals that which to the moon and stars is wrapped in
darkness. To educe the principle: the imaginative forms (anthology)
into which primitive moral ideas, rude reasonings, and epic-events
blossom, are essentially modified by two ever-active causes, namely:
idiosyncrasies of race and scenic surroundings. And hence, in reducing
the fragmentary imaginings of a people to scientific system, we are
compelled to keep constantly in view the idea of answering to the
conditions of three problems:

  1. Given the scenery of a country
  and the idiosyncrasies of its people, and we may, in a general way,
  indicate its anthology; or

  2. Given the anthology and idiosyncrasies, and we may, with
  tolerable accuracy, indicate the leading peculiarities of the
  scenery; or

  3. Given the scenery and anthology, and we may indicate, with
  exactitude, the leading idiosyncrasies of the people.

Having indicated, by way of preface, the general scope of anthology
and the value of its _data_, we shall devote the remaining portion of
this paper to the anthological relics of the Irish race, and
especially to its elfin and poetic phases.

Fairies are (among the Irish peasantry) still believed to exist, and
to exercise no little influence over the affairs of mortals. They are
generally represented as pigmies, and are, so runs the superstition,
often seen dancing around solitary thorns, which are believed to be
among their most frequented haunts. Hence the veneration of the
peasantry for old solitary thorns--the peasantry believing that if
these thorns are cut down or maimed, the fairies are thereby provoked,
and will either maim the person who has cut the tree, cause his cattle
to sicken and die, or otherwise injure his property. Places supposed
to be haunted by fairies are termed gentle, as likewise are several
herbs, in gathering which a strange ritual is observed. If provoked by
any person, it is believed that the fairies will steal and carry away
that which is dearest to that person, as his wife, or especially any
members of his family in babyhood and before baptism. The castles in
which the fairies dwelt were generally believed to be movable at the
pleasure of the proprietor, invisible to human eyes, and usually built
in ancient forths or raths. Among the principal fairy kings were
Firwar, whose castle was at Knock Magha, and Macaneantan, {392} whose
fairy palace was at Sgraba. Whistling Hill (Knock-na-feadalea), in the
county of Down, is still visited by hundreds of the peasantry, who,
especially on the last night in October, which is observed with
singular ceremonials, aver that they can hear the music of the fairies
issuing from the hill. The following verses include the names of the
principal places fabled to be inhabited by fairy kings:

  "Around Knock-Grein, and Knock-na-Rae,
  Bin Builvia, and Keis Korain,
  To Bin Eakhlan and Lokh Da-ean,
  And thence north-east to Sleive Guilin.
  They trod the lofty hills of Mugarna.
  Round Sleive Denard and Beal-at-an-draigh.
  Down to Daudrin, Dundroma, and Dunardalay,
  Right forward to Knock-na-Feadalea."

Which was the route of procession on the night of the last of October,
when aërial spirits were supposed to be peculiarly active. The
following legend of Whistling Hill we extract from a collection of
these legends in the original Irish made by Rev. William Neilson,
D.D., and printed by Hogan, No. 15 Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin, in 1808:

  "There was au honest, pious man, who lived formerly near the river,
  by the side of the hill (Whistling Hill); and the vestiges of his
  house may yet be seen. His name was Thady Hughes; and he had neither
  wife nor family--his mother, an aged woman, keeping his house.

  "Thady went out on a Hallow-eve night to pray, as he was in the
  habit of doing, on the bank of the river; and looking up to observe
  the stars, he saw a dusky cloud from the south moving toward him as
  if impelled by a whirl-wind, and heard the sound of horses just as
  if a troop of cavalry were tramping along the valley. Thady noticed
  that they all came over the ford and round the mountain.

  "Remembering that he had often heard it said, 'if you cast the dust
  under your feet against the cloud, if the fairies have any human
  being with them they are compelled to release him,' Thady seized a
  handful of the gravel which was under his feet and hurled it, in the
  name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, against the whirlwind:
  whereupon fell down a strange lady, weak, faint, and wearily
  moaning.

  "Thady started, but, imagining that the voice of the strange lady's
  moaning was human, went to the spot where she fell, spoke to her,
  and took her in his arms and carried her to his mother, who gave her
  food--the lady eating but little.

  "They asked her few questions that night, knowing that she came from
  the fairy castles. Besides, she appeared to be sick and sorrowful,
  and did not seem to be in any mood for talking. The next morning,
  however, she related her story, having first enjoined secrecy, which
  Thady and his mother promised.

  "The strange lady's name was Mary Rourke, and she had formerly lived
  in the county of Galway, where she was married to a young man named
  John Joyce, who lived hard by Knock Magha. One year after her
  marriage with Joyce, King Firwar and his host carried her away to
  the fairy castle of Knock Magha, leaving something in the form of a
  dead woman in her place which bulk was duly waked and buried.

  "She had been in Knock Magha nearly a year and was daily entertained
  with dances and songs, notwithstanding she was in sorrow at having
  been parted from her husband. At length the host of the castle told
  her that her husband had married another woman; that, therefore, she
  ought to indulge in grief no longer; and that Firwar and his family
  were about to visit the province of Ulster, and intended to take her
  with them. They set out at dawn from Knock Magha forth, both Firwar
  and host; and many a fairy castle they visited from dawn till fall
  of night, traveling all mounted on beautiful winged horses.

  "After they lost Mary, the fairies did not halt; for they were to
  feast that Hallow-eve in the fairy castle of Sgraba, with the fairy
  king, Macaneantan."

{393}

The story adds that Thady Hughes married Mary Rourke, and that a
difficulty subsequently arose between Thady and John Joyce, who,
having heard of the escape of the strange lady from the fairies, went
to Thady's cottage and claimed her as his wife. The matter afterward
came before the bishop for adjudication, who adjudged that as Mary
had, to all appearances, died and been buried as the wife of John
Joyce, she was under no obligation to be his wife after her death. And
thus ends the legend.

The general similarity of the fairies as depicted in this legend to
those of Germany as illustrated in Goethe's Erl King, is obvious, and
seems to argue either historical kin or identity of origin. In
Goethe's ballad a corpse is left in the arms of the father. The
version subjoined is an anonymous newspaper version, but is so far
superior to that of Mrs. Austin, that we quote it in preference:

  "Who rideth so late through the night wind lone?
    Yet is a father with his son.

  "He foldeth him fast; he foldeth him warm;
    He prayeth the angels to keep from him harm.

  "' My son, why hidest thy face so shy?'
  "' Seest thou not, father, the Erl King nigh?

  "'The Erlen King with his train, I wist?'
  "'My son, it is only the fog and mist.'

  "'Come, beautiful one, come away with me,
    And merry plays will I play with thee!

  "'Ah! gay are the blossoms that blow by the shore,
    And my mother hath many a plaything in store.'

  "'My father, my father, and dost thou not hear
    What the Erlen King doth say in my ear?'

  "'Be still my darling, be still, my son,
    Through the withered leaves the winds howl lone.'

  "'Come, beautiful one, come away with me,
     My daughters are fair, they shall wait on thee!

  "'My daughters their nightly revellings keep,
    They shall sing, they shall dance, they shall rock thee to sleep.'

  "' My father, my father, and seest thou not
    The Erl King's daughters in yon wild spot?'

  "'My son, my son, I see, I wist,
    It is the gray willow down there in the mist.'

  "'I woo thee; thy beauty delighteth my sense.
    And, willing or not, shall I carry thee hence.'

  "'O father, the Erl King now puts forth his arm!
    O father, the Erl King, he doeth me harm!'

  "The father rideth, he rideth fast
    And faster rideth through the blast.

  "He spurreth wild, through the night wind lone,
    And dead, in his arms, he holdeth his son."

Of this topic--the folks-lore of the Irish peasantry--we shall here
take leave, merely hazarding the opinion that there is some remote
historical connection between the Irish traditions of the
idiosyncrasies and doings of elves and those of the Germanic races--a
connection probably dating from the Danish occupation of the country
about the seventh or eighth century. In the Irish poetic annals, which
antedate the Danish occupation by several hundred years, no traces of
elfin traditions can be detected; and the same is true of the Ossianic
ballads which McPherson has rather imperfectly collated, and between
which and the several Celtic manuscripts there is a singular
resemblance.

The collation of McPherson, valuable in many respects, is amenable to
almost fatal criticism, in that the sublimity of the Gaëlic
composition is marred by being twisted from the parallelism (which, in
the original, is analogous to the Hebraic) into the form of prose: the
parallelism being in English--as in Gaëlic, Celtic, and Hebrew--the
most effective form into which sublimity can be wrought. And to
demonstrate the truth of this proposition we need only to put portions
of McPherson's prose version into the parallelistic form, and shall
adopt for this purpose Fingal's interview with the spirit of Loda,
than which, uniquely considered, a poem of more overwhelming sublimity
was never written or conceived. Subjoined is McPherson's version:

  "A blast came from the mountain: on its wings was the spirit of
  Loda. He came to his place in his terrors, and shook his dusky
  spear. His eyes appear like flames in his dark face: his voice is
  like distant thunder. Fingal advanced his spear in night, and raise
  his voice on high. 'Son of night retire: call thy winds, and fly!
  Why dost thou come to my presence with thy shadowy arms? Shall I
  fear thy gloomy form, spirit of dismal Loda? Weak is thy shield of
  clouds; feeble is that meteor thy sword! The blast rolls them
  together; and thou thyself art lost. Fly from my presence, son of
  night! call thy winds and fly!'

{394}

  "'Dost thou force me from my place?' replied the hollow voice. 'I
  turn the battle in the field of the brave. I look on the nations,
  and they vanish: my nostrils pour the blast of death. I come abroad
  on the winds; the tempests are before my face. But my dwelling is
  calm above the clouds; pleasant are the fields of my rest.'

  "'Dwell in thy pleasant fields,' says the king. 'Let Comhal's son be
  forgotten. Have my steps ascended from my hills into thy peaceful
  plains? Have I met thee with a spear on thy cloud, spirit of dismal
  Loda? Why then dost thou frown on me? Why shake thine airy sphere?
  Thou frownest in vain: I never fled from the mighty in war; and
  shall the sons of the wind frighten the king of Morven? No--he knows
  the weakness of their arms.'

  "'Fly to thy land,' replied the form; 'take to the wind, and fly!
  The blasts are in the hollow of my hand: the course of the storm is
  mine. Fly to thy land, son of Comhal, or feel my flaming wrath!'

  "He lifted high his shadowy spear! he bent forward his dreadful
  height. Fingal, advancing, drew his sword, the blade of dark-brown
  Luno. The gleaming path of the steel winds through the gloomy ghost.
  The form fell shapeless into air."

Now, let us put this in the form of the parallelism--a form into which
the sententious sublimity of the composition naturally falls, and in
which nearly all these ancient Gaëlic and Celtic epics occur in the
original:

  "A blast came from the mountain:
  On its wings was the spirit of Loda.
  He came to his place in terrors,
  And shook his dusky spear.
  His eyes appear like flame in his dusky face:
  His voice is like distant thunder.
  Fingal advanced his spear into the night,
  And raised his voice on high.
  Son of night, retire;
  Call thy winds, and fly!
  Why dost thou come to my presence with thy shadowy arms?
  Shall I fear thy gloomy form, spirit of Loda?
  Weak is thy shield of clouds;
  Feeble is that meteor, thy sword.
  The blast rolls them together:
  And thou thyself art lost.
  Fly from my presence, son of night!
  Call thy winds, and fly!'
  'Dost thou force me from my place?' replied the hollow voice.
  'I turn the battle in the field of the brave,
  I look on the nations and they vanish:
  In my nostrils is the blast of death.
  I came abroad on the winds:
  The tempests are before my face,
  But my dwelling is calm above the clouds;
  Pleasant are my fields of rest.'
  'Dwell in thy pleasant fields,' said the king.
  'Let Comhal's son be forgotten.
  Have my stops ascended from my hills into thy peaceful plains?
  Have I met thee with a spear on thy cloud, spirit of the dismal Loda?
  Why dost thou frown on me?
  Why shake thy dusky spear?
  Thou frownest in vain;
  I never fled from the mighty in war;
  And shall the sons of the wind frighten the king of Morven?
  He knows the weakness of their arms.'
  'Fly to thy land,' replied the shadow;
  'Take to the wind, and fly!
  The blasts are in the hollow of my hand
  The course of the storm is mine.
  Fly to thy land, son of Comhal,
  Or feel my flaming wrath!'
  He lifted high his shadowy spear:
  He bent forward his dismal height
  Fingal, advancing, drew his sword, the blade of the dark-brown Luno.
  The gleaming path of steel winds through the gloomy ghost.
  The form fell shapeless in air."

For vague sublimity, for weird, dismal, ghastly, and phantasmagoric
grandeur of conception and effect, the imagery of the above episode of
Ossian has never been exceeded in the vast domain of fantasy-weaving;
and this effect is vastly heightened by the sententious step of the
sentences and the shadowy cadence of the parallelism--a cadence which
is the natural expression of sublimity, and to compass which in
ordinary blank verse it is impossible. Compare, for instance, the
following imagery of similar _ensemble_, from Milton's "Paradise
Lost":

       "O'er many a dark and dreary vale
  They passed, and many a region dolorous;
  O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp;
  Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death--
  A universe of death."

Or the following rhythmical painting of more than Miltonic massiveness
and magnificence of imagination, from the "Orion" of R. H. Horne--a
poem of more idiosyncratic merit than most poems upon the classical
model. Orion thus describes the building of a palace for Hephaistos
(Vulcan):

  "So that great figures started from the roof,
  And lofty coignes, or sat and downward gazed
  On those who stood below and gazed above--
  I filled it; in the centre framed a hall;
  Central In that a throne: and for the light
  Forged mighty hammers that should rise and fall
  On slanted rocks of granite and of flint.
  Worked by a torrent, for whose passage down
  A gape I hewed. And here the god could take,
  Midst showery sparks and swathes of broad gold fire,
  His lone repose, lulled by the sounds he loved:
  Or, casting back the hammer-heads until they stopped
  The water's ebb, enjoy, if so he willed,
  Midnight tremendous, silence, and iron sleep."

{395}

Both of which, though in their manner unparalleled, are, in a less
degree, imbued with that which we may term POETIC ILLUMINATION; that
which constitutes the felicitous sublimity of Ossian; in short, that
for which only one simile, and that an impossible one--namely,
shooting of a sun athwart the heavens at midnight--be adduced.

But--the seasons here specified being deemed insufficient--if further
reasons be necessary for the adoption of of the parallelistic form in
treating the ancient Gaëlic and Celtic compositions, these necessary
reasons are fluent from the original form of those compositions, and
from the fact that the parallelism is the only poetic form adapted to
their style; which may be demonstrated by comparing the rhythmical
collocation of a single poem, the Songs of Deardra, a Celtic poem in
manuscript which will form the basis of the remainder of this paper,
with the collocation of the parallelistic English rendering. Adopting
phonographic equivalents for the Irish letters, the initial stanza of
Deardra's song improvised as a farewell to Scotland, runs as follows;

  "Ionmuin lioni an tio ud shoin,
  Alba cona hionghantuio;
  Nokha tliucfuinn aisde de,
  Muna dtioefuinn re Noise."

And the parallelistic rendering, line for line, as follows:

  "Dear to me that eastern shore;
  Dear is Alban, land of delights.
  Never would I have forsaken it,
  Had I not come with Naesa."

Thus the translation is rendered exact, conveying not only the matter
but, also, the manner of the original--without which last any
translation is and must be defective. The song is thus continued:

  "Dear are Dunfay and Dunfin,
   And dear are the hills around them;
   Dear is Inis-drayon,
   In dear to me Dunsaivni.

  "Coilcuan, sweet Coilcuan!
   Where Ainii and where Ardan came.
   Happy passed my days with Naesa,
   In the Western vales of Alban.

  "Glenlee, O Glenlee!
   Amidst thy thickets have I slept,
   And amidst thy thickets feasted,
   With my love in Glenlee.

  "Glenmessan, O, Glenmessan!
   Sweet were thy herbs and bright thy greens,
   Lulled by the falling stream we slept,
   On Inver's banks in Glenmessan.

  "Gleneikh, bright Gleneikh!
   Where my dwelling first was fixed,
   The woods smiled when the rising sun
   Shoots yellow arrows on Gleneikh.

  "Glenarkhon, dear Glenarkhon!
   Fair is the vale below high Dromkhon.
   Sportive were my days with Naesa,
   In the blooming vales of Glenarkhon.

  "Glendarua, O Glendarua!
   To me were thy people dear.
   The birds sang sweetly on the bending boughs
   That shaded over Glendarua.

  "Dear to me is that spreading shore;
   Dear the sandy-margined streams.
   Never would I have forsaken them,
   Had I not come with Naesa."

The events celebrated in these manuscript songs, now mustily rusting
in the Dublin University collection, occurred during the first
century, A. C. Deardra was the daughter of Macdoil, the historian of
Ulla (Ulster); Concovar being at that time king. The plot may be
briefly described:

  1. At the birth of Deardra it is foretold that she shall be the
  cause of many calamities; but the king, unappalled by omens and
  predictions, causes her to be taken from Macdoil and reared under
  persons whom he appoints; proposing to make her queen of Ulla.

  2. The beautiful Deardra conceives a passion for Naesa, one of the
  sons of Usna; and, with the assistance of his brothers, Ainli and
  Ardan, elopes with him to Alban, (Scotland,) in the western part of
  which Naesa has large estates.

  3. A messenger arrives from Concovar conveying the king's
  solicitation that they return to Ulla, and bearing tokens of the
  king's forgiveness to Naesa and Deardra.

  4. Disregarding the forebodings of Deardra, the sons of Usna accept
  the king's hospitality; and on the voyage Deardra sings the pathetic
  farewell to Alban just quoted, as if foreboding the events which
  follow.

  5. As the vessel moors in the haven Deardra ceases to sing; but,
  still foreboding ruin to Naesa, advises him to place himself under
  the protection of Cuculiin, who has his residence at Dundalgan.
  Naesa's confidence in the honor of Concovar, however, prevails; and
  they proceed to Emana, the royal seat--Deardra foretelling their
  fate both in conversation and in frequent prophetic song.

{396}

  6. They are received by Concovar with the semblance of kindness, and
  placed in the castle of the Red Arm with guards to wait upon them;
  while a body of mercenaries are sent to rescue Deardra and burn the
  castle--the troops of Ulla having refused to imbrue their hands in
  the blood of the heroes.

  7. Naesa, Ainli, and Ardan effect their escape with Deardra; but,
  being pursued, are overwhelmed by the king's mercenaries and slain.
  Deardra sings the following lament, calling to mind every
  circumstance which endeared her to Naesa, and reflecting with
  self-tormenting ingenuity upon those transient interruptions which,
  occasioning uneasiness at the moment, now serve to aggravate her
  unavailing sorrow:

  "Farewell for ever, fair coasts of Alban;
   Your bays and vales shall no more delight me.
   There oft from hills with Usna's sons,
   I viewed the hunt below.

  "The lords of Alban met in banquet.
   There were the valiant sons of Usna:
   And Naesa gave a secret kiss
   To the fairest daughter of Dundron.

  "He sent her a bind from the hill,
   And a fawn beside it running;
   He left the hosts of Inverness,
   And turned aside to her palace.

  "My soul was drunk with madness
   When this they told me--told me
   I set my boat upon the sea,
   To sail away from Naesa.

  "Ainli and Ardan brave and faithful.
   Valiantly pursued me,
   And brought me bark again to land,
   And back again to Naesa.

  "Then Naesa swore an oath to me;
   And thrice he swore upon his arms.
   That never would he cause me pain.
   Until unto the grave they bore him.

  "The maid of Dundron swore an oath;
   Thrice swore the maid of Dundron,
   That long as Naesa dwelt on earth
   No lover else should claim her.

  "Ah, did she hear this night.
   That Naesa in his grave was laid,
   High would be her voice of wailing,
   But seven times fiercer shall be mine."

  8. Standing by the grave of Naesa, Deardra concludes her
  lamentations with the following funeral song and panegyric, which
  having: sung, she springs into the grave and falls dead upon his
  breast:

  "Long is the day to me: the sons of Usna are gone.
   Their converse was sweet;
   But as raindrops fall my tears.
   They were as the lions on the hills of Emana.

  "To the damsels of Breaton were the dear.
   As hawks from the mountain they darted on the foe.
  The brave knelt before them,
  And nobles did them honor.

  "Never did they yield in battle.
  Ah! woe is me that they are gone.
  Sons of the daughter of Caifa.
  A host were ye in the wars of Cualna.

  "By careful Aifa were they reared.
   The countries round paid them tribute.
   Bursting like a flood in battle,
   Fought the valiant youths of Sgatha

  "Uatha taught them in their youth.
   The heroes were valiant in fight.
   Renowed sons of Usna,
   I weep, for ye have left me.

  "Dark-brown were their eyebrows;
   Their eyes were fires beneath;
   And their faces were as embers--
   As embers ruddy with flame.

  "Their legs as the down of the swan--
   Light and active were their limbs;
   Soft and gentle were their hands,
   And their arms were fair and manly.

  "King of Ulla, king of Ulla!
   I left thy love for Naesa.
   My days are few after him.
   His funeral honors are song.

  "Not long shall I survive my love;
   Think not so king of Ulla.
   Naesa, Ainli, and Ardan,
   I desire not life when you are gone.

  "Life hath no joy.
   My days are already too many.
   Delight of my soul,
   A shower of tears shall fall upon your grave.

  "Ye men that dig their grave.
   Dig it wide and dig it deep.
   I will rest on the breast of my love
   My sighs shall resound from his tomb.

  "Oft were their shields their pillow,
   And oft they slept upon their spears:
   Lay their strong swords beside them,
   And their shields beneath their heads.

  "Their dogs and hawks,--
   Who will now attend them?
   The hunters are no more on the hills;
   The valiant youths of Connai Cairni.

  "My heart, it groans--it groans.
   When I see the collars of their hounds.
   Oft did I feed them.
   But I weep when they are near.

  "We were alone in the waste.
   We were alone in the woodlands;
   But I knew no loneliness,
   Till they dug thy grave.

  "My sight begins to fail.
   When I view thy grave, my Naesa.
   My soul hastes to depart:
   And my voice of wailing to be hushed."

Thus ends one of the most pathetically beautiful tales, founded upon
original history, which the epico-poetic annals of any people afford.
It is far superior to any single poem amid the Svethico-Gothic remains
rendered famous by the masterly translations of Longfellow. In fact,
to him who shall {397} happily combine the requisite anthological
learning with the requisite skill as a translator, no literary
Golconda, more prolific in the rubies and scintillant glories of
poesy, could be unlocked, except with the Aladdin-key of almost
angelic invention, than is afforded in the mouldering, mildewed, and
musty masses of manuscript, in queer Celtic letters, which have been
permitted to rot for ages in the library of Dublin University. Had
they been English, they would have been magazinistically vaunted as
masterpieces in the piquant pages of "Blackwood," or amid e dreary
sermonoids of the "Westminster." Being Celtic, they are, so being,
neglected.

Albeit, there are to be Longfellows and Tennysons hereafter who shall
be cosmopolitan, and neither exclusively English, exclusively
American, nor exclusively Japanese; and men of learning there are to
be hereafter, who shall be citizens of the world (in a literary
sense), and not especially citizens of England, or of France, or of
America, who will seek for the beautiful in strange places beyond the
narrow limits of London, Paris, or New-York.

Meantime, it has been the object of this paper to play the lamp to the
gem-seeking Aladdin--suggesting that something may be done, rather
than doing it. Hence what has been said and what might have been more
cleverly and elaborately said, has here been curtly said upon the
subject of Celtic anthology--using the term in a sense that suited the
purposes and scope of this paper.

----------

ORIGINAL


  "QUARE TRISTIS ES ANIMA MEA,
  ET QUARE CONTURBAS ME?"


  Why, O my soul! art thou, ofttimes,
    So faint and sad?
  Life shows to thee its brightest side;
    Why not be glad?

  Is not the earth most beautiful,
    What wouldst have more?
  Filled is thy cup with life's best gifts
    And running o'er.

  And all the grandeur and the grace
    Of noble art--
  Do they not beautify thy life,
    And cheer thy heart?

  And love, most heavenly gift of all--
    Is it not thine?
  Yes, truly; yet I cannot say
    Content is mine.

  I feel a sadness of the soul,
    A weariness,
  A constant longing of the heart;
    What meaneth this?

{398}

  I know that once, when journeying far,
    I felt like this,
  But then they only called my grief
    A home-sickness.

  And so, with every gift of God,
    With nought amiss,
  My heart is longing, longing still;
    What meaneth this?

  Why is it that my soul is sad,
    What meaneth this?
  It panteth after thee, O God!
    Thou art its bliss.

------

From the Reader.

THE LAKE DWELLINGS.  [Footnote 142]

  [Footnote 142: The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland and other Parts of
  Europe. By Dr. Ferdinand Keller, President of the Antiquarian
  Association of Zurich. Translated and arranged by John Edward Lee,
  F.S.A., F.G.S. (London: Longmans.)]


Since 1854, when Dr. Keller published his first report on
pile-dwellings in Lake Zurich, he, and other Swiss archaeologists
stimulated by his example and guided by his counsel, have zealously
explored many other Swiss lakes, and have succeeded in discovering
more than two hundred similar settlements, and in collecting tens of
thousands of relics of the people who during many centuries occupied
them. Six reports on the "wonderful Pfahlbauten" have been published
by Dr. Keller; but, being written in German, they are less known than
the compilation in French by Fred. Troyon, who has absorbed Dr.
Keller's facts, and mingling them with fancies of his own, has given a
sensational character to his work. Excellent notices have, however,
appeared, written by Wylie, Lubbock, Lyell, and others, and
translations of some original memoirs have been printed in the
Smithsonian Reports. Stripped though the subject be, in some degree,
of novelty, the present translation of Dr. Keller's work is not the
less welcome; it is indeed right, that he who gave the first
exposition of these structures should tell the story of their
discovery, and picture forth the state of society which their remains
reveal. In this work we have a general description of the structure of
these dwellings; notices of the various settlements which have been
discovered, with an account of others on the Italian side of the Alps,
and of the Crannoges in Ireland and Scotland; chapters on the remains
of plants, by Dr. Heer, and of animals, by Professor Rütimeter; and
ninety-nine plates and several woodcuts give graphic, but sometimes
rough drawings of the dwellings, and of the various objects found in
them. As a storehouse of facts, illustrating the character and
progress of an ancient people, this work is invaluable; it will aid
other archaeologists in their researches; and we think, too, that the
cautious and philosophical manner in which Dr. Keller reasons from his
facts will help to correct some hasty and fanciful speculations.

{399}

For the construction of pile-dwellings, Swiss lakes afford favorable
sites, as along the shores there is generally a considerable breadth
of shallow water. Some pleasant bay, protected by well-wooded hills,
abounding in game, was selected for such settlements; and at a little
distance from the land piles of various kinds of would, generally
entire stems with with their bark on, but sometimes split, and from
fifteen to thirty feet in links and three to nine inches in diameter,
were driven into the bottom all the late, the heads of the piles
rising from two to four feet above the water. At the Wangen settlement
there were 40,000 piles, but all may not have been driven down at the
same period. Across this substructure other stems of trees ten of
twelve feet long were laid, and fastened by wooden pegs; and above
them split boards were similarly fastened, for me a solid, even
platform, which was covered by a bed of mud or loam. The platform of a
few, which Dr. Keller calls _fascine dwellings_, was supported not on
piles, but on layers of sticks and small stems built up from the
bottom of the lake, being similar to some of the Scottish Crannoges.
The boards and planks had been imperfectly fitted together, for
numerous objects which had slipped through the chinks of the floor are
scattered over the lake bottom; but quantities of broken implements,
pottery, and animal and vegetable refuse, heaped together on
particular spots, show that spaces had been left in the platform,
through which rubbish had been thrown into the water, thus for me
heaps analogous to the kitchen-middings of Denmark. Huts were erected
on the platform, having a framework of piles and stakes, with waddle
or hurdlework of small branches woven between the upright piles, and
covered over with a thickness of from two to three inches of loam or
clay, evidence of which has been found in pieces of half-burnt day
retaining the impression of the wattle-work. As some pieces have a
curve, Troyon concluded that the huts were circular, and from nine to
twelve feet in diameter; but Dr. Keller shows that the curve had
probably been produced by the great heat to which the clay covering
was exposed before it fell into the water, while also pieces of
different curves are found promiscuously on the same spot with others
perfectly flat, no piece indeed exceeding twelve inches across. It is
now pretty certain that most, if not all the huts, were rectangular;
those at Robenhausen and Niederwyl were found to be twenty-seven feet
by twenty-two feet. They stood close to but apart from each other, and
were thatched with straw and reeds. From the almost universal
prevalence of clay weights for weaving, it may be inferred that every
one was furnished with a loom. A narrow platform or bridge resting on
piles, of which a few remains have been found, connected these
dwellings with the land. Room enough there was in and around these
huts for all the operations of daily life, as well as for the
manufacture of every implement used in household economy; and in
short, this was the place where every craft or art known to the
settlers was brought into play. Even domestic animals were stalled on
the platform, as at Robenhausen the remains of the litter of these
animals has been found.

Such sites for dwellings are not unknown to history. Hippocrates
describes similar habitations on the stagnant, quiet-flowing river
Phasis in Armenia, and Herodotus others on Lake Prasias in Thrace. The
Crannoges in Ireland were inhabited as recently as 1645, but rather as
places of refuge; and at the present time there are analogous
structures in the Eastern Archipelago. Security against the attack of
enemies seems to have been the chief reason of selecting such peculiar
sites for dwellings, at a period when society was in a divided state,
{400} and when war of tribe against tribe was frequent. Similar
conditions were indicated by the numerous hill-forts of the ancient
Britons, and even by the pele towers of the border-land in mediaeval
times. From the great labor bestowed on the pile structures, and the
vast number of instruments of all kinds found in the "relic bed" of
the lakes, it is clear that they had not been temporary places of
refuge, but permanent habitations, which had been occupied during many
generations; and the relics, scattered abundantly beneath these
pile-dwellings, furnish important evidence relating to different eras
of civilization.

In a considerable number of these dwellings--thirty at least--no trace
of metal has been discovered, the instruments having been made of
stone, bone, and wood; in a much larger number bronze, without a trace
of iron, has been found; and in a few, it is clear that iron has been
extensively used. The three ages of stone, bronze, and iron are here
established by better evidence than from any other groups of remains;
for the great number and variety of relics which these lake
habitations have yielded, give a broad basis for true inductive
reasoning on prehistoric conditions. Yet there is evidently no sudden
break in these periods, such as would prove that superior and
conquering races had introduced higher civilization. "It is very
certain that, at least in Switzerland," says Dr. Keller, "there was no
hard line of demarcation between the three periods, but that the new
materials were spread abroad like any other article of trade, and that
the more useful tools gradually superseded those of less value." We
have here, therefore, _continuity_ and _progress_; and it may be
reasonably inferred, that the advance in art from the use of stone to
that of bronze, and then to iron, was made by the same race who
originally took up their abode on these lakes; for during the long
time the pile habitations were occupied, extending over several
thousands of years, there was no essential change in the structure of
the dwellings or in the mode of life. Doubtless, when these
lake-dwellers first arrived in Switzerland, they had the germs of
civilization; they had domestic animals from the first, such as sheep,
though the flesh of wild animals was more used for food; they could
spin, weave, and make cordage from beast or vegetable fibre, rude
pottery they could make, some of which was even painted with graphite
and rubble; fishers they were, using nets and hooks made of bone; from
serpentine, flint, horns and bones they made their weapons and tools;
they had brought with them cereals, and cultivated the soil with very
inefficient instruments made of stag's horns and crooked branches of
trees, and raised wheat and and barley, which they ground by mills of
the primitive form, consisting of a round stone as a corn-crusher, and
a mealing-stone with a hollow in which the corn was bruised. The stone
weapons and implements are similar to those of Denmark; but several
show in an interesting manner how the stone celts or chisels, which
were small, from one to eight inches in length, were hafted. Some were
first inserted into a piece of stag's horn, and then set in a shaft or
club; others were inserted into clefts of branches and fastened by
cord and asphalt. During this early age, it was the most important of
all instruments, and was used for various purposes; fixed at the end
of a pole, it was a lance; set into wood, it was a war-club or
domestic axe; placed in horn, it was the poor man's knife; it served
to skin animals, to cut flesh and hides, and to make all instruments
of horn and wood.

The evidences of commercial intercourse with other people are but
slight; but a bluish glass bead, in a stone age dwelling on the little
reedy or "moor-lake" of Wauwyl, may show some connection with the
Egyptians or Phoenicians; and knives, arrow-heads, and other
implements, made of flints, not found in Switzerland, but derived from
distant parts of France and Germany, {401} may indicate a barter trade
with the north and west. Possibly, too, Nephrite, of which the most
valuable celts were made, and which does not occur in Europe, but in
Egypt, China, and other parts of Asia, may point to intercourse with
the east, unless we suppose the Nephrite implements had been brought
from the east by the lake-dwellers, when they first settled in
Switzerland.

Not a few of the stone-age dwellings had been burnt by accident or by
an enemy, and wore not rebuilt; but others had a continued existence
through both the stone and bronze periods; and hence we see
settlements in a transitional state, and trace a gradual advance in
civilization. At Meilen, where a vast number of stone relics have been
found, there appear one bronze armilla and one bronze celt; but at
Robenhausen we probably see the commencement of the metallurgic art,
for amid a profusion of stone relics belonging to three different
platforms, crucibles have been found, with lumps of melted bronze, and
one lump of pure unmelted copper. It may be that the lake-dwellers
became first acquainted with metal through traders; but, as Dr. Keller
remarks, "May we not venture to assume that the colonists, by their
intercourse with strangers who were acquainted with the nature of
metals, were incited to search their country for copper ore, and try
to melt and cast it? Copper ore is found on the south side of
Mürtschenstock, on the Lake of Wallenstadt." The age which was dawning
blends itself with the age which was setting; for we find that the new
instruments of bronze were copies of the old forms in stone. Even the
bronze ornaments were but improved copies of analogous objects in own,
showing indeed the sameness of race in both periods, and the
similarity of their tastes and customs. The gradual introduction of
metal gave to the lake-dwellers new powers, which enabled them to
improve their condition; dwellings were now erected in deeper water;
larger piles were used, and better sharpened and squared, fastened
with cross beams, and strengthened by stones heaped up; pottery was
better made, more elegant in form, and sometimes painted black or red,
or ornamented with tin-foil plates. The bronze implements which had
been made by native artisans were of excellent workmanship and form,
especially the spear and javelin-heads, which prove great proficiency
in casting. The swords with short handles and curved knives and
armillae resemble those which have been found in Denmark; but we
observe none of the graceful leaf-shaped swords which occur in Britain
and Ireland. Varied, peculiar, and sometimes beautiful is the
ornamentation of the period, consisting of zigzag lines, points,
triangles, spiral and lozenge forms.

A transitional state there was, too, between the bronze and the iron
periods. Morges settlement on Lake Geneva may be regarded of the
bronze age; for not only have one hundred and thirty bronze objects
been found there, but also moulds for casting bronze winged celts,
showing that such implements had been made on the spot; yet here there
occurs an iron poniard. But in the lake-dwelling of Marin, one of the
lost occupied, the number of iron objects is surprisingly great,
exhibiting to view weapons, agricultural and domestic implements, and
ornaments made of iron, which in the older dwellings had been made of
stone or bone or bronze. Of these iron relics the most remarkable are
the swords, of which fifty and more have been found at Marin, some
with and others without sheaths, all, with one exception, of iron, and
every one being peculiarly yet differently ornamented. These swords
are masterpieces of the smith's art, and were probably produced at
large manufactories, when there were division of labor and every
practical appliance, for some of them bear upon them makers' marks.
They are, however, the product of Celtic art, and correspond in form
and ornamentation with those of the later Celtic period of northern
nations; and {402} this view is confirmed by the discovery of similar
swords in the ditches of the fortress of Alesia, where a conflict had
taken place between the Romans and Helvetians when it was besieged by
Caesar. Less striking to the eye, however, is the connection between
the productions of the bronze and of the iron age; but our author
remarks:

  "There are, indeed, some forms of implements which remind us of the
  previous age. But, on the whole, when the Marin objects were made,
  iron had taken full possession of the field, and all the implements,
  including ornaments, which could be made out of iron, a metal both
  firmer and more pliable, were manufactured out of this material. But
  the form of these specimens had in some measure undergone a change,
  for the working of iron is a totally different matter from that of
  bronze; and the hammer of the smith and the moulds of the founder
  cannot produce the same forms. The remains of the settlements of
  pure stone, bronze, and iron ages indicate, therefore, epochs of
  civilization among the inhabitants, separated by long intervals,
  while the end for which the lake-dwellings were erected--namely, the
  security of person and property--and their construction remained the
  same."

Of the religion of the lake-dwellers there is no certain information;
but some relics made of stone and pottery, somewhat crescent-shaped,
found in bronze-age settlements, Dr. Keller thinks may be
representative of the crescent moon, and, therefore, probably objects
of worship. According to Pliny, the Druids gathered the mistletoe with
great solemnity on the sixth day of the moon; and hence it is inferred
that the moon images were sacred emblems, having power to avert and
cure diseases. This, however, is but a fancy, for it does not appear
from Caesar that the Celts worshipped the heavenly bodies.

The fauna and flora of the lake-dwellings afford interesting
information to naturalists, and throw some light on the questions as
to the origin, the development, and distribution of species. During
the stone age, the _bos primigenius_ and _bos bison_ were abundant,
but they disappear after the introduction of metallic weapons; the
former is now only found on the marshes of the North Sea. A very large
ox, with great semilunar horns, bent forward from the frontal plane
(_bos trochoceros_), and which had been contemporaneous with the
mammoth and hippopotamus, appears to have been domesticated at Concise
and Chevreaux. It is now extinct; but the marsh cow (bos brachyceros),
which was most abundant in the stone age, has continued to exist to
the present time, and now occupies the mountainous parts of
Switzerland and its wild mountain valleys. In the earlier periods,
several races of swine ran wild, which were subsequently domesticated.
The fox was abundantly eaten; but the hare was not used for food, even
the traces of its existence are few; neither domestic false, nor rats,
nor mice appear. Wild animals predominate in the stone age, but they
gave way in subsequent period. to domestic animals.

The seeds and other parts of plants lying in the lake mud, or buried
under several feet of peat, have been so well preserved, that their
characters can be determined. The small-grained six-rowed barley and
the small lake-dwelling wheat (_triticum vulgare antiquorum_) were,
from the earliest period, the most generally cultivated of farinaceous
seeds; and, notwithstanding the rudeness of the husbandry implements,
the quality of the produce was apparently equal to that of modern
times; the spelt (_triticum spelta_), now one of the most important
cereals of Switzerland, did not appear till the bronze age; while rye
was entirely unknown, thus showing a connection with the countries of
the Mediterranean, the lake colonists having the same cereals as the
Egyptians. Cakes of unleavened bread have been found, made of millet
and wheat, which had been baked on the hearthstone in the dwellings.
Barley seems to have been used boiled or parched; but as corn-crushers
and mealing-stones have been found in most of the settlements, grain
had been extensively used for food The latest settlement, dating
backward {403} not less than 2,000 years, and the older going some
3,000 years and more further backward still, it is interesting to
observe what change this long lapse of time produced on plants:

  "The dense, compact wheat and the close, six-rowed barley have
  undergone no perceptible change, yet it must be confessed that most
  of them agree with no recent forms sufficiently to allow of their
  being classed together. The small Celtic beans, the peas, the small
  lake-dwelling barley, the Egyptian and small lake-dwelling wheat,
  and the two-rowed wheat, or _emmer_, form peculiar and apparently
  extinct races; they are distinguished for the most part from the
  modern cultivated kinds by smaller seeds. Man has, therefore, in
  course of time produced sorts which give a more abundant yield, and
  these have gradually supplanted the old varieties."

With wild plants the case is different:

  "The flora of the lake-dwellings announces to us that all the plants
  which come in contact with man become changed up to a certain point,
  and man participates in the great transformations of nature, while
  the wild plants, which surround us at the present day, still grow in
  the same forms as they did three or four thousand years ago, and do
  not exhibit the slightest change."

The final abandonment of these lake-dwellings, about the beginning of
the Christian era, would result from an improved civilization and a
more united and orderly state of society; but how long before that
time they had been occupied has not yet been definitely determined;
our chronology is still relative rather than absolute. Peat has
accumulated over some settlements, but as its rate of growth varies
under different conditions, we are only told by it that the stone-age
dwellings lasted many centuries. At Robenhausen peat moor, there are
remains of three settlements of the stone age, one over the other; two
of which had been destroyed by fire, and the last had been abandoned,
probably on account of the increase of peat. Between the first and
second settlement there are three feet of peat and one foot of other
deposit, both containing relics; between the second and third
settlements the deposits are the same in character and sickness, and
over the last dwelling are two feet of peat and half-a-foot of mould;
so that during the stone age there had been a slow growth of eight
feet of peat, and the deposit of three and a half feet of other
matter. Other means have been used to obtain more definite results;
the most remarkable of which is that of Professor Morlot, who from an
examination of a cone of gravel and alluvium, connected with deposits
of the stone, bronze, Roman, and recent periods, and gradually built
up by the torrent of Teniere where it falls into Lake Geneva,
concludes that the age of bronze has an antiquity of from 3,000 to
4,000 years, and that of stone from 5,000 to 7,000 years--no very
startling estimate, when we remember the high antiquity which has been
assigned to the drift and cave men.

Of the physical characters of the lake-dwellers, Dr. Keller gives us
little information; that they had small hands is probable from the
shortness of their sword-handles. Few human bones, and those chiefly
of children, have been found. No crania of the stone age have been
seen, but a few out of the bronze period, one of which from Meilen
differs little from the skulls of the existing Swiss. It is,
therefore, mainly from the relics found that we can form any guess as
to the origin and relationship of the lake-dwellers, and by those it
is shown that they belonged to the very people who at the same time
lived on the mainland. Dr. Keller concludes "that the builders of the
lake-dwellings were a branch of the Celtic population of Switzerland,
but that the earlier settlements belong to the pre-historic period,
and had already fallen into decay before the Celts took their place in
the history of Europe."

The history of the lake-dwellers opens a hopeful prospect for those
races who are now in a degraded condition; for here they start with a
low degree of civilization, and yet there is a gradual rise upward to
that point where great skill was reached {404} in metallurgic and
other arts; but even this was only a step onward to that high
cultivation of intellect and morals among their descendants the Swiss
people. Why should not other races pass through the same stages,
especially when influenced by intercourse with modern civilized
nations?

--------

ORIGINAL


PEA-BLOSSOM.


  I hear a faltering footstep
  Crossing the matted floor,
  And a little knock low down
  On the panels of the door.
  A small hand is uplifted
  To raise the iron latch,
  And entrance claimed in a silvery tone
  No nightingale could match.

  Away with books and papers!
  Enter, my fairy bright;
  Sweep the dim cobwebs from my brain,
  And let in air and light.
  Close the dull portals of history,
  Unclasp that magic door
  That leads to the jewelled caverns
  Of fiction and fairy lore:
  The legend of Cinderella,
  Of knights and maidens small.
  Of princely frogs and pigmy dogs.
  And my lady's golden ball.

  Good-night, my white-robed enchantress.
  My blue-sashed, sunny-haired muse;
  Perfection thou art, from that topmost curl
  To the tips of thy dainty shoes.
  Watch her well, angel-guardian!
  Pray for her, crowned saint.
  That when the time for the cross shall come,
  Her spirit grow not faint;
  That she may go to her last repose
  With a heart unspotted by sin--
  That this face of lustrous purity
  May mirror the soul within.

--------

{405}


ORIGINAL



A MONTH AT A FRENCH WATERING-PLACE.

BY AN OLD BACHELOR.


I always had a great veneration for the disciples of Esculapius, but
never so as when my considerate doctor decided that a sea voyage was
absolutely necessary for my my health. Being unblessed by those sweet
cares, a wife and children, I determined to show my obedience to his
commands, and at the same time to ratify my long-cherished plan of
visiting the old world. Be reassured, readers, I have no intention of
harrowing your gentle spirits by a description of sea-sickness, nor of
wearying you with my experiences at custom-house or railroad dépôt,
but desire to transport you at once to the good little watering place
of V----, which had been recommended to me as the very place for the
exorcising of that tyrant devil, dyspepsia.

It was a lovely evening in July that I took a carriage from D----, for
the said watering-place, for railroads have not as yet invaded the
primitive simplicity of the village; hotels have, however, and much to
my satisfaction I found myself, after a charming hour's drive, seated
in a cozy room with an excellent dinner before me. My Hostess I soon
discovered to be quite a character; a raw-boned, fast-talking
Frenchwoman, with a suspicious darkness on her upper lip. When I had
finished my repast, this worthy dame informed me that it was the
custom of all good "Seigneurs" to repair to the beach after dinner; so
giving me my hat and cane, she showed me the way, and I in all
obedience departed.

The moon was then full, and cast a deliciously deceptive light on all
around; even the wretched huts wherein the French peasantry
contentedly huddle, mellowed by its light, looked picturesque and
quaint. Looking around, I found that the village nestled between two
hills, and that I was at the moment in the principal street, which
cuts it in two, and from which smaller streets diverge in all
directions. Tempted by the quiet of the evening I turned from the main
road, and soon found myself in one of the prettiest winding lanes
imaginable; at that quiet hour, with the moonlight streaming through
the interlacing trees, I know of nothing more charming than a walk
along the winding paths which form a network around the village; what
in the day time might be simply pretty, borrowed from the lovely night
a charm and mystery that was irresistible; and so I wandered on, a
luxurious feeling, half melancholic, half pleasurable, soothing my
spirit, until I was abruptly reminded that all things sweet in this
life are short, by finding myself at the end of my pretty lane, and
once more landed in the village street. Here my landlady's admonition
was brought to my mind, by seeing several parties of red-hooded,
red-cloaked personages all going one way; these were evidently some of
the good bathers, and them I followed. In a few minutes I found myself
in quite a small crowd of strangers, who made the beach look like a
gaden of poppies. I, who had formed my ideas of watering-places from
Newport and Long Branch, looked in amazement at this beach, which is
nothing more or less than a break in the high white cliffs, which
stretch on either side at far at the eye can {406} reach; however,
though small, it seemed convenient, and I looked at the rippling water
in eager anticipation of the morrow's bath. Seating myself on the
stones, which form a poor substitute for the firm white sand of
Newport, I proceed as is my custom, to observe my companions, and from
their trifling actions to form an opinion of their different natures.
A number of groups attracted my attention, but as I merely discovered
that the ladies of the parties were industriously occupied in trying
to out-babble--talk it hardly was--each other, and that the men
carelessly reclined near them smoking, in utter despair of otherwise
making use of their mouths, I was beginning to think that there was
not much food for my observations, when my attention was suddenly
arrested by the familiar sound of a few English words. Turning around,
I saw at a few steps from me a party which I had not yet observed. The
centre figure of this new picture at once arrested my attention;
evidently this lady considered herself of great importance, for she
was laying down the law to the various persons around her, with a
volubility that a French woman only can attain. Her dress was an
extraordinary caricature of rural finery; it was a pity, I thought,
that the face under that peculiarly youthful, flower-ornamented hat,
should be that of a plain woman of fifty. Her court was principally
composed of various feeble imitations of herself, but my attention was
soon entirely occupied by two figures at the extreme verge of the
group, a young lady and a gentleman; the young lady seemed to be
giving an English lesson to her listless companion, who appeared
almost too indolent to turn around in admiration of the girl's
sprightliness; a second glance convinced me that I was near one of my
own countrywomen; the delicate profile, fragile form, and rather
nervous manner could belong to none but an American. My interest was
now excited to the highest pitch, for when an ocean rolls between a
man and his country, all that reminds him of that country has an
irresistible charm, especially when that something happens to be a
pretty girl. But my observations were cut short, for the whole party
arose a few minutes after, and left the beach. I soon followed, and
learned from my voluble landlady that I had been observing
fellow-boarders; that the strangely attired lady was the most
important personage of V---- that she patronized sea-bathing every
summer, and that she rejoiced in the name of Madame la Baronne d'Agri.
The handsome young monsieur with the beard, proved to be her nephew,
and the "Charmante Americaine" was with with her mother, an invalid
for whom sea air had been ordered. Then followed a long description of
the other members of the party, a Mr. and Mrs. Poirier and their
daughter, by young artist and several other personages, to which
description I fear I was but indifferently attentive.

Next morning it rained--rain forming a part of nearly ever day's
programme, as I afterward discovered. Not yet having become hardened
to the fact, I was dolefully looking from the hotel door, vainly
endeavoring to discover a patch of blue sky, when I was joined by
Madame la Baronne's nephew. Remarks on the weather were followed by a
polite offer of a cigar, whose genial fragrance soon induced a more
interesting conversation. A few chance words brought out the fact that
my young companion was quite an amateur chemist, and as, in my college
days, chemistry had been a sort of passion with me, we were soon
launched in an animated discussion. I was much interested to hear what
rapid strides the French had recently taken in that and other positive
sciences. From chemistry we passed to politics, philosophy, and
finally religion. While listening to this young man's clear, strong
exposition of his sentiments on these various subjects, I found myself
wondering at this, to me, new, new phase of the French character, as
unlike the light, {407} frivolous, gay-hearted Frenchman of the novel
and stage, as possible. I must say it pleased me even less; the
down-right scepticism, the well-turned sophisms, the extreme
materialism, were easily traced to the teachings of Voltaire. I am
well pleased to think that this young man is the representative of but
a comparatively small class, but unfortunately that class is composed
of much of the brain of the country, and consequently carries with it
great influence. On all American questions M. Louis d'Agri (for so the
young man was called) showed a curious interest; of our great war his
opinion had been biassed by Southern influence--not unnaturally, since
his only American associates had been from that portion of our
country; these associates had also given him their ideas on the
subject of slavery, but a few facts, put in the simple, plain way
which seemed best to suit his turn of mind, convinced him, or seemed
to convince him, that, in that particular at least, his judgment was
in error. He asked many questions on the present state of affairs in
our country, of the possible future of the South, of the treatment of
Jefferson Davis, etc., etc., all of which I answered apparently to his
satisfaction. Indeed, not only in his case, but in many others, I have
noticed that there is a great curiosity felt about everything
American; to tell the truth, I think that the war brought to their
minds that a vast and important country really does exist on the other
side of the broad ocean, a fact of which before they were but dimly
conscious. Even now, the strange ignorance of our customs, people, and
especially our geography, even among the educated classes, would bring
forth the astonishment and indignation of any American fifth-form
school-boy. The French are singularly devoid of our go-ahead qualities
in everything; they travel but little, and being perfectly convinced
that France is the only country of any real importance on the globe,
trouble themselves but little about any other, especially should that
other be separated from them by an ocean.

From American politics we turned to those of France, a subject which
brought out the young man's most bitter anathemas; dissatisfied with
the form of government, with the people, and especially with the
emperor, he expressed himself with much more freedom than any other
Frenchman I had yet conversed with. Most of them answer any objections
with a shrug of the shoulders, and a furtive glance about them; they
often praise the emperor for the good he has done their beloved Paris,
but with an air which says: "I like not the man, but admire his
sagacity." Very few Americans, however, could have expressed more
republican, more anti-aristocratic sentiments than M. d'Agri, who, as
I learned afterward, is the last direct representative of a decayed
but noble house. On all religious topics he proved to be an utter
sceptic, avowedly believing in nothing, and regarding as either knaves
or dupes all those who did not stoop to his own degrading materialism:
singular that a mind so clear should be so perverted. We had merely
broached the last subject, when the ladies of the party, enticed by
the sun which was beginning to brighten the sky, descended, and
proposed going down to bathe. M. d'Agri, advancing toward the young
lady I had observed the night before, said:

"_Mees Fannee_, I have just been having an interesting conversation
with a countryman of yours."

The young lady's face brightened, and with a frankness that is
certainly a charm peculiar to American girls, extended her hand,
saying in English:

"Is it possible! Americans in a foreign land can scarcely be
strangers!" and so, from that moment, I was considered as one of the
party. Mrs. Hayne, the invalid mother, I found belonged to that rather
extensive class of ladies who, from having some slight {408} nervous
ailment, nurse and pet it till it grows to be a real malady, which
makes them fretful, wrinkled and miserable. As we walked to the beach
I was made the honored recipient of the good lady's woes, and being a
tolerable listener was immediately taken into her favor.

We found the beach already lively with the indefatigable bathers, who
seize on all tolerably sunshiny days to search for health in the
luxurious water. Several groups of people, who either had bathed or
were going to bathe later, were seated on the stones, watching with
interest the extraordinary looking figures that emerged from the long
row of cabins. Notwithstanding my eagerness for a good swim, I stood
for nearly half an hour watching also; many of the ladies who went
into their cabins majestic in width of skirt and flowing drapery,
emerged from them reduced to a mere ghost of their former grandeur. To
all whom it may concern, I give it as my decided opinion, that
oil-silk caps and scant bathing dresses are generally not becoming,
and that a young man must be of a peculiarly susceptible disposition
to become enamored of these sea-nymphs.

One thing let me observe, there is a regard for personal safety here
of which we are too devoid. I noticed in the water two black-clothed
individuals, whose only business seemed to be to exercise those ladies
and children who did not swim, so that they might not catch cold; to
give lessons to beginners in the noble art of swimming, and to have an
eye to the safety of the bathers generally. When the bath is over, the
well-cared-for person is well wrapped up and hurried to the cabin,
where a hot foot-bath is in readiness; to this latter arrangement I
give my most cordial approval.

As I turned around, after these various observations, intending in my
turn to appropriate one of the cabins, I was met by Madame d'Agri,
who, in an eccentric bathing-dress, was tripping down to the water.
Stopping me, she overwhelmed me with voluble patronage, assuring me
that her nephew had spoken of me in the highest terms, and that all
his friends were hers; and finally pointing to the largest cabin on
the batch, over which the family arms floated ostentatiously, informed
me that in that cabin they often retired from the vulgar herd, and
invited me, whenever I felt annoyed by the plebeians around me, to
join them, that a chair would always be at my disposal. Bowing my
thanks, I beat a hasty retreat, out of breath for very sympathy.

After my bath, which I enjoyed as only veteran swimmers can enjoy it,
I sallied forth to verify or destroy the impressions my moonlight
stroll of the night before had given me. To some extent, at least,
they were destroyed; in the moonlight the low, thatched huts
--cottages they could scarcely be called--looked picturesque; in the
broad daylight they looked simply squalid; dirt and discomfort reigned
supreme. In many of these huts there seemed to be but one, unfloored,
wretched-looking room, serving as kitchen, bedroom, and parlor, to a
swarming family of dirty children, with their dirtier parents. Yet I
an told that many of these peasants, who are content to live in these
hovels year after year, and subsist on crabs, periwinkles, and such
trash, are often comparatively well off, some of them being in actual
receipt of rents amounting to ten and fifteen thousand francs a year;
but as their fathers live so do they live, and the natural consequence
is that they are an ill-favored, withered-looking set. I looked in
vain for a fresh, blooming girl, there seemed to be no age between
twelve and fifty; even the children looked withered, and the old
people were fairly bent double; yet they lived on, contented enough,
because dreaming of no other possible life, and enjoying the bustle of
an occasional fête with a zest which our more phlegmatic people would
disdain. While making these {409} reflections, I again found myself in
one of those charming lanes which had so pleased me the night before.
These, at least, were unspoiled by the misery around; what a blessing
that man cannot degrade nature, however he may degrade himself! By my
side murmured and gurgled the prettiest little brook, dignified here
by the name of "petite rivière," which I ever saw; clear as crystal,
swift and cold, it lends beauty and freshness to the whole country
around. An American farmer would laugh at the tiny stream scarcely
more than a mile in length, but an artist would revel in its beauty.

And so, what with bathing, walking, driving, and chatting, time passed
quietly but pleasantly at the little village of V----. Meanwhile I
grew more and more interested in watching my companions, especially
two of them; I often found myself, while seeming to listen to the
Baronne's endless tales of her house's past grandeur, or to poor Mrs.
Mayne's recital of her troubles, closely observing my young
countrywoman and M. Louis d'Agri. Knowing as I did his ideas on
serious subjects, and feeling, too, the influence which a mind like
his, strong, cool, and calculating, could scarcely fail to exercise
over a sensitive and impulsive nature like hers, I found myself
growing more and more uneasy. Evidently accustomed to that sort of
flirting and freedom which is entirely prohibited to French girls,
Miss Hayne delighted in taking her lazy cavalier unawares, and
obliging him, with the most innocent air possible, to give up his dear
comfort--now to fetch a chair, again to hold her worsteds while she
wallowed them; a sort of treatment to which the gentleman was
evidently unaccustomed, and which, perhaps for the very novelty of the
thing, seemed to create not an unpleasant sensation. But, on the other
hand, he was fond of bringing out all her girlish and unsophisticated
ideas, and quietly leveling at them his battery of cold-hearted
sophisms, in order to destroy them one by one; at first she would
battle bravely, but an impulsive girl, untrained to analyze her own
convictions, has but a poor chance against a clear-headed, determined
man, and I noticed, with pain, that after every such discussion she
would seem uneasy and depressed. Then her opponent would lazily settle
himself in his chair, and allow his rival, the young artist, whom I
have strangely slighted heretofore, to bring his gallantries into
play. This young man was a sort of _protégé_ of Madame d'Agri's, and
an entirely different type of man from Madame's nephew; all the arts
and graces, compliments and "petits soins" which the latter despised,
M. Dubois employed with true French art. He had from the first been
struck by Miss Hayne's pretty face, which he sedulously introduced
into all his sketches, paying her, whenever he was permitted, most
unremitting attentions; but I noticed that, though the native coquetry
which seemed to be this girl's principal fault, induced her to
encourage him, a word, or even a look from M. Louis d'Agri, would draw
her away from him to the piano, or oftener to the chess-board, where
she invariably received severe lectures on her neglect of the rules of
that noble game. You may, in the mean time, wonder what became of the
other young girls of the party, for there were several; they looked at
_Mees Fannee_, and her freedom of speech and action, in ill-concealed
horror, and remained near their mothers, chattering fast enough among
themselves, but scarcely venturing to answer "yes" or "no," when
addressed by their elders, especially if those elders happened to be
of the other sex. Indeed, M. Louis informed me in confidence that his
young countrywomen, "s'ennuyent bien, et ma foi! elles ennuyent
joliment les autres" before marriage, but after--bah! and an
expressive wave of the hand finished the sentence.

One morning as I was lounging about, thinking with a certain degree of
_ennui_ that doing nothing was, after all, the hardest sort of work, I
was met {410} by Madame d'Agri, who accosted me with one of her
sweetest smiles.

"O Monsieur! I was just wondering where I should find you--so
delighted, really so charmed--you must go with us, indeed you must!
now, no excuse; positively I will accept none; this time you must
allow my will to be law."

"Madame, I am your most obedient; but in what particular am I required
to show my duty?"

"Mon Dieu! and have I not told you? what a giddy thing I am; indeed my
poor husband" (whom I am sure she talked to death) "always said I was
giddy! We are going to C----, where there is to be a fête, and on the
way we can see see a chateau or two, not much, you know, but pretty
well for these degenerate times. Yes, we are all going--that is, no,
not all, for poor Madame Hayne has the migraine: dear! dear! how that
poor woman suffers! So the charming _Mees Fannee_ has accepted me as
her chaperone--interesting girl, is she not? Well, as I was saying,
Madame Hayne has the migraine, and Madame Poirier has the toothache
and will not that her daughter go without her; so the party will be
reduced to Madame Duchemin and her daughter, _Mees Fannee_, my nephew,
M. Dubois--has he not a charming talent--and myself; and you really
must join us--plenty of room I assure you, plenty of room. We shall
go in one of those vehicles they call an 'Americaine'--I fancy it got
its name from the hospitality with which it holds so many people--so
like your delightful country!"

After some little delay occasioned by the ladies, who, as might be
expected, all forgot something at the last woman's, we started. It was
a fresh, breezy morning, just such a one as to excite high spirits,
and make one appreciate every trifling incident. The road was
excellent, indeed it made me blush for some of our own ill-made,
ill-kept roads; but of this I said nothing, for every American feels
bound, when abroad, to represent all concerning his country "couleur
de rose." The scenery was charming; nothing perhaps striking and grand
and vast, like the scenery we are most accustomed to, but a pleasing
alternation of hill and dale, with well-cultivated fields, villages
nestling in groves of fine trees, and above all occasional glimpses of
the blue ocean, to delight the eye and to give one a genial and
pleasing sense of the beautiful, without calling forth rapturous, and
let me add, fatiguing expressions of admiration. When we reached the
first chateau we all agreed that we were tired of the "Americaine,"
and that it was absolutely necessary for our happiness to wander about
for half so hour or so.

"M. d'Agri!" exclaimed Miss Hayne "you once promised me a sketch; here
is my album, and yonder chateau is the very subject for a drawing; so,
sir, please, to sit down and obey my command."

"Obedience was never my principal virtue, _Mees Fannee_, and I feel
particularly lazy this morning."

But a little imperious gesture, accompanied by a half smile, had their
effect, and the young man, perhaps too indolent to make further
objections, took the proffered album, and seeking the softest
grass-plot, sat down. I noticed that the artist, of whose arm the
Baronne had taken possession, looked around angrily, as though this
time M. d'Agri were in reality trespassing on his ground; but that
gentleman, himself quite a clever draughtsman, proceeded with most
imperturbable _sang froid_. The view he chose was really pretty. The
chateau, a large, irregular edifice, stood at the end of a noble
avenue of horse-chestnuts, whose broad leaves made a dense shade; the
country immediately around was charming; a little stream somewhat
resembling that of V----, only larger, was seen in the distance,
wandering through shrubbery and trees, until lost behind a hill which
rose more abruptly than most of the hills in this part of Normandy. On
the other hand, fields of wheat and oats extended for some {411}
distance, ended by a dark belting of woods; not far from us stood one
of those large wayside crosses so often seen in Catholic countries,
near which a shepherd was tending a flock of sheet.

When the sketch was finished Madame d'Agri came up, and admiring it
loudly, thanked _Mees Fannee_, with many caresses, for having made
that lazy nephew of hers exert himself, and during the rest of the
ride showered even more than her ordinary share of condescensions on
the young girl. This brought to my mind various other trifling
circumstances, and I said within myself: "French titles are often
accompanied by French poverty; this girl is rich, and Madame la
Baronne knows it. I will watch."

It was late in the afternoon when we reached the village; leaving our
tired horses at the inn, we walked to the market place. Here, a number
of booths, gay with flags and ribbons, stood temptingly displaying
their wares; most of them were filled with second-rate, but highly
colored china, for which unlucky wretches were induced to try their
chance, through the agency of a particularly dirty pack of cards.
Gambling on a small scale, for pieces of dusty gingerbread, seemed to
be another favorite mode of parting with sous. On the other side, the
beating of drums and clanging of cymbals announced that in a certain
tent the unsophisticated mind could be rejoiced by extra-ordinary
theatrical representations for the moderate sum of three sous; dust,
noise, and bustle reigned supreme, and the peasant's in their holiday
clothes seemed to be at the very height of enjoyment. Altogether it
was a gay and picturesque scene, but I was content to view it at a
respectful distance. Not so Madame d'Agri; she patronized the
peasants, who looked at her eccentric costume in bewildered
admiration; chucked the children under the chin, scolded the parents,
and in short acted out the "grande dame" of the fête to her heart's
content. As night approached, a large building in the centre of the
place, used, I believe, as a sort of flour dépôt on market days, was
lighted by Chinese lanterns and flaring tallow candles; here the youth
of both sexes enjoyed a rollicking, laugh-abounding dance, to the
sound of a cracked fiddle. Madame was just insisting on forming a
quadrille of her own, to encourage the peasantry, who, by the way,
seemed but little in need of encouragement, when her nephew
represented to her that we should not get home till late as it was,
and that the moon would not serve after a certain hour. Reluctantly
she yielded, and we settled ourselves once more in our "Americaine,"
tired but pleased. The conversation was soon monopolized by M. d'Agri
and Miss Fanny, who, whatever might be their fatigue, always seemed to
have some point of dispute.

After this excursion my vigilance increased, and my observations were
not pleasing; two or three little circumstances brought out in M.
d'Agri's character an insensibility to the pains and sufferings of
others, and a certain cruelty of thought and action, which,
notwithstanding the interest his fine intellect excited in me, brought
a feeling of distrust, and at times of dislike.

One rather misty day, on which but few bathers ventured into the
water, I, feeling a need of exercise, determined to enjoy my customary
swim. The cabin I happened to take stood next to the large one of
Madame d'Agri. When I returned, dripping and glowing from my bath, I
noticed that the lady was seated in it sewing, and that her nephew was
lounging by her, reading the paper. As I was luxuriating in the
delicious feeling which I believe sea-bathing alone can give, I was
startled by a few words which came distinctly to my ears; so far the
conversation had not risen above an occasional, monotonous hum, but
suddenly I found myself in the awkward position of a forced listener,
as the thin wooden partition proved but a slight {412} obstruction to
the heightened voices of the speakers.

"My good aunt, let us not broach that subject again."

"My good nephew, I must and will; the welfare of our noble house--"

"Fiddlesticks!" (this is a mild translation.) "Listen rather to this
account of the transactions at Vienna.

"Louis, you are mad. If you will not be moved by higher
considerations, think at least of your own comfort--that comfort that
you love so well. You are poor, too high born to work, what then is
left you but a wealthy marriage?"

"There you have touched my only vulnerable point, my comfort; but
then, my dear aunt, what becomes of your aristocratic scruples? would
you have the noble blood of the d'Agris contaminated?--"

"But, Louis, Americans are not like others; it is true they do say her
father made his money in commerce, but then, I read somewhere or other
that Americans consider themselves all as sovereigns; besides, we want
money, and if it is said that you married a foreigner, people will not
trouble themselves about the origin of her money-sacks, as they would
if she were the daughter of a French roturier. Come, my boy, be
reasonable; remember that you are the last representative--"

"I remember, rather, that champagne is dear, and so are cigars: what
do you want of me?"

"I want you to marry this rich girl; no hard task--you seem to like
her well enough--"

"My good aunt, everything in life bores me. When I was a child, my
playthings bored me; later, school and college proved almost
intolerable bores; my rank bores me; Paris bores me, the country still
more so; society is an insufferable bore, but above all, French girls
bore me. Now, this _Mees Fannee_ is original or seems to me so; she
stirs me a little with her quickness, her coquetry, and her _outré_
ideas. But remember that has not yet lasted long; a few weeks more,
and she too probably, will bore me--and then for a whole lifetime . . .
good aunt, that is a consideration to make a man tremble!"

"Nonsense, Louis; yon will have to marry some time or other."

"Yes, I suppose so; but French girls are brought up with a becoming
sense of the submission due from wives to husbands; now, this girl
would prove rebellious I know, and, however democratic I may be in my
theory of the government of nations, my theory of the government of
the 'menage' is that of despotism. Besides, I have a remnant of
humanity left in me, and would not condemn that bright young creature
to the misery of being my wife; no, no, let her marry some Quixotical
American, who will place her on a high pedestal and pass his life in
admiring her and letting her henpeck him."

I could not help smiling at this resume of an American husband's
chivalric devotion.

"Very well, you will pass your life as you have commenced it; you will
deny yourself all sorts of luxuries because they are expensive; that
Rembrandt you covet so, will remain unpurchased; you want to travel,
but you will stay at home, because travelling costs money; and finally
you will marry some girl as poor as yourself, or with a dôt, which she
will spend, together with more than half your pittance, in buying
silks and satins to outshine Madame this or Madame that--"

"Hold!"

"On the other hand, you might, by marrying this charming _Mees_,
decorate your house with pictures and statutes, go everywhere, see
everything, and take your place among the enlightened patrons of art
and science; all this you reject because you are afraid this little
_Mees_ will prove stronger of will--"

{413}

"Stronger of will than I!" and M. Louis sprang from his chair; the
Baronne was no fool after all. "Diable! there are few women I could
not bend to my will. My aunt, I will try my luck with this little
_Mees_; win her, wed her, and conquer her, too?"

"There spoke a d'Agri; but, my dear boy, you should pay her court more
assiduously, compliment her--"

"Pshaw! I understand your charming sex better than you do yourself; if
flattery could have won her, I should long ago have been beaten by
that soft-headed, smooth-tongued artist. No, the surest way to win a
woman is to make her feel that you can master her, and that if you bow
before her, it is only because you choose to do so."

"So you are not afraid of ultimate success; you think she loves you?"

"No, but I think she is fascinated, mesmerized, what you will, by me,
which answers the same purpose; what I have to do is to hasten
matters, and that is what I mean to do. I think she has gone to the
'Source' for one of her eccentric, solitary rambles. An revoir, ma
bonne Tante!" and the young man sprang from the cabin with an energy
which I had never before noticed in him. Soon after, Madame gathered
up her work apparently, and I heard no more. My toilet finished I also
took my departure, and thoughtfully turned my steps toward the hotel.

On my way I met Miss Fanny just returning from her walk; evidently M.
Louis had missed her. Ascertaining that she was not tired, I begged
her to accompany me to a particularly pretty spot on the hill, from
which the village was seen to advantage; on the way the conversation
was desultory, though I tried gradually to lead it to the subject I
meant soon to attack. Once seated under the trees, I changed my tone,
and looking at her earnestly, said:

"Miss Fanny, will you pardon me if the interest I feel in you, as a
countrywoman, and as a guileless girl, leads me to speak plainly to
you? Remember that I am more than twice your age; come, have I
permission to make myself disagreeable?"

"I do not understand you"--and she looked up startled; then, perhaps
reading a part of my thoughts in my face, she said with a blush, "Yes,
you may speak."

I then, as gently as possible, told her what I had observed, and dwelt
on the young man's unsound religions principles, on his want of
sympathy for others, etc., and finally related the conversation I had
just heard, softening some parts, but giving a detailed account of
others. She bent her head, and seemed considerably moved.

"And now, my child," I continued, "give me the satisfaction of feeling
that I have done right, that you are glad to know this, that your
heart is not as yet so engaged in this affair as to bring you any real
unhappiness; if I thought I had unwittingly wounded any deep and
honest sentiment of yours, if I thought you felt for this young man
that sort of love which hallows its object, and often purifies it from
evil, I could not easily forgive myself."

"You need not fear, my good friend; I thank you for your interest in
me," and she extended her hand, smiling faintly through her tears. "I
have done wrong I know, but this is how it happened: at first, ennuyed
by the quietness of this place, which seemed so dull after Newport, I
commenced a sort of flirtation with this M. Louis d'Agri, merely
because I craved excitement."

"Precisely; in other words you are an example of our as yet imperfect
system of education. In France young girls are kept in severe
restraint, from which they rebound after marriage, often causing much
misery; ours is the other extreme--there is an almost unlimited degree
of liberty among our young people, which is so far good that it
creates a feeling of chivalric honor among the men, and of
self-sustaining strength among the women; but at the same time this
freedom creates also a longing for excitement, a {414} fear of ennui,
which finds vent in an immense amount of flirting, generally innocent
enough, but which becomes a part of the character of almost every
young person, especially every young girl--is it not so?"

"Perhaps it is; at all events the peculiar character of this young man
soon interested me; I felt piqued at his indolent, indifferent manner,
and continued the flirtation; gradually, as I came to know him better,
he acquired over me, I scarcely know how, a sort of influence from
which I could not rid myself; but never once did I mistake the feeling
which prompted me to crave his society, for love."

"Then you do not think he could have succeeded in--"

"I do not know; had I not been made aware of his base, mercenary
motives, he might have strengthened that influence so far as to blind
me to its nature, and make me think it love; but--"

"But now you are warned."

"But now I defy M. Louis d'Agri and his fascinations," and her eyes
flashed.

"Still, do you not think that you would feel more comfortable away
from his society?"

"I feel no fear, but shall be glad to leave this place. Fortunately,
mother was complaining this very morning of the cold sea-winds, and I
can easily persuade her that it is necessary to go further south. Is
your mind easy now? I see you have but little faith in my resolution."

"Pardon me. I have, but I think that the Baronne would find means to
make a longer residence here disagreeable, did she perceive the change
which your manner must necessarily undergo."

Our conversation lasted some little time longer, and ended by most
kindly expressed thanks, and hopes for some future meeting, which
hopes I most cordially reciprocated, for the girl's frank and simple
manner during the past conversation had much heightened my esteem of
her.

That evening there arose a perfect storm of regrets, and expressions
of surprise at Mrs. Haynes suddenly expressed determination. "It was
not possible! Madame's health had improved so perceptibly," which
assertion the worthy lady repudiated with as much energy as though it
had been an insult. "We shall feel so deserted after she and _Mees
Fannee_ have gone," etc., etc. _Mees Fannee_ said nothing, but a
heightened color, and a quiet, determined manner new to her, seemed to
strike M. Louis forcibly; he darted a quick look at me, but whether he
really ever suspected my agency in the transaction or not, I never
knew. If he did, I believe that after the first feeling of anger had
passed, he felt grateful rather than not, for his better nature, I am
glad to think, really revolted at the idea of the contemplated
meanness.

At eleven the next morning the old-fashioned diligence carried _Mees
Fannee_ and her mother away, leaving the hotel _triste_ indeed. A
little while after I saw Madame la Baronne and her nephew walking up
and down the little garden, the lady gesticulating violently, and the
young man quietly smoking a cigar, and answering his excited relative
with an occasional shrug of the shoulders.

Soon after I also took my departure, for I found the interest of the
place strangely diminished, and the evenings at the "plage" stale,
flat, and unprofitable; so leaving the good French ladies and their
daughters discussing the coming winter's fashions with voluble
interest, the indefatigable Baronne eagerly looking out for another
heiress, and the nephew lazily indifferent to her success, I made my
adieux. Thus ended my month at a French watering-place.

------

{415}


AVE MARIA SINE LABE CONCEPTA.


BY REV M. MULLIN.

  Hail, Mary, our Mother! Hail, Virgin the purest!
    Hail, Mary, the Mother of mercy and love!
  Hail, Star of the Ocean, serenest and surest
    That ever shone brightly in heaven above!
  'Mid the shadows of death stretching down o'er the nations,
    Thy children have always rejoiced in your fame.
  Oh! proudly we witness in our generations
    The last crowning halo that circles thy name.

  Tradition, which, joined with its sister evangel,
    God placed upon guard at the door of his bride.
  Tradition, which beams like the sword of the angel,
    As flame-like, it "turneth on every side,"
  Tradition shoots up o'er the ages victorious--
    Its summit in heaven, its base upon earth--
  Like a pillar of fire, far-shining and glorious,
    And shows thee all sinless and pure in thy birth.

  As fair as the rose 'mid Jerusalem's daughters.
    As bright as the lily by Jordan's blue wave,
  As white as the dove, and as clear as the waters
    That flowed for the prophet and circled his grave;
  As tall as the cedar on Lebanon's mountain,
    As fruitful as vine-tree in Cades' domain.
  As straight as the palm by Jerusalem's fountain.
    As beauteous as rose-bush on Jericho plain;

  As sweet as the balm-tree diffusing its odor,
    As sweet as the gold-harp of David the king,
  As sweet as the honeycomb fresh from Mount Bodor,
    As sweet as the face veiled by Gabriel's wing:
  The silver-lined sky o'er the garden of Flora,
    The rainbow that gilds the dark clouds within view,
  The star that shines brightest, the dawning Aurora--
    More chaste than the moon, and more beautiful too.

  The glass without stain, and the radiance immortal,
    The ever-sealed fount in the city of God,
  The garden enclosed, on whose sanctified portal
    None e'er but the King of the angels hath trod:
  The sign that appeared in mid-Heaven--a maiden
    With the moon 'neath her feet, and twelve stars on her head,
  Sun-clothed, going up from the desert to Eden;
    Such Mary, the Queen of the living and dead.

{416}

  Oh! such are the words of the saints now in glory,
    Whose voices are heard o'er the dark waste of time,
  Like sentinels set through the centuries hoary,
    Proclaiming her free from original crime;
  Of the prophets and pontiffs, and doctors and sages,
    Who once in this dark vale of misery trod,
  Like lamps hanging out on the mist-covered ages
    To light up the ways of the city of God.

  We see by their light with a swelling emotion
    The bark of the church, as it onward doth ride,
  Through tempest and gloom, where the Star of the Ocean
    Doth brightly illumine its path o'er the tide;
  Where clouds become thicker and hurricanes fleeter,
    And threaten to shut out its radiance from view,
  We see through the darkness the figure of Peter
    As he points it out still b the sailors and crew.

  We hear the loud ring of the multitude's paean
    By the nations in triumph exultantly sung,
  From the cliffs of the north to the distant AEgean,
    As Celestine silenced Nestorius' tongue:
  In Ephesus' temple--the temple of Mary--
    The fathers hold council by Peter's command,
  In Ephesus' streets, long expectant and weary,
    The crowds stand with joybells and torches in hand.

  We see the grand figure of Cyril before us,
    Where John, her adopted, before him had trod,
  As pontiffs and people swell loud the glad chorus,
    That Mary our Mother is Mother of God.
  And oh! that we've witnessed the last shining lustre,
    That Star of the Stars, in her diadem set,
  The first in existence, last placed in the cluster.
    To shine through a long line of centuries yet;

  There were journeys by land, there were ships on the ocean,
    That bore Judah's princes to Sion's bright walls;
  The people have heard with a thrilling emotion
    The voice of the high priest, as on them it calls.
  Oh! bless them, dear Mother, we pray with emotion.
    And bless this green island, that looks up to thee;
  For this, dearest Mother, is gem of the ocean,
    And thou art immaculate Star of the Sea.

December 8,1864.

------

{417}


ORIGINAL.

WOMAN.  [Footnote 143]

  [Footnote 143: Essays on Woman's Work, by Bessie R. Parkes. The
  higher Education of Woman, by Emily Davis. Woman's Work in the
  Church, by J. M. Ludlow. London and New York: Alex. Strahan.]

Among the social topics of the day, that of the present position and
future prospects of woman holds a prominent place. This is the less to
be wondered at, in that the course of civilization, the force of
public opinion, together with the effect of the progress of machinery
upon labor, have materially altered the duties which were once
esteemed peculiarly her own.

We have three small books before plus, all from England, and all
bearing on this one topic. The first ("Essays on Woman's Work")
delineates very forcibly the fact, that the actual work of women,
independently of that performed within the domestic circle, is
(relatively to the employment of numbers) immense. Our authoress calls
it "the great revolution which has been so little noticed amidst the
noise of politics and the clash of war--the withdrawal of women from
the life of the household, and the suction of them by the hundreds of
thousands within the vortex of industrial life." Page 20 she says: "I
was told in Manchester, by one of the most eminent and thoughtful
women in England, that the outpouring of a mill in full work at the
hour of dinner was such a torrent of living humanity that a lady could
not walk against the stream. I was told the same thing at Bradford by
a female friend." (Page 22)--"It is clear then, since modern society
will have it so, women must work." But not women only; "young female
children are winding silk for twelve clear hours a day beneath a hot
African sun, in a charitably economical institution," (27) and
"mothers have left the hearth and the cradle, and the young girls and
the _little_ children themselves have run to offer their feeble arms;
whole villages are silent, while huge brick buildings swallow up
thousands of living humanity from dawn of day until twilight shades."
(33)--"There are to be seen the obvious results of the absence of
married women from their homes, in discomfort, etc., and in the
_utter_ want of domestic teaching and training during the most
important years of youth; besides the sure deterioration of health
consequent on long confinement." Well may Miss Parkes consider it "a
purely economical and selfish tendency, acting by competition alone
and casting aside unprofitable material. Women are more and more left
to provide for themselves, and society takes hardly any trouble to
enable them to do so, either by education or by opening the doors to
salaried employment. The great overplus of the female sex in England,
caused chiefly by the wholesale emigration of men to the colonies,
increases the difficulty tenfold." "In fact, the general freedom and
_laisser aller_ of English political and social life, while it serves
many admirable purposes in the general economy of the nation, allows
the weaker classes, those who are in any way unfitted for the race, to
go to the wall, while the others pass by. I believe the very _poor_ to
suffer far more in England than elsewhere; and I am sure there is no
country on earth where so many women are allowed to drift helplessly
about, picking up the scanty bread of insufficient earnings." "We are
at present in an extraordinary state of social disorganization." (Pp
37, 38.)

This is but a dismal result of progress, of civilization; modern
society with all its boasting seems to have {418} achieved little for
happiness. After this witness for the uneducated class, Miss Parkes
proceeds to show the difficulties that encompass the educated strivers
after bread, and here difficulties seem to increase, from the danger
incurred by exposing young women to intercourse with a corrupted
social state; "it is better," says Miss Parkes, "to be starved in body
than made worse in the moral and spiritual life," and in this we can
but agree with her, as also in the conclusion that this fact renders
many an occupation ineligible which would otherwise be good in itself.
The lady's remarks on the changes of eighty years are interesting, as
her accounts of "educated destitution" are graphic and painful in
their truth. Her remarks are sensible, and her plans proposed are so
modest and unassuming they seem rather suggestions, "helps to
thought," than projects, and as such we cordially recommend them; for
though American society is not yet in the state depicted of the
superabundant populations of Europe, we cannot fail to recognize that
if the _same principles_ are exercised on this side of the Atlantic as
have been exercised on that, the same results will follow when
population becomes denser; it behooves us, then, to be wise in time,
and acknowledge some higher law than that provided by an inexorable
system of political economy, if we would be happy. Men and women are
not necessarily blind agents of capitalists, mere creators of a wealth
which they do not share in due proportion to their intelligence and
their industry. They are moral beings, if they would but know it, if
they would but exercise and cultivate their moral powers; beings
capable of controlling themselves, and, by enlightened industrial
arrangements, of providing for themselves and for their neighbors. The
tendencies of Miss Parkes are evidently to the formation of
joint-stock societies, making the laborer at once a worker and a
capitalist. This _might_ be so contrived as to form another style of
"guild" of auld lang syne, when Catholic workmen protected each other
from want. Christian love, and earnest thought, endeavoring, to form
associations for mutual interchange of kind offices, and for
encouraging each other in practices of piety and good will to men, are
essentially Catholic; it is only when based on a purely selfish
motive, and with purely earthly aims, that they lose their charm and
best security. We confess that for ourselves we do not expect to see
any great improvement in the condition of the worker, whether male or
female, in Europe or elsewhere, by combination or otherwise, while the
effort for improvement is unsustained by a recurrence to first
principles, and unbased on _positive_ religious forms and dogmas. As
long as the _world_ is unchristian it must remain _selfish_, and the
weakest will go to the wall, in every form of of civilization, whether
named co-operative or competitive. But once recognize that man's most
essential life resides in his _soul_, and that he is bound to provide
for the wants of that soul as his first object, "guilds" take form and
shape, and the _laborer_, rising in dignity, performing his labor as
an ordinance of God, "loving his neighbor as himself," establishes, or
may establish, associations, in which the weaker shall be protected,
and the poor recognized as the representatives of Christ. This we
shall see exemplified on another page in speaking of the "_Rosines_"
instituted by Rosa Governo, who had been a servant.

Miss Davis's book on the Higher Education of Woman, is addressed more
especially to the middle classes, for whom she requires education has
a means of obtaining a livelihood. The discrepancies between the
education accorded to English girls and boys are greater than those
existing between American boys and girls; still there is much room for
improvement. Girls are too apt to be superficial, "to read too much,
and think too little;" and even here in free America, some may be
found who think they should lose {419} caste being useful, thorough,
and energetic. To such as these we particularly recommend Miss Davis's
book, for it sifts all such fallacies, and regards the question of
woman's place in the social order, primarily considering them as
"children of God, members of Christ, and heirs of the kingdom of
heaven; and, secondarily, as wives, mothers daughters, sisters" (p.
36). Miss Davis writes modestly, suggestively, not dogmatically;
feeling her way as it were at every step. Her descriptions are of
course English, but much that she says of the _necessity_ of suitable
employment for woman, not only for a maintenance but for _healthy
existence_ as a moral and intellectual being, is applicable to every
nation, and will afford useful hints to any one who has pondered
seriously on woman's present position and future prospects.

We regret that we cannot speak so favorably of the tone of Mr.
Ludlow's book, valuable as is the information it affords as to what
the collective energy of women can effect when strong religious motive
is the prompter of their actions. The author gives a consecutive
account of the work of women in the church from the time all the
apostles to the present era, tracing their usefulness, their power of
varying their action according to the exigencies of the day in which
they lived; the devotedness of the ancient deaconesses the learning of
the nuns, when the world was the prey of the Goths and Vandals and
their successors; the intellectual activity that characterized the
communities while the outer world was sunk in barbarism; the books
they spent their lives in copying, and the works they themselves
composed. Then he gives an account of the active orders, or, perhaps,
rather associations, as of the Béguines--

  "who, without renouncing the society of men or the business of life,
  or vowing poverty, perpetual chastity; or absolute obedience, yet
  lead, either at their own homes or in common dwellings, a life of
  prayer, meditation, and labor. Matthew Paris mentions it as one of
  the wonders of the age for the year 1250, that 'in Germany there
  rose up an innumerable multitude of those continent women who wish
  to be called Béguines, to that extent that Cologne was inhabited by
  more than 1,000 of them.' Indeed, by the latter half of this
  century, there seems to have been scarcely a town of any importance
  without them in France, Belgium, Northern Germany, and Switzerland."
  (P. 118.)

  "The first of these fellowships was composed of weavers of either
  sex; and so diligent were they with their work, that their industry
  had to be restricted, lest they should deprive the weavrers' guilds
  of their bread. Wholly self-maintained at first, they rendered
  moreover essential service in the performance of works of charity.
  As soon as a Béguinage became at all firmly established, there were
  almost invariably added to it hospitals or asylums for the
  reception, maintenance, or relief of the aged, the poor, the sick.
  To this purpose were devoted the greater part of the revenues of the
  sisterhood, however acquired, another portion going to the
  maintenance of the common chapel. The sisters moreover received
  young girls to educate; went out to nurse and console the sick, to
  attend death-beds, to wash and lay out the dead; were called in to
  pacify family disputes." (P. 118.).

  "The Béguines had no community of goods, no common purse for
  ordinary needs. Nevertheless, those among them who were wholly
  destitute, or broken down with infirmities, were maintained at the
  public expense, or out of the poor fund; mendicancy was never
  allowed, unless in the extremely rare case of the establishment not
  being able to relieve its poorest members." (P. 120.)

This is refreshing testimony to woman's powers, and were a similar
_devoted principle_ now at work, many of the problems troubling
earnest, thoughtful female minds might be solved.  "The striking
feature of her self-maintenance by labor" is a very valuable evidence,
for now that machinery is called in to _help_ the race, we cannot
believe that under its rightful application, Christian women could
effect _less_ at the present time than they did in ancient days. A
similar devotedness, a similar idea of the duty of living for God, a
similar appreciation of the divine institution of industry as a means
of sanctification, would produce equal or even superior effects, since
intelligence is more diffused now than formerly, and mechanical
assistance more within the reach of the many. {420} That which is
needed is simply the spirit of _godliness_, and to him that _asketh_
this is _promised_. Shall we then longer look calmly on the evils that
beset the sex, when the means are at hand to remedy them, whenever we
sincerely wish for them?

Mr. Ludlow proceeds to trace the educational fellowships, the
Ursulines, Angustinians, and others. He says that in the sixteenth
century female orders generally devoted themselves to education, even
when founded on the old Franciscan basis of manual labor. Then comes
the enumeration of the charitable sisterhoods, in all their varied
modes of assuaging human misery or diminishing temptation to sin; in
all their efforts for succoring the poor, the sick, the infirm, and
for recalling the lost sheep to the fold. The information contained in
the volume renders the book valuable in spite of Mr. Ludlow's
prejudices, broadly and oftentimes coarsely expressed. We dare not
repeat his blasphemies relative to the adoration of the blessed
eucharist, to the vow of chastity, or to other dogmas; they are
introduced, as he acknowledges, to free the author from the imputation
of Romanizing tendencies, to which the involuntary testimony he bears
to the _right action_ of the church has subjected him. We pity him,
that he did not see the force of his own evidence, that he was not led
to the truth, rather than to the vilifying it. We give but _one_
instance of the manner he has adopted in order to prove himself no
Romanist; it will suffice to show the want of candor which reigns
throughout the book when the _Romish_ Church is touched upon. Having
described, _con amore_, the institution of the Béguines as "being
exempt from almost all the inconveniences of a _convent life_" (to
which he appears to entertain an insuperable objection), he attributes
at first their fall to the jealousy of the regular congregations. Yet
after a while, the innate force of truth compels him to confess that
the institution fell by its own fault. The free fellowships departed
from the _spirit_ of their foundation. "In place of the
self-supporting industry and active charity which at first
characterized them, there crept in the opposites of these--reliance
upon others' alms and indifference to good works! So complete was the
change that the very term Béghard, _prayer_, surviving in our
'beggar,' has come to designate clamorous pauperism" (pp. 136, 137) He
continues on another page:

  "But the Béguine sisterhoods of the north were too numerous, too
  useful, too much in harmony with the spirit of their age and
  country, too deeply rooted in the affections of the people, to
  perish before the canons of the council or a papal bull. Nor,
  indeed, it was soon seen, did Rome's safety require that they should
  perish. The existence of free _brotherhoods_ was, indeed,
  inconsistent with that of Romanism itself; for every community of
  men, not bound by rule or vows, not subject to a clerical head, must
  be of necessity an asylum of free thought, such as a monastic church
  with an infallible head could not, without the greatest danger,
  allow. Sisterhoods, on the other hand, although equally unbound by
  vow or rule, might safely be tolerated; since, through the priestly
  director or confessor, generally an essential part of the
  organization of any Béguinage, they could be kept in dependence,
  tempted on into monachism. And thus, parallel with the current of
  censure against Béghardism and Béguinism as a system, there begins
  to flow another current of toleration, and even, as the danger
  diminishes, approval, for those 'faithful women who, having vowed
  continence, or even without having vowed it, choose honestly to do
  penance in their hospitals, and serve the Lord of virtues in spirit
  of humility.'"

The Béguines were finally absolved from censure by the Council of
Constance, 1414 (pp. 139, 140). The mind which does not see in this
account that one set of Béguines were suppressed on account of
disorder and that the others were retained from the desire of
promoting virtue,  is singularly blinded by prejudice, notwithstanding
that he walks, as he says himself (p. 139), "in the brightness of
Luther's most blessed name."

The Béguines, according to our author, were eventually merged into
{421} Tertiaries, or more regularly organized religious bodies, of
whom he gives so interesting an account that we can but wonder and
admire the more that the account comes, from such a source. There is,
however, in the author's mind, a notable ignorance of the "purity of
intention" enforced by the church as necessary to the sanctification
of good works, and this accounts for much misconception on his part.
He says that when Madame de Miramon, a young widow, began her
religious life in works of active charity, "her director exhorted her
to make a 'retreat' for a year, in order to devote herself to her own
perfection, without exercising her charity toward her neighbor." This
Mr. Ludlow styles "a trait characteristically Romish," in which we
must presume he is right, for if he represents the anti-Romish party,
we must say, judging by his book, there is little apprehension shown
by that party that "good good works," to be acceptable, to be
sanctifying to the agent, must be wrought in God, and therefore that a
year spent in the repression of self-seeking, in acts of humiliation
and self-abasement, might be and probably was necessary to insure that
the future acts of the pious lady should be performed in that "pure
intention" which would draw down upon them the fructifying blessing of
divine grace. We are fain to confess that this is, as "the gentleman
says, characteristically Romish;" and much we rejoice at so beautiful
a characteristic of our faith.

We cannot follow Mr. Ludlow through all his accounts, which we regret
the more as he gives important evidence to the fact, that in every age
of the church pious women have been found to comprehend the needs of
the age in which they live, and to associate with the special purpose
of providing the assistance necessary. In a barbarous age, when
vandalism overturned human learning, "nunneries, like monasteries for
men, became schools or store houses of learning, sometimes even
centres of intellectual activity. At the beginning of the sixth
century, the nunnery founded by St. Cesarius at Arles contained two
hundred nuns, mostly employed in copying books. Their rule bound them
to learn 'human letters' for two hours a day, and to work in common,
either in transcribing or in female labor" (p. 106). The convents of
Tours, founded in the sixth century by Queen Radegund, and the Swabian
nunnery of Gaudesheim, in the latter half of the tenth century, the
glory of female monachism, were specially centres of intellectual
activity. In the latter dwelt the poetess Hrotsvitha, herself not the
first authoress of her convent, whose Latin plays seem to have
especial attraction for Mr. Ludlow, for his panegyric is couched in
these words, "Hrotsvitha, at least, was no hooded Pharisee" (pp. 119,
111).

During the Crusades and European wars, the communities of the
Tertiarian hospitaller nuns, under various names, excite his
admiration, though he thinks "the worship of these nuns may not be the
highest and best, but it is surely genuine" (p. 142). Thanks even for
that admission, Mr. Ludlow. The Béguines, of whom we have already
spoken, and the educational nuns spring up at the hour of need, and
for the present day "the institute of 'Rosines' of Turin presents an
interesting feature." These latter have no vows, no seclusion. They
are a genuine working association of women, only with a strong
religious element infused in their work. They were founded by Rosa
Governo, who had been a servant. There Mrs. Jameson found (see
Communion of Labor) "nearly four hundred women, from fifteen years of
age upwards, gathered together in an assemblage of buildings, where
they carry on tailoring, embroidery, especially of military
accoutrements for the army, weaving, spinning, shirt-making,
lace-making, every trade, in short, in which female ingenuity is
available. They have a well-kept garden, a school for the poor
children of the neighborhood, an infirmary, including a ward for the
aged, a capital dispensary, with a small medical library. {422} They
are ruled by a superior, elected from among themselves; the work-rooms
are divided into classes and groups, each under a monitress. The rules
of admission and the interior regulations are strict; any inmate may
leave at once, but cannot be readmitted. Finally, they are entirely
self-supporting, and have a yearly income of between 70,000f. to
80,000f., that is, about from £2,800 to £3,200. No female organization
is more pregnant with hope than this" (p. 181). With this we conclude
our notice of Mr. Ludlow's book, although he has also accounts of some
few Protestant associations, imitated and modified from the foregoing.

We cannot but rejoice at so much welcome testimony, from an outsider,
to the benefits flowing from the female religious institutions of the
church of Christ, and feel encouraged to believe that whatever may be
the necessities of the times, bands of holy women will rise up to
administer thereunto.

It is refreshing, too, as an evidence that the gratitude which woman
owes to the church, she is willing to repay in self-devotedness to the
_wants_ of the members of that church. No woman who has ever reflected
for one brief hour on the emancipation from slavery that has been
wrought for her by the ministry of the church, can fail to recognize
that in the Church alone is her _real_ protection, her true safety.
The pagan woman--what was she? You may see her type in the Eastern
harem, the Hindoo suttee, the Indian burden-bearer. The few women of
antiquity who broke their chains did so at a fearful cost. The
Aspasias, the Diotemes, the Semiramises, the Zenobias, the
Cleopatras--alas! a cloud obscures their greatness; and even
heathenism condemns while it admires them. Respectable women were
_slaves_; if not nominally so, yet slaves in intellect, slaves by
inferior position, slaves through _ignorance_; slaves because their
_souls_ could find no scope for exertion. And now what are the
tendencies of the age? I fear we must confess that they are purely
materialistic, that they point rather to the reign of physical power
than that of moral force; and if so, what must woman expect save a
return in some shape, modified by existing machinery, to the old idea
of enslavement under another name? The laws of the church are already
annulled by society in respect of marriage. The power of easy divorce
exists in the Eastern states, and polygamy flourishes in Utah. These
are matters calculated to make Catholic women reflect ere they march
too readily with the tendencies of the age. The church, and the church
only, raised the standard of woman, and that incidentally, by
proclaiming that she had a _soul_ to save, and that the powers of the
soul were will, memory, and understanding. Christian men were obliged
to concede to her the exercise of these powers, by the same authority
through which they claimed the right to exercise them for themselves.
But now, the world is for the most part not Christian, and we must
look well to the principles that it puts forth; its associations or
co-operations, if founded on a merely selfish principle, must end in
disorder. It requires the strong religious element spoken of by Mrs.
Jameson as existing among the Rosines, and the "pure intention" which
induced Madame de Miramon to obey her director and make the year's
retreat he prescribed, in order that her future acts might be begun,
continued, and ended in God, to insure that a community life or
association shall produce good. That joint-stock companies may for a
while flourish and contribute to the wealth of the shareholders is
doubtless true; but if the wealth thus obtained is made merely to
contribute to material enjoyment, it will rather injure than profit
the possessor, whether that possessor be man or woman. Strong moral
power is produced by exercise, by endurance, renunciation, rather than
by gratification. {423} Strong intellectual power is produced by deep
thought, head study, unremitting exertion, as strong physical power is
produced by labor, continuous activity, hard fare, and unluxurious
habits. We must not lose sight of these facts when we seek to improve
the condition of either man or woman; and desirable as are
associations for mutual benefit, we must not forget that if they are
to be permanent, they most aim at something higher than improving in
temporalities. The union of the natural law with the supernatural law
should form the especial study of every thinking member of the church;
and to women's associations it seems a study peculiarly desirable, as
woman owes her present improved condition entirely to the effects
produced by that supernatural action on her previous condition. If we
might be allowed to suggest a subject of thought to such Catholic
women as see the evils depicted by Misses Parkes and Davis, and wish
to assist in their removal, it would be that they should meditate and
study the practical bearing of the ancient associations of the church
to mitigate the then existing evils, and having caught the spirit of
devotedness from the many examples therein presented, should proceed
to consider what form of devotedness is demanded by the present
needs--and in the spirit of the church assemble to promote the needful
work.

That there is much to be done, all must confess; but in what way it is
to be done is not altogether so evident. Only tracing from all history
"that woman's work in the church" is to see the difficulties of the
times, to enter with warm sympathy into its distresses, and having
purified the human tenderness with which she is gifted by casting it
into the furnace of divine love, to direct that tenderness,
enlightened by intellectual culture and strengthened by acetic
practice, into the channels needing assistance. We can but feel
confident that Catholic women will now as heretofore ponder over the
position of their sex with regard to labor and intellectual culture,
and that to meet its requirements such institutions will be formed as
will push forward "progress" in the most approved system compatible
with the solemn duties of _Catholicity_: that is, uniting the human
privilege to the far higher and loftier privilege involved in being a
member of the church of Christ.

------

ORIGINAL.


MY TWO MITES.

"This poor widow hath cast in more than they all."


  Widowed of the world, that once did me betroth.
  Unto the treasury of God brought I,
        In after days,
  A heart and mind--my all--two mites in worth,
  And cast them in. What wealth, if they should buy
        Such priceless praise!

------

{424}


MISCELLANY.



_A most Important Discovery in Photography_.--That photographic
productions cannot be relied upon as permanent appears a fact only too
well established. The public have been convinced of it by seeing
folios of choice productions and scores of treasured portraits pass
gradually into "the sere and yellow leaf" of their age, and finally
disappear. A few years, more or less, generally works the change.
Photographers, too, have lost all faith in the absolute permanence of
their productions, and have long been looking for this desirable
quality in some ideal process for which their experimentalists were
industriously striving and working, and for which they were most
anxiously looking, rather than to any modification of the old silver
process, which they have now wrought up to such a pitch of perfection.
This fading has been pretty clearly shown to be, at least mainly, due
to the action of the hyposulphites. The print lasts a longer or
shorter time in proportion to the degrees in which the fixing
agent--hyposulphite of soda--has been removed from the paper; but the
slightest trace of it will assuredly bring about the destruction of
the photograph. The only chance of absolute permanence appears to be
in its complete elimination, although even then there are other
elements of evil which may be suspiciously regarded. We have hitherto
relied for this purpose upon the mechanical action of water, and some
able men have run counter to the general experience by affirming that
absolute permanence could be obtained by proper and sufficient
washing. Mr. Carey Lea, for instance, asserted, about a year since,
that he had tested properly-washed prints with a very delicate and
certain test for the hyposulphites without discovering their trace,
and in prints which he considered had been properly washed. This test
was that of placing a few drops of an alcoholic solution of iodine in
several ounces of water, and applying the same with a camel's-hair
brush to photographs on starch-sized paper. The presence of the
starch, if freed from the hyposulphite by sufficient washing, was
indicated by a violet or purple stain where the solution was applied;
but in prints not thus washed the presence of hyposulphite was
indicated by the absence of such stain, which could be at once removed
from the well-washed print by plunging it into a solution of
hyposulphite. On the other and, Mr. Dawson, of King's College, in a
recent number of The British Journal of Photography denies the power
of more washing to give permanence, "unless the prints have been
soaked for some time in hot water so as to remove _all_ the size--even
then, supposing the paper non-albumenized, the elimination of the
whole of the hyposulphite is problematical." He adds--"Some
photographers, we are aware, do treat their prints with a final wash
in hot water; but this, of course, although unquestionably conducive
to the permanence of the proof, does not remove the whole of the size
in which the hyposulphite is locked up; and if it did, the paper would
be as little cohesive as blotting-paper, and prints would lose much in
vigor and brilliancy. In the case of prints on albumen, or albumenized
paper, hot water, we may reasonably suppose, has no more powerful
effect in removing hyposulphite from albumen than cold water, if,
indeed it has so much; and it can only be by acting on the texture of
the paper itself, and removing the size therefrom, that it can
exercise a beneficial influence at all." To demonstrate the
truthfulness of his ideas on this subject, some prints which had been
washed in cold running water, and with the utmost care and attention,
for over twenty hours--and the final drippings from which, when
subjected to the tincture of iodine test, displayed no trace of the
hyposulphite--were experimented with, and still gave up to boiling
water, in which they were steeped, at least one-fortieth part of a
grain of the destructive element to the half sheet of paper, clearly
showing that the cold water had not really removed it all, although it
had eliminated all that it could reach or had influence over. Now
whether Mr. Dawson and his supporters or Mr. Lea and his supporters be
right, {425} whether photographs fade so universally because they are
rarely or never sufficiently washed after the process of fixing, or
because it is impossible to remove all trace of the hyposulphites from
the  paper by washing, it is certain that they do fade, and few
dispute the final cause of such a fading. Therefore, a discovery which
destroys these mischievous agents altogether cannot but be regarded as
most important, and such a discovery is our pleasing duty to announce
as having been recently published by Dr. Angus Smith, F.R.S., in the
pages of The British Journal of Photography, from which we quote:
"Considering that the cause of the destruction of photographs,
apparently by the action of time only, was in reality caused by the
amount of hyposulphite remaining in the paper, D. Reissig, of
Darmstadt, contrived a mode of washing it out by centrifugal force.
For indicating the presence of sulphur assets, he used a small
galvanic arrangement with one cell, and decomposing the acid, had the
sulphur thrown on a piece of polished silver, which became readily
blackened in the solution. Dr. Theodore Reissig, my assistant,
examined several faded photographs for me by his brother's method,
which, however, appeared unnecessarily delicate, as it was found the
amount of sulphur was very large, and roughly, we thought, in
proportion to the amount of decay. I did not determine how much was
hyposulphite and how much sulphate. As I had been interesting myself
in bringing into use some of the remarkable properties of peroxide of
hydrogen in oxidizing metals and organic bodies in fluids, it seemed
to me that we might readily use it for oxidizing the hyposulphites. I
am supposing that the sulphate alone will not be injurious." Dr. Smith
then shows how this powerful, oxidizing agent may be used to convert
the mischievous hyposulphites into the innocuous sulphate, and Mr.
Dawson, in the same number of the journal, gives the following
experimental illustration: "Dissolve in a wineglass any quantity of
sulphate of soda, and add to the solution a few drops of tincture of
iodine. The solution will remain permanently discolored, showing that
sulphate of soda does not dissolve iodine. In another wine-glass, half
filled with plain water, drop sufficient tincture of iodine to strike
a permanent dark sherry color throughout the liquid; then add, drop by
drop, a weak solution of hyposulphite of soda till the color is
discharged, taking care to add as little excess of hyposulphite as
possible. So far this experiment shows that iodine is soluble in
hyposulphite of soda. Now, fill up the glass with an aqueous solution
of peroxide of hydrogen, and observe the effects. After a few minutes
the iodine is no longer held in solution, and the liquid will resume
the dark sherry color it had before adding the hyposulphite of soda."
Every chemist will readily explain this. To apply this new chemical
agent to this new use, take the print, after fixing and washing, and
soak it for a short time in a solution of the peroxide of hydrogen of
the strength of say one ounce of a ten-volume solution in forty ounces
of water.--_Popular Science Review_.

----

ORIGINAL.

NEW PUBLICATIONS



PASTORAL LETTER OF THE SECOND PLENARY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE. The
Archbishops and Bishops of the United States, in Plenary Council
Assembled, to the Clergy and Laity of their charge. Baltimore: John
Murphy & Co. 8vo pamphlet. For sale by L. Kehoe, New York.


This is the first official utterance of the Archbishops and Bishops of
the United States in Plenary Council assembled, to the clergy and
laity of their charge. As such it will be listened to with an
attention due to the importance of the subjects on which it speaks,
and to the character and motives of the august assembly from which it
proceeds. It is the warning voice of the shepherds of the people,
raised after long and matured deliberation to remind the flock of its
duties, pointing out the dangers which threaten, the quarters from
which they spring, and the means by which they are to be avoided. It
is the herald of that full legislation which in a few months will be
promulgated for the Catholics of the United States. The outlines of
that {426} legislation are traced with rapid pen in this document; the
details, which have been already filled in, will, after having
received the approval of Rome, be presented to the public stamped with
the seal of the Fisherman. The great object of this Pastoral Address
is to impress upon the minds and hearts of Catholics those cardinal
principles and duties of cheerful obedience to the divinely
constituted authority of the "bishops placed to rule the Church of
God;" in order that when the decrees of the Council are published,
all--bishops, priests, and the laity--may co-operate in heart and
hand in giving them practical effect. _All_ are members of the same
mystical body of Christ, the Church; and therefore _all_ should in
their respective positions and functions unite in harmonious action
for the well-being of the whole, according to the order established by
the divine head and founder. "For there are diversities of ministries,
but the same Lord; and diversities of operations, but the same God,
who worketh in all; and hath set the members every one of them in the
body as it hath pleased him" (Cor. xii. 1).

Such being the object of the Pastoral Letter, it very naturally
commences (Sec. I.) with the "Authority of Plenary Councils;" and
(Sec. II.) with "Ecclesiastical Authority" in its general relations,
and with the correlative obedience thereto binding on the Christian
conscience. As human policy and human action have, even in secular
matters, their religious as well as their civil aspects, the
principles are laid down which mark out the boundary line between the
civil and ecclesiastical powers (Sec III.); a boundary line which
notwithstanding the experience and lessons of past centuries, is often
obliterated or lost sight of. After having, in brief and emphatic
language, called attention to these general truths relating to
authority and consequent obedience founded on the natural and divine
laws, the episcopal legislators devote several sections to the more
prominent questions and wants which affect the Catholic Church in the
United States. Sec. IV. calls attention to the afflicted condition of
the Pope and to the obligation incumbent on his spiritual subjects,
for whom he daily prays and works, of relieving him. Sec. V. to the
"Sacrament of Matrimony," that great and sacred link by which society
is in its nearest and dearest associations held together, but which is
so much exposed to be severed, if not wholly destroyed, in our days.
Sec VI. to the press, that giant engine for good or for evil, wielded,
alas! with such fatal efficacy against the faith and morals of the
"little ones and the weak ones" of the fold, and yet which, properly
directed might be made the instrument most powerful for truth and for
good. Sec. VII. deals with the "education" of youth, on which indeed
the future of society and religion depends. Sec. VIII. with the
subject of '"Catholic Protectories and Industrial Schools." Sec IX.
with the necessity of cultivating "vocations" in the ministry. Secs.
X. and XI. are addressed, respectively, to the "Laity" and the
"Clergy." Sec XII. points to the condition of the emancipated slaves,
and to the means to be used by the Church in ameliorating it. Sec
XIII. glances at those most favored spots in the bosom of the Church,
where the sun shines most brightly, and the fairest lilies spring to
be woven as a garland in her triumphant crown--to "Religious
Communities." The "conclusion" epitomizes the whole by saying:

  "We have taken advantage of the opportunity of the assembling of so
  large a number of bishops from every part of our vast country, to
  enact such decrees as will tend to promote uniformity of discipline
  and practice among us, and to do away with such imperfect observance
  of the rites and approved ceremonies of the church as may have been
  made necessary by the circumstances of past times, but which no
  length of prescription can ever consecrate, and thus to give the
  services of our religion that beauty and dignity which belong to
  them, and for which we should all be so zealous.

  "For the furtherance of these important objects, we have caused to
  be drawn up a clear and compendious series of statements upon the
  most essential points of faith and morals, with which we have
  embodied the decrees of the seven Provincial Councils of Baltimore,
  and of the first Plenary Council, together with the decrees enacted
  by us in the present Council, which, when they have been examined
  and approved of by the Holy See, will form a compendium of
  ecclesiastical law for the guidance of our clergy in the exercise of
  their holy ministry.

  "The result of our labors, when thus returned to us, will be
  promulgated more fully in our Provincial Councils and Diocesan
  Synods and we will then take advantage of the opportunity to bring
  more fully under the notice of the clergy, and the people committed
  to our pastoral charge, the details of what we have done, and the
  exact nature of the means {427} by which we hope to give increased
  efficiency to the whole practical system of the church in this
  country.

  "We have also recommended to the Holy See the erection of several
  additional episcopal sees and vicariates apostolic, which are made
  necessary by our rapidly increasing Catholic population and the
  great territorial extent of many of our present dioceses."

It does not become us to review, but only two direct attention to this
most remarkable and important document. Abstracting from the authority
of those from whom it emanates, and viewed merely as the pronouncement
of so many men distinguished for learning, experience, and piety, it
will be read with respectful consideration by the educated portion of
our community, whether Catholic or Protestant. On the former, however,
it has a higher and holier claim--as the legislative exponent of those
appointed to keep garrison on the watch-towers of Israel, to give
timely warning of danger, from whatever part of the horizon it
approaches, to lead and guide them in their journey through this
earthly desert to the promised land of heaven. In some of the plenary
councils (for instance, of Africa about the time of St. Cyprian or of
St. Augustine, or of Asia before that of St. John Chrysostom) a
greater number of bishops were assembled. In plenary councils, too,
weightier matters may have come under consideration; as, for example,
doctrinal questions at the Council of Orange, not, however, to be
finally settled without the after-sanction all the Infallible Church.
But never, we may venture to say, has any provincial council in other
parts of the church been called to legislate for so vast a territory,
more on questions of discipline and practice affecting the present and
future prospects of a population so widespread and so varied in its
origin, its habits, and its pursuits. Some of the bishops traveled by
sea and land over thousands of miles, and were heard to facetiously
say that "as they had come so far it were a little thing to step
across and see the Pope at Rome." They were all, as we said, picked
men, "chosen among hundreds" of learned and pious priests; actuated
solely by the motive of doing the best their collective prudence
suggested for their people. Hence their opinions on questions with
which they were all practically acquainted in their respective
dioceses, merit to be heard by all classes with the deepest respect.
Doctrinal matters were not discussed at Baltimore; these are reserved
for the supreme authority of general councils and of the Holy See. But
practical remedies are suggested for social and moral evils in a
quiet, calm, and steady tone, which sounds upon the ears of Catholics
like the voice of the Holy Spirit, and wakens in the hearts of the
well-minded children of the church an echo such as we may imagine the
gentle voice of the divine Master to have awakened in those who
listened to his sermon on the mount. The council does not confine
itself to the enunciation of general principles, but enters into
minute, practical details on each subject. Had we space we would wish
to quote much; but we confine ourselves to what it says on the section
on the press:

  "We cheerfully acknowledge the services the Catholic press has
  rendered to religion, as also the disinterestedness with which, in
  most instances, it has been conducted, although yielding to
  publishers and editors a very insufficient return for their labors.
  We exhort the Catholic community to extend to these publications a
  more liberal support, in order that they may be enabled to become
  more worthy the great cause they advocate.

  "We remind them that the power of the press is one of the most
  striking features of modern society; and that it is our duty to
  avail ourselves of this mode of making known the truths of our
  religion, and removing the misapprehensions which so generally
  prevail in regard to them.

  "In connection with this matter we earnestly recommend to the
  faithful of our charge the Catholic Publication Society, lately
  established in the city of New York by a zealous and devoted
  clergyman. Besides the issuing of short tracts, with which this
  society has begun, and which may be so usefully employed to arrest
  the attention of many whom neither inclination nor leisure will
  allow to read larger works, this society contemplates the
  publication of Catholic books, according as circumstances may permit
  and the interests of religion appear to require. From the judgment
  and good taste evinced in the composition and selection of such
  tracts and books as have already been issued by this society, we are
  encouraged to hope that it will be eminently effective in making
  known the truths of our holy religion, and dispelling the prejudices
  which are mainly owing to want of information on the part of so many
  of our fellow-citizens. For this it is necessary that a generous
  co-operation be given, both by clergy and laity, to the undertakings
  which is second to none in importance among the {428} subsidiary
  aids which the inventions of modern times supply to our ministry for
  the diffusion of Catholic truth."

----

CURIOUS QUESTIONS. By Rev. Henry A. Brann, D.D. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 272.
Newark, N. J.: J. J. O'Connor & Co., 59 and 61 New street. 1866.

This attractive-looking, well-printed volume reflects great credit on
the enterprise and taste of the publishers, who, we hope, will be
rewarded and encouraged by an extensive sale. We may remark, by the
way, that some of our publishers would do well to imitate the Messrs.
O'Connor in their style of binding and lettering, which is neat and
tasteful but perfectly plain. The flashy style of late adopted in some
cases is in most wretched taste, especially when the book treats of
grave and serious topics; and it is especially displeasing to all
scholars. The only fault in the mechanical execution of the book
before us is, that the margin of the page is somewhat too large.

The book itself treats of much more weighty and important topics than
the title would suggest. It is an analysis and resume of some of the
principal topics treated of in our philosophical text-books. The
author has studied attentively and with understanding, and has
presented us with an abstract of his studies, expressed in a clear,
terse, and methodical style. There are, nevertheless, occasional
infelicities of diction, which could easily be corrected, and which
are pardonable in a young and unpractised author. The use of the word
"conscience" for consciousness appears to us decidedly objectionable,
and likely to mislead the English reader not familiar with the Latin
word "conscientia," of which it is too verbal a translation. Such an
expression as "secundum quid beings" is awkward and quite unnecessary.
The same word sometimes recurs too frequently for euphony, and some
sentences are carelessly constructed or unfinished. These faults are,
however, comparatively slight and infrequent, and do not enter into
the texture of the style and diction itself, which is of good and
serviceable fabric.

The author follows the school of Plato, St. Augustine, Gerdil,
Leibnitz, Gioberti, and the modern ontologists, taking the Abbé
Branchereau as his more immediate guide. The general principles and
drift of the system of philosophy contained in the prelections of the
last-named author we regard as sounds, and we are therefore well
pleased to see this system in part reproduced by one who has mastered
it, and has also illustrated it from his studies in other authors.
There is a certain confusion and incompleteness, however, in the
statements and explanations of M. Branchereau upon one or two
important points, and the same reappears in the work before us. One of
these points relates to the activity of the intellect in its intuition
of being. M. Branchereau does not speak distinctly upon the point, but
Dr. Brann expresses the opinion that the intellect is active, in
contradiction to Gioberti. If by this is meant that the intellect has
an active power to originate the intuition of infinite, eternal,
necessary being, we apprehend that consequences might be deduced from
this statement not in accordance with the Catholic doctrine. Another
point relates to the universals, or genera and species. On this point
the language both of M. Branchereau and of our author seems not to be
sufficiently precise and accurate to guard against the appearance of
maintaining the untenable proposition that genera and species are
contained in God.

There is one more point of very great importance, where our author has
either misapprehended the doctrine of the great writers of whose
system he is the expositor, or has intentionally deviated from it,
and, as we think, without due consideration. He maintains (p. 255)
that material substance is radically spiritual and intelligent.
Leibnitz, who is followed by a great number of the ablest philosophers
of our day, taught that the ultimate components of matter are simple
and indivisible, and so far similar in essence to spiritual
substances. Branchereau has very ably sustained this doctrine in his
philosophy, and we regard this portion of his treatise as one of the
most valuable of his contributions to science. He draws the line,
however, in common with all other Catholic writers with whom we are
acquainted, sharply and distinctly between material and spiritual
substances, as, we think, sound philosophy requires. The theory of our
author opens the way to the Darwinian theory of the evolution of all
the {429} entities of the universe from identical ultimate elements.
We think he would have shown more judgment by abstaining from the
expression of an immature speculation of his own on such an extremely
difficult and abstruse question. A little less of positive assertion,
and a little more diffidence of manner, and deference toward others,
throughout the whole volume, would be more graceful in an author just
at the outset of his career; especially as he is treating of those
profound and momentous questions which task and often baffle the
mightiest and most veteran leaders in the intellectual warfare.

Having finished the ungracious part of our critical task, we take
pleasure in giving our judgment, that the design of the author in the
work before us is one that is praiseworthy, and the manner of its
execution such as to make it really valuable to the class of readers
he has in view. It is worthy of their attentive perusal, and could not
fail to benefit them if they would read and consider it with care. It
is an exposition of principles and doctrines in philosophy far deeper,
sounder, and more satisfactory to the intellect than is usually found
in the English language; and makes accessible to those who are
unacquainted with our best Catholic authors a portion of that treasure
of thought which is locked up in them out of the reach of the majority
of even educated men. We should like to have this book read by our
students and literary men generally, and even by our professors of
metaphysics in the colleges of the United States. It presents the
outlines of a system far superior to that jejune psychologism of the
Scottish school which is usually talked, and ought to be welcome to
those who are in search of something more solid. It will also be
valuable to students of philosophy in our own colleges as a companion
to their text-books, as well as to English readers generally who have
taste and capacity for relishing on philosophical subjects. We wish it
success and a large circulation, and we trust the author will continue
his contributions to literature and science.

----

THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE By Nathaniel Holmes.  1
vol. 12mo, pp. 601. New York: Hurd &  Houghton. 1866.


Mr. Holmes attempts, in this finely printed volume from the Riverside
Press, to prove that the works of Shakespeare are not Shakespeare's,
but Francis Bacon's. His argument is: Shakespeare did not write them
because he could not; Francis Bacon, my lord Verulam, did write them
because he could. To which it may be replied: Shakespeare could write
them, because he did; Bacon did not, because he could not. That Bacon
could not, is evident from the character of the man and what we know
of his acknowledged writings; that Shakespeare did is the uniform
tradition from their first appearance down to the present, and must be
presumed until the contrary appears.

Mr. Holmes has proved, what all competent judges have always held,
that the author of the works received as Shakespeare's must have had
more learning and greater scientific and linguistic attainments than
his biographers supposed Shakespeare to have had, but has not proved
that he must have had more than Shakespeare might have had. Few
persons capable of appreciating the wonderful productions attributed
to Shakespeare can doubt that he was up to the scientific lore of his
age; knew enough of Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and perhaps
Spanish, to read and understand works written in those languages; had
some general knowledge of medicine; was familiar with many of the
technicalities of English law; was a profound philosopher, with more
than an ordinary knowledge of Christian theology and morals. But who
can say that Shakespeare might not have had all the learning and
science here supposed?

We in reality know next to nothing of the facts of Shakespeare's life.
We know the place and date of his birth and death, the age at which he
was withdrawn from the grammar-school, and of his marriage; we know
that he was in London about the age of thirty, where he chiefly
resided till within two or three years of his death, as an actor,
play-wright, manager, and a large stockholder in a London theatre.
These, and some few business transactions and his retirement, after
having accumulated a handsome property, to his native place, where his
family appear to have resided, constitute nearly all that we know of
William Shakespeare outside of his works; and in these facts there is
nothing that proves it impossible or even difficult, {430} with the
genius, ability, and quickness the author of Shakespeare's works must
have had, for him to acquire all the learning and science those works
indicate in their author.

Ben Jonson says Shakespeare had "little Latin and less Greek," but
Jonson was a pedant, and his assertion meant simply no more than that
he was not profoundly or critically learned either as a Greek or Latin
scholar; and there is no necessity of supposing that he was. Latin and
Greek were taught in the grammar-schools of his time, and as it is
said he was fourteen when called home from school, it is no violent
supposition to suppose that he learned enough while at school to read
and understand Latin and Greek books, at least sufficiently for his
purposes as a poet. We know not how or where he spent the sixteen
years between leaving school, or the twelve years between his marriage
and his appearance in London, but he might, for aught we know, have
easily acquired during those years all the learning and knowledge of
modern languages indicated by his earliest plays. It could not take a
man of his genius and ability many weeks' study to master as much of
law and medicine as his works indicate; and as to his theology and
metaphysics, we must remember that he lived before Bacon, Hobbes, and
Locke had enfeebled theology and philosophy in the English mind, and
obliterated from the memory of Englishmen all traces of Catholic
tradition. Shakespeare, if not a Catholic himself, had been trained to
a greater or less extent in Catholic principles, and he rarely, if
ever, deviates in his philosophy, his theology, or theoretic morals
from Catholic tradition, still in his time retained to a great extent
in spite of Protestantism by the main body of the English people.

Bearing in mind that Shakespeare wrote his plays for the stage, to be
acted, and that he used without scruple any materials from whatever
quarter gathered that he could lay his hands on, there is nothing
wonderful in their production, except the unrivalled genius of their
author. There are many self-educated men, even in our own country, who
in the learning and science acquired from the study of books equal
Shakespeare, but in that which comes from within no one self-educated
or university-educated has ever equalled him; and not unlikely the
fact that his genius had never been cramped by the pedantic rules of
the university, nor his time frittered away in learning minutiae that
never come into play in practical life, and which the student forgets
as soon as he goes forth into the world, was in his case are great
advantage--at least no disadvantage.

But we cannot forgive the author for his sacrilegious attempt to
transfer of the glory of Shakespeare to Francis Bacon, a different and
altogether an inferior man. Shakespeare was infinitely superior to
Bacon. Even if Bacon had been great enough to write Shakespeare's
plays--of which there is no evidence--he was not philosopher enough
to do it. Shakespeare is always in accord with the best philosophical
tradition which comes down from the ancients through the fathers and
doctors of the church, as well as with the dictates of experience and
common sense; Bacon begins a rupture with tradition, and places
philosophy on the declivity to sensism and materialism, whose logical
terminus is universal nullity. Shakespeare's philosophy is Catholic,
Bacon's is Protestant, and has produced the same anarchy in science
that Protestantism has in religion and morals. There is nothing like
in the spirit and tone of the two men. Their _morale_ is quite
different; neither may have been blameless in life, but Shakespeare,
if he sinned, did so from high spirits, joviality, heedlessness; while
Bacon sinned, we we know, from sordidness, and left his name stamped
with the infamy that belongs to a judge that takes bribes. Bacon,
intentionally or not, has favored modern doubt and unbelief, while
Shakespeare crushes the incipient doubt of his age in Hamlet and in
several other of his place, and he could never have said with Bacon,
atheism is better, socially and politically, than superstition. But
enough. Mr. Holmes deserves no thanks for what he has done, and we do
not think that he has proved his theory is not a "crazy theory."

----

FAMILIAR LECTURES ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS.
By Sir John Herschel. London and New York: Alexander Strahan.


This volume contains, among others, essays on the Sun, Earthquakes and
Volcanoes, Comets, Celestial Measurement, Light, Force, and Atoms. The
author, although upward of seventy years of {431} age, still  writes
with the enthusiasm, vigor and sprightliness of a young votary of
science, and of course with the profundity, range of thought, weight
of judgment, and vastness of learning belonging only to one who has
grown gray scientific studies. The topics he discusses are among the
most important and interesting in science. To their absorbing
intrinsic interest is added the charm of Sir John Herschel's method
and style of exposition. In literary merit and beauty of style this
series of lectures exceeds any of the productions of the professors of
physical science with which we are acquainted, and is equal to our
best English classics. There is a pleasant playfulness also about the
ancient astronomer, which must have made his lectures, as he delivered
them, most delightful to listen to. The religious and moral tone of
the lectures is elevated and wholesome. Without any set and formal
attempts at moralizing or preaching, the illustrious author naturally
and forcibly presents, on fitting occasions, the irresistible evidence
afforded by the stupendous order of the universe of the infinite
wisdom and goodness of God. Some few disparaging remarks about
Catholic superstition occur in his pages; but not so many as we
frequently meet with in similar works by English Protestants, who seem
to be incapable of abstaining for a very long time from their favorite
amusement--one which has as much popularity with the English public as
the national game of "Aunt Sally."

Notwithstanding these little specimens of religious squibbery, which
can do no harm to any intelligent Catholic, whether child or adult, we
recommend this book most cordially to all our readers. It is a great
advantage and pleasure to those intelligent and educated readers who
have not had time or opportunity to study scientific text-books, to
have the grand results of science placed before them in an
intelligible and readable form. We cannot think of anything more
desirable for the interests of general education, than a complete
series of lectures, like those of the volume before us, on all the
principal topics of the several grand divisions of physical science.
The field of knowledge is now so vast, and includes so many distinct,
richly cultivated enclosures, that even students must confine
themselves to the thorough study of a few specialties. Yet, education
ought to include a general survey of the universal domain of
knowledge. Therefore, it becomes important to have generalizations,
compendiums, the condensed cream of science, prepared by the hands of
masters in the several branches of knowledge. We are grateful to Sir
John Herschel for devoting his old age to the task of making the
sublime discoveries of astronomical science intelligible to ordinary
readers. His charming volume should be in every library, and read by
every one who takes pleasure in solid knowledge communicated in the
clearest and most agreeable manner.

------

THE RISE AND THE FALL; OR, THE ORIGIN OF MORAL EVIL.
In three parts. Part I. The Suggestion of Reason. II. The Disclosure
of Revelation. III. The Confirmation of Theology. New York: Hurd &
Houghton. 1866.

A very thoughtful, sensible, calmly written book, pervaded by a high
tone of moral and religious sentiment. The modest, anonymous author
may be called an orthodox Protestant semi-rationalist. He takes
Scripture as furnishing certain revealed data on which the individual
reason must construct a rational theorem of religion. Revelation, as
apprehended by the individual reason, being a variable quantity, of
course dogmas are reduced to mere hypothesis more or less probable,
according to the force of the argument which sustains them. We have,
accordingly, about as ingenious and plausible an hypothesis of
original sin as any one can well make who does not begin with the true
conception as given him by the Catholic dogma. The author's hypothesis
is, that Adam, having been created in the intellectual, but not in the
moral order, was elevated to the moral order through his own act,
thereby contracting a liability to sin as incidental to moral liberty,
which he transmitted together with the moral nature to his posterity.
In this way sin entered into the world through Adam, not by an
imputation or infusion of his sin into his descendants, but as an
incidental consequence of the transfer of human nature into the sphere
of moral obligation. The transgression of Adam and Eve the author
considers not to have been a sin at all, but an act {432} without any
moral character, like that of a young child climbing to the roof of a
house; a bold experiment which the inexperience of infant man led him
to hazard without regard to the unknown consequences.

We consider the effort to determine the questions discussed by the
author, from the data admitted by him, to be as impossible a task as
to calculate the distance of a fixed star which makes no parallax. The
oscillation of the ground, of the building, and of the instrument used
by the astronomer, and the apparent or proper motions of the stars,
may deceive him by an apparent parallax, from which he will make a
plausible but illusory calculation. The application suggests itself.
We have already discussed the same questions, from the data furnished
by revealed Catholic dogmas, and are now engaged in discussing them in
the series of articles entitled "Problems of the Age;" and it is,
therefore, superfluous to enter here into a new discussion of the same
topics.

We are glad to see these questions discussed, and always read with
interest what is written by a candid, earnest, well-informed, and able
writer like the author of this book. With many of his views we
cordially agree, and recognize the justice, force, and beauty of many
of his observations. We like him particularly for his clear views of
the goodness and justice of God, the freedom of man, the negative
character of evil, the worth and excellence of moral virtue; and for
his denial of physical depravity, of a dark, inevitable doom preceding
all personal existence or accountability, and similar fatalistic
doctrines of the old Protestant theological systems. While, however,
the moderate rationalism of the author avails so far as to refute
certain systems or doctrines which are contrary to reason, and to
furnish certain fragmentary portions of a better system, it is not
sufficient to make a complete synthesis between reason and revelation.
Catholic philosophy alone is competent to achieve this mighty and,
indeed, superhuman task.

----

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED,
comprising some remarks on Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy and on
Mr. J. S. Mill's Examination of that Philosophy. By H. L. Mansel,
B.D., Waynflete Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy in the
University of Oxford. London and New-York: Alexander Strahan. 1886


The philosophy of Sir William Hamilton has been the subject of an
animated controversy for some time in England and Scotland. It has
been attacked from two opposite sides--some of the principal critics
upon it having been themselves pupils of the distinguished Scottish
baronet, whose system they have undertaken to combat. On the one side,
Mr. Calderwood has assailed it, as deficient in affirming the
principle of certitude respecting ideal truth, and on the other, Mr.
Mill, as affirming too dogmatically the same principle. These assaults
have called out other champions in defense of their great master,
among whom Mr. Mansel is one of the most conspicuous. Those who desire
to know what can be said in favor of the Hamilton system will find
this volume worthy of their perusal. The author brings learning, no
mean ability, and very good temper to his task. We are no admirers of
the system he undertakes to defendant, but still less of that of his
antagonist. The first we regard as inadequate to the need which exists
of a true Christian philosophy, the second as subverting the very
basis of all philosophy and all religion. In this controversy our
sympathy and respect are given to the Oxford professor, as one who is
striving to uphold the belief in God and the Christian revelation,
albeit with insufficient weapons. We find, also, very much that is
admirable in particular portions of his essay.

It is needless to say anything in praise of Mr. Strahan's
publications, so far as the beauty of their mechanical execution is
concerned. The volume before us is a perfect specimen of British
typographical art, just such a book as delights the eye of the
literary amateur.

----

BOOKS RECEIVED.


From the Author: "The Life of Simon Bolivar, Liberator of Colombia and
Peru, Father and Founder of Bolivia: carefully written from authentic
and unpublished documents." By Doctor Felipe Larrazabal. Vol. 1, 8vo.,
pp. 410.


Anniversary Address and Poem, delivered before the society of the
Alumni of the Detroit High School, August 30th. 1886. Address by H. E.
Bust; Poem by Miss M. F. Buchanan.



From the American News Company: "Utterly Wrecked." A Novel, by Henry
Morford; paper.

----------

{433}

THE CATHOLIC WORLD


VOL. IV, NO. 22.--JANUARY, 1867.


ORIGINAL.

A CHRISTMAS SONG.


  A carol of joy, a carol of joy,
    For the glorious Christmas time;
  While the heavens rejoice and the earth is glad.
    Let the merry bells sweetly chime.
  Let us seek the crib where our Saviour lies--
    See, the shepherds are kneeling there;
  Let us offer, with Mary and Joseph,
    Our worship of love and prayer.

  A carol of praise, a carol of praise,
    With the angels let us sing;
  Let us welcome with notes of rapturous joy
    Our Saviour, our God and King.
  Oh! would we could offer him worthy gifts,
    Oh! would that our hearts could love,
  With some equal return, the Holy Child,
    Who for us left his throne above!

  A carol of joy, a carol of joy,
    Let the whole earth gladly shout;
  She has waited long for this promised day.
    Let the glorious song flow out.
  A carol of praise, a carol of joy.
    Let us sing for the Christmas time.
  While the heavens rejoice and the earth is glad,
    And the merry bells sweetly chime.


----

{434}


ORIGINAL.

CHARITY AND PHILANTHROPY.


There is no denying that our age, in its dormant tendency, places
philanthropy above charity, and holds it higher praise to call a man
philanthropic than to call him charitable. In its eyes charity is to
philanthropy as a part to the whole, and consists, chiefly, in giving
the beggar a penny or sending him to the poor-house, and in treating
error and sin with even more consideration than truth and virtue.
Could anything better indicate the distance it has fallen below the
Christian thought, or its failure to grasp the principle of Christian
morals?

Philanthropy, according to the etymology of the word, is simply the
love of man; charity, according to Christian theology, is the love of
God, and of man in God. Philanthropy is simply a natural human
sentiment; charity is a virtue, a supernatural virtue, not possible
without the assistance of grace--the highest virtue, the sum and
perfection of all the virtues, the fulfilment of the whole law, the
bond of perfectness which likens and unites us to God; for God is
charity, _Deus est caritas_. It does not exclude but includes the love
of man, our neighbor or our brother; "for if any man say, I love God
and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For if he loveth not his
brother, whom he seeth, how can he love God, whom he seeth not?"
Whoever loves God must necessarily love his brother, for his brother
is included in God, as the effect in the cause, and he who loveth not
his brother proves clearly thereby that he doth not love God. But
charity, though it includes philanthropy, is as much superior to it as
God is to man.

The natural sentiments are all good in their origin and design, as
much so since as before the fall; and man would be worthless without
them; would be a monster, not a man. But in themselves they are blind.
Each one tends, when left to itself, to become exclusive and
excessive, and hence comes that internal disorder, anarchy, or war of
conflicting sentiments of which we are all more or less conscious, and
in which originate all life's tragedies. Even when developed,
restrained, and directed by the understanding, as they all need to be,
they are not even then moral virtues, meriting praise. Moral virtue is
a rational act, an act of free will, done for the sake of the end
prescribed by the law of God; but in the sentiments there is no free
will, except in restraining and directing them, and man acts in them
only as the sun shines, the rain falls, the winds blow, or the
lightnings flash. There may the beauty and goodness in them, as in the
objects of nature, but there is no virtue, because the spring of all
sentimental action is the indulgence or gratification of the sentiment
itself, not the will to do our duty, or to obey the law by which we
are morally bound.

Indeed, what most offends this age--perhaps all ages--and for which
it has the greatest horror, is duty or obedience; for duty implies
that we are not our own, and, therefore, are not free to dispose of
ourselves as we please; and obedience implies a superior, a lord and
master, who has the right to order us. It, therefore, sets its wits to
work and racks its brains to invent a morality that excludes duty, and
exacts no such hateful same as obedience. It has found all that it is
far nobler to act from love than from duty, and to do a thing because
we are prompted to do it by our hearts, then because God, in his law,
commands it. {435} In other words, it is nobler, more moral, to act to
please ourselves, than it is to act to please God. This passes for
excellent philosophy, and you may hear it in conversation of many
young misses just from boarding-school, read it in most popular novels
and magazines, and be edified by it from the pulpit of more than one
professedly Christian denomination.

This philosophy sets the so-called heart above the head, that is, it
distinguishes the heart from the understanding and will, and places
it, as so distinguished, above them. Hence we find the tendency is to
treat faith, considered as an intellectual act, and consequently the
Christian dogmas, with great indifference; and to say, if the heart is
right, it is no matter what one believes, and, it may be added, no
matter what one does. What one does is of little consequence, if one
only has fine sentiments, warm and gushing feelings. Jack Scapegrace
is hard drinking a gambler, a liar, a rake, and seldom goes near a
church; but for all that he is a right down good fellow--has a warm
heart. He gives liberally to the missionary society, and makes large
purchases at charity fairs. Hence a good heart, which at best means
only quick sensibilities, and which is perfectly compatible with the
grossest self-indulgence, and the most degrading and ruinous vices,
constitutes the sum and substance of religion and morality, atones for
the violation of every precept of the Decalogue, and supplies the
absence of faith and Christian virtue.

All errors are half truths. Certainly, love is the fulfilling of the
law, and the heart is all that God requires. "My son, give me thy
heart." But the "heart" in the scriptural sense is reason, the
intellect, and the will; and the love that fulfils the law is not a
sentiment, but a free act of the rational soul, and, therefore, a love
which it is within our power to give or withhold. It is a free,
voluntary love, yielded by intelligence and will. In this sense, love
cannot be contrasted with duty; for it is duty, or its fulfilment, and
indistinguishable from it; the heart cannot be contrasted with the
head, in the scriptural or Christian sense of the word; for in that
sense it includes the head, and stands for the whole rational
soul--the mistress of her own acts. To act from the promptings of
one's own heart, in this sense, is all right, for it is to act from a
sense of duty, from reason and will, or intelligence and free
volition. In souls well constituted and trained, or long exercised in
the practice of virtue, no long process of reasoning or deliberation
ever takes place, and the decision and execution are simultaneous, and
apparently instantaneous, but the act is none the less an act of
deliberate reason or free will.

Plato speaks of a love which is not an affection of the sensibility,
and which is one of the wings of the soul on which she soars to the
Empyreum; but I can understand no love that contrasts with duty,
except it be an affection of the sensitive nature, what the Scriptures
call "the flesh," which is averted by the fall from God, and, as the
Council of Trent defines, "inclines to sin"--"the carnal mind," which,
St. Paul tells us, is at enmity with God, is not subject to the law of
God, nor indeed can be. Christianity recognizes an antagonism between
the flesh and the spirit, between the law in our members and the Law
of the mind, but none between the love she approves and the duty she
enjoins, or between the heart which God demands and the head or the
understanding. Love by the Christian law is demanded as a duty, as
that which is due from us to God. We are required to love God with our
whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves.
This is our duty, and therefore the love must be an act of free
will--a love which we are free to yield or to withhold, for our duty
can never exceed our liberty. The Christian loves duty, loves
self-denial and sacrifice, loves the law, and delights in it after
{436} the inner man; but in loving the law he acts freely from his own
reason and will, and he obeys it not for the sake of the delight he
takes in it, but because it is God's law; otherwise he would act to
please himself, not to please God, and his act would be simply an act
of self-indulgence.

The age, in its efforts to construct a morality which excludes duty
and obedience, tends to resolve the love which Christianity demands
into an affection of the sensibility, and thence very logically
opposes love to duty, and holds it nobler to act from inclination than
from duty, to follow the law in our members than the law of the mind.
It may then substitute, with perfect consistency, the
transcendentalist maxim, Obey thyself, for the Christian maxim. Deny
thyself!

But this is not all. The age, or what is usually called the age, not
only resolves virtue, which old-fashioned ethics held to be an act of
free will done in obedience to the Divine law, into a sentiment, or
interior affection, of the sensibility, but it goes further and
resolves God into man, and maintains that the real sense of the
mystery of the Incarnation, of the Word made flesh, is that man is the
only actual and living God, and that beyond humanity there is only
infinite possibility, which humanity in its infinite progress and
evolution and absorption of individual life is continually
actualizing, or filling up. So virtually teaches Hegel,
inconsiderately followed by Cousin, in teaching that _das reine Seyn_,
or simply possible being, arrives at self-consciousness first in man.
So teach the Saint Simonians, Enfantin, Bazard, Carnot, and Pierre
Leroux; and so hold the school or sect of the Positivists, followers
of Auguste Comte, who have actually instituted _un culte_ or service
in honor of humanity. The Positivists are too modest to claim to be
themselves each individually God, but they make no bones of calling
humanity, or the great collective man, God, and offering him, as such,
a suitable worship. This is taught and done in France, the most
lettered nation in Europe; and the principle that justifies it
pervades not a little of the popular literature of Great Britain,
Germany, and the United States.

If man or humanity is God, of course the highest virtue is and must be
philanthropy, the love of all men in general, and of no one in
particular. Resolve now God into man, and philanthropy or the love of
man into an affection of the sensibility or sensitive nature, and you
have in a nutshell the theology, religion, and morality to which the
age tens, which the bulk of our popular literature favors, which our
sons and daughters inhale with the very atmosphere they breathe, and
which explains the effeminacy and sentimentalism of modern society. It
is but a logical sequence that the age, since women are ordinarily
narily more sentimental than men, places woman at the head of the
race, and holds woman--if young, beautiful amiable, sentimental, and
rich--to be the most perfect and adorable embodiment of the divinity.
The highest form of philanthropy is the love of woman. I would say,
philogyny, only that might be taken to imply that the highest virtue
is the love of one's wife, or wifehood, which is to old-fashioned,
unless by wife is meant the wife of one's neighbor. But, my dear young
lady, be not too vain of the homage you receive; it will be withheld
with the first appearance of the first wrinkle or the first gray hair.
It is better to be honored as  a true woman than to be worshipped as a
goddess or even as an angel.

The sentimental worship of humanity, or the reduction of the virtue of
charity to the sentiment of philanthropy, necessarily weaken and
debases the character; and whatever we may say under various aspects
and praise of our age, and however strong our confidence that God in
his providence will turn even its evil tendencies to good, we cannot
deny its moral weakness; and it is doubtful if {437} the debasement of
individual character was greater, even in the Lower Empire, or that
men were more dishonest or fraudulent, more sordid or venal. Other
ages have been marked, perhaps, by less refinement of manners, more
violent crimes, and great criminals, but few are found less capable
either of great virtues or great expiations. This need not surprise
us, for it is only the natural effect of substituting sentiment for
virtue, and sentimental for moral culture, which we are constantly
doing.

Many, perhaps, will be disposed to deny that we have substituted
sentimental for moral culture, and it must be concluded that the
didactic lessons given in our schools throughout Christendom, for the
most part, remain very much as they have been ever since there was a
Christendom, and in general accord with pure Christian ethics. There
are few, if any, schools for children and youth, in which the
sentimental and humanitarian morality, or rather immorality, is
formally taught. But we should remember that the didactic lessons of
the school-room do very little toward forming the character of our
youth, and that the culture that really forms it is given by the home
circle, associations, the spirit and tone of the community in which
they are brought up. There is a subtle influence, what the Germans
call _der Welt-Geist_, which pervades the whole community, and affects
the faith, the morals, and character of all who grow up in that
community without any formal instruction or conscious effort of any
one. So far as formal lessons and words go, the culture of our
children and youth is, for the most part, Christian; but these lessons
and words receive a practical interpretation by _der Welt-Geist_, what
I call s spirit of the age, and should, "the prince of this world,"
which deprives them of their Christian sense, takes from them all
meaning, or gives them an anti-Christian meaning. It is one of the
striking peculiarities of the age that it inculcates the baldest
infidelity, the grossest immorality in the language of Christian faith
and virtue. It is this fact which deceives so many, and that makes the
assertion of sentimental for moral culture appear to be a total
misstatement, or, at least, a gross exaggeration of the fact.

It will, no doubt, also be said that a decided reaction in our popular
literature against sentimentalism has already commenced. The realism
of Dickens and the Trollopes is opposed to it, Bulwer Lytton, in his
late novels at least, is decidedly hostile to it, and Thackeray
unmercifully ridicules it. These and other popular writers have
undoubtedly reacted against one form of sentimentalism, the dark and
suicidal form placed in vogue by Goethe in his Sorrows of Werter, and
now nearly forgotten; but they have not ridiculed or reacted against
the form of sentimentalism which substitutes the sentiment of
philanthropy for the virtue of charity. They encourage
humanitarianism, and make the love of man for woman or woman for man
the great agent in developing, enlarging, and strengthening the
intellect, the spring of the purest and sublimest morality. The hero
of popular literature is now rarely an avowed unbeliever or open
scoffer, and in all well-bred novels the heroine says her prayers
night and morning, and the author decidedly patronizes Christianity,
and says many beautiful and even true things in its favor; but, after
all, his religion is based on humanity, is only a charming
sentimentalism, embraced for its loveliness, not as duty or the law
which it would be sin to neglect; or it is introduced as a foreign and
incongruous element, never as the soul or informing spirit of the
novel.

The fact is undeniable, whether people are generally conscious of it
or not, and we see its malign influence not only on individual
character, but on domestic and social life. It has nearly broken up
and rendered impossible the Christian family in the easy and educated
classes. {438} Marriage is, it is said, where and only where there is
mutual love, and hence the marriage is in the mutual love, is lawful
between any parties who mutually love, unlawful between any who do
not. Love is an interior affection of the sensibility, a feeling, and
like all the feelings independent of reason and will. All popular
literature makes love fatal, something undergone, not given. We love
where we must; not where we would nor where we should, but where we
are fated to love. It needs not here to speak of infidelity to the
marriage vows, which this doctrine justifies to any extent, for those
vows are broken when broken from unreasoning passion or lust, not from
a theory which justifies it. I speak rather of the misery which it
carries into married life, the destruction of domestic peace and
happiness it causes. Trained in the sentimentalism of the age, and to
regard love as a feeling dependent on causes beyond our control, our
young people marry, expecting from marriage what it has not, and
cannot give. They expect the feeling which they call love, and which
gives a roseate hue to everything they look upon, will continue as
fresh, as vivid, and as charming after marriage as before it; but the
honeymoon is hardly over, and they begin to settle down in the regular
routine of life, before they discover their mistake, the roseate hue
has gone, their feelings have undergone a notable change, and they are
disappointed in each other, and feel that the happiness they counted
on is no longer to be expected. The stronger and more intense the
mutual feeling the greater the disappointment, and hence the common
saying: Love matches are seldom happy matches. Each party is
disappointed in the other, frets against the chain that binds them
together, and wishes it broken.

This is only what might have been expected. Nothing is more variable
or transitory than our feelings, and nothing that depends on them can
be unchanging or lasting. When the feelings of the married couple
change toward each other, the marriage bond becomes a galling chain,
and is felt to be a serious evil, and divorce is desired and resorted
to as a remedy. It is usually no remedy at all, or a remedy worse even
than the disease; but it is the only remedy practicable where feeling
is substituted for rational affection. Hence, in nearly all modern
states, the legislature, in direct conflict with the Christian law,
which makes marriage a sacrament and indissoluble, permits divorce,
and in some states for causes as frivolous as incompatibility of
temper. It is easy to censure the legislature but it must follow and
express the morals, manners, sentiments, and demands of the people,
and when these are repugnant to the divine law, it cannot in its
enactments conform to that law; and if did, it's enactments would be
resisted as tyrannical and oppressive, or remained on the statute book
a dead letter, as did so much wise and just legislation inspired by
the church in the middle ages. The evil lies further back, in the
humanitarianism of the age, which reverses the real order, puts the
flesh in the place of the spirit, philanthropy in the place of
charity, and man in the place of God, and which promotes an excessive
culture of the sentiments, at the expense of rational conviction and
affection. There is no remedy but in returning to the order we have
reversed, to the higher culture of reason and free will, not possible
without faith in God and the Christian mysteries.

But passing over the effects of sentimental morality on individual
character, the private virtues, and domestic happiness, we find it no
less hostile to social ameliorations and reforms in the state. The age
is philanthropic, and wages war with every form of vice, poverty, and
suffering, and is greatly shocked at the evils it finds past ages
tolerated without ever making an effort to remove them, hardly even to
mitigate them. {439} This is well as far as it goes; but in an age
when the sensitive nature is chiefly cultivated, when physical pain is
counted the chief evil, and sensible pleasures held to be the chief
good, practically, if not theoretically, many things will be regarded
as evils which, in a more robust and manly age, were unheeded, or not
counted as evils at all. Many things in our day need changing, simply
because other things having been changed, they have become anomalous
and are out of place. What in one state of society is simple poverty,
is really distress in another; and poverty, which in itself is no
evil, becomes a great evil in a community where wealth is regarded as
the supreme good, and the poor have wants, habits, and tastes which
only wealth an satisfy. The poorer classes of today in civilized
nations would suffer intensely if thrown back into the condition they
were in under the feudal régime, but it may be doubted if they do not
really suffer as much now as they did then. Perhaps such wants as they
then had were more readily met and supplied than are those which they
now have. In point of fact, Christian charity did infinitely more for
the poor and to solace suffering in all its forms, even in the feudal
ages, than philanthopy does now; and we find the greatest amount of
squalid wretchedness now precisely in those nations in which
philanthopy has been most successful in supplanting charity.

Philanthropy effects nothing except in so far as it copies or imitates
Christian Charity, and its attempted imitations are rarely successful.
It has for years been very active and hard at work in imitation of
charity; but what has it effected? what suffering has it solaced? what
crime has it diminished? what vice has it corrected? what social evil
has it removed? It has tried its hand against licentiousness, and
licentiousness is more rife and shameless than ever. It has made
repeated onslaughts on the ruinous vice of intemperance, and yet
drunkenness increases instead of diminishing, and has become the
disgrace of the country-. It has professed great regard for the poor,
but does more to remove them out of sight than to relieve them. It
treats poverty as a vice or a crime, looks on it as a disgrace, a
thing to be fled from with all speed possible, and makes the poor feel
that wealth is virtue, honor, nobility, the greatest good, and thus
destroys their self respect, aggravates their discontent, and
indirectly provokes the crimes against property become so general and
so appalling. What a moral New York reads us in the fact that she
makes her commissioners of "Public Charities" also commissioners of
"Public Corrections!" Philanthropy rarely fails to aggravate the evil
she attempts to cure, or to cure one evil by introducing another and a
greater evil. Her remedies are usually worse than the disease.

Owen, Fourier, Cabet, and other philanthropists have made serious
efforts to reorganize society so as to remove the inequalities or the
evils of the inequalities of wealth and social position; but have all
failed, because they needed, in order to succeed, the habits,
character, and virtues which, on their own theories, can be obtained
only from success. As a rule, philanthropy must succeed in order to be
able to succeed.

Philanthropy--humanitarianism--has been shocked at slavery, and in
our country as well as in some others it formed associations for its
abolition. In the West India Islands, belonging to Great Britain, it
succeeded in abolishing it, to the ruin of the planters and very
little benefit to the slave. In this country, if slavery is abolished,
it has not been done by philanthropy, which served only to set the
North and the South by the ears, but by the military authority as a
war measure, necessary, or judged to be necessary, to save the Union
and to guard against future attempts to dissolve it. Philanthropy is
hard at work to make abolition a blessing to the freedmen. It talks,
sputters, {440} clamors, legislates, but it can effect nothing; and
unless Christian charity takes the matter in hand, it is very evident
that, however much emancipation may benefit the white race, it can
prove of little benefit to the emancipated, who will be emancipated in
name, but not in reality.

The great difficulty with philanthropy is, that she acts from feeling
and not reason, and uses reason only as the slave or instrument of
feeling. Wherever she sees an evil she rushes headlong to its removal,
blind to the injury she may do to rights, principles, and institutions
essential to liberty and the very existence of society. Hence she
usually in going to her end tramples down more good by the way than
she can obtain in gaining it. She has no respect for vested rights,
regards no geographical lines, and laughs at the constitutions of
states, if they stand in her way. Liberty with us was more interested
in maintaining inviolate the constitution of the Union and the local
rights of the several states, than it was even in abolishing negro
slavery, and hence many wise and good men, who had no interest in
retaining slavery, and who detested it as an outrage upon humanity,
did not and could not act or sympathize with the abolitionists. They
yield in nothing to them in the earnest desire to abolish slavery, but
they would abolish it by legal and peaceful means--means that would
not weaken the hold of the constitution and civil law on conscience,
and destroy the safeguards of liberty. The abolitionists did not err
in being opposed to slavery, but in the principles on which they
sought its abolition. Adam did not sin in aspiring to be God; for
that, in a certain sense, he was destined, through the incarnation,
one day to become. His sin was in aspiring to be God without the
incarnation, in his own personal right and might, and in violation of
the divine command, or by other means than those prescribed by his
Creator and Lawgiver, the only possible means of attaining the end
sought.

Philanthropy commits the same error whatever the good work she
attempts, and especially in all her attempts at political reforms. She
finds herself "cabined, cribbed, confined" by old political
institutions, and cries out, Down with them. She demands for the
people a liberty which she sees they have not and cannot have under
the existing political order, and so proceeds at once to conspire
against it, to revolutionize the state, deluges the land in blood, and
gets anarchy, the Reign of Terror, or military despotism for its
pains. Never were there more sincere or earnest philanthropists than
the authors of the old French Revolution. The violent revolutions
attempted in modern Europe in the name of humanity, have done more
harm to society by unsettling the bases of society and effacing in
men's minds and hearts the traditional respect for law and order, than
any good they could have done by sweeping away the social and
political abuses they warred against. The French are not politically
or individually freer to-day than they were under Louis Quatorze.

There are, no doubt, times when an old political order, as in Rome
after Marius and Sulla, has become effete, and can no longer fulfil
the duties or discharge the offices of a government, in which a
revolution, like that effected under the lead of Julius an Augustus
Caesar, may be desirable and advantageous, for it establishes a
practicable and a real government in the place of a government that
can no longer discharge the functions of government, and is virtually
no government at all. The empire was a great advance on the republic,
which was incapable of being restored. But revolutions properly
so-called, undertaken for the subversion of an existing order and the
introduction of another held to be theoretically more perfect, have
never, so far as history records, been productive of good. No doubt
England is to-day in advance of what she was under the Stuarts, but
who dares say that she is in advance of {441} what she would have been
had she not expelled them, or that she has become greater under the
Whig nobility than she might have been under the Tory squirarchy?

There has been, I readily concede, a real progress in modern society,
at least dating from the fifth century of our era; but, as I read
history, the progress has been interrupted or retarded by modern
socialistic or political revolutions, and has in no case been
accelerated by philanthropy as distinguished from Christian charity.
Moreover, in no state of Christendom has charity ever been wholly
wanting. Nations have cast off the authority of the church, and have
greatly suffered in consequence; but in none has divine charity been
totally wanting, and the influence of Christianity on civilization,
even in heretical and schismatic nations, is not to be counted as
nothing. I am far from believing that the nations that broke away from
the church are not better than they would have been if they had not
had the benefit of the habits formed under her teaching and
discipline. I know that _extra ecclesiam nulla sit salus_; but I know
also that the church is as a city set on a hill, and that rays from
the light within her may and do extend beyond her walls, and relieve
in some degree the darkness of those who are outside of them. How much
the church continues to influence nations once within her communion,
but now severed from it, nobody is competent to determine, nor can any
one but God himself say how many, in all these nations, though not
formally united to the body of the church, are yet not wholly severed
from her soul. The Russian Church retains the Orthodox faith and the
sacraments, and is officially under no sentence of excommunication
from the body of Christ, and only those who are individually and
voluntarily schismatic, are guilty of the sin of schism; and in other
communions, though undoubtedly heretical, there may be large numbers
of baptized persons who do really act on Christian principles, and
from purely Christian motives. All I mean to deny is, that society or
humanity ever gains anything from violent or sentimental revolutions.

The impotence of philanthropy without charity, or pure humanism, is
demonstrable _à priori_, and should have been foreseen. It is opposed
to the nature of things, and implies the absurdity that nothing is
something, and that what is not can act. It is an attempt to found
religion, morals, society, and the state without God; when without God
there is and can be nothing, and consequently nothing for them to
stand on. It assumes that man is an independent being, and suffices
for himself; which, whether we mean by man the individual or humanity,
"the universal man," "the one man" of the Transcendentalists, or "the
grand collective Being" of the Positivists, we all feel and know to be
not the fact. Man in either sense is a creature, and depends
absolutely on the creative act of God for his existence; and let God
suspend that act, and he sinks into the nothing he was before he was
created. Therefore it is in God _mediante_ his creative act he lives
and moves and has his being. Hence it is, whether we know it or not,
that we assert the existence of God as our creator in every act we
perform, every thought we think, every resolution we take, every
sentiment we experience, and every breath we draw, for no human
operation--physical, intellectual, or moral--is possible without the
divine creative act and concurrence.

Philanthropy, or the love of man, separated from charity, or the love
of God and of man in God, is therefore simply nothing, a mere
negation, for it supposes man separated from God is something, and
separated from God he is nothing. Hence St. Paul, in his first epistle
to the Corinthians, says: "If I speak with the tongues of men and of
angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a
tinkling cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries, and
have {442} all knowledge, and have all faith, so I could remove
mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should
distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and should give my body to
be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." This is so
not by virtue of any arbitrary decree or appointment of the Almighty,
even if such decree or appointment is possible, but in the very,
nature of things, and God himself cannot make it otherwise. God is
free to create or not to create, and free to create such existences as
he pleases; but he cannot create an independent self-sufficing being,
for he cannot create anything between which and himself there should
not be the relation of creator and creature. The creature depends
wholly, in all respects whatever, on the creator, and without him is
and can be nothing. The creature depends absolutely on the creator in
relation to all his acts, thoughts, and affections, as well as for
mere existence itself. God could not, even if it were possible that he
would, dispense with charity and count the love of man as independent
of God, as something, because he is truth, and it is impossible for
him to lie, and lie he would were he to count such supposed love
something, for independent of him there is no man to love or to be
loved. Man can love or be loved only where he exists; and as he exists
in God, so only in God can we possibly love him, that is, we can love
our neighbor only in loving God. The humanitarian love or morality is,
therefore, a pure negation, simply nothing.

Man is, indeed, a free moral agent, and he would not be capable of
virtue or a _moral_ action, if he were not; but he can act,
notwithstanding his moral freedom, only according to the conditions of
his existence. He exists and can exist only by virtue of a
supernatural principle, medium, and end. He exists only by the direct,
immediate creative act of God, and God in himself and in his direct
immediate acts, always and everywhere, is supernatural, above nature,
because its creator, and, as its creator, its proprietor. The maker
has a sovereign right to the thing made. The creature can no more be
its own end than its own principle or cause. Man cannot take himself
self as his own end, because he is not his own, but is his creator's,
and because independent of God who he is nothing. So God is both his
principle and end. But the end is not possible without a medium that
places it in relation with the principle, as theologians demonstrate
in their dissertations on the mystery of the ever blessed Trinity, and
as common sense itself teaches. As the principle and end are
supernatural, so the medium must be supernatural, for the medium must
be on the plane of the principle and end between which is the medium.
The medium, in the moral or spiritual order, the gospel teaches us, is
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which infused by the Holy Ghost
into the soul elevates her to the plane of her supernatural destiny,
and strengthens her to gain or fulfil it. Hence, as says the apostle,
_Ex ipso, et per ipsum, et in ipso sunt omnia_--things are from him,
and by him, and to or in him. These are the essential conditions of
all life, alike in the natural or physical order, and in the moral or
spiritual. In all orders God is the principle, medium, and end of all
existence, of all action.

In the moral or spiritual order, not in the natural or physical order,
man is a free agent, and acts from free will, as Pope sings:

  "God, binding nature fast in fate,
   Leaves free the human will."

Grace assisting, man can conform to the essential conditions of his
existence--conditions determined and unalterably fixed by his
relation to God as his creator--by the free act of his own will; and
by doing so he lives morally, or has moral life. He can also, by
virtue of his liberty or freedom, refuse to conform, or in theological
language, to obey God, but he cannot so refuse and live in the moral
order. This refusal is not a living act, it is simply {443} the
negation of moral life, and therefore is moral death, as the
Scriptures call it. He does not necessarily cease to exist in the
natural or physical order, for in that order he cannot sever himself
from God, even if he would; he may kill his body, but not the physical
life of the soul, immortal, except by the will of its creator. But he
can extinguish his moral life, or refuse to live a moral life, which
is moral or spiritual death; and death is not a positive existence,
but the negation of existence, and therefore, nothing. Hence life and
death in the moral order are set before us, and we are free to choose
which we will. To choose, grace assisting, life, and freely of our own
will to conform to the conditions of life, to God as our principle,
medium, and and, is precisely what is meant by Christian charity, a
virtue that fulfils all the conditions imposed by our relation to God
as his creatures, the whole law of our existence, and unites our will
with the will of God, and by so doing makes us morally or spiritually
one with God. He who refuses charity, or has it not, voluntarily
renounces God, separates himself morally, and so far as his own will
goes even physically, from God; and as severed from God he exists not
at all; and therefore says the apostle, "Without charity I am
nothing." He only declares what is real, what is true in the nature of
things, and which God himself cannot alter.

Philanthropy is, therefore, necessarily impotent, for it tends to
death, not life; and as there is no action, physical or moral, that
does not tend to a real end, it is not action, but a negation of
action, and is therefore in itself nothing positive. All the
sentiments for this reason are negative, simple wants of the soul. The
soul may exert her powers to satisfy them, or to fill up the void in
her being, which they all indicate, but they are in themselves
nothing. They indicate not what the soul has, but what she wants or
needs to complete herself; and that can never the obtained from the
creature save in God, for the creature out of God, separated or turned
away from God, is nothing; it is something only in God. Any morality,
then, built on the sentiments is as unsubstantial as castles in the
air, and as unreal as "the baseless fabric of a vision." The
sentiments being wants, negative, with nothing positive in themselves,
are necessarily impotent. They are unsatisfied wants, and incapable of
attaining to anything that can satisfy them. They are a hungering and
thirsting of the soul for what it is not and has not. Here is the
explanation of the misery and wretchedness of a sentimental age, why
it is so ill-at-ease, so restless, so discontented in the midst of
material progress, and the accumulations of sensible goods. It
explains, too, why the damned, or those who fail in their destiny,
must suffer for ever. Death and hell are not positive existences or
positive creations of God, but are the want of spiritual life, are the
unsatisfied wants, the endless cravings of the soul for what can be
had only in God, and the lost have turned their backs on God.

Charity is not negative, not a want, but a power; and it is easy,
therefore, to understand that while philanthropy is impotent it is
effective. Charity grasps, as do all the rational affections, her
object, and is effective because she is positive not negative, living
not dead; and living, because she conforms to the real conditions of
life, and participates, through his creative act, in the life of him
who is life himself. She is less pretentious and more modest in her
proceedings and promises than philanthropy, but makes up for it in the
richness and magnificence of the results she obtains. She works slowly
and with patience, for she works for eternity, not time--without pomp
or parade, in obscurity and silence, for she seeks the praise of God,
not the praise of men. To the onlooker she seems not to move, any more
than the sun in the heavens; but after a while we find that she has
moved, and has transformed the world. {444} Broad in her love and
expansive as the universe, and embracing all ages and nations in her
affections, she yet wastes not her strength in vague generalities, nor
in manifold projects of reform or progress of the race in general,
from which no one in particular has anything to expect; but takes men
in the concrete as she finds them, does the work nearest at hand and
most pressing to be done, and proceeding quietly from the individual
to the family, from the family to society and the state, she works out
the regeneration of all in working out the regeneration of each. She
works as God works, without straining or effort, for her power is
great and never fails. Power needs make no effort; it speaks and it is
done, commands and it stands fast. Let there be light, and there is
light. It is weakness that must strain and tug, as we see in the
feeble literature of the day, and philanthropy seems to the observer
to be always more in earnest and far harder at work than charity, and
attracts far more attention; but while she fills the world with her
hollow sounds, charity, unheeded and unheard, fills it with her deeds.

History is at hand to confirm the conclusions of reason, though the
full history of charity has never been written, and the greater part
of her deeds are known only to him whose eye seeth all things, and
will be revealed, only at the last day. But something has been
recorded and is known. We in our day think we are doing much to
relieve the poor and oppressed, to console the suffering, and to bind
up the broken-hearted; but the best of us would be put to shame were
we to study what charity did during the decline and fall of the Roman
empire and the barbarous ages that immediately followed. We have
boasted, and perhaps justly, of the services rendered to humanity
during our late civil war by our Christian Commissions and Sanitary
Commissions; but what was done by them during four years is nothing in
comparison with what was done daily by Christian charity to relieve
suffering and distress far greater than were experienced by those even
who suffered most from the ravages of our civil war, and that not for
four years only, but for four centuries. I have here no room for
details, or even for the barest outline of what charity did during the
long agony of the old world and the birth of the new; but this much
must be said, that it was everywhere present and energetic, and seemed
everywhere to renew the miracle of the five loaves and two fishes; and
when that old world had passed away, it was found that a new world on
a far broader and more durable foundation had taken it's place.
Charity had to deal with poverty and want, with sickness and sorrow,
and she relieved them; with captives and prisoners of war, and she
ransomed them even with the plate from the altar; with barbarians
whose highest vision of heaven was to sit in the halls of Valhalla,
and quaff from human skulls the blood of their enemies--she tamed,
humanized, and civilized them, and made them the foremost nations of
the world; with slaves, for Europe was covered over with them--and
she mitigated their lot, lightened their oppression, secured for them
the moral rights of Christians, and finally broke their chains and
made them, not freedmen only, but freemen, Christian freemen, and
brothers of the noblest and proudest.

What if it took centuries to abolish slavery? It did not take her
centuries to christen the slaves, to bring them spiritual freedom, and
provide for their souls. She did not wait till she had abolished the
slavery of the body before abolishing the far more grievous slavery of
the soul, teaching the slaves the truth that liberates, incorporating
them into the church of God, and making them free and equal citizens
of the commonwealth of Christ. With this spiritual freedom, of which
philanthropy knows nothing, but which is the basis of all real
freedom, and with ample provisions for the wants of the soul, {445}
the slave could wait in patience for the day of deliverance from
bodily servitude. That day might be long in coming,  come it surely
would; and it did come, and peaceably, without civil war, social
convulsion, industrial or economical disturbance. But, unhappily, with
us only a feeble portion of the slaves were really Christianized, and
by their moral and spiritual training as free and equal members of the
church, which makes no distinction between the bond and the free, the
white and the black, fitted to take their position and play there are
parts as free and equal members of civil society Moreover, we have not
been able to emancipate them peaceably; we have done it only by a
terrible civil war, in the midst of the clash of arms, as a means of
saving the life of the nation, or of perpetuating the union of the
states; and the most difficult problem remains to be solved, which the
humanitarians flatter themselves will be solved without trouble by
political economy, or the general law of demand and supply; but which
they will find it will need more Christian Charity than the nation has
hitherto possessed to solve, without the gradual extinction in this
country of the negro race. The last thing to be relied on for
adjusting any social question, elevating any class to social or civil
equality, or making freedmen really freemen, is political economy,
which treats man not as a free moral agent, or as a social being, but
simply as a producing, distributing, and and consuming machine, placed
in the same category with the steam-plough, patent reaper,
spinning-jenny, and the power-loom. If the question, What shall be
done with our freedman? be left to politics, political economy, or
philanthropy, without the intervention of Christian charity,
emancipation will only have changed the form of their slavery, or
given them all the cares and burdens of freedom with none of its
blessings.

It is the same in all human affairs. No measured of reform or
progress, individual or social, domestic or political, ever succeed or
succeed without an overbalance of evil, unless inspired and directed
by charity. They may and do succeed without perfect charity, but never
without the principle of charity. Philanthropy is man's method, and
leads to nothing; charity is God's method, and conducts to its end.
But we must not confound charity with weakness or effeminacy of
character, for that would be to confound it with sentimentalism.
Charity is not credulity or mental imbecility; it is always robust and
manly, the rational soul raised above itself by divine grace, and
endowed in the spiritual order with superhuman power.

Charity loves peace, but follows after the things which make for
peace, and shrinks not from following after them, when need is, even
through war. Modern peace-societies are founded by philanthropy, not
by charity, and though they have been in existence for half a century,
and proudly boasted that there would be no more war, yet there have
been more wars and bloodshed during the last twenty years than during
any period of equal duration since modern history began. Charity
founds no anti-hangman societies for the abolition of capital
punishment in all cases whatsoever, or prisoners' friends societies to
convert our prisons into palaces; yet recoils from all cruelty or
undue severity, and seeks to prevent punishment by preventing crime.
She never forgets justice, nor sacrifices in her love for individuals
the protection of society or the safety of the state. Her great care
is to save the soul of the criminal, and to this end she visits the
most loathsome cells, takes her stand on the scaffold by the side of
the condemned, and will not give him up till she has made his peace
with God. She fills the soul with love for enemies and forgiveness of
injuries, but they are _my_ enemies she bids me love, and my personal
injuries she bids me forgive. I cannot forgive injuries, done to my
neighbor, to society, or to my country, for they are not mine; and she
herself bids me, when summoned by the proper authority, to shoulder my
musket and march to the battle-field to defend public right and
repress public wrong. Charity is never weak, sentimental,
lackadaisical, or cowardly. It is the principle of all true greatness
and manliness, and the most charitable are the strongest, bravest, the
most heroic, wherever duty calls them to act as well as to suffer.

------

{446}

From the London Society.

CHRISTMAS WITH THE BARON.


A RATHER REMARKABLE FAIRY TALE.


Once upon a time--fairy tales always begin with once upon a time, you
know--once upon a time there lived in a fine old castle on the Rhine,
a certain Baron von Schrochslofsleschshoffinger. You won't find it an
easy name to pronounce; in fact, the baron never tried it himself but
once, and then he was laid up for two days' afterward; so in future
well merely call him "the baron," for shortness, particularly as he
was rather a dumpy man. After having heard his name, you won't be
surprised when I tell you that he was an exceedingly bad character.
For a German baron, he was considered enormously rich; a hundred and
fifty pounds a year wouldn't be thought much over here; but still it
will buy a good deal of sausage, which, with wine grown on the estate,
formed the chief sustenance of the baron and his family. Now, you'll
hardly believe that, notwithstanding he was the possessor of his
princely revenue, the baron was not satisfied, but oppressed and
ground down his unfortunate tenants to the very last penny he could
possible squeeze out of them. In all his exactions he was seconded and
encouraged by his steward, Klootz, an old rascal who took a malicious
pleasure in his master's cruelty, and who chuckled and rubbed his
hands with the greatest apparent enjoyment when any of the poor
landholders couldn't pay their rent, or afforded him any opportunity
for oppression. Not content with making the poor tenants pay double
value for the land they rented, the baron was in the habit of going
round every now and then to their houses, and ordering anything he
took a fancy to, from a fat pig to a pretty daughter, to be sent up to
the castle. The pretty daughter was made parlor-maid, but as she had
nothing a year, and to find herself, it wasn't what would be
considered by careful mothers an eligible situation The fat pig became
sausage, of course. Things went on from bad to worse, till at the time
of our story, between the alternate squeezings of the baron and his
steward, the poor tenants had very little left to squeeze out of them.
The fat pigs and the pretty daughters had nearly all found their way
up to the castle, and there was little else to take. The only help the
poor fellows had was the baron's only daughter, Lady Bertha, who
always had a kind words, and frequently something more substantial,
for them, when her father was not in the way. Now, I'm not going to
describe Bertha, for the simple reason that if I did, you would
imagine that she was the fairy I'm going to tell you about, and she
isn't. However, I don't mind giving yon a few outlines. In the first
place, she was exceedingly tiny--the nicest girls, the real lovable
little pets, always are tiny--and she had long silken black hair, and
a dear, dimpled little face, full of love and mischief. Now then, fill
out outline {447} with the details of the nicest and prettiest girl
you know, and you'll have a slight idea of her. On second thoughts, I
don't believe you will, for your portrait wouldn't be half good
enough; however, it'll be near enough for you. Well, the baron's
daughter, being all your fancy painted her, and a trifle more, was
naturally much distressed at the goings on of her unamiable parent,
and tried her best to make amends for her father's harshness. She
generally managed that a good many pounds of the sausage should find
their way back to the owners of the original pig; and when the baron
tried to squeeze the and of the pretty parlor-maid, which he
occasionally did after dinner, Bertha had only to say, in a tone of
mild remonstrance, "Pa!" and pa dropped the hand like a hot potato,
and stared very hard the other way, instantly. Bad as the disreputable
old baron was, he had a respect for the goodness and purity of his
child. Like the lion, tamed by the charm of Una's innocence, the rough
old rascal seemed to lose in her presence half his rudeness; and
though he used awful language to her sometimes (I dare say even Una's
lion reward occasionally) he was more tractable with her than with any
other living being. Her presence operated as a moral restraint upon
him, which possibly was the reason that he never stayed down stairs
after dinner, but always retired to a favorite turret, where he could
get comfortably tipsy, which, I regret to say, he had got so in the
way of doing every afternoon, that I believe he would have felt unwell
without.

The hour of the baron's afternoon symposium was the time selected by
Bertha for her errands of charity. Once he was fairly settled down to
his second bottle, off went Bertha, with her maid beside her carrying
a basket to bestow a meal on some of the poor tenants, among whom she
was always received with blessings. At first these excursions had been
undertaken solely from charitable motives, and Bertha thought herself
plentifully repaid in the love and thanks of her grateful pensioners.
Of late, however, another cause had led her to take even stronger
interest in her walks, and occasionally to come in with brighter eyes
and a rosier cheek than the gratitude of the poor tenants had been
wont to produce. The fact is, some months before the time of our
story, Bertha had noticed in her walks a young artist, who seemed to
be fated to be invariably sketching points of interest in the road she
had to take. There was one particular tree, exactly in the path which
led from the castle gate, which he had sketched from at least four
points of view, and Bertha began to wonder what there could be so very
particular about it. At last, just as Carl von Sempach had begun to
consider where on earth he could sketch the tree from next, and to
ponder seriously upon the feasibility of climbing up into it, and
taking it from _that_ point of view, a trifling accident occurred,
which gave him the opportunity of making Bertha's acquaintance, which,
I don't mind stating confidentially, was the very thing he had been
waiting for. It so chanced, that on one particular afternoon the maid,
either through awkwardness, or possibly through looking more at the
handsome painter than the ground she was walking on, stumbled and
fell. Of course the basket fell too, and equally of course, Carl, as a
gentleman, couldn't do less than offer his assistance in picking up
the damsel and the dinner.

The acquaintance thus commenced was not suffered to drop; and handsome
Carl and our good little Bertha were fairly over head and ears in
love, and had begun to have serious thoughts of a cottage in a wood,
et caetera, when their felicity was disturbed by their being
accidentally met, in one of their walks, by the baron. Of course the
baron, being himself so thorough an aristocrat, had higher views for
his daughter than marrying her to a "beggarly artist," and accordingly
he stamped and swore, and threatened Carl {448} with summary
punishment with all sorts of weapons, from heavy boots to
blunderbusses, if ever he ventured near the premises again. This was
unpleasant; but I fear it didn't _quite_ put a stop to the young
people's interviews, though it made them less frequent and more secret
than before.

Now, I'm quite aware this wasn't at all proper, and that no properly
regulated young lady would ever have had meetings with a young man her
papa didn't approve of. But then it's just possible Bertha mightn't
have been a properly regulated young lady; I only know she was a dear
little pet, worth twenty model young ladies, and that she loved Carl
very dearly. And then consider what a dreadful old tyrant of a papa
she had! My dear girl, it's not the slightest use your looking so
provokingly correct; it's my deliberate belief that if you had been in
her shoes (they'd have been at least three sizes too small for you,
but that doesn't matter) you would have done precisely the same.

Such was the state of things on Christmas Eve in the year----stay!
fairy tales never have a year to them; so on second thoughts I
wouldn't tell the date if I knew--but I don't. Such was the state of
things, however, on the particular 24th of December to which our story
refers--only, if anything, rather more so. The baron had got up in the
morning in an exceedingly bad temper; and those about him had felt its
effects all through the day. His two favorite wolf-hounds, Lutzow and
Teufel, had received so many kicks from the baron's heavy boots that
they hardly knew at which end their tails were; and even Klootz
himself scarcely dared to approach his master. In the middle of the
day two of the principal tenants came to say that they were unprepared
with their rent, and to beg for a little delay. The poor fellows
represented that their families were starving, and entreated for
mercy; but the baron was only too glad that he had at last found so
fair an excuse for venting his ill-humor. He loaded the unhappy
defaulters with every abusive epithet he could devise (and being
called names in German is no joke, I can tell you); and, lastly, he
swore by everything he could think of that if their rent was not paid
on the morrow, themselves and their families should be turned out of
doors to sleep on the snow, which was then many inches deep on the
ground. They still continued to beg for mercy, till the baron became
so exasperated that he determined to kick them out of the castle
himself. He pursued them for that purpose as far as the outer door,
when fresh fuel was added to his anger. Carl, who as I have hinted,
still managed, notwithstanding the paternal prohibition, to see fair
Bertha occasionally, and had come to wish her a merry Christmas,
chanced at this identical moment to be saying good-by at the door,
above which, in accordance with immemorial usage, a huge bush of
mistletoe was suspended. What they were doing under it at the moment
of the baron's appearance, I never knew exactly; but his wrath was
tremendous! I regret to say that his language was unparliamentary in
the extreme. He swore till he was mauve in the face; and if he had not
providentially been seized with a fit of coughing, and sat down in the
coal-scuttle--mistaking it for a three-legged stool--it is impossible
to say to what lengths his feelings might have carried him. Carl and
Bertha picked him up, rather black behind, but otherwise not much the
worse for his accident. In fact, the diversion of his thoughts seemed
to have done him good; for, having sworn a little more, and Carl
having left the castle, he appeared rather better. After having
endured so many and various emotions, it is hardly to be wondered at
that the baron required some consolation; so, after having changed his
tr--s-rs, he took himself off to his favorite turret, to allay by
copious potations the irritation of his mind. Bottle after bottle was
emptied, and pipe after pipe was {449} filled and smoked. The fine old
Burgundy was gradually getting into the baron's head; and altogether
he was beginning to feel more comfortable. The shades of the winter
afternoon had deepened into the evening twilight, made dimmer still by
the aromatic clouds that came, with dignified deliberation, from the
baron's lips, and curled in floated up to the carved ceiling of the
turret, where they spread themselves into a dim canopy, which every
successive cloud brought lower and lower. The fire, which had been
filed up mountain-high earlier in the afternoon, and had flamed and
roared to its heart's content ever since, had now got to that
state--the perfection of a fire to a lazy man--when it requires no
poking or attention of any kind, but just burns itself hollow, and
then tumbles in, and blazes jovially for a little time, and then
settles down to a genial glow, and gets hollow and tumbles in again.
The baron's fire was just in this delightful "da capo" condition, most
favorable of all to the enjoyment of the "dolce far niente." For the
little while it would glow and kindle quietly, making strange faces to
itself, and building fantastic castles in the depths of its red
recesses, and then the castles would come down with a crash, and the
faces disappear, with a bright flame spring up and lick lovingly the
sides of the old chimney; and the carved heads of improbable men and
impossible women, hewn so deftly round the panels of the old oak
wardrobe opposite, in which the baron's choicest vintages were
deposited, were lit up by the flickering light, and seemed to nod and
wink at the fire in return, with the familiarity of old acquaintances.

Some such fancy as this was disporting itself in the baron's brain;
and he was gazing at the old oak carving accordingly, and emitting
huge volumes of smoke with reflective slowness, when a clatter among
the bottles on the table caused him to turn his head to ascertain the
cause. The baron was by no means a nervous man; however, the sight
that met his eyes when he turned round did take away his presence of
mind a little; and he was obliged to take four distinct puffs before
he had sufficiently regained his equilibrium to inquire, "Who
the--Pickwick--are you?" (The baron said "Dickens," but as that is a
naughty word we will substitute "Pickwick," which is equally
expressive, and not so wrong.) Let me see; where was I? Oh! yes. "Who
the Pickwick are you?"

Now, before I allow the baron's visitor to answer the question,
perhaps I had better give a slight description of his personal
appearance. If this wasn't a true story, I should have liked to have
made him a model of manly beauty; but a regard for veracity compels me
to confess that he was not what would be generally considered
handsome; that is, not in figure, for his face was by no means
unpleasing. His body was in size and shape not very unlike a huge
plum-pudding, and was clothed in a bright-green tightly fitting
doublet, with red holly berries for buttons. His limbs were long and
slender in proportion to his stature, which was not more than three
feet or so. His head was encircled by a crown of holly and mistletoe.
The round red berries sparkled amid his hair, which was silver-white,
and shone out in cheerful harmony with his rosy jovial face. And that
face! it would have done one good to look at it. In spite of the
silver hair, and an occasional wrinkle beneath the merry laughing
eyes, it seemed brimming over with perpetual youth. The mouth, well
garnished with teeth, white and sound, which seemed as if they could
do ample justice to holiday cheer, was ever open with a beaming genial
smile, expanding now and then into hearty jovial laughter. Fun and
good-fellowship were in every feature. The owner of the face was, at
the moment when the baron first perceived him, comfortably seated upon
the top of the large tobacco-jar on the table, nursing his left leg.
The baron's {450} somewhat abrupt inquiry did not appear to irritate
him; on the contrary, he seemed rather amused than otherwise.

"You don't ask prettily, old gentleman," he replied; "but I don't mind
telling you, for all that. I'm King Christmas."

"Eh?" said the baron.

"Ah!" said the goblin. Of course you've guessed he was a goblin.

"And pray what's your business here?" said the baron.

"Don't be crusty with a fellow," replied the goblin. "I merely looked
in to wish you the compliments of the season. Talking of crust, by the
way, what sort of a tap is it you're drinking?" So saying, he took up
a flask of the baron's very best and poured out about half a glass.
Having held the glass first to one side and then the other, winked at
it twice, sniffed it, and gone through the remainder of the pantomime
in which connoisseurs indulge, he drank it with great deliberation,
and smacked his lips scientifically. "Hum! Johannisberg! and not so
_very_ bad--for you. But I tell you what it is, baron, you'll have to
bring out better stuff than this when _I_ put my legs on your
mahogany."

"Well, you are a cool fish," said the baron. "However, you're rather a
joke, so now you're here we may as well enjoy ourselves. Smoke?"

"Not anything you're likely to offer me!"

"Confound your impudence!" roared the baron, with a horribly
complicated oath. "That tobacco's as good as any in all Rhineland."

"That's a nasty cough you've got, baron. Don't excite yourself, my
dear boy; I dare say you speak according to your lights. I don't mean
Vesuvians, you know, but your opportunities for knowing anything about
it. Try a weed out of my case, and I expect you'll alter your
opinion."

The baron took the proffered case, and selected a cigar. Not a word
was spoken till it was half consumed, when the baron took it for the
first time from his lips, and said gently, with the air of a man
communicating an important discovery in the strictest confidence, "Das
ist gut!"

"Thought you'd say so," said the visitor. "And now, as you like the
cigar, I should like you to try a thimbleful of what _I_ call wine. I
must warn you, though, that it is rather potent, and may produce
effects you are not accustomed to."

"Bother that, if it's as good as the weed," said the baron; "I haven't
taken my usual quantity by four bottles yet."

"Well, don't say I didn't warn you, that's all. I don't think you'll
find it unpleasant, though it is rather strong when you're not
accustomed to it." So saying, the goblin produced from some mysterious
pocket a black, big-bellied bottle, crusted apparently with the dust
of ages. It did strike the baron as peculiar, that the bottle, when
once produced, appeared nearly as big round as the goblin himself; but
he was not the sort of man to stick at trifles, and he pushed foreword
his glass to be filled just as composedly as if the potion had been
shipped by Sandeman, and paid duty in the most commonplace way.

The glass was filled and emptied, but the baron uttered not his
opinion. Not in words, at least, but he pushed forward his glass to be
filled again in a manner that sufficiently bespoke his approval.

"Aha, you smile!" said the goblin. And it was a positive fact; the
baron was smiling; a thing he hadn't been known to do in the memory of
the oldest inhabitant. "That's the stuff to make your hair curl, isn't
it?"

"I believe you, my b-o-o-oy!" The baron brought out this earnest
expression of implicit confidence with true Paul Bedford unction. "It
warms one--_here!_"

Knowing the character of the man, one would have expected him to put
his hand upon his stomach. But he didn't; he laid it upon his _heart_.

{451}

"The spell begins to operate, I see," said the goblin. "Have another
glass."

The baron had another glass, and another after that. The smile on his
face expanded into an expression of such geniality that the whole
character of his countenance was changed, and his own mother wouldn't
have known him. I doubt myself--inasmuch as she died when he was
exactly a year and three months old--whether she would have recognized
him under any circumstances; but I merely wish to express that he was
changed almost beyond recognition.

"Upon my word," said the baron, at length, "I feel so light I almost
think I could dance a hornpipe. I used to once, I know. Shall I try?"

"Well, if you ask my advice," replied the goblin, "I should say,
decidedly, don't. 'Barkis is willing,' I dare say, but trousers are
weak, and you might split 'em."

"Hang it all," said the baron, "so I might; I didn't think of that.
But still I feel as if I must do something juvenile!"

"Ah! that's the effect of your change of nature," said the goblin.
"Never mind, I'll give you plenty to do presently."

"Change of nature! what do you mean, you old conundrum?" said the
baron.

"You're another," said the goblin, "But never mind. What I mean is
just this. What you are now feeling is the natural consequence of my
magic wine, which has changed you into a fairy. That's what's the
matter, sir."

"A fairy! me!" exclaimed the baron. "Get out; I'm too fat."

"Fat! oh! that's nothing. We shall put you in regular training, and
you'll soon be slim enough to creep into a lady's stocking. Not that
you'll be called upon to do anything of the sort; but I'm merely
giving you an idea of your future figure."

"No, no," said the baron; "me thin! that's too ridiculous. Why, that's
worse than being a fairy. You don't mean it, though, do you? I do feel
rather peculiar."

"I do, indeed," said the visitor. "You don't dislike it, do you?"

"Well, no, I can't say I do, entirely. It's queer, though, I feel so
uncommon friendly. I feel as if I should like to shake hands, or pat
somebody on the back."

"Ah!" said the goblin, "I know how it is. Rum feeling, when you're not
accustomed to it. But come; finish that glass, for we must be off.
We've got a precious deal to do before morning, I can tell you. Are
you ready?"

"All right," said the baron. "I'm just in the humor to make a night of
it."

"Come along, then," said the goblin.

They proceeded for a short time in silence along the corridors of the
old castle. They carried no candle, but the baron noticed that
everything seemed perfectly light wherever they stood, but relapsed
into darkness as soon as they had passed by. The goblin spoke first.

"I say, baron, you've been an uncommon old brute in your time, now
haven't you?"

"H'm," said the baron, reflectively, "I don't know. Well, yes, I
rather think I have."

"How jolly miserable you've been making those two young people, you
old sinner! You know who I mean."

"Eh, what? You know that, too?" said the baron.

"Know it; of course I do. Why, bless your heart, I know everything, my
dear boy. But you have made yourself an old pig in that quarter,
considerably. Ar'n't you blushing, you hard-hearted old monster?"

"Don't know, I'm sure," said the baron, scratching his nose, as if
that was where he expected to feel it. "I believe I have treated them
badly, though, now I come to think of it."

At this moment they reached the door of Bertha's chamber. The door
opened of itself at their approach.

{452}

"Come along" said the goblin, "you won't wake her. Now, old
flinty-heart, look there."

The sight that met the baron's view was one that few fathers could
have beheld without affectionate emotion. Under ordinary
circumstances, however, the baron would not have felt at all
sentimental on the subject, but to-night something made him view
things in quite a different light to that he was accustomed to. I
shouldn't like to make affidavit of the fact, but it's my positive
impression that he sighed.

Now, my dear reader--particularly if a gentleman--don't imagine I'm
going to indulge your impertinent curiosity with an elaborate
description of the sacred details of a lady's sleeping apartment.
_You're_ not a fairy, you know, and I don't see that it can possibly
matter to you whether fair Bertha's dainty little bottines were tidily
placed on the chair by her bedside, or thrown carelessly, as they had
been taken off, upon the hearth-rug, where her favorite spaniel
reposed, warming his nose in his sleep before the last smouldering
embers of the decaying fire; or whether her crinoline--but if she did
wear a crinoline, what can that possibly matter, sir, to you? All I
shall tell you is, that everything looked snug and comfortable; but
somehow, any place got that look when Bertha was in it. And now a word
about the jewel in the casket--pet Bertha herself. Really, I'm at a
loss to describe her. How do you look when your'e asleep?--Well, it
wasn't like _that_; not a bit! Fancy a sweet girl's face, the cheek
faintly flushed with a soft warm tint, like the blush in the heart of
the opening rose, and made brighter by the contrast of the snowy
pillow on which it rested; dark silken hair, curling and clustering
lovingly over the tiniest of tiny ears, and the softest, whitest neck
that ever mortal maiden was blessed with; long silken eyelashes,
fringing lids only less beautiful than the dear earnest eyes they
cover. Fancy all this, and fancy, too, if you can, the expression of
perfect goodness and parity that lift up the sweet features of the
slumbering maiden with a beauty almost angelic, and you will see what
the baron saw that night. Not quite all, however, for the baron's
vision paused not at the bedside before him, but had passed on from
the face of the sleeping maiden to another face as lovely, that of the
young wife, Bertha's mother, who had, years before, taken her angel
beauty to the angels.

The goblin spoke to the baron's thought. "Wonderfully like, is she
not, baron?" The baron slowly inclined his head.

"You made her very happy, didn't you?" The tone in which the goblin
spoke was harsh and mocking. "A faithful husband, tender and true! She
must have been a happy wife, eh, baron?"

The baron's head had so upon his bosom. Old recollections were
thronging into his awakened memory. Solemn vows to love and cherish,
somewhat strangely kept. Memories of bitter words, and savage oaths,
showered at a quiet uncomplaining figure, without one word in reply.
And last, the memory of a fit of drunken passion, and a hasty blow
struck with a heavy hand; and then of three months fading away; and
last, of her last prayer--for her baby and him.

"A good husband makes a good father, baron. No wonder you are somewhat
chary of rashly entrusting to a suitor the happiness of a sweet flower
like this. Poor child! it is hard, though, that she must think no more
of him she loves so dearly. See! she is weeping even in her dreams.
But you have good reasons, no doubt. Young Carl is wild, perhaps, or
drinks, or gambles, eh? What! none of these? Perhaps he is wayward and
uncertain, and you fear that the honied words of {453} courtship might
turn to bitter sayings in matrimony. They do, sometimes, eh, baron? By
all means guard her from such a fate as that. Poor tender flower! Or
who knows, worse than that, baron! Hard words break no bones, they
say, but angry men are quick, and a blow is soon struck, eh?"

The goblin had drawn nearer and nearer, and laid his hand upon the
baron's arm, and the last words were literally hissed into his ear.
The baron's frame swayed to and under the violence of his emotions. At
last, with a cry of agony, he dashed his hands upon his forehead. The
veins were swollen up like thick cords, and his voice was almost
inarticulate in its unnatural hoarsness.

"Torturer, release me! Let me go, let me go and do something to forget
the past; or I shall go mad and die!"

He rushed out of the room and paced wildly down the corridor, the
goblin following him. At last, as they came near the outer door of the
castle, which opened of itself as they reached it, the spirit spoke:

"This way, baron, this way; I told you there was work for us to do
before morning, you know."

"Work!" exclaimed the baron, absently, passing his fingers through his
tangled hair; "oh! yes, work! the harder and the rougher the better;
anything to make me forget."

The two stepped out into the courtyard, and the baron shivered,
though, as it seemed, unconsciously, at the breath of the frosty
midnight air, The snow lay deep on the ground, and the baron's heavy
boot sank into it with a crisp, crushing sound at every tread. He was
bareheaded, but seemed unconscious of the fact, and tramped on, as if
utterly indifferent to anything but his own thoughts. At last, as a
blast of the night wind, keener than ordinary, swept over him, he
seemed for the first time to feel the chill. His teeth chattered, and
he muttered, "Cold, very cold."

"Ay, baron," said the goblin, "it is cold, even to us, who are healthy
and strong, and warmed with wine. Colder still, though, to those who
are hungry and half-naked, and have to sleep on the snow."

"Sleep? snow?" said the baron. "Who sleeps on the snow? why, I
wouldn't let my dogs be out on such a night as this."

"Your dogs, no!" said the goblin; "I spoke of meaner animals--your
wretched tenants. Did you not order yesterday, that Wilhelm and
Friedrich, if they did not pay their rent tomorrow, should be turned
out to sleep on the snow? a snug bed for the little ones, and a nice
white coverlet, eh? Ha! ha! twenty florins or so is no great matter,
is it? I'm afraid their chance is small, nevertheless. Come and see."

The baron hung his head. A few minutes brought them to the first of
the poor dwellings, which they entered noiselessly. The fireless
grate, the carpetless floor, the broken window-panes, all gave
sufficient testimony to the want and misery of the occupants. In one
comer lay sleeping a man, a woman, and three children, and nestling to
each other for the warmth which their ragged coverlet could not
afford. In the man, the baron recognized his tenant, Wilhelm, one of
those who had been with him to beg for indulgence on the previous day.
The keen features, and bones almost starting through the pallid skin,
showed how heavily the hand of hunger had been laid upon all. The cold
night wind moaned and whistled through the many flaws in the
ill-glazed, ill-thatched tenement, and rustled over the sleepers, who
shivered even in their sleep.

"Ha, baron," said the goblin, "death is breathing in their faces even
now, you see; it is hardly worth while to lay them to sleep in the
snow, is it? They would sleep a little sounder, that's all."

{454}

The baron shuddered, and then, hastily pulling the warm coat from his
own shoulders, he spread it over the sleepers.

"Oho!" said the goblin, "bravely done, baron! By all means keep them
warm to-night, they'll enjoy the snow more to-morrow, you know."

Strange to say, the baron, instead of feeling chilled when he had
removed his coat, felt a strange glow of warmth spread from the region
of the heart over his entire frame. The goblin's continual allusions
to his former intention, which he had by this time totally
relinquished, hurt him, and he said, rather pathetically, "Don't talk
of that again, good goblin, I'd rather sleep on the snow myself."

"Eh! what?" said the goblin, "you don't mean to say you're sorry? Then
what do you say to making these poor people comfortable?"

"With all my heart," said the baron, "if we had only anything to do it
with."

"You leave that to me," said the goblin, "your brother fairies are not
far off, you may be sure."

As he spoke he clapped his hands thrice, and before the third clap had
died away the poor cottage was swarming with tiny figures, whom the
baron rightly conjectured to be the fairies themselves.

Now, you may not be aware (the baron wasn't until that night) that
there are among the fairies trades and professions, just as with
ordinary mortals. However, there they were, each with the
accompaniments of his or her particular business, and to it they went
manfully. A fairy glazier put in new panes to the shattered windows,
fairy carpenters replaced the doors upon their hinges, and fairy
painters, with inconceivable celerity, made cupboards and closets as
fresh as paint could make them; one fairy housemaid laid and lit a
roaring fire, while another dusted and rubbed chairs and tables to a
miraculous degree of brightness; a fairy butler uncorked bottles of
fairy wine, and a fairy cook laid out a repast of most tempting
appearance. The baron hearing a tapping above him, cast his eyes
upward and beheld a fairy slater rapidly repairing a hole in the roof;
and when he bent them down again, they fell on a fairy doctor mixing a
cordial for the sleepers. Nay, there was even a fairy parson who, not
having any present employment, contented himself with rubbing his
hands and looking pleasant, probably ably waiting till somebody might
want to be christened or married. Every trade, every profession or
occupation, appeared, without exception, to be represented; nay, we
big pardon, with one exception only, for the baron used to say, when
afterward relating his experiences to bachelor friends, "You may
believe me or not sir, there was every mortal business under the sun,
_but devil a bit of a lawyer_."

The baron could not long remain inactive. He was rapidly seized with a
violent desire to do something to help, which manifested itself in
insane attempts to assist everybody at once. At last, after having
taken all the skin off his knuckles in attempting to hammer in nails
in aid of the carpenters, and then nearly tumbling over a fairy
housemaid, whose broom he was offering to carry, he gave it up as a
bad job, and stood aside with his friend the goblin. He was just about
to inquire how it was that the poor occupants of the house were not
awakened by so much din, when a fairy Sam Slick who had been examining
the cottager's old clock, with a view to a thorough repair, touched
some spring within it, and it made the usual purr preparatory to
striking. When lo and behold, at the very first stroke, cottage,
goblin, fairies, and all disappeared into utter darkness, and the
baron found himself in his turret-chamber, rubbing his toe, which he
had just hit with considerable force against the fender. As he was
only in his slippers the concussion was unpleasant, and the baron
rubbed his toe for a good while. {455} After he had finished with his
toe he rubbed his nose, and finally, with a countenance of deep
reflection, scratched the bump of something or other at the top of his
head. The old clock on the stairs was striking three, and the fire had
gone out. The baron reflected for a short time longer, and finally
decided that he had better go to bed which he did accordingly.

The morning dawned upon the very ideal, as far as weather was
concerned, of a Christmas day. A bright winter sun shone out just
vividly enough to make everything look genial and pleasant, and yet
not with sufficient warmth to mar the pure unbroken surface of the
crisp white snow, which lay like a never-ending white lawn upon the
ground, and glittered in myriad silver flakes upon the leaves of the
sturdy evergreens. I'm afraid the baron had not had a very good night;
at any rate, I know that he was wide-awake at an hour long before his
usual time of rising. He lay first on one side, and then on the other,
and then, by way of variety, turned on his back, with his magenta nose
pointing perpendicularly toward the ceiling; but it was all of no use.
Do what he would, he couldn't get to sleep, and at last, not long
after daybreak, he tumbled out of bed, and proceeded to dress. Even
after he was out of bed his fidgetiness continued. It did not strike
him, until after he had got one boot on, that it would be a more
natural proceeding to put his stockings on first; after which he
caught himself in the act of trying trying to put his trousers on over
his head (which, I may mention for the information of lady readers,
who of course, cannot be expected to know anything about such matters,
is not the mode generally adopted). In a word, the baron's mind was
evidently preoccupied; his whole air was that of a man who felt a
strong impulse to do something or other, but could not quite make up
his mind to it. At last, however, the good impulse conquered, and this
wicked old baron, in the stillness of the calm bright Christmas
morning, went down upon his knees and prayed. Stiff were his knees and
slow his tongue, for neither had done such work for many a long day
past; but I have read in the Book of the joy of the angels over a
repenting sinner. There needs not much eloquence to pray the
publican's prayer, and who shall say but there was gladness in heaven
that Christmas morning?

The baron's appearance down-stairs at such an early hour occasioned
quite a commotion. Nor were the domestics re-assured when the baron
ordered a bullock to be killed and jointed instantly, and all the
available provisions in the larder, including sausage, to be packed up
in baskets, with a good store of his own peculiar wine. One ancient
retainer was heard to declare, with much pathos, that he feared master
had gone "off his head." However, "off his head" or not, they knew the
baron must be obeyed, and in an exceedingly short space of time he
sallied forth, accompanied by three servants carrying the baskets, and
wondering what in the name of fortune their master would do next. He
stopped at the cottage of Wilhelm, which he had visited with the
goblin on the previous night. The labors of the fairies did not seem
to have produced much lasting benefit, for the appearance of
everything around was as wretched as could be. The poor family thought
that the baron had come himself to turn them out of house and home;
and the poor children huddled up timidly to their mother for
protection, while the father attempted some words of entreaty for
mercy. The pale, pinched features of the group, and their looks of
dread and wretchedness, were too much for the baron. "Eh! what! what
do you mean, confound you? Turn you out! Of course not: I've brought
you some breakfast. Here! Fritz--Carl; where are the knaves? Now then,
unpack, and don't be a week about it. Can't you see the people are
hungry, ye villains? Here, lend me the corkscrew." This last {456}
being a tool the baron was tolerably accustomed to, he had better
success than with those of the fairy carpenters; and it was not long
before the poor tenants were seated before a roaring fire, and doing
justice, with the appetite of starvation, to a substantial breakfast.
The baron felt a queer sensation in his throat at the sight of the
poor people's enjoyment, and had passed the back of his hand twice
across his eyes when he thought no one was looking; but his emotion
fairly rose to boiling point when the poor father, Wilhelm, with tears
in his eyes, and about a quarter of a pound of beef in his mouth,
sprang up from the table and flung himself at the baron's knees,
invoking blessings on him for his goodness. "Get up, you audacious
scoundrel!" roared the baron. "What the deuce do you mean by such
conduct, eh! confound you?" At this moment the door opened, and in
walked Mynheer Klootz, who had heard nothing of the baron's change of
intentions, and who, seeing Wilhelm at the baron's feet, and hearing
the latter speaking, as he thought, in an angry tone, at once jumped
to the conclusion that Wilhelm was entreating for longer indulgence.
He rushed at the unfortunate man, and collared him. "Not if _we_ know
it," exclaimed he; "you'll have the wolves for bedfellows to-night, I
reckon. Come along, my fine fellow." As he spoke he turned his back
toward the baron, with the intention of dragging his victim to the
door, the baron's little gray eyes twinkled, and his whole frame
quivered with suppressed emotion, which, after the lapse of a moment,
vented itself in a kick, and _such_ a kick! Not one of your Varsoviana
flourishes, but a kick that employed every muscle from hip to toe, and
drove the worthy steward up against the door, like a ball from a
catapult. Misfortunes never come singly, and so Mynheer Klootz found
with regard to the kick, for it was followed, without loss of time, by
several dozen others, as like it as possible, from the baron's heavy
boots. Wounded Lyons proverbially come badly off, and Fritz and Carl,
who had suffered from many an act of petty tyranny on the part of the
steward, thought they could not do better than follow their master's
example, which they did to such a good purpose, that when the
unfortunate Klootz did escape from the cottage at last, I don't
believe he could have had any _os sacrum_ left.

After having executed this little act of poetical justice, the baron
and his servants visited the other cottages, in all of which they were
received with dread, and dismissed with blessings. Having completed
his tour of charity, the baron returned home to breakfast, feeling
more really contented then he had done for many a long year. He found
Bertha, who had not risen when he started, in a considerable state of
anxiety as to what he could possibly have been doing. In answer to her
inquiries he told her, with a roughness he was far from feeling, to
"mind her own business." The gentle eyes filled with tears at the
harshness of the reply; perceiving which, the baron was beyond measure
distressed, and chucked her under the chin in what was meant to be a
very conciliatory manner. "Eh! what, my pretty? tears? No, surely.
Bertha must forgive her old father. I didn't mean it, you know, my
pet; and yet, on second thoughts, yes I did, too." Bertha's face was
overcast again. "My little girl thinks she has no business anywhere,
eh! Is that it? Well, then, my pet, suppose you make it your business
to write a note to young Carl von Sempach, and say I'm afraid I was
rather rude to him yesterday, but if he'll look over it, and come and
take a snug family dinner and a slice of the pudding with us to-day--"
"Why, pa, you don't mean--yes, I do really believe you do--" The
baron's eyes were winking nineteen to the dozen. "Why, you dear, dear,
dear old pa!" And at the imminent risk of upsetting the breakfast
table, Bertha rushed at the baron, and flinging two soft white arms
about {457} his neck, kissed him--oh! how she _did_ kiss him! I
shouldn't have thought, myself, she could possibly have had any left
for Carl; but I dare say Bertha attended to his interests in that
respect somehow.

* * * * *

Well, Carl came to dinner, and the baron was, not very many years
after, promoted to the dignity of a grandpapa, and a very jolly old
grandpapa he made. Is that all you wanted to know?

About Klootz? Well, Klootz got over the kicking, but he was dismissed
from in the baron's service; and on examination of his accounts, it
was discovered that he had been in the habit of robbing the baron of
nearly a third of his yearly income, which he had to refund; and with
the money he was thus compelled to disgorge, the baron built new
cottages for his tenants, and new-stocked their farms. Nor was he the
poorer in the end, for his tenants worked with the energy of
gratitude, and he was soon many times richer than when the goblin
visited him on that Christmas-eve.

And was the goblin ever explained? Certainly not. How dare you have
the impertinence to suppose such a thing? An empty bottle, covered
with cobwebs, was found the next morning in the turret chamber, which
the baron at first imagined must be the bottle from which the goblin
produced his magic wine; but as it was found, on examination, to be
labelled "Old Jamaica Rum," of course that could not have had anything
to do with it. However it was, the baron never thoroughly enjoyed any
other wine after it; and as he did not thenceforth get drunk, on an
average, more than two nights a week, or swear more than eight oaths a
day, I think King Christmas may be considered to have thoroughly
reformed him. And he always maintained, to the day of his death, that
he was changed into a fairy, and became exceedingly angry if
contradicted.

Who doesn't believe in fairies after this? I only hope King Christmas
may make a few more good fairies this year, to brighten the homes of
the poor with the light of Christmas charity. Truly we need not look
far for almsmen. Cold and hunger, disease and death, are around us at
all times; but at no time do they press more heavily on the poor than
at this jovial Christmas season. Shall we shut out, in our mirth and
jollity, the cry of the hungry poor? or shall we not rather remember,
in the midst of our happy family circles, round our well-filled
tables, and before our blazing fires, that our brothers are starving
out in the cold, and that the Christmas song of the angels was,
"Good-will to men?"

--------

Original.

EPIGRAM.

"Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing."


  Dear heart! and is it thus thou didst lament
  His absence for a day? How different
  Thy grief from mine! Absent from Him for years,
  I sorrowed not: and only found my tears
  In finding Him. Then, to my bitter cost,
  I knew the priceless treasure I had lost!

------

{458}

Original.

THE CHRISTMAS TREE.

  Christmas comes but once a year;
  'Tis come at last, O glorious day!
  Let every cross that mortals bear
  Be for the moment flung away.

  "Yes," says the cricket from his hole
  Beside the flame-lit kitchen hearth,
  "It is a time for every soul
  To give himself to joy and mirth,"

  "Christmas comes but once a year,"
  Returns the timid pantry mouse.
  "The cat has told me not to fear;
  To-night I'll scamper through the house."

  So, blow ye winds, and you, Jack Frost,
  Come in the dark and do your worst;
  How wild soe'er the night may be,
  It shall not stir my Christmas Tree.

  Then let us dance and laugh and sing,
  And form in all one happy ring;
  The Yule log never burned so bright.
  Hurrah! hurrah! 'tis Christmas night.

  It is a time to seek the poor,
  And bid them welcome round our door;
  The alms we give, to Christ are given.
  And hung on Christmas Trees in heaven.

  The Christmas Tree is evergreen:
  The hand of time may change the scene,
  The child a gray-haired man may be,
  But memory keeps the Christmas Tree.

W.S., Jr.

------

{459}

ORIGINAL.


THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONVERSION.  [Footnote 144]

  [Footnote 144: Trials of a Mind in its Progress to Catholicism, etc.
  By L. Stillman Ives, LL.D. Boston. 1865.

  The Path which led a Protestant Lawyer to the Catholic Church. By
  Peter H. Burnett. New York and Cincinnati: Benziger Brothers. 1866

  The Convert; or, Leaves from my Experience. By O. A. Brownson. New
  York. 1857.

  Apologia pro Vita Sua: being a Reply, etc. By John Henry Newman,
  D.D. New York. 1865.]


It is a fact, to which the Catholic heart cannot recur without
emotions of the deepest gratitude, that Christ's holy church is ever
gathering some of the select out of the mad waves of heresy and schism
around us into the safety of her maternal bosom. It is a fact, too,
which every conscientious and thoughtful Protestant must view with
feelings of disquietude and insecurity, that men of unimpeachable
piety and learning are thus ever leaving the external wilderness where
they have walked with him, and seek and find true refuge in the
Catholic ark of God.

The number of these converts it seems almost impossible to estimate.
There can be but little doubt, however, that it far exceeds the
reckonings of the denominations out of which they come, and equally
surpasses our own most sanguine calculations. Reliable statistics show
us that within the last fifty years no less than forty-one clergymen
of the American Episcopal Church alone have laid down the honors and
emoluments they there enjoyed, and have espoused poverty and
insignificance with the Catholic faith.  [Footnote 145] Many of these
were men of eminence in their former sphere of action, and one, at
least, held the highest and most responsible position which his
co-religionists could bestow upon him. Some of them have risen since
their conversion to posts of ecclesiastical dignity and power. Others
have died and rest with God. All of them, with but few exceptions,
have remained faithful, and have endorsed, in life and in death, the
wisdom and sincerity of that step which brought them, after many
wanderings, into the apostolic fold.

  [Footnote 145: See Church Review, July, 1860, p. 254. There have
  been several conversions from the Episcopal clergy since that date.]

How far the clerical ranks of other sects of Protestants in the United
States have been invaded by God's converting grace, no data that we
can command are able to determine. Our personal recollections of their
various ministers, who at one time and another have laid down their
own will for the will of Christ, lead us to the belief that the number
from each will fall little short of that contributed by the
denomination to which we first referred. And as for laymen, they have
come to us from every known religious name and creed, and full as
often from no name and creed at all, until the throng has swelled from
hundreds into tens of thousands, and gone beyond the possibility of
our enumeration or discovery.  [Footnote 146]

  [Footnote 146:  Judging from the statistics of the past few years in
  the dioceses of New York, the number of converts in the United
  States must exceed 30,000.--Ed. C.W.]

Moreover, this work is on the increase. Year by year, almost, the
church is doubling on herself in these triumphs of her toil. Where
individuals once tremblingly isolated themselves from old
associations, and cut the vital cord of earthly friendships and
familiarities by submitting to her guidance, now families and
communities fly together to her arms for safety; while those upon
whose personal decisions her labors and the grace of God seemed to
make no impression, have ceased to persecute and almost ceased to ban
those who have followed {460} her, and recognize conversion from
Protestantism to Catholicity as a change equally legitimate and
rational with conversion from idolatry to God. Nay, more: the very
brain of Protestant America itself is sloughing off the narrow coils
of illogical and degrading error which three hundred years of folly
and of falsehood had woven round it under the name of Christian
doctrine; and, in spite of its self-conceived antagonism between
"_Rome or Reason_," is drinking in long draughts of Catholic theology,
and pouring out broadcast over this great hemisphere the fundamental
tenets of the Roman faith as the indisputable truths of human reason
and divine philosophy.

The tide of popular prejudice thus turning, and the way thus opened to
the American intellect by the instrumentality of those who claim to be
her adversaries, it is no arrogation of prophetic foresight to predict
that the progress of the church in this country must, in the future,
be rapid beyond all precedent, and that the age may not be far distant
when this vast "_Continent of Mary_" shall, with one heart and under
one name, obey the Holy Spouse of Mary's Son.

When such realities are around us and such possibilities before us,
the study of those mental and moral changes in the individual by which
all has been done that is done, and by which also all that shall be
done must be accomplished, cannot be uninteresting or unprofitable. No
religious subject of so much practical importance to non-Catholics is,
probably, so little understood among them; and of none have more false
definitions been given or more inaccurate theories been entertained.
Even Catholics themselves have generally failed in their attempts to
realize the logical processes through which the Protestant mind must,
consciously or unconsciously, find its way before it can receive
Catholic truth with the dear, living faith of a Catholic heart. It is
to correct these errors and to scatter these difficulties, as well as
to justify seeming inconsistencies, and above all, to assist, if
possible, the wavering minds of some who long for a light which they
know not how or where to find, that we devote these pages to a
discussion of those changes in the human soul which make up the actual
conversion from Protestantism to the Catholic Church.

The materials for this discussion are both abundant and satisfactory
The first of the four works upon our list is from the pen of Dr. Ives,
who was for more than twenty years the Protestant Episcopal bishop of
the Diocese of North-Carolina, and one of the acknowledged leaders of
the High church party in the United States. It is a concise and
luminous rehearsal of the reasons which led him to abandon his exalted
ecclesiastical station for that of a mere layman in the Catholic
church, and presents a vivid picture of the "trials" and perplexities
which extreme Tractarians must inevitably undergo, when the
incompatibility of their position with their principles is once fully
apprehended. The second is a voluminous and formal treatise on the
rules of evidence as applicable to revelation, and on those
fundamental axioms which underlie all legislation, human or divine. It
is, obviously, what the title-page professes, the work of a legal mind
which views the whole question of religion as open two, and able to
abide the most thorough tests of reason and philosophy, and brings the
great issues which it raises, in every case, to actual demonstration
for denial. The writer, now a Catholic, was formerly a member of the
so-called "_Disciples;_" a sect which lies on the outskirts of
Christianity, and from which to Catholicity the path must have been
almost as long and devious as that from infidelity itself. The author
of the third is Dr. Brownson, one of the most _positive_ of modern
men; whose range of doctrinal experience has reached from Deism to an
ultramontane Catholicism, and who in every phase of his religious
life, has {461} been a living power, dealing with realities, and
stripping all imaginations and delusions from the realities with which
he dealt. The last is Dr. Newman's, than whom no one knows better,
none can describe so well, that _Via Dolorosa_ which all converts
tread? To these, if we would, the works of Manning, Wilberforce, and
others might be added, each a reflection of the changes which the
inner lives of their writers underwent in the great struggle after
ultimate, unquestionable truth; while, beyond even these, the
inexhaustible volume of experience remains; a volume in which the dark
things of these books find an infallible interpreter, and on whose
hidden leaves the hand of God has written the same history of which
these human pages are the reflection and the shade.

It is not an unreasonable hope, that, out of such materials, we may be
able to construct an accurate definition of that work of grace which,
in the convert's memory, has overshadowed and embraces all other gifts
of God.

Before proceeding, however, with our examination of that change, by
which alone the word "_conversion_" can be properly defined, it will
be necessary to consider and refute those definitions of it which are
false. Conversion is a transformation in itself so simple, yet
involving so many and such vast collateral changes in the inner and
exterior man--it is at once so definite in its own nature, and yet as
widely and, in point of time, so intimately knit together with its
antecedents and its consequences, that a clear view of it apart from
these is almost impossible, until, by a process of negation, it is
separated from its surroundings, and stands out alone, defined as well
by what did is _not_ as by what it _is_. And this is, above all,
important, when we desire to present this subject to the
understandings of non-Catholics. The lines between their religious
bodies are so faintly drawn, and depend so much upon the social and
political circumstances by which the members of those bodies are
controlled, that conversion from one denomination to another is not
regarded as reaching to the very marrow of the spiritual being, or
compassing the salvation or destruction of the soul. Such changes are
often matters of taste or policy or friendship; sometimes of personal
pride and pique, and sometimes, but more rarely, of actual principle;
though even this principle never rests upon higher ground than
individual points of faith or systems of ecclesiastical organization.
It thus seems almost impossible that, left to their own definitions of
that to which we give the technical name "_conversion_," persons
outside the church could ever arrive at an appreciation of its extent
and power. And this is especially true in this country, where the
Catholic Church externally occupies the position of a sect among
sects; the most numerous, perhaps, certainly the most prosperous and
aggressive of them all, but in their view ranking as but one of many
forms of Christianity, and but one of many branches of Christ's
earthly fold. No care that we can take can be superfluous, no
precision we can use can be in vain when we attempt to define the
position of the church on any question which interests our age, or to
delineate the relations which she occupies to that great chaos of
religions in the midst of which she dwells. At the risk, therefore, of
consuming time unnecessarily for some, we feel it none the less our
duty to leave upon the minds of others no doubt upon this subject
which we can remove, and no obscurity around it which it is in our
power to thrust away.

(1.) First, then, the adoption of the articles of the Catholic faith
into the individual's creed is not conversion.

The idea of conversion entertained by nine-tenths of Protestants is
precisely that which we have here denied. It has hardly ever been our
lot to meet one, either in print or conversation, whose arguments and
reasonings with {462} us did not presuppose this definition to be
true. It is very natural, for the reasons before mentioned, that this
should be so. From Unitarian to Methodist, from Methodist to Anglican,
is but a journey from one set of doctrines to another. The same grand
underlying features of Christianity remain. The organic existence is
an accident arising from substantial doctrinal affinity. And, judging
by their own experience and observations, Protestants almost
invariably conclude that we became converts to Catholicity as a
logical result of our faith in individual Catholic doctrines; and that
a so-called Protestant, who holds any or all of these distinctive
dogmas, is not a Protestant in reality, and has no right or title to
the name. Of how much petty persecution this mistake has been the
cause, and how many parishes and pastors it has kept in perpetual
commotion during the past thirty years, hundreds of the unfortunate
victims can remember.

Yet no definition of conversion could be more totally erroneous.
Belief in Catholic doctrines is often chronologically precedent to a
real conversion; but it is not always so. It certainly operates as a
powerful antagonist of prejudice, and determines the interest and
sympathies of the believer toward the church. Candor, humility, and
earnestness being equal, such a believer is far more likely to become
a Catholic than another who does not believe. But, for all that, such
faith does not result in conversion as its necessary, scarcely as its
probable, consequence. We have in our memory, just now, a clergyman
who has for years openly professed his firm belief in
transubstantiation, purgatory, and other equally extreme Catholic
articles of faith. He goes into our churches, and adores the holy
eucharist upon our altars. He venerates the Mother of our Lord, and
supplicates God's mercy on the faithful dead. In all these he is
perfectly sincere, and of the truth of what he believes, and of the
piety of what he does, he is as well convinced as any Protestant can
ever be. Still he is not a Catholic, and we are almost satisfied he
never will become one. Years have found him and left him as we find
him now, and other years will probably work no change upon him in the
nature of conversion. Nearly the same maybe said of Dr. Pusey. His
symbolism in many, if not in most, particulars is Catholic. His tastes
and sympathies are Catholic. Those who have been his nearest and
dearest friends are Catholics. If similarity of doctrine were all that
constitutes conversion, the venerable father of Tractarianism would
long ere this have found the rest we tremble now lest he should never
find. But his life rolls away, and years and honors multiply upon his
head; yet who can say that he is nearer than in the distant and more
hopeful days, when his, now our, "_beloved_" struggled and prayed with
him for the light of God? The reasons for this are perfectly apparent
to us, and will be reached and dealt with by-and-bye. At present it
suffices, by these statements and illustrations, to have made it clear
that belief in Catholic doctrine is not conversion to the Catholic
Church. No, not if a man can tell over on his fingers, one by one, the
definitions of the councils and the traditions of the fathers, and
pronounce a _credo_ over every one of them, is he necessarily a
Catholic, nor must he have passed through that vital transformation
without which there never has been and never can be a true conversion.

(2.) Second: the adoption of our extreme ritualism in worship is not
conversion.

There is but one denomination of Protestants among whom this false
definition is likely to obtain. That one is the Episcopal; and by
large numbers of its members (if we may judge their opinions from
their words), it is actually believed that a fondness for rites and
ceremonies is evidence of Catholicity. Some years ago the church of
the Holy Innocents, and the {463} Madison Street mission chapel of New
York, and the church of St. James the Less, Philadelphia, were, by
this class of persons, uniformly regarded and denounced as Romanizing;
as the church of St. Albans in this city and some others are to-day.
Candles and flowers upon the altar, crosses and paintings on the
walls, the bowed head at the name of Jesus, the cassock-skirted coat,
and other innumerable minutiae, are to these people indubitable
evidence of Popery, and have often served, as they do now, for a
sufficient cause of congregational disunion and parochial decline. It
would seem foolish, in a discussion like the present, to notice an
error so shallow and so reasonless as this, were it not for the
magnitude of its results, and were it not, also, that so many of these
very ritualists themselves imagine that, in mimicking Catholic forms
and ceremonies, they have secured in Anglicanism all that the Catholic
Church can give.

But ritualism is not Catholicism: nor is Catholicism so vitally
connected with ritualism that it may not exist in the entire fulness
of its powers and graces independent of external magnificence and
show. St. Antony in his desert, St. Simeon Stylites on his pillar,
were as true Catholics as St. Ambrose in his basilica, or St. Leo on
his throne. Even the public worship of the church, when stripped to
its essentials, is almost devoid of any outward sign or sound that can
properly be characterized as ceremonial. And the same priest who
stands today before the gorgeous altar of a metropolitan cathedral
amid clouds of incense, will start to-morrow on a year's missionary
journey through the wilderness, with all the "_pomp and circumstance
of Romanism_" contained within the narrow limits of his carpet-bag.
Ritualism is a means used by the church to accomplish certain ends;
and so used, because the example of the divinely instituted Jewish
church, and her own ages of experience, have convinced her that by it
those ends can most surely be attained. But it is no more an essential
element of her being than royal robes are of the being of a king; and
the weak caricature of her stately ceremonial, in which some
Protestant experimentalists indulge, converts them into Catholics as
little as the tinsel crown and sceptre of the stage gives royal birth
and power to the actor in a play.

(3.) Third: union with the visible body of the Catholic Church is not
conversion.

This is the definition which most of those who are born Catholics
would give. Unconscious, as they happily are, of the religious state
of mind in which pure Protestantism rears its children, it is
difficult for them to imagine that a man can be, or can become,
nominally Catholic for any other reason than the simple one that binds
them to their faith; and this habitude of thought leads them
inevitably to confound the outward consequence of an internal change
with that internal change itself.

They also are in error. External union with the church is the best
possible _primâ facie_ evidence of conversion, but it alone is not
conversion. That men have came into the body of the Catholic Church
from motives of business, or of politics, or of family sympathy there
can be no doubt. But in these cases there was no real conversion. The
deep, radical changes which so thoroughly unmake and then remake the
spiritual man, never could have taken place in such souls as these.
Their outward act was perfect, their visible communion with us was all
we could demand; but in their inmost heart they were as much
Protestants as ever; and, when they went, acted on the same principles
as when they came. Such examples are not numerous, it is true; but
still they are sufficient to demonstrate that "_joining the church_"
is not conversion, and to deny the minor premise of those who argue
the church's incapacity to satisfy our nature from the fact that these
have tried her and found her wanting. {464} When one man can be cited
who, in his soul of souls, has undergone the work of grace which we
now pass on to consider, and who, in calmness and in piety, and not in
rashness _or in mortal sin_, has voluntarily apostatized, and who, in
life and in death, has adhered to his apostasy, and has died in the
confident and humble hope of heaven; then, and not till then, can such
an argument be worth our while to meet.



The change we call "_conversion_" thus residing neither in the
transfer of ecclesiastical relations to the church, nor in the growth
of ritualism into the external conduct, nor yet even in the adoption
of Catholic doctrine as the individual's creed, must have its sphere
of action in regions deeper and more fundamental than we have yet
explored. The church of God looks with the eyes of God upon the souls
of men. "_Give me thine heart_," is her, is his demand, confident that
if this be given all else is also gained. The change she seeks in
those whom God would make her children is a change, not of opinion,
not of tastes, not of behavior, but of _heart and will_; a change
which reaches to the citadel of life, and thoroughly and permanently
converts the man. With nothing less than this can she be satisfied. On
nothing less than this can she securely build.

And this change is conversion.

Protestantism, so far forth as it is a religious system, is based upon
two principles, from which have been developed all its influence and
power, and to which may be traced the numerous and immeasurable evils
whereof for many ages it has been a fruitful source. The first of
these is: That the church, founded by our Lord, is an _invisible_
church, to which every man who believes he is saved by Christ is _by
that sole belief_ united, whatever else his creed and religious
observance may be. The second is: That every man, by his own reason
working on the text of Scripture, is able to, and must determine for
himself what his religious faith and moral code shall be. The
inevitable consequence of the first principle is--that the doctrine
and moral law of one man, so long as they embrace the Saviourship of
Christ in any sense whatever, are matters in which his brother
Christian can have no concern. The inevitable consequence of the
second is--that the self-eliminated creed and rule of observance of
each Christian are as correct and reliable as those of any or even of
all others, and will be the only standard of his judgment at the bar
of God.

This first principle and its logical deductions have resulted in
simple religious individualism. "_The communion of saints_," in that
sense in which St. Paul describes it, as a Christian society, whose
members mutually depend upon each other, think the same things,
believe the same things, speak the same things, preserving the unity
of the Spirit as well as the bond of peace, has been rendered
practically impossible; while for it has been substituted an ideal
"_Christian union_" which consists either in the abnegation of all
distinctive doctrines as mere human opinions, or in the toleration of
them all as different methods of expressing the same religious truth.
And even this "_union_" which might be possible if pride and self-will
were eradicated from the heart of man, has become so far from a
reality, that the very theories on which it is based have sected and
bisected the original divisions of Protestant Christianity, until from
five they have become five hundred, with every prospect of a similar
multisection to the end of time.

This principle has done more. It has entered the bodies of the sects
themselves, and repelled member from member, minister from flock. It
has destroyed, in the collective sect, all sense of responsibility for
the faith and conduct of its members; and, in the members, all sense
of responsibility for their personal belief and morals to the sect at
large. It has overturned {465} every tribunal established for the
preservation of Christian discipline, and has abrogated "_church
authority_" as wholly incompatible with purity of conscience and
religious freedom. It has reduced the conditions of admission to the
ecclesiastical fellowship to "_the minimum of Christianity_" and has
abolished "_terms of communion_" and "_professions of faith_" as
utterly subversive of denominational integrity.  [Footnote 147] In
this way it has made each man not only _de jure_, but _de facto_ a
spiritual autocrat, and has erected him into an isolated, independent
religious body, depriving the sect of all real organic life, and
degrading it from a church with head and members to a mere aggregation
of discordant particles.

  [Footnote 147: _Vide_ New Englander for July, 1866, pages 477 to 487
  et seq.]

The individual, being thus debarred of all external aid, is thrown
upon his own resources for religious guidance. There is no living man
upon the earth from whom he can receive an an authoritative
enunciation of eternal truths. There is no set of men upon whose
teachings he can rely as more perfect for more ultimately certain than
his own. The common mouth of Christendom utters no voice that puts to
rest the questions of his soul. All stand, like him, upon one level
plain of human fallibility; a fallibility which no diffusion, however
universal, can ever make infallible. All, whether singly or
collectively interrogated, can answer his appeal for light only by
giving their own human judgments in exchange for his.

And hence arises the necessity for that second principle on which, as
well as on the first, the foundations of Protestant Christianity were
laid; a principle which recognizes the intrinsic individualism that
the first produces, and perfects it by removing from man every hope
but one. That one hope is the Bible; a dead and speechless book; a
body whose spirit hides itself in the interminable labyrinth of
languishes long since unspoken; a star which gathers its reflected
rays through paraphrases and translations as chromatic as the
intellects that framed them or the pens that wrote them down.

"_The Bible, and the Bible only_," has been the banner-cry of
Protestantism from the dawn of its existence. The first work of
Luther, after his apostasy, was the publication of such parts of the
New Testament as he considered best suited to his purposes; and the
great aim of his successors, in all countries and in all ages, has
been to flood the world with copies of the Scriptures, in such guise
and such proportions as should soonest and most surely undermine the
principles of church authority, and establish their version of the
Bible as the sole acknowledged teacher of the truth of God. From the
beginning, also, as a part of the same work, they have denied that God
has furnished to mankind other interpreters of his revelation than the
unaided intellect of man, and have declared the private judgment of
the individual to be his all-sufficient and his only guide to the true
meaning of the written law. It will not, therefore, nay, it cannot be
disputed, that every man to whom the name of Protestant belongs,
depends entirely for his knowledge of the truth which God commands him
to believe, and of the laws which God commands him to obey, upon what
he can learn, unled by note or comment, from that collective
translation of ancient books to which he gives the name "[Greek
text]," or "_The Bible_."

Now, were it certain that the Bible contained the entire canon of holy
scripture, with every book and paragraph complete; were it certain
that that Scripture was in every syllable the utterance of God; were
it certain that no error in translation had modulated the clear voice
which spoke from heaven; were it certain that no pride of
self-opinion, no prejudice of early education, no ignorance of the
true meaning and construction of the language, were able to distort
the {466} spiritual vision; then might this principle, to some extent,
subserve the purposes which Protestants allege it to fulfil. But,
while no evidence, by them admissible, can determine beyond cavil the
completeness of their canon, while divine inspiration remains a fact
beyond the power of human testimony to establish; while that confusion
of tongues which the centuries of barbarian incursion wrought has
rendered more or less questionable all translations from ancient Greek
or Hebrew to a modern dialect; while human pride and prejudice have
lost none of their hold upon the heart of man; it is not in our nature
to believe that God has left us to such a guidance as this principle
asserts, and still holds us responsible for the truth of our opinions
and the purity of our conduct at the peril of our eternal damnation.
And thus each of these principles practically affirms and corroborates
the other, and both unite to overthrow all definite revealed religion,
and to prostrate at the feet of human reason the _dicta_ of the
everlasting God.

The state of heart and will which these principles engender no
lengthened paragraphs are needed to describe. Previous to the age of
discretion, the Protestant child, in spite of these principles, is
compelled to recognize, in religion, an authority external to himself.
His parents, his masters, his catechisms are, in his sight, equally
with the Bible, the teachers of divine truth; and, by their aid and
influence, he arrives at maturity with certain more or less distinctly
formed notions of Christian doctrine, and with certain rules of life
grained into his character by the long course of years. At this period
he is emancipated, in theory, from all external direction, and placed
under the sole guidance of his reason and the Bible. That sacred book
he opens. It has no voice to him of its own. Its pages offer to him
the same words as to all men before him; but those words contain no
meaning independent of the meaning that he gives them. It places
before him the formal statement of all doctrine; but teaches him, as
absolutely and infallibly true, no one specific dogma which, whether
consistent with his present views or not, he must receive. That which
interprets, not that which is interpreted, is ever the real teacher;
and, in his case, his privates judgment, trained and biassed by the
prejudices and conclusions of a lifetime, utters the only voice and
defines the only doctrine which it is possible for him to hear or to
receive. The Scripture does not teach him new and otherwise
undiscoverable truth. It rather confirms and expresses the truth,
which is already accepted and declared. The oracle, whose utterance is
the indisputable law, speaks from the depths of his interior being.
The Bible is a mere "phrase-book," in which it finds the words and
symbols fitted to convey its thought. The divine authority dwells in
the _man_, not in the _volume_. He holds the sacred book before the
mirror of his reason. The image it presents, however imperfect or
deformed, becomes to him the truth of the Eternal Word. He casts the
pure wheat of God between the millstones of his human judgment and his
human loves. The grist they grind is all the bread he has whereon to
feed his soul. It is not difficult to see that, by the process of
investigation, every man must become the worshipper of a God who is as
truly his own handiwork as is the brazen idol of the Hindoo or the
living Buddha of Sha-Ssa.

Some of the better class of Protestant minds have perceived this. A
few of the most fearless have declared it, and received, in
consequence, the name of "_infidels_" from their less logical and less
consistent brethren. "_Belief_," says Mr. Emerson, "consists in the
acceptance of the affirmations of the soul; unbelief in their denial."
The English language might be exhausted and no better definition given
of Protestant belief than this. When once the soul--that is, the
reason, {467} the affections, and the will--when once the _soul_
affirms; when once those affirmations are _expressed in Scripture
phraseology_, no Protestant can venture to pronounce them ultimately
untrue without destroying the hold principle on which his own faith
has been built. That many have done so is only evidence that the grace
of God within them rebels against this degradation of a Gospel which
the Eternal Son died in order to inaugurate, and which his church has
battled earth and hell for fifty generations in order to preserve.

The office which the heart and will perform in this religious work is
simply one of _choice_. The element of submission to divine authority
is only so far exercised as consists in the acceptance of Scripture
phrases as the vehicle of individual conclusions. To no extent is the
_formal, detailed idea_ indebted for existence to other than the
intellect, the affections, the will of the believer. He _chooses_ his
dogma for his precept according to the dictates of his reason;
receiving this, denying that, on the sole ground of their consistency
with preconceived ideas; and, anon, discarding old faiths and adopting
new as time and circumstances operate upon his heart and mind. And it
is nothing singular to see him wandering from Tractarianism down to
Unitarianism--from Calvinism to Universalism--and back again,
stopping perchance at Methodism or Congregationalism on the way;
clinging to his Bible all the while, triumphantly pointing to this
paragraph as proving that he is right at last, and as triumphantly
declaring the reverse when a few steps forward have landed him upon
the other side. All this and more--unless, indeed, his inner life
lays at the door of his professions the charge of conscious falsehood,
and underneath his soul is bent the arm of an authority whose very
existence his theory has totally denied.

No truer definition, no better example of _heresy_ than such a
spectacle affords, has any age of Christianity presented. "[Greek
text]" meant "choice." The grand distinction between the heretic and
the Christian resides in this: that the one chooses doctrine to suit
himself, the other receives doctrine on the authority of God. That
Protestantism is choice--nay, that it logically _compels_ choice to
every individual in it, cannot admit a question. It is, therefore,
heresy; not, perhaps, in the most odious sense of the word, but still
in that strict etymological signification which is the best clue to
the appropriate application of the name. Like all other heretics, of
whatever sect, the Protestant relies upon himself. He is his own
Bible-maker, his own doctrine-monger, his own law-giver. Faith and
theology and moral law are only the result of his own private judgment
and divine command, moulded and digested into one confused and
contradicting mass of good and evil.

It is to his deliverance from this spiritual state that the name
_conversion_ alone properly belongs.

Catholicity, on the other hand, is also based upon two principles,
which are the logical postulates of its existence, and whose necessary
developments will account for the immeasurable contrast which its
severe and holy tranquillity presents to the seething and tumultuous
incoherency around it. The first of these is this: that the truths
with which alone revealed religion deals, are in their nature _above_
human reason, and though never _contradicting_ it, cannot by it be
estimated, comprehended, or discerned, but rest upon the sole veracity
of a revealing God. The second is: that God has chosen and appointed,
as the medium of this unerring revelation, a visible, organized
society, founded by Jesus Christ, presided over by the Holy Ghost,
perpetuated through all ages by his own impregnable decree; and that
this society is the Catholic Church. The inevitable consequence of the
first principle is: that revealed truth, as such, is ultimately and
infallibly true, and whether or not consistent {468} with private
judgment, prejudice, and present conviction, must be received and
heartily believed. The inevitable consequence of the second is: that
whatever the church teaches as revealed truth, is so revealed, is
therefore ultimately true, and must be rested on implicitly as the
infallible utterance of God.

The result of this first principle has been that the wonderful, and
often ludicrous, admixture of divine and human truth, which may be
found in the religion of many Protestants, is utterly impossible to
Catholics. With all the questions of natural religion, as
distinguished from revealed; with all the theorems of science and of
art; with the dark mysteries of nature and the still darker mysteries
of man; nay, even with those inferences from divine truth which make
up systems of theology, reason is competent to deal. It may pierce the
glittering nebulae of the Milky Way; it may fathom the recesses of the
ocean and cleave the crystal bowels of the world; it may climb the
dizzy heights of intellectual philosophy; it may conquer the vast
problems of political and social happiness. But here its journey ends.
When it stands beside that boundless sea which rolls between the
finite and the infinite, it finds no bark to bear it outward. Of all
that lies beyond, its eye, its ear, its touch remains insensible. It
can but sit down on the hither shore and wait for light--the light of
revelation.  [Footnote 148]

  [Footnote 148: The able writer of this article certainly does not
  intend to deny the competence of reason to judge of the evidence of
  revelation, or to judge that any proposition evidently contradictory
  to reason cannot be a revealed truth.--Ed. Catholic World.]

Reason is limited from above. Revelation is limited from below. In the
mysteries of God, in the supernatural, and in questions of _faith_,
her voice is law: and where it is law, it is absolute, unconditional,
indisputable. Free as the thought of God is man's thought everywhere
but there. There he must put his shoes from off his feet and listen
and obey. The ground he treads is holy. The voice he hears is that
which spoke of old out of the burning bush. He cannot gainsay God.

And thus it is that, practically, Catholics are so free in all matters
except those pertaining to religion. The line is drawn so clearly and
so definitely between what _is_ and what _is not_ of faith, that not
in one mind in ten thousand is there ever the slightest doubt as to
what must be received and what may be disputed. The consolation given
by this simple maxim: "_If God has not revealed it, I need not believe
it; but if God has declared it, whether or not I understand it, it is
surely true_."--when once incorporated into the guiding principles of
the heart, as in the case of every true Catholic it entirely is,
repays the soul for those dark hours of Protestant doubting and
perplexity, by contrast with which it can alone be truly valued.

The result of the second of these principles has been the perfect
unity of Catholics in doctrine and in morals. The voice of the church
is the voice of God. She is a living teacher. She does not hide her
truths in languages whose meaning sages only can unfold. She speaks to
every man _in his own vernacular_, and proposes to him not only the
_formularies_, but _the exact ideas_ which make up the Christian
faith. She is not confined to general statements, under whose vague
phraseology notions the most opposite may be concealed. She enters
into all the infinite details which every proposition of divine truth
embraces, and prints it in the same unvarying form upon the souls of
men. With the millions who are gone before she has thus labored. With
the millions who are yet alive she is thus laboring to-day. And all,
in their submission to her teaching, have found that perfect concord
of doctrine which the gospel promised to the faithful flock of Christ,
and testify to the eternal wisdom of that God who placed his church
upon the earth to set at naught the foolishness of man.

{469}

In a religion such as this there can be no room for _choice_. To the
church heresy is evermore a name of execration and of horror. The
heart and will of her disciples have but one exercise, and that is
submission. Unconditionally, unquestioningly, unprotestingly, they bow
before her voice and echo its decrees. Reason is quiescent. Where it
cannot comprehend, it passes by. Faith grasps the mystery and lays it
on the heart to be its law for ever. The soul has but one inquiry for
every dogma, for every precept: "_Teacher of God, what hast thou
spoken?_" The teacher answers and the soul obeys.

Such is Catholicity. It is the antithesis of Protestantism. Whatever
similarity may exist in certain of their doctrines, in their ultimate,
essential natures they are simple opposites. The void between them is
as vast as that through which the First-born of the morning fell; the
dividing lines as sharp and as precipitate as the high cliffs which
bound the tides of Acheron. That  "_via media_," along which the easy
traveller may walk secure, rejoicing in the sunlight of both earth and
heaven, is a fond, foolish dream. The church knows but two modes of
existence in reference to herself, submission and rebellion; and even
reason teaches that her judgment, on this point, is unimpeachable.

Through all that weary journey which lies between these nether worlds
of spiritual being the convert's feet must tread. When God's grace
finds him, he is a Protestant--perhaps so pure and logical as to be
standing on the shores of rationalism and looking at his own soul as
his source of light--perhaps so inconsistent and so self-deceived as
to acknowledge an authority which his fundamental Protestantism
denies. But whether from the external Saharas of Christian scepticism,
or whether from beneath the shadow of the truth itself, the path he
follows leads him to one goal, the goal of unconditional submission.
Conversion may come to him through the successive adoption of Catholic
dogmas, through fondness for external rites and forms, through
personal friendship and familiarity, through any of those myriad ways
by which God leads the steps of his elect toward heaven; but, when it
comes, it is the same change for each, for every one--the abnegation
of all choice and self-affirmation, and the complete subjection of the
heart and will to the obedience of faith. Then, and then only, is the
work ended and conversion made complete. What the church teaches is,
from that hour, the faith of that Christian heart. What the church
commands is the law of that Christian will. Doubt and hesitation and
self-following are of the days gone by, and his devotion to the
church, as God's teacher, is only rivalled by his love for her as the
home of God's elect. The waters of the deluge roar and dash around his
mighty ark of safety, and men and women, as they clamber up the rugged
mountains of their own devices, laugh at him for his ignorance and
folly; but he abides in peace, when the dark waves have overtopped
them and engulfed them, and will live to offer sacrifice on Ararat
when the days of divine searching have passed by.



The utter falsehood of those definitions of conversion which we have
denied, becomes apparent from this description of what conversion is.
There is no inherent impossibility that a pure Protestant, exercising
to the fullest extent the right of private judgment, should arrive at
doctrines identical with those which the church teaches, and should,
as a result of this identity, accept even her formularies as
expressive of his faith. The mystery of the Trinity, than which no
mystery is greater, is thus received by the majority of Protestants;
and there is nothing in the doctrines of Transubstantiation.
Purgatory, and the like, which is unreachable by the same process of
scriptural investigation, unaided by the conscious teachings of the
{470} church. There can be no doubt that men have, by this method,
approximated closely to Catholic doctrine, who yet were wholly
actuated by Protestant principles, and never dreamed of submitting
heart and will and reason to the dictation of any authority whatever.

These men apparently hang over the church, ready to drop like ripe
fruit into her open bosom. Nevertheless, whatever of her symbolism
they may cherish, they cherish, not because it is _hers_, but because
it is _their own_. It is not truth which _she_ has taught them; _they_
have discovered it themselves. It brings them no nearer to her in
heart. It does not subject their _will_ to hers. On the contrary; it
often begets in them an arrogance of her divine security, as if their
similarity to her constituted them her equals in the authority of God.
Such men are not with the church, whatever proximity they seem to
have. Their boast of Catholicity deceives many, and most frequently
themselves, but can delude none who realize to what humility her true
children must descend, and how unquestioningly, when God speaks, man
must hear. The prayers of the faithful are more needed for such souls
than for any others, that God would send them the disposition, as well
as the light of faith.

Of the various corollaries which might be drawn from this
demonstration of the real nature of conversion, there is but one which
time and space allow us to notice. That one is this: That the whole
question between Catholics and Protestants is one of fact and not
primarily of doctrine; and can, like any other fact, be investigated
and proved by human evidence. On one side, it is asserted that faith
and morals are of comparative indifference to salvation, and that no
source of divine light exists on earth higher than that of scripture,
interpreted and judged by reason. On the other side, it is claimed
that whatever God has revealed must be received without question or
contradiction, and that the organized society known as the Catholic
Church is the mouthpiece and medium of that revelation. This covers
the whole point in issue. If, as a matter of fact, the first assertion
is correct, Protestants are secure in their acceptance or denial of
any or of all articles of specific Christian doctrine. If the second
is true, the teachings of the Catholic Church must be received
implicitly, under peril of disobedience to God. The question of the
truth of particular dogmas, or of the obligation of certain codes of
law, is entirely foreign to this issue. If the church is right,
transubstantiation, the immaculate conception, the seven sacraments,
are matters not to be _discussed_ or _proven_, but to be _believed_.
If she is wrong, they are simply of no consequence whatever. Any
investigation which escapes this only real point in controversy will
be in vain. Inquiry must begin here and end here, or else result in
making men either bad Catholics or stronger Protestants than ever.

This "question of questions" is to be answered by logical
demonstration based on certain facts. As a historical work, the Bible
is a sufficient witness of the visible and audible facts which it
records; and the miracles of of Christ therein related establish his
personal divine commission and the entire reliability of the
declarations which he made. As historical works also, the writings of
his immediate disciples are a sufficient witness of their
understanding of his teachings, and of the actions which, in pursuance
of that understanding, they performed. If Christ stated that doctrines
and precepts are _not_ conditions of salvation, and placed in the
hands of man the book known as the Bible, with the assurance that he
could safely follow whatever interpretation thereof his human judgment
might give, and if, as so directed, his disciples did _not_ insist on
specific creeds and laws, and _did_ receive and circulate the Bible as
the only organ of revealed truth, then that fact can be ascertained.
If, on {471} the other hand, Christ revealed a certain system of
doctrine, and established certain laws of conduct; if he founded a
church and conferred on her the authority to teach and the right to be
obeyed; and if his followers recognized such an institution, and
uniformly submitted to its authority as divine, then this, as a fact,
can, in its turn, be proved.

To a fair, candid, and complete investigation of this question, in the
light of history, the Catholic Church invites all Protestants
throughout the world; confident that, by the good help of God's grace,
this simple examination, properly conducted, would lead the many
hundred jarring sects of Christendom into a Catholic unity of spirit
and into the bond of a true gospel peace.

--------

From Once a Week.


CHRISTMAS BELL.

  In broken notes of sound,
    The voice of distant bells
  Falls fitfully around,
    Borne o'er the rimy dells.
  Anon in wailing tones
    It breaks against the breeze,
  Or in sad accents moans
    Amidst the shivering trees.
  In fragments o'er the glades
    It falls, or floats aloft;
  Then trumulously fades
    In echoes low and soft.
  But other, nearer chimes,
    In laughing octaves run,
  In memory of old times.
    And what the days have done.
  Then changing, clang and wail
    Up in their prison high.
  And sob and groan and rail
    At their captivity.

  Ringing:--flinging wild notes everywhere!
  Clanging:--hanging discord in the air!
  Chiming:--rhyming words from brazen throat!
  Pealing:--stealing o'er the meadows and the moat!
  Dying:--sighing gently as a child!
  Floating:--gloating o'er their tumult wild!
  Swinging:--springing suddenly to life!
  Surging:--urging nature into strife!
  Laughing:--quaffing the sweet and eager air!
  Groaning:--moaning in a weird note of despair!

{472}

      Yes, how they sigh,
      And seemed to die:
  But like expiring ember,
      At slightest breath
      They leap from death,
  And wrestle with December!

      Oh, 'tis strange
      How they change,
  In rhythmus and in measure,
      Now tolling sad.
      Now almost mad,
  With throbbing pulse of pleasure.

  But not long thus,--the ringers soon
    Will catch the proper metre,
  Staccato first; then rippling tune
    Grows every moment sweeter.

  Away, away, the music flies.
    O'er mead and wold and river,
  Arpeggio movement shakes the skies.
    And makes the belfry quiver.

  Away, away, the cheerful sound
    Flies with its Christmas greeting.
  And laughs along the icy ground.
    Where snow-drops pale are peeping.

  The crocus, hearing chimes of mirth.
    Puts on her brightest yellow,
  What cares she for the frosty earth.
    When peals ring out so mellow?

  The blackbird, in a love-lorn mood,
    Is pecking at red berries.
  But hark! those joy-bells make her food
    As sweet as summer cherries.

  In truth all nature hears the strains,
    With heart of honest gladness;
  They ring surcease of human pains,
    And ring--a death to sadness.

  They ring of friendship, and the grasp
    Of hands in manly greeting;
  They ring the softer tender clasp
    Of Love and Psyche meeting.

  They ring oblivion of the years
    Whose sunset was in sorrow;
  They drown in waves of sound, the fears
    That cloud the dawn to-morrow.

{473}

  They ring the affluent table spread.
    They ring of that sweet maiden
  Who comes, with modest silent tread,
    With gifts for poor folk laden.

  They ring in tones more sweet than all
    Of hopes the Cross has given,
  And then their glad notes rise and fall.
    Like Christmas bells in Heaven.

------

ORIGINAL.

THE GODFREY FAMILY; OR, QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.


CHAPTER XIII.

HESTER GODFREY IN SEARCH OF PERFECTION.

"Papa,"' said Hester one morning, as she passed from the lawn into the
library, and threw her arms round her father's neck, "papa, I am
thoroughly resolved never to be married."

"Time enough, my darling, to think of that; but why this sudden
resolved?"

"Because married women are so unhappy. Adelaide and Annie were has
merry as crickets when they were single, and now how serious and
unhappy they appear."

"Seriousness is not unhappiness. Age makes one sedate."

"Nay, but I am sure they are miserable, and I tell you I will not
marry; so do not promise my hand to any one". And she put a very
lovely one into her father's hand as she spoke.

"I will not, my dear Hetty; but you may live to alter your mind."

"I shall not, and I will tell you why. I have considered this matter
very closely and I have discovered that a married woman is but a slave
to a man. She must have no will of her own, no purse of her own, and
though she has all the trouble and anxiety with the children, they are
his--not hers--as soon as they begin to reason. I love freedom, papa;
I will be no mere tool to any man. No art, no science, no refinement,
no practical improvement can flourish in slavery; and the reason women
have shown less aptitude for intellectual cultivation than men is,
that they are mere slaves--domestic drudges, for the most part--with
no higher interest than to procure food and clothing."

"Where did my Hester pick up Mary Wolstonecroft's writings?"

"Mary Wolstonecroft--who is she, papa?"

"A lady who advocates woman's rights, my love. I thought you had been
reading her book."

"There is no need if all she says is that which I feel, namely, that
all women are slaves. I learned this from simple observation. I wonder
all women do not feel it so."

"Women are supposed to live in their affections; and those whom we
love we serve willingly."

{474}

"Yes, but you know that soon becomes a mere supposition, even if it be
not so at first. How snappish wives usually are! I notice it in the
cottagers, in the tradesfolks; everywhere, where manners are not
taught to enable one to _sham_ before company. And the husbands are
surly, unmanageable bears; there must be something wrong in marriage
to produce these effects so frequently."

"And what remedy do you propose?" asked Mr. Godfrey, greatly amazed.

"Nay, that I have not considered. I only know that something is wrong
now, and that I will not marry 'till it is set right."

"Wait 'till you fall in love, my dear."

"Fall in love, indeed! What a ridiculous thing to do! No, papa, I
intend no fall; that is just why I will not marry. I might admire and
respect a man as my equal; I might even venerate him as my superior,
if he were my superior in mind; but bind myself to him as a slave I
would not. No Grecian hero in all antiquity could inspire me with love
enough to commit a moral suicide."

"The Grecian women claimed no equal rights," said Mr. Godfrey.

"No; I marked that well, papa. History is a treatise on men--on their
deeds, their daring, their wisdom, their improvement or retrogression.
Now and then, as if by accident, a woman's deeds were recorded, but
very rarely. Why this has been, I cannot divine. Woman ought, could,
should, and must rebel. This is the age of freedom. Does freedom
concern only half of the human race?"

"No; it concerned the horde of women who forced their way into the
royal apartments at Versailles. My Hester should have headed the
procession?"

"Now, papa, that is not fair. You know well I do not wish to
countenance rude and vulgar proceedings. Only I do not see why woman
should not cultivate her intellectual and moral powers, and march
onward in the career of perfectibility as well as man."

"What is that long word you used, Hester?"

"Now, papa, how provoking you are! Have you not yourself taught me to
cultivate every faculty to perfection, as a duty? Have you not often
said that the world has yet to learn the results of an equipoised,
many-sided development? That hitherto too strong a bias has been
given, and that a one-sided training has made a one-sided character?"

"I have said this. Hester, but what is this to the purpose?"

"Why, perfectibility must mean the tendency toward perfection produced
by this equipoised, by this many-sided development; and woman must be
the chief operator in effecting this equipoised development, because
woman is the exclusive educator of the young of either sex; and it is
when young, when very young, that the germs are laid of ideas which
perish not. Physiologists say that though character is modified
afterward, the form is, for the most part, given ere the seventh year
has been attained."

"It may be so, but what of that?" asked the father.

"Why, I think, then, that woman's especial vocation is to the study of
this perfectibility: that is, how to procure a due development--how to
teach the race to aspire. It seems to me that, generally speaking, the
aims of the world are very grovelling and sensual. If we could once
fire the race with the desire of reaching the utmost perfection of
which there nature is capable, methinks a glorious work would be
begun, and after ages might be brought almost to doubt of the misery
that now exists, their own position would be so different."

"It is a glorious project," said the father turning to the animated
girl, "but a difficult one; the world is large, and every one thinks
his own ideas the right ones."

"I know it; but I know, too that that thought must not check an
inspiration. Individuals have changed the face of nations before now.
Had they suffered their enthusiasm to be checked by dwelling on how
little one {475} person can do, nothing would ever have been done. An
individual who feels an intense interest in any subject, and a full
conviction that such a subject is likely to benefit his co-patriots,
is bound to carry forward his views to the utmost of his power."

"You may be right--nay, the principle is right; but what can my little
Hester do?"

"She can study and think and experimentalize and observe and have the
benefit of her father's advice through all, if only he will give it
her, if only he will put it out of his head that every girl is born to
be married, and that a girl cannot think and act for herself, and
cherish ideas of philanthropy and work for the public good."

"Lycurgus would not sanction this, my little Spartan girl."

"Perhaps not, papa; but times have altered. Legislators used to seek
for a numerous population. Now, Dr. Malthus says the world is
over-peopled."

"Why, Hester, I did not think these were subjects that you cared for
at all."

"But I do care for them, papa--more, much more than you think; and
what I ask of you is to forget that I am a girl, and let me think and
study everything--political economy, social economy, natural
philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics. I want to know how each of these
bears upon the condition the race, to see what man might be. I want to
know why man is created--to what he tends."

"Man is created to enjoy life, my child."

"Then why are so many miserable? Why have we disease, plague, famine,
war, and bloodshed?"

"'These are partly the result of man's ignorance."

"And yet man has existed nearly six thousand years, and every kind of
experience and teaching has been his; and philosophers, sages,
religionists, lawgivers have been trying to instruct him, and he is
ignorant still."

"You forget, Hester, that every individual that is born into the world
is born ignorant and helpless; and yet every individual must realize
instruction ere ignorance can be banished. Where you have an educated
people to work upon, you may propound improvements and be understood,
and then you will find instruments who will co-operate with you; but
now look at the population. Occupied in daily toil, as the price of
life, how can they comprehend high theories, or study experimental
philosophy. If they go into it at all, it must be to take upon trust a
few ideas, and they are as likely to take the wrong ideas as the right
ones, by that means."

"And is there no remedy for this? Is all this toil necessary? It seems
to me as if a great deal of unnecessary work is always being
performed. Spartan frugality would disapprove of much of modern
luxury; and is not half the toil for luxury merely?"

"Some of it is; but Spartan pride refused all toil, even for
necessaries. The laborers of the present day do the work of the helots
in Sparta. To work was beneath the dignity of a Spartan."

"And we have no helots in England now," said Hester.

"Would you wish to have?" asked Mr. Godfrey.

"No! Why should one part of mankind be sacrificed to the happiness of
the other? I would have no men slaves, no women slaves. Let all be
free and equal. If there is work to be done, let all do a portion, and
let all have a portion of rest, or rather of leisure, for the
improvement of the mental faculties."

"No man will work, unless compelled, at hard, daily labor. Those who
have property are not compelled. How will you compel them? For
instance, my neighbor, the blacksmith, has a wife and six children to
support. He works from twelve to fourteen hours daily. His wife keeps
no servant; she scrubs, washes, cooks, and attends to all herself.
Now, you {476} and I, being people of leisure, should do half their
work for them. Suppose you go and help the wife, and I go and help the
blacksmith half of every day; they might then study perfectibility the
other half."

Hester laughed. "We might do worse than that," she said; "but that
would only be helping two individuals, whereas I wish to place society
on a right principle. I no longer wonder at the French revolution. Had
I to toil hard and to live hard, seeing all the while some few
privileged beings do nothing at all but revel in luxury, I should be a
revolutionist too; only I should not know how to set the matter right.
One thing is clear from all history, luxury is an injury to the
individual who uses it, and all states have been weakened when luxury
has become common; therefore, father, I will make myself hardy, that I
may not be corrupted in my own proper person."

And true to her resolution, Hester, regardless of public opinion,
became simple in her habits. A hard bed, plain diet, an uncarpeted
room, with singular plainness of dress, distinguished this young
aspirant after perfectibility. Her mother would willingly have seen
her dress in a manner becoming her station; but Hester "did not choose
to make herself a peg on which to hang dressmakers' fancies. Clothes
were for two purposes," she said, "for warmth and decency; when these
two objects were attained it was enough." Her mother's remonstrances
availed nothing, and her father laughed: the eccentricities of the
spoiled child amused him, and daily he became more accustomed to
gratify every wish that she expressed.

Hester was in earnest. She founded schools, she formed societies in
which adult laborers might receive instruction in the evenings; she
established libraries and promoted the scientific associations
afterward more fully developed under the name of "Mechanics'
Institutes." Hester visited the lowly that she might form an estimate
of their real position, observe their improveable points, and
cultivate these latter to good purpose; but the intricacies thickened
upon her. She heard complaints that the poor were improvident and
wasteful.

"How can that be," said she, "when a man pays rent, and provides fuel,
clothing, and food for himself, his wife, and four children, out of
wages at twelve shillings a week? How much does our mere board cost?
twenty times that sum at least, and mamma is called economical. Oh! it
must be a miserable life they lead on such a poor pittance as that!
Papa, a man must have food; he gets it from the ground: he must have
shelter; a few trees chopped down will give him that: he must have
clothes; these also he can grow: why not place man on land where they
can get these, rather than let them half starve at home?"

"It is being done in or colonies; but an emigrant's life, my Hester,
would scarcely assist your perfectible theories. Every moment is
employed in drudgery of some kind. A large proportion of the emigrants
die of hardship."

Hester turned round impatiently, "Ever, ever an obstacle! Yet I will
not give up. There must be a way of improving mankind, and I will find
it yet."

These discussions were frequently renewed, but with little better
success. On one occasion Eugene was present, and he said with a smile,
"So you, too, are seeking the philosopher's stone, sister? I doubt you
will not find it in exterior relationships or in material
circumstance; evil is in the world--evil to a larger amount than you
have any conception of, and no exterior arrangement will suffice to
banish it. Set man free, as you term it, from the restraint of
overlabor, without awakening the interior impulse to realize a higher
life, and the chances are that the ale-house or gin-shop will be his
school."

"But will not education affect this awakening?"

{477}

"Education on a right basis would undoubtedly do much, but not
education on a selfish basis; not if the highest aim is to improve in
temporalities, not if virtue is proposed as the best policy to forward
earthly views. This would be merely teaching a system of selfish
calculation that would make man neither wiser nor better, and
consequently not happier."

"And what other motive would you suggest, brother?"

Eugene glanced at his father and hesitated. After a moment's pause, he
said: "Some philosophers, and among them the divine Plato, have
thought that within man dwelt an essence called a soul, and that its
culture furnished motives superior to all others in enlightening man.
There are other theories respecting the soul worth studying too, I
think. That which has influenced Europe during eighteen hundred years
has been the religion of Christ. Have you ever studied that, Hester?"

"No! I thought it was a superstition akin to, though distinct from,
the ancient pagan mythology."

"You will not find it so." rejoined her brother, "or rather you will
find it the opposite. Paganism is the worship of self, of sensuality,
of self-aggrandizement, and of physical power. Christianity is the
worship of spirituality; it triumphs over selfishness by divine love,
and elevates the soul by the same influence above the paltry views
emanating from an exclusive adhesion to man's lower nature."

Mr. Godfrey's lowering brow betokened a rising storm. Eugene made his
escape, and Hester laid her hand on her father's shoulder, and said
coaxingly, "Did you not say I might study every influence, papa, that
has affected humanity? Why not study this of which Eugene speaks?"

"Hester, there is a serpent in the East which has the power of fixing
his eye on the bird he marks for his prey, and his fascination is such
that by merely continuing to gaze he draws his victim straight into
his mouth."

"What of this, father?"

"It is so of superstition also; it strikes a chord in the human heart,
which, once awakened, becomes restless evermore. Let it but once
attract your notice, it fascinates, monopolizes every faculty, and the
strongest minds have fallen victims to its baneful power of
concentrating the attention. Let it alone, my child."





CHAPTER XIV.

THE DEATH-BED OF THE DUKE OP DURIMOND.



The illness of the Duke of Durimond became more and more serious.
Adelaide's friends offered to join her, but she said the duke's mind
required peculiar treatment, and that more company in the house might
annoy him. From the time of his leaving England the duke's associates
had observed a great alteration in his manners and habits. Whereas he
was formerly the gayest of the gay, he now shunned society. Soon after
his arrival at Vienna he had engaged an Italian servant of seemingly
unusual education and seriousness, and him he admitted into his
confidence; to him he entrusted the direction of his private affairs.
When he returned home, at those different intervals we have mentioned,
this servant accompanied him, and was treated by the duke less as a
humble dependent than as a valuable friend. The man held aloof from
the other inmates of the castle, and was waited on in his own
apartment by the duke's express order. Now, when the duke returned
home, he was accompanied not only by this Italian gentleman or
servant, whichever he might be, but by two other Italian valets, very
serious for their state in life, who waited on the duke and on his
friend to the exclusion of the English menials who had formerly access
to the ducal apartments.

{478}

The duke was a prisoner in his own room, rarely could he ever leave
his bed. Adelaide came at stated intervals to inquire after the state
of his health, and in all formality took her seat at his side. Madame
de Meglior often accompanied her, and to the surprise of both ladies a
request was urgently preferred that Euphrasie might be induced to pay
daily morning visits to the sick chamber, at a time when none were
usually admitted.

The duchess looked her astonishment, but the duke took her hand with
more kindness and less of ceremony than usual, and said:

"Nay, do not be surprised, your grace; I am a poor man, now about to
appear before my Maker. I need all the assistance I can get, and I
have faith in the prayers of Euphrasie. The hour named for her is the
hour of prayer: if you will come also, believe me you will be
welcome."

"Prayer, what prayer?"

"The most solemn prayer that can be offered, that which accompanies
the most holy sacrifice of the new law."

As the duke spoke, M. Martigni, the man of business we have spoken of,
pulled aside a curtain which had been hung before an alcove opposite
to which the duke's bed had been placed, and there a beautiful little
marble altar, appropriately adorned, became visible. Adelaide gazed in
mute surprise.

"What am I to infer from this, your grace?"

"That at the last hour, I, a miserable sinner, dare to hope pardon
from an outraged God, because he sent his Son to die on the cross for
me! O Adelaide! the gods of this world, as your father so justly calls
them--the gods of this world, pride, lust, sensuality, love of power,
and ambition, but rise to reproach us when we draw near to our end.
Long, too long did I resist my sweet Ellen's lessons! I felt, indeed,
that something within me said we could not utterly die; but I was
leading a life for self--I could not see the truth; but at last, late,
too late I knew my duty. Adelaide, for two years past I have been
reconciled to the Catholic church!"

"It is to attend Mass, then, I presume, that your grace desires
Euphrasie's company?" said Adelaide.

"It is," replied the duke; "if any will accompany her, they will be
welcome."

But this the duchess took especial care to prevent. She whispered to
Madame de Meglior, as they quitted the apartment:

"The malady has touched his brain; say nothing of what has happened."

This was the cause of Adelaide's reluctance to have more company in
the house. On this account she declined alike the visits of the duke's
relatives and of her own. She wish the matter to be kept a profound
secret from all; and though she permitted Euphrasie to comply with the
duke's request, it was on the express condition of her keeping the
fact unknown. But such precautions as these, though feasible for a
time, are useless in the end. The duke's disorder was of a painful,
lingering, and variable nature. Sometimes he would be confined to his
room, and even to his bed for weeks together, then he would rally a
little, go into the adjoining sitting-room, and once or twice even
took an airing in his carriage. No excuse could be framed, then, for
excluding relations so rigorously. Mr. Godfrey became annoyed at the
attempt, and at length, suspecting some latent motive, sent Eugene to
the castle to find out the secret, if there were one.

Eugene, on his entrance, met and recognized Martigni, and by him was
introduced into the duke's apartment before Adelaide knew he was in
the house. He found the duke propped up by pillows and seated near the
window. He greeted the young man cordially, though with a half
reproach that he did not come before.

"I have been very ill, Eugene" he said; "sometimes I hardly thought to
be alive till morning, and I wished to say a few words to your father
about my wife, but none of you came near me!"

{479}

Eugene looked, as his felt, surprised. "We were given to understand
that a visit from us would not be agreeable to your grace" he said;
"and being hurt at the intimation, especially as the exclusion lasted
so long, I came to-day to ascertain the cause."

"I gave no such intimation, I wished for no such exclusion, rather the
contrary; but perhaps Adelaide--I think I divine the cause; you must
excuse your sister, Eugene. Perhaps she is more annoyed than she
showed to me. To me she is ever polite, but doubtless she is annoyed;
perhaps it is natural that she should be so," and the duke hesitated.

"Annoyed! At what, may it please your grace? You cannot think that
'annoyed' is a term applicable to my sister's feeling at your
illness?"

"No! no! not at my illness, no! But, Eugene, I have spent a long life
of vanity before the world, and ere I die I should like the world to
know what perhaps the duchess would fain conceal, that I repent of my
iniquities, that I thankfully before the chastising hand that has laid
me low, that I prize my sufferings as the greatest blessing, as a
token that God has not forsaken me, though for so many years I forsook
him. Eugene, I am a Catholic!"

"God be thanked!" involuntarily escaped from the young man's lips, as
his hand was clasped in that of the duke, and tears started to his
eyes, "God be thanked!"

The door opened and the duchess entered. At one glance she understood
all, and that her surmises of Eugene had also been correct.

"The duke is better to-day," she coldly said. "We have had a long time
of anxiety, but perhaps even yet he may rally and be himself again."

"I dare not flatter you, sister," answered Eugene. "His grace's looks
are not those of a convalescent."

"No! no!" said the duke. "No health for me again. Suffering, perhaps,
for a long time yet, but no health; but I know not why my illness
should induce your grace to lead so lonely a life as you have lately
chosen. Let me beg of you to surround yourself with your family;
Eugene says they wait but your bidding."

Adelaide colored. "I fear the disturbance will be too much for your
grace's repose."

"Not at all, not at all; the house is large, many might be in it and I
not hear a sound. I should be gratified by knowing that you had
friends with you when I depart. Send for your friends, I beg of you.
Eugene, perhaps you will write to Mr. Godfrey in my behalf, to inform
him of my wishes?"

"I will, your grace."

And the family came; and still Adelaide tried to conceal from her
father a secret which was already known to Eugene. She scarcely hoped
to be able to do so long; but the annoyance to her was so excessive
that she could not bring herself to speak of it, and she hoped others
would decide, as she tried to decide in her own mind, that the duke's
intellect was affected. But then Eugene! he was smitten with the same
mania! She felt sure of that, though no words had ever passed on the
subject.

* * * * *

"Mr. Godfrey," said the duke, when at length there was an interview
between the two--"Mr. Godfrey, tell me what you wish me to do more for
your daughter. A handsome jointure is secured to her; the estates are
entailed; but tell me anything else I can do to promote her happiness,
and it shall be done."

This was the spirit in which the invalid conversed, and in which he
executed all that was proposed to him for Adelaide. She had no cause
of complaint, and his manifest care of her softened that haughty heart
a little. Had he not been a Catholic she could have been grateful to
him; but she was the more irritated at this fact, that now she dared
not set up the plea of imbecility to account for it, for that {480}
plea would have invalidated the newly drawn up documents in her favor;
all her hope consisted in concealment.

Eugene was often with the duke, who at length ventured to speak to him
on a subject which caused him great mental anguish. He had never been
able to trace Ellen, nor to transmit to her any pecuniary aid. He
suspected, indeed, that the Catholic bishop could have afforded him
information, but he was inflexible in refusing to do so. A
considerable sum of money had been set apart for Ellen's use, and a
fortune provided for the boy. "Perhaps," said the duke, "after my
death the bishop might enable you, Eugene, to trace the mother and
child, and induce them to accept the provision. Will you undertake the
commission?"

"Most willingly," said Eugene.

"When I am dead, let it be," said the duke. "Ellen will take nothing
from me living--when I am dead she will be more easily persuaded. I
know she must wish a high education for her son. She will not, I hope,
refuse assistance for that. But even if she does, I have settled his
money separately, that he may be sure of getting it. Tell Ellen, too,
that I died a Catholic; I know she has long prayed for this; and tell
her that I rejoice now that I have no child save hers, my only son.
Let strangers take the estate that had so nearly wrecked my soul. O
Eugene! none but Catholics can understand the benediction pronounced
by our Lord on poverty! The possession of power, of wealth, of glory,
fan our egotistical feelings, and lead us more and more astray. I
think I should not dare to trust myself with them again, had I still
power to use them. And I thank God I have not the power, lest the
temptation should again prove too strong for my virtue."

The duke lingered on for months, long months. How tediously did those
months pass to the Godfrey family--to the duchess in particular--to
all, save Eugene. In the sick-chamber he passed most of his time. To
Adelaide's joy, her father had not yet discovered the fatal secret. He
was so busy, acting for the duke, transacting business, arranging
tenantry, etc.; and then he spent long hours in the glorious pagan
temple, the gods of which he had taken care to secure as Adelaide's
personal possession, and for the reception of which he was building a
large hall at the jointure-house, that when the castle they now
inhabited should pass to the heir-at-law, he might be able to take
possession of these trophies of art at once.

Such was the friendship and delicacy of the man of the world! The
summer passed, the winter came, and a wintry change came over the
invalid. One evening he called his wife, his friends, his domestics,
every inmate of the house, into his presence, and, one by one, begged
their forgiveness for every uneasiness he had caused them, for every
bad example he had set them, and begged of them to pray for him as for
one who was about to appear before God, to give account of a mis-spent
life. To Adelaide, and to her father, mother, and sister, this
appeared like a well-acted scene; but the domestics, nay, even Madame
de Meglior retired in tears.

Night came. An oppression was over the household. None cared to retire
to rest, and yet none dared again approach the duke's apartment. Mrs.
Godfrey sat in Adelaide's room that night while Hester was with Madame
de Meglior. Euphrasie was missing, but, as usual, was forgotten. Even
Mr. Godfrey partook in some measure of the excitement. He had asked
the physician that evening more anxiously than usual, how the patient
was; and though the response had been, "Somewhat better," he, with the
household, did not give it credence.

He paced his chamber, lay down on a sofa, rose, and paced it again;
looked at his watch--one, two, three, four o'clock; how long the hours
were that night! He opened his door, walked out, and paused at the
door of his daughter's room. He heard speaking, {481} gently he
tapped, his wife opened the door to him; neither she nor the daughter
had been in bed.

"Any news? whispered he.

"No! All is quiet in the duke's chamber."

"I will go and see," he said.

He passed through the whole retinue of domestics in the galleries. Not
one had gone to bed, yet all were hushed; not one had ventured to make
inquiries at the sick-room door.

Mr. Godfrey passed silently on, his foot-fall was scarcely heard. A
dull sound as of low continuous speaking came from the duke's
apartment. The door was not locked; he turned the handle gently and
went in without rapping. What a scene met his view! Candles were
lighted on the altar. Beside it, rapt in prayer, knelt Euphrasie. The
stranger, Martigni, robed in the sacred vestments, was in the act of
placing the Holy of Holies upon the tongue of the dying man, whom
Eugene was tenderly supporting in his arms. The sick man sank back on
the pillow as the priest left him, and the prayers continued; Mr.
Godfrey paused. A sensation of wondering anger stole over him, yet he
waited for the benediction of the priest. Eugene was on his knees by
the bedside. The ceremony over, Mr. Godfrey approached him, shook him,
and in a harsh whisper said:

"Boy, what mummery is this?"

Eugene rose. The sick man opened his eyes. A bright smile broke over
his features. "No mummery," he faintly said.

Then again there was a pause, and a gasping for breath, and the eyes
closed. They opened again: "Jesus have mercy; Mary help," were the
last words he uttered, and he died.

It was no time for explanation. Mr. Godfrey retired. On leaving the
chamber he became aware that imprudently the door he had left half
open had partially revealed to the domestics, now assembled without
the chamber, that something unusual was taking place within. To their
questions, Mr. Godfrey replied: "He is dead." And instantly the
chamber was filled with weeping mourners. Good, kind, and liberal had
been the master they had lost, and he was much beloved. To their
wonder they beheld the altar on which stood the unextinguished
candles. Before it knelt the priest, chaunting, in a very low voice,
the office for the dead, which was responded to by the Italian valets
kneeling beside the bed. Euphrasie had disappeared, but on the bed lay
the corpse, one hand grasping the crucifix. They stood rooted to the
spot at the strangeness of the scene. They had not yet satisfied their
wonder when the duchess entered. She cast one look on the bed; then
approaching the priest, said:

"You will please to quit this chamber as soon as convenient, and
disencumber the room of these useless toys."

Eugene sprang to her side. "Sister," said he, "in the name of Heaven,
do nothing rashly. Leave these things to me; to me give your orders;
on my honor they shall be obeyed."

The duchess bethought herself one moment. "Clear the room of these,
then," she said, pointing to the wondering domestics.

Eugene obeyed.

"Now," said the duchess, "let there be an end of this foolery. In an
hour I will send those hither whose duty it is to tend the dead. By
that time let no vestige remain of this offensive foreign trumpery;
and let these strangers quit the house."

The tone was too decided to be disputed; the commands were obeyed; and
so successfully did Mr. Godfrey assist his daughter in giving the lie
to the reports that were spread through the neighborhood, that it came
at last to be considered as an established fact that the whole scene
of the death-bed was got up by a concerted plan of the Italian valets,
who hoped in this way to convert their master at his dying hour, and
the duke himself being insensible made no opposition! Thus can the
"great ones" of the earth oft condescend to lie, though they would
{482} challenge a man to a duel who dared to question the nicety of
their honor.

For many days the duke lay in state in his ancestral hall; from far
and near crowds came to gaze on the gorgeously fitted up apartment,
hung with emblazoned hatchments, encircled round with all the
trappings of woe. Eugene had quitted the house at the time of the
duke's decease, in company with the foreigners his sister had
commanded to depart. He reappeared on the day of the funeral, and
requested to speak with his mother. To his surprise he found her
haggard and worn, and traces of excessive weeping were on her
countenance. She greeted him kindly, made him sit down beside her,
took his hand in hers and held it, but wept instead of speaking.
Eugene was puzzled and alarmed, for all agitation was unusual with his
mother. They were alone together, yet the silence was not broken.
After awhile a servant came to say that the procession was forming for
the funeral, he supposing that Eugene came expressly to attend it.

"Shall I go, mother?" said Eugene, but his mother held him fast, and
shook her head.

"It would be better not," she said; "they might be bitter even on a
day like this. No, Eugene, do not see your father yet. Go home, I will
be there in a few days. We will talk matters over, and all will be
right again. Your father and Hester will remain a short time with
Adelaide. But you and I will go home. Do not stay here now, but meet
me tomorrow at the post-house ten miles from this. I will be there at
ten o'clock. I will stop the carriage for you to ride home with me."

Eugene wonderingly assented; and as she seemed anxious to get him out
of the house, he left as soon as the vast cortege had disappeared.

Crowds of nobility, crowds of gentry, crowds of tenantry accompanied
the corpse as it was borne to the family vault. A collation was
afterward spread for the guests; they partook of it, went home, and in
less than a month were eager in paying court to a new duke, and the
late one was to them as though he had never been.





CHAPTER XV.

THE MOTHER AND SON.

It was a strange and certainly not a very pleasant feeling to Eugene
to find himself thus secretly, as it were, in his mothers company. Her
agitation, however, had subsided. During the journey she was even
cheerful at times, and she made not the slightest allusion to the
subject which had disturbed her. On their arrival at home she busied
herself more than had ever been her wont in domestic and tenantry
affairs, and kept Eugene occupied in many ways. There was, he fancied,
a tenderness in her intercourse with him that he had rarely observed
before, though she had ever been to him a most loving mother. Some
weeks passed, and then a letter came which made Mrs. Godfrey turn pale
as she read it. Eugene, alarmed, rose and placed himself beside her.
"Is anything the matter, dearest mother?" he asked.

"Yes, no, yes! that is, they are coming home."

"And who are they who cause you this alarm?"

"Your father and Hester."

"My father! he has ever love you dearly! Mother, my dear mother, do
explain yourself!"

The poor lady laid her head on Eugene's shoulder, and wept. Eugene
tried in vain to soothe her. At length he said, "May I see the letter,
mother?"

"No, no; you will know its contents but too soon. Now, Eugene, answer
me: have I not loved you well? have I not been a good mother to you?"

"The best of mothers," said Eugene, caressingly.

{483}

"Then you love me somewhat--you would do something for me!"

"Anything in my power, dear mother. I would lay down my life for you."

"It is not your life I want you to relinquish, foolish boy, but your
_fancies_. Your father has taken most serious offense at your
religious demonstrations, and swears he will disinherit you unless you
recant. Unfortunately, although some of the estate is entailed, much
of it is not, and you will lose a princely fortune if you deny his
wish."

"What does he wish?"

"That you renounce _in toto_, all Catholic friends and all Catholic
opinions."

Eugene made no reply.

"Eugene, my only son, my best hope, my greatest joy, did it depend on
me I would not shackle your freedom of action; Christianity,
Mohammedanism, or any other _ism_, might be at your option. Your
happiness is my desire, and whatever I might think of your creed, I
would not let it stand between me and my love for you. But yet is not
thus with your father. He will not suffer a Catholic in his house."

She paused; still Eugene replied not. She went on: "Eugene, you would
not be the cause of my death! I feel you would not!"' and she threw
her arms about him. "Yet these divisions will surely kill me; I dare
not tell you how I have suffered during the last few weeks."

"I have seen it, dear mother, and though I only partly guessed the
cause, I deeply sympathize with your unhappiness."

"Then you will remedy it?"

"I do not see how just yet. Thought must be free. I dare not bind
myself to think at another's pleasure."

"But you need not declare your thoughts".

"Nay, mother, I must be free: free to think, free to act according to
the dictates of my conscience. I learned this necessity from yourself,
dear mother; do not now belie your own teachings. You told me ever to
seek the truth, and to act upon it when found. I will not bind myself
to follow another course, were a kingdom to be the purchase of the
compromise."

"Or your mother's love, Eugene?"

"My mother will but love me better for practising the lessons that she
taught me. I know my mother's principles, and I do not fear the loss
of her love."

"Flatterer! but were it even so, your father is serious, Eugene. He
will not see you again, unless you accede to his demand."

"When is he coming home?"

"On the day after tomorrow."

"Then I depart to-morrow; I will not encounter him in his present
humor. Besides, I promised the late duke to execute a commission for
him; it is time I set about it."

"And how will you live, rash boy?"

"Will he not continue my allowance to me?"

"I do not know, at least I do not want the question mooted just now.
To prevent the necessity of it, I had a deed drawn up the other day
which will supply you with necessaries till you return to reason." And
Mrs. Godfrey took from her bureau a very business-like document, which
proved to be a deed of gift of the principal part of the property
settled upon herself and her heirs. "Use this," she said, "until right
reason returns to you."

"My mother!"

"No words now; I did it to relieve my own mind, for I must consent to
your departure. We will hope for better times, for I see I cannot
change you at present."

The property thus settled on our young hero was but a modest portion
for one educated as Eugene had been; yet to those numerous middle
people who struggle daily with economy it would have seemed a fortune.

{484}

Eugene departed with a gloom upon his feelings certainly, yet not with
hopelessness. He proceeded at once to call on the bishop, from whom he
hoped to obtain tidings of Ellen; but the bishop was gone to Rome, and
M. Bertolot with him, and they were not expected back till the spring.
It was dull work spending that winter alone, for to return to
Cambridge was not to be thought of. At last the spring advanced, and
the buoyancy of youth restored hope to his spirit; he resolved to take
a pedestrian tour through Wales while waiting the bishop's return.
Several months had passed since he left his home. His mother often
wrote to him, but no invitation to return came with her letters.
Young, and desirous of knowledge, his projected expedition would have
been acceptable to him but for this circumstance of domestic
estrangement. However, he wandered on, with what courage he might, and
found himself already on foot, with knapsack on his back, pursuing his
travels. The rage for making tours was not at that time what it has
since become. The scenes were comparatively untrodden and undescribed,
so that the pleasure and the charms of novelty at least were Eugene's.
He wandered on for some days, delighted with the picturesque scenery,
and gathering health and vigor from his primitive mode of travelling.

One fine morning he rose particularly early, and had gone some miles,
when he began to feel the need of some refreshment. He had neglected
to inquire where this could be obtained, and began to wonder where he
was likely to obtain any breakfast. Feeling somewhat impatient at the
length of the road, he climbed a high bank on the right hand side, to
gain a view of the country, and gladly perceived that immediately
below lay a scattered village. It was the first of May, and children
were carrying garlands from house to house. The morning was lovely,
and every thing wore the aspect of happiness. Our traveller sprang
down the bank, and made his way over fences into the village. He
stopped at the first cottage he came to; it was the picture of
neatness; the honey-suckle and sweet-brier climbed over the porch, and
the little garden-plot in front was the very embodiment of beauty. All
the early flowers were grouped in beds, most elegantly arranged. A
dark-eyed boy stood in the porch, watching the garlands which the
children were displaying. He caught sight of Eugene standing at the
gate, and came forward. His open-heartedness was painted on his
countenance.

"Can I serve you, sir?" said the boy. "You appear to be a stranger
here."

"I am a stranger," replied Eugene, "that is, I am a traveller. Can you
tell me where I may find rest and a breakfast?"

The boy opened the gate, and conducted Eugene into the porch, He then
went to call his mother.

A middle-aged woman of superior manners came forward, and bade him
welcome:

"You will find no inn, sir, nearer this than a mile or two; pray walk
is and partake of such fare as our cottage affords."

Good tea, eggs, bread and butter were produced, and Eugene did them
ample justice; but during the meal and after it was over, he could not
help being struck with the air of both mother and son, and the
appearance of the place altogether. The walls were only whitewashed,
and the floor uncarpeted, but on the said walls hung paintings of a
high order, and in a small recess stood a beautiful marble statuette
of our Blessed Lady. The features of the boy, too, seemed those of a
face familiar to him. A thought glanced through his mind as he gazed
on the finely formed face. "Thank you warmly for your hospitality,
young sir," said he, taking the boy's hand and drawing him nearer to
him. "Now, please to tell me by what name I M to remember you?"

{485}

"My name is Henry Daubrey," said the boy.

"Daubrey" thought Eugene; "can that the her maiden name? I almost
forgot. Ellwood was the name he gave her." He hesitated; then, turning
to the lady, remarked, in a somewhat embarrassed manner: "Judging by
these paintings, madam, I should imagine you, like myself, are almost
a stranger here. These are no country daubs."

"Mamma did these herself," explained the boy. The lady signed to the
boy to be silent. "She had not lived there always;" she said.

"Pardon my impertinence, madam," said Eugene, "but this young lad's
features so strikingly resemble those of a friend I have lately lost,
that I can but fancy he must be in some way related to him."

"What was your friend's name?"

"The Duke of Durimond."

The lady turned alarmingly pale, as she faltered forth, "And is the
Duke of Durimond is dead?"

"He died in my arms, about four months ago."

There was a long pause, which no one seemed inclined to break. At
length Eugene resumed: "The duke's life, latterly, puzzled many. He
married, left his wife suddenly, went abroad, fell ill, for upward of
two years suffered greatly, even tortures occasionally, which tortures
he endured with the patience of a martyr, being even thankful for his
sufferings. He died in the sentiments of the most perfect contrition,
immediately after receiving the Holy Viaticum."

"The Viaticum! Was the duke a Catholic?"

"He came so latterly, though this is not made public; the family
carefully conceal it."

A look of thanksgiving, with clasped hands, upraised, as it were,
involuntarily, confirmed Eugene's presentiment. After awhile he
continued: "When the duke was on his death-bed, he charged me to seek
out a lady, for whom he entertained a high esteem. I have a letter for
her in my knapsack. I will show it to you."

The letter produced was directed, "To Ellen, from Colonel Ellwood on
his death-bed." The lady's hand closed on the lines. Eugene made no
resistance. The lady retired to an inner apartment. The boy followed
her. An hour elapsed; stifled sobs were heard, but the lady came not
back. At length the boy returned with an open note. It contained these
words:

"You have guessed rightly: return in a few days; I cannot see you now.
When you return, ask for

  "ELLEN DAUBREY."

"I will return on this day week, tell your mother so!" was the verbal
message Eugene delivered to the boy.

"I will," said the boy; and Eugene departed.

* * * * *

Ellen's account of herself when Eugene did return, was, that she had
made a very comfortable subsistence by the sale of her paintings,
which she had disposed of to a London dealer, to whom she was
introduced by the Comte de Villeneuve, who had watched over her
interests with a zeal truly fraternal. She and her boy had dwelt
together in seclusion, he giving her what help he could in the garden
and in her domestic affairs, she, in return, instructing him to the
best of her power.

"He loves learning, Mr. Eugene," she said, "and will soon be beyond my
teaching; besides, he wishes to become a priest, but how to get him
the necessary instruction in this most prejudiced country is a real
enigma."

"The Abbé Martigni, who was the duke's private chaplain, and who is
cognizant of all the facts connected with his position, would, I doubt
not, take charge of his education, if you were willing," replied
Eugene; "but how would you be able to bear the separation necessary in
that case?"

"I should fix my abode near, and find some occupation for myself,"
said the mother. "God forbid my selfish affection should stand between
my child and his vocation."

{486}

Ellen might have said that her occupation was already found, for
wherever there was an act of kindness to do, there Ellen found work.
Had she admitted Eugene to the inner room of her own cottage, he might
have found an old paralytic woman, who, deserted by all her friends,
was taken care of by this good Samaritan and tended with the affection
of a daughter. The duke's legacy to her was now employed entirely in
acts of mercy and of charity, offered up for the repose of his soul.
Not one penny was appropriated to her own use, for she still lived on
the product of her pencil. On the return of the bishop the Abbé
Martigni was appointed to a mission, and Henry Daubrey resided with
him as his pupil, preparatory to his being sent to the seminary,
aiding his tutor in that semi-concealed fulfilment of his high duties
which was then the characteristic mode of English Catholicity, induced
by English semi-toleration of Catholic religious rites. The mother
lived close by, and it was not long ere her house was known as a house
of mercy, a refuge for the poor, a hospital for the sick, a haven of
spiritual consolation to any who needed the kind offices practised
beneath its roof. Penitents, lovingly attracted by her angelic
sweetness, often came, as it were, by stealth to inquire of her the
way to God, and by her were led back into the fold whence they had
strayed while inquirers, touched by her life of self-denial, found the
prejudices in which they had been brought up melt away, and many were
led to embrace the saving truths which bind the children of the church
together in the one fold of Christ, at the feet of one Lord, who gave
us one faith, one baptism.



CHAPTER XVI.



FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE AND LIBERTY OF ACTION.


When Eugene had fulfilled the commission of the late duke, and had
made the arrangement for Henry Daubrey with the Abbé Martigni, spoken
of in the last chapter, he bethought him of his own position. Whither
should he bend his own steps? As long as he had been busied in Ellen's
affairs, the excitement had in some measure kept him up, and prevented
his realizing what it is to be homeless, to have relatives who wish
your absence, loved ones to whom your presence causes annoyance,
positive annoyance. To be alone in this wide world of sin, without the
sanction of family ties; to be disowned, voted an encumbrance, or,
worse, an absolute incubus, crushing vitality and joyousness in the
home circle! what a feeling it produces! It requires a strong courage,
a courage that is the child of faith, that is sustained by grace, to
enable one to bear it bravely, working hard the while. Eugene did bear
it bravely, though he felted most acutely. He determined to seek M.
Bertolot, to take counsel respecting the future. His way lay past his
sister Adelaide's present residents. The duchess was now settled in
the jointure-house. Decidedly, had Eugene thought she was alone, or
with those who to him were strangers, he would have passed quietly on
his way; but Euphrasie, did not Euphrasie live with the duchess? At
least he supposed so; and though with an effort he conquered his
reluctance and announced himself at his sister's mansion.

The duchess received him coldly, almost haughtily. Still the young man
waited, in the hope of seeing her for whom the visit was intended. A
long two hours passed in painful and constrained conversation. Still
neither Madame de Meglior nor her daughter appeared.

Eugene rose to take his leave; then, as if by a sudden impulse,
exclaimed: "But, my aunt, Adelaide, and Mademoiselle de Meglior, I
most not go without paying my respects to them. Will you not let one
of your people tell them that I am here and wish to see them?"

{487}

"Neither the countess nor Mademoiselle Euphrasie are with me," replied
the duchess.

"No! where are they, then? at Estcourt Hall?"

"I think not; they left me at Durimond Castle, before I came here at
all. They went to Annie then; where they are now I do not know."

"Have they, then, left Annie?"

"Yes! Sir Philip took some exceptions Euphrasie's Jesuitical
principles, and the ladies disappeared one day."

"Disappeared! where did they go to?"

"No one knows; truth to say, brother this is a very disagreeable
subject; these quarrels about religion are terrible, and have brought
much unhappiness to all of us; the less we say about it the better."

"But my aunt and Euphrasie?"

"I have already told you I do not know anything about them, and I must
add, I do not wish to know."

"Sister!"

But Adelaide replied no more. Her stateliness and dignity, if they did
not awe Eugene, repelled him. He left the house in disgust.

His next visit was to his sister Annie; but it would be more in order
were we to relate the occurrences which had taken place with regard to
Euphrasie and her mother since the duke's death. Immediately after
that event, the two ladies experienced a great change of demeanor
toward themselves in the persons of all by whom they were surrounded;
even the menials caught the infection, and behaved with supercilious
insolence toward the abetter of popery and the female Jesuit, as they
termed the emigrant ladies. Madame de Meglior, mindful of Annie's
former invitation, wrote to express her willingness to except it now,
if Annie still desired their company. The answer was most favorable,
and within a week of the duke's funeral Madame and Euphrasie had
quitted his haughty and to them now unfriendly widow.

They had not been long at their new abode ere another source of
uneasiness arose. Alfred Brookbank had always vehemently disliked
Euphrasie, and observing the real pleasure that her company afforded
the now too often desolate Lady Conway, he resolved to do his utmost
to destroy that pleasure. The reason of the ladies' departure from the
protection of the duchess was not indeed guessed; so secret had all
transactions connected with the late duke's death been kept, the very
word Catholic was suppressed where possible; it was not supposed, nor
to be supposed, that they had been driven from so lofty a mansion.
Still, Alfred Brookbank knew the religion of Euphrasie, and he deemed
he could so use that knowledge as to spite Annie.

Sir Philip had at first been pleased with the new-comers: their
history interested him, and native good feeling prompted him to show
them kindness and hospitality as his wife's relatives; but Alfred soon
worked on his horror of popery. Of all things, the worthy baronet
detested a Catholic the most, and Euphrasie was, suggested the lawyer,
a Jesuit in petticoats; an insinuating adventuress, one who would risk
the downfall of a noble house to make a convert, even of a cook-maid.

Annie found great relief in the society of her guests. She sympathized
with her aunt, and entertained her fondly; Euphrasie she had always
liked, despite her taciturnity. She would gladly have induced them to
prolong their visit to an indefinite period, and was greatly
disappointed when she first became aware of Sir Philip's revulsion of
feeling in their regard. This revulsion, indeed, soon mastered him so
completely that he could scarcely bring himself to be civil to them in
his outward demeanor.

Annie remonstrated that as her relatives, and as the relatives of the
Godfrey family, they were at least entitled to respect.

{488}

"A respect that will place them at liberty to proselytize all the
parish? No, no, my lady; private feeling must be sacrificed to public
duty;" and the baronet drew himself up in a very Brutus-like fashion.

"But my aunt is not a Catholic that I am aware of," pleaded Annie;
"and as for Euphrasie, she scarcely speaks, so how can she convert any
one?"

"'Twere hard to tell, yet we know these silent people are the very
ones to be dreaded. One thing I am determined on, she shall not remain
here."

"But how can we turn them out of the house?"

"That is your business, my lady; you invited them, now get rid of
them."

The speech was a cruel one, for although Sir Philip did not know they
had already been ejected from the other part of the family, he knew
that Mr. Godfrey and Hester were so taken up just now in establishing
the duchess in her jointure-house and in removing thither the
divinities of the far-famed pagan temple, that they could think of
nothing else. Mrs. Godfrey was at home, but was said to be in delicate
health, and Eugene was absent; none seemed to know where or why. A
moment's reflection might have told Sir Philip that just then the
unfortunate emigrant ladies had no home save the one in which they now
found themselves; but he consulted only his own dogged temper, and
tormented his wife at every private interview to get rid of them.

But Annie knew not how, and her obstinacy in not complying with his
commands enraged him; Sir Philip had a high idea of his marital
authority, though he knew not whence he derived it, nor, indeed, how
to enforce it. In this latter particular, however, he sought counsel
from his friend Brookbank, as he termed his lawyer, and this latter
was not slow in using every advantage he could obtain over Annie.

"Prudence and patience. Sir Philip, will accomplish all things." said
the lawyer; "it would be unwise, as you perceive, to incur the odium
of turning those ladies out of doors, until the grounds of complaint
become ostnsible; wait awhile, they will become so. From my knowledge
of the amiable character of the lady, your wife, Sir Philip, I should
be perfectly surprised at this resistance to your legitimate
authority, did I not fear that my lady herself is somewhat infected
with the opinions of the young French refugee. You, Sir Philip, are
well aware, attachment to that baneful creed overcomes every other
sense of duty."

"My lady Conway a Catholic!" ejaculated the now bewildered Sir Philip.

"Nay, I say not that--I think not that; only a favorer of her cousin's
views. No open profession of Catholicity, only a secret inclination
thereunto."

"They shall be separated this very day," thundered the baronet.

"Pardon me. Sir Philip; I have the utmost confidence in your judgment;
your just antipathy to popish superstition fortifies my own. But if
you will allow me one word which appears to differ, but in fact agrees
with your opinion; may I be permitted to say, that it would be hardly
prudent just now to give any air of martyrdom to this business. Weak
women are flattered thereby. Your object is, of course, to detach Lady
Conway from every Catholic idea. Your strong good sense and powers of
reasoning will effect this, provided that you do not rouse the strong
obstinacy of female nature. Wait till the visit ends in a natural
manner, and then take measures to restore your lady wife to her
senses."

Alfred knew well that in giving this advice he ran no risk of seeing
it acted upon. The character of the man he addressed was too
ungovernable for that; he had but roused into fiercer play the
half-dormant passion, the half-latent suspicion. Sir Philip appeared
{489} to acquiesce, but, as Alfred intended, all his faculties were
now aroused to put and unfavorable construction on his wife's actions
ions. His tone became more churlish, and even more authoritative then
was its wont. Politeness and forbearance were at an end. To his two
guests he scarcely behaved with decency.

Annie was too deeply hurt to feel all the indignation that this course
would naturally have led her to manifest. She used all her endeavors
to shield from actual insult the bereaved emigrants, and to compensate
by her own assiduous attentions for the rudeness of her husband. She
even mastered herself so as calmly to remonstrate with him on the
subject, "Sir Philip," said she, "have you considered that the
revolution of France cannot, from the very nature of things, be
permanent; that these ladies are of the haute noblesse, and one day
their estates will be restored to them?"

"I think not; nay, I hope not," said Sir Philip. "As the French people
have had the good sense to banish priests, I hope they will also have
wisdom enough to keep all Jesuits, male and female, at a distance.
Your cousin is a female Jesuist, depend upon it. It would not surprise
me to  that she is in actual correspondence with the Pope, or
connected with a second Guy Fawkes for the blowing up of this
household. Get rid of her, my lady."

"But how? Just now they can go neither to Estcourt Hall nor to
Adelaide. Where am I to send them to?"

In a towering passion, and in a thundering voice, the baronet replied:
"I don't care a d--n where they go to; but I can't bear the sight of
them here."

Annie's heart sank. The window was open, and as her husband spoke she
became aware that the ladies in question were seated in an alcove
near, partially screened from view by the green boughs of the shrubs
that surrounded it. They must have heard the conversation. At this
moment they rose, passed the window, bowing as they passed to Annie.
There was something of melancholy compassion in that salute; at least
Annie thought so. She longed to run after them, to throw herself into
her aunt's arms, and weep out the bitterness of her soul; but her
husband's eye was upon her, and he was watching her emotions with no
friendly feelings. She turned back into the library with him and
endeavored to master her oppression. The time passed drearily away as
she awaited their return from their walk; but in vain she waited, they
came not; one hour, two hours, three hours; dinner was served and they
came not. The meal was taken silently; each one was too much absorbed
in thought to speak. A long evening was gone through, and at length
when Sir Philip went out to speak to his farm bailiff, Annie wandered
in sadness on to the lawn. It was a fitful night, the clouds were
chasing each other through the atmosphere, here and there revealing a
star, now and then disclosing the moon. A feeling of desolation came
over her, her grief was too great for tears; but when she approached
the deep haw-haw that bounded the garden to the south, she felt as if
she could willingly lie down therein and die. "Was the water there
deep enough to destroy life? What is life? Is it something we hold in
common with cows, horses, dogs? That is easily destroyed! Is man only
an animal? If so, I at least had better die, for what happiness can I
expect with such a mate as I have? But animal life cannot be all! What
is it makes us so sure of this? O Euphrasie! where are you? You could
answer this; why are you so happy, why am I se wretched? If it is not
poverty that makes unhappiness, what does make it? What has Euphrasie
more than I have? She is a wanderer, homeless, penniless, yet I feel
satisfied she is to be envied even now."

{490}

Strange that in her vexation and utter mortification, Annie felt no
intense anxiety respecting the fate of her guests. She had a sort of
belief that Euphrasie bore a charmed life, and that under any
circumstances she was ever the happiest person in the circle in which
she might be placed. She thought her aunt privileged in having such a
companion.

The deep night came, and Sir Philip, uneasy at Annie's prolonged
absence, went to seek her. She was still leaning over a rail close to
the water's edge. "What are you doing there?" he said, but his tone
was softer than usual, for his wife was trembling with emotion; and
her eyes were filled with tears. He took one hand in his, and passed
one arm round her waist, to support her and draw her from her
position. "Are you ill, Annie?" he asked.

Instead of replying, Annie asked in a faltering voice: "What has
become of them?"

"It matters not; it was a providence that made them hear they were not
welcome. It saved us both some uneasiness. They will be taken care of,
never fear. There is a sort of free-masonry among such people. Only
don't let me see my wife, Lady Conway, make herself miserable about a
couple of papists: it would be too absurd."

Two days after, toward the evening, a stranger came, a poor Irishman,
with a cart; he brought a note to Annie. It was from Madame: she
thanked Annie cordially and affectionately for her good wishes and
kind attentions; pleaded that a sudden emergency had arisen which
prevented her profiting longer from them; excused her informal
leave-taking by the same necessity, and begged Annie would forward to
her whatever she had left behind. Annie fairly cried with vexation;
she questioned the man as to where the ladies were, but the man had
seen no ladies. A gentleman, whose name he had forgotten, had given
him the note and two keys, which he said would unlock two trunks,
which were to be packed and sent back. That was all he knew. The
gentleman would meet him at the same place, and receive the trunks
from him. But he was sure the gentlemen did not live there; he was
going further on. Annie could make out nothing more. She packed the
trunks herself, and enclosed a fifty pound Bank of England note, with
a deprecating letter in one of the boxes. It was all the money she had
at that moment in hand.

A week elapsed, and a letter came by a private hand; the bearer
leaving the premises immediately on delivering it. The letter
contained no address, but it returned the fifty pound note, "with
thanks--it was not needed." Sir Philip was present when the letter was
opened; his eyes were fixed on Annie, and he sternly demanded, "From
whom?" There was no alternative native but to hand the letter to him
and he exclaimed in a fury, "And is it thus you would waste my
substance madam? To nourish vipers, Jesuits, beasts! I will take care
from henceforth your means of doing this shall be lessened," and he
stalked indignantly from the room, bearing the money and the letter
with him. This was a manifest injustice, as the money was Annie's
private property, by right of her marriage settlements; but when was
prejudice ever just?

* * * * *

It was several weeks after this that Eugene made his appearance to
inquire after the refugees. Annie would have greeted him warmly, but
Sir Philip's haughty and distant manner plainly told him he was not
welcome. Eugene waited till the baronet had quitted the apartment ere
he inquired for his aunt and her step-daughter. He heard the tale
relative to their withdrawal with undisguised indignation, and said:

"And you do not know what has become of them?"

"No!"

"And you say my father does not know?"

{491}

"No!"

"Will he let his own sister and the orphan daughter of his friend
suffer for want?"

"They cannot be suffering, they refused the fifty pound note."

"That says nothing; or rather it says they preferred suffering to
insult. O Annie! Annie! I had not dreamed you would lend yourself to
persecution like this."

"Young man," said Sir Philip, who now entered the room, "I am master
in my own house; I have heard your conversation with Lady Conway in
regard to your _protégé_. I will have no papists here, nor any
encouragement given to them; and the day that Lady Conway holds
communication again with papists, or with suspected papists, without
my sanction, that day she ceases to abide under one roof with me."

Annie looked as if she wished that day were already come, but she said
nothing. Eugene was watching her and he whispered: "Wives must obey
their husbands, Annie, in all that is not sin. Adieu, I blame you no
longer; I see where the fault lies. Adieu once more." And Eugene
hastened from the house without trusting himself to reply to the
haughty speech of it's master.

The whisper had been observed; a frown darkened Sir Philips brow,
"Your brother has forgotten the forms of good breeding," he said, "to
enter a gentleman's house and treat him with contempt. Is that what
the Catholic religion enjoins?"

"The Catholic religion! What do I know of the Catholic religion? How
should that influence our actions?"

"You do not favor Catholics in your heart, I suppose, my lady?"

"Not as Catholics. My regard for Euphrasie had no reference to
religion at all."

"A nice distinction, learnt of the Jesuits, I suppose."

"I never saw a Jesuit that I am aware of," said Annie.

And thus the pair parted, to meet again and jar, and live in jarring
discord every day.

Had Annie been able to make Mr. Godfrey understand how unjustly she
was treated, she would have applied for a separation; but Mr. Godfrey
would not hear of such a thing. "He was glad, for his part," he said,
"that Sir Philip took so sensible a view of Catholic influence. It had
raised his son-in-law in his esteem, and if Annie showed any
disposition to break through the salutary regulations laid down for
her, it would be advisable rather to put her under restraint as a
lunatic, than to emancipate her from marital control. Sir Philip had
the legal power of locking her up in his own house; and if he did so
for such a cause as that, Mr. Godfrey would hold him justified."

Mrs. Godfrey was in dismay. Her health visibly declined. A melancholy
seemed to overspread her intellect, and at times to overpower her. All
was changed at Estcourt Hall now. The once fond, indulgent husband,
seemed to take but little notice of the ailments of his faithful
partner. He dreaded her taking part with Eugene and Annie, if the
subject were introduced, and he avoided all intimate conversation.
Hester was too much wrapt up in her own ideas to watch her mother
closely. She saw that the servants attended to her, that there was no
fear of her suffering for want of care or nourishment; but unheedful
of the power of affection and of sympathy, she gave her little
personal attendance. Annie's case she thought a hard one, and once
ventured to remonstrate with her father on the subject; but Mr.
Godfrey justified his proceedings by painting to her the horrors of
popery in glowing colors. He demonstrated to her that all sincere
Catholics were fools, the wise ones hypocrites, of whom it might be
predicted as it was of the soothsayers by Cicero, that it was a wonder
how one priest could look another in the face without laughing
together at their success in gulling the public mind. "Now," {492}
said Mr. Godfrey, "the object of these priests and rulers being to
subjugate the human will, and to level the human reason to their
standard, in order that themselves may rule supreme, it becomes the
duty of every thinking mind to war with the system on principle. You,
my dear daughter," continued the fond father, for fond even to doting
was Mr. Godfrey of this one child, "you, my dear daughter, would
idolize the hero who fought and achieved his country's
freedom--external freedom merely; should you not unite with those who
would save the world from mental bondage of the most degrading order?"

"Yes, if papistry be really this," said Hester; "but that it is
difficult to conceive it to be. But, grant that it is so, Annie does
not seem to be in any way implicated in it. She disclaims all
connection with it, and certainly she never used to manifest any
religious propensities whatever."

"Even so, surely no harm can come of keeping her apart from papists
for awhile. If this is all she has to complain of, her grievances are
not great."

"I think the real grievance, father, is the shackling her liberty,
denying her freedom of intercourse. Trampling on her freedom is no
light matter."

"Hester, dear, listen: when two people are yoked together, and their
interests differ, one must give way; law and custom say this one must
be the wife. Now, if Sir Philip were thought to encourage Catholics,
his political interests would suffer; therefore he must not encourage
them; but if his wife encourage them, it would appear that the
encouragement had his sanction; therefore his wife must not encourage
them: and if reasonable means fail in teaching her this lesson, others
may be resorted to. A wife is a wife, after all."

"I will never be a wife," said Hester.

"As you please," said her father. "but Annie is one, and must
therefore submit. She has the less excuse for resistance, in that she
had her own choice. No one was more surprised than myself when Sir
Philip applied to me for her hand."

Meantime the cause of all these disagreements was altogether
supposititious. Up to that time Annie had no acquaintance with the
first principles of religion. Probably but for this annoyance she
would ever have remained equally ignorant; but, driven from
friendship, shut out from sympathy, her attention was naturally fixed
on the subject; she began to meditate on Euphrasie's practices, to put
together the ideas she had allowed to escape her. A copy of the
Imitation of Christ had accidentally been left behind by Euphrasie; it
was found under the pillow on which she had slept. It was a book of
mystery to Annie, wonderfully enigmatical; yet this book and the New
Testament were her constant companions for months, and she learned to
cherish them as friends.




CHAPTER XVII.


EXPERIMENTS OF MORE KINDS THAN ONE.


"Papa," said Hester, "did I not hear you say those pretty farms in
Yorkshire are about to change tenants?"

"You did, my dear."

"Have you any tenants in view for them?"

"No! Has any one applied to you for one, or all of them?"

"I want to be the tenant myself."

"You?"

"Yes, indeed; there are good coals beneath the surface; the district
is well watered; I want to try these new steam engines on a large
scale. I will set up factories and form industrial associations,
governing them myself. I will establish them on the principle of
mutual assistance in forming and promoting a wide-spread intelligence:
my factories shall contain schools, reading-rooms, museums,
observatories, everything that can assist the onward progression of
the race."

{493}

"You will at least spend money, Hester?"

"Not more than if I kept race horses for Ascot, or frequented
Crockford's, which you could well afford to let me do if I were a man.
Not more then I might cost you if I insisted on taking a house house
in town, and on becoming the belle of the season; this would the
neither extravagant nor wonderful; and if I wanted diamonds and
emeralds and sapphires and glittering toys, you would get them all for
me, I know you would, for when did you refuse your Hester anything,
dear father?" said Hester, throwing her white arms around her father's
neck. "But now I want none of of these babyish fancies, I want to do
good in my generation, and my father must help me. We do not spend
half our income in our present mode of living, and money is like
manure you know, it wants spreading. Think of the glory of aiding
'progress.' Think of reigning over a population emancipated from
ignorance by your efforts. Think of forming a nucleus whence freedom
and happiness shall spring, handing down your name as a benefactor
throughout all time; it is a project well fitted to my father s noble
mind."

Mr. Godfrey gazed on his darling, and felt that he could refuse her
nothing; still he paused. "Supposing the necessary expenses incurred,
my Hester, your buildings erected, your villages formed, you have
forgotten one thing; your schemes might be suddenly interrupted, when
you least expected it: those farms are all entailed."

"I forgot that," mused Hester. After awhile she said: "Could not some
arrangement be made with my brother on this subject?"

"I do not know. Is he a likely one, think you, to consent to the
catting off the entail?"

"He might be," said Hester; "he must be badly off now, though I
suppose my mother helps him. Offer him a handsome allowance for life,
from this time out, on condition that the entail be cut off: he might
be induced to accept it."

"He would be a fool if he did," said Mr. Godfrey.

"Nay, father, that is not so certain, if you take into consideration
his present position. He is likely to suffer poverty for many years. I
think I would accept the alternative were I in his place."

Mr. Godfrey could deny nothing to Hester, so he replied:

"Well, I will think of it."

. . . . .

But what had Eugene been doing all this time? Eugene, after his
interview with his sister, went straight to M. Bertolot to inquire
after his aunt and Euphrasie. He was not mistaken in supposing that he
knew where they were, but he would tell nothing more than that they
were in good health and spirits. "I have no authority," he said, "to
divulge their place of abode; in fact, I promised secrecy."

"But how do they live? They have no means!" said Eugene.

"How, but by their labor!"

"Labor! my aunt labor?"

"No, I was wrong in saying their labor; it is Euphrasie who does the
work. Euphrasie gives lessons in French, music, and drawing, and waits
on her mother. De Villeneuve has hopes of recovering their estates for
them. He is now in France negotiating with the emperor to that effect.
He took care of them when they left your sister's and procured
Euphrasie the situation she required, as both she and Madame refused
to live at his expense."

"And did he offer to support them?"

"Well, yes; it appears that he and Euphrasie's father were sworn
brothers in friendship, and de Villeneuve made a solemn promise to the
Comte de Meglior to watch over Euphrasie's well-being. This promise
keeps him in Europe to this day, for he had always a misgiving that
she would not be permanently happy among those not of her faith. We
are expecting de Villeneuve very shortly."

{494}

"And if he succeeds, my aunt will go back to France?"

"Probably; but I am not so sanguine about their success as de
Villeneuve is. Madame is an English-woman, and that will not help her
cause with the emperor just now."

"And meantime Euphrasie works for her daily bread?"

"She does, and is happy in doing so. Euphrasie, my friend, is a
practical Catholic; one whose delight it is to _realize_, to make her
own, the life led by the holy family at Nazareth. I venture to say she
is far happier in sweeping her mother's room and in cooking her
mother's dinner than she would be in a glittering ball-room lit up
with its brilliant chandeliers."

"And does she really descend to these menial offices?" asked Eugene,
in a sort of stupefied amazement.

"Descend! Is it to descend when we aspire to imitate Jesus and Mary?
You are a Catholic, my young friend. You must not look at these things
with the eyes of the world: its false maxims are not the ones which
may guide your ideas. Labor, actual manual labor, was imposed on man
in penalty for sin; its acceptance is part of man's atonement for that
undervaluing of grace which led to the commission of that sin: which
still leads to the commission of daily sins. The avoidance of labor is
a child of pride, one which has occasioned multitudinous disorders
among mankind. But Jesus accepted labor--real, genuine labor: he
worked many years at his father's trade, and Mary kept no servant in
her house at Nazareth; she labored, for she felt that in lowly labor
there is a sanctifying influence, and it is this thought that makes
Euphrasie happy now."

"But she is so unused to actual toil!" said Eugene.

"Not so much as you may suppose," replied his friend. "The good nuns
taught her much that was useful, and even when she was at Estcourt
Hall and Durimond Castle she did much work that was unsuspected. The
produce of her needle clothed the poor, fed the hungry, and many times
defrayed the expense of a mission, when accident brought her in
contact with poor Catholics to whom such ministrations were acceptable
and profitable. All this was done so quietly that I suppose your
family knew nothing about it."

"At least I never heard of it," said Eugene.

Our hero was much depressed by this interview, not merely because he
could gain no clue to abode of his friends, but also because he was as
yet too new to the practice of Catholic principles to acquiesce
cheerfully in the idea of the refined, elegant, accomplished daughter
of a French nobleman toiling for her daily bread, and performing all
the menial services required in the household.

It was with right good-will that he greeted the Comte de Villeneuve on
his return, in the hope through him of seeing something accomplished
that would alter these circumstances. But the comte's embassy had been
unsuccessful; all he had been able to effect was to leave the case
with such other friends as should introduce it at a more favorable
period. But he was not so reserved respecting his friends as M.
Bertolot had been. He deemed that Eugene's position in his own family
should plead exemption for him from the ban of exclusion, and
willingly mediated to obtain an interview view for him with Madame.
Euphrasie was not at home when he called; and Madame greeted him
cordially, though she could not refrain from blaming him for running
counter to his friends about religion.

"What a fuss about a matter of opinion," she said. "But perhaps in
France, before the Revolution, a Protestant might have then as little
acceptable to the aristocracy. They say, too, that this new man, this
emperor, patronizes the Catholic religion also, so I shall not ask
Euphrasie to become a proselyte to English notions; her faith is that
of her country and of her kindred, and my brother ought to {495} have
understood this; but why you, Eugene, should wish to adopt the French
religion, I cannot divine."

"Perhaps religion is neither exclusively French nor English, aunt.
There may be a faith necessary to every nation alike, if it be true
that every man has a soul to save."

"Perhaps so; I do not meddle with these matters," replied the lady. "I
think everyone had better let everybody alone; it must be bad to
quarrel about religion; and as to saving the soul, we know so little
about it that it is quite presumptuous for one person to dictate to
another on that subject. I hope we shall all meet in heaven at last,
though we go there by different roads; for my part, I keep nobody
out."

The entrance Euphrasie prevent its the necessity of a reply.
Euphrasie's greeting was that of one who appreciates high principal.
There were respect and kindness in her manner, but no familiarity, no
approach to intimacy. Eugene felt disappointed, though certainly there
was nothing of which he felt he had a right to complain.

Eugene's visits to his aunt were now frequent, but never could he see
Euphrasie alone; whether from design or accident she avoided receiving
him, save in her mother's presence. Yet daily did his reverence for
her increase. To see the young French girl now, the supporter of the
household, the caterer for its wants, the tender minister to her
mother's manifold demands, none would have dreamed that heretofore
contemplation had absorbed her faculties, and that she was making to
duty the greatest sacrifice she could make in thus exchanging the
cherished practices of devotion for the active employments of life.
She was so cheerful, so almost gay, so unusually animated when the
state of her mother's spirits required it; a stranger might have
concluded that all her life she had been accustomed to this manner of
living.

Suddenly Eugene received a missive which had traced him to many
places, requesting him to meet his father in London.


TO BE CONTINUED.

--------

ORIGINAL.


ON ST. PETER'S DENIAL.


"And the Lord, turning, looked on Peter."


  Lord! wilt thou that I also should deny
        That I am thine?
  Behold, my longing soul cries upward to the sky
        For sight divine!
  All through the silent night in livelong day--
        O grievous lot!--
  I seek to know thee more, and yet am forced to say
        "I know thee not".
  With Peter let these bitter tears confess
        My treachery:
  Yet, Lord, to know thee as thou art I need no less
        A look from thee!

--------

{496}


Translated from the German of Hans Wachenhusen.


CHRIST IS BORN.



"Really I take it unkindly of our pastor that he is continually
speaking ill of us thorns, in the church yonder," said the thorn-bush,
standing by a crumbling stable wall among the castle-ruins near the
village church. "It is very unfair in him. How can he know, for
instance, how the subject may affect me? On the bloody field of
Golgotha, nearly two thousand years ago, there stood my ancestor, a
buckthorn, of whose branches they wove our Saviour's crown. But the
pastor yonder little thinks that I come of that same buckthorn;
[Footnote 149] or that all its lineal descendants bear red blossoms
and weep tears of blood on Christmas night; or that we thorns are ever
renewed like Christ's teachings, being woven in with them?"

  [Footnote 149: Kreuzdorn--Cross-thorn, literally.]

So spake the thorn-bush; and the wind blew through its branches, and
shook them until the snow dropped off.

"Positively, this connection ought to be known!" sighed the
thorn-bush.

But it was just then Christmas eve, and midnight was drawing near.
Therefore did the thorn-bush make these pious reflections, which
should have been cherished on other days too, if the lineage were
really so wonderful as it fancied. Meantime the church-bells were
ringing for the midnight mass, and the good priest passed by, going to
the service of God.

"See, now, how indifferently he goes past me," said the thorn-bush.
"And no wonder, since he knows nothing of my connections! And all the
rest brush by me into the church; and if the Lord God could not see
the things that are hidden, yet would he know his faithful by the
footprints that lead from the houses to the church. But he knows them
all, for he guides their steps. I know, though, two in the village who
have not been to church to-day nor yet this whole year, for they are
right godless men: the gloomy lord of our castle, and Wild Stephen,
whom he turned out of his cottage yesterday because the rent was not
paid. Here lie the poor wife and her half-naked children now in this
ruined stable before which I stand guard. Really I must take a peep
and see how the poor woman and her sick child are getting on," said
the thorn-bush, and stretched up its bought to look in at the broken
window.

But it was dark within, and the night-wind moaned through the damp
walls and the open window. "O God! the creature is so good and so
wretched. Here in this stable are tears and chattering teeth on this
day of Christmas gifts. Now, that is too grievous," sighed the
thorn-bush.

And over the way the church-organ poured out its solemn tones. "Christ
is born," sang the people from the choir and benches. "Christ is
born," cried the watchman from the tower. And our thorn-bush was
right. In that old, deserted stable a poor woman knelt and prayed. Hot
tears ran down her cheeks, her hands were convulsively clasped, and
her eyes rested fixedly on the straw in the old stone manger; for in
that manger lay her youngest born, a half-year old child, sick, and
trembling with ague and cold. The moon shone through the
window-opening upon this group. Her rays fell sympathizingly on the
sick child, but they could not warm him; nor could the mother's breast
do it either, she was herself so icy cold. {497} And through the
chinks of the rotting roof, gaps were covered with snow, fell by
hundred thousands the little glittering snow-stars and played in the
moon-beams, but they gave no light or warmth either.

"Saviour of the world, thou who wert born this night, who didst live
and die for us all, who didst lie to-day in a manger, like this poor
helpless creature, save, oh! save my sick child!" So prayed this poor
woman, and the baby stretched out his little cold hands to his mother
and wept. But her strengths was all gone. She let her weary head sink
on the icy edge of the stone manger; her eyes closed, and a heavy sigh
burst forth from her breast. Days and nights had she watched; days and
nights of bitter misery had she endured; but now she broke down, and
sleep took pity on her wretchedness.

"Poor wife, where is thy husband? Poor baby, where is thy father?"
whispered the thorn-bush pityingly, looking in at the window.

Yes, where was the husband, where was the father? Wild Stephen, for so
the villagers called him, had been turned out of his cottage with his
wife and children the evening before, as we have already said. He
sought a refuge among the neighbors, but they would have nothing to do
with him, for they were afraid of godless Stephen, who never had done
a good thing, so they said. And so he and his had come to this
deserted stable. Then he had rushed away breathless, in spite of the
entreaties of his wife, who dreaded some misfortune. Where, then, was
Wild Stephen? The bells ring out, the organ sounded, the people sang
pious songs in the church, and the good priest stood before the altar
and chanted: "Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace to men of
good-will."

Up in the old castle, in a comfortless room, a man of dark, forbidding
aspect set near the long-extinguished fire. He was the lord of the
castle, a hard-hearted man, feared by every one within the limits of
his estate. The light before him on the table burnt low; his face
looked stiff and motionless, his eyes were closed. It seemed like
sleep, only he looked so very pale. Now, while in the out-buildings of
the court-yard servants hurried to and fro, a man was stealing up the
stairs and through the gloomy corridor. He softly opened the door of
the great room, crept lightly in, and up to the arm-chair where the
landlord slept. The stranger's eyes gleamed with passion, a sneering
smile disfigured his weather-beaten face. He cast one look stealthily
around the room. A knife glistened in one hand, the other grasped that
of the sleeping landlord. The blade quivered--

"Christ is born," saying the people in the church below.

Wild Stephen shrank back, for the hand was icy cold. He had touched a
corpse.

"Christ is born," cried the warder from the tower; for mass was over,
and the people were hastening home.

Stephen's knife fell from his hand. He looked again at the dead man,
and it seemed as if the cold eyes were opening to blast him. Covering
his face with both hands, he fled from the room. No one had seen him
glide into the house; no one saw him now pause before the old stable
and looked in the window--no one but the thorn-bush. Ashy pale,
Stephen gazed into the stable. There he saw his wife kneeling,
motionless as the dead man in the castle yonder, but more lovely; and
gentle and pure as innocence, the child in the manger. Then Stephen,
rushed forward, not knowing whither, rushed through the open
church-door, and sank senseless on the steps of the altar.

Now the pastor was just going home. He came to the thorn-bush and saw
two little boys sitting beneath it in the snow. They were shivering,
and hiding their little red hands in their rags.

"Take them with thee," said the thorn-bush to the pastor. "They are
Wild Stephen's children; they dare not {498} go in-doors for fear
their father may beat them because they have come home empty-handed.
Take them with thee. I cannot warm them; I am so poor and naked."

We know not whether it was the pastor's heart or the thorn-bush that
spoke; but he took the children home with him.

"So, now have I one care the less!" said the thorn-bush to itself.
"Now they are beginning to light up the Christmas tree there--and
there--and again over yonder. What a pity that I'm not stationed under
the windows, for here in this dreary stable there will be nothing to
see."

But the thorn-bush was wrong, for just then the interior of the stable
grew bright with a piercing light. Still knelt the poor woman with
closed eyes, but the sick child waked up and stretched out its little
arms laughing; for the roof opened, and down fluttered, surrounded by
a light cloud, two lovely angels, one of them bearing a little
Christmas tree gleaming with countless lights, the other bringing
costly gifts. And it grew warm in the stable, and the light threw such
a gleam into the street that the thorn-bush wondered within itself.

"There is no hut so poor but Christ is there to-night," it said.

The angels fluttered down, and while one offered the Christmas tree,
the other went to the sick child and laid his hand healingly upon its
breast. Then they flew upward again and vanished; but the light
remained in the stable. In the mean time Wild Stephen lay upon the
cold altar-steps. At last his consciousness returned, and he raised
his head from the stone. A wonderful vision had appeared to him in a
dream, for he had seen two beautiful spirits who, blessing him, walked
by his side: and now, on awaking, he saw them standing by him, and
felt each angel lay a little warm hand in his and lead him from the
church.

It seemed to Stephen as if he still dreamed; as if it were in sleep
that the two little angels led him from the church to the stable where
he knew his poor wife and sorrowing children were. Willingly he let
himself be guided; but when they reached the wretched dwelling, and
everything within looked so warm and bright and pleasant; when he saw
the Christmas presents, he rubbed his eyes, and look down at the
angels who had brought him there and were still standing by his side.
Then Stephen recognized his two other boys, grandly and beautifully
dressed as he had never seen them before.

Still it seemed like a vision. He raised both children in his arms; he
held them close and kissed them--no, it could not be a dream.

"Christ is born," cried the watchmen from the tower. "Ay, born is he,
and within my own soul too!" exclaimed Stephen, and, still holding the
two children, sprang to his wife. He drew her toward him and held her
to his breast. "Jenny," he said, "wake up, Christ is indeed born!"

And she lifted her eyes and looked around in amazement, saying: "What
has happened? Is it really thou, Stephen?--and all this light here! Is
my dream true? I saw two angels bringing a Christmas tree and
beautiful presents, and one of them went to the manger and laid his
hand healingly upon my baby's breast. Yes, yes, it is true, for he is
alive," she explained, taking the smiling child from the manger and
clasping it to her bosom. "Get is true, Stephen," she said, and laid
the baby in his arms. "Our Saviour is born, and he will not let my
child die."

And while they were all looking at the Christmas presents the pastor
stepped from behind the tree, for he it was who had sent the gifts
through two good children of his parish; he it was who had seen Wild
Stephen sink down upon the altar-steps; he it was who had dressed the
little boys so beautifully, and led them to their father in the
church.

{499}

"Christ is born," said the pastor, "and it is his will that even the
poorest dwelling should not be without him to-day; but where he lodges
for the first time, Stephen, is in your heart; cherish him tenderly,
for you know that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that
repenteth than over ninety-nine just persons."

And all this time the thorn-bush was looking in at the window, its
branches rustled with joy, and, like the cross-thorn on Christmas
night, its boughs put forth violet-red eyes, and wept tears of blood
upon the snow.

The next morning Stephen went to church with his wife and children. In
the meantime something must have passed between them and the pastor,
producing a change in material as well as spiritual matters; for they
were seen clad in modest and suitable attire, going to the Lord's
table with deepest devotion. The villagers passed by the thorn-bush in
their holiday dress, and when they saw the snow underneath it bedewed
as if with ruddy pearls, they cried: "See, now, the buckthorn has
borne red blossoms during the night!"

"Yes," answered the cross-thorn, "for Christ is born indeed. These
thorns know it, for we crowned him in death; and you men should know
it also, for he was crucified for you."

------

From Chambers' Journal.

THE DYING YEAR.


  Scant leaves upon the aspen
    Shake golden in the sun;
  Old Year, thy sins are many,
    Thy sand is almost run.
  The beech-tree, brazen-orange,
    Burns like a sunset down;
  Old Year, thy grave is ready;
    Doff sceptre, robe, and crown.

  The elm, a yellow mountain,
    Is shedding leaf by leaf;
  The rains, in gusts of passion.
    Pour forth their quenchless grief;
  The winds, like banshees mourning.
    Wail in the struggling wood;
  Old Year, put off thy splendor.
    And don thy funeral hood.

  Lay down thy golden glories;
    The bare boughs bar the sky--
  Skeletons wild and warning.
    Quaking to see thee die.
  Thou hast lived thy life, remember;
    Now lay thee down and rest;
  The grass shall grow above thy head,
    And the flower above thy breast.

------

{500}


From The Dublin University Magazine.

THE HOLY LAND.


There can be no doubt that the Mount Moriah where Abraham would have
sacrificed his son is the same spot as the Moriah upon which Solomon
built the temple. "Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord
at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah" (2 Chron. iii. 1).  [Footnote 150] It is
also probable that it is the same place as the Salem mentioned in
Genesis xiv. 18, of which Melchisedek was king; for in Psalm lxxvi. 2
we read, "In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in
Sion." Josephus calls Melchisedek King of Solyma, a name afterward
altered to Hierosolyma. But the first mention of the name Jerusalem
occurs in Joshua x. 1, where Adoni-zedec is spoken of as "King of
Jerusalem." There are to be gathered from sacred and secular annals
the records of twenty-one invasions of this ancient city by hostile
armies. The first attack was made upon her by the children of Judah,
shortly after the death of Joshua. They fought against Jerusalem, took
it, put it to the fire and sword (Judges i. 1-8); but they were unable
to expel the Jebusites, nor were the children of Benjamin any more
successful, but they both dwelt with the Jebusites in the city; the
Jebusites being probably driven from the lower part to Mount Sion,
where they remained until the time of David, who marched against
Jerusalem, drove them from Mount Sion, and called it the City of
David.

  [Footnote 150: Also confirmed by Josephus, Antiq i, 13-2.]

The Ark of the Covenant was conveyed there, an altar built, and
Jerusalem became the imperial residence, the centre of the political
and religious history of the Israelites. Its glory was enhanced by the
labors of Solomon, but under his son Rehoboam ten tribes revolted, so
that Jerusalem became only the capital of Judah, with whom the tribe
of Benjamin alone remained faithful. During the reign of this king,
Shishak, the Egyptian monarch, invaded the holy city and ransacked the
temple. Then about a hundred years rolled by, when Amaziah was king of
Judah, and Joash of Israel; the latter marched against Jerusalem,
threw down the wall, and the temple was once more rifled of its
treasures. In the next century Manasseh the king was taken captive by
the Assyrians to Babylon but ultimately restored. In consequence of
the strange intermeddling of Josiah, a few years later, when
Pharao-necho, king of Egypt, was on his march, he was killed in
battle, and the latter directed his army toward Jerusalem, and placed
Eliakim on the throne by the name of Jehoiakim. The advance of this
Egyptian king is confirmed by Herodotus.  [Footnote 151]

  [Footnote 151: Herodotus, Euterpe, 159. He also mentions a victory
  gained by him at Magdola, then says that he took the city of Cadytis
  [Greek text]. This city Cadytis is generally accepted as Jerusalem,
  which was called "holy," "_Hakkodesh_." The shekel was marked
  "Jerusalem _Kedusha_," a Syriac corruption of the Hebrew "Kodesh."
  Then the word Jerusalem was omitted, and "Kedusha" only used, which,
  being translated into Greek, became [Greek text] as quoted by
  Herodotus.]

Against Jehoiakim, however, came Nebuchadnezzar, who ravaged the city
more than once, and after a siege of two years, in the reign of
Zedekiah, burned it down, took all the sacred vessels to Babylon with
the two remaining tribes (the other ten were already in captivity);
and now that the temple was destroyed, the city in ruins, and {501}
the people all in bondage, it appeared as if the prediction of her
prophets had already been accomplished. But a time of rejoicing was
yet to come, and though the chosen people did writhe under Babylonish
tyranny, and did hitting their harps on the willows, there was still a
prophet of hope among them in the person of Daniel. This was the time
alluded to in that beautiful psalm composed after their return, in
allusion to an occasion when their persecutors had asked them
tauntingly to sing one of their national songs for their amusement,
the Hebrew words of which, if we may be allowed the expression,
glitter with tears:

  "By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down,
  Yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.
  We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
  For there, they that carried us away captive required of us a song;
  And they that wasted us required of us mirth,
  Saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
    How shall we sing the Lord's song
         In a strange land?
         If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
         Let my right hand forget her cunning;
         If I do not remember thee,
  Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,
  If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief Joy."

In the time of Cyrus their deliverance came; they were released from
captivity, and there was a mighty "going up" to Jerusalem when the
temple was rebuilt and the sacred vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had
taken away were restored; money, too, was given them, and the works,
after being interrupted for a time by difficulties, were resumed under
Darius Hystaspes and completed. Some time afterward another large body
of Jews came up to the holy city with Ezra, and the capital was once
more active with busy life and once more became glorious.

Alexander the Great marched against the Jews, but was prevented from
entering the city by the intercession of the high priest--a scene
which found its parallel in after-times, when the aged Leo went to the
camp of Attila, and by his entreaties diverted that semi-Christian
barbarian from Rome. After the death of Alexander, Ptolemy, king of
Egypt, surprised the Jews on their Sabbath day, when he knew they
would not fight; he made an easy conquest, and carried off thousands
of Jews into Egypt.

For a hundred years of comparative peace this fated city remained
under the Ptolemies, when it fell into the hands of the Syrians.
Antiochus Epiphanes, their king, after his Egyptian campaigns, finding
his treasure-chest nearly empty, bethought him of sacking the temple
of Jerusalem, marched his army upon the city, pillaged it, slew about
forty thousand people, and sold as many more into slavery. He then
endeavored to exterminate the ceremonial; a pagan altar was set up and
sacrifice made to Jupiter. The Maccabaean revolution broke out, and
the city was ultimately recovered by the hero, Judas Maccabaeus, when
a new phase of priesthood was established, which we shall notice
elsewhere. Things went on thus until about the year 60 B.C., when
Pompey seized the city and massacred twelve thousand Jews in the
temple courts. Thus it fell into the hands of the Romans, against whom
it rebelled, and by whom ultimately, after the most terrible siege
recorded in history, it was taken and subjected to violations over
which the mind even now shudders; its temple was ransacked, violated,
and burned, its priests butchered, pagan rites were celebrated in its
holy place, its maidens were ravished, its palaces burned down, an
unrestrained carnage was carried on, Jews were crucified on crosses as
long as trees could be found to make them, and when the woods were
exhausted they were slain in cold blood. Nearly a million of Jews are
said to have fallen in this terrible conflict. For fifty years after
there is no mention of Jerusalem in history. They kept themselves
quiet, watching eagerly and stealthily for an opportunity of throwing
off the hated Roman yoke. About the year 131 A-D., Adrian, to prevent
any outbreak, ordered the city to be fortified. The Jews rebelled at
once, but were so completely crushed by the {502} year 135 that this
date has always been accepted as that of their final dispersion. The
holy city was then made a Roman colony, the Jews were forbidden to
enter into its walls under pain of immediate death, the very name was
altered to the pagan one of AElia Capitolina, a temple was erected on
Mount Moriah to Jupiter Capitolinus, and Jerusalem was henceforth
spoken of by this pagan name until the days of Constantine, when
pilgrimages were rife, and the Christians began to turn their steps
toward the city whose streets had been hallowed by the footsteps of
Christ. Helena, the emperor's mother, wandered there in penitence,
built a church on the site of the nativity, and agitated Christendom
to its foundations by the announcement of the discovery of the true
cross. Constantine then built a church on the site of the Holy
Sepulcher, and at last the Jews were admitted once a year into the
city of their glory to sing penitential psalms over their degradation.
The sorrows of the place were not yet ended, for in the year 614 the
Persians fell upon Jerusalem, and this time the Christians suffered,
ninety thousand of whom were killed. Then it was retaken by the
Romans, when the Emperor Heraclius marched in triumph through its
streets with the real cross on his shoulders. In 637, however, it fell
into the hands of Arabic Saracens, from whom the Turks took it in
1079. Then came that marvellous agitation of Europe, when she poured
out her millions of devotees to drive the Saracen from the holy land;
and in 1099 Godfrey de Bouillon was proclaimed King of Jerusalem by
the victorious Crusaders. The Christians held it for eighty-eight
years, when Saladin, the sultan of Egypt, wrested it from them in
1187, and they held it until the year 1517, when the Ottoman Turks
seizing upon Jerusalem, made the twenty-first and last invasion which
this devoted city has undergone, and in their hands it still remains.

In the very earliest ages of Christianity people begin to bend their
steps toward Jerusalem and to write their travels. Some of these
variations are extant, and the earliest is called "Itinerarium a
Burdigala Hierusalem usque:" it was written by a Christian of
Bordeaux, who went to the Holy Land in the year 333, about two years
before the church of the Holy Sepulchre was consecrated by Constantine
and his mother Helena. It is to be gleaned also from the works of the
Greek fathers that pilgrimages to Jerusalem were becoming so frequent
as to lead to many abuses. St. Porphyry, after living as a recluse in
Egypt, went to the Holy Land, visited Jerusalem, and finally settled
in the country as Bishop of Gaza. Toward the end of the fourth century
(385), St. Eusebius of Cremona and St. Jerome went there and founded a
monastery at Bethlehem. St. Paula also visited it about the same time.
In the seventh century we have St. Antonius going there and telling us
he admired the beauty of the Jewish women who lived at Nazareth. In
the year 637, the taking of Jerusalem by the Saracens interrupted the
the flow of visitors, but Areulf, a French bishop, went there toward
the end of the century. In the early part of the eighth century the
Anglo Saxons began to go there. Willibald, a relative of Boniface,
paid a visit to Jerusalem in 724. Then the war with the Greeks
interposed, and we do not hear much about the Holy Land until the end
of the eighth century, when, through the friendship of Charlemagne
with Haroun al Raschid, the Christians were once more allowed to go to
the Holy Sepulcher. A monk, called Bernard Sapiens, went in 870, and
wrote anon account of it. Then the celebrated Gerbert, who was
afterward pope, under the title of Sylvester II., went to Jerusalem in
986, came back and wrote a work, in which he made the holy city mourn
her misfortunes and woes, her wasted temples and violated sacred
places; then he appealed to the whole Christian world to go and help
her. France {503} and Italy began to move. The Saracens heard of this
agitation, and interdicted the Christians in their dominions from
worshipping, turned their temples into stables, and threw down the
church of the Holy Sepulcher and others in the year 1008. At the
tidings of this devastation Europe was aroused, and in fact we may
fairly say that Gerbert's book of travel was the first spark that
fired the conflagration of the Crusades. The first narrative we have
of any pilgrim who followed the Crusades is by Saewulf, a Saxon, and a
very interesting narration he has left; he went in the year 1102, was
a monk of Malmesbury Monastery, and is mentioned by the renowned
William of that abbey in his Gesta Pontificum. There are accounts also
in the twelfth century by Benjamin of Tudela; in the fourteenth by Sir
John Mandeville; in the fifteenth by Bertrandon de la Brocquière; and
in the sixteenth by Henry Maundrell.  [Footnote 152]

  [Footnote 152: See Early Travels in Palestine, An interesting
  collection of itineraries and ancient visits to the Holy Land, by
  Mr. Thomas Wright.]

Modern times have multiplied books on the Holy Land, but those
mentioned above are nearly all that are extent of early periods. In
our own day there is a tendency to revive the subject; we have had
many books lately, good, bad, and indifferent, upon Holy
Land--Wanderings in Bible Lands and Scenes, Horeb and Jerusalem, Sinai
and Palestine, Giant Cities of Bashan, Jerusalem as It Is, and many
others, of which we cannot stop to say more than that they are
generally interesting and readable. It would take a wretched writer,
indeed, to make a dull book upon the Holy Land; the subject itself and
the scenes enlist the attention at once. But the last pilgrim who has
returned from that sacred city and emptied his wallet for our
inspection has produced a book not only valuable as an interesting
account of travel, but useful as an excellent commentary upon the
incidents of the Bible and the life and work of our Lord. There have
been many reviews of this book as a book of travel, but it is in this
higher light more particularly that we wish to examine Mr. Hepworth
Dixon's two volumes on the Holy Land. From the very earliest times
down to the present, Jaffa or Joppa seems to be the portal of
Palestine to western travellers, who are, it appears, compelled to
make their _début_ in Palestine in no very dignified manner. The
water-gate of Jaffa, Mr. Dixon tells us, faces the sea, and is "no
more than a slit or window in the wall about six feet square." Through
this narrow opening all importations from the west must be hoisted
from the canoes; "such articles as pashas, bitter beer, cotton cloth,
negroes, antiquaries, dervishes, spurious coins and stones, monks,
Muscovite bells, French clocks, English damsels and their hoops,
Circassian slaves, converted Jews, and Bashi Bazouks." Once safe
through this slit in the wall, the stranger is ushered into a town
whose scenes recall to his imagination the Arabian Nights of his
childhood, so little has the Holy Land changed; the dress of the
people and their customs being so little altered that Haroun, if he
were allowed to take another midnight trip with his vizier, would be
quite at home. Marvellous it is, too, that civilization has left
another peculiarity untouched in Palestine. Mr. Dixon tells us that
after "three months of Syrian travel you will learn to treat a
skeleton in the road with as much indifference as a gentleman in a
turban and a lady in a veil." Whatever dies in the plain lies
there--asses, camels, or men. The travelling baggage of an Arab
includes a winding-sheet, in which he may be rolled by his companion,
if he has one, and covered with sand; bodies are found, too, who, in
the last gasp, had striven to cover their faces with the loose sand.
There is no exaggeration in this statement--the Saxon Saewulf, who
went there in the year 1102, nearly eight centuries ago, draws the
same picture. He says:

{504}

 "Went from Joppa to Jerusalem, two days' journey by a mountainous
 road, very rough and dangerous on account of the Saracens, who lie in
 wait for the Christians to rob and spoil them. Numbers of human
 bodies lie by the wayside, torn to pieces by wild beasts, many of
 whom have been cut off by Saracens; some, too, have perished from
 heat, and thirst for want of water, and others from too much
 drinking."

Travelling in the Holy Land is not mere sport; there are a myriad of
dangers to be avoided and watched for, armed Bedaween are prowling
about, bands of horsemen scour across the plain like clouds over the
sky.

  "Horsemen!" cries Yakoub, reining in. "Hushing the still night, and
  with hands on our revolvers, bending forward toward the dim fields
  on our left hand, we can hear the footfall of horses crushing their
  way through stubble and stones. In a moment while they sounded afar
  off, they are among us; fine dark figures, on brisk little mares,
  and poising above them their bamboo spears. A word or two of parley,
  in which Ishmael has his share, and we are asking each other for the
  news. . . . . Perhaps they consider us too strong to be robbed, for
  a Bedaween rarely thinks it right to attack under an advantage of
  five to one."

At dawn of day they arrive at the spot where once stood Modin, the
birth place of the Maccabees, now a den of robbers, called Latrun.
This spot is a most interesting one, and Mr. Dixon rapidly sketches
the results of the events which were transacted here, showing how from
the Maccabaean revolt sprang the Great Separation, a new kind of
priesthood, and also, for which the influence of the captivity had
already prepared them, the ignoring of the written law of Moses, and
the introduction and veneration of the oral law or tradition of the
elders. The peculiar aspects of the Jews at the time of the Roman
domination and the advent of Christ, their hopes and opinions, may be
traced back to the drama which was played out on this spot. We
propose, then, to pause for a moment to sketch the history of that
period, as it is the keystone to the whole fabric of Jewish
degeneracy.

About half a century before the birth of Christ the Jews had fallen
into the hands of the Romans, and in the writings of Tacitus we have a
description of them, an attempt at investigation into their history,
and a version of Roman opinion upon them, which is the more
interesting as it affords an admirable corroboration of what is
recorded in the Scriptures. Tacitus endeavors very ingeniously to make
them come originally from Crete, on account of their name, Idaeos or
Judaeos, from Mount Ida, in Crete. We must bear in mind that it is
scarcely probable that Tacitus could have read Genesis. Then he
mentions other theories which were in vogue as to the origin of this
strange people, who were beginning to be very troublesome to the
Romans. In the first theory we get a slight trace of the sacred
tradition; certain people, he say, declare that a great multitude in
the reign of Isis overflowed Egypt and discharged themselves into the
lands of Judea and the surrounding neighborhood, some call them a race
of AEthiops, others Assyrians; and we are told there were some even
who claimed for them a far more renowned descent from the [Greek text]
mentioned by Homer, whence they called their great city Hiero-Solyma.
These theories are very ingenious, but they only serve to prove that
the eye of the philosophical historian of the Romans had never rested
on the Jewish records. Still the character he gives of them is the one
they have universally borne in the world; he speaks also of "Moyses,"
who gave them a distinct legislation; he mentions "circumcision" and
their abstinence from certain kinds of meet; he records their national
exclusiveness, their immovable obstinacy, their notion of one God, so
strange to the a pagan mind, and the temple, _without images_, equally
absurd.

Though the Romans treated the Jews, as indeed they did all the people
they conquered, with great forbearance, still they had a sort of
secret dislike for them, and in the {505} and they served them as they
served no other race of people subject to their power. And this
feeling was reciprocated by the Jews, who now more than ever longed
for the advent of the great Deliverer, whom they also more than ever
felt must come in the shape of a warrior, with power and majesty to
sweep these Romans out of the country, and restore Jerusalem to her
former position of splendor and renown. There can be no question that
the political circumstances in which the Jews were placed at the time
of the coming of Christ helped to unfit them for his reception, by
fostering that idea of a great temporal sovereign which had been
implanted in their bosom. But this idea was of much older origin than
their troubles with the Romans. It is an interesting fact that the
Maccabaean revolution, which restored the priesthood, may be looked
upon as the event which first taught the Jews that fatal error. Before
that time they had a more spiritual conception of the Messiah, but the
events which followed in the wake of the heroism of Judas Maccabaeus
changed the whole character of their hopes. Let us review those
circumstances, for it is only by doing so we can properly understand
how the Jews came to be so persistent in their expectations of a great
omnipotent temporal sovereign. Antiochus Epiphanes, upon the death of
his brother, Seleucus Philopator, king of Syria, seized upon the
vacant throne, although Demetrius, the son of Seleucus, was alive at
Rome, where he had been sent as a hostage. In Daniel xi. 21, we glean
that he obtained the kingdom by flattery, which receives some support
from what Livy says about his extravagant rewards (Livy xli. c.20). He
had undertaken several campaigns against Egypt, and was on his return
from one of these, with wasted army and exhausted treasury, when it
occurred to him that if he could only plunder the temple of the Jews,
it would go far to recruit his finances. He turned his army at once
toward Jerusalem, marched upon it, and sacked it. An altar was raised
and sacrifice made to Jupiter in the holy place. Then he endeavored to
abolish the ceremonial, and to introduce pagan worship, when the Jews,
exasperated beyond endurance, were ripe all over the country for
revolt, but dared not rise. At this time, however, there dwelt in a
little village called Modin, not far from Emmaus, a family who were
called the Maccabees, for what reason it is now impossible to
ascertain; but this family, who had lived there in the peaceable
obscurity of village life, were destined to become heroic. It
consisted of an aged father, Mattathias, and five sons. Antiochus
Epiphanes had sent his officers to this village to erect an altar in
the Jewish place of worship for sacrifice to the gods, when Mattathias
boldly declared that he would resist it. The altar was set up, and one
miserable renegade Jew was advancing toward it to make the pagan
offering, when he was slain on the spot by Mattathias. The family then
fled to the wilderness, and concealed themselves; they were soon
joined by others; a band was formed, which gradually increased, until
it became numerous enough to attack towns. Then Mattathias died, and
his son, even more memorable in the history of patriotism, came
forward, and took the command of the gathering confederation, now a
disciplined army. Apollonius was sent against him, whom Judas met
boldly on the field of battle, and slew. The same success attended him
in his encounter with the Syrian general, Seron. Antiochus now saw the
necessity of vigorous measures to prevent the Jews from recovering
their independence; he went to Persia to recruit his treasures, while
Lysias, the regent, sent an army to Judea of 40,000 foot and 7,000
cavalry, which was reinforced by auxiliaries from the provinces, and
even by Jews who were already becoming jealous of the fame of Judas.
The Jewish hero pointed out to his {506} followers the desperate odds
against which they would have to contend, and resolved upon employing
a stratagem. By a forced march he reached a portion of the enemy
encamped at Emmaus and surprised them, with complete success: several
portions of the army were put to flight, and a great booty secured.
Another and more numerous army was sent against him, but with no
success. At the head of 10,000 followers, fired by fanaticism, Judas
put to flight the army of Lysias, 60,000 strong, and marched on
Jerusalem to purify the temple and restore it to its glory. The
festival of Purification was then inaugurated. Day by day the
successes of Judas increased, when Antiochus Eupator, who had
succeeded Antiochus Epiphanes, invaded Judea, and only made peace with
Judas in consequence of dissensions at home. He was murdered by his
uncle, Demetrius, who seized the kingdom and confirmed the peace with
Judas, but took possession of the citadel of Jerusalem, placing his
general, Nicanor, there with troops. Suspicions were then entertained
that treachery was being plotted between Judas and this general; the
matter was pressed, when Nicanor cleared himself, and Judas was
obliged to flee. A battle took place, which he won, and another
victory followed at Beth-horon, in which Nicanor fell. Re-enforcements
strengthened the enemy, and Judas was compelled to retire to Laish
with 3,000 followers, where he was attacked at a disadvantage. Only
800 of his men remained faithful to him, but with these he boldly
encountered the avenging hosts of Demetrius, and found a hero's death
on the field. Though Judas was dead, yet the Maccabaean spirit was not
extinct. Simon and Jonathan, his brothers, rallied their companions,
and took the lead, fortifying themselves in a strong position in the
neighborhood of Tekoa. Jonathan bid fair to equal Judas; he avoided an
open engagement with the Syrians, but kept his position, and harassed
the enemy for the space of two years, when events brought about what
perhaps the slender forces of his army would have never accomplished.
A pretender to the throne of Syria sprang up in the person of
Alexander Balas, the reputed natural son of Antiochus Epiphanes, and a
party was soon found to promote his claim against Demetrius. By this
time Jonathan's little body of troops had been augmented by continued
re-enforcements, and his position was such that to the contending
parties in Syria it became clear that if either could win over this
obstinate Jew to his cause it would decide the matter. Demetrius took
the first step, by making him at once general of the forces in Judea
and governor of Jerusalem; but Jonathan was in no hurry, he suspected
the wily Demetrius, and having received overtures from Alexander
Balas, that if he would espouse his cause he would make him high
priest when he was on the throne of Syria, he yielded. These overtures
were accompanied by the present of a purple robe, and Jonathan, who,
doubtless, saw in the dissensions of his enemies the opportunity for
Jerusalem, accepted the proposition, joined Alexander, who slew
Demetrius in battle, and ascended the throne of Syria. True to his
engagement, he made Jonathan high priest, with the rank of prince, and
did all he could to ensure his fidelity. Jonathan afterward attended
the marriage of Alexander with a daughter of the King of Egypt, at
Ptolemais, where he received many marks of consideration from the
Syrian and Egyptian monarchs. He ultimately fell, however, a victim to
treachery, and was succeeded by his brother Simon, who confirmed the
Jews in their independence in return, for which, in 131 B.C., they
passed a decree, by which the dignity of high priest and prince of the
Jews was made hereditary in the family of Simon. Thus was founded the
long line of Asmonean priests, which remained unbroken down to about
thirty-four years before Christ. The Mosaic principle was set aside,
and {507} from this time the changes came over the Jews and their
institutions which are admirably sketched by Mr. Dixon in the two
chapters on the Great Separation and the Oral Law, which we recommend
to the careful perusal of any one who wishes to form a clear idea of
the origin of the state of Judaism at the time of our Lord. He thus
sums up in a sentence the results of the Maccabaean insurrection:

  "The main issues, then, as regards the faith and policy in Israel of
  that glorious revolt of Modin, w the elevation of a fighting sect to
  power; the general adoption of separative principles; the
  substitution of an explanatory law for the Covenant; a change in the
  divine succession of high priests, and a lawless union of the
  spiritual and secular forces."

The Idyls of Bethlehem form a most interesting chapter: the death of
Rachel, the idyl of Ruth, the episode of Saul, the house of Chimham,
the idyl of Jeremiah, and the birth of our Saviour, are all sketched
in a manner which tends to impress these well-known scenes upon the
mind indelibly. A chapter on Syrian Khans, which throws much light
upon the incident of the birth of Christ, we would like to extract did
not the exigencies of space forbid. The reader will find in the
chapters, The Inn of Bethlehem, The Province of Galilee, Herod the
Great, John the Baptist, and Jewish Parties, an admirable introduction
to those scenes of the life and wanderings of our blessed Lord which
are contained in the second part of the book, and to which we wish to
devote the remainder of this paper.

When speaking of the early life of Jesus, Mr. Dixon takes up the
question of the obscurity of his origin, that favorite point with the
sceptics of all ages, from the "Is not this the carpenter's son?" of
the Jews, down to puerile objections of the German Strauss. He has
shown that it was the custom to teach the youth of all classes some
useful art; and the best born and greatest men in Jewish history had
been instructed in such trades as weaving, tent-making etc. Beside,
certain trades were held in honor. We cannot understand this if we
think of carpentering by the contemptuous estimate of modern life.
That contempt for hand-labor was unknown in the early ages of
Scripture history. Adam dressed the garden, Abel was a keeper of
sheep, Cain a tiller of the ground. Tubal Cain a smith; and so, among
the Jews, it was a reproach to any man if he had not been taught one
of the useful mechanical arts. It was dignified by the Almighty
himself, who, we are told--

  "Called by name Bezaleel, . . . and he hath filled him with the
  spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in
  all manner of workmanship, and to devise curious works, to work in
  gold and in silver and in brass, and in the cutting of stones to set
  them, and in carving of wood to make any manner of cunning work. And
  he hath put it in his heart that he may teach." Exod. xxxv. 30-34.

This reverence was cherished by the Jews; carpentering was always
looked upon as a noble occupation; the fact that the carpenter might
have to go into the temple to labor would have rescued that occupation
from contempt. This is a striking peculiarity of eastern life; and
elsewhere the objection of the sceptic to the humble origin of Jesus
has been well answered:

  "The princes of Turkey in Egypt are still instructed in the
  mechanical arts, one being made a brazier, another a carpenter, a
  third a good weaver, and so on. Said Pasha was a good mechanic,
  Ishmael Pasha is not inferior to his brother. Much of the domestic
  life of Israel has been lost to us, but still we know something of
  the crafts in which many of the most famous rabbis and doctors had
  been taught to excel. We know that Hillel practised a trade. St.
  Paul was a tent-maker, Rabbi Ishmael was a needle-maker, Rabbi
  Jonathan a cobbler. Rabbi Jose was a tanner. Rabbi Simon was a
  weaver. Among the Talmudists there was a celebrated Rabbi Joseph who
  was a carpenter. What then becomes of Strauss's inference that
  Joseph must have been a man of low birth--not of the stock of
  David--because he followed a mechanical trade?"   [Footnote 153]

  [Footnote 153: Athenaeum, 27th Jan., 1866.]

{508}

We may conclude this point by adding that among the Jews the only
trades which could prevent a man from attaining to the dignity of high
priest were weavers, barbers, fullers, perfumers, cuppers, and
tanners.

But to return to the life and work of Jesus. His fame was gradually
spreading, and he went about the small towns and hamlets:

  "Capernaum, Chorazin Magdala, Bethsaida, Dalmanutha Gerasa,
  preaching in the synagogues, visiting the fishing-boats and
  threshing-floors, healing the sick, and comforting the poor; gentle
  in his aspect and in his life; wise as a sage and simple as a child;
  winning people to his views by the charm of his manner and the
  beauty of his sayings."

His first aim was to win the Jews from the Oral Law, to convince them
of its emptiness; it is the key to the following scenes graphically
depicted by Mr. Dixon. Christ had gone to Jerusalem for the feast of
Purim, and was walking by the Pool of Bethesda in the sheet market, a
spot he had to pass daily. On the thanks of this pool were crowds of
sick, the halt, aged, and blind, a spectacle sure to attract the eye
of Jesus:

  "It was the Sabbath day.

  "In the temple hard by, these wretches could hear the groaning of
  bulls under the mace, the bleating of lambs under the sacrificial
  knife, the shouting of dealers as they sold doves and shekels.
  Bakers were hurrying through with bread. The captain of the temple
  was on duty with his guards. Priests were marching in procession,
  and crowds of worshippers standing about the holy place. Tongues of
  flame leaped faintly from the altars on which the priests were
  sprinkling blood . . . but the wretches who lay around (the pool) on
  their quilts and rugs, the blind, the leprous, and the aged poor,
  drew no compassion from the busy priests. One man, the weakest of
  the weak, had been helpless no less than thirty-eight years. Over
  this man Jesus paused and said:

  "'Wilt thou be made whole?'

  "'Rabbi, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into
  the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me."

The Compassionate answered him:

  "'Rise, take up thy bed and walk.'

  "At once the life leaped quickly into the poor man's limbs. Rising
  from the ground he folded up his quilt, taking it on his arm to go
  away; but some of the Pharisees seeing him get up and roll his bed
  into a coil, run toward him crying: 'It is the Sabbath day; it is
  not lawful for thee two carry thy bed.' It was certainly an offense
  against the Oral Law."

The Jews had turned the blessing of the Sabbath into a curse.

  "From the moment of hearing the ram's horn, a sacred trumpet, called
  the shofa, blown from the temple wall, announcing that the seventh
  had commenced, he was not allowed to tight a fire or make a bed, to
  boil him a pot; he could not pool his ass from a ditch, nor raise
  and arms in defense of his life . . . A Jew could not quit his camp,
  his village, or his city on the day of rest. He might not begin a
  journey; if going along a road, he must rest from sundown till the
  same event of the coming day. He might not carry a pencil, a
  kerchief a shekel in his belt; if he required a handkerchief for
  use, he had to tie it round his leg. If he offended against one of
  these rules, he was held to deserve the doom awarded to the vilest
  of sinners. Some rabbins held that a man ought not to change his
  position, but that, whether he was standing or sitting when the
  shofa sounded, _he should stand or sit immovable as a stone until
  the Sabbath had passed away_."

Jesus broke the Oral Law that he might bring his followers to a sense
of its degrading spirit, and announced the new truth that "_The
Sabbath is made for man; not and for the Sabbath_." After two very
interesting chapters upon Antipas Herod and Herodias, we have once
upon the Synagogue. Some writers have striven to claim the remotest
antiquity for this institution, but in all probability it might be
dated from the captivity. There would be a natural desire to meet
together away from the pagans, by whom they were surrounded, to pray
to their God, to sing their psalms, and to read the law. This gave
rise to the synagogue, which means no more then a "meeting together;"
but after the Maccabaean insurrection it became a popular institution,
and every little village had its synagogue. Now, as much of the work
of Christ was done in the synagogue, as he loved to go into them and
to take part {509} in their services, it is desirable that we should
have a clear notion of what a synagogue was:

  "A house of unhewn stones taken up from the hillside; squat and
  square of the ancient Hebrew style, having a level roof, but neither
  spire nor tower, neither dome nor minaret to enchant the eye; such
  was the simple synagogue of the Jews in which Jesus taught. . .
  Inside a Syrian synagogue is like one of our parish schools with
  seats for the men, rough sofas of wood half covered with rushes and
  straw; a higher seat stands in the centre like that of a mosque, for
  the elders of the town, a desk for the reader of the day; at the
  south end a closet, concealed by a hanging veil, in which the torah,
  a written copy of the Pentateuch, is kept in the sacred ark. A
  silver lamp is always kept burning, a candlestick with eight arms, a
  pulpit, a reading-desk, are the chief articles of furniture in the
  room. . . . . In olden times women were allowed to enter with the
  men, though they were even then parted from father and son by a
  wooden screen. . . . Before entering a synagogue a man is expected
  to dip his hands into water. . . . Ten persons are necessary to form
  a meeting; every town or city having a synagogue appointed ten men
  called batlanim (men of leisure), who were bound to appear at the
  hour of prayer. . . Higher in office was the chazzan, who took
  charge of the house and scroll. . . The meturgeman was an
  interpreter of the law, whose duty it was to stand near the reader
  for the day, and translate the sacred verses, one by one, from the
  Hebrew into the vulgar tongue. Above him were the elders. . . . When
  the people came in they first bowed to the ark; the elders took
  their places on the raised platform; the rich went up to high seats
  near the ark; the poor sat on wooden sofas, matted with straw. . . .
  A prayer was said, one of the Psalms of David sung. The chazzan
  walked up to the veil, which he drew aside with reverence, lifted
  the ark from its niche, took out the torah, carried the roll round
  the benches, every one striving either to kiss or touch it with his
  palm; the sheliach read the lesson for the day; at its close the
  elder expounded the text in a sort of sermon, when the torah was
  carried back, the prayers began. . . . Every hearer had in those
  times a right to express his opinion of the sacred text, and of what
  it meant."

Our Lord availed himself of this right, which every Jew possessed, of
speaking in the synagogue upon the text which had been read; and Mr.
Dixon has worked up two scenes well known in the career of our Lord,
with all the surrounding incidents and scenery, so graphically and so
accurately that no one could read these descriptions without rising
from them with a clearer and more complete understanding of the simple
statement of the gospel. The gospels were not written as historical
sketches, but as vehicles for the vital truth they contain;
consequently anything that resuscitates the scene and reproduces the
incidents as they took place, with all their peculiar surroundings,
must be of great value in assisting us to comprehend more readily, and
to retain in our minds more vividly the events of our Lord's career.
We think this is more preeminently the characteristic aim and
achievement of this work than of the many others we have read upon the
subject, and we shall instance one, the scene in the synagogue of
Capernaum. The first alluded to was the declaration of Jesus in the
synagogue at Nazareth; but as many of the incidents are included in
this of Capernaum, we content ourselves with giving it somewhat in
detail, as an illustration of the peculiarity we have already
mentioned. Let the reader first peruse the simple statement in the
gospel of St. John, vi. ch., 25 v., to the end, and then the
following; or better still the whole of chapter xvii. in the second
volume of Mr. Dixon's work, called The Bread of Life, and he will rise
from it with a much more vivid conception of one of the most trying
scenes in our Lord's history. On the steps of the synagogue a motley
crowd had collected, eager, excited, and curious, for it was just
after the miraculous feeding of the 5,000, and they were full of it;
they had heard of it in all its stupendous power; it was the miracle
of all miracles most likely to overpower the Jewish mind; it recalled
to them the words of Jehovah:

  "At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled
  with bread, and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God."

{510}

And this man, this son of Joseph the carpenter, had fed 5,000 people
on fire barley loaves and two small fishes. They saw the little boat
on the beach in which Jesus had come; they had heard of his walking on
the water that very night; and now the crowd was increasing, for the
country was aroused, and people came flocking from all parts to see
this man who did such marvellous things.

  "Jesus sat in the synagogue in his usual place. The Jews poured in,
  each man and woman making lonely reverence toward the ark. . . , The
  service began with the prayer of sweet incense, after which the
  congregation, the batlanim leading, sang Psalms of David; when these
  were sung, the chazzan, going up to the ark, drew aside the veil and
  took out the sacred roll, which he carried round the aisles to the
  reader of the day, who raised it in his hands, so that all who were
  present could see the sacred text. Then the whole congregation rose.
  . . . Opening the scroll, the reader read out the section or chapter
  for the day. . . . When the lesson was finished the chazzan took the
  scroll from the reader and carried it back to its place behind the
  veil. Then when the roll was restored to the ark, they sang other
  psalms, after which the elder delivered the midrash, an exposition
  of the text which had been read. The time now being come to question
  and be question, all eyes turned on the Teacher who had fed the
  5,000 men. . . . Their questions were Sharp and loud:

  "'Rabbi, when camest thou hither?'

  "'Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye ask me not because ye saw the
  miracles, but because ye ate of the loaves and were filled. Labor
  not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth
  unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you, for
  him hath God the Father sealed."

  "Then they asked him:

  "'What must we do that we may work the works of God?'

  "To which he answered, with a second public declaration, that he was
  Christ the Son of God:

  "'This is the word of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath
  sent.'

  "'What sign showest thou that we may see and believe thee! What dost
  thou work?'

  "Full of the great act which many witnesses declared that they had
  seen in the desert beyond the lake, they wished to have it repeated
  before their eyes; so they said to him:

  "'Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, as it is written, he
  gave them bread from heaven to eat.'

  "Jesus took up their thought.

  "'Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not the bread from
  heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the
  bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven and giveth life
  unto the world.'

  "'Rabbi, evermore give us this bread.'

  "Jesus answered them:

  "' I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall not hunger,
  and he that believeth in me shall never thirst. . . . . . For I am
  come down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him
  that sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose
  nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. '. . .

  "The elders, the batlanim, the chazzan gazed into each other's
  faces, and began to murmur against him, just as the men of Nazareth
  had murmured against him.

  "'Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph whose father and mother we
  know? How is it, then, that he saith, I am come down from heaven?"

  "Jesus spoke to them again:

  "Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me except the
  Father which sent me draw him; and I will raise him up the last. . . .
  I am the bread of life. . . . . I am the living bread which came
  down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread he shall live
  forever; yea, and the bread that I will give you is my flesh, which
  I will give for the life of the world.'

  "Strange doctrines for Jews to weigh. Then leapt hot words among
  them, and some of those who had meant to believe in him drew back.
  If he were the Christ, the Son of David, the King of Israel, why was
  he not marching on Jerusalem, why not driving out the Romans, why
  not assuming a kingly crown? 'How can this Man give us his flesh to
  eat?'

  "The Lord spoke again, still more to their discontent and chagrin,
  seeing that they wanted an earthly Christ:

  "'Except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood,
  ye have no life in you.'

  "This was too much for many, even for some who had been brought to
  the door of belief. . . . . The service of the synagogue ended, the
  elders came down from the platform, the chazzan put away the sacred
  vessels, the congregation came out into the sun, angry in word and
  mocking spirit. They wanted facts; he had given them truth. They
  hungered for miraculous bread, for a new shower of manna; he had
  offered them symbolically his flesh and blood. They had set their
  hearts on finding a captain who would march against the Romans, who
  would would cause Judas of Gamala to be forgotten, who would put the
  glories of Herod the Great to shame. They had asked him for earth,
  and he had answered them with heaven."

{511}

But the scene was drawing to a close; Jesus went on with his work
after this tumult in the synagogue, opposing himself to the senseless
rites of the Pharisees, defying the oral law, healing the sick, and
preaching to the people. Passing through the country from Galilee a
Syro-Phenecian woman who had heard of him, and perhaps seen him, ran
after him in the road, and besought him to heal her daughter who was a
lunatic. The disciples urged him to send her away, for his life would
not have been safe if he had another conflict with the Jews in that
quarter, and to heal this Gentile woman's child would be sure to bring
them on his track. Turning to the woman, Jesus told her he was sent
only to the lost sheep of Israel; but she persisted, crying, "Lord,
help me!" an evidence of faith which was quite sufficient, and Jesus
turned to her and said, "Great is thy faith, O woman, be it unto thee
as thou wilt." This was a fatal blow to the Jewish exclusiveness, a
Gentile had been called into the church, and the pride of the Jew
humbled forever. On the last Sabbath day which Jesus spent on earth,
he struck another blow at the ceremonial law, by taking his disciples
to dine at the house of one Simon a leper. He had reached Bethany, and
taken up his abode in the house of Martha and Mary, among the outcast
and the poor, for that last seven days now called in the church the
holy week. The scene was an impressive one. The city, as far as the
eye could reach, was one vast encampment, caravans were arriving from
every direction, bringing thousands of Jews to the feast, who,
selecting their ground, drove four stakes into the earth, drew long
reeds round them, and covered them with leaves, making a sort of
bower; others brought small tents with them; the whole city, Mount
Gibeon, the plain of Rephaim, the valley of Gihon, the hill of Olivet,
were all studded with tense, and crowded with busy people hastening to
finish their preparations before the shofa should sound at sunset, and
the Sabbath begin, when no man could work. In the temple, the priests,
the doctors, the money-changers, the bakers of shew-bread, were all at
work, and the last panorama in the life of Christ commenced.

On the first day in Holy Week, now known as Palm _Sunday_, Jesus
entered Jerusalem on an ass's colt, a prominent figure in the
festivities, for the crowds rushed up see him, with their palms, and
marched with him singing psalms; they had come out from Jerusalem to
meet him, and they escorted him into the city. At night he returned to
Bethany.

On the _Monday_ and _Tuesday_ he went early to the temple, mixing
among the people, restoring sight to the blind, and preaching to the
poor. As his life began with a series of temptations, so it was the
will of his Father that he should be persecuted with them at its
close--a lesson we may all do well to dwell upon. Up to the last days
of his life Jesus was subjected to temptations. On the Tuesday some
emissaries of the Sanhedrim came to the court where he was preaching
to question him, and gather evidence against him. They found him
amongst a crowd of Baptists, and demanded his authority for teaching.
Christ retorted by putting them to the dilemma of stating whether
John's baptism was of heaven or not; they were too much afraid of the
people to say it was of men, and if they said of heaven, Jesus would
have reproached them for their want of faith; they confessed their
ignorance. Then each party tried to entrap him.

The _Pharisees_ brought him a woman taken in adultery. By the Mosaic
law this offence would have been punished with death. But the Roman
government would have executed any Jew who would venture to carry out
such a law, and therefore the question seemed to compel Jesus to speak
either against Moses or the Romans. He quietly turned to the
witnesses, and told the man who was {512} innocent among them to cast
the first stone at her.

The _Herodians_ tempted him on a point of tribute. They had two taxes,
one to God and one to Caesar, both were disputed, and they consulted
him in order to involve him with God or Caesar; but he foiled them by
confirming both:

  "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the
  things that are God's."

They began to be astonished.

The _Sadducees_ tempted him with their dogma of the non-resurrection.
They told him sneeringly of a woman who had married seven husbands,
and they wanted to know whose she would be in the life to come. Jesus
replied calmly:

  "In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage,
  but are as the angels in heaven."

And the Sadducees with their philosophy, their learning, and their
unbelief, retired in confusion.

On the _Wednesday_ he remained in Bethany in seclusion, while Judas
was arranging for his safe betrayal to Annas and the nobles.

_Thursday_ Jesus sent Peter and John into Jerusalem to prepare the
Passover, and at sunset that day he and the twelve sat down to the
last supper; Judas left to see Annas, and after singing a hymn, the
other disciples rose from the table, passed through the sheep-gate
into the Cedron valley, and came to Gethsemane. Here Jesus withdrew,
and while his disciples were sleeping, he watched and prayed until the
betrayers came, and the kiss of Judas revealed him to them. The
Sanhedrim was summoned in the dead of the night, and when the members
arrived they found Annas examining witnesses, but with no avail, they
could not substantiate any charge against him that the Roman
government would allow them to punish with death. Annas told him to
speak for himself, but he would not. The high priest then said, "Art
thou the Christ?" he said, "I am."  Then Annas asked him who were his
disciples, and Jesus replied: "I spake openly to the world, I taught
in the synagogue and in the temple, whither the Jews resort, in secret
I have said nothing; ask them which heard me, they know what I have
said." The officer of the temple smote him, and Annas ordered him to
be bound with cords, and when it was day they went in a body to the
palace of Caiaphas. Here Jesus was questioned again, and answered that
he was the Christ, the high priest rent his clothes, in sign that it
was blasphemy and worthy of death. The Sanhedrim pronounced him
guilty, and the officers carried him to the Praetorian gates and
delivered him a prisoner into the hands of Pilate's guards. The
vacillation of Pilate and the last scene in our Lord's career are
known to all. Mr. Dixon leaves them with the observation, "They form a
divine episode in the history of man, and must be left to the writers
who could not err."

A good book is its own best eulogy, and we may safely leave this of
Mr. Dixon's to itself; but we cannot refrain from testifying our
appreciation of such a valuable addition to the records of eastern
travel. It is superfluous to say that it is excellently written, as it
emanates from the 10, not of a tyro, but of a master-craftsman, whose
style is too well known to need eulogy, a style graphic, pointed, and
impressive, the result of clear vision and accurate delineation,
strengthened by a sort of Frith-like power of grouping as witness the
description of the street life of Jaffa, which, as an exquisite piece
of word-painting, is perfect.

The reader is led through the sacred scenes of the Holy Land by an
artist as well as a scholar, who as he journeys on revives the life of
the past; we see the patriarchal life, the tents, the flocks grazing
on the hills, the ready-writer with his and lingering and the city
gate. We here David's minstrelsy and the tramp of Maccabaean
soldierly; we peer into the depths of {513} one of those ancient wells
build by the patriarchs, and listen to the conversation of the
Samaritan woman with that wonderful stranger; we linger at the wayside
Khan, and see how natural is the tale of the gospel. As we near
Jerusalem the grander figures of the panorama pass over the scene, the
Herods in their luxury and pride, in their humiliation and their sins,
the grim towers of Macherus and the dark deed behind its walls when
the head of the messenger of God fell to please a wanton woman, and
terror was struck into the heart of the tyrant; the splendid
ceremonial service of the temple, with its altars, its sacrifices, and
its robed priests; the Sadducees luxuriating in their palaces, with
servants, carriages, gardens, living their voluptuous, godless lives;
the Pharisees with their demure aspect, broad and multiplied
phylacteries; the elements of Roman soldiery, the imperial eagles
hovering over the scene as the Jews past by scowling at the pagan
rulers of the holy city; and then that marvellous god-like figure
wandering about the streets followed by crowds of people, now entering
the temple courts to preach to them, and now stopping on his way to
heal some lame man or leper; his wanderings' along the wearying roads
of Galilee; his mingling with the people in the synagogues, the
popular gathering-place; his taking part in the service and reading
the Scriptures; his final coming up to the holy city, the betrayal,
this scenes of his trial, the frantic eagerness of the Jews, the
vacillation of Pilate, the terrible suspense and the ultimate triumph
of his foes, all these and many more incidents of biblical and gospel
history are revived and enacted, as it were, amid the very scenes and
in the very places where they once took place. We repeat again, that
this work is an excellent commentary and illustration of the gospel
narrative; and though pen of its author has been nobly wielded in the
controversial defence of that gospel, yet perhaps even greater good
may be done by this exhibition and illustration of the life and work
of Christ. To hold him up to the eyes of men is the best antidote to
scepticism; and whatever tends to do that, to plant the image of
Christ in the hearts of men, is a good work; the illustration of his
individuality, standing out as he did in his times, and as he does in
every time, distinct from all men and things. We take up the great
work of any age, its characteristic achievement, and we find the
impress of the age stamped indelibly upon it; it smacks of the time
and the scenes. Homer is pervaded with the valor of a mythic heroism,
bloodshed and victory. Dante is the very best reflection of
mediaevalism--its deep, superstitious piety, its weird dreams, and its
peculiar theology. Shakespeare, though he has written with spotless
purity, yet bears traces of the tolerated licentiousness of the
Elizabethan age. But Christ and his gospel stand out distinct, totally
distinct from the times and the life when they appeared. That gospel
could not have been produced by the age, for it was an antagonism to
it; the age was a degenerate one, a mixture of formal ceremony, and
licentious unbelief; paganism was waning; Rome becoming debased; the
ancient traditions of the Jews were lost in human inventions and
Rabbinical fantasies, when, rising up in the midst of all this
debasement, this corruption, these anomalies, came Christ and his
gospel, pure among rottenness, gentle in the midst of violence, holy
among flagrant infidelity and wanton vice, the Preacher and the
preaching both sent from somewhere, but manifestly not from the world,
not from oriental barbarism, not from western paganism, not from
Jewish corruption; it could then have come from no other place than
heaven, and had no other author than God. And when we reflect upon
what was compressed in that three years' labor, and compare it with
systems which have occupied men's lives to sketch out merely, and
taken {514} ages to perfect; when we see that this greatest system,
which has spread over the whole civilized world by the force of its
own truth, was in three short years laid down and consolidated, every
principle defined, every rule established, every law delineated, and
an impetus given to it by its great Master, which has always kept it
advancing in the world against every opposing force, and in spite of
every disadvantageous circumstance, all doubt about its individuality,
its superhuman character, and its divine origin, must vanish from the
mind. Therefore we think, in conclusion. that the best thing for
Christians still to do in this world is, to lift up Christ before the
eyes of men, no matter how, so that he be listed up boldly and
faithfully, be it by the voice, the pencil, or the pen (as in this
instance before us), or, better still by the more impressive
exhibition of Christ in a Christian life. If we wish to save men, let
us display him always and everywhere in the confidence that he will
fulfil his own divine promise--"I, if I be lifted up from the earth,
will draw all men unto me."

--------

ORIGINAL.

ON THE APPARITION OF OUR LORD TO THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS.


  "Whilst he was at table with them,
  he took bread, and blessed, and brake, and gave to them.
  And their eyes were opened, and they knew him."


DISCIPLE.

  "Lord! grant to thy servant this singular grace,
  To gaze but for once on thy beautiful face."

JESUS.

  "Most easily may'st thou this blessing secure:
    Who gives unto mine, unto me gives instead.
  Of thy loaf give a part to my suffering poor,
    And thy Lord thou shalt see at the breaking of bread."

--------

{515}

ORIGINAL.


LITTLE SUNBEAM'S CHRISTMAS STORY.


God bless you, kind gentlemen, for your merry Christmas, and thank you
kindly for these nice things; but you must not be angry if I say I'm
almost sorry it is Christmas day, for you see it makes me think about
last Christmas and the Christmas before.

I am Mr. Willsup's little girl--Mr. Willsup that is dead, you know. I
suppose you think I ought to wear black; and so I would, but mother
says we are too poor, and we must only mourn in our hearts. I do mourn
in my heart, oh! so much, I can't tell you. I don't like to
acknowledge it, and it gives me an ugly pain and a dreadful sinking
about my heart when I think of it, but it was on a Christmas night
that we lost poor father, and I'm afraid he wasn't right, you
understand, at the time.

There was a time when father was such a nice, good man, and when we
weren't poor, as we are now. We didn't always live up in this cold,
bare garret. We used to live in a fine, large house, all to ourselves;
and we had a nice garden in front, full of pretty flowers, and a long
back porch with a buying running over it; and we had a beautiful
parlor where we talked to the visitors only--not to sleep in and cook
in as we do here, when we have any fire; and I had the cosiest little
bedroom you ever saw, with a little altar in the corner, and on it a
statue of the Blessed Virgin, white as snow; and Chip, that's a
canary-bird, hung in his cage in the window when it was fine weather,
and cat sugar like a good fellow; and then we had silver forks and
spoons; and Zephyr, that's the horse, and Dash, our dog, and Pussy,
and oh! so many nice things, I never could tell you all in a long
time. But we haven't got any of them now, for we are poor, and
father's dead, and we must only mourn in our hearts.

I hardly know how to tell you all about it, for though I am little
I've seen a good deal; so much bad and trouble that my mind goes quite
round and round sometimes thinking over it. If you ever saw poor
father after we got to be poor, that wouldn't tell you how he looked
as I recollect him. Oh! he was so much changed! I used to be so proud
of him, and delighted to go out to walk with him in the street or
across the fields; and I used to love him so much--not that I didn't
always love him just as much as ever, only I didn't get so much chance
to love him, you understand, when he got to stay away from home and
be--oh! my heart, how it aches!

Father was a handsome-looking man once, and so smart. Everybody bowed
to him in the street. But he got rough and careless, I know, and it
made me feel sorry to see him go out without brushing his hat, or
asking me to do it for him, as he used to do. And then his face turned
to such a different look from old times. It got puffed up and red, and
his eyes that I remember were so bright and so deep, for I used to
climb up on his knee often, and look 'way down into them, and then he
would laugh and ask me if I could see his thoughts, and I almost
fancied I could sometimes, and give me a sweet kiss, and call me his
darling Susy; but when he changed, you know, his eyes seemed to be,
how shall I say it? so flat and soft, and he never seemed to be
looking anywhere in particular half the time.

{516}

You see it was business and appointments that changed him. When I
wished him to stay home and we would all enjoy ourselves--for we had
the pleasantest times together, father, mother, and me, and baby,
that's dead; and perhaps Dash and Pussy too sometimes, you know--then
he would be obliged to excuse himself on account of business and
appointments, which I fear were not always with the best of people,
for when he said he was going out mother would sigh _so_ deep and _so_
long; and then when he came home late at night I often woke up and
heard mother coaxing him and soothing him, and I am sure frequently
crying and sobbing, and that would make me cry too, all alone by
myself; and so the time went on, till father began to take less and
less notice of either mother or of me. As for dear little baby, even
when she sickened and died, I don't think he seemed to understand it,
and he stood by the grave and looked at the little coffin being let
down as if he were dreaming.

It was not long before father left off doing almost any business in
the daytime, and only went out at night. I noticed then that we began
to sell some of our nice furniture, and our silver forks and spoons. I
suppose, as we scarcely ever had any visitors now, we did not need
them; but the house began to look bare and desolate and strange, as if
it wasn't our house; and the servant quarrelled with mother and left
us, and we didn't get another, but mother did the work herself, and it
made her sick, for she wasn't used to it. Sam, our man, went away,
because after the horse and carriage was sold he had nothing to do. I
recollect hearing him say to mother:

"I'd stand by you and Susy, miss, as I've always stood by you, and
it's not wages, but times is changed, and I know you ain't able to
have me." And then he pulled his hat down over his eyes so far that he
had to lift it up again before he could see his way out of the front
door; and then ran across the garden and down the street, as if he
were running away from somebody. I cried a good deal when mother told
me he was not going to come back, for I loved Sam very much, and I'm
not I ashamed of if either, though Pinkey Silver said I ought to be,
for he was just like a brother to me, and a better brother than Pinkey
Silver's brother ever was.

Once, on a Christmas eve, I was going to hang up my stocking, as I had
always done, for good Santa Claus to put something in it, when mother
burst out into such a violent fit of crying that I was afraid she
would die. When she could speak to me she wanted me to let Santa Claus
go to some other children this year; but I determined to give him a
chance to leave me, say, a doll, if he happened to have one left over,
and so I slipped down-stairs in my night-gown, after mother had gone
to her room, and hung my stocking up in the old place. Just as I had
done it, father came staggering in. He was very bad, and fell over
several things. The noise brought mother down-stairs, and father
looking at me said so savagely that it sent all the blood to my heart:

"What devilish nonsense is the girl about?"

"Oh! don't blame the child," said mother, turning pale and getting
between him and me. "You know it is Christmas eve, John."

Then he swore many awful oaths, and said he didn't care for Christmas,
and that he was not going to be taunted with his poverty by his own
children, and went stamping around the room in a furious passion.
Mother went up to him to coax him, and put her arms around his neck;
but he threw her off and knocked her down and, though you mayn't
believe it, he actually lifted up his foot and stamped upon her face.
That is why mother looks so bad now, with those great scars, but she
was very beautiful before that, as everybody knows. When mother fell,
Dash sprang up from the hearth where he lay curled up, and barked at
father.

{517}

"They've all turned against me," said he, "even the dog. But I'll
brain _you_", says he to Dash.

When I saw mother trying to get up, with the blood all streaming down
her dress from her face and mouth, I got faint, and don't recollect
any more until I woke up, it must have been noon next day, with a
dreadful headache. I crept out of bed and went into the hall, and
there I heard people talking down in the parlor. It was mother, Mrs.
Thrifty, our next-door neighbor, and the doctor. The doctor and Mrs.
Thrifty were trying to persuade mother to do something, but she kept
saying, "Never! I couldn't--poor John!" and words like that.

Such terrible things had taken place and put my mind so astray that I
quite forgot I shouldn't listen; but I soon remembered it, and went
away. I wondered where father was, and thought I would look in his
room to see if he was there. In the old times, before father changed,
I used to be let come in, bright and early, to his room, and climb up
on a chair and kiss him before he got up; and he used to call me his
"Little Sunbeam" that came creeping in to say it was day. There he was
now, lying on the bed without taking off his clothes or muddy boots,
in a deep, heavy sleep. I did so want to love him, but I was afraid to
wake him up to tell him so, he looked so frightful, gnashing his teeth
in his dreams. But I thought I might be "Little Sunbeam" once more,
even if he didn't know it, and I got a chair and climbed up and
reached my arm over round his neck and gave him a kiss. It did not
seem like father's face, but I suppose I had forgotten, it was so long
since I kissed him before. Poor father! I began to mourn in my heart
for him then, as mother says we must do now. I was afraid to stay
there, but before I went away I knelt down beside the bed and prayed
the Blessed Virgin to ask God to make him a good man again, and make
him give up drinking, and make mother well, and let me be his "Little
Sunbeam" as before. Then I slipped back to my room and dressed myself,
and mother came up-stairs with her face all bandaged up, and she told
me not to say anything to anybody about the last night.

That Christmas day wasn't like any Christmas day I can ever recollect.
I didn't find any toys from Santa Claus in my stocking. We didn't go
to mass, nor to see the little Jesus in the Crib, nor to hear the
children sing around it. Nor we didn't have any plum pudding; and when
I went out on the back porch--oh! dear, how my heart does ache--there
lay poor old Dash, with his head split open, and quite dead.

You see I had so many things happen that I don't recollect how things
turned out, except that mother and I left our house one day, because
we got poor, mother said, and then we came here, and she says we are
never to go back because our house is sold to strangers, to whom
father was in debt. Pinkey Silver told me that the man who keeps the
grog-shop where poor father was stabbed owns it now. And I must tell
you about that.

It was the next Christmas day after the last one I told you about. We
had nothing to eat all day. Toward evening mother told me to go to
Mrs. Thrifty's and ask her to please lend us a loaf of bread. Mrs.
Thrifty was gone to a party, and so I had to wait until near nine
o'clock, when George Thrifty, that's Mrs. Thrifty's son, came in
laughing and singing:

  "Hie for merry Christmas!
  Ho for merry Christmas!
  Hurrah! for Christmas day!"

As soon as I told him what I wanted he ran and got a loaf of bread and
a pie and some cakes, and gave it all to me; and then he put his hand
in his pocket and turned it inside out, but there wasn't anything in
it, and says he:

  "Oh! little one, I'm as sorry as if I'd lost my grandmother; but I
  wish I hadn't spent all my Christmas, for I'd like to give you some
  money."

{518}

I thanked him very much and came away. As I was coming home I passed
the grog-shop I spoke to you about. I heard loud, angry quarrelling
and scuffling going on, and father's voice was among the rest. I was
afraid to go away, for I did not like to leave father there to get
hurt, and thought I had better go in and persuade him to come home
with me. I had no sooner put my head in the door than the then who
keeps the store told me to "be off, that he didn't want any beggars
around his place."

"I don't want to beg," said I, "I want father," and just as I said
that I saw a knife flash in the gaslight, and then--O my poor,
mourning heart!--poor father staggered and reeled toward me, and as
he saw me he cried out:

"Why, is it you, Little Sunbeam! O my God!" and then he fell down
across the sill of the door, at my feet, dead.

You see, dear, good gentlemen, you must not be angry if I'm almost
sorry it is Christmas. I know everybody ought to be happy when
Christmas comes; and I saw a good many little boys and girls to-day as
happy as I used to be, for I've been watching them through a little
peep hole I scratched on the frosty window-pane, and it didn't seem
real that they should be down there so happy, wishing each other
"Merry Christmas," and I up here all alone, mourning in my heart. But
you see what has done it all.

Do you think, dear, good gentlemen, that there are any other "Little
Sunbeams" like me? Do you think there are any fathers that are
changing like mine? Oh! please do run and tell them quick to stop and
change back again, or they will get poor like mother and me, and have
to live up in a cold, bare garret, and Santa Claus won't come down the
chimney on Christmas eve, because their children won't have any
stockings to hang up, and they will feel so hungry and so cold in the
night. Oh! I could tell them, and mother could tell them, as she tells
me, that drink brings a black curse on a family, and that God is angry
when he hears the drunkard's children crying for bread. I don't like
to cry when I think of that, but I couldn't help it this morning
because it is Christmas day.

It's all over now, I do so wish that mother was here to say thank ye
for all those nice things, but she won't be home till night, for she's
gone over to Mrs. Nabob's to work, where they are to have a great
party. But when she comes back I'll tell her all about it, and when we
say our prayers to-night we'll ask God to bless the good, kind
gentleman who thought about coming here to wish us a Merry Christmas.

--------

ORIGINAL.


CHRISTIAN CHARITY.

"As long as ye did it unto the least of these my brethren, ye did it
unto Me."


  There is a secret chamber in my breast
    Of which my Jesus hath sole custody
  But if my neighbor willeth there to rest,
    Then Jesus kindly lendeth him the key.

------

{519}

ORIGINAL.

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.



XI.

THE ORIGINAL STATE OF THE FIRST PARENTS OF MANKIND--THE RELATION OF
ADAM TO HIS POSTERITY--THE FALL OF MAN--ORIGINAL SIN.


The grand theatre of probation is this earth, and its chief subject
the human race. The probation of the angels was completed almost
instantaneously, and their transit to an immutable state followed
almost immediately on their creation. The probation of the human race
is long and complicated, diversified and extensive; and by it the most
magnificent exhibition is made of the principle of merit. It has also
this peculiarity that mankind were created, not merely as individuals,
each with his distinct probation, but also as a race; and that the
whole race had a probation at its origin, in the person of its
progenitor. It is our present task to unfold the Catholic doctrine
concerning the nature and results of this original probation of the
collective human race in the first epoch of its creation.

The Catholic doctrine teaches, in the first place, that the entire
human race, at present inhabiting the globe, is one; not merely in
being conformed to one archetype, but also in being descended by
generation from one common progenitor, that is, from Adam.

That this is distinctly affirmed in the book of Genesis, which the
Catholic Church receives as a portion of the inspired Scripture,
according to the obvious and literal sense of the words, is not
questioned by any one. It is only necessary, therefore, to show that
this obvious and literal sense is proposed by the authority of the
Catholic Church as the true sense. That is, that it is an essential
portion of Catholic doctrine, that God created at first one pair of
human beings, Adam and Eve, from whom all mankind are descended.

It seems evident enough that the archaic records, in which the history
of the creation of man is contained, were understood in this sense by
those who transmitted them from the beginning of human history, and
who first committed them to writing; and by Moses, who incorporated
them into the book of Genesis. This was the traditional sense
universally received among the Jews, as is manifest from all the
monuments of tradition. It is also the sense which is reaffirmed in
the other sacred and canonical books which follow those of Moses,
wherever they allude to the subject. For instance: "Who knoweth if the
spirit of the _children of Adam_ ascend upward."  [Footnote 154] "Seth
and Sem obtained glory among men: _and above every soul, Adam in the
beginning_,"  [Footnote 155]

  [Footnote 154: Eccles. iii. 21.]

  [Footnote 155: Eccles. xlix. 19.]

The similar traditions of heathen nations are well known. The Sacred
writers of the New Testament use the same explicit language. The
genealogy of Jesus in St. Luke's gospel closes thus: "Who was of
Henos, who was of Seth, _who was of Adam, who was of God_." St. Paul
affirms repeatedly and emphatically: "By _one man_ sin entered into
this world, and by sin death:" "by _the offence of one_ many have
died:" "the judgment indeed was _by one_ unto condemnation:" "by _one
man's offence_ death reigned through one:" "by the offence of _one_,
unto _all men_ to condemnation:" "for as _by the disobedience of one
man, many were made sinners;_ {520} so also, by the obedience of one,
many shall be made just."  [Footnote 156] These passages are plainly
dogmatic, and teach the relation of all men to Adam, as an essential
portion of the dogma of original sin. The whole force of the parallel
between Adam and Christ depends, also, on the individual personality
of the former, and his relation to all mankind without exception, as
their head and representative. The same parallel reappears in another
epistle: "For by a man came death, and by a man the resurrection of
the dead. And as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made
alive." "_The first man Adam_ was made a living soul; the last Adam a
quickening spirit. But not first that which is spiritual, but that
which is animal; afterward that which is spiritual. The first man was
of the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly. Such as
is the earthly, such also are the earthly; and such as is the
heavenly, such also are they that are heavenly. Therefore as we have
borne the image of the earthly, let us bear also the image of the
heavenly."  [Footnote 157]

  [Footnote 156: St. Luke iii, 38.  Rom. v. 12-19.]

  [Footnote 157: I Cor. xv. 21, 22, 35-49.]

These passages all present the fact of the original creation of
mankind in one pair from whom all men are descended in an intimate and
essential relation with Christian doctrine, especially with the dogma
of original sin. It is, therefore, necessary to regard it as a
dogmatic fact, or a fact pertaining to the essence of the revealed
truth, which the sacred writers taught with infallibility under the
influence of divine inspiration. So it has been always regarded in the
church, and is now held by the unanimous consent of theologians. It is
also incorporated into the solemn definitions of faith.

The canons of the second council of Milevis, and of the plenary
council of Carthage, A.D. 418, against the Pelagians, contain the
following definitions:

_Can_. 1. Placuit, ut quicunqae dicit, _Adam primum hominem_ mortalem
factum, ita, ut sive peccaret, sive non peccaret, moreretur in
corpore, hoc est de corpore exiret, non peccati merito, sed
necessitate naturae, anathema sit.

_Can_. 2. Item placuit, ut quicumque parvulos recentes ab uteris
matrum baptizandos negat, aut dicit in remissionem quidem peccatorum
eos baptizari, sed nihil ex Adam trahere originalis peccati, quod
regenerationis lavacro expietur, unde sit consequens, ut in eis forma
baptismatis in remissionem peccatorum non vera, sed falsa
intelligatur, anathema sit: quoniam non aliter intelligendum est quod
ait Apostolus: Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum, et per
peccatum mors, et ita in omnes homines pertransiit, in quo omnes
peccaverunt: nisi quemadmodum ecclesia catholica ubique diffusa semper
intellexit.

"_Can_. 1. It was decreed, that whoever says that _Adam, the first
man_, was made mortal, so that, whether he sinned or did not sin, he
should die in the body, that is, depart from the body, not by the
merit of sin, but by the necessity of nature, should be under the ban.

"_Can_. 2. It was also decreed, that whosoever denies that new-born
infants are to be baptized, or says that they are to be indeed
baptized for the remission of since, but derive no original sin _from
Adam_, which can be expiated in the laver of regeneration whence it
follows that in them the form of baptism is understood to be not true,
but false, should be under the ban; since that is not otherwise to be
understood which the apostle says: 'By one man sin entered into the
world, and death by sin, and so it passed upon all men, in whom all
have sinned;' _except as the Catholic Church everywhere diffused has
always understood it_."

These canons, although not in active by ecumenical councils, were
nevertheless approved by Popes Innocent I. and Zosimus, by them
promulgated to the universal church and ratified by {521} the consent
of the whole body of bishops; so that they are justly included among
the final and irreversible decisions of the Catholic Church. The
second of these canons was also reenacted by the Council of Trent,
which defined in the clearest terms the dogma of original sin as
derived from the sin of Adam, the head of the human race.

1. Si quis non confitetur, _primum hominem Adam_, mandatum Dei in
paradiso fuisset transgressus, statim sanctitatem, etc., amisisse: A.
S.

2. Si quis Adae prevaricationem sibi soli, non ejus propagini, asserit
nocuisse . . . . aut inquinatum illum per inobedientiae peccatum,
mortem et poenas corporis tantum in omne genus humanum transfudisse,
non autem et peccatum, quod est mors animae: A. S. cum contradicit
Apostolo dicenti: Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum, etc.

3. Si quis _hoc Adae peccatum, quod origine unum est_, et
propagatione, non imitatione, _transfusum omnibus_, inest cuique
proprium . . . . per aliud remedium asserit tolli, etc.: A. S.

"1. If any one does not confess that _the first man Adam_, when he had
transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost
sanctity, etc., let him be under the ban.

"2. If any one asserts that the prevarication of Adam injured himself
alone, and not his posterity . . . . or that he, being defiled by the
sin of disobedience, transmitted death and the pains of the body only
to the whole human race, but not also sin, which is the death of the
soul, let him be under the ban: since he contradicts the apostle, who
says: By one man sin entered into the world, etc.

"3. If any one asserts that this sin of Adam, which in origin is one,
and being transferred into all by propagation, not by imitation,
exists in each one as his own . . . . is taken away by any other
remedy, etc, let him be under the ban."

All these decrees affirm positively that the whole human race without
exception are involved in one common original sin, springing from one
transgression committed by the first man Adam, and transmitted from
him by generation. The dogma of original sin rests, therefore, on the
fact that all mankind are descended from one first man Adam, and is
subverted, if this fact is denied. An allegorical interpretation of
the sacred history of Genesis, according to which Adam and Eve are
taken to symbolize the progenitors of several distinct human species,
cannot be admitted as tenable, in accordance with the Catholic faith.
For, in this hypothesis, the different human races had each a distinct
probation, a separate destiny, a separate fall, and are therefore not
involved in one common original sin, but each one in the sin of its
own progenitor. This doctrine of original sin, namely, that a number
of Adams sinned, and that each one transmitted his sin to his own
progeny, so that every man is born in an original sin derived from
some one of the various primeval men, is essentially different from
the Catholic doctrine as clearly taught by Scripture and tradition,
and defined by the authority of the church. Moreover, the unity and
individuality of Adam, as the sole progenitor of the human race, is
distinctly affirmed in the decrees just cited, and in all the
subsequent decrees concerning the primitive state of man which have
emanated from the Holy See, and are received by the universal church.
We must consider, therefore, the doctrine of the unity of the human
race as pertaining to the faith. Perrone affirms this, in these words:
"Prop. II. Universum humanum genus ab Adam omnium protoparente
propagatium est. Haec propositio spectat ad fidem; huic enim innititur
dogma de propagatione peccati originalis." "The entire human race has
been propagated from Adam the first parent of all. This proposition
pertains to faith; for upon it rests the dogma of the propagation of
original sin."  [Footnote 158]

  [Footnote 158: Perrone, Prael. Theil. De Him. Creat.]

{522}

Bishop Lynch, of Charleston, who is not only one of the most learned
of our theologians, but a man profoundly versed in the physical
sciences, in a very able and interesting lecture recently delivered in
New York, thus speaks on this matter:

"Some nowadays, disregarding all that Holy Scripture teaches us
concerning the origin of man, or treating it as a myth and fable,
referring at most only to the Caucasian race, pretend that America had
her own special Adam and Eve, or, as they think more probable, quite a
number of them contemporaneously or successively in different
localities.

"I shall not here undertake to discuss this last opinion, _ventured
certainly against the teachings of divine revelation_, and, as I
conceive, no less against the soundest principles of philosophy, of
comparative anatomy, of philology, and of natural history. I will
assume it as an established and accepted truth, that God made all
nations of one blood."   [Footnote 159]

  [Footnote 159: Lecture by the Rt. Rev. P. N. Lynch, D.D., on America
  before Columbus. Reported in the New York Tablet.]

The only point we have been endeavoring to make, that the doctrine of
the unity of the race pertains to essential Catholic doctrine, is, we
think, fairly made. The scientific refutation of the contrary
hypothesis is a work most desirable, in our opinion, but one requiring
a degree of scientific knowledge which the author does not possess. It
is a work, also, which could be accomplished only by an extensive
treatise. The judgment of the distinguished author just cited may be
taken, however, as a summing up of the verdict of a great body of
scientific men, given on scientific grounds, in favor of the doctrine
of the unity of the race. The contrary doctrine is mere hypothesis,
which no man can possibly pretend to demonstrate. It cannot,
therefore, be brought out to oppose the revealed Catholic doctrine.
Hypothesis even when supported by a certain amount of scientific
probability, is not science. Real science is indubitably certain.
There cannot, therefore, ever arise a real contradiction between
science and revelation. Science will never contradict revelation, and
revelation does not contradict any part of science which is already
known or ever will become known. We are not, however, to hold our
belief in revealed truths in abeyance, until their perfect agreement
with scientific truths is demonstrated. Nor are we to tolerate mere
hypotheses and probable opinions in science when they are contrary to
truths known by revelation, because they cannot be demonstrated to be
false on purely scientific grounds.

There are only two real difficulties to be encountered in the solution
of the scientific problem. One is, the difficulty of accounting for
the variations In type, language, etc., between different families of
the human race within the commonly received historic period. The other
is the difficulty of explaining certain discoveries in the historical
monuments of Egypt, and certain geological discoveries of the remains
of man or human works, in accordance with the same period. Yet has
been justly and acutely remarked by a recent British writer on this
subject, that the objections made under this second head, if they are
sufficient to establish the necessity of admitting a longer
chronology, destroy the objections under the first head. Given a
longer time for these changes, and the difficulty of supposing them to
be real variations from a unique type vanishes. The chronological
difficulties under the second head are of two classes. One class
relates to the history of well-known post-diluvian nations, whose
historical records have been discovered, indicating a longer period
than the one commonly reckoned between the age of Noah and that of
Moses. The other relates to tribes or individuals about whom nothing
is known historically, but to whom geological evidence assigns a
higher antiquity than that commonly allowed {523} to the epoch of the
creation of man. Now, these difficulties in no way tend to impugn the
doctrine of the unity of the race, but merely the chronology of the
history of the race from the ethics of the creation of the first man,
which has been commonly supposed to be established by the authority of
Scripture. If this last supposition may be classed among theological
opinions not pertaining to essential Catholic doctrine, and we may be
permitted, _salvâ fide et auctoritate Ecclesiae_, to admit a
chronology long enough to satisfy these claims of a higher antiquity
for man, all difficulty vanishes. One thing is certain, that if the
inspired books of Moses did originally contain an exact chronology of
human history from Adam to the Exodus of Israel, we cannot now
ascertain within fifteen hundred years what it was, since there is
that amount of variation between the Hebrew and Greek copies. The
weight of probability is decidedly in favor of the Septuagint, which
gives the longer chronology. Yet, it is impossible to explain how the
variation between the Septuagint and the Hebrew, and the variation of
the Samaritan version from both, arose. The great essential facts
pertaining to religious doctrine have been handed down by Scripture
and tradition in their unimpaired integrity. We are bound to believe
that the providence of God watched over their transmission, and
protected them from any designed or accidental alteration. Some
general principles and data of chronology are included in this
essential history, which is guaranteed by inspiration and the
authority of the church. Nevertheless, these chronological data are
manifestly so incomplete and imperfect, that a precise and accurate
chronological system cannot be deduced from them. So far as it is
possible to form a chronological system at all, it must be done by the
help of all the collateral evidence we can find, This evidence, so far
as we are aware, does not tend to establish, with a high degree of
probability, an epoch of creation more than a few thousand years
earlier than the common one of 4,000 years before Christ. This is
certainly true of the historical records of Egypt, the principal
source of new light on the ancient historical epochs. We are warranted
by the Septuagint in adding fifteen hundred years to the common
period. It is only, however, on critical and historical grounds that
the Septuagint has greater authority on this point than the Hebrew,
and not as having a higher sanction. For the Hebrew is the original
and authentic Scripture, and the authorized Latin Version follows it,
and not the Greek. If we can admit, then, a chronology longer by
fifteen hundred years than the one contained in the received text, on
historical grounds, why not one still longer, if sound historical
evidence demands it? Supposing that the Scripture originally did
contain a complete and infallible system of chronology, it is evident
that the key to it was lost many ages ago; and we can just as easily
suppose that the discrepancy between the Mosaic chronology as it now
stands and the chronology of the Egyptian records has arisen by the
same causes which produced the discrepancy of the Hebrew and Greek
texts, as we can assign causes why so great a discrepancy should arise
at all, and reconcile this with the reverence due to the sacred books.
[Footnote 160] This is a matter which needs to be more thoroughly
discussed than it has been, by theologians who are fully acquainted
with the subject, before we can lay down positively a principle upon
which to solve the difficulty. We reject, however, as unprovable and
untenable, all theories which throw the antiquity of man back to an
epoch of vast remoteness, and assign hundreds or {524} thousands of
centuries to a prehistoric period, of which no records remain. It is
on geological discoveries solely that this hypothesis is based. At
present it is only a conjecture, founded on the fact that human
remains have been found of a greater antiquity than those formerly
known, whence it is concluded that they may hereafter be discovered of
a greater antiquity still. We may safely wait for geology itself to
clear up the obscurity at present existing in regard to this matter,
and to set right, as science invariably does, the early and hasty
conjectures of its own votaries. Whichever way the matter may be
settled, the fossil remains of human skeletons or human works will be
assignable either to a period not too remote to be included in the
historic period, or to one so remote that it must be excluded from it.
In the first case, there is no difficulty. In the second, nothing is
established from which the falsity of our thesis can be demonstrated.
Our thesis is, that the present human race now inhabiting the earth is
descended from one man, Adam. When there is any very probable evidence
presented that another and distinct species, having a physical
organization like that of the human race, once existed on the earth,
from which it has become extinct, it will be time to examine that
theory. For the present we are concerned with Adam only and his race;
to which both our readers and ourselves have but too conclusive
evidence that we all belong.  [Footnote 161]

  [Footnote 160: Archbishop Manning says: "No system of chronology is
  laid down in the sacred books. There are at least three
  chronologies, probable and admissible, apparently given by Holy
  Scripture. It cannot be said, therefore, that there are
  chronological faults in Holy Scripture, forasmuch as no ascertained
  chronology is there declared."--Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost,
  p. 171, American edition.]

  [Footnote 161: The Gentle Skeptic, by Rev. C.A. Walworth, now pastor
  of St. Mary's Church Albany, treats of several topics, here noticed
  in a cursory manner. This work is the result of several years close
  and accurate study in theology and science. It has, therefore, the
  solidity and elaborate finish of a work executed with care and
  diligence by one who is both a strong thinker and a sound scholar.
  In style it is a model of classic elegance and purity, and in every
  respect it deserves a place among the best works of English Catholic
  literature. The author has broke ground in a field of investigation
  which it is imperative on Catholic scientific men to work up
  thoroughly. The entire change which has taken place in the attitude
  of science toward revealed religion within a few years, and the
  doctrines of science themselves, makes the old works written on the
  connection between religion and science to a great degree useless.
  The subject needs to be taken up afresh, and handled in a manner
  adequate to the present intellectual wants of the age.]

We have now to consider what Catholic doctrine teaches of that state
in which the first parents of the human race were constituted at their
creation. Briefly, it is this: that this was a supernatural state of
sanctity and justice, in which were contained, or with which were
connected, the gift of integrity, or immunity from concupiscence, the
gift of science, and the gift of corporeal immortality.

That man was created in sanctity and justice is affirmed as _de fide_
by the decree of the Council of Trent, a part of which is cited above,
in which Adam is declared "to have lost immediately the _sanctity and
justice in which he had been constituted:_" "statim sanctitatem et
justitiam in quo constitutus fuerat amisisse." That he possessed
integrity is proved by the same decree, which declares that by the
fall he was "changed _as to his body and soul into something worse_:"
"secundum corpus et animam in deterius commutatum fuisse." That he
possessed science is proved by the declaration of the book of
Ecclesiasticus: "Disciplinâ intellectus replevit illos. Creavit illis
scientiam spiritus:" "He filled them with the knowledge of
understanding. He created in them the science of the spirit."
[Footnote 162] This is explained and corroborated by the traditional
teachings of all the fathers and great theologians of the church. His
immunity from death is proved by the decrees above cited and others
familiar to all.

  [Footnote 162: Ecclus. xvii. 5, 6.]

It is shown to be the Catholic doctrine that these gifts were
supernatural, by the condemnation of the contrary doctrine by the Holy
See. The following theses of Baius, one of the precursors of
Jansenism, were condemned by Pius V. and Gregory XIII.:

"21. Humanae naturae sublimatio et exaltatio in consortium divinae
naturae, debita fuit integritati primae conditionis, et non
supernaturalis; 26. Integritas primae creationis non fuit indebita
humanae naturae exaltatio, sed {525} naturalis ejus conditio; 55. Deus
non potuisset ab initio talem creare hominem qualis nunc nascitur; 78.
Immortalitas primi hominis non erat gratiae beneficium, sed naturalis
conditio; 79. Falsa est doctorum sententia primum hominem potuisse a
Deo creari et institui sine justitiâ natarali." Clement XI., in the
Bull _Unigenitus_, also condemned the following proposition, the 33rd
of Quesnel: "Gratia Adami est sequela creationis et erat debita
naturae sanae et integrae."

"21. The elevation and exaltation of human an nature into the
fellowship of the divine nature was due to the integrity of its first
condition, and is therefore to be called natural and not supernatural;
26. The integrity of the primal creation was not an exaltation of
human nature which was not due to it, but its natural condition; 55.
God could not have created man from the beginning such as he is now
born; 78. The immortality of the first man was not a benefit of grace,
but his natural condition; 79. The opinion of doctors is false, that
the first man could have been created and instituted by God without
natural justice (righteousness.") 33d of Quesnel: "The grace of Adam
is a sequel of creation, and was due to sound and integral nature."

It is plain from the decisions which have been quoted, and from the
consentient doctrine of all Catholic doctors, that the Catholic
doctrine is: that the state of original sanctity and integrity did not
flow from the intrinsic, essential principles of human nature, and was
not due to it, but was a free gift of grace superadded to nature, that
is, supernatural. We do not, however, censure the opinion held by some
sound Catholic writers, that congruity, order, or the fitness of
things, exacts that supernatural grace be always given to rational
nature. It is our own opinion, already clearly enough insinuated,
that, although the completion and perfection of the universe does
exact that a supernatural order should be constituted, it does not
exact the elevation of all rational species or individuals to this
order. This opinion appears to be more in accordance with the obvious
sense of the decrees just cited. It is also the opinion of St. Thomas,
and, after him, of the more prevalent school of theology. St. Thomas
thus expresses himself upon this point: "Poterat Deus, a principio
quando hominem condidit, etiam alium hominem ex limo terrae formare,
quem in conditione suae naturae relinqueret, ut scilicet mortalis et
passibilis esset et pugnam concupiscentiae ad rationem sentiens, in
quo nihil humanae naturae derogaretur, quia hoc ex principiis naturae
consequitur; non tamen iste defectus in eo rationem culpae et poenae
habuisset, quia non per voluntatem iste defectus causatus esset." "God
could have formed, from the beginning when he created man, also
another man from the dust of the earth, whom he might have left in the
condition of his own nature, that is, so that he would have been
mortal and passible, and would have felt the conflict of concupiscence
against reason, in which there would have been nothing derogatory to
human nature, because this follows from the principles of nature;
nevertheless this defect in him would not have had the quality of sin
and punishment, because this defect would not have been caused by the
will."  [Footnote 163]

  [Footnote 163: 2 Sentent., Dist. 31, qu. 1, ant. 2 ad 8. ]

The sanctifying grace conferred upon Adam is very clearly shown,
according to this view, to have been a pure and perfectly gratuitous
boon from God, to which human nature, as such, could have no claim
whatever, even of congruity.

The nature of the probation of the father of mankind is now easily
explained. He received a gratuitous gift on conditions, and these
conditions were the matter of his probation. Our scope and limits do
not admit of a minute discussion of the particular circumstances of
the trial and fall of Adam in Paradise. The point to be considered is
the relation in which {526} Adam stood to all mankind his posterity in
his trial, transgession, and condemnation. The Catholic dogma of faith
on this head is clearly defined and unmistakable. The whole human race
was tried, fell, and was condemned, in the trial, fall, and
condemnation of Adam. It is needless to cite again the passages of
Holy Scripture and the decisions of the church which establish this
fundamental doctrine of Christianity. The only question to be
discussed is, What is the real sense and meaning of the doctrine? How
did all mankind sin in Adam, and by his transgression incur the
condemnation of death? What is the nature of that original sin in
which we are born?

One theory is that the sin of Adam is arbitrarily imputed to his
posterity. As a punishment for this imputed sin, they are born
depraved, with an irresistible propensity to sin, and under the doom
of eternal misery. The statement of this theory is its best
refutation. Very few hold it now, and we may safely leave to
Protestant writers the task of demonstrating its absurdity.

Another theory is, that all human wills were included in the will of
Adam, so that they all concurred with his will in the original
transgression.  [Footnote 164]

  [Footnote 164: We refer the reader to the argument of Candace in
  Mrs. Stowe's Minister's Wooing, for a humorous but unanswerable
  reputation of the ancient Calvinistic doctrine of original sin.]

We find some difficulty in comprehending this statement. Did we all
have a distinct existence, and enjoy a deliberative and decisive vote
when the important question of human destiny was decided? If so, the
unanimity of the judgment, and the total oblivion which has fallen
upon us all, respecting our share in it and our whole subsequent
existence, until a very recent period, are very remarkable phenomena
which we have never seen adequately accounted for. The only other
alternative is that of indistinct existence or virtual existence. That
is, that the power of generating souls was in Adam, and that all human
souls are actually derived from his soul by generation. Suppose they
are. A father who has lost an organ or a limb does not necessarily
transmit this defect to his posterity. Even if he does transmit some
defect which he has contracted by his own fault to his son, that son
is not to blame for it. If the principle of all souls was in Adam,
virtually, their personality, which is the principle of imputability,
commences only with there are distinct existence. Personality is
incommunicable. An individual soul cannot communicate with another in
the principle of identity, from which all imputability of acts, all
accountability, all possibility of moral relations, proceeds. This
notion of the derivation of souls, one from another, or from a common
soul-reservoir, is, however, one perfectly inconceivable, and contrary
to the plainest principles of philosophy. Substance is simple and
indivisible. Spirit, which is the most perfect substance, contains,
therefore, in its essence the most manifest contradiction to all
notion of composition, resolution, division, or separation of parts.
The substance of Adam's soul was completely in his own individual
intelligence and will. The notion of any other souls deriving their
substance from his soul is therefore wholly without out meeting. There
is no conceivable way in which spirit can produce spirit, except by
creation, and act to which created spirit is incompetent.

There remains, therefore only the doctrine, which is that of Catholic
theology, that the human species is corporeally propagated by means of
generation, and was therefore, in this respect only, virtually in
Adam; but that each individual soul is immediately created by God, and
comes into the generic and specific relations of humanity through its
union in one integral personality with the body. How, then, can each
individual soul become involved in a original sin? Does God create it
sinful?  This cannot be; and if it could it would not be the sin of
Adam, or the sin of the race, but its own personal sin. The soul as it
comes from the hand of God cannot be sinful in act. {527} The only
possible supposition remaining is, that the soul contracts sin from
contact or union with the body. Here the Calvinist, the Jensenist, or
any other who maintains that original sin consists in positive
deprivation of the soul's essence, or in habitual moral perversity, or
determination of the will to sin, is in a position where he cannot
move a step forward. How can _soul_ be corrupted by body? How has the
innocent soul deserved to be thrust into a body by which it must be
polluted? These questions will never receive an answer. Nor will any
credible or rational method of vindicating the doctrine that all men
are born totally and positively depraved, or with a nature in any
respect essentially evil, on account of Adam's sin, ever be
discovered. The doctrine is utterly incredible and unthinkable, and
will no doubt ere long have a place only in the history of past
errors.

The way is now clear for the exposition of the Catholic doctrine
respecting the mutual relations of Adam and his posterity in the
original probation, trial, and fall of the human race immediately
after its creation. That probation of Adam, in which the human race
was included, must not be understood as including the entire personal
probation either of himself or of his descendants. His own probation
lasted during his lifetime, and so does that of each individual man.
Had he been faithful in that particular trial which is related in the
first chapter of Genesis, it is probable that, although the special
privileges whose perpetuation depended on it would certainly have then
secured to the race, he himself would have had a longer personal
trial. So also, if the progeny of Adam had been confirmed in the
perpetual possession of the privileges of the primeval state, each
individual of the human race would have had a probation of his own,
affecting his own personal destiny alone. Although each one of us
would have been conceived and born in the state of original grace and
integrity, as the Blessed Virgin was by a special privilege, as soon
as the actual exercise of reason became completely developed, a period
of probation would have commenced, in which we should have been liable
to fail, as we are now after receiving grace through baptism.

The probation of the human race in Adam was, therefore, a special
probation, on which the possession in perpetuity of certain
supernatural privileges, freely and gratuitously conceded to the race,
was alone dependent. The merely personal consequences of the sin of
Adam and Eve affected themselves alone individually. That is, the
guilt of an actual transgression with the necessary personal
consequences following from it attached to them alone, and we have
nothing to do with it, any more than with any other sins committed by
our intermediate progenitors. The father of the human race did not
act, however, in a merely individual capacity in this transaction. He
was the federal head and representative of the race. A trust was
committed to him in behalf of all mankind, and this trust was the
great gift of original sanctity and justice, the high dignity of
supernatural affiliation to God, the glorious title to the kingdom of
heaven. By his sin he forfeited this gift in trust, both for himself
as an individual, and also for his descendants who were to have
inherited it from him. There is no ground for asking the question, why
it followed that Adam, having fallen, should transmit a fallen nature
by generation to his posterity. This question is only asked on the
supposition that fallen nature is a nature essentially changed and
depraved, whereas it is really a nature which has fallen from a
supernatural height back to its own proper condition. With all due
respect to the eminent writers who have attempted to answer this
question, we must be allowed to say that we cannot attach any definite
meaning to their answer. {528} Adam, they say, having a fallen nature,
could only transmit the nature which he had. All humanity was in him
when he sinned, and therefore humanity as generic having fallen into
sin, each individual who participates by conception in generic
humanity participates in its sin, or is conceived in original sin.
This language may be used and understood in a true sense; but in its
literal sense, and as it is very generally understood, it has no
meaning. It is derived from the extravagant and unintelligible realism
of William of Champeaux, and some other schoolmen, according to which
humanity as a genus has a real and positive entity, like the great
animal _in se_ of Plato, from whom all particular animals receive
their entity. These notions have long since become obsolete, and it is
useless to refute them. The The human genus or species was completely
in Adam, but it was not distinct from his individuality; rather it was
completely in his individuality constituting it in its own generic or
specific grade of existence, as the individuality of a man. Humanity
is also completely in every other human individual. This humanity,
constituting the specific essence of Adam, as a man, was identical
with his existence, for existence is only metaphysical essence reduced
to act. It could not be essentially changed without destroying his
human existence. Whatever is contained in _humanitas_ must have
remained in him after the fall, otherwise he would no longer have
remained a man, or indeed have continued to exist at all. It is only
this _humanitas_ or specific essence of human nature, that Adam had
any natural power to reproduce by generation. He could not have lost
the power of transmitting it by the fall, except by losing altogether
the power of reproducing his species. The immediate, physical effect
of generation is merely the production of the life-germ, from which
the body is developed under the formative action of a soul, created
immediately by God. The only depravation or corruption of nature,
therefore, which is physically possible, or which can be supposed to
follow by a necessary law from the corruption of nature in Adam, is a
corruption or degeneracy in in this life-germ, through which a
defective or degenerate body is produced. This opinion has then long
ago condemned by the church. It is, moreover, contrary to science. The
human animal is perfect as an animal, and although there is accidental
degeneracy in individuals, there is no generic or specific degeneracy
of the race from it's essential type. But supposing that a defective
body were the necessary consequence of Adam's sin, a defective soul
could not be. The parent does not concur to the creation of the soul
of his offspring, except as an  cause. God creates the soul, and he
cannot create a human soul without creating it in conformity to the
metaphysical archetype of soul in his own idea, and therefore having
the essence on soul completely in itself. How, then, can the infusion
of this soul into a body which is physically degenerate make it
unworthy of that degree of the love of God and of that felicity, which
it is worthy of intrinsically, and apart from its union with the body?

There is no law in nature by virtue of which Adam must or could
transmit anything essentially more than human nature before the fall,
or essentially less after the fall. The law by which he was entitled
to transmit privileges or gifts additional to nature on condition of
is fulfilling the terms of God's covenant with him was therefore a
positive law; why those human laws which enable man to transmit with
their blood property, titles of nobility, or the hereditary right to a
crown. These privileges may be forfeited, by the crime of an
individual in whom they are vested, for himself and for his posterity.
They may be forfeited for posterity, because they are not natural
rights. In the same manner, the supernatural gifts conferred on Adam
were forfeited for the human race by his sin, because they were {529}
not natural rights, or _debita naturae_, but gratuitous gifts to which
Adam's posterity had do hereditary right, except that derived from the
sovereign concession of God, and conceded only in a conditional
manner. This conditional right could only be perfected by the
obedience of Adam to the precept of the Almighty forbidding him to eat
of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. As he failed
to obey this precept, his posterity never acquired a perfect right to
the gifts of supernatural grace through him. By virtue, therefore, of
our descent from him, we possess nothing but human nature and those
things which naturally belong to it; we are born in the state in which
Adam would have been placed at the beginning if God had created him in
the state of pure nature.

We do not stand, therefore, before God, by virtue of our conception
and birth from the first parents of mankind, in the attitude of
personal offenders or voluntary transgressors of his law. Our
essential relation to God as rational creatures is not broken. Our
nature is essentially good, and capable of attaining all the good
which can be evolved from its intrinsic principles; that is, all
natural knowledge, virtue, and felicity. That which is immediately
created by God must be essentially good. A spirit is essentially
intelligence and will, and therefore good in respect to both, or
capable of thinking the truth and willing the good. Moreover, it is a
certain philosophical truth that when God creates a spirit he must
create it in act, or that the activity of the spirit is coeval with
its existence. The first act or state of a spirit, as it precedes all
reflection, deliberation, or choice, and flows necessarily from the
creative act of God himself, is determined by him, and must therefore
be good. The acts which follow, either follow necessarily from the
first, or are the product of free deliberation. In the first case,
they are necessarily good; and in the second they may be good,
otherwise they would be necessarily evil, which is contrary to the
supposition that they are free. The human soul being in its essence
spirit, and incapable of being corrupted by the body, must therefore
be essentially good at the moment when it attains the full exercise of
reason and of the faculty of free choice. If so, it is capable of
apprehending by its intelligence and choosing by its will that which
is good, and cannot, therefore, come into the state of actual sin or
become a personal transgressor except by a free and deliberate purpose
to violate the eternal law, with full power to the contrary. It may
exercise this power to the contrary by a correct judgment, a right
volition, and thus attains the felicity which is the necessary
consequence of acting rationally and conscientiously. So far as this
is possible to mere unassisted nature, it may continue to put forth a
series of acts of this kind during the whole period of its earthly
existence. That is to say, it is capable of attaining all the good
which can be evolved from its intrinsic principles, or all natural
knowledge, virtue, and felicity. This is equivalent to saying, that it
can have a natural knowledge and love of God, as is affirmed by the
best theologians with the sanction of the church. For Pius V. has
condemned the following proposition, the 34th of Baius: "Distinctio
illa duplicis amoris, naturalis videlicet quo Deus amatur ut auctor
naturae, et gratuiti quo Deus amatur ut beatificator, vana est et
commentitia et ad illudendum sacris litteris et plurimis veterum
testimoniis excogitata." "The distinction of a twofold love, namely,
natural, by which God is loved as the author of nature, and
gratuitous, by which God is loved as the beatifier, is vain and
futile, and invented for the purpose of evading that which is taught
by the Holy Scriptures and by many testimonies of the ancient
writers."  [Footnote 165] It would be easy to multiply proofs that the
doctrine of man's capability of moral virtue, from the intrinsic {530}
principles of here's nature, is the genuine Catholic doctrine.
[Footnote 166] This is not necessary, however, at present.

  [Footnote 165: Denziger's Enchirid., p. 305.]

  [Footnote 166: See Aspirations of Nature by Rev. I. T. Hecker,
  passim.]

We proceed to another point, namely, How it is that mankind can be
said to be born in original sin, when they are innocent of all
personal and actual sin at the time of birth? The state in which
Adam's posterity are born, and which is denominated the state of
original sin, considered subjectively, is a state of privation of
supernatural grace and integrity. If man had been created for a
natural destiny, this state of inhability to the supernatural would
not have been a state of sin. If he had been created in the state in
which he is now born, as a preparatory state to the state of grace, to
be endowed at a subsequent period with supernatural gifts, it would
not have been a state of sin. Entitively it would have been the same
state as that in which he is now born. It would not have been a state
of sin, because the state of sin receives its denomination from a
voluntary transgression which produces it. The particular notion of
sin is an aversion from God as the supreme good produced by the
voluntary election of an inferior good in his place. The posterity of
Adam are born in a state of habitual aversion from God as the supreme
good in the supernatural order, which is the consequence of the
original sin of Adam. Since they virtually possessed a right to be
born in the state of grace and integrity, which was forfeited by his
sin, the state of privation in which they are born, relatively to
their original ideal condition and to the transgression by which they
were degraded from it, is properly denominated a state of sin. This is
incurred by each individual soul through its connection with the body
which descends from our first parents by generation, because it is
this infusion into a human body which constitutes it a member of the
human race. As a member of the human race, and by virtue of his
descent from Adam, each individual man participates in all the generic
relations of the race. If Adam had not sinned, he would have received
by inheritance from from him a high dignity and great possessions,
transmitted to him through the blood; as the case is, he is born
disinherited. There is no injustice or unkindness in this; because the
rights which have been forfeited were not rights involved in the
concession of rational existence itself, but rights gratuitously
conceded on certain conditions, and because no personal blame is
imputed where none exists. The illustration so often employed by
theologians of a nobleman who has suffered attainder is perfectly apt
to the case. His posterity are born under an attainder, which in human
law corresponds to original sin under the divine law, and are thus
placed in a state of privation; relatively to that condition of
nobility which was formerly hereditary in the family; but which in
itself is an honest condition. In the eye of the law, their father's
crime makes them incapable of the privileges of nobility, but it does
not deprive them of the common rights of private subjects.

So the children of Adam, on account of his sin, inherit a disability
to possess the nobility of the state of grace and to inherit the
kingdom of heaven. This disability is inherent in the person son of
each one, and therefore "_inest euique proprium_." It is a separation
from God incurred by the transgression of Adam, who represented the
human race in his trial, and therefore is truly and properly sin. It
is a privation of grace which is the supernatural life of the soul,
and is therefore properly called death, or "_mors animae_." The
"_reatus culpae_" is the obligation of being born in a state of
relative degradation, and the "_reatus poenae_" the obligation of
undergoing the conflicts, sufferings, and death which belong to the
state of despoiled nature, as well as submitting to the sentence of
exclusion from the kingdom of God. By it, human nature has been
changed into something worse as to soul and body, {531} "_in deterius
mulatur quoad corpus et animam_," because it is now deprived of
integrity, immortality, and sanctifying grace. Nevertheless this state
is essentially the same with that which would have been the state of
man if he had been created in the state of pure nature. Man in the
state of lapsed nature differs from man in the state of pure nature,
as Perrone says, only as _nudatus_ from _nudo_, one denuded from one
always nude. This is original sin, which consists formally, as St.
Thomas teaches, in the privation of sanctifying grace and the other
gratuitous gifts perfecting nature which depended on it. Mankind,
therefore, by the sin of Adam, have simply fallen back on the state of
pure nature, and are born with those attributes and qualities only
which are contained in human nature by virtue of its intrinsic
principles. To understand, therefore, the condition, capabilities, and
ultimate destiny of man, apart from the grace which comes through the
Redeemer, we have simply to inquire into the essence of these
intrinsic principles, and ascertain what man is, simply as man, where
he can do, and what is the end he can attain by his earthly life.

Man, as to his rational nature, is in the lowest grade of rational
creatures. Except under very favorable circumstances, his intelligence
is very imperfectly developed, and so far as it is developed it is
chiefly employed in perfecting his merely exterior and social life.
Under the most favorable circumstances his progress is slow, his
capacity of contemplating purely intellectual and spiritual objects
weak and limited. As to his body, he is also frail and delicate, and
naturally liable to death. Moreover, there is in his constitution, as
a being composed of soul and body, a certain contrariety of natural
impulses, one set of impulses inclining him to rational good, the
other to sensible or animal good. Like the inferior animals, he is
capable of an improvement of his species up to a certain point which
cannot be fixed, and also liable to a degeneracy which brings, him
down to a state little above that of the brutes, and even to idiocy.
There are indications enough in his soul of a latent capacity for a
much higher and more exalted state, to make it certain that his
present condition is one of merely inchoate existence, and that he is
destined to a future life in which these latent capacities will be
developed in a more perfect corporeal organization. The great
difficulty of forming an ideal conception of the state in which he
would have been constituted, had he been left to his merely natural
development, consists in the fact that we have no human subject to
study except man as he actually is, that is, under a supernatural
providence from the beginning. The actual development of human nature
has taken place under the influence of supernatural grace, and we
cannot discriminate in human history the operation of natural causes
from those which are supernatural. There are three principal
hypotheses respecting the possible development of pure nature which
may be sustained with more or less plausibility. The first is, that
the human race, beginning in its perfection of type as a species, but
without any revelation of language, or any instruction in natural
theology, morals, or science, would have remained always in the same
state in which it was created, without any intellectual or moral
progress. According to this view, the present state of man on earth
would have been a mere stage of existence, which could have no
ulterior end, except the production of a species destined to begin its
higher life in a future state. The second hypothesis is, that the
human race, beginning from the same point of departure, might have
progressed slowly, through very long periods of time, to a high limit
of civilization, knowledge, virtue, and natural religion. The third
is, that a kind of natural revelation, including a positive system of
religion, morals, and science, would have been requisite; in a word,
that human society must have been placed {532} at first, by the
immediate intervention of the Creator, in the state of civilization,
and conducted in its course by a continuance of the same intervention.
We have little room, however, for anything beyond conjecture in this
matter. The only point we are anxious to establish is, that the state
in which we are now born is not one intrinsically evil; that it is not
one derogatory to human nature as such; that it is not one in which
God might not create man in consistency with his sanctity and
goodness.

This point is established on sound theological and philosophical
principles; and from these principles it follows that all the
phenomena of man which are referrible to his original fall are the
natural consequence of his human constitution, and not evidences of a
positive, innate depravity. He is a weak, frail, inconstant creature,
easily led away by the senses and passions, liable to fall into many
errors and sins, but he is not an object of loathing and abhorrence to
his Creator, or an outcast from his love. He has in him all the
primary elements of natural virtue, the germ from which a noble
creature can be developed. Nevertheless, although his natural
condition is one which is not derogatory to himself or his Creator, it
seems to cry out for the supernatural. Its actual weakness and
imperfection, coupled with its latent capacities for a high
development, mark it as being, what it is, the most fitting subject
for the grace of God; and indicate that it was created chiefly to
exemplify in the most signal manner the supernatural love and bounty
of the Creator. It is only in the idea of the supernatural order that
we can find the adequate explication and solution of all the problems
relating to the destiny of man. For that order he was created by an
absolute, not a conditional decree of God. The fulfilment of that
decree was not risked on the issue of Adam's probation. According to
our view, the creation of man was only the inchoation of the
incarnation of the Eternal Word in human nature; and the decree of the
incarnation being absolute, the elevation of human nature was
necessary and must be efficaciously secured. The fall of man from
original grace could not therefore hinder it. After the sin of Adam,
the human race had still a supernatural destiny, and was under the
supernatural order of Providence. The divine decree to confer grace on
man was not abrogated, but only the form and mode under which the
grace was to be conferred were changed. Moreover, by this change, the
human race was, on the whole, a gainer, and came into a better and
more favorable position for attaining its destiny. There was a reason
both for the original constitution of man in the grace of Adam, and
also for the change of that constitution which followed upon Adam's
sin. By the original grant of grace, God showed to mankind his
magnificent liberality and good-will. He gave them also an ideal which
has remained imperishably in their memory of the state of perfection,
and left a sweet odor of paradise to cheer them along their rugged
road of labor and trial. By the withdrawal of that grace he brought
them under a dispensation of mercy, in which their condition is more
humble and painful, but safer and more advantageous for gaining the
highest merit.

St. Francis de Sales says: "L'état de la redemption vaut cent fois
plus que l'état de la justice originalle." "The state of redemption is
a hundred times preferable to the state of original justice."
[Footnote 167] The church herself, in her sublime hymn _Exultet_,
breaks out into the exclamation: "O certé necessarium Adae peccatum; O
felix culpa! quae tantum et talem habere meruit Redemptorem!" "O
certainly necessary sin of Adam; O happy fault! which merited to know
such and so great a redeemer!" We reason to lament our lost paradise,
or to mourn over the fall of our first parents. Our new birth in
Christ is far better than that ancient inheritance forfeited in Eden.
The consideration of the mystery of redemption must be postponed,
however for a future number.

  [Footnote 167: This thought has been beautifully developed by Mr.
  Simpson in some Essays on Original Sin, published in The Rambler]

----------

{533}

Original.

MY CHRISTMAS TREE.



  The Christmas logs were blazing bright, the house was all aglow,
  Five little stockings brimming full were hanging in a row;
  The balls of golden, silver, red, upon the Christmas tree,
  Like fire-flies glancing through the green, were shining merrily,
  And gifts for May and Josey, and for Maggie, Kate, and Will,
  From bending top to sturdy root, the swaying branches fill;
  And I, my labors all complete, sat watching through the night,
  For well I knew that busy feet, before the morning-light,
  Would patter, patter down the stairs in merry Christmas glee,
  And warm and bright as love could make, must their first welcome be.
  The while I mused upon their joy, with eyes fixed on the door.
  The fairest form I ere had seen glided the threshold o'er--
  A sweet and gentle maiden "waxen little past the child,"
  And close upon her steps a man of visage grave and mild.
  As the fair maiden nearer drew, I saw her small hands prest
  The loveliest new-born baby that e'er slept on mortal breast--
  Albeit, five fair little buds had blossomed on mine own,
  Such winning grace of perfectness mine heart had never known.
  Adown, in sudden rapture caught, I fell on bended knee.
  For Jesus and Saint Mary and Saint Joseph were with me!
  The Maiden Mother gently bent, and in my trembling hands
  Laid little baby-Jesus, wrapt up in his swaddling bands.
  "Give rest and food and shelter unto him who for your sake
  Hath reft himself of all things," thus the Maiden Mother spake;
  "Each Christmas eve we, journeying, as once in Bethlehem,
  At every Christian door-step ask for shelter, as of them
  Who in my mother's maiden home had room for all save him
  Before whose throne of living light bow down the seraphim.
  And oft times now, as on that night, rejected, we depart.
  As though they were Judean inns, from many a Christian heart.
  With warmth and light and merry feasts ye hail his natal-day,
  But who have place for Jesus Christ who in the manger lay?
  Mosttimes the doors are closely barred, the fire-light is grown dim,
  And few who watch as now you watch, keep watch or ward for _him_."

  Her tones were tender, sweet, and low, but through the crust of years
  They found the blessed, blessed fount of humble, contrite tears;
  And as they overflowed mine eyes, and plashed upon his head,
  The baby woke to life and warmth, who seemed so cold and dead;
  And pointing where a little gift for "Christ's poor" lowly lay
  Beneath the tree so richly bowed, he smiled, and passed away.
  Ah! me, how little seemed the share that I had laid aside
  To give to him who for our sake was born and crucified!
  _He_ held back naught, the last red drop flowed out for you and me:
  Oh! surely he should have the best on every Christmas tree.

       Genevieve Sales.

----------

{534}


Translated from the German.


THE LITTLE BIRDS ON CHRISTMAS DAY.



On holy Christmas morning there was a grand assemblage of little birds
behind the elder-tree yonder which stands between the court-yard and
the garden, flanked on one side by the barn and on the other by heaps
of grain that had found no shelter in the granary--so rich had been
the blessings of the Lord!

The sparrow with his house and generation was very fully represented
in the meeting; and all who belonged to his family puffed out their
feathers and sat looking as if something vexatious had befallen them.

The lark, sitting between the furrows in the field hard by, raised
himself up a little way now and again, warbling a short kyrie or
gloria as his thoughts came and went.

Finches and goldhammers were there in great spirits, as usual; and the
blackbird perched now inside the court-wall, now on the outside; then
he flew down to the brook, ducked down and up again, flew up into the
tree with the other birds, and praised the cold-water-cure, which
makes one feel right fresh and joyful as nothing else can.

Ravens and crows and the rest of the grab-alls, who are for ever
finding what no one has lost, crowded close together on the
grain-stacks in deep and loud discussion.

But the sparrow began to bewail his fate thus: "I have been sadly
disturbed in my night's rest, for before daybreak all the bells in the
steeples began to ring as if for fire. I flew out into the darkness;
and all around the houses looked bright, as if they were on fire
within. Many tiny candles were lighted, and the trees on which they
burned were covered with all kinds of fruit, such as I never have seen
together on one tree. But we enjoy nothing of all this. Our trees are
bare enough, and have not even leaves to screen us from this winter's
cold. We shall starve to death or freeze, when once food becomes
scarcer and the cold more piercing."

But the lark in the field scratched up a few worms which a mole had
tossed out with the earth; and the blackbird helped her to choose some
little worms, and that was their breakfast.

The shepherd drove his flocks through the narrow path, while
thorn-bushes on each side, and the blackberry briers and wild-rose
bushes, who had heard the birds' complaint, stretched their branches
across the way, so that the little sheep left locks of wool upon them,
some more, some less, but never enough to do them any harm. But the
birds were behind them, and gathered up the wool and carried it to
their homes, in the knot-holes of trees or crevices of walls or
hollows of the earth, and there they grew warmer warmer. Then, as they
picked at the wool, red hips, which the cold had made sweet and soft,
peeped out, and they ate them with joyful hearts.

Again rang out the bells from tower and steeple; the houses-door
opened, and the family came fourth; maid-servants first, then sons and
daughters, and, to close up the procession, the housewife and the
farmer.

"Father," said the eldest son, "it will fare ill with our corn-stacks
in the field if, before going to church, we do not shoot in among the
feathered gentry yonder, who have torn the outer coverings already,
and will soon make their way in among the unthreshed grain. The
magpies willingly read where they have not sown. They cluster here
from the whole neighborhood. Gladly would I give them a few leaden
peas for food, and silence their chattering for ever."

{535}

"By no means," replied the farmer. "No shot shall be fired during this
blessed Christmas season--on the gracious birthday of him who
overthrew indeed the tables of the money-changers, and made a scourge
of cords to drive out both buyer and seller from his temple, but only
said to those who sold doves, 'Take them hence.' He did not blame the
poor little doves; and never, on this day, when dumb beasts gave up to
him their manger for the cradle because men found no room for him in
the inn, never shall any creature find death in my fields for the sake
of a few blades of grass or kernels of grain."

But the farmer's wife had already turned back, and one of the lads
was, at her command, strewing a whole sheaf of grain before the
house-front. So generously did he scatter the food to the doves and
poultry, that there was enough and to spare for their neighbors on the
elder-tree, and magpie and raven had a fair share without being envied
by hens or disturbed by men. Thus in the court-yard was there also a
little of that "peace on earth" of which angels sang one Christmas
night upon the plains of Bethlehem. Nor did the farmer lack anything
in hay-loft or granary because the little birds of heaven had been fed
from his table that blessed Christmas morning.

Remember this: on Christmas feed the poor birds before thy door, and
if thou seest neither lark nor blackbird, nor yet finches,
gold-hammers, nor tomtits, then think of those who have no feathers,
of poor human creatures. Forget not that the angel of the Lord said to
the shepherds: "You will find the child wrapped in swaddling-clothes,
and lying in a manger." Seek out the swaddling-clothes of poverty, and
if thou walkest by that light which rose over Bethlehem, then shalt
thou find in those swaddling-clothes and in works of mercy the little
child Jesus!

Mark this: if thou wouldst be happy, then must thou make others happy!

Remember: because Jesus came to the poor, therefore shouldst thou go
to the poor.

----------

Original.

BARABBAS AND I.


  BABABBAS.

  "Strange that the Jews should set me free,
   And let this Jesus die for me!
   I have their brethren robbed and slain:
   He brought their dead to life again."


  I.

  "Strange, surely, that the ungrateful Jews
   Should thee in place of Jesus choose:
   Yet stranger far it is that he
   Should choose to die to set _me_ free."

------

{536}


From the Popular Science Review.

AËROLITES.


BY TOWNSHEND M. HALL, F.G.S.


Meteoric stones, or aërolites, as they are generally called (from two
Greek words, _aer_ and _lithos_, signifying "air-stones"), may be
defined as solid masses consisting principally of pure iron, nickel,
and several other metals, sometimes containing also an admixture of
augite, olivine, and hornblende, which, from time to time, at
irregular intervals, have fallen upon the surface of the earth from
above.

Other designations, such as "fire-balls and thunder-bolts," have been
popularly applied to these celestial masses, the former denoting their
usual fiery appearance, whilst the latter has reference to the extreme
suddenness of their descent.

Shooting stars also, although they are not accompanied by the fall of
any solid matter upon the earth, are generally placed in the same
category, since they are supposed to be aërolites which pass
(comparatively speaking) very near our earth, and are visible from it
by night; at the same time their distance from us, varying as it does
from four to two hundred and forty miles and upward, is in most
instances too great to allow of their being drawn down by the
attractive power possessed by the earth. Like comets and eclipses,
these celestial phenomena in former times were universally regarded
with feelings of the greatest awe and superstition; and in Eastern
countries especially, where the fall of a meteoric stone was supposed
to be the immediate precursor of some important public event, or
national calamity, the precise date of each descent was carefully
recorded. In China, for example, such reports reach back to the year
644 before our era; and M. Biot has found in the astronomical section
of some of the most ancient annals of that empire sixteen falls of
aërolites recorded as having taken place between the years 644 B.C.
and 333 after Christ, whilst the Greek and Roman authors mention only
four such occurrences during the same period. Even now, in this age of
science and universal knowledge, aërolites can scarcely be regarded
without a certain degree of dread. Indeed, four or five cases have
occurred in which persons have been killed by them; in another
instance, several villages in India were set on fire by the fall of a
meteoric stone; and it was by no means a pleasant subject for
reflection that such a catastrophe might happen anywhere and at any
moment, especially when we remember that these stones, although not
quite incandescent, are always, more or less, in a heated state; and
sometimes so hot that even after the lapse of six hours they could not
be touched with impunity.

The first fall of meteoric stones on record appears to have taken
place about the year 654: B.C., when, according to a passage in Livy,
a shower of stones fell on the Alban Hill, not far distant from Rome.
The next in chronological order is mentioned by several writers, such
as Diogenes of Apollonia, Plutarch, and Pliny, and described by them
as a great stone, the size of two millstones, and equal in weight to a
full wagon-load. It fell about the year 467 B.C., at AEgos Potamos, on
the Hellespont, and even up to the days of Pliny, four centuries after
its fall, it continued to be an object of curiosity and speculation.
{537} After the close of the first century we fail to obtain any
account or notice of this stone; but although it has been lost sight
of for upward of eighteen hundred years, the eminent Humboldt says, in
one of his works, that notwithstanding all previous failures to
rediscover it, he does not wholly relinquish the hope that even after
such a considerable lapse of time, this Thracian meteoric mass, which
it would be so difficult to destroy, may be found again, especially
since the region in which it fell has now become so easy to access to
European travellers.

The next descent of any particular importance took place at Ensisheim
in Alsace, where an aërolite fell on November 7th, 1492, just at the
time when the Emperor Maximilian, then king of the Romans, happened to
be on the point of engaging with the French army. It was preserved as
a relic in the cathedral at Ensisheim, until the beginning of the
French revolution, when it was conveyed to the Public Library of
Colmar, and it is still preserved there among the treasures.

In later years the shower of aërolites which fell in April, 1803, at
L'Aigle, in Normandy, may well rank as the most extraordinary descent
upon record. A large fire-ball had been observed a few moments
previously, in the neighborhood of Caen and Alençon, where the sky was
perfectly clear and cloudless. At L'Aigle no appearance of light was
visible, and the fire-ball assumed instead the form of a small black
cloud, consisting of vapor, which suddenly broke up with a violent
explosion, followed several times by a peculiar rattling noise. The
stones at the time of their descent were hot, but not red, and smoked
visibly. The number which were afterward collected within an
elliptical area measuring from six to seven miles in length by three
in breadth, has been variously estimated at from two to three
thousand. They ranged in weight from two drachms up to seventeen and
half pounds. The French government immediately deputed M. Biot, the
celebrated naturalist and philosopher, to proceed to the spot, for the
express purpose of collecting the authentic facts concerning a
phenomenon which, until that time, had almost universally been treated
as an instance of popular superstition and credulity. His conclusive
report was the means of putting an end to all scepticism on the
subject, and since that date the reality--not merely the
possibility--of such occurrences has no longer been contested.

Leaving out, for the present, innumerable foreign instances which
might be quoted, we must now glance rapidly at a few of the most
noticeable examples of the fall of meteoric stones which have taken
place in England. The earliest which appears on record descended in
Devonshire, near Sir George Chudleigh's house at Stretchleigh, in the
parish of Ermington, about twelve miles from Plymouth. The
circumstance is thus related by Westcote, one of the quaint old
Devonshire historians:

  "In some part of this manor (Stretchleigh), there fell from above--I
  cannot say from heaven--a stone of twenty-three pounds weight, with
  a great and fearful noise in falling; first it was heard like unto
  thunder, or rather to be thought the report of some great ordnance,
  cannon, or culverin; and as it descended, so did the noise lessen,
  at last when it came to the earth to the height of the report of a
  peternel, or pistol. It was for matter like unto a stone singed, or
  half-burned for lime, but being larger described by a richer wit, I
  will forbear to enlarge on it."

The "richer wit" here alluded to was in all probability the author of
a pamphlet published at the time, which further describes this
aërolite as having fallen on January 10th, 1623, in an orchard, near
some men who were planting trees. It was buried in the ground three
feet deep, and its dimensions were three and a half feet long, two and
a half wide, and one and a half thick. The pamphlet also states that
pieces broken from off it were in the possession of many of the
neighboring gentry. {538} We may here remark that no specimen of this
stone is at present known to be in existence, and that although living
in the county where it fell, we have hitherto failed in tracing any of
the fragments here referred to. A few years later, in August, 1628,
several meteoric stones, weighing from one to twenty-four pounds, fell
at Hatford, in Berkshire; and in the month of May, 1680, several are
said to have fallen in the neighborhood of London.

The total number of aërolitic descents which up to this present time
have been observed to take place in Great Britain and Ireland is
twenty, of which four occurred in Scotland, and four in Ireland. The
largest and most noticeable of all these fell on December 13th, 1795,
near Wold Cottage, in the parish of Thwing, East Riding of Yorkshire.
Its descent was witnessed by two persons; and when the stone was dug
up, it was found to have penetrated through no less than eighteen
inches of soil and hard chalk. It originally weighed about fifty-six
pounds, but that portion of it preserved in the British Museum is
stated in the official catalogue to weigh forty-seven pounds nine
ounces and fifty-three grains--just double the weight of the
Devonshire aërolite.

When we come to inquire into the various opinions which have been held
in different ages respecting the origin of aërolites, and the power
which causes their descent, we must go back to the times of the
ancient Greeks, and we find that those of their philosophers who had
directed their attention to the subject had four theories to account
for this singular phenomenon. Some thought that meteoric stones had a
telluric origin, and resulted from exhalations ascending from the
earth becoming condensed to such a degree as to render them solid.
This theory was in after years revived by Kepler the astronomer, who
excluded fire-balls and shooting stars from the domain of astronomy;
because, according to his views, they were simply "meteors arising
from the exhalations of the earth, and blending with the higher
ether." Others, like Aristotle, considered that they were masses of
metal raised either by hurricanes, or projected by some volcano beyond
the limits of the earth's attraction, so becoming inflamed and
converted, for a time, into starlike bodies. Thirdly, a solar origin;
this, however, was freely derided by Pliny and several others, among
whom we may mention Diogenes of Apollonia, already alluded to as one
of the chroniclers of the aërolite of AEgos Potamos. He thus argues:
"Stars that are invisible, and consequently have no name, move in
space together with those that are visible. . . .  These invisible
stars frequently fall to the earth and are extinguished, as the stony
star which fell burning at AEgos Potamos." This last opinion, it will
be seen, coincides, as far as it goes, almost exactly with the most
modern views on the subject.

As some of the Greeks derived the origin of meteorites from the sun
(probably from the fact of their sometimes falling during bright
sunshine), so we find, at the end of the seventeenth century, it was
believed by a great many that they fell from the moon. This conjecture
appears to have been first hazarded by an Italian philosopher, meeting
Paolo Maria Terzago, whose attention was specially directed to this
subject on the occasion of a meteoric stone falling at Milan in 1660,
and killing a Franciscan monk. Olbers,  however, was the first to
treat this theory in a scientific manner, and soon after about fall of
an aërolite at Siena, in the year 1794, he began to examine the
question by the aid of the most abstruse mathematics, and after
several years' labor he succeeded in showing that, in order to reach
our earth, a stone would require to start from the moon at an initial
velocity 8,292 feet per second; then proceeding downward with
increasing speed, it would arrive on the earth with a {539} of 35,000
feet per second. But frequent measurements have shown that the
_actual_ rate of aërolites averages 114,000 feet, or about twenty-one
miles and a half per second, they were approved by these curious and
most elaborate calculations to have come from a fire greater distance
than that of our satellite. It is but fair to add that the question of
initial velocity, on which the whole value value of this so-called
"ballistic problem" depends, was investigative by three other eminent
geometricians, Biot, Laplace, and Poisson, who during ten or twelve
years were independently engaged is calculation. Biot's estimate was
8,282 feet in the second; Laplace, 7,862; and Poisson, 7,585--results
all approximating very closely with those stated by Olbers.

We have already observed, at the beginning of this paper, that
meteoric stones may fall at any moment, but observations, extending
over many years, have sometimes been brought forward to show that, as
far as locality is concerned, all countries are not equally liable to
these visitations. In other words, the large number of aërolites which
have been known to fall within a certain limited area has been
contrasted with the apparent rarity of such occurrences beyond these
limits. If it could be proved that the earth possessed more attractive
power in some places than in others, this circumstance might be
satisfactorily explained, but in default of any such evidence, the
advocates of this theory must rely solely upon statistics, which from
their very nature require to be taken with a certain amount of
reserve. Professor Shepard, in Silliman's American Journal, has
remarked that "fall of aërolites is confined principally to two zones;
the one belonging to America is bounded by 33° and 44° north latitude,
and is about 25° in length. Its direction is more or less from
north-east to south-west, following the general line of the Atlantic
Coast. Of all known occurrences of this phenomenon during the last
fifty years, 92.8 per cent, have taken place within these limits, and
mostly in the neighborhood of the sea. The zone of the eastern
continent--with the exception that it extends ten degrees more to the
north--lies between the same degrees of latitude, and follows a
similar north-east direction, but is more than twice the length of the
American zone. Of all the observed falls of aërolites, 90.9 per cent,
have taken place within this area, and were also concentrated in that
half of the zone which extends along the Atlantic."

On reference to a map, it will be seen that in the western continent
the so-called zone is simply confined to the United States--the most
densely inhabited portion of America. In like manner the eastern zone
leaves out the whole of desert Africa, Lapland, Finland, the chief
part of Russia, with an average of thirty-two inhabitants to each
square mile; Sweden and Norway, with only seventeen per mile; whilst
it embraces all the well-peopled districts of central Europe, most of
which, like England, are able to count between three and four hundred
persons to every mile of their territory. In fact, Professor Shepard's
statement may almost be resolved into a plain question of population,
for were an aërolite to fall in the midst of a desert, or in a thinly
peopled district, it is needless to point out how few the chances are
of its descent being ever noticed or recorded. That innumerable
aërolites do fall without attracting any attention, is clearly proved
by the number of discoveries continually taking place of metallic
masses which, from their locality and peculiar chemical composition,
could only be derived from some extra-terrestrial source. The great
size also of many of these masses entirely precludes the possibility
of their having been placed by human agency in the positions they have
been found to occupy--sometimes on the surface of the earth, but just
as frequently buried a few feet in the ground.

{540}

Thus the traveller Pallas found, in 1749, at Abakansk, in Siberia, the
mass of meteoric iron, weighing 1,680 lb., now in the Imperial Museum
at St. Petersburg. Another, lying on the plain of Tucuman, near
Otumpa, in South America, has been estimated, by measurement, to weigh
no less than 33,600 lb., or about fifteen tons; and one added last
year to the splendid collection of meteorites in the British Museum
weighs rather more than three and a half tons. It was found at
Cranboume, near Melbourne, and was purchased by a Mr. Bruce, with a
view to his presenting it to the British Museum, when, through some
misunderstanding, it was discovered that one half of it had been
already promised to the museum at Melbourne. In order, therefore, to
save it from any such mutilation, the trustees of our national museum
acquired and transferred to the authorities of the Melbourne
collection a smaller mass which had been sent in 1862 to the
International Exhibition. It weighed about 3,000 lb., and had been
found near Melbourne, in the immediate vicinity of the great
meteorite. The latter was then forwarded entire to London. In the
British Museum may also be seen a small fragment of an aërolite,
originally weighing 191 lb., which from time immemorial had been lying
at Elbogen, near Carlsbad, in Bohemia, and had always borne the
legendary appellation of "_der verwünschte Burggraf_," or the
enchanted Burgrave. The remainder of this mass is preserved in the
Imperial collection at Vienna. In Great Britain only two meteoric
masses (not seen to fall) have hitherto been discovered; one was found
about forty years ago near Leadhills, in Scotland; the other in 1861,
at Newstead, in Roxburghshire.

Several instances have at different times occurred in which stones
like aërolites have been found, and prized accordingly, until their
real nature was demonstrated by the aid of chemical analysis. One
valuable specimen, found a few years ago, was shown to have derived
its origin amongst the _scoriae_ of an iron foundry; another, picked
up in the Isle of Wight, turned out to be a nodule of iron pyrites,
similar in every respect to those which abound in the neighboring
chalk cliffs; and lastly, some aërolites of a peculiarly glassy
appearance were found shortly after, of which it may, perhaps, suffice
to say that the scene of this discovery was--Birmingham.

When we come to examine the composition of meteoric stones, we find in
various specimens a great diversity in their chemical structure. Iron
is the metal most invariably present, usually accompanied by a
consider percentage of nickel and cobalt; also five other metals,
chromium, copper, molybdenum, manganese, and tin; but of all these
iron is that which largely preponderates, forming sometimes as much as
ninety-six parts in the hundred. Rare instances have, however, been
recorded where the proportion of iron has sunk so low as to form only
two percent, and the deficiency thus caused has been made up by a
larger admixture of some earthy mineral, such as augite, hornblende,
or olivine. Other ingredients, like carbon, sulphur, alumina, etc.,
are also found to enter, in different proportions, into the
composition of aërolites; the total number all chemical elements
observed in them up to this present date the nineteen or twenty. It
has been well remarked by an able writer, that no _new_ substance has
hitherto come to us from without; and thus we find that all these
nineteen or twenty elements are precisely similar to those which are
distributed throughout the rocks and minerals of our earth; the
essential difference between the two classes of compounds--celestial
and terrestrial--being seen most clearly in the respective methods in
which the component parts are admixed.

In the outward appearance aërolites there is one characteristic so
constant that, out of the many hundred examples that have been
recorded, one only (as far as we can ascertain) has {541} been wanting
in it. We refer to the black fused crust or rind with which the
surface of meteoric stones is covered. It usually extends not more
than a few tenths of an inch into the substance of the stone, and is
supposed to result from the extreme rapidity with which they descend
into the oxygen of our atmosphere, causing them to undergo a slight
and partial combustion, which, however, from the short time
necessarily occupied in their descent, has not sufficient time to
penetrate beyond the surface. On cutting and polishing the stones, if
the smooth face is treated with nitric acid, it will in many cases be
found to exhibit lines and angular markings, commonly known by the
name of "widmannsted figures." These are tracings of imperfect
crystals, while the broad intermediate spaces, preserving their
polish, point out those portions of the stone which contain a larger
proportion of nickel than the rest of the mass. We may here add that
the noise said at times to accompany the fall of aërolites, does not
appear to be a constant characteristic, nor does the cause or exact
nature of it seem able to be definitely specified.

In conclusion, we cannot do better than advise those of our readers
who desire further information on this subject to take the earliest
opportunity--if they have not done so already--of paying a visit to
the magnificent collection of meteoric stones, contained in several
glass cases at the end of the mineral gallery at the British Museum.
The catalogue for the year 1856 gave a list of between 70 and 80
specimens; in 1863 this number had increased to 216, mainly through
the energy of the curator, Mr. Maskelyne; and since that date there
have been several further additions. Chief among continental museums
may be mentioned the Imperial collection at Vienna, as possessing a
series of specimens remarkable alike for their size and importance.

--------

From Good Words.


DELIVERANCE.


  As some poor captive bird, too weak to fly,
  Still lingers in its open cage, so I
            My slavery own.
  For evil makes a prison-house within;
  The gloom of sin, and sorrow born of sin.
            Doth weigh me down.
  Ah! Christ, and wilt not thou regard my sighs,
  Long wakeful hours, and lonely miseries,
            And hopes forlorn?
  Let not my fainting soul be thus subdued.
  Nor leave thy child in darkened solitude.
            All night to mourn!

  He hears my prayer! the dreary night is done,
  I feel the soft air and the blessed sun.
            With heavenly beams.
  He comes, my Lord! in raiment glistening white.
  From pastures golden in the morning light
            And crystal streams.
  O let me come to thee!--from this dark place--
  And see my gentle Shepherd face to face,
            And hear his voice.
  So shall these bitter tears no longer flow,
  And thou shalt teach my secret heart to know
            Thy sacred joys!

--------

{542}


ORIGINAL.


WHAT CAME OF A LAUGH ON A CHRISTMAS EVE.


"Beg your pardon, sir," said I, as soon as I could compose myself
sufficiently to speak; "I couldn't help it."

"Glad to hear it. Just what I want. I was debating with myself whether
it was sure for a laugh. I am looking for things that will make one
laugh; in short, buying up causes for laughter on a Christmas day.
There can be no doubt, you think, about this being funny?"

"Not a bit of it," said I.

"Well, I'll have one for every basket, then," said the old gentleman,
his eyes twinkling with delight, as he danced the toy up and down. It
was one of those jointed wooden monkeys that by means of a slide
performs the most comical evolutions around the top of a pole.

"You see," continued he, "I cannot always trust my own judgment.
There's no credit in my laughing, bless your heart. I'd be a monster,
yes, a monster, my dear sir, if I didn't. I'm just like this monkey as
you see him now in this position, ready to go over the other side with
the slightest provocation. I have everything that heart can wish, sir,
to laugh at and be happy; but they, poor dears, they are so far on the
minus side of merriment, as well they may be, that it takes a little
something extra, you see, to get a good hearty squeal out of them."

I became at once intensely interested in the "poor dears" alluded to.
The sight of the old gentleman was enough to make one do unheard-of
feats of heroism in favor of any person or thing of which he might
take the least notice. I ventured to suppose that they had lost
something or somebody lately, with the intention of offering my hand
or purse as the case might be.

"Can't say that they have," he replied, rubbing his shiny bald head.
"Being generally on the minus side of everything, including laughter,
they haven't anything to lose which you or I might think worth
keeping, except their lives, and somehow I think they've got used to
losing even them pretty comfortably."

I was perplexed, and muttered, "Curious sort of people, those."

"But interesting, you'll allow?" said he.

I replied that I had no doubt of it; and I meant it, for so charming
and open-hearted was this old gentlemen, that I was ready to subscribe
unhesitatingly to any asseveration he might be pleased to make;
"but--" I added, about to express my ignorance of the individuals in
question, when he interrupted me.

"Why--but? My Minnie, the Darling of the World and the Sunshine of my
life" (expressing the titles of that person in the largest capitals),
"and I held an ante-Christmas council this morning, and it was
proposed by the president, that is myself, and seconded by the said
Darling of the World and Sunshine of my life, and carried by an
overwhelming majority, including Bob, who said he went in for anything
good, that buts were unparliamentary when Christmas was concerned; and
so we called the roll, twenty in all, and there being no buts, they
all stood unchallenged, making twenty baskets, and now as many monkeys
to go in them. What do you think of it! Capital, wasn't it?"

I was certain it was, and was prepared to go any odds in its favor.

"What's more," he added, "they are going privately."

{543}

Being committed beyond all explanation, I said I was glad to hear that
too, "if Miss Minnie approves." This last supposition I made with a
deprecating cough, not being quite sure of the relation which the old
gentleman bore to the Darling of the World and the Sunshine of his
life.

"It was her own proposal," was his rejoinder, "and you can't imagine
what an immense relief it was to me too. It is more than I can stand
to get through with the "thank ye sir's," and the "much obliged's" and
the "long life to your honor's." I'm a baby, sir, in their presence,
and by the time the distribution is made I'm a spectacle of
unmitigated woe, as if I'd been to as many funerals as there are
baskets. I remember that as I was coming out from a widow and five
children, last Christmas, that rascal Bob saw me wiping my eyes, and
says he, 'Most of 'em dead, sir?' 'No, Bob,' says I, 'it's the smoke,
I suppose; they've a precious smoky chimney.' But when we got to the
next place--let me see--oh! yes, a man with a broken leg, the
scoundrel says to me, as he handed out the basket, 'Now, let us bury
another one, sir.' Not bad for, was it? I had such a good laugh on
each pair of stairs beforehand that I got through that one pretty
comfortably But it was a glorious proposal of my Minnie's, was it not,
that these should go privately? for we'll sit at home, and check them
off as they go in, for I've arranged that the messenger shall deliver
them by the watch, sir, and we'll imagine their surprise and their
happy faces, and the bringing out of the monkeys, and then we'll have
a roar and be jolly, and get rid of the thank ye's and all the rest of
it that chokes up a man's throat and turns him into a born baby." And
here the good-hearted old gentleman, in the fulness of his delight,
caused the monkey in his hand to perform a series of rapid gymnastics
over the top of his pole, beyond the powers of any monkey that ever
lived. He presented such a comical appearance in doing this that I
burst into another hearty laugh in which he as heartily joined.

"It is irresistibly amusing," said I, meaning the monkey.

"I knew it would be," he returned, his mind running upon the happy
scheme by which he might prevent his left hand knowing the deeds of
the right; "we will have twenty merry Christmas laughs all rolled into
one. There I'll be, as it were, on this side," here he took a position
on the floor opposite me, "and my Darling over there, as it were you,"
a distinction I acknowledged by a profound bow, "and Bob standing
behind her chair, as that rocking-horse stands behind you; and then,
watch in hand, we'll check them off: Number One, Widow Bums, two small
children; Number Two, Susy Bell, orphan girl, works in a carpet
factory and supports her two orphan sisters; Number Three, old Granny
Mullen, with consumptive son and three grand-children, and so on; and
there we'll have them all right before us, and they knowing nothing
about it (there's the beauty of it, all due to that blessed Darling of
the World and Sunshine of my life), and out will come the joint of
meat, ready cooked, and the mince-pie, and the plum-pudding with a
dozen of silver quarter dollars in each one, and the shoes and the
stockings, and I don't know what else besides, packed away by my
Darling's own sweet little hands, and last of all the monkey with a
label around his neck, with an inscription, say, for instance, 'From
Nobody in particular, with best wishes for a Merry Christmas.' There
you have it," added he, waving the monkey triumphantly in the air,
"and won't it be grand?"

"I'd give the world to see it," I exclaimed, quite carried away by the
old gentleman's enthusiastic manner. Just then the keeper of the
toy-shop handed me a package of marbles, tops, jewsharps, a pocket
spy-glass, and a few other things of a like nature calculated to make
glad the heart of {544} boys, which I had purchased for my little
nephew, Willie, in the country.

"This for you, Mr. Holiday; but if you wish, I'll send it around to
the doctor's," said the toy-vender.

"Lord bless my heart and soul!" exclaimed the old gentleman, seizing
me suddenly by both hands. "Not Alfred Holiday is it?"

"That is my name," said I.

"Nephew of Dr. Ben?"

"Nephew of Dr. Ben," I repeated.

"And how long have you been in the city?"

"About a week," said I. "I came up to spend Christmas with Uncle Ben
and Aunt Mary."

"And to take a look in at the Owl's Retreat, No. 9 Harmony place, of
course?"

I intimated my ignorance of the Retreat in question, and of my not
having the pleasure, etc.

"My house, man, my house," said he, shaking my hands up and down. "Dr.
Ben and I are old acquaintances; in fact, ever since my Minnie was--I
beg your pardon," added he, suddenly recollecting himself, and
producing a card from his vest pocket. "Name of Acres, Thomas Acres,
who, with the compliments of his daughter Minnie to the same effect,
_will_ be--_most_ happy--_to_ see--Mr. Alfred--_Holiday_--on
to-morrow _morning_--to _join_ in--_the_ grand--checking off--_of_
the--twenty baskets--_and_ their--contents--including--monkeys--and
of course stay to dinner."

If the old gentleman's cordial manner had any weight in deciding my
acceptance of the invitation, it must be confessed that the curiosity
to see the "Darling of the World and the Sunshine of his life" added
not a little to it. Promising to be on hand at No. 9 before eleven
o'clock, at which hour the checking off was to begin, I bade my
new-found friend good-morning and went home.

But it was very provoking not to know more of the "Darling and
Sunshine" This is him him him him question. Standing in such a light
to such a father, she was, of course, a peerless being. Age--say,
twenty. Height--medium, I am five feet ten.  10 Blonde or
brunette--difficult to determine. Sunshine would seem to indicate
blonde, yet darling might be either. Good, amiable, witty,
accomplished--not a doubt of it. Beautiful name too, said I, as I
scribbled it in every style of the caligraphic art, thereby destroying
no small amount of my uncle's property in fine gilt-edged note paper.
Has she suitor already. Hoity-toity, Mr. Alfred Holiday, you are
castle-building on a small amount of material, it seems to me; and if
she have,  what affair is that of yours? a question which that
imaginative young gentlemen finding himself unable to solve fell into
a fit of despondency, and went to bed in a despairing state of mind.

Punctual to the appointed hour I walked into Harmony place, a quiet
unpretentious street, and open the gate of No. 9. There had been both
a rain and heavy frost in the night, and the trees and shrubs, clothed
in a complete armor of ice, sparkled and glittered in the bright
sunshine. Unfortunately, the ground shared in this universal covering,
and being under the impression that someone was looking from behind
the curtains, who might possibly be the Darling of the World and the
Sunshine of the life of Mr. Thomas Acres, I insanely endeavored to
walk upon the glassy pavement with careless ease, as if it were the
most ordinary ground in the world. I now advise my bitterest enemy to
try it. In an unguarded moment my feet slipped, and I came down in the
most unpleasant manner into a sitting posture upon the ground. I
thought I heard the sound of a clear ringing laugh following
immediately upon my ignominious fall. I hoped it was from No. 10 or
No. 8; yet my heart misgave me as Mr. Acres, with a half dozen
superfluous bows, divided between his daughter and myself, introduced
me, and a pair of dark, deep eyes, in which I thought I detected a
merry twinkle, quietly but warmly acknowledged my presence.

{545}

"Mr. Alfred Holiday, my child, our old friend, Doctor Holiday's
nephew; Mr. Holiday, my daughter Minnie, the Darling of the World and
the Sunshine of my life, as I have already told you, and the Dove of
this Owl's Retreat."

I was "most happy," of course, and wished them both, with a bow to
Miss Minnie, a Merry Christmas.

"We were getting afraid, Mr. Holiday, lest we should be obliged to
begin without you," said that bright-eyed and altogether beautiful
young lady, in a tone of voice which I afterward characterized in a
violently worded poem, written just before midnight, as 'rippling
diamonds' and 'dropping pearls.'

"Afraid!--without _me_?" I exclaimed, placing a most unjustifiable
emphasis upon the personal pronoun. "I am highly flattered."

"Not at all; my father tells me he feels deeply indebted to you in
assisting him in the choice of some toys designed for the children."

"For--for--laughing," stammered I. "Do you think, Miss Acres, that one
might be indebted to another for a laugh?" I was thinking of my stupid
fall on the ice, and began to regret my having accredited to No. 8 or
10 those sounds of merriment which reached my ears.

"If one gives good cause," she replied, with the quietest and most
provoking of smiles. The deep, dark eyes twinkled again, and Nos. 8
and 10 stood acquitted.

"Come, Mr. Holiday," said Mr. Acres, "let us take an inspection of the
forces. Wagon is loaded, strange man hired, with a watch in his
pocket, off he goes; whence he comes or whither he goes, nobody knows.
Ha! ha! Minnie, my dear, put me down one, your ancient Owl has struck
a poetic vein; no time to register it, however. Come along; while I am
immortalizing myself, twenty hungry families are waiting for a
Christmas dinner they don't expect to get, and their mouths watering
for plum-puddings and mince pies that they have not the most distant
expectation of"--and the good old soul led the way into the hall, and
thence into the court yard, at the entrance of which stood a large
covered furniture-cart, filled to over-flowing with the wonderful
twenty baskets destined to distribute happiness among as many poor and
suffering families, and make their hearts merry on Christmas day. Each
basket was labelled with its direction, number, and time of delivery.

"Now, John," said Mr. Acres to the driver as he mounted to his place
on the cart, "remember, you are born deaf and dumb, can't hear a word
nor even say 'Merry Christmas,' until you come back here and report."

"Lave me alone, sir," replied John with a broad grin, "the fun shan't
be spiled for me."

"He enters into it, he enters into it, you see," said Mr. Acres,
addressing Minnie and myself. "What's the time, John, by yours?"

"Near eleven, sir."

"Time's up, then.

  "One, two, three, and off you go.
   Twenty baskets piled in a row:
   Ask me no questions, for I don't know.

Positively, my darling, there's something inspiring in the air this
morning."

John cracked his whip, and the cart moved out of the yard, turned down
the street, and was soon out of sight. Mr. Acres was a perfect picture
of happiness as he stood gazing at the departing vehicle, rubbing his
hands with delight, and his full, round face beaming with intense
satisfaction. As I glanced at Minnie I saw her eyes filled with tears
of love and pride as she watched the movements of her father. Turning
about suddenly he noticed her emotion, upon which he went up to her,
and placing a hand on her either cheek said with mock gravity:

{546}

"Miss Minnie Acres, the Darling of the World and the Sunshine of my
life, is hereby invited to attend the funeral of twenty baskets
without further notice. Ha! ha! you recollect Bob, you know; and no
time to lose either," he added, taking Minnie's hand in his right and
mine in his left, and turning toward the parlor; "so let us get at it,
my dears; excuse the liberty, Mr. Holiday, I'm in a glorious humor,
and it's Christmas day, and here we are, and here's  the list, so sit
ye down; and Bob, Bob! you rascal, where are you?"

The rascal thus vociferously called for responded immediately by
presenting at the door a form about four feet in height, of the rarest
obesity, clothed in a dark-gray suit, evidently denned for the first
time, and holding with both hands the stiffest and hardest of hats.
There was no motion of his lips visible, but a sound was heard as if
it proceeded from the inside of a cotton-bale, which was understood to
mean--

"Here I am, sir; respects, gentlemen and ladies, and a Merry
Christmas."

"Pretty time of day for that" said Mr. Acres, "as if a body were just
out of bed, and hadn't heard Mass yet. Oh! I see," he continued,
glancing at Bob's new clothes, which I have no doubt were the delivery
of an order from T. Acres, Esq., made that very morning by Tibbits &
Son, fashionable tailors. "Well, Merry Christmas, Bob; but don't stand
bowing there all day"--which feat that individual seemed to be vainly
attempting to execute, but could not get through with to his entire
satisfaction--"come in, and stand there by Miss Minnie, and listen to
the checking off, and we'll see if it's all right as a trivet, as it
should be. Lord! I'd eat no dinner if there was one left out."

The "checking off" commenced immediately, the time being up for the
delivery of the first basket. Nothing could exceed the delight of the
old gentleman as Minnie read from the list the names of the parties
who at that moment received the basket, their places of residence, and
a detailed account of the articles sent. Each basket contained a
sufficient supply for a hearty Christmas dinner for the family,
jellies, wines, and other delicacies for the sick, some articles of
clothing, and last of all the toy monkey.

"They've all got one," said Mr. Acres, chuckling with glee as monkey
Number One was mentioned; "but we must do it regular and put them all
down, or I should be afraid we overlooked one, which isn't likely,
however, for they are all down at the bottom of each basket, and I
with them there myself."

One by one the baskets were checked off, Mr. Acres with watch in hand
calling "time," and Minnie reading thereupon the names of the parties
and contents of the basket allotted to them. We very soon realized the
old gentleman's promise that we would have a roar, for as the
distribution went on the merriment increased, as all considered it
their bounden duty to laugh louder and longer at the mention of the
monkey of the basket then checked off than they did at the last one.
Even Bob, whose risible powers seemed to be rather limited, and which
were evidently under still greater restraint by reason of the
additional dignity which became the new outfit, succeeded in
increasing the hilarity of the occasion by the comical manner he
performed his appointed duty in the checking off, which consisted in
answering "right" when the number and names were announced, and
submitting any information obtained of the parties in question through
the intervention of a certain Mrs. McQuirey, whose "absence at the
present delightful reunion," explained Mr. Acres, "was owing to the
numerous duties with which that excellent lady had burdened herself."
These duties, I afterward learned, consistent in making a daily
morning visit to a number of sick poor people who Mr. Acres had taken
under his fostering care. Bob's information was remarkable for its
brevity of expression as well as for its peculiarly ventriloquistic
character, due to the extraordinary amount of adipose matter which
enveloped his organs of speech. {547} Of basket Number Five, for
instance, he said, "Bad--husband goes it every Saturday
night--children thin as broom handles." Or Number eight he reported:
"Measles--shanty--rags scare--allers hungry." Of Number Ten,
"Wus--man broken leg--wife no work--ain't fit neither if there was
millions." Of Number Twenty, the last, having by this time exhausted
his stock of adjectives, he summed up his report thus: "Extremely wust
o' the hall lot--widder--nine mortal bags o' hungry bones--and what
will you do with 'em?"

"Do with them!" exclaimed Mr. Acres, "we'll have Mrs. McQuirey look
them up, Bob, eh? Minnie, dear, take a note of Number Twenty, that
basket is only a bite."

The baskets being all checked off, Bob was ordered to produce
forthwith a bottle of wine and glasses. "Now that we've got through
with it comfortably," said Mr. Acres, "we'll drink all their healths,
and wish 'em a Merry Christmas," which was done, all standing.
"Hoping," continued that Prince of Charity, glass in hand, and
following toward the four points of the compass, as if the whole
twenty families were arranged about him in a circle, "that you may all
have many happy returns of the season, and never know a Christmas that
is not a merry one."

Never was a toast drunk with purer enthusiasm or a heartier good-will.
Believing it to be the part of some one to cheer the sentiment, and
not seeing any of the parties present who might with great propriety
perform that duty, Bob took it upon himself to act their proxy, which
he accordingly did by waving his new hat in a circle and giving three
muffled "Hoo-rays" from the cotton bale.

In a few minutes John the messenger returned. He was at once
introduced to the parlor, where he gave a glowing account of his
errand.

"The shammin' deaf an' dumb was thryin' to me sowl above all. It wint
aginst me not to be able to say the top o' the mornin' to ye, or aven
God save all here on a Christmas dhay to the crathers, an' the Lord
forgive me for peepin' an' a listenin' whin they thought I was deaf as
a post, but it was in a good cause. It tuk the tears out o' me two
eyes, so it did, to hear thim wondherin and prayin 'and a blessin'
yez, and a cryin' for joy, and to see the childer dancin' the monkeys
like mad. Och! but it's a glory to be a rich man like yer honor. Me
mouth wathers whin I think o' the threasures ye're a hapin' up above."

"Bob," interrupted Mr. Acres, shifting uneasily in his seat, "you had
better get out the crape hat-bands, for I see a funeral coming round
the corner."

"A funeral is it?" said John. "May it be a thousand years afore it
shtops forninst yer honor's doors."

"Thank ye, John; thank ye," said Mr. Acres, suddenly rising and going
to the window, where he stood apparently deeply interested in the view
of a blank wall and some smoky chimney-pots before him.

"Whin _his_ day comes," continued John, loud enough to be overheard by
Mr. Acres, "what a croonin' and a philaluin' thim poor crathers will
be makin'. Sure, their tears will be droopin' like diamonds into his
grave."

This was too much for Mr. Acres, who turned around, presenting a
picture of inconsolable grief. It was only after two or three violent
efforts to clear his throat of some unusually large obstacle which
appeared to have stuck there that he succeeded in saying:

"Merry Christmas, John! Merry Christmas! You will find a plum-pudding,
John, waiting down-stairs," and immediately began another survey of
the blank wall and chimney-pots, making at the same time several
abortive attempts to whistle.

{548}

John took the hint, and bowed himself out of the room. A dead silence
ensued upon his departure, which no one appeared to find sufficient
reason to break. In vain did I rack my brains to find an appropriate
remark, but the words would not arrange themselves into a grammatical
sentence. As I chanced to lift my eyes to the full-orbed face of Bob,
standing bolt upright behind Minnie's chair, I became convinced at
once of the fact that I had been intently and impudently staring at
that Darling of the World for some time, whose beautiful downcast
face, half shaded by a profuse cluster of raven curls I thought might
engage the attention of any individual, say for an unlimited term of
years. Embarrassed by this discovery, I took up the basket list and
became at once deeply absorbed in its perusal. Unfortunately, the
paper appeared to be possessed of some diabolical fascination which
prevented my looking away from it or opening my mouth. How long this
state of things might have continued is difficult to say, had not Bob
broken the silence by a question, addressed, as it seemed, rather to
mankind in general then to any particular individual within hearing:

"This ain't Christmas is it?"

"Yes, it is, you rascal," replied Mr. Acres; who, being either
satisfied with his inspection of the blank wall and the chimney-pots,
or had concluded to defer their more minute examination to another
time, at that moment came forward to the table. "Go and order up lunch
directly, Minnie, my darling; Mr. Holiday will give us the pleasure of
his company, and also to dinner. Meanwhile, Mr. Holiday will be glad
to hear you sing, my dear, and I will go and have Number Twenty looked
after; that basket was only a bite, only a bite."

Mr. Alfred Holiday immediately led Miss Minnie Acres to the piano,
where he listened with rapt attention to that young lady's singing of
Miss Hemans's "O lovely voices of the sky;" upon which Mr. Alfred
Holiday made the stupid remark that he had never heard any one of
those "voices of the sky" before that day. Afterward Miss Minnie Acres
and Mr. Alfred Holiday looked over a portfolio of prints together,
when that young gentleman discovered that all his fingers were thumbs,
and besought Miss Minnie Acres to hold one of the prints for him,
when, looking at her and at the same time pretending to examine the
picture with a critical eye, he declared he never saw anything so
beautiful in his life, which irrelevant observation caused Miss Minnie
Acres to say to Mr. Alfred Holiday, "Why! you're not looking at it!"
whereupon that gentlemen became speechless and blushed from the roots
of his hair to the depths of his best necktie. Of the events of the
rest of the day Mr. Alfred Holiday distinctly remembers the following
facts. Lunch being announced, Mr. Alfred Holiday took Miss Minnie
Acres to the table, acted in the most insane manner while there, and
lead Miss Minnie Acres back to the parlor; that he played backgammon
with Miss Minnie Acres, and doubtless left an impression on the mind
of that young lady that he was utterly ignorant of the game; that he
accompanied Miss Minnie Acres to Vespers, and returned with her; that
he took Miss Minnie Acres to dinner, during which a gentleman, who to
the best of his belief was Mr. Thomas Acres, told him several times
that he, Mr. Alfred Holiday, ate nothing, a fact of which that
gentleman was not aware; that after the cloth was removed Mr. Alfred
Holiday sat staring at an empty chair opposite him, for the possession
of which he could cheerfully have impoverished himself and gone upon
the wide, wide world; that certain musical sounds proceeded from the
direction of the parlor, Mr. Alfred Holiday asseverated in the
strongest terms to be "divine;" that upon his return to the parlor he
was only restrained by the presence of a third person from throwing
himself upon his knees and explaining: "Thou art the Darling of the
World and the Sunshine of my life," but which he nevertheless repeated
{549} in his mind an innumerable number of times; in a word, that Mr.
Alfred Holiday fell head over ears in love with Miss Minnie Acres, and
made of all, which up to the present writing he has religiously, that
if she would accept his hand and heart, which she did a few weeks
after, he would send her twenty baskets of provisions to as many poor
families every Christmas Eve, as a thank-offering, and a grateful
remembrance of the hour when he laughed, and thereby one the most
beautiful and most faithful wife that a man ever have.

----------


From The London Society.

A CHRISTMAS DREAM.


  A Pilgrim to the West returned, whose palm-branch, drenched in dew,
  Shook off bright drops like childhood's tears when childhood's heart is new,
  Stole up the hills at eventide, like mist in wintry weather,
  Where locked in dream-like trance I lay, at rest among the heather.

  The red ferns, answering to his tread; sent up a savor sweet;
  The yellow gorse, like Magian gold, glowed bright about his feet:
  The waving brooms, the winter blooms, each happy voice in air,
  Grew great with life and melody, as if a Christ stood there.

  Unlike to mortal man was he. His brow rose broad and high:
  The peace of heaven was on his lip, the God-light in his eye;
  And rayed with richer glory streamed, through night and darkness shed,
  To crown that holy Pilgrim's brow, the one star overhead.

  Long gazing on that staff he bore, beholding how it grew
  With sprouts of green, with buds between, and young leaves ever new.
  The marvels of the Eastern land I bade him all unfold.
  And thus to my impassioned ears the wondrous tale he told:

  "Each growth upon that sacred soil where one died not in vain,
  Though crushed and shed, though seeming dead, in beauty lives again:
  The branching bough the knife may cleave, the root the axe may sever,
  But on the ground his presence lighted, nothing dies for ever.

  "Where once amid the lowly stalls fell soft the Virgin's tear,
  The littered straw 'neath children's feet turns to green wheat in ear.
  The corn he pluck'd on Sabbath days, though ne'er it feels the sun,
  Though millions since have trod the field, bears fruit for every one.

  "The palms that on his way were strewn wave ever in the air;
  From clouded earth to sun-bright heaven they form a leafy stair.
  In Cana's bowers the love of man is touched by the divine;
  And snows that fall on Galilee have still the taste of wine.

  "Where thy lost locks, poor Magdalen! around his feet were rolled,
  Still springs in woman's worship-ways the gracious Mary-gold:
  Men know when o'er that bowed down head they hear the angels weeping,
  The purer spirit is not dead--not dead, but only sleeping.

{550}

  "Aloft on blackened Calvary no more the shadows lower:
  Where fell the piercing crown of thorns, there blooms a thorn in flower.
  Bright on the prickled holy-tree and mistletoe' appear,
  Reflecting rays of heavenly shine, the blod-drop and the tear.

  "The sounding rocks that knew his tread wake up each dead abyss,
  Where echoes caught from higher worlds ring gloriously in this;
  And, leaning where his voice once filled the temple where he taught,
  The listener's eyes grew spirit-full--full with a heavenly thought."

  The Pilgrim ceased. My heart beat fast. I marked a change of hue;
  As if those more than mortal eyes a soul from God looked through.
  Then rising slow as angels rise, and soaring faint and far,
  He passed my bound of vision, robed in glory, as a star.

  Strange herald voices filled the air: glad anthems swelled around:
  The wakened winds rose eager-voiced, and lapsed in dreamy sound.
  It seemed all birds that wintered far, drawn home by some blessed power,
  Made music in the Christmas woods, mistaking of the hour.

  A new glad spirit raptured me! I woke to breathe the morn
  With heart fresh-strung to charity--as though a Christ were born.
  Then knew I how each earth-born thought, though tombed in clay it seem,
  It bursts the sod, it soars to God, transfigured in a dream.

                                                ELEANORA L. HERVEY

--------

From the Month.

VICTIMS OF DOUBT.


It is not the fashion at present to scoff at Christianity, or to make
an open profession of infidelity. Ponderous treatises to prove that
revealed religion is an impossibility, and coarse blasphemies against
holy things, are equally out of date. Yet to men of earnest
convictions, whether holding the whole or only some portions of
revealed truth, the moral atmosphere is not reassuring. The pious
Catholic, the Bible-loving Protestant, and the hybrid of the last
phase of Tractarianism, are alike distrustful of the smooth aspect of
controversy and the calm surface of the irreligious element. There is
something worse than bigotry or mischief, and that is skepticism. And,
if we may judge from what we hear and read, it is this to which most
schools of thought outside the Catholic Church are rapidly drifting,
if they have not already reached it, and into which restless and
disloyal Catholics are in danger of being precipitated. An answer made
to an old Oxford friend by one who was once with him in the van of the
Tractarian movement, but did not accompany him into the fold, "I agree
with you, that if there is a divine revelation, the Roman Catholic
Church is the ordained depository of it; but this is an uncertainty
which I cannot solve," would probably express the habitual state of
mind of a fearfully {551} large number of the more thoughtful of our
countrymen, and the occasional reflection of many more who do not
often give themselves time to think. And to the multitudes who are
plunging or gliding into doubts the Catholic system, which there
unhappy training has made it one of their first principles to despise
for detest, has not even presented itself as an alternative.

The current literature of the day, which is mostly framed to suit the
taste of the market, and reacts again in developing that taste further
in the same direction, is pre-eminently, not blasphemous, or
anti-Catholic, or polemical, but sceptical. The following description
of the periodical press by the Abbé Louis Baunard, in his recent
publication,  [Footnote 168] might seem to have been written for
London instead of Paris:

  [Footnote 168: Le Doute ses Victimes dans le Siècle présent, par M.
  l'Abbé Louis Baunard. Paris.]

"With some rare exceptions, you will not find any rude scoffing,
violent expressions, unfashionable cynicism, harsh systems, or
exclusive intolerance. Yet is not controversy that is the business of
these writers, but criticism. They deal in expositions and
suppositions, but almost always without deciding anything. It is a
principle with them that there are only shades of difference between
the most contradictory propositions; and the reader becomes accustomed
to see these shades in such questions as those which relate to the
personality of God, the divinity of Jesus Christ, and the supernatural
generally. This does not hinder these men from calling themselves
Christians, in the vague sense of a loose Christianity, which allows
the names of ancient beliefs to remain, while it destroys their
substance. They do not assault the old religion in front, but silently
undermine the foundations on which it rests, and carry on ingenious
parallels by the side of revealed truth, till some conclusion emerges
which utterly subverts it, without having appeared to be intentionally
directed against it. There is one review, the most widely circulated
of all, in the same number of which an article dearly atheistical will
be found by the side of another article breathing the most correct
orthodoxy, and very much surprised to see itself in such company. Such
concessions to truth, which are made only now and then, serve to give
the publication that makes them a certain appearance of impartiality,
and thus to accredit error, and to lay one more snare for the reader."

We may be inclined, on a cursory perusal of such periodicals as The
Saturday Review, to indulge gleefully in the laughter excited by the
ludicrous aspect in which some pompous prelate or fussy evangelical
preacher is presented; or to admire the acute and seemingly candid
dissection, at one time, of a Protestant scheme of evidences, at
another, of an infidel philosophy; or to rejoice in the substitution
of decorous calmness for rancor and raving in handling Catholic truth.
But when we study a series of such publications, and notice how
systematically all earnest convictions are made to show a weak or
ridiculous side, and all proofs of Christianity to appear defective,
and how, under a smooth surface of large-minded impartiality, there
beats a steady tide of attack upon all supernatural virtue and all
supernatural truth, our hearts must needs ache to think of the effects
of such teaching on multitudes of imperfectly grounded minds. In the
words of the author to whom we have referred: "Right and wrong, true
and false, yes and no, meet and jostle each other, and are mistaken
for each other in minds bewildered and off their guard, and mostly
incapable of discrimination: till at length, lost in these
cross-roads, tired of systems and of contradictions, and not knowing
in what direction to find light, all but the most energetic sit down
and rest in doubt, as in the best wisdom and the safest position." But
to sit down in doubt is either to abdicate the highest powers of a
reasonable being, or to admit an enemy that will use them as
instruments of torture. Except for {552} souls of little intellectual
activity, or wholly steeped in sense, this sitting down in doubt is
like sitting down in a train that is moving out of the station with
the steam up and no engine-driver, or in a boat that is drifting out
of harbor into a stormy sea.

The Abbé Baunard has collected the experiences of some of these
reckless and storm-tossed wanderers into a painfully interesting
volume. He has selected from the chief sceptical philosophers and
poets of the present century those who, in private journals or
autobiographical sketches, have made the fullest disclosures of the
working of their own minds, and has let them speak for themselves. He
calls them "victims of doubt," and bids us listen with compassion to
their bitter lamentations over the wreck of the past, and their gloomy
anticipations of the future, and to the cries of pain and shame which
seem forced out of them, even amidst their proudest boasts of
independence and most resolute rejections of revealed truth. But,
although an expression here or there may be unguarded, he
distinguishes very clearly between pitying and excusing these victims.
He reminds us that compassion for the sufferings entailed by doubt
cannot absolve from the guilt of doubt. He protests against the claim
made by sceptics to be regarded as warriors in conflicts in which only
the noble engage, and as scarred with honorable wounds; and against
the notion that to have suffered much in a wrong cause is a guarantee
of sincerity and a title to salvation. He quotes with reprobation the
plea of M. Octave Feuillet: "Ah! despise as much as you choose what is
despicable. But when unbelief suffers, implores, and is respectful, do
you respect it. There are blasphemies, be assured, which are as good
as prayers, and unbelievers who are martyrs. Yes, I firmly believe
that the sufferings of doubt are holy, and that to think of God and to
be always thinking of him, even with despair, is to honor him and to
be pleasing to him." He would not admit the same plea in the more
plausible form and more touching language in which it is urged by Mr.
Froude: "You who look with cold eye on such a one, and lift them up to
heaven, and thank God you are not such as he, and call him hard names,
and think of him as of one who is forsaking a cross, and pursuing
unlawful indulgence, and deserving all good men's reproach! Ah! could
you see down below his heart's surface, could you count the tears
streaming down his cheek, as out through some church-door into the
street come pealing the old familiar notes, and the old psalms which
he cannot sing, the chanted creed which is no longer his creed, and
yet to part with which was worse agony than to lose his dearest
friend; ah! you would deal him lighter measure. What! is not his cup
bitter enough, but that all the good, whose kindness at least, whose
sympathy and sorrow, whose prayers he might have hoped for, that these
must turn away from him as from an offence, as from a thing for bid?
--that he must tread the wine-press alone, calling to God-fearing man
his friend; and this, too, with the sure knowledge that of coldness
least of all he is deserving, for God knows it is no pleasant task
which has been laid on him." The fallacies which are dextrously
interwoven in this passage, that sympathy precludes condemnation, that
intense suffering of any kind sanctities the sufferer, and that the
state of doubt is imposed as a burden and not wilfully incurred and
retained, are refuted out of the mouth of those who resort to them. We
see, indeed, in the records of these victims of doubt, various
circumstances leading to their fall; such as the heathenish state of
the colleges where some of them lost their faith, the antichristian
theories of science and philosophy magisterially propounded to them,
the personal influence of friends who were already committed to
skepticism, poisonous literature thrown in the way, and the excitement
of political revolutions; and, of course, in the case of {553} those
who had not received a Catholic education, the far greater palliation
of the absence of a coherent system of belief. But, at the same time,
we see no less plainly the working of wilful negligence and
presumption in their descent into the abyss, and of wilful pride and
obstinacy in refusing to seek the means of extrication from it. They
are victims of doubt as others are victims of a habit of opium-eating
or gambling; and if we sympathize with them more deeply than with
these latter, it is rather because their anguish is more intense and
more refined than because it is less the harvest of their own sowing.
By the side of those who fell, there were others of the same
sensibility of mind, placed in the same circumstances, exposed to the
same assaults, who stood firm by prayer and humility, and who found in
their faith a provision for all their mental wants, and a fountain of
peace under the heaviest trials. And by the side of those who, having
once made shipwreck of their faith, plunged more and more deeply into
despair of knowing anything with certainty, till they flung away the
life that their own doubts had made an intolerable burden, there were
others equally astray and equally burdened, who worked their way back
to life and peace by the same path of earnest and humble prayer. Some
of these contrasts are very effectively presented by our author, and
others will suggest themselves to his readers.

The victims whose wanderings and sufferings are portrayed in this
volume are Théodore Jouffroy, Maine de Biran, Santa Rosa, Georges,
Farcy, and Edmund Schérer from among the philosophers of the century;
and Lord Byron, Friedrich Schiller, Heinrich von Kleist, and Leopardi
from among the poets; followed by a less detailed account of a group
of French sceptical poets, Alfred de Musset, Henri Heine, Murger,
Gérard de Nerval, and Hégésippe Moreau, whose writings are mostly too
gross for quotation, although enough is given to show that their
experience of the effects of doubt resembled that of the rest. All,
with the exception of M. Schérer, who is the editor of the French
paper Le Temps, have passed into a world where doubt is no longer
possible--two of them by their own hand, and two more by violent
deaths which they had gone to meet rather from weariness of life than
from enthusiasm for the cause for which they fought.

There is only one of the whole number, Maine de Biran, whose death was
thoroughly satisfactory; and he, though certainly to be reckoned among
the victims of doubt, which clouded the best years of his life, and
from which he only very slowly worked his way to freedom, is
introduced rather in the way of contrast to the other philosophers and
especially to Jouffroy. The great difference in his case lay in two
things, that he paid more attention to the moral nature of man, and
did not so wholly subordinate the desire of the good to the search
after the true, and that he was on his guard against that pride of
intellect which we see so rampant in his fellow-philosophers. While
all the most celebrated men of Paris were paying court to him, and
although, even before he had published anything beyond some short
metaphysical treatises, M. Royer Collard cried, "He is the master of
us all," and M. Cousin pronounced him to be the greatest French
metaphysician since Malebranche, his own private reflection was:
"Pride will be the ruin of my life, as long as I do not seek from on
high a spirit to direct mine, or to take its place." Yet it was not
till his fifty-second year, after many years' vain pursuit of truth in
different systems of sensualistic and rationalistic philosophy, and of
happiness first in pleasure and then in study and retirement, that he
set himself resolutely to try surer means. "Not finding," he wrote in
May, 1818, "anything satisfactory either in myself or out of myself,
in the world of my ideas or in that of objects, I have been for some
{554} time past more determined to look for that fixed resting-place
which has become the need of my mind and of my heart, in the notion of
the Absolute, Infinite, and Unchangeable Being. The religious and
moral beliefs which reason does not create, but which are its
necessary basis and support, now present themselves to me as my only
refuge, and I can find no true knowledge anywhere than just there,
where before, with the philosophers, I found only dreams and chimeras.
My point of view has altered with my disposition and moral character."
From this time the progress upward was steady. We find notices in his
journal of earnest prayer, of daily meditation, of study of the
gospels and the Imitation of Christ. Four years of physical suffering
and outward trials deepened the work of conversion, and were passed
with Christian resignation. The last words that he wrote were words of
certainty and peace: "The Christian walks in the presence of God and
with God, by the Mediator whom he has taken as his guide for this life
and the next." The Ami de la Religion of July 24th, 1824, contained
the notice: "Maine de Biran fulfilled his Christian duties in an
edifying manner, and received the sacraments at the hands of his
pastor, the curé of St. Thomas d'Aqnin."

Théodore de Jouffroy, if his life had not been suddenly cut short,
would probably have had the same happiness. After having devoted his
immense powers of mind to the study and dissemination of sceptical
philosophy from 1814 to 1839, when bad health forced him to resign the
professor's chair, he had begun to soften his tone, to speak
respectfully of revealed religion, and to look wistfully and hopefully
to it for the solution of the great problems which it had been the
business and the torture of his life to investigate by the unaided
light of his own intellect. He had conversed with Monseigneur Cart,
the bishop of Nîmes, and had said to him, "I am not now one of those
who think that modern societies can do without Christianity; I would
not write in this sense to-day. You have a grand mission to fulfil,
monseigneur. Ah! continue to teach the gospel well." He took pleasure
in seeing his daughter preparing herself for her first communion; and
speaking about a work of Lamennais to the clergyman who was
instructing her, he said with a deep sigh, "Alas! M. le Curé, all
these systems lead to nothing; better--a thousand times better--one
good act of Christian faith." The curé left his room with good hopes
of his conversion, and in the belief that the faith of his childhood
had come to life again in his part. But before he could see him again,
and put these hopes to the test, Jouffroy expired suddenly and without
previous warning on the 1st of March, 1842.

Two or three of the French poets had time to ask for a priest, or to
admit one when, in the hospitals to which their excesses had brought
them, a Sister of Charity proposed it. Leopardi, outwardly at least
sceptical and gloomy to the last, received a doubtful absolution from
a priest, who came when the dying man was insensible.  [Footnote 169]
To all the rest even as much as this was wanting.

  [Footnote 169: We have used this expression, also aware of the
  letter of Father Scarpa published first in the journal Scienza e
  Fede, and afterward in the eighth addition of Father Curci's Fatti
  ed Argomenti in risposta alle molte parole di V. Gioberti, in which
  he gives an account of Leopardi's recourse to his ministry and
  reconciliation by his means to the church in 1836; not, of course
  because we agree with Gioberti that this simple and modest letter is
  "a tissue of lies and deliberate inventions and a sheer romance from
  beginning to end;" but because Leopardi's letters in the beginning
  of 1837 and his continuance in the composition of his last poem the
  Paralipomeni, the conclusion of which was dictated a few days before
  his death, seems to suggest the melancholy alternative either of a
  feigned conversion or of a relapse into skepticism. He told Father
  Scarpa when he offered himself to be prepared for confession that he
  had been banished from his Father's house; and that he was now
  penitent, and was about to publish papers which would show his
  alterated sentiments. It is amusing to notice that to the staid and
  decorus Quarterly Review, as well as to Gioberti, this was to great
  an opportunity to be lost of reviling the Jesuits. Accordingly, on
  no other ground than  that Father Scarpa repeated _as told him by
  Leopardi_ what his letters contradict, and that he was not quite
  correct in guessing at his age and described his appearance ten
  years after his interview with him, the reviewer indorses Gioberti's
  description, and calls the letter "an instance of audacity beyond
  all common efforts in that kind." The habitual mendacity in
  Leopardi's letters, and his offer, while an unbeliever, to be
  ordained in order to hold a benefice which he intended _after saying
  a few Masses_ to have served by another, make it unfortunately not
  improbable that his conversion was only pretended.]

{555}

We have not space to go into the details of these melancholy
histories; but we must give a few extracts in illustration of the keen
regret with which these victims of doubt look back to the religious
convictions of their youth from the cheerlessness and misery of the
state to which they have reduced themselves, and of the involuntary
homage which, even while refusing to submit to the teaching of the
church, they are forced to pay to it. Here is Jouffroy's reminiscence
of the happy days of faith: "Born of pious parents and in a country
where the Catholic faith was still full of life at the beginning of
this century, I had been early wont to consider man's future and the
care of my own soul the chief business of life, and all my subsequent
education tended to confirm these serious dispositions. For a long
time, the beliefs of Christianity had fully answered to all the wants
and all the anxieties which such dispositions introduce into the soul.
To these questions, which to me were the only questions that ought to
occupy man, the religion of my fathers gave answers, and those answers
I believed, and, thanks to my belief, my present life was clear, and
beyond it I saw the future that was to follow it spread itself out
without a cloud. At ease as to the path that I had to pursue in this
world, at ease as to the goal to which it was to conduct me in the
other, understanding the phases of life and death in which they are
blended, understanding myself, understanding the designs of God for
me, and loving him for the goodness of his designs, I was happy with
the happiness that springs from a firm and ardent faith in a doctrine
which solves all the great questions that can interest man." His
faith, the liveliness of which had been somewhat shaken by an
indiscriminate perusal of modern literature during the latter part of
his classical studies at Dijon, gave way entirely before the lectures
of M. Cousin in the Ecole Normale at Paris, to which he was
transferred in 1814, and the combined influences of flattery and
ridicule with which his sceptical fellow-students there assailed him.
He describes the terrible struggle between "the eager curiosity which
could not withdraw itself from the consideration of objections which
were scattered like dust throughout the atmosphere that he breathed,"
and on the other hand the influences "of his childhood with its poetic
impressions, his youth with its pious recollections, the majesty,
antiquity, and authority of the faith which he had been taught, and
the rising in revolt of the whole memory and imagination against the
incursion of unbelief which wounded them so deeply." His faith was
gone before he realized the loss: some time afterward he thus painted
the horrors of the discovery: "Never shall I forget that evening in
December when the veil that hid my unbelief from myself was rent. I
still hear my footsteps in the bare narrow apartment, in which I
continued walking long after the hour for sleep. I still see that moon
half-veiled by clouds which at intervals lit up the cold window-panes.
The hours of night glided by, and I took no note of them. I was
anxiously following my train of thought, which descended from one
stratum to another toward the depth of my consciousness, and
scattering, one after another, all the illusions which had hitherto
concealed it from me, made its outline every moment more visible. In
vain did I try to cling to these residues of belief as a shipwrecked
sailor to the fragments of his ship; in vain, alarmed at the unknown
void in which I was about to be suspended, I threw myself back for the
last time toward my childhood, my family, my country, all that was
dear and sacred to me: the irresistible current of my thought was too
strong. Parents, family, recollections, beliefs--it forced me to quit
all. The analysis was continued with more obstinacy and more severity
in proportion as it approached its term, {556} and it did not pause
till it had reached it. Then I was aware that in my inmost self there
was no longer anything left standing. It was an appalling moment, and
when, toward morning, I threw myself exhausted on my bed, I seemed to
see my former life, so smiling and so full, effaced, and another
gloomy and desolate life opening behind me in which I was henceforth
to live alone--alone with my fatal thought which had just banished me
thither, and which I was tempted to curse."

A few years after this crisis in Jouffroy's life, the same sort of
catastrophe was experienced in a distant country by another highly
gifted soul, and wonderfully similar is the victim's description of
it. Leopardi, the rival, in the opinion of many of his countrymen, of
Tasso in poetry and of Galileo in philosophy, in whom a prodigious
industry was united in rare combination to a subtle intellect and a
refined imagination, who was reading Greek by himself at eight years
old, and  before he was nineteen was versed in several oriental
languages, was engaged in literary correspondence with Niebuhr,
Boissonado, and Bunsen, and was the author of numerous translations
from the Classics, a valuable translation of Porphyry on Plotinus, and
an erudite historical essay in which there are citations from four
hundred ancient authors--had, like Jouffroy, prepared the way for his
fall by an overweening confidence in his own great intellectual
powers, and by a recklessly excessive devotion to study. To this was
added the chafing of disappointed ambition, and irritation against his
father for refusing to give him the means of leaving home. His ruin
was completed by the conversation of Pietro Giordani, an apostate
Benedictine monk, who soothed and condoled with him, flattered his
vanity by telling him that "if Dante was the morning star of Italy's
sky, Leopardi was the evening star," and succeeded in inoculating him
with his own scepticism, which in himself was mere shallow impiety,
but in the deeper mind of his pupil, led, if his writings can be
trusted, to as hopelessly complete a disbelief of God, the soul, and
immortality, as is possible for a human being to bring himself to
endure. In a letter of March 6th, 1820, to his friend and seducer, he
says: "My window being open one of these evenings, while I was gazing
on a pure sky and a beautiful moonlight, and listening to the distant
barking of dogs, I seemed to see images of former times before me, and
I felt a shock in my heart. I cried out, like a convict, baking pardon
of nature, whose voice I seemed to hear. At that instant, as I cast a
glance back on my former state, I stood, frozen with terror, unable to
imagine how it would be possible to support port life without fancies
and without affections, without imagination and without enthusiasm--in
a word, without anything of all that, a year ago, filled up my
existence and made me still happy, notwithstanding my trials. Now I am
withered up like to reed; no emotion finds an entrance any longer into
my poor soul, and even the eternal and supreme power of love is
annihilated in me at my present age." He was but twenty-two then; and
through the seventeen years that is shattered constitution lasted, he
was ever speaking of life as an agony and a burden, sometimes proudly
declaring that he would not bend under its weight, sometimes
passionately asking for sympathy and love, but always recurring to
this sad refrain: "The life of mortals, when youth has past, is never
tinged with any dawn. It is widowed to the end, and the grade is the
only end to our night." "I comprehend, I know only one thing. Let
others draw some profit from these vicissitudes and passing
existences; it may be so, but for me life is an evil."

We have seen the account given by the French philosopher Jouffroy and
the Italian poet Leopardi of their feelings on waking up to the
knowledge that the faith of their childhood had passed away; let us
compare one more such experience that of the German {557} Von Kleist.
"For some time, my dear friend," he writes to the lady to whom he was
affianced, "I have been employed in studying the philosophy of Kant,
and I am bound to communicate to you a conclusion which I am sure will
not affect you as deeply and as painfully as it has myself. It is
this: we cannot be certain whether what we call truth is really the
truth or only an appearance. In this last case, the truth that we
sought after here below would be nothing at all after death; and it
would be useless to try to acquire a treasure which it would be
impossible to carry to the tomb. If this conclusion does not pierce
your heart, do not laugh at a wretch whom it has deeply wounded in all
that is most sacred to him. _My noble, my only aim has vanished, and I
have none_. Since this conviction entered my mind, I have not touched
my books. I have traversed my chamber, I have placed myself by an open
window, I have run along the street. My interior disturbance has let
me to visit smoking-rooms and cafés to get relief. I have been to the
theatre and the concert to dissipate my mind. I have even played the
fool. But in spite of all, in the midst of all this agitation, the one
thought that occupied my whole soul and filled it with anguish was
this: your aim, your noble and only aim has vanished." A few years of
the repetition of this sorrowful wailing, and then, after writing to
his sister, "You have done everything to save me that the power of a
sister could do, everything that the power of man could do; the fact
is, that nothing can help me here on earth," he escaped from doubt to
pass before the Judgment-seat by his own hand.

We must give one more of the many recurring expressions of regret with
which the volume abounds. We are inclined to regard Santa Rosa with
even more profound compassion than the other victims, on account of
the warm and tender piety of his earlier youth, and the absence in him
of the arrogance and scorn that overflows in the others in the midst
of their sufferings. All who knew him agreed that it was hardly
possible to know him without loving him. Unfortunately, his struggles
in the cause of Italy threw him into close association with many who
had mistaken infidelity for liberty. Still more unfortunately, he
contracted a close intimacy with M. Cousin, and soon began to love him
more than truth and than God, and under the blighting influence of his
teaching his own faith disappeared. M. Cousin has published his
letters with frequent and large omissions, but there remains abundant
evidence that he was always regretting the past. The following passage
occurs after something omitted: "O my friend, how unfortunate we are
in being only poor philosophers, for whom the continuance of existence
after death is only a hope, an ardent desire, a fervent prayer! Would
that I had the virtues and the faith of my mother! To reason is to
doubt; to doubt is to suffer. Faith is a sort of miracle. When it is
strong and genuine, what happiness it gives! How often in my study I
raise my eyes to heaven, and beg God to reveal me to myself, but above
all, to grant me immortality!" Twice in his life--when in prison in
Paris with the expectation of being given up to the Piedmontese
police, which would have been to be sent to the scaffold, and again
when beginning a serious philosophical work--he returned to a better
mind. Whether time and grace to return once more were given him,
behind the Greek battery in the isle of Sphacteria, where he fell
fighting bravely, we cannot tell.

Besides the implicit homage to the faith involved in such regrets of
the past as we have been witnessing, the writings of most of these
philosophers and poets contain many testimonies to their involuntary
acknowledgment of the claims of the revealed system which they had
abandoned. We will cite only one, from a discourse of Jouffroy on his
usual subject, the {558} problem of the destiny of man: "There is a
little book which children are made to learn, and on which they are
questioned in church. Read this little book, which is called the
Catechism; you will find in it an answer to all the questions that I
hare proposed--all without exception. Ask the Christian whence the
human race comes, he knows; whither it is going, he knows. Ask this
poor child, who has never in his life dreamed of it, to what end he
exists here below, and what he will become after death; he will give
you a sublime answer, which he will not comprehend, but which is not
the less admirable. Ask him how the world was produced, and for what
end; why God placed animals and plants in it; how the earth was
peopled, whether by one family or several; why men speak different
languages; why they suffer; why they contend; what will be the end of
it all--he knows. The origin of the world, the origin of the human
race, the question of races, the destiny of man in this life and in
the other, the relation of man to God, the duties of man to his
fellows, the rights of man over creation--he is acquainted with all;
and when he is grown up, he will be equally free from hesitation about
natural rights, political rights, and the right of nations; for all
this is the outcome and clear and spontaneous product of Christian
doctrine. This is what I call a great religion; I recognize it by this
sign of its not leaving unanswered any of the questions which interest
humanity."

Edmond Schérer and Friedrich Schiller, as well as Lord Byron, differ
from the other instances in never having known the true faith; but
they show that the loss of a firm hold of those fragments of
Christianity that are retained outside of the fold leads to something
of the same result as the loss of the faith. The sketch of M.
Schérer's life is very interesting, for it shows the inevitable result
of Protestantism in a highly logical and reflective mind which refuses
the alternative of submission to the Catholic Church. His installation
in the chair of theology in the Evangelical Seminary of Geneva in 1844
was hailed as a triumph by all the devout adherents to the reformed
religion, who looked to him as the invincible champion against the
socinianism prevailing all around. He set himself to the work of
proving the inspiration of Scripture without having recourse to the
authority of the Catholic Church, and the result, after passing
through various phases of sentimentalism and eclecticism, was to land
him in such conclusions as that "the Bible has so little of a monopoly
of inspiration, that there are writings not canonical the inspiration
of which is much more evident than in some of the biblical writings;"
and finally, that Protestantism and Catholicism, Christianity and
Judaism, are only conceptions more or less exact of a common object
and phases in a great movement of progressive spiritualization; that
morality itself is only relative; and that absolute certainty of any
kind is a dream. He may well say, as he has lately said: "Alas! blind
prisoners as we are, laboring at the overthrow the past, we are
engaged in a work which we do not understand. We yield to a power of
which it seems at times that we are the victims as well as the
instruments. The terrible logic whose formulas we wield crushes us
while we are crushing others with it."

The moral of these and other such histories--the moral of Froude and
Francis Newman and Clough--is that as God never made his children for
perplexity and anguish, he never made them for doubt, and must have
provided a secure asylum from it, not in ignorance or thoughtlessness,
but in a system of divinely guaranteed authority. The lesson from the
Nemesis of doubt is the conclusion of Augustine Thierry: "I have need
of an infallible authority, I have need of rest for my soul. I open my
eyes, and I see one only authority, that of the Catholic Church. I
believe what the Catholic Church teaches; I receive her Credo."

----------

{559}

Translated from the German


WHAT MOST REJOICES THE HEART OF MAN?


It was two days before the holy Christmas of the old year, and a very
hard season when Martin (a farmer, to whom heaven had granted a rich
harvest, to reward him for the faithful tillage of his land) entered
the house. He had taken his grain to the market-town, and, thanks to
the brisk demand, had parted with it at an unusually high price. And
now, returning home with a full purse, he called his wife, and pouring
out the money before her on the table, said laughingly: "Look, Agnes,
that will give us a rare treat! what thinkest thou, mother? What most
rejoices the heart of man? I want something that shall make me right
joyful."

"O Martin!" replied the wife, "it must be found, then. But this whole
day has my heart been very heavy; and even if I made something very
nice indeed, I don't think it would go to the right spot;" and when
Martin asked why, she continued: "Thou hadst not been gone long
yesterday morning when in came our neighbor's Clara, weeping and
mourning, and said her father was like to die, and would I for God's
sake come to their assistance and give him something nourishing. I
could understand, then, how matters still it, and taking with me just
whatever there was in the house, I ran down to the hut. O dear God!
what misery was there! The man lay on a little straw, so white and
feeble; the poor wife knelt beside him, crying and sobbing; and their
children hung round them, half naked, and living pictures of hunger,
and not a bit of bread in the whole house. And indeed, Martin, that is
not the only home where such want is! I don't know, but it seems as if
I ought not to enjoy one cheerful hour while so much wretchedness
surrounds us."

While Martin let his wife speak out her thoughts, his eyes were
musingly bent before him. Then he rose, and grasping Agnes's hand,
exclaimed: "Now I know what to do, mother! A joyful heart will I have,
for doing good to others gladdens the heart more than wine and good
cheer. Let us see, then, what the dear God has given us." And now he
counted out from the money first the rent due to his landlord, then
enough to pay all that he owed, and lastily all that must go toward
preparing for the next year s crop. Still there remained a pretty
little sum, so he said: "Now, mother, count up the poor of our
village, and heat the oven, and bake for every grown person two big
loaves, and for every child a smaller one; and then send the bread
round, adding to each loaf a jug of wine and two florins. Then when
the people have a Merry Christmas, and can say grace without tears,
our hearts will be light, I am thinking, even if we set nothing on the
table besides our usual fare."

Now when Agnes heard her husband speak thus, her heart grew very
happy, and she said yes to everything, and shook flour into the
bread-trough, and baked all day and all night. So on that day when the
church sings "Gloria in excelsis Deo!" there was not one in that whole
parish who had not enough to eat; and many a one who for a long time
had not tasted wine refreshed himself on that day, thanking with heart
and lips the farmer and his wife. These two had merely their usual
homely fare upon the table, but within their breasts were joyful
hearts and the consciousness of a good deed.

{560}

So far, so good; but something else happened afterward; for as,
according to the proverb, a pleasure never comes alone, so have good
works an especial power of multiplying themselves. And of that we are
now going to hear something.

When it came to the landlord's ears that his farmer, who was no
capitalist, had made a Merry Christmas for himself in the love of the
holy Christ-child, he was well pleased, and thought to himself that he
too might try something of the same sort. Therefore he appointed a day
(the octave of the blessed Christmas, New-Year's day) when all the
poor in his parish should be invited to the castle. In the hall was a
long table covered with a fine white cloth for the poor people, and a
smaller one for himself and his family. At this small table he placed
Farmer Martin and his wife Agnes, and near the head too, which has no
small significance among knights and noblemen. But he said that he
honored such excellent people as his own friends and relations,
believing that the heart makes better nobility than a long pedigree.

When now the table was filled with the sons and daughters of poverty,
grace was said by the chaplain, while all remained standing and joined
devotedly in his prayer. Then were bread-cakes set on the board, and
huge pieces if roast beef, and for each person a bumper of good old
wine; but if any one was ill and could not come to the feast, then was
his share despatched to his home, with a beautiful gold piece and a
friendly greeting from his gracious lord. So all the parish poor had a
second time plenty to eat and drink, and more than one enjoyed himself
better on that day than ever before in his life.

When the people had had a good dinner, they thought the feast was at
an end, and wished to express their thanks courteously to the host,
but he begged them to wait a little quarter of an hour longer, for
something else was coming. Then four lottery vases were placed on the
table, one for the men, another for the women, a third for boys, and a
fourth for girls; and when all the guests had been arranged ranged
according to age and family, one after another put his hand into a
vase and drew forth a number, one fifteen, another twenty-one, a third
two, and so on until each person had a number. Then they looked at
their numbers and thought, What does this all mean? and they waited
full of expectation.

Suddenly a side door opened, and the servants brought in a wooden
frame, on the four sides of which hung all sorts of garments, one side
for men, another for women, and then for boys and girls, as at a fair;
and everything was new and neat and strong, such as peasant-folks like
to wear, and a number was fastened on each piece. Some one called out,
"Now look for the numbers that you have in your hands." The men looked
shyly at each each other, as if to say, "Can he really mean it?" but
the women were more clever, and had soon found white and colored
skirts, aprons, stockings, neckerchiefs, and handkerchiefs to match
their numbers, and were helping their husbands and children in their
search. Before long not one single thread hung on the frame, and every
one possessed his appointed prize, and was rejoicing over it, for it
really seemed as if to each person had fallen the very thing he most
needed. Of course many were there who were in need of everything.

When now the time for leave-taking came, and the happy people thanked
their gracious lord in their best manner, he shook hands with each one
like a good old friend or father, at the same moment slipping into the
palm of every man a thaler. Then were there fresh rejoicings and
renewed thanks, and the worthy folk would not soon have made an end of
it, if their benefactor had not quickly broken {561} a path through
the crowd who blessed him, and so eluded their acknowledgments.

But then their hearts being full to overflowing, they longed to have
some outlet to their gratitude; so they seated farmer and his wife in
two chairs, placed them in a pretty wagon, to which they harnessed
themselves; and the worthy couple, in spite of expostulation, were
borne home in triumph. Such rejoicings had not been seen for many a
long day, and even now do the people of B---- talk of brave Martin and
his excellent wife Agnes; of the feast and the lottery and the dollars
of their kind and gracious lord in the castle yonder.

--------

From The Reader.


THE REPUBLIC OF ANDORRA.


The Val d'Andorra lies on the southern side of the central Pyrenees,
between two of the highest mountains, the Maladetta and the Moncal. It
is bounded on the north by the department of Ariège; on the south by
the district of Barrida, the territory of Urgel, and part of the
viscounty of Castelbo; on the east by the valley of Carol and part of
the Cerdana; on the west at by the viscounty of Castelbo, the valleys
of San Juan and Terrem, the Conca de Buch, and the communes of Os and
Tor. The principal mountain-passes into France are those of Valira,
Soldeu, Fontargente, Siguer, Anzat, Arbella, and Rat; those
communicating with Spain are Port Negre, Perefita, and Portella. Some
of these are only passable during part of the year. The greatest
length of the territory is about forty miles; the greatest breadth
about twenty-four miles. The country is mountainous, but includes some
excellent pasturage. The highest summits visible are Las Mineras,
Casamanya, Saturria, Montclar, San Julian, and Juglár. The principle
rivers are the Valira, the Ordino, and the Os, none of which are
navigable. At the greatest elevation the snow remains upward of six
months. In summer the rains are very frequent. The purity of both air
and water renders the climate very healthy, and the inhabitants are
remarkable for their longevity, many living to the age of one hundred.
Devonian beds lie unconformably on upper silurian, which latter forms
a valley of depression, having the town of Andorra in its synclinal
axis. There are many mines producing iron of the best quality; one of
lead, several of alum, quartz, slate, some quarries of jaspers, and
several kinds of marble. Besides the trees common to Europe, the flora
includes the cacao or chocolate. There are, likewise, many medicinal
roots and plants. Wheat, barley, rye, and hemp are cultivated; and
grapes, figs, dates, and olives are also seen. In the low parts of the
south tobacco is much grown. Indian corn is only occasionally to be
met with. The fauna include the bear, wild boar, wolf, boquetin
(_Capra Pyrenaica?_), chamois, mule, fox, blackcock, or _gallina de
monte_, squirrel, hare, partridge, pheasant, and several species of
eagles; there are also a great many blackbirds and nightingales. The
population of the whole republic has been estimated as low as 5,000,
and even higher than 15,000, but it probably does not exceed 10,000;
that of the capital has been reckoned as high as 2,800, but this
probably refers to the whole parish, {562} and is, even then, greatly
over-estimated. The name Andorra has been derived from the Arabic, but
it is, without doubt, considerably older than the time of the Moors.
It is probably from the Gaelic _an-dobhar, an-dour_, which will
variously translate, "the water," "the territory," "the border of a
country." In the Roman period the Val d'Andorra formed part of the
country of the Ceretani, who gave their name to the Cerdana; and, at
the time of the Goths, of the district called Marea de Espana. It was
the last tract of country of which Moors obtained possession in
Catalonia, and the first which they abandoned. There are traditions of
the republic even prior to the time of Charlemagne. Catalonia, being
invaded by the Moors, the Andorrans, in 778, asked aid of the emperor,
who thereupon crossed the Pyrenees, and having united his forces with
those of Catalonia, which consisted principally of the mountaineers of
Andorra, after a brilliant campaign drove the Moors to the left bank
of the Ebro. Having established a military organization for the
defence of the territory, Charlemagne recognized certain rights in
favor of the Andorrans; but, at the same time, gave to the see of
Urgel the tithes of the six parishes into which the valley of Andorra
was divided. The Moors having again invaded the territory, the emperor
despatched his son, Louis le Debonnaire, who drove out the Moors, and
ceded the sovereignty of the valley to Sisebertus, first bishop of
Urgel. The charter bears the date of 803, and the signature of
Ludovicus Pius, the name by which Louis has always been known to the
republic. Charles the Bold having illegally granted to the Counts of
Urgel the sovereignty over the lands of the republic, another dispute
arose between the bishop and the counts, and the independence of the
valley was again disturbed. Upon this the bishop asked assistance of
Raymond of Foix, and an alliance was entered into by which the
independence of the valley wad vested jointly in the house of Foix and
the see of Urgel, and Raymond forthwith expelled the Counts of Urgel
from Andorra. This took place in the twelfth century. The bishop
failing to surrender the moiety of the republican lands, Bernard of
Foix, in 1241, laid siege to the city of Urgel, and the Bishop was not
only compelled to yield to the demands of the count, but also, within
a certain time, to procurers of papal ratification of the investiture
of the house of Foix in the joint sovereignty of the republic. The
convention having been again violated by the see of Urgel, it was
finally settled, in 1278, that the right of suzerainté should be
possessed jointly by the Bishop of Urgel and the Counts of Foix. This
tree is the act of independence Of the republic, and is known to the
people of Andorra by the name of "Parialge." It stipulated that the
republic should pay annually a tribute of 960 francs to the Counts of
Foix, and half that amount to the see of Urgel, and that each should
have the privilege of nominating one of the two officers called
viguiers. The house of Foix being united, first with that of Béarn,
and then to that of Moncada and Castellvel Rosanes, was finally
absorbed in the house of Bourbon, and the joint protectorate became at
the end of the sixteenth century, merged in the government of France,
and the see of Urgel. On 25th March following a treaty was concluded
by which the republic should pay the annual tribute to the
receiver-general of the department of Ariège, in return for which it
was to receive some commercial privileges as to the free export of
certain goods. It was further stipulated that one of the viguiers of
the republic should be chosen from the department of Ariège, and that
three deputies of the Valley should nearly take an oath to the prefect
of the same department. Napoleon is said to have affixed his name to
the original charter of Charlemagne. {563} The privileges of the
Andorrans have been several times acknowledged by France and Spain.
Even the war with Spain did not injure the neutrality of the republic.
In 1794, a French column having penetrated into the centre of Andorra,
for the purpose of laying siege to the city of Urgel, the Andorrans
sent a deputation to assert the neutrality and independence of the
valley, and General Charlet gave immediate orders to withdraw. The
Andorrans have never taken part in the wars of their neighbors. The
rich pasturages between Hospitalet, in France, and Soldeu, in Andorra,
in former times attracted the cupidity of the people of Hospitalet,
who have several times endeavored to take forcible possession of them:
the Andorrans having appealed to the law, judgment was given in their
favor in 1835 by the Court Royal of Toulouse. There is no form of
sovereignty in Europe exactly similar to that of Andorra. The republic
is governed by a syndic, a council of twenty-four, together with two
viguiers or magistrates, and two judges. The French government and the
see or Urgel possess a co-ordinate right of confirmation over the
appointment of the syndic. The twenty-four members of the council
consist of the twelve consuls who represent the six parishes or
communes, and the twelve consuls who held office during the preceding
year. These latter are called councillors. One of the viguiers is
appointed by the French government, the other Bishop of Urgel. The
former is chosen for life, and is generally a magistrate of the
department of Ariège; the latter holds office for three years only,
and is chosen from among the subjects of the republic. He is not
required to be an educated man. The viguiers alone exercise the
criminal authority. Civil justice is rendered by two other judges, one
of whom is appointed by each viguier from a list of six members, drawn
up and presented by the syndic. In both criminal and civil cases the
judges are guided by equity, common sense, and custom only, and yet no
complaints are heard of. Parties to suits, both criminal and civil,
have the right of appearing by counsel, who is styled _rahonador_, or
speaker. The decision of the criminal courts is communicated to the
council, who reassemble to receive it. The sentence of the court, once
proclaimed by the council, is irrevocable, and is put in execution
within twenty-four hours. The criminal court is rarely convoked. There
are few crimes committed in the republic. One man was executed for
murder about six years since. The expenses of justice are paid partly
by the delinquents, partly by the council. The armed forces consist of
six companies, one for each parish, and scarcely amount to 600, but in
case of need all the inhabitants are soldiers. There is no enlistment;
one individual between the age of sixteen and sixty is chosen from
each family. There is no national flag, and no drums are used. The
service is unpaid. Public instruction is in the worst state. The
priest of each parish is obliged to provide a school in his own house,
but no one is compelled to send his children. Those who desire a
better education for their children send them either to France or
Catalonia. The only form of religion is the Roman Catholic. Political
refugees from Spain and France are always hospitably received.
Foreigners resident in the republic pay yearly five Catalan sous, and
enjoy all the privileges of the natives, except that of holding any
public office. If a foreigner marries an heiress, he is accounted a
citizen, but he must first obtain an authorization from the
council-general. The Andorrans are somewhat above the ordinary size of
Spaniards. In stature they are thin and wiry. In character they are
active, proud, industrious, independent, religious, faithful to their
ancient customs, and very jealous of their liberties. They are
inquisitive, great talkers, but suddenly dumb and ignorant when they
imagine their interest at stake. Those engaged in public affairs are
generally {564} hospitable, but most of the people are rather
suspicious of strangers. They speak the Catalan dialect, which is a
compound of Castilian and the ancient languages of the south of
France. They also use many modern French words, which they pronounce
after their own fashion. The people are poor, and glory in their
poverty, as they thereby preserve their independence. Should they grow
rich, they would be sure to be absorbed either by France or Spain. A
large portion of the wealth of the republic consists in its flocks of
sheep. Each landowner is possessed of a considerable flock. The price
of a sheep ranges from twelve to twenty francs. The fleeces suffice to
clothe the whole of the male population. The exports into Spain
consist of iron, in large quantities, sheep, mules, and other cattle;
cloths, blankets, cheese, butter, and excellent hams. Those into
France include untanned skins, sheep, mules, calves and wool. The
number of sheep and mules sent annually into Spain and France amounts
to 1,000. Considering the size of the republic, the imports from Spain
are considerable: they include some of the necessaries of life, as
corn and salt. The only imports from France are fish and compound
liquors. There is a good deal of contraband between the republic and
Spain and France. It consists principally in wines, vinegar, salt, and
a small quantity of silk. The contrabandistas between the valley and
Spain are generally Spaniards. There are no land conveyances, and the
transport of goods and merchandise is carried on with horses and
mules. There are no restrictions on commerce, and no stamps; and no
passports are required. The republic contains six parishes or
communes, namely, Andorra la Vieja, San Juliá de Loria, Canillo,
Ordino, En Camp, and La Massana. There are also thirty-four villages
and hamlets, the chief of which are Escaldas, Santa Caloma, and
Soldeu. There are but few ancient remains in the republic. The
capital, Andorra la Vieja, or "The Old" is so called to distinguish it
from Andorra in Spain, Province Teruel. There is a good weekly market,
and considerable business is transacted in imported corn. It is a
miserable place, with houses built of the _débris_ of schist and
granite, and generally without stucco. During the civil wars it
suffered greatly from hostile attacks, and the suspension of commerce.
The palace, called Casa del Valle, is an ancient building, constructed
of rough pieces of granite. The _façade_ is heavy and massive, and has
only three windows, of unequal dimensions, with some louvers;  in its
left angle is a turret pierced with loopholes, and surmounted with a
cross. Above the portal, which resembles a _porte cochère_, is  the
inscription _Domus_ consilii, _sedes justitiae_, under which is and
escutcheon of white marble, with the arms of the republic. The
interior of the palace is in a state of complete ruin. On the ground
floor is the national prison and the stables, where the members of the
council have the privilege of putting up their horses during the
sessions. The kitchen is on a grand scale, with immense hearts and
cauldrons. A staircase, which savors of antiquity, leads to the
chamber on the first floor, where the council meets. It is a vast hall
of an imposing aspect. At one end is a chair for the syndic, who sits
as president of the assembly; along either wall are benches of oak for
the twenty-four councillors; and between the corridors is a picture of
Jesus Christ. In another part of the hall are preserved in the
archives of the government, which include the grant of Charlemagne and
his son. They are kept in an armory or cupboard in the wall, closed by
two wooden shutters, where they have remained intact since the
expulsion of the Moors. The cabinet has six different locks and keys,
which are kept by the executive officers of the six communes whose
documents have been separately deposited. This cabinet has no outer
door, and can only be opened in the presence of the six heads of the
departments, who are bound to be present at the deliberations {565} of
the council. There are five sessions of the council annually, but when
necessary, extraordinary sessions are also held. When the general
council is unable to assemble, the syndic general, or, in his absence,
the sub-syndic, represent it, and act in its name; sometimes, also, a
junta general is convoked, at which assist a consul, or a consul and a
councillor, for each parish. In the juntas, matters of minor interest
are discussed, and the consuls and councillors who take part in them
are entrusted with the powers of their colleagues. To the general
council pertains everything relating to police, and all disputes in
commercial matters. The chapel is dedicated to San Heremengol,
formerly Bishop of Urgel and Prince of Andorra, and will repay a
visit.

--------

ORIGINAL.


CATHOLIC CHRISTMAS.


The evening of the last day of the church's advent arrives. She
gathers her ministers around her, and, singing hymns of glad
expectation, they remain in her temples, even until midnight. Let us
listen to the grand harmony!

Divided into two vast bodies, they peal forth the verses of the royal
prophet in alternate chorus; and who could tire hearkening? Well does
Durendus say, that "the two choirs typify the angels and the spirits
of just men, while they cheerfully and mutually excite each other in
this holy exercise." We fancy ourselves among the choirs of heaven, as
St. Ignatius once was in spirit, when he learned the method of
alternate chanting.

Oh! whose heart does not yearn toward the church in these her days of
longing! She has laid away from her all that is dazzling and joyous;
yet is she most charming. Anxious love, like a sun, burns over her,
altering her color; yet is she all beauty--bright and rich and
warm--her aspect teeming with purity and love and inspiration. "I am
black, but beautiful." (Cant. i. 4)

It is midnight. Long since men ceased from their labors. The din of
traffic has been hushed for hours. Yet there is a sound through all
the world. From every city and town and village, from spire-crowned
hill and from holy valley, from numberless sweet nooks and by-ways, it
swells forth, the sound of a grand harmony, the voices of myriads
chanting. Now the tones speak of longing; now they tremble with
expectation; then there is a burst of rapture following the mellow
warbling of desire. It is the voice of the church longing for her
Beloved! She shall be gratified, for even now there is a knocking at
her temple gates. The chant is hushed, and a voice, gentle as the
lisping of a child, breathes the sweet entreaty, "Open to me, my
sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled; for my head is full of dew and
my locks of the drops of the night." (Cant. v. 2.) Yes, lovely Babe,
gladly will the temple-doors open to thee; for many a long and weary
mile did thy mother journey with thee beneath her heart!

Winter ruled the earth. Chill blew the breezes, and coldness was over
all nature. Shivering had the aged saint and Mary asked for shelter,
but the inns were filled, and none in Bethlehem would trouble to
receive them. Riches were not theirs, and all saw that the {566}
unknown mother's time was near; hence, fearing they might have to look
to the child, they shut her from their dwellings. The only place of
refuge her holy spouse could find for his charge was a cheerless
stable, hollowed from a rough, cold rock. The ox and the ass were
their only earthly companions; hay and straw formed the rude couch
upon which the mother brought forth her child at midnight. Jesus!
Saviour! she wraps thee scantily in swaddling-clothes, and lays thee
shivering in a manger. Well then may the dew and the drops of the
night hang heavy upon thy locks!

But, though in Bethlehem these unknown travellers were outcasts, God
did not desert them. The glimmerings of adoring angels' wings fell
upon the mother's eyes to comfort her heart, for there were angels
near in numbers. They hovered over and within the hut, making it ring
with the most blessed hymn that mortal or angelic ears had ever heard:
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good-will."

Instantly upon this knocking the church rises to open to her Beloved,
and now begins her joy. Now she will celebrate his birthday, and her
heart leaps high in bidding him welcome. Her torches, her sanctuary
lamps, the countless candles on her altars, all are lighted with the
speed of love; their shining shows her spouse that she was so full of
expectation, so confident of his coming, that she has already cast
away her weeds of mourning and desire, and has arrayed her charms in
her most precious robes. Evergreens and tapestry are twining and
glowing all about her--in her niches, upon her piers, her arcades, her
parapets, her cloister-galleries, her massive stalls, her carved and
fretted ceilings. Her altars and her sanctuaries have festoons and
garlands, and crowns of sweetest design, and veils and hangings of
choicest embroidery. She peals her bells and sweeps her fingers over
her organ-keys, and tunes her many instruments, to fill her temples
with the rapturous canticle of the day, "Gloria in excelsis Deo."

But let us circumscribe our views. As we may behold the joy of the
universal church in even her smallest division, let us see how, in the
good old Catholic times, the simplest villagers celebrated the first
day of the Incarnate Eternal!

The few rich men among them have sent stores of flowers and fruits
from their conservatories to deck the green branches gathered in the
forest. Pious ladies have brought in the various ornaments, which they
have been preparing for weeks, as an offering for their new-born
Saviour. The happy pastor and many of his spiritual flock have been
busy in the church four days, disposing the decorations with untiring
ingenuity and taste.

Now it is almost midnight. The skies are clear and studded with
twinkling stars. Ice is over all the streams, snow is over all the
streets and fields, and weighs down the trees. Stillness is upon the
the village, yet not the stillness of slumber. You can see that
something is transpiring which takes not place at other midnights; for
lights are glimmer through the cottage-windows, and, now and then,
cheerful forms are seen passing to and fro. They are all expecting,
and they shall not be delayed; for hark! suddenly a merry peal of
bells bursts over them; joyously it rings forth--now in soft, sweet
cadence, and now in swelling harmony. It pours along the streets and
fills the village dwellings. It echoes through the cloudless vault,
over the snowy fields and the glassy streams, reaching even the
scattered hamlets in the distance. Suddenly and joyously the music
bursts upon all:

  "Adeste fideles, laeti, triumphantes
  Venite, venite in Bethlehem."

And the cottage-doors are thrown open, and groups of merry children
sally forth gladly shouting, "Christmas, Christmas!"

{567}

Then the tapers are extinguished, and the villagers all hasten forth
with holy eagerness to see their Jesus cradled in the manger; and, as
they direct their steps toward the old church, they awaken the
midnight echoes with that sweet old carol:

  "Now the circling year have given
   The joyful season, when from heaven
   Life descended to the earth
   In the Babe who took his birth
        From our sweet Lady!

  "Behold him in the manger laid,
   Owned by the cattle of the shed,
   Who know their God meanest bands
   Enswathed by the tender hands
        Of our sweet Lady!

  "Now he smiles on Joseph blessed;
   Now he seeks his mother's breast;
   Now he sobs, and now he cries,
   All beneath the guardian eyes
        Of our sweet Lady!

  "Run, run, ye shepherds, haste and bring
   Your simple homage to our King!
   Ye heaven-called watchers, taste and see
   Our God, meek-seated on the knee
       Of our sweet Lady!"

Thus they stream along from every cottage, along every pathway toward
the church, men, women, and little children, singing and chatting
happily. Far off in the moonlit distance you see small parties
hastening over the white plains from their scattered homes to mingle
in the festival. How beautifully do they remind us of those happy
shepherds who left their flocks near the "Tower of Ader," and went
over to Bethlehem, to see the word that had come to pass!

The bells continue pealing out their music to the midnight, and the
church continues filling. Listen to the half-suppressed ejaculation of
joyous surprise as each new group enters the holy place and beholds
its charming decorations! Over every window's curve, and hanging down
by its sides, is a mighty wreath of evergreens. In front of every
hallowed niche lights are burning, and wreaths of foliage hang over
it. The pillars are all twined round and round, up to the very
ceiling, with ivy, holly, laurel, intermingled with those berries that
grow red in winter. But who shall describe the glories of the
sanctuary! The arch that rises over it flows with the fullest folds of
tapestry, white as snow, save where they are here and there
interwrought with flowers of rose-hued silk and thread of gold, and
intertwined with holly and laurel, and boughs of the orange-tree with
its golden clusters. On the altar-steps are vases filled with
evergreens, slender strings of ivy twisting around tall branches and
bending gracefully between them down even to the floor. The altar is
crowded with lighted candles, and along the intervals of the
candlesticks flow festoons of slender branches, leaves, and flowers. A
stole of flowers decorates the very crucifix; the tabernacle sparkles
in its richest veil.

Oh! in olden times even a village church was grand beyond description;
for then men took a pride in their religion. They loved to see God's
Bride in bridal splendor; they loved to see the Queen in regal
vesture; they loved to see the Sister of the Church in heaven with
something like heavenly glory around her. The rich man gave of his
abundance, the poor man gave of his labor, ladies wrought
embroidery--all in holy unison strained every nerve to make her
temples beautiful.

Now the church has filled with kneeling forms. The rich and the poor,
the lady and the servant, the laborers and they for whom they labor,
here kneel side by side, they are all equal here, for they are all
alike, are God's own children, the brethren of the Babe of Bethlehem.

The steeple-bells have ceased to peal, for not a single thought must
now wander outside. Eyes and ears and heart and soul and every feeling
are intent upon the grand occurrences within.

Presently blue clouds of sweet incense are seen floating toward the
sanctuary, and modestly there comes a youth swinging a silver censer;
a long procession of little acolytes, clad in snow-white surplices and
bearing lighted tapers, follow him slowly; a saintly looking priest,
in precious vestments, closes the holy array. His {568} youthful
attendants are chosen boys of blameless life and pleading aspect: and,
indeed, they look pure and innocent and cherub-like, as they dispose
themselves around the holy place, and kneel toward the altar.

Then amid half-suppressed, repentant cries for "mercy on us," swelling
forth from the choir, the psalm is said--the psalm of preparation, of
praise, of hope, of humble confidence: the confession is made; prayers
for pardon, lights and gracious hearing are repeated. Then the priest
ascends "unto the altar of God," and whispers prayers, speaking
rapturously of the "Child that is born to us, the Son that is given to
us." But look at hie countenance as he returns slowly to the middle of
the altar; you can see that he is full of some grand event--his soul,
his heart, his feelings, all hold jubilee. One more entreaty for mercy
repeated again and again with passionate earnestness, and he raises
his eyes and his arms as though about to ascend in ecstasy, and, like
one inspired, he breaks forth in the angelic hymn, "Gloria in excelsis
Deo." It is the signal of jubilee. Suddenly there is a burst of many
little bells, shaken by the hands of the surpliced children, ringing
out their silver music until the hymn is ended by the priest; the
organ's richest and fullest chords are struck, swelling forth in
harmony like that which the rivers made in Paradise when they sang
their first hymn of praise to him who set them flowing, and the full
choir of trained voices burst forth: "Et in terra pax hominibus."

Truly you think yourself at Bethlehem. It seems as though the Child
were just born--as though you heard the heavenly hosts singing their
grand anthem--saw the shepherds wondering and adoring--beheld the
Infant lying in the manger, a fair, radiant, smiling little Babe, with
an old saint beside it, leaning on his staff, and a comely virgin, in
a trance of motherly affection, kissing its bright forehead. So these
villagers seem to feel it all. A start of joy runs through the whole
assembly, a radiance lights up every feature; friends kiss each other,
fathers kiss their children, mothers kiss their little ones; a whisper
runs from soul to soul through all the church--"Pax hominibus."

Then follow collect, the epistle, the gradual, a gospel, all full of
the grand event. And then the choir's jubilee begins again, as the
anointed one at the altar intones "Credo in unum Deum." Who shall tell
the stirless reverence of each prostrate form, as all bow yet lower at
the words that still the mystery of the night! Softly the organ
warbles in its mellowest keys; from the richest voice in all the choir
sweetly flow the words "Et Homo factus est." Every mind reflects, and
every heart is melted.

Then comes the offertory; and all present, according to their various
means, make their offerings for those "who serve the altar," and for
the poor. While the priest raises in offering the paten with the Post
and the chalice with wine, the villagers also, kneeling, make an
offering of their homage to their new-born Redeemer; and mothers lift
their little ones to heaven in spirit, praying that they may advance
"in wisdom and age and grace with God and men," as did the Child of
Mary. Then follows the washing of the heads, with its appropriate
prayers; then, the secretas, the preface, the whispered prayers for
God's church, for friends and benefactors, for all the living
faithful.

The moment of consecration draws nigh. Books are laid aside, hands are
clasped upon the breast, every head is bent. The sweet voices in the
choir have been hushed; the organ's silvery tones, murmuring more and
more softly, have at length died away, awe-stricken by the silence
that fills God's house. Yes! silence fills it, for silence now seems a
something--a breathless, pulseless, but mighty spirit feeling all
this temple, as the cloud of God's glory once filled the tabernacle.
You think you could almost {569} most hear a spirit move, you feel as
though you were among the angels when they waited breathless to behold
the effect of the sublime utterance, "Let there be light." Bending low
in reverend humility, the priest in a whisper of awe speaks the
almighty words, "This is my body," "This is the chalice of my blood;"
the light breathing of that whisper is heard even in the bosom of the
Eternal Father, the golden gates of Paradise are thrown open, and God
"bows the heavens and comes down." He is here, this church is now the
hut of Bethlehem, this altar is the manger; for the Child is born upon
it as really as the Virgin-mother there brought him forth.

As when of old light was made, there was a music of the spheres, of
the sun and moon and all the stars and planets, singing their morning
hymn of gratitude, so is the stillness now also broken, so does the
choir, warbling in swelling glee, burst forth in grand climax,
"Hosanna in excelsis." And in the mean time priest and people united
utter to their new-born Saviour many rich and beautiful prayers for
the living, for the faithful departed, for themselves.

The villagers are absorbed in prayer; it seems as though their fervor
kept redoubling, as though the flames of holy love burned higher and
higher every instant. Well they may, for the moment is approaching in
which each heart will be a manger in which Jesus will be laid, each
breast a tabernacle in which love itself shall dwell. Already there is
a move among them; with modest gait, with clasped hands and downcast
eyes, they advance to the sanctuary, the mystic bread is given to them
line after line, and, bearing their God with them, they all return in
reverence to give thanks, to petition for good things. Serenity is in
their eyes and on their features, joy is in their hearts, rapture in
their souls, peace among their feelings, and Jesus within their bosoms
harmonizing all. O truly happy Christmas! O the bliss that now is
theirs, the comfort of this moment! Well may the chanters hymn: "O
Jesus, God! Great God! Good Pastor! Sweet Lamb! O Jesus, _my_ Jesus! O
Bread! O Manna! O Power! what dost thou not grant to man!"

Then praises and thanks are sung joyously by the priest, and his hand
is stretched in blessing from the altar. The Mass is over, and the
procession moves from the sanctuary, while the choir chants aloud,
"Praise the Lord all ye nations, praise him all ye people. Because his
mercy is confirmed upon us, and the truth of the Lord remaineth for
ever." (Ps. cxvi.)

The chant dies away, and for awhile not a sound is heard through all
the sacred building. No one stirs as yet; all remain some time to
return thanks, to allow the impression of the festival to sink deep
into their souls. At length they rise, and bowing lowly toward the
altar, they go forth. At the church-door hands are shaken, kisses
given, warm embraces are exchanged, and joy and happiness and all the
blessings of the Child's nativity are wished and wished again.

But follow them home from their midnight celebration. For a long time
the village slumbers not; lights glimmer through the cottage-windows,
and within groups are kneeling around a little home-made oratory, with
a little crib in the middle, and candles around it. This is of greater
importance than the gathering around the yule-fire or the decked tree.
Moreover, all did not go home when Mass was over. Go back to the
church, and behold those silent figures praying in every posture that
feeling can suggest. There, before that tabernacle, a mother prays the
divine Child for her own babe; a virgin prays for purity like to that
of the Virgin-mother; the child of misery seeks consolation from him
who was born in a stable; many repeat over and over again the canticle
of the angels, and all beg the blessings of him over whom the angels
sang it. At length these also are gone; the lights {570} are quenched
about the altar, all, save the silver lamp which is never
extinguished; all is still as was the stable when the shepherds had
adored and gone back to their flocks.

But the festival of our Saviour's birth is not over yet. "As the day
comes round in music and in light;" you again see the villagers
wending their way to the church; and a third time, when the sun is in
the mid-arch of heaven. Each time is witnessed the same sublime
celebration that we beheld at midnight; for three births of Christ are
celebrated. His birth from the Father before lime began; his birth
from the immaculate Virgin as a wailing babe at Bethlehem; his mystic
birth, by faith and by the sacrament of love, in the heart of each
humble adorer.

Such was Christmas in the happy olden times. Alas! that a blight
should ever have come upon it. Truly they have not done well to
despoil that village church of all its charming features. Well may the
church exclaim, weeping: "The keepers that go about the city found me;
they struck me, and wounded me: the keepers of the walls took my vail
from me." (Cant, v. 7.) Fondly do we trust she will soon again be
clothed in splendor. The pope that reigned when England fell away
grieved sadly for her fall. In his distress he put away the triple
crown; and even now his statue sits uncrowned, with downcast eyes, as
though his grief had hardened him to stone. But soon, we trust, he
will again lift up his eyes. Soon, we trust, will his successors
rejoiced to find the crown replaced, not by mortal, but by angel
hands. Shall we not hope and pray that our own dear land, also, will
form not the least brilliant jewel in that crown? One day this church
will again deck herself with the flowers she once wore, but which
rebellious hands toward to pieces, scattering the leaves around her.
Then shall we once again celebrate the good old Catholic Christmas
times, and celebrate them with the increased joy which is born of the
wanderer's returned. God granted it speedily!

------


MISCELLANY


_Spots on the Sun.--Science Review_.--We would draw the attention of
our scientific readers to a remarkable opinion and theory of Sir John
Herschel's with regard to the nature of those curious objects
discovered by Mr. Nasmyth on the surface of the sun, and generally
called, from their peculiar shape, "willow leaves." We believe Sir
John first propounded this theory in an article on the sun, published
in Good Words, but it does not seem to have been noticed by many
astronomers. However wild the hypothesis may appear, it has just
received a further sanction from its eminent author, by its
republication in his new book of Familiar Lectures, which we notice
elsewhere. Sir John says: "Nothing remains but to consider them (the
so-called willow leaves) as separate and independent sheets, flakes,
or scales, having some sort of solidity. And these flakes, be they
what they may, and whatever may be said about the dashing of meteoric
stones into the sun's atmosphere, etc., are evidently the immediate
sources of the solar light and heat by whatever mechanism for whatever
processes they may be enabled to develop, and, as it were, elaborate
these elements from the bosom of the non-luminous fluid in which they
appear to float. Looked at in this point of view, we cannot refuse to
regard them as organisms of some peculiar and amazing kind; and though
it would be too daring to speak of such organization as partaking of
the nature of life, yet we do know that vital action is competent to
develop both heat, light, and electricity." Strange and startling as
is such an explanation, yet scientific men will remember that when we
{571} knew as little about the cause of the black lines seen in the
spectrum of the sun as we now know about these appearances on the sun
itself, Sir John Herschel suggested, in 1833, that very explanation
which was the foundation of the memorable law announced by the German
philosopher, Kirchhoff, in 1859--a law now universally accepted as
affording a perfect solution to the long-standing puzzle of
Fraunhofer's lines.



_Simple Net for the Capture of Oceanic Animals,--Science Review_.--In
a paper read before the Microscopical Society of London on the fauna
of mid-ocean, Major S. R. Owen gives the following directions for the
preparation of a simple form of net for the above purpose, and which
maybe rigged out at a few hours' notice. A grommet should be made for
the mouth, to which three cords may be attached to connect it with the
towing-line; that line should be a good stout piece of stuff and
capable of bearing a great strain. To the grommet should be attached,
first, a bag, the upper part of which may be made of a thin canvas,
the lower part of strong jean, ending in a piece of close calico or
linen; the bottom must be left open, and tied round with a tape when
used; this will be found convenient for taking out the contents, and
by leaving it open and towing it so for a short time it can be
thoroughly washed. Over the whole an outer covering of the strongest
sail-cloth should be put, the upper part, in like manner, attached to
the grommet, the lower part left open, and a portion for a foot or
eighteen inches of the seam left to be coarsely laced up with a piece
of cord, the same being done for the bottom itself. If necessary, a
third covering may be put between these of any strong but rather
porous material; but this in its turn should be left open at the
bottom, and only tied when required for use. Its length should be so
adjusted when tied that the inner lining of calico may rest against
it, and be relieved from the strain. The outer sail-cloth should, in
like manner, be laced up to receive and support the whole.



_A New Magnesium Lamp_.--An ingenious form of magnesium lamp, the
invention of Mr. H. Larkin, and which was first exhibited at the Royal
Institution a couple of months since, was shown at the _soirées_ of
the British Association at Nottingham. Instead of the ordinary ribbon
or wire of the commoner forms of magnesium lamps, magnesium powder is
employed. Hence all machinery is dispensed with, the magnesium being
contained in a reservoir, from a hole in the bottom of which it falls
like sand from an hour-glass. The powder is allowed to fall upon the
flame of a small gas-jet, and by this it is inflamed, giving all its
usual illumination. In order that a sufficient quantity of powder may
be employed, and that the hole in the reservoir may be large enough to
allow of a regular flow, without waste of magnesium, the latter is
mixed with fine sand. The size of the aperture is regulated by a
stopcock. When it is desired to light the lamp, the gas is first
turned on, just sufficiently to produce a small jet at the mouth of
the tube, which small jet, being once kindled, may be allowed to burn
any convenient time, until the moment the magnesium light is required.
All that is then needed is to turn on the metallic powder, which
instantly descends and becomes ignited as it passes through the
burning gas. This action of turning on and off the metallic powder may
be repeated without putting out the gas, as often and as quickly as
desired; so that, in addition to the ordinary purpose to which lamps
are applied, an instant or an intermittent light of great brilliancy,
suitable for signals or for light-houses, may be very simply produced
with certainty of effect and without the smallest waste of metal. The
first evening an objection was made that the blue tone of the light
created a cold and somewhat ghastly effect. On the second occasion Mr.
Larkin remedied this by mixing with the magnesium a certain quantity
of nitrate of strontia.--_Journal of the Society of Arts_.



_An Artificial Eye for restoring Sight_.--An apparatus of this kind,
whose efficiency we much doubt, has been described by M. Blanchet, in
a paper in which he details the operation for its insertion under the
title of Helio-prothesis. The operation consists in puncturing the eye
in the direction of the antero-posterior axis with a narrow bistoury,
and introducing a piece of apparatus to which M. Blanchet gives the
name of "phosphore." The operation in most instances produces little
pain, and when the globe of the eye has undergone degeneration there
is no pain at all, and the "phosphore" apparatus is {572} introduced
without difficulty. The description of this contrivance is this: "It
consists of a shell of enamel, and of a tube closed at both its ends
by glasses, whose form varies according to circumstances." M. Blanchet
thus describes the operation: "The patient's head being supported by
an assistant, the upper eyelid is raised by an elevator, and the lower
one is depressed. The operator then punctures the eye with a narrow
bistoury, adapting the width of his incision to the diameter of the
'phosphore' tube which he intends to insert. The translucent humor
having escaped, the 'phosphore' apparatus is applied, and almost
immediately, or after a short time, the patient is partially restored
to sight!" Before introducing the apparatus it is necessary to
calculate the antero-posterior diameter of the eye, and if the lens
has cataract it must be removed. Inasmuch as the range of vision
depends on the quantity of the humor left behind, M. Blanchet
recommends the employment of spectacles of various kinds.--_Popular
Science Review._



_Action of Different Colored Lights on the Retina_.--It is known to
physiologists that when a ray of light falls upon the retina, the
impression it produces remains for a definite period, according to
calculation about the _third of a second_. It is this fact which is
used to explain why a burning brand, when twirled rapidly round, gives
the appearance of a ring of light. But till quite recently it had not
been shown whether the different colors of light had the same degree
of persistence upon the retina. The subject has quite lately been
taken up by the Abbé Laborde, who shows that, just as the prism
separates the colors at different angles, so the retina absorbs the
callers, or the impressions produced thereby, in different times. In
conducting his experiment to prove this, the abbé receives the
sunlight through an aperture in a shutter into a darkened chamber. The
aperture is about three millimetres wide by six high. In the course of
the beam and in the middle the chamber there is placed a disk of
metal, the circumference of which is pierced by apertures
corresponding to the aperture in the shutter. This disk is caused to
revolve by clockwork. Behind the disc is placed a plate of ground
glass to receive this spot of light. The disk being then caused to
revolve rapidly, the spot appears at first white, but as the
revolution become more rapid the borders of the spot and the colors
which successively appear are in their order of succession as follows:
blue, green, red, white, green, blue.--_Comptes Rendus_.



_The Origin of Diamonds._--a curious, and it seems to us very
improbable, theory of the origin of diamonds was put foreword by M.
Chancourtios in an essay published in the _Comptes Rendus_ for June
25th. The author tries to show in this that diamonds have been
produced by and incomplete oxidation of the carbides of hydrogen, in
pretty much the same fashion as the sulphur in the _Solfatara,_
described by Professor Ansted in one of our late numbers, results from
an incomplete oxidation of sulphuretted hydrogen, all of whose
hydrogen is converted into water, while only a part of the sulphur is
changed into sulfurous acid. It is by a similar process that petroleum
has given rise to bitumen, and this again two graphite. "If, then"
says the author, "a mixture of hydrocarbon gases and vapor of water be
submitted to slow oxidation, diamonds may possibly be obtained." It is
even possible, he observes, that the tubes which convey common
coal-gas along the streets of Paris may contain such artificial
diamonds in abundance.--_Popular Science Review_.

------

NEW PUBLICATIONS.


Ballads, Lyrics, and Hymns. By Alice Carey, 8vo., pp. 333. New York:
Hurd Houghton. 1866.

Literature knows no sex, but critics do, and in courtesy we must say
to Miss Carey, we think better of her than of her book; and while
judging what is before us purely on its aesthetic merits, we incline
to believe that the selections here compiled do not show her at her
best. This book might just possibly {573} have been good, only it is
not. It appears to consist of gatherings from the grist of a
respectable and old-established mill, whose brand is familiarly known
wherever mild magazines and sensation periodicals have penetrated. The
most prominent quality it demonstrates is the tireless industry--or
the well-oiled machinery--of the fair miller. The style throughout is
just of the kind to be the first in a "Poet's Corner;" best
characterized, perhaps, by the word "unexceptionable," as used by the
domestic critic, if one there be, of Frank Leslie or the Ledger.
Generally, there is nothing whenever to quarrel with--grammatically,
socially, theologically, or practically. We should not be in the least
surprised if Miss Carey's manuscripts even came in accurately
punctuated. The whole book is like the perfection of a gentleman's
toilet; every constituent part is so correctly "got up," that once out
of sight, we cannot recall a single thing beyond the impression of the
_tout ensemble_.

There is considerable thinking, without any notable novelties in
thought. The fact is, no one who has not tried can appreciate the
difficulty of finding something salient to fasten an opinion on. The
main impression of the serious and heavy parts of the volume on our
mind was that the authoress loved God, meant to be religious and
tender-hearted, and thought the world cold and the sectarians
narrow-minded: laudable conclusions all, which we rather agree with on
the whole, but which do not show cause why they should exist in such
splendid binding.

If this were all;  if the book consisted utterly, as it does mainly,
of versified unremarkableness, all were well enough. It would sell all
the same, and descend in its due course to the limbo of respectable
mediocrity, which cannot be damned because it never had a chance to be
saved. But there are gleams amid the commonplace that make it, to our
mind, one of the saddest books we ever opened--said with the
unfulfilled promise of a busy yet wasted life. While there is not, we
believe, a single true poem in her book, we do think Miss Carey might
once have written poetry. There are traces of talent, like the
abrasions on the high Alpine ridges where avalanches or glaciers went
by them that are long since melted into the valley below, and gone to
join the sea. We do not think Miss Carey ever had a very great supply
of poetic power--never so much as Phoebe Carey, who has enough poetry
in her to equip any ten of the other lady contributors whose versicles
pay as well as hers; but what there was has been sapped and drained
off as fast as it accumulated, in a thousand paltry rillets of verse
that at most can only be silver threads in the passing sunshine. Had
she ever been suffered to let her thoughts and fancies gather and
mingle, perhaps she could have written well. She has not only
considerable command of language, but some character: there has always
been something respectable about Miss Carey that set her apart,
somehow, from the other newspaper writers of miscellaneous verses, and
to it she probably owes the present distinction of being the only one
whose productions are thought worth making a book from. But the woman
has never had a chance. As fast as an idea budded, it was contracted
for in advance and plucked long before ripeness, for the greedy
children that will have their green fruit. If a fancy strayed into her
brain, it was not hers to do with as she liked. It must be carved and
served up in as many different styles as possible; made into a long
poem for one paper and a short poem for another, and dashed into a
third as a flavoring ingredient for a string of hired rhymes. Now, is
there not a strange pathos in the idea of making a life-long business
of doing that ill which one might do well, and which is only worth
existence when well done; of dribbling and frittering away every finer
impulse; of chipping the heart's crystals up into glaziers' diamonds;
of subsisting on oneself, Prometheus and vulture in one? And how
infinitely sadder with the consciousness all the while that if one
could but get a respite, this same work, wrought in freedom, might win
all that hope asks?

Consciously or unconsciously, this, we believe, is the discipline
through which Miss Carey has passed. We think so from the manner, and
from the places, in which we come upon the fragments of promise that
shine here and there. They are often repeated in other
lines--sometimes verbatim; they are not the substance but always the
sauce of the poem; they are never sustained or developed. Everything
goes to show that she has reached that fatal state of enervation when
the mind, from long desuetude, {574} and from never having a fair
chance to think out anything, he comes next to incapable of any
continued political thought at all. The exertion of developing a happy
idea into its best form is too much for the unused and enfeebled
imagination.

So much for the conjectural inside view of these verses, the actual
outside view remains. Whether it be a sad fact or simply a fact, there
is nothing to read twice in the book. It is not poetry, but it is a
piece of very good judgment on the part of the publisher--just what
they want. And if we understand their motives, we shall earn their
good will by saying that this is a safe, trustworthy, and entirely
harmless work, innocuous to families and schools, superbly bound,
finished, and printed, and fit, beyond almost any work we know of, for
a present from very affectionate young men to very amiable young
ladies.



BEETHOVEN'S LETTERS. (1790-1836.) From the collection of Dr. Ludwig
Nohl; also his Letters to the Archduke Rudolph, Cardinal-Archbishop of
Olmutz, from the collection of Dr. Ludwig Ritter von Kochel.
Translated by Lady Wallace; with a portrait and facsimile. 2 vols.,
12mo. Hurd & Houghton.

These letters of the illustrious _maestro_ are arranged under three
heads: Life's Joy a and Sorrows, Life's Mission, Life's Troubles and
Close. They are of quite a miscellaneous character, and refer to every
conceivable event of life, displaying much good humor and not a little
ill humor in their short, quick, impatient sentences. As a
letter-writer he is far inferior to Mozart, with whom the reader comes
at once into sympathy, and of whose letters very few indeed are
wanting in sentiments of universal interest. On the contrary, a very
large number of these letters of Beethoven will be read simply because
Beethoven wrote them, and will not bear a reperusal Yet they will, no
doubt, find a welcome place beside those of his great brother artist
on the table of every admirer of the grand music or these two grand
geniuses. His enthusiastic, and we may add, somewhat imaginative
editor and compiler, Dr. Nohl, is perhaps better qualified to form a
judgment upon the general tenor and worth of these letters than we
are, and we therefore quote the following from his preface to the
present work: "If not fettered by petty feelings, the reader will
quickly surmount the casual obstacles and stumbling-blocks which the
first perusal of these letters may seem to present, and quickly feel
himself transported at a single stride into a stream where a strange
roaring and rushing is heard, but above which loftier tones resound
with magic and exciting power. For a acute year life breathes in these
lines; and under-current runs through their apparently unconnected
import, uniting them as with and electric chain, and with firmer links
than any mere coherence of subjects could have effected. I experienced
this myself to the most remarkable degree when I first made the
attempt to arrange, in accordance with their period and substance, the
hundreds of individual pages bearing neither date nor address, and I
was soon convinced that a connected text (such as Mozart's letters
have, and ought to have) would be here entirely superfluous, as even
the best biographical commentary would be very dry work, interrupting
the electric current of the whole, and thus destroying its peculiar
effect."

The volumes are published in scholarly style, and present a very
readable and attractive page.


LONDON POEMS. By Robert Buchanan 12 mo, pp. 272. Alexander Strahan,
London and New-York.

The elegant dress of this volume, so characteristic of Mr. Strahan's
publications, is calculated to make one shy of saying anything
derogatory to its character; but we are held to say that we decidedly
object to Mr. Buchanan's poetry in any dress. The greater part of
these poems are to us positively repulsive. They are but little more
than rudely hand sketches of certain phases of low life in London,
immoral and irreligious in tone, and utterly wanting in that spiritual
expression which invests the true poet with the mantle of inspiration.
The poet may describe vice if he will, but let him not dare to excuse
it or throw a charm about it if he would not raised a storm of
indignation in the bosoms of the virtuous and the truthful. Poetry is
a divine art; the poet must discharge at once the high office of
teacher as well as psalmist, and every {575} line should bear the
impress of divine truth nobility, and purity. That which is false,
base, boorish, and obscene is none the less detestable for being put
in rhythm.



FREDERICK THE GREAT AND HIS COURT. An historical novel. By L.
Mühlbach. Translated from the German by Mrs. Chapman Coleman and
daughters. 12mo. New-York: D. Appleton & Co. 1866.

The rapidity with which the novels of Miss Mühlbach have risen into
popularity in this country is a pretty good indication of their merit.
They are free from the false sensationalism which furnishes the spice
of the lower school of modern fiction; and they treat of historical
subjects and characters with an honest intention to exhibit historical
truth, and not as a mere framework for the display of a trashy story.
Many of the scenes are drawn with a fidelity and an effectiveness
which show at the same time a close familiarity with the times and
persons with which the novel is concerned and a very considerable
literary skill; but the dialogues are not always well managed, the
diction being sometimes too trivial and sometimes too stilted. Despite
this minor defect, the book is full enough of interest: and our wonder
is, considering the great and long-established popularity of Miss
Mühlbach in Germany, that her writings were not translated into our
language long ago. It is a singular fact that the present work, and
some other historical novels from the same pen which D. Appleton & Co.
have now in press, were translated and first printed in the
Confederate States during the late rebellion.



THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
By Emily Davies. 16mo, pp. 191. London
and New-York: Alexander Strahan. 1866.

This is a well-written plea for reform in the present system of female
education; not for a reform which would ignore the difference in the
character and duties of the two sexes, but one which would open to
women various callings for which nature has specially fitted them, but
which they are now shut out either by defective training or by the
prejudices of society. Miss Davies's little treatise is an appropriate
companion work for a volume of similar essays by Miss Parkes which we
noticed two or three months ago; and though both of them are more
applicable to the state of things in England than to the better
condition of women in our own country there is much in both which
deserves our serious consideration.



A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH,
from the commencement of the Christian Era until the present time. By
M. l'abbé J. E. Darras. Vol. IV. New-York: P. O'Shea. 1866.

The fourth volume of this highly esteemed work completes the
publication of the original history of M. Darras. It comprises the
last, and to us for many reasons the most interesting period of the
history of the church; that which begins with the rise of
Protestantism down to the pontificate of Gregory XVI. To this volume
is added as an appendix a very concise and valuable historical sketch
of the origin and progress of the Church in the United States by the
Rev. Dr. C. I. White, of Washington City. We have already warmly
commended this work to our readers. It will take its place, of course,
in all our colleges and literary societies, and become as familiar to
our American as it is already to all French students; but we wish for
it also a wide distribution in the family circle. There is no reason
why such useful and entertaining works as this should not be kept at
hand and under the eye of our youth at home. A good knowledge of the
church's life, labors, trials, and victories is necessary to every
Catholic in our day, both for an intelligent appreciation of his faith
as well as to be able to combat the attacks that faith receives
through misrepresentation of the facts of history, and the unblushing
falsehoods concerning the Papacy, which are so foul a blot upon the
pages of history and controversy written by Protestant and infidel
enemies of the church. The present work is the best history of the
church we possess in the English language. It is such a one as we have
needed a long time, and we again thank the enterprising publisher for
the boon he has thus conferred upon the Catholic public.

{576}


THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS.
by Father Thomas of Jesus. Reprinted from the last London Edition. New
York: P O'Shea, 27 Barclay st. 1866.


This is a work composed by a great saint, and justly deserving of the
great reputation it has always enjoyed as one of the best of spiritual
books. It contains an inexhaustible mine of meditation, sufficient to
last a person during his whole life, and just as new and fresh after
the hundreds perusal as during the first. It is as a book for
meditation that it should be used, and for this purpose it cannot be
too highly recommended to religious communities or to devout persons
in the world who desire and need a guide and model for the practice of
meditation.


THE LIFE AND LIGHT OF MEN.
An essay. by John Young LL.D. Edin. Strahan.


Dr. Young was formerly a Presbyterian minister, but resigned his
position on account of his inability to believe the Presbyterian
doctrines, especially that of the vicarious atonement and imputed
righteousness of Christ. The present work is leveled against this
doctrine. The author has tolerably clear views of the Incarnation, and
some other Catholic doctrines. His learning appears to be
considerable, the tone of his mind very just and moderate, and his
intellectual and literary ability of no mean order. He is one instance
among a thousand others, of a noble, religious mind striving to rise
above the common Protestant orthodoxy without floating away into
rationalism. We recommend his book to our Calvinistic friends. What
the excellent author is yearning after is Catholic theology. This, and
this alone, would satisfy him, for it alone can satisfy any mind that
wishes to believe in the Christian revelation and at the same time the
rational.



THE LIFE OF ST. VINCENT DEPAUL, AND ITS LESSONS.
A lecture. By Rev. T. S. Preston, R. Coddington.

The publication of this lecture will gratify many who were not  able
to be present at its delivery. The orator gives a short account of the
life and great labors of the apostle of charity, and then shows the
difference between charity as a Christian virtue and simple, natural
philanthropy, both in principle and their means and plans of action.
In works of benevolence, that which the Christian saint is careless
about and avoids to the utmost of his power, is considered by the
world as of vital necessity to secure success, the approval and
applause of men. This truth is well brought out in the lecture, and is
one which it is necessary to keep before our minds in this puffing
age. The proceeds of the sale of the lecture is accredited to the
benefit of the conference of St. Vincent de Paul, attached to St.
Ann's Church in the city.




ALTE UND NEUR WELT. Benziger Bros. New York.

This is a Catholic monthly magazine in the German language, enriched
with copious illustrations. The type and paper are of very superior
quality, and the contents very various and, we should think,
well-chosen. The illustrations are by far the best which can be found
in any periodical published in America, and many of them equal to
those of the best European magazines. The work as a whole reflects the
greatest credit on its conductors, and deserves the most extensive
patronage from our numerous and intelligent German Catholic
population. We recommend it also to those who are studying the German
language, or interested in German literature. The illustrations alone
are worth the price of subscription, which is $4.00 a year.


BOOKS RECEIVED.

From D. & J. Sadlier & Co. New York. The denouncement; or, the Last
Baron of Crana, and The Boyne Water. By the Brothers Banim. 2 vols.
12mo, pp. 448 and 559; Parts 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35 and 36 of
D'Artaud's Lives of the Popes.


From Ticknor & Fields, Boston. How New York is Governed. By James
Parton, reprinted from the North American Review. Pamphlet.


From P. O'Shea, New York. The Purgatorian Manual; or, a Selection of
Prayers and Devotions with appropriate reflections for the use of the
members of the Purgatorian Society in the Diocese of New York, and
adapted for general use. By Rev. Thomas S. Preston, pastor of St.
Ann's and Chancellor of the Diocese. Approved by the most Rev. John
McCloskey, D.D., archbishop of New York, pp. 452; The Imitation of
Christ in Two Books, translated by Richard Challoner, D.D. 48mo, pp.
308; Instructions on the Commandments of God, and Holy Sacraments. By
St. Alphonsus Liguori. 48mo, pp. 288. The Spiritual Combat; or, the
Christian Defended against the Enemy of his Salvation. 48mo, pp. 256;
Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, in Latin and English. 12mo, pp.
178.



We have received an Oration delivered before the members of St. Mary's
Orphan Association of Nashville, Tenn., July 4th, 1866, by Rev. A. J.
Ryan, author of The Concord Banner, etc.

------------

{577}

THE CATHOLIC WORLD


VOL. IV., NO. 23--FEBRUARY, 1867.



THE POPE AND THE REVOLUTION


BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D.


  [This sermon is given to the world in consequence of its having been
  made the subject in the public prints of various reports and
  comments, which, though both friendly and fair to the author, as far
  as he has seen them, nevertheless, from the necessity of the case,
  have proceeded from information inexact in points of detail.

  It is now published from the copy written beforehand, and does not
  differ from the copy, as delivered, except in such corrections of a
  critical nature as are imperative when a composition, written
  _currente calamo_, has to be prepared for the press. There is one
  passage, however, which it has been found necessary to enlarge, with
  a view of expressing more exactly the sentiment which it contained,
  namely, the comparison made between Italian and English Catholics.

  The author submits the whole, as he does all his publications, to
  the judgment of Holy Church.]
  October 13, 1866.


  The church shone brightly in her youthful days,
    Ere the world on her smiled
  So now, an outcast, she would pour her rays
    Keen, free, and undefiled;
  Yet would I not that arm of force were mine,
  To thrust her from her awful ancient shrine.

  'Twas duty bound each convert-king to rear
    His mother from the dust;
  And pious was it to enrich, nor fear
    Christ for the rest to trust:
  And who shall dare make common or unclean
    What once has on the holy altar been?

  Dear Brothers! hence, while ye for ill prepare,
    Triumph Is still your own;
  Blest is a pilgrim church! yet shrink to share
    The curse of throwing down.
  So will we toll in our old place to stand,
  Watching, not dreading, the despoiler's hand.

        _Vid_. Lyra Apostolica.



SERMON.

This day, the feast of the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, has
been specially devoted by our ecclesiastical superiors to be a day of
prayer for the sovereign pontiff, our holy father, Pope Pius the
Ninth.

His lordship, our bishop, has addressed a pastoral letter to his
clergy upon the subject, and at the end of it he says: "Than that
festival none can be more appropriate, as it is especially devoted to
celebrating the triumphs of the Holy See obtained by prayer. We
therefore propose and direct that on the festival of the Rosary, the
chief mass in each church and chapel of our diocese be celebrated with
as much solemnity as circumstances will allow of. And that after the
mass the psalm {578} _Miserere_ and the Litany of the Saints be sung
or recited. That the faithful be invited to offer one communion for
the Pope's intention. And that, where it can be done, one part at
least of the rosary be publicly said at some convenient time in the
church, for the same intention."

Then he adds: "In the sermon at the mass of the festival, it is our
wish that the preacher should instruct the faithful on their
obligations to the Holy See, and on the duty especially incumbent on
us at this time of praying for the Pope."

I. "Our obligations to the Holy See." What Catholic can doubt of our
obligations to the Holy See? especially what Catholic under the shadow
and teaching of St. Philip Neri can doubt those obligations, in both
senses of the word "obligation," the tie of duty and the tie of
gratitude?

1. For first as to duty. Our duty to the Holy See, to the chair of St.
Peter, is to be measured by what the church teaches us concerning that
Holy See and of him who sits in it. Now St. Peter, who first occupied
it, was the Vicar of Christ. You know well, my brethren, our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, who suffered on the cross for us, thereby bought
for us the kingdom of heaven. "When thou hadst overcome the sting of
death," says the hymn, "thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to those
who believe." He opens, and he shuts; he gives grace, he withdraws it;
he judges, he pardons, he condemns. Accordingly, he speaks of himself
in the Apocalypse as "him who is the holy and the true, him that hath
the key of David (the key, that is, of the chosen king of the chosen
people), him that openeth and no man shutteth, that shutteth and no
man openeth." And what our Lord, the supreme judge, is in heaven, that
was St. Peter on earth; he had the keys of the kingdom, according to
the text, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to
thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind
upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt
loose on earth, be loosed also in heaven."

Next, let it be considered, the kingdom which our Lord set up with St.
Peter at its head was decreed in the counsels of God to last to the
and of all things, according to the words I have just quoted, "The
gates of hell show not prevail against it." And again, "Behold I am
with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." And in the
words of the prophet Isaias, speaking of that divinely established
church, then in the future, "This is my covenant with them, My spirit
that is in thee, and my words which I have put in thy month, shall not
depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of
the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for
ever." And the prophet Daniel says, "The God of heaven will set up a
kingdom that shall never be destroyed . . . and it shall break in
pieces and shall consume all those kingdoms (of the earth, which went
before it), and itself shall stand for ever."

That kingdom our Lord set up when he came on earth, and especially
after his resurrection; for we are told by St. Luke that this was his
gracious employment, when he visited the apostles from time to time,
during the forty days which intervened between Easter day and the day
of his ascension. "He showed himself alive to the apostles," says the
evangelist, "after his passion by many proofs, for forty days
appearing to them and speaking of the kingdom of God." And
accordingly, when at length he had ascended on high, and had sent down
"the promise of his Father," the Holy Ghost, upon his apostles, they
forthwith entered upon their high duties, and brought that kingdom or
church into shape, and supplied it with members, and enlarged it, and
carried it into all lands. As to St. Peter, he acted as the head of
the church,  according to the previous {579} words of Christ; and,
still according to his Lord's supreme will, he at length placed
himself in the see of Rome, where he was martyred. And what was then
done, in its substance cannot be undone. "God is not as a man that he
should lie, nor as the son of man, that he should change. Hath he said
then, and shall he not do? Hath he said then, and will he not fulfil?"
And, as St. Paul says, "The gifts and the calling of God are without
repentance."  His church, then, in all necessary matters, is as
unchangeable as he. Its framework, its polity, its ranks, its offices,
its creed, its privileges, the promises made to it, its fortunes in
the world, are ever what they have been.

Therefore, as it was in the world, but not _of_ the world, in the
apostles' times, so it is now; as it was "in honor and dishonor, in
evil report and good report, as chastised but not killed, as having
nothing and possessing all things," in the apostles' times, so it is
now; as then it taught the truth, so it does now; and as then it had
the sacraments of grace, so has it now; as then it had a hierarchy or
holy government of bishops, priests, and deacons, so has it now; and
as it had a head then, so must it have a head now. Who is that visible
head? who is the vicar of Christ? who has now the keys of the kingdom
of heaven, as St. Peter had then? Who is it who binds and looses on
earth, that our Lord may bind and loose in heaven? Who, I say, is the
successor to St. Peter, since a successor there must be, in his
sovereign authority over the church? It is he who sits in St. Peter's
chair; it is the Bishop of Rome. We all know _this_; it is part of our
_faith_; I am not proving it to you, my brethren. The visible headship
of the church, which was with St. Peter while he lived, has been
lodged ever since in his chair; the successors in his headship are the
successors in his chair, the continuous line of Bishops of Rome, or
Popes, as they are called, one after another, as years have rolled on,
one dying and another coming, down to this day, when we see Pius the
Ninth sustaining the weight of the glorious apostolate, and that for
twenty years past--a tremendous weight, a ministry involving momentous
duties, innumerable anxieties, and immense responsibilities, as it
ever has done.

And now, though I might say much more about the prerogatives of the
Holy Father, the visible head of the church, I have said more than
enough for the purpose which has led to my speaking about him at all.
I have said that, like St. Peter, he is the vicar of his Lord. He can
judge, and he can acquit; he can pardon, and he can condemn; he can
command, and he can permit; he can forbid, and he can punish. He has a
supreme jurisdiction over the people of God. He can stop the ordinary
course of sacramental mercies; he can excommunicate from the ordinary
grace of redemption; and he can remove again the ban which he has
inflicted. It is the rule of Christ's providence, that what his vicar
does in severity or in mercy upon earth, he himself confirms in
heaven. And in saying all this I have said enough for my purpose,
because that purpose is to define our obligations to him. That is the
point on which our bishop has fixed our attention; "our obligations to
the Holy See;" and what need I say more to measure our own duty to it
and to him who sits in it, than to say that, in his administration of
Christ's kingdom, in his religious acts, we must never oppose his
will, or dispute his word, or criticise his policy, or shrink from his
side? There are kings of the earth who have despotic authority, which
their subjects obey indeed and disown in their hearts; but we must
never murmur at that absolute rule which the sovereign pontiff has
over us, because it is given to him by Christ, and, in obeying him, we
are obeying his Lord. We must never suffer ourselves to doubt, that,
in his government of the church, he is guided by an intelligence more
than human. His yoke is the yoke of Christ, _he_ has the
responsibility {580} of his own acts, not we; and to his Lord must he
render account, not to us. Even in secular matters it is ever safe to
be on his side, dangerous to be on the side of his enemies. Our duty
is, not indeed to mix up Christ's vicar with this or that party of
men, because he in his high station is above all parties, but to look
at his acts, and to follow him whither he goeth, and never to desert
him, however we may be tried, but to defend him at all hazards, and
against all comers, as a son would a father, and us a wife a husband,
knowing that his cause is the cause of God. And so, as regards his
successors, if we live to see them; it is our duty to give _them_ in
like manner our dutiful allegiance and our unfeigned service, and to
follow them also whithersoever they go, having that same confidence
that each in his turn and in his own day will do God's work and will,
which we felt in their predecessors, now taken away to their eternal
reward.

2. And now let us consider our obligations to the sovereign pontiff in
the second sense, which is contained under the word "obligation." "In
the sermon in the mass," says the bishop, "it is our wish that the
preacher should instruct the faithful on their obligations to the Holy
See;" and certainly those obligations, that is, the claims of the Holy
See upon our gratitude, are very great. We in this country owe our
highest blessings to the see of St. Peter--to the succession of
bishops who have filled his apostolic chair. For first it was a Pope
who sent missionaries to this island in the beginning of the church,
when the island was yet in pagan darkness. Then again, when our
barbarous ancestors, the Saxons, crossed over from the continent and
overran the country, who but a Pope, St. Gregory the First, sent over
St. Augustine and his companions to convert them to Christianity? and
by God's grace they and their successors did the great work in the
course of a hundred years. From that time, twelve hundred years ago
our nation has ever been Christian. And then in the lawless times each
followed, and the break-up of the old world all over Europe, and the
formation of the new, it was the  Popes, humanly speaking, who saved
the religion of Christ from being utterly lost and coming to an and,
and not in England only, but on the continent; that is, our Lord made
use of that succession of his vicars to fulfil his gracious promise,
that his religion should never fail. The Pope and the bishops of the
church, acting together in that miserable time, rescued from
destruction all that makes up our present happiness, spiritual and
temporal. Without them the world would have relapsed into
barbarism--but God willed otherwise; and especially the Roman
pontiffs, the successors of St. Peter, the centre of Catholic unity,
the vicars of Christ, which primarily related to the Almighty Redeemer
himself: "I have a lead help upon one that is mighty, and I have
exalted one chosen quote of the people. I have found David my servant,
with my holy oil have I anointed him. For my hand shall help him, and
my arm shall strengthen him. The enemy shall have no advantage over
him, nor the son of iniquity have power to hurt him. I will put to
flight his enemies before his face, and them that hate him I will put
to flight. And my truth and my mercy shall be with him, and in my name
shall his horn be exalted. He shall cry out to me, Thou art my Father,
my God, and the support of my salvation. And I will make him my
first-born, high above the kings of the earth. I will keep my mercy
for him for ever, and my coveted shall be faithful to him."

And the Almighty did this in pity toward his people, and for the sake
of his religion, and by virtue of his promise, and for the merits of
the most precious blood of his own dearly beloved Son, Whom the Popes
represented. As Moses and Aaron, as Josue,  as {581} Samuel, as David,
were the leaders of the Lord's host in the old time, and carried on
the chosen people of Israel from age to age, in spite of their enemies
round about, so have the Popes from the beginning of the gospel, and
especially in those middle ages when anarchy prevailed, been faithful
servants of their Lord, watching and fighting against sin and
injustice and unbelief and ignorance, and spreading abroad far and
wide the knowledge of Christian truth.

Such they have been in every age, and such are the obligations which
mankind owes to them; and, if I am to pass on to speak of the present
pontiff, and of our own obligations to him, then I would have you
recollect, my brethren, that it is he who has taken the Catholics of
England out of their unformed state and made them a church. He it is
who has redressed a misfortune of nearly three hundred years'
standing. Twenty years ago we were a mere collection of individuals;
but Pope Pius has brought us together, has given us bishops, and
created out of us a body politic, which, please God, as time goes on,
will play an important part in Christendom, with a character, an
intellect, and a power of its own, with schools of its own, with a
definite influence in the counsels of the Holy Church Catholic, as
England had of old time.

This has been his great act toward our country; and then specially, as
to his great act toward us here, toward me. One of his first acts
after he was Pope was, in his great condescension,  to call me to
Rome; then, when I got there, he bade me send for my friends to be
with me; and he formed us into and oratory. And thus it came to pass
that, on my return to England, I was able to associate myself with
others who had not gone to Rome, till we were so many in number that
not only did we establish our own oratory here, whither the Pope had
specially sent us, but we found we could throw off from's a colony of
zealous and able priests into the metropolis, and establish there,
with the powers with which the Pope had furnished me, and the sanction
of the late cardinal, that oratory which has done and still does so
much good among the Catholics of London.

Such is the Pope now happily reigning in the chair of St. Peter; such
are our personal obligations to him; such has he been toward England,
such toward us, toward you, my brethren. Such he is in his benefits,
and, great as are the claims of those benefits upon us, great equally
are the claims on us of his personal character and of his many
virtues. He is one whom to see is to love; one who overcomes even
strangers, even enemies, by his very look and voice; whose presence
subdues, whose memory haunts, even the sturdy resolute mind of the
English Protestant. Such is the Holy Father of Christendom, the worthy
successor of a long and glorious line. Such is he; and great as he is
in office, and in his beneficent acts and virtuous life, as great is
he in the severity of his trials, in the complication of his duties,
and in the gravity of his perils--perils which are at this moment
closing him in on every side; and therefore it is, on account of the
crisis of the long-protracted troubles of his pontificate which seems
near at hand, that our bishop has set apart this day for special
solemnities, the feast of the Holy Rosary, and has directed us to
"instruct the faithful on their _obligations_ to the Holy See," and
not only so, but also "on the duty especially incumbent on us at this
time of _praying_ for the Pope."


II. This, then, is the second point to which I have to direct your
attention, my brethren--the duty of praying for the Holy Father; but,
before doing so, I must tell you what the Pope's long-protracted
troubles are about, and what the crisis is which seems approaching, I
will do it in as few words as I can.

More than a thousand years ago, nay, near upon fifteen hundred, began
that great struggle, which I spoke of {582} just now, between the old
and the new inhabitants of this part of the world. Whole populations
of barbarians overrun the whole face of the country, that is, of
England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the re«t of Europe. They
were heathens, and they got the better of the Christians; and religion
seemed likely to fail together with that old Christian stock. But, as
I have said, the Pope and the bishops of the church took heart, and
set about converting the new-comers, as in a former age they had
converted those who now had come to misfortune; and, through God's
mercy, they succeeded. The Saxon English--Anglo-Saxons, as they are
called--are among those whom the Pope converted, as I said just now.
The new convert people, as you may suppose, were very grateful to the
Pope and bishops, and they showed their gratitude by giving them large
possessions, which were of great use, in the bad times that followed,
in maintaining the influence of Christianity in the world. Thus the
Catholic Church became rich and powerful. The bishops became princes,
and the Pope became a sovereign ruler, with a large extent of country
all his own. This state of things lasted for many hundred years; and
the Pope and bishops became richer and richer, more and more powerful,
until at length the Protestant revolt took place, three hundred years
ago, and ever since that time, in a temporal point of view, they have
become of less and less importance, and less and less prosperous.
Generation after generation the enemies of the church, on the other
hand, have become bolder and bolder, more powerful, and more
successful in their measures against the Catholic faith. By this time
the church has well-nigh lost all its wealth and all its power; its
bishops have been degraded from their high places in the world, and in
many countries have scarcely more, or not more, of weight or of
privilege than the ministers of the sects which have split off from
it. However, though the bishops lost, as time went on, their temporal
rank, the Pope did lose his; he has been an exception to the rule;
according to the providence of God, he has retained Rome, and the
territories around about Rome, far and wide, as his own possession
without let or hindrance. But now at length, by the operation of the
same causes which have destroyed the power of the bishops, the Holy
Father is in danger of losing his temporal possessions. For the last
hundred years he has had from time to time serious reverses, but he
recovered his ground. Six years ago he lost the greater part of his
dominions--, all but Rome and the country immediately about it,--and
now the worst of difficulties has occurred as regards the territories
which remain to him. His enemies have succeeded, as it would seem, in
persuading at least a large portion of his subjects to side with them.
This is a real and very trying difficulty. While his subjects are for
him, no one can have a word to say against his temporal rule; but who
can force a sovereign on people which deliberately rejects him? You
may attempt it for awhile, but at length the people, if they persist,
will get their way.

They give out then, that the Pope's government is behind the age--that
once indeed it was as good as other governments, but that now other
governments have got better, and his has not--that he can either keep
order within his territory, nor defend it from attacks from
without--that his police and his finances are in a bad state--that
his people are discontented within--that he does not show them how to
become rich--that he keeps them from improving their minds--that he
treats them as children--that he opens no career for young and
energetic minds, but condemns them to inactivity and sloth--that he is
an old man--that he is an ecclesiastic--that, considering his great
spiritual duties, he has no time left him for temporal concerns--and
that a bad rebellious government is a scandal to religion.

{583}

I have stated their arguments as fairly as I can, but you must not for
an instant suppose, my brethren, that I admit either their principles
or their facts. It is a simple paradox to say that ecclesiastical and
temporal power cannot lawfully, religiously, and usefully be joined
together. Look at what are called the middle ages--that is, the period
which intervenes between the old Roman empire and the modern world; as
I have said, the Pope and the bishops saved religion and civil order
from destruction in those tempestuous times--and they did so _by
means_ of the secular power which they possessed. And next, going on
to the principles which the Pope's enemies lay down as so very
certain, who will grant to them, who has any pretension to be a
religious man, that progress in temporal possessions is the greatest
of goods, and that everything else, however sacred, must give way
before it? On the contrary, health, long life, security, liberty,
knowledge, are certainly great goods, but the possession of heaven is
a far greater good than all of them together. With all the progress in
worldly happiness which we possibly could make, we could not make
ourselves immortal--death must come; that will be a time when riches
and worldly knowledge will avail us nothing, and true faith and divine
love and a past life of obedience will be all in all to us. If we were
driven to choose between the two, it would be a hundred times better
to be Lazarus in this world than to be Dives in the next.

However, the best answer to their arguments is contained in sacred
history, which supplies us with a very apposite and instructive lesson
on the subject, and to it I am now going to refer.

Now observe, in the first place, no Catholic maintains that that rule
of the Pope as a king, in Rome and its provinces, which men are now
hoping to take from him, is, strictly speaking, what is called a
theocracy, that is, a divine government. His government, indeed, in
spiritual matters, in the Catholic Church throughout the world, might
be called a theocracy, because he is the vicar of Christ, and has the
assistance of the Holy Ghost; but not such is his kingly rule in his
own dominions. On the other hand, the rule exercised over the chosen
people, the Israelites, by Moses, Josue, Gideon, Eli, and Samuel, was
a theocracy: God was the king of the Israelites, not Moses and the
rest--_they_ were but vicars or vicegerents of the Eternal Lord who
brought the nation out of Egypt. Now, when men object that the Pope's
government of his own states is not what it should be, and that
therefore he ought to lose them, because, forsooth, a religious rule
should be perfect or not at all, I take them at their word, if they
are Christians, and refer them to the state of things among the
Israelites after the time of Moses, during the very centuries when
they had God for their king. Was that a period of peace, prosperity,
and contentment? Is it an argument against the divine perfections,
that it was not such a period? Why is it, then, to be the condemnation
of the Popes, who are but men, that their rule is but parallel in its
characteristics to that of the King of Israel, who was God? He indeed
has his own all-wise purposes for what he does; he knows the end from
the beginning; he could have made his government as perfect and as
prosperous as might have been expected from the words of Moses
concerning it, as perfect and prosperous as, from the words of the
prophets, our anticipations might have been about the earthly reign of
the Messias. But this he did not do, because from the first he made
that perfection and that prosperity dependent upon the free will, upon
the cooperation of his people. Their loyal obedience to him was the
condition, expressly declared by him, of his fulfilling his promises.
He proposed to work out his purposes through them, and, when they
refused their share {584} in the work, everything went wrong. Now they
did refuse from the first; so that from the very first, he says of
them emphatically, they were a "stiff-necked people."  This was at the
beginning of their history; and close upon the end of it, St. Stephen,
inspired by the Holy Ghost, repeats the divine account of them: "You
stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist
the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do you also." In consequence
of this obstinate disobedience, I say, God's promises were not
fulfilled to them. That long lapse of five or six hundred years,
during which God was their king, was in good part a time, not of
well-being, but of calamity.

Now, turning to the history of the papal monarchy for the last
thousand years, the Roman people have not certainly the guilt of the
Israelites, because they were not opposing the direct rule of' God;
and I would not attribute to them now a liability to the same dreadful
crimes which stain the annals of their an ancestors; but still, after
all they have been a singularly stiff-necked people in time past,  and
in consequence, there has been extreme confusion, I may say anarchy,
under the reign of the Popes; and the restless impatience of his rule
which exists in the Roman territory now is only what has shown itself
age after age in times past. The Roman people not seldom offered
bodily violence to their Popes, killed some Popes, wounded others,
drove others from the city. On one occasion they assaulted the Pope at
the very altar in St. Peter's, and he was obliged to take to flight in
his pontifical vestments. Another time they insulted the clergy of
Rome; at another, they attacked and robbed the pilgrims who brought
offerings from a distance to the shrine of St. Peter. Sometimes they
sided with the German emperors against the Pope; sometimes with other
enemies of his in Italy itself. As many as thirty-six Popes endured
this dreadful contest with their own subjects, till at last, in anger
and disgust with Rome and Italy, they took refuge in France, where
they remained for seventy years, during the reigns of eight of their
number.   [Footnote 170]

  [Footnote 170: I take these facts as I find them in Gibbon's
  History, the work which I have immediately at hand; but it would not
  be difficult to collect a multitude of such instances from the
  original historians of those times.]

That I may not be supposed to rest what I have said on insufficient
authorities, I will quote the words of that great saint, St. Bernard,
about the roman people, seven hundred years ago.

Writing to Pope Eugenius during the troubles of the day, he says:
"What shall I say of the people? why, that it _is_ the Roman people. I
could not more concisely or fully express what I think of your
subjects. What has been so notorious for ages as the wantonness and
haughtiness of the Romans? a race unaccustomed to peace, accustomed to
tumult; a race cruel and unmanageable up to this day, which knows not
to submit, unless when it is unable to make fight. . . . I know the
hardened heart of this people, but God is powerful even of these
stones to raise up children to Abraham. . . . When will you find for
me out of the whole of that populous city, who received you as Pope
without bribe or hope of bribe? And then especially are they wishing
to be masters, when they have professed to be servants. They promise
to be trustworthy, that they may have the opportunity of injuring
those who trust them. . . . They are wise for evil, but they are
ignorant for good. Odious to earth and heaven, they have assailed both
the one and the other; impious towards God, reckless toward things
sacred, factious among themselves, envious of their neighbors, inhuman
toward foreigners, . . . . they love none, and by none are loved. Too
impatient for submission, too helpless for rule; . . . importunate to
gain an end, restless till they gain it, ungrateful when they have
gained it. They have taught {585} their tongue to speak big words,
while their performances are scanty indeed." [Footnote 171]

    [Footnote 171:  St. Bernard is led to say this to the Pope in
    consequence of the troubles created in Rome by Arnald of Bresela.
    "Ab obitu Caelestini hoc anno invalescere coepit istiusmodi
    rebellio Romanorum adversus Pontficem, eodemque haeresis dicta
    Politicorum, sive Arnaldistarum. Ea erant tempora infelicissime,
    cùm Romani ipsi, quorum fides in universo orbe jam à tempore
    Apostolorum annunciata semper fuit, resilientes modo à Pontifice,
    dominandi cupidine, ex filiis Petri et discipulis Christi, fiunt
    soboles et alumni pestilentissimi Arnaldi de Brixiâ. Verùm, cùm tu
    Romanos audis, ne putes omnes eâdem insaniâ percitos, nam
    complures ex nobilium Romanorum familiis, iis relictis, pro
    Pontifice rem ageoant, etc." Baron. Annal. in ann. 1144. 4.--_De
    Consid_. iv. 2.]


Thus I begin, and now let us continue I parallel between the
Israelites and the Romans.

I have said that, while the Israelites had God for their king, they
had a succession of great national disasters, arising indeed really
from their falling off from him; but this they would have been slow to
acknowledge. They fell into idolatry; then, in consequence, they fell
into the power of their enemies; then God in his mercy visited them,
and raised up for them a deliverer and ruler--a judge, as he was
called--who brought them to repentance, and then brought them out of
their troubles; however, when the judge died, they fell back into
idolatry, and then they fell under the power of their enemies again.
Thus for eight years they were in subjection to the king of
Mesopotamia; for eight years to the king of Moab; for twenty years to
the king of Canaan; for seven years to the Madianites; for eighteen
years to the Ammomites; and for forty years to the Philistines.
Afterward Eli, the high priest, became their judge, and then disorders
of another kind commenced. His sons, who were priests also, committed
grievous acts of impurity in the holy place, and in other ways caused
great scandal. In consequence a heavy judgment came upon the people;
they were beaten in battle by the Philistines, and the ark of God was
taken. Then Samuel was raised up, a holy prophet and a judge, and in
the time of his vigor all went well; but he became old, and then he
appointed his sons to take his place. They, however, were not like
him, and everything went wrong again. "His sons walked not in his
ways," says the sacred record, "but they turned aside after lucre, and
took bribes, and perverted judgment." This reduced the Israelites to
despair; they thought they never should have a good government while
things were as they were; and they came to the conclusion that they
had better not be governed by such men as Samuel, however holy he
might be, that public affairs ought to be put on an intelligible
footing, and be carried on upon system, which had never yet been done.
So they came to the conclusion that they had better have a king, like
the nations around them. They deliberately preferred the rule of man
to the rule of God. They did not like to repent and give up their
sins, as the true means of being prosperous; they thought it an easier
way to temporal prosperity to have a king like the nations than to
pray and live virtuously. And not only the common people, but even the
grave and venerable seniors of the nation took up this view of what
was expedient for them. "All the ancients of Israel, being assembled,
came to Samuel, . . . and they said to him . . . Make us a king to
judge us, as all nations have." Observe, my brethren, this is just
what the Roman people are saying now. They wish to throw off the
authority of the Pope, on the plea of the disorders which they
attribute to his government, and to join themselves to the rest of
Italy, and to have the King of Italy for their king. Some of them,
indeed, wish to be without any king at all; but, whether they wish to
have a king or no, at least they wish to get free from the Pope.

Now let us continue the parallel. When the prophet Samuel heard this
request urged from such a quarter, and supported by the people
generally, he was much moved. "The word was displeasing in the eyes of
Samuel," says the inspired writer, "that they should say, Give us a
king. And Samuel prayed to the Lord." {586} Almighty God answered him
by saying, "They have not rejected thee, but me;" and he bade the
prophet warn the people, what the king they sought after would be to
them when at length they had him. Samuel accordingly put before them
explicitly what treatment they would receive from him. "He will take
your sons," he said, "and will put them in his chariots; and he will
make them his horseman, and his running footmen to go before his
chariots. He will take the tenth of your corn and the revenue of your
vineyards. Your flocks also he will take, and you shall be his
servants." Then the narrative proceeds, "But the people would not hear
the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but there shall be a king
over us. And we also will be like all nations, and our king shall
judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles for us."

Now here the parallel I am drawing is very exact. It is happier, I
think, for the bulk of a people to belong to a small state which makes
little noise in the world than to a large one. At least in this day we
find small states, such an Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland, have
special and singular temporal advantages. And the Roman people, too,
under the sway of the Popes, at least have had a very easy time of it;
but, alas that people is not sensible of this, or does not allow
itself to keep it in mind. The Romans have not had those civil
inconveniences which fall so heavy on the members of a first-class
power. The pontifical government has been very gentle with them; but,
if once they were joined to the kingdom of Italy, they would at length
find what it is to attain temporal greatness. The words of Samuel to
the Israelites would be fulfilled in them to the letter. Heavy taxes
would be laid on them; their children would be torn from them for the
army; and they would incur the other penalties of an ambition which
prefers to have a share in a political adventure to being at the head
of Catholic citizenship. We cannot have all things to our wish in this
world; we must take our choice between this advantage and that;
perhaps the Roman people would like both to secure this world and the
next, if they could; perhaps, in seeking both, they may lose both; and
perhaps, when they have lost more than they have gained, they may wish
their old sovereign back again, as they have done in other centuries
before this, and may regret that they have caused such grievous
disturbance for what at length they find out is little worth it.

In truth, after all, the question which they have to determine is, as
i have intimated, not one of worldly prosperity and adversity, of
greatness or insignificance, of despotism or liberty, of position in
the world or in the church; but a question of spiritual life or death.
The sin of the Israelites was not that they desired good government,
but that they rejected God as their king. Their choosing to have "a
king like the nations" around them was, in matter of fact, the first
step in a series of acts which at length lead them to their rejection
of the Almighty as their God. When in spite of Samuel's remonstrances
they were obstinate, God let them have their way, and then in time
they became dissatisfied with their king for the very reasons which
the old prophet had set before them in vain. On Solomon's death, about
a hundred and twenty years after, the greater part of the nation broke
off from his son on the very plea of Solomon's tyranny, and chose a
new king, who at once established idolatry all through their country.

Now, I grant, to reject the Holy Father of course is not the sin of
the Israelites, for they rejected Almighty God himself: yet I wish I
was not forced to believe that a hatred of the Catholic religion is in
fact at the bottom of that revolutionary spirit which at present seems
so powerful in Rome. Progress, in the mouth of some people--of a great
many people--means apostasy. Not that I wouldn't deny that {587} there
are sincere Catholics so dissatisfied with things as they were in
Italy, as they are in Rome, that they are brought to think that no
social change can be for the worse. Nor as if I pretended to be able
to answer all the objections of those who take a political and secular
view of the subject. But here I have nothing to do with secular
politics. In a sacred place I have only to view the matter
religiously. It would ill become me, in my station in the church and
my imperfect knowledge of the facts of the case, to speak four or
against statesmen and governments, lines of policy or public acts, as
if I were invested with any particular mission to give my judgment, or
had any access to sources of special information. I have not here to
determine what may be politically more wise, or what may be socially
more advantageous, or what in a civil point of view would work more
happily, or what in an intellectual would tell better; my duty is to
lead you, my brethren, to look at what is happening, as the sacred
writers would now view it and describe it were they on earth now to do
so, and to attempt this by means of the light thrown upon present
occurrences by what they actually have written, whether in the Old
Testament or the New.

We must remove, I say, the veil off the face of events, as Scripture
enables us to do, and try to speak of them as Scripture interprets
them for us. Speaking then in the sanctuary, I say that theories and
schemes about government and administration, be a better or worse, and
the aims of mere statesmen and politicians, be they honest or be they
deceitful, these are not the determining causes of that series of
misfortunes under which the Holy See has so long been suffering. There
is something deeper at work than anything human. It is not any refusal
of the Pope to put his administration on a new footing, it is not any
craft or force of men high in public affairs, it is not any cowardice
or frenzy of the people, which is the sufficient explanation of the
present confusion. What it is our duty here to bear in mind is the
constant restless agency over the earth of that bad angel who was a
liar from the beginning, of whom Scripture speaks so much. The real
motive cause of the world's troubles is the abiding presence in it of
the apostate spirit, "The prince of the power of this air," as St.
Paul calls him, "The spirit that now worketh on the children of
unbelief."

Things would go on well enough but for him. He it is who perverts to
evil what is in itself good and right, sowing cockle amid the wheat.
Advance in knowledge, in science, in education, in the arts of life,
in domestic economy, in municipal administration, in the conduct of
public affairs, is all good and from God, and might be conducted in a
religious way; but the evil spirit, jealous of good, makes use of it
for a bad end. And much more able is he to turn to his account the
designs and measures of worldly politicians. He it is who spreads
suspicions and dislikes between class and class, between sovereigns
and subjects, who makes men confuse together things good and bad, who
inspires bigotry, party spirit, obstinacy, resentment, arrogance, and
self-will, and hinders things from righting themselves, finding their
level, and running smooth. His one purpose is so to match and arrange
and combine and direct the opinions and the measures of Catholics and
unbelievers, of Romans and foreigners, of sovereigns and popular
leaders--all that is good, all that is bad, all that is violent or
lukewarm in the good, all that is morally great and intellectually
persuasive in the bad--as to inflict the widest possible damage, and
utter ruin, if that were possible, on the church of God.

Doubtless in St. Paul's time, in the age of heathen persecution, the
persecutors had various good political arguments in behalf of their
cruelty. Mobs indeed, or local magistrates, might be purposely cruel
toward the Christians; but the great Roman government {588} at a
distance, the great rulers and wise lawyers of the day, acted from
views of large policy; they had reasons of state, as the Kings of the
earth have now; still our Lord and his apostles do not hesitate to
pass these by, and declare plainly that the persecution which they
sanctioned or commanded was the word, not of man, but of Satan. And
now in like manner we are not engaged in a mere conflict between
progress and reaction, modern ideas and new, philosophy and theology,
but in one scene of the never-ending conflict between the anointed
Mediator and the devil, the church and the world; and, in St. Paul's
words, "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities and powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness,
against the spirits of wickedness in the high places."

Such is the apostle's judgment; and how, after giving it, does he
proceed? "Therefore," he says, "take unto you the armor of God, that
you may be able to resist in the evil day and to stand in all things
perfect. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and
having on the breast-plate of justice, and your feet shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace; in all things taking the shield of
faith, whereby you may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the
wicked. And take unto you the helmet of salvation and the sword of the
Spirit, which is the word of God." And then he concludes his
exhortation with words which most appositely bear upon the point
toward which all that I have been saying is directed--"praying at all
times with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching
therein with all instance and supplication for all the saints, and for
me," that is, for the apostle himself, "that speech may be given me,
that I may open my mouth with confidence to make known the mystery of
the gospel."

Here, then, we are brought at length to the consideration of the duty
of prayer for our living apostle and bishop of bishops, the Pope. I
shall attempt to state distinctly what is to be the _object_ of our
prayers for him, and secondly, what the _spirit_ in which we should
pray, and so I shall bring my remarks on this great subject to and
end.

1. In order to ascertain the exact _object_ of our prayers at this
time, we must ascertain what is the _occasion_ of them. You know, my
brethren, and I have already observed, that the Holy Father has been
attacked in his temporal possessions again and again in these last
years, and we have all along been saying prayers daily in the mass in
his behalf. About six years ago the northern portion of his states
threw off his authority. Shortly after, a large foreign force,
uninvited, as it would scene, by his people at-large--robbers I will
call them--(this is not a political sentiment, but a historical
statement, for I never heard any one, whatever his politics, who
defendant their act in itself, but only on the plea of its supreme
expedience, of some state necessity, or some theory of patriotism)--a
force of sacrilegious robbers--broke into provinces nearer to Rome by
a sudden movement, and, without any right except that of the stronger,
got possession of them, and keeps them to this day.   [Footnote 172]
{589} Past outrages, such as these, are never to be forgotten; but
still they are not the occasion, nor do they give the matter, of our
present prayers. What that occasion, what that subject is, we seem to
learn from his lordship's letter to his clergy, in which our prayers
are required. After speaking of the Pope's being "stripped of part of
his dominions," and "deprive of all the rest, with the exception of
the marshes and deserts that surround the Roman capital," he fastens
our attention on the fact, that "now at last is the Pope to be left
standing alone, and standing face to face with those unscrupulous
adversaries, whose boast and whose vow to all the world is not to
leave to him one single foot of Italian ground except beneath their
sovereign sway." I understand, then, that the exact object of our
prayers is, that the territory still is should not be violently taken
him, as have been as larger portions of his dominions of which I have
already spoken.

  [Footnote 172: The following telegram in The Times of September
  13th, 1860, containing Victor Emmanuel's formal justification for
  his invasion and occupation of Umbria and the Marches in a time of
  peace, is a document for after-times:

  TURIN, Sept. 11, evening.

  The king received to-day a deputation from the inhabitants of Umbria
  and the Marches.

  His majesty granted the protection which the deputation solicited,
  and orders to have been given to the Sardinian troops to enter those
  provinces by the following proclamation:

  "Soldiers! You are about to enter the Marches and Umbria, in order
  to establish civil order in the towns now desolated by this rule,
  and to give to the people a liberty of expressing their own wishes.
  You will not fight against the armies of any of the powers, but will
  free those unhappy Italian provinces from the bands of foreign
  adventurers which infest them. You do not go to revenge injuries
  done to me and Italy, but to prevent the popular hatred from
  unloosing itself against the oppressors of the country.

  "By your example you will teach the people forgiveness of offenses,
  and Christian tolerance to the man compared the love of the Italian
  fatherland to Islamism.

  "At peace with all the great powers, and holding myself aloof from
  any provocation, I intend to read Central Italy of one continual
  cause of trouble and discord. I intend to respect the seat of the
  chief of the church, to whom I am ever ready to give, in accordance
  with the allied and friendly powers, all the guarantees of
  independence and security which his misguided advisors have made
  hope to obtain for him from the fanaticism of the wicked sect which
  conspires against my authority and against the liberties of the
  nation.

  "Soldiers! I am accused of ambition. Yes; i have one ambition, and
  it is to re-establish the principles of moral order in Italy, and
  preserve Europe from the continual dangers of revolution and war."

  The next day The Times, in a leading article, thus commented on the
  above:

  "Victor Emmanuel has in Garibaldi a most formidable competitor. . . .
  [Piedmont] must therefore, at whatever cost or risk, make herself
  once more mistress of the revolution. She must lead that she may not
  be forced to follow. She must revolutionize the Papal States, in
  order that she may put herself in a position to arrest dangerous
  revolutionary movement against Venetia. . . . These motives are
  amply sufficient to account for the decisive movement of Victor
  Emmanuel. He lives in revolutionary times, when self-preservation
  has superseded all other considerations, and it would be childish to
  apply to his situation the maxims of international law which are
  applicable to periods of tranquility.

  "These being the motives which have held Piedmont to draw the sword,
  we have next to see what are the grounds on which she justifies the
  step. These grounds are two--the extraordinary misrule and
  oppression of the Papal government, and the presence of large bands
  of foreign mercenaries, by which the country is oppressed and
  terrorized. The object is said to be to give the people an
  opportunity of expressing their own wishes and the re-establishment
  of civil order. The king promises to respect the seat of the chief
  of the church--Rome, we suppose, and it's immediate environs; but,
  while holding out this assurance, the manifesto speaks of the Pope
  and his advisers in terms of bitterness and acrimony unusual in the
  present age, even in a declaration of war. He will teach the people
  forgiveness of offenses, and Christian tolerance to the Pope and his
  general. He denounces the misguided advisors of the pontiff, and the
  fanaticism of the wicked sect which conspires against his authority
  and the liberties of the nation. This is harsh language, and is not
  inconsistently seconded by the advance into the States of the Church
  of an army of 50,000 men."

  It was the old fable of the Wolf and the Lamb.]

 [End footnote 172]

This too, I conceive, is what is meant by praying for the Holy See.
"The duty of every true child of Holy Church," says the bishop, "is to
offer continuous and humble prayer for the Father of Christendom, and
for the protection of the Holy See." By the Holy See we may understand
Rome, considered as the seat of pontifical government. We are to pray
for Rome, the see, or seat, or metropolis of St. Peter and his
successors. Further, we are to pray for Rome as the seat, not only of
his spiritual government, but of his temporal. We are to pray that he
may continue king of Rome; that his subjects may come to a better
mind; that instead of threatening and assailing him, or being too
cowardly to withstand those who do, they may defend and obey him;
that, instead of being the heartless tormentors of an old and
venerable man, they may pay a willing homage to the apostle of God;
that instead of needing to be kept down year after year by troops from
afar, as has been the case for so long a time, they may, "with a great
heart and a willing mind," form themselves into the glorious bodyguard
of a glorious master; that they may obliterate and expiate what is so
great a scandal to the world, so great an indignity to themselves, so
great a grief to their father and king, that foreigners are kinder to
him than his own flesh and blood; that now at least, though in the end
of days, they may reverse the past, and, after the ingratitude of
centuries, may unlearn the pattern of that rebellious people, who
began by rejecting their God and ended by crucifying their Redeemer.

2. So much for the _object_ of our prayers; secondly, as to the
_spirit_ in which we should pray. As we ever say in prayer, "Thy will
be done," so {590} we must say now. We do not absolutely know God's
will in this matter; we know indeed it is his will that we should ask;
we are not absolutely sure that it is his will that he should grant.
The very fact of our praying shows that we are uncertain about the
event. We pray when we are uncertain, not when we are certain. If we
were quite sure what God intended to do, whether to continue the
temporal power of the Pope or to end it, we should not pray. It is
quite true indeed that the event may _depend upon our prayer_, but by
such prayer is meant perseverance in prayer and union of prayers; and
we never can be certain that this condition of numbers and of fervor
has been sufficiently secured. We shall indeed gain our prayer if we
pray enough; but, since it is ever uncertain what is enough, it is
ever uncertain what will be the event. There are Eastern
superstitions, in which it is taught that, by means of a certain
number of religious acts, by sacrifices, prayers, penances, a man of
necessity extorts from God what he wishes to gain, so that he may rise
to supernatural greatness even against the will of God. Far be from us
such blasphemous thoughts! We pray to God, we address the Blessed
Virgin and the holy apostles, and the other guardians of Rome, to
defend the holy city; but we know the event lies absolutely in the
hands of the All wise, whose ways are not as our ways, whose thoughts
are not as our thoughts, and, unless we had been furnished with a
special revelation on the matter, to be simply confident or to predict
would be presumption. Such is Christian prayer; it implies hope and
fear. We are not certain we shall gain our petition, we are not
certain we shall not gain it. Were we certain that we should not, we
should give ourselves to resignation, not to prayer; were we certain
we should, we should employ ourselves, not in prayer, but in praise
and thanksgiving. While we pray, then, in behalf of the Pope's
temporal power, we contemplate both sides of the alternative his
retaining it and his losing it; and we prepare ourselves both for
thanksgiving and resignation as the event may B. I conclude by
considering each of these issues of his present difficulty.

(I.) First, as to the event of his retaining his temporal power. I
think this side of the alternative (humanly speaking) to be highly
probable. I should be very much surprised if in the event he did not
keep it. I think the Romans will not be able to do without him; it is
only a minority even now which is against him; the majority of his
subjects are not wicked, so much as cowardly and incapable. Even if
they renounced him now for awhile, they will change their minds and
wish for him again. They will find out that he is their real
greatness. Their city is a place of ruins, except so far as it is a
place shrines. It is the tomb and charnel-house of pagan impiety,
except so far as it is sanctified and quickened by the blood of
martyrs and the relics of saints. To inhabit it would be a penance,
were it not for the presence of religion. Babylon is gone, Memphis is
gone, Persepolis is gone; Rome would go, if the Pope went. Its very
life is the light of the sanctuary. It never could be a suitable
capital of a modern kingdom without a sweeping away of all that makes
it beautiful and venerable to the world at large. And then, when its
new rulers had made of it a trim and brilliant city, they would find
themselves on an healthy soil and a defenceless plain. But, in truth,
the tradition of ages and inveteracy of associations make such a vast
change in Rome impossible. All mankind are parties to the inviolable
union of the Pope and his city. His autonomy is a first principle in
European politics, whether among Catholics or Protestants; and where
can it be secured so well as in that city which has so long been the
seat of its exercise? Moreover, the desolateness of Rome is as
befitting to a kingdom which is not of this world as it is {591}
incompatible with a creation of modern political theories. It is the
religious centre of millions all over the earth, who care nothing for
the Romans who happen to live there, and much for the martyred
apostles who so long have lain buried there; and its claim to have an
integral place in the very idea of Catholicity is recognized not only
by Catholics, but by the whole world.

It is cheering to begin our prayers with these signs of God's
providence in our favor. He expressly encourages us to pray, for
before we have begun our petition, he has begun to fulfil it. And at
the same time, by beginning the work of mercy without us, he seems to
remind us of that usual course of his providence, namely, that he
means to finish it with us. Let us fear to be the cause of a triumph
being lost to the church, because we would not pray for it.

(2.) And now, lastly, to take the other side of the alternative. Let
us suppose that the Pope loses his temporal power, and returns to the
conation of St. Sylvester, St. Julius, St. Innocent, and other great
Popes of early times. Are we, therefore, to suppose that he and the
church will come to naught? God forbid! To say that the church can
fail, or the see of St. Peter can fail, is to deny the faithfulness of
Almighty God to his word. "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I
build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
To say that the church cannot live except in a particular way, is to
make it "subject to elements of the earth." The church is not the
creature of times and places, of temporal politics or popular caprice.
Our Lord maintains her by means of this world, but these means are
necessary to her only while he gives them; when he takes them away,
they are no longer necessary. He works by means, but he is not bound
to means. He has a thousand ways of maintaining her; he can support
her life, not by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of
his mouth. If he takes away one defence, he will give another instead.
We know nothing of the future: our duty is to direct our course
according to our day; not to give up of our own act the means which
God has given us to maintain his church withal, but not to lament over
their loss, when he has taken them away. Temporal power has been the
means of the church's independence for a very long period; but, as her
bishops have lost it a long while, and are not the less bishops still,
so would it be as regards her head, if he also lost his. The eternal
God is her refuge, and as he has delivered her out of so many perils
hitherto, so will he deliver her still. The glorious chapters of her
past history are but anticipations of other glorious chapters still to
come. See how it has been with her from the very beginning down to
this day. First, the heathen populations persecuted her children for
three centuries, but she did not come to an end. Then a flood of
heresies was poured out upon her, but still she did not come to an
end. Then the savage tribes of the north and east came down upon her
and overran her territory, but she did not come to an end. Next,
darkness of mind, ignorance, torpor, stupidity, reckless corruption,
fell upon the holy place, still she did not come to an end. Then the
craft and violence of her own strong and haughty children did their
worst against her, but still she did not come to an end. Then came a
time when the riches of the world flowed in upon her, and the pride of
life, and the refinements and the luxuries of human reason; and lulled
her rulers into an unfaithful security, till they thought their high
position in the world would never be lost to them, and almost fancied
that it was good to enjoy themselves here below; but still she did not
come to an end. And then came the so-called reformation, and the rise
of Protestantism, and men said that the church had disappeared and
they could not find her place. Yet, now three centuries after that
even, _has_, {592} my brethren, the Holy Church come to an end? has
Protestantism weakened her powers, terrible enemy as it seemed to be
when it arose? has Protestantism, that bitter, energetic enemy of the
Holy See, harmed the Holy See? Why, there never has been a time, since
the first age of the church when there has been such a succession of
holy Popes, as since the reformation. Protestantism had been a great
infliction on such as have succumbed to it; but it has even wrought
benefits for those whom it has failed to seduce. By the mercy of God
it has been turned into a spiritual gain to the members of Holy
Church.

Take again Italy, into which Protestantism has not entered, and
England, of which it has gained possession. Now I know well that, when
Catholics are good in Italy, they are very good; I would not deny that
they attain there to a height and a force of saintliness of which we
seem to have no specimens here. This, however, is the case of souls
whom neither the presence nor the absence of religious enemies would
affect for the better or the worse. Nor will I attempt the impossible
task of determining the amount of faith and obedience among Catholics
respectively in two countries so different from each other. But,
looking at Italian and English Catholics externally and in their
length and breadth, I may leave any Protestant to decide, in which of
the two there is at this moment a more demonstrative faith, a more
impressive religiousness, a more generous piety, a more steady
adherence to the cause of the Holy Father. The English are multiplying
religious buildings, decorating churches, endowing monasteries,
educating, preaching, and converting, and carrying off in the current
of their enthusiasm numbers even of those who are external to the
church; the Italian statesman, on the contrary, in all our bishop's
words, "imprison and exile the bishops and clergy, leave the flocks
without shepherds, confiscate the church's revenues, suppress the
monasteries and convents, incorporate ecclesiastics and religious in
the army, plunder the churches and monastic libraries, and exposed
religion herself, stripped in bleeding in every limb, the Catholic
religion in the person of her ministers, her sacraments, or most
devoted members, to be objects of profane and blasphemous ridiculed."
In so brave, intelligent, vigorous-minded a race as the Italians, and
in the nineteenth century not the sixteenth, and in the absence of any
formal protest of classes or places, the act of the rulers is the act
of the people. At the end of three centuries Protestant England
contains more Catholics who are loyal and energetic in word and deed
then Catholic Italy. So harmless has been the violence of the
reformation; it professed to eliminate from the church doctrinal
corruptions, and it has failed both in what it has done and in what it
has not done; it has bred infidels, to its confusion; and, to which
dismay, it has succeeded in purifying and strengthening catholic
communities.

It is with these thoughts then that, my brethern, with these feelings
of solemn expectation, of joyful confidence, that we now come for our
God and pray him to have mercy on his chosen servant, his own vicar,
in this hour of trial. We come to him, like the prophet Daniel, in
humiliation for our own sins and the sins of our kings, our princes,
our fathers, and our people in all parts of the church; and therefore
we say the _Miserere_ and the Litany of the Saints, as in the time of
fast. And we come before him in the right and glad spirit of soldiers
who know they are under the leading of an invincible king, and wait
with beating hearts to see what he is about to do; and therefore it is
that we adorn our sanctuary, bringing out our hangings and multiplying
our lights, as on a day of festival. We know well we are on the
winning side, and that the prayers of the poor and the weak and
despised can do more, when offered in a true spirit, then all the
wisdom and all the resources of the world. This seventh of October is
the very {593} anniversary of that day on which the prayers of St.
Pius, and the Holy Rosary said by thousands of the faithful at his
bidding, broke forever the domination of the Turks in the great battle
of Lepanto. God will give us what we ask, or he will give us something
better. In this spirit let us proceed with the holy rites which we
have begun--in the presence of innumerable witnesses, of God the judge
of all, of Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, of his mother Mary
our immaculate protectress, of all the angels of holy church, of all
the blessed saints, of apostles and evangelists, martyrs and
confessors, holy preachers, holy recluses, holy virgins, of holy
innocents taken away before actual sin, and of all other holy souls
who have been purified by suffering, and have already reached their
heavenly home.

----------

From Chambers's Journal.


THE SOURCE OF LABOR.


Science has taught us that the processes going on around us are but
changes, not annihilations and creations. With the eye of knowledge we
see the candle slowly turning into invisible gases, nor doubt for an
instant that the matter of which the candle was composed is still
existing, ready to reappear in other forms. But this fact is true not
only of matter itself, but also of all the influences that work on
matter. We wind up the spring of a clock, and, for a whole week, the
labor thus stored up is slowly expended in keeping the clock going.
Or, again, we spend five minutes of hard labor in raising the hammer
of a pile-driver, which, in its fall, exerts all that accumulated
labor in a single instant. In these instances, we easily see that we
store up labor. Now, if we pat a dozen sovereigns in a purse, and none
of them be lost, we can take a dozen sovereigns out again. So in
labor, if no labor be lost, as science asserts--for the inertia of
matter, its very deadness, so to speak, which renders it incapable of
spontaneously producing work, also prevents its destroying work when
involved in it--we should be able to obtain back without deduction
all our invested labor when we please.

Imagine a mountain stream turning an overshot wheel. It thus falls
from a higher to a lower level. A certain amount of labor would be
required to raise the water from the lower level to the higher; just
this amount of labor the water gives out in its fall, and invests, as
it were, in the wheel. If, however, when arrived at the lower level,
the water were to demand of the wheel to be pumped up again, the
slightest trial would show that it would ask more than it could
obtain, though not more than it had given. The wheel, if questioned as
to the cause of its inability, must reply as others have done, that it
has shut up part of the labor in investments which it cannot realize.
The reason, as commonly stated, is, that friction has destroyed part
of the labor. The labor is not, however, destroyed. Science has shown
that heat and labor are connected; labor may be turned into heat, and
heat into labor. The labor absorbed by friction is but turned into
heat. If, however, we try to extract labor from the heat thus diffused
through the different parts of the water-wheel, and make it available,
we find ourselves quite at a loss. The heat gradually diffuses itself
through surrounding bodies, and, so far as we {594} are concerned, the
labor is wasted, though it still exist, like Cleopatra's pearl
dissolved in the cup of vinegar.

If no labor is lost, so neither is any created. The labor we exert is
but the expenditure of labor stored up in our frames, just as the
labor invested in the wound-up spring keeps the clock going. Whence,
then, does all this labor originally come? We see the waste--how is
compensation made? The answer is simple and easy to give. All the
labor done under the sun is really done by it. The light and heat
which the sun supplies are turned into labor by the organizations
which exist upon the earth. These organizations may be roughly divided
into two classes--the collectors and the expenders of the sun's labor.
The first merely collect the sun's labor, so as to make it available
for the other class; while, just as the steam-engine is the medium by
which the steam gives motion, so this second class is the medium by
which the sun's heat is turned into actual labor.

Still, the sun does not work only through organized labor: his mere
mechanical influence is very great. With the moon--the only second
post he deigns as to fill--he produces the tides by his attraction on
the sea. But for the friction of the earth and the sea, the tides,
once set in motion, would rise and fall without any further effort;
but the work done in overcoming the friction is, though due to the sun
and moon, not extracted from them, but by them from the earth. For it
would make a vast effort to cause the earth to cease rotating. All
this effort is, as it were, stored up in the revolving earth. as the
tidal waters, then, rub along the bed of the sea, or the waters on
which they rest and the adjacent coasts, this friction tends to make
the earth move faster or slower, according to the direction in which
the tidal flow is. The general effect is, however, that the friction
of the tides makes the earth revolve more slowly; in other words, that
part of the energy of rotation of the earth, so to speak, is consumed
in rubbing against the title waters. All the work, therefore, that the
tides do in undermining our cliffs and washing away our beaches, is
extracted by the sea and moon from the work stored up in the rotation
of the earth. The diminution of rotation, indeed, is so small as
scarcely to be perceived by the most refined observation, but the
reality of it is now generally recognized; and this process, too, will
apparently go on till the earth ceases to rotate on its axis, and
presents one face constantly to the sun.

Thus we see that the destruction of the land by the sea, so
interesting in a geological point of view, is partly due to the sun's
action. Not only is he the source of the light and the heat we enjoy,
but he aids in forming the vast sedimentary beds that form so large a
part of the crust of the earth, mixing the ingredients of our fields
and moulding our globe.

By heating the air, the sun produces winds, and some of the labor
costs expended is made use of by man in turning his windmills and
carrying his wares across the sea. But there is another expedient of
the sun's heat more immediately useful to man. By evaporating the sea
and other bodies of water, he loads the air with moisture, which, then
in contact with cold mountain-peaks or cold masses of air, loses its
heat, and, being condensed, falls as rain or snow. Thus the rivers are
replenished, which for a long time supplied the greater part of the
labor employed in manufacturers, though the invention of the
steam-engine is fast reducing relatively the value of this supply of
labor.

But vast as the sun's power thus exerted is, and useful as it is to
man, is surpassed in importance by his his labor exerted through
organized beings. The above named agents have one defect; on the
whole, they are incapable of being stored up to any great degree; we
must employ them as nature gives them to us. Organized existence,
however, possesses the power of storing up labor to a very high
degree. {595} The means it adopts are not mechanical, but chemical.
The formation of chemical compounds is attended with the giving out of
heat, which, as we have said before, is equivalent to labor, and if of
sufficient intensity, can by us be made available as labor, as in the
steam-engine. Now we take iron ore, consisting of iron in combination
with other substances. By means of great heat the iron is set free in
the smelting-furnace. The iron, then, in its change of form has, as it
were, taken in all this heat. If, now, we take this iron, and keeping
it from the influence of the air, reduce it to a very fine powder, and
then suddenly expose it to the air, by the force of natural affinity
it will absorb the oxygen of the air, and in so doing give out the
heat before required to set it free from the oxygen; and if the iron
be in small enough portions, so that the process is sufficiently
rapid, we may see the iron grow red hot with the heat thus disengaged.

Now, plants and trees, by the aid of the solar light and heat, remove
various substances, carbon especially, from what seem to be their more
natural combinations, and in other combinations store them up in their
structures. Take a young oak-tree with its first tender leaves; if
deprived of the sun's light and heat, its growth would be stayed, and
its life die out. But with the aid of the sun's rays, it absorbs
carbon from the gases in the air, each particle of carbon absorbed
being absorbed by the power of the sun, through the agency of the
plant; and with each particle of carbon stored up is also, as it were,
stored up the labor of the sun by which that particle was set free
from its former fetters. The sap of the plant thus enriched returns in
its course, and by some mysterious process is curdled into cells and
hardened into would. But the work by which all this was accomplished
lies hid in the wood, and not only is it there, but it is there in a
greatly condensed state. To form a little ring of wood round the tree,
not an eighth of an inch across it, took the sunshine of a long
summer, falling on the myriad leaves of the oak.

Lemuel Gulliver, at Laputa, was astonished by seeing a philosopher
aiming at extracting sunbeams from cucumbers. Had he but rightly
considered the thing he would have wondered at any one's troubling to
make a science of it. The thing has always been done. From Adam and
Eve in the garden of Eden eating sweet fruits, through the
onion-eating builders of the pyramids, down to the flesh-eating
myriads of our land, this process has always been going on. The active
life of reasoning man, and his limitless powers of invention, need for
their full development a vast supply of labor. By means of the
vegetable kingdom, the sun's work is stored up in a number of organic
substances. Man takes these into his system, and in the vessels and
fibres of his body they resume their original combinations, and the
labor of the sun is given out as muscular action and animal heat. To
allow a larger supply of labor for man's intellect to work with,
Providence created the herbivorous races. Some of these further
condense the work of the sun involved in plants, by taking these
plants into their systems, and storing up the work in them in their
flesh and fat, which, after some preparation, are fit to be received
into the frame of man, there, as the simpler vegetable substances, to
supply heat and labor. Others, extracting work from the vegetable
kingdom, just as man does, and mostly from parts of the vegetable
kingdom that are not suited to the organs of man, are valuable to man
as sources of labor, since they have no power to invent modes of
employing this labor to their own advantage. Man might have been
gifted with a vaster frame, and so with greater power of labor in
himself, but such a plan had been destitute of elasticity; and while
the savage would have basked in the sun in a more extended idleness,
the civilized man had still lacked means to execute his plans. {596}
So that good providence which formed man devised a further means for
supplying his wants. Instead of placing him at once on a new-formed
planet, it first let the sun spend its labor for countless ages upon
our world. Age by age, much of this labor was stored up in vast
vegetable growths. Accumulated in the abysses of the sea, or sunk to a
great depth by the collapse of supporting strata, the formations of a
later age pressed and compacted this mass of organic matter. The beds
thus formed were purified by water, and even by heat, and at last
raised to within the reach of man by subterranean movements. From this
reservoir of labor man now draws rapidly, driving away the frost of
today with the sunshine of a million years ago, and thrashing this
year's harvest with the power that came to our earth before corn grew
upon it.

Such are the processes by which the sun's power is collected and
stored up by the vegetable kingdom in a form sufficiently condensed to
be available for working the machinery of the bodies of men and
beasts, and also to assist man in vaster expenditures of labor. It is
most interesting to trace such processes, and not only interesting,
but also instructive, for it shows us in what direction we are to look
for our sources of labor, and will at once expose many common
delusions. One hears, perhaps, that something will be found to
supplant steam. Galvanism may be named; yet galvanism is generated by
certain decompositions--of metal, for instance--and this metal had
first to be prepared by the agency of coal, and in its decomposition
can give out no more labor than the coal before invested in it. It is
as if one should buy a steam-engine to pump up water to keep his
mill-wheel going. The source of all labor is the sun. We cannot
immediately make much use of his rays for the purposes of work; they
are not intense enough; they must be condensed. The vegetable world
alone at present seems capable of doing this; and its past results of
coal, peat, petroleum, etc., and present results of wood and food, are
ultimately all we have to look two.

To say that man will ever be dependent upon the vegetable world for
all his work may be considered bold, but there is certainly great
reason to believe it. The sun's labor being supplied in such a diluted
form, each small quantity continually supplied must be packed in a
very small space. Now, man can only subject matter to influences in
the mass. The little particle of carbon that the plant frees each
instant is beyond his ken. The machinery he could make would not be
fine enough; it would be like trying to tie an artery with the biggest
cable on board the Great Eastern. Organized existence possesses
machinery fine enough to effect these small results, and to avail
itself of these little installments of labor. At present, this
machinery is beyond our comprehension, and possibly will ever remain
so. Nature prefers that her children should keep out of the kitchen,
and not pry into her pots and pans, but eat in thankfulness the meal
she provides.

Some interesting results follow from what has been stated above. One
is, that we are consuming not only our present allowance of the sun's
labor, but also a great deal more, unless the formation of coal in our
age equals its consumption, which is not probable. Mother earth will
certainly, so far as we can see, some day be bankrupt. Such a
consummation is pointed to, however, in other quarters. The sun's
heat, unless miraculously replenished, must gradually be dissipated
through space. There are reasons for thinking that the planets must
ultimately fall into the sun. These things, however, possess to us no
practical physical interest. Such countless ages must elapse ere they
affect man's material condition upon the earth that we hardly can
gravely consider them as impending. The chief interest they excite is
moral. Like the man's hand that appeared to the revelling king, they
write, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin" (weighed, measured, limited,
doomed) on our material world, and dimly point to some power that
stands, as it were, hidden from our view behind the screen of matter,
that shall make things new.

--------------

{597}


ORIGINAL.


POEM.

BY E. HOWARD.



  While wandering by the mountains
  And musing by the streams,
  I asked myself if ever thus
  My life would pass in dreams.

  I gathered the little pebbles
  The waves threw on the sand:
  The rippling waters seemed to say,
  "There is a better land!"

  And while thus my steps were straying,
  Above, in azure far,
  I saw a beacon's streaming light--
  The glorious evening star!

  My soul, enraptured, then exclaimed:
  "Hail, beauteous star of even!
  Wilt thou, while speeding into dawn,
  Bring me the will of heaven?"

  I watched it in its onward course,
  Until its golden glow
  Was lost behind the western clouds.
  And left me wrapped in woe.

  I struggled hard to free my soul
  From brooding thoughts of care.
  Till morning broke, when, with the star,
  These words fell on the air:

  "No more let earthly passion move.
  Nor wearied hopes bemoan,
  A life that has a God to love,
  A heaven to call its own!"

  The star had kindled hope
  And raised my soul in prayer;
  The clouds that rolled between
  Foretold a life of care.

  I bowed my head, and humbly knelt,
  Submissive to his will.
  Who, when the waves were troubled most,
  Said, "Peace!" and all was still.

--------

{598}

ORIGINAL.


THE GODFREY FAMILY; OR, QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.



CHAPTER XVIII.

A PROPOSAL:
AND MORE THAN ONE.


The summons to London was on the business of cutting off the entail to
the estates as proposed at the beginning of the last chapter. Mr.
Godfrey, whose love for Hester certainly approached to dotage, had
decided to gratify his darling's wishes; and to avoid future
confusion, had decided to allow her to come of age at eighteen, and to
enter on the enjoyment of the estates he destined for her, subject to
an annuity for himself. To give the matter a semblance of justice, he
proposed to pension off the rest of the family in the same manner,
thus settling their claims to the property during his life, as after
his death. What was wanting to this plan was Eugene's acceptance of a
present annuity in the stead of his inheritance at death.

The proposal made to him was by no means a liberal one, considering
the wealth of the family and the expectations in which he had been
reared.

"Three thousand pounds a year for life, now, instead of fifteen
thousand in reversion to descend to my posterity; the proposal is
preposterous," said Eugene, "especially as I was always given to
understand that I might look to receive a sum equal to that on my
coming of age, which I shall do in three weeks' time."

"That promise was conditional, young man," said Mr. Godfrey, somewhat
sternly; "conditional at least by implication; could I have foreseen
that you would have disgraced my family, it would not have been made."

"Disgraced!" ejaculated Eugene.

"Brother," interposed Hester, anxious to avoid any expression of
excited feeling, "you have renounced the position my father ambitioned
for you; you cannot hold office under government; you cannot become a
member of Parliament; you cannot act as a magistrate;  [Footnote 173]
or take any useful part in the work of society. Surely three thousand
pounds a year will supply all your personal wants."

  [Footnote 173: At the time of which we write the civil disabilities
  for all dissenters from the English Establishment, and for all
  Catholics, were still in force in England.]

"You have assumed a great deal, my good sister; a great deal more than
you can prove, I think. If I understand this matter rightly, it these
yourself who are be to benefited by this arrangement. You want to
experimentalize, to found a new Utopia; surely I might do that at
least as well as a woman."

"No, for you believe not in the principle. Money in your hands, just
now, would sink; you might build churches or convents, but forward the
progression of the race you would not. A bare-footed Carmelite ranks
higher in your estimation that a man raised by talent and industry to
a position surrounded by means of enjoyment. Now, my father objects
conscientiously, and his immediate ancestors would also object to
appropriate the both of his property to a phantasm. He offers you a
maintenance superior to the property your theory upholds. Be
consistent; try your own principle of renunciation, of poverty, if you
so like to term an annuity of three thousand a year. The allotment
which will be termed mine is in my eyes, and in in my father's, an
investment for the good of society, of which I am but a directress.
Give to the world that which the world claims, {599} take the portion
you have chosen in which the world has no share--spirituality.
Conscientiously my father has strained a point to offer you so much,
for he looks upon the promotion of your views as injurious to the
human race."

There was a long pause, a long silence; then Eugene said, "I must take
time to consider; my signature would not be of any avail until I am of
age, and it wants three weeks to that time. In a month's time I will
give you an answer."

Eugene, after a vain attempt to see his mother, returned to the town
in which Euphrasie resided. He was now determined to have the
interview he had so long vainly sought for. On that interview greatly
depended his future determination.



He did not call on her at her mother's abode. He waylaid her as she
was returning home from giving her lessons; with a few earnest words
induced her to permit him to lead her into a secluded grove where
often he had mused on her perfections, and there, at length, he took
courage, and poured forth, as much by gesture as by words, his long
pent-up tale of love, so hidden out of reverence, a reverence which
now gave way to the anxiety of placing her in a more suitable position
than the one she at present occupied, although still falling short of
that which she was calculated to adorn.

Euphrasie listened with profound attention; certainly not coldly. She
fully appreciated the young man's devotion, she fully believed his
tale. Even tears filled her eyes as he proceeded; but she was long in
answering.

"May I take this silence for consent, dear Euphrasie?" said Eugene.

Euphrasie shook her head. "No, indeed, you may not, my kind friend,"
she said. "I am silent because I know not how to express my sense of
your worth, of your kindness, of your disinterestedness, in fitting
terms, and accompany my words with a refusal. What you propose can
never be. Another vocation is mine. Yet believe me that my gratitude,
my friendship, my esteem, are, and ever must remain, your own. I thank
you earnestly for the long forbearing and silent sympathy which I have
ever received from you."

"Your tones are solemn, Euphrasie. You are not one to act a part, and
say no when you mean yes. You have seen this proposal possible, you
have weighed it; is it indiscreet to ask in confidence your reasons?"

"Is not all explained by the words, another vocation is mine? May I
not recall to your memory the explanation I once gave at Durimond
Castle?"

"But, Euphrasie, in this country, where Catholics are barely
tolerated, you can scarcely be a nun."

"I think, indeed, that at present there seems little likelihood that I
shall be what the world calls a nun; but I am none the less certain
that I am called to serve God by following the three evangelical
counsels."

"But as a married woman, Euphrasie, surely you could serve God also.
Marriage in the Catholic Church is exalted to the dignity of a
sacrament, and I would respect your self-imposed duties not only of
devotion but of charity also. I would share the cares you now bestow
on my aunt's comfort, and--"

"I believe it, Eugene, but it cannot be. I dare not resist the voice
which forbids me to bind myself by human ties. We are Catholics,
Eugene; we know that a vocation is something real; that not to respond
to it is to endanger salvation, is to risk the abstraction of that
grace which is of all treasures the most valuable."

Eugene replied not. There was a long pause. Euphrasie was agitated
beyond her wont, and was glad to avail herself of a seat fixed beneath
the shade of a tree. Eugene rested his forehead against the tree.
Suddenly he seized her hand and pressed it to his lips, but he spoke
not. The warm tears were pouring down his {600} cheeks. Oh! it is
agonizing to behold a strong man weep. No woman at least can see it
unmoved; still less Euphrasie, who beneath an impassive exterior bore
a feeling, tender heart. Scarcely less affected than himself she took
his hand in both of hers, and faltered out: "Eugene, my friend, my
brother, the day will come when you will rejoice at this hour's
decision, and make it the subject of your earnest thanksgiving. No
Catholic can have witnessed your noble struggle for truth, your
disinterestedness, your magnanimity, without feeling that for you,
too, God has a noble mission in store. As yet you are scarcely
conscious of what you would lose were you to fetter yourself by human
ties. Your studies as yet have occupied the intellect somewhat
exclusively. Controversy was necessary while you were assuring
yourself of the grounds of faith, of the reasonableness of the
creature's trusting to the solemn promise of the Creator, of the
unerring infallibility of the church founded by Christ, and sustained
by his holy spirit. Your learned research, conducted in simplicity of
spirit, has led you to the temple of truth. You have entered, but as
yet its most wondrous teachings are to be unfolded, to be
contemplated, to be realized in practice. Your soul is too noble to
content itself with the things of earth; your heart needs pure,
exalted realities to love, and those it will find only here." (She
took from her bosom a small ivory crucifix, which she placed in his
hand as she spoke). "Everlasting love speaks to you from this cross,
my beloved friend. Leave other studies for awhile to contemplate its
lessons in all its bearings, and a divine rapture will fill your
inmost soul; you will live in him only who is life and light and love,
and your heart will need to pour itself out for him, through him, in
him. Suffering for Christ will become blissful, and your whole being
will shape itself to one aim, his will, whom to serve is to find the
truest happiness on earth, as it is also the only happiness in heaven!
Oh! dared I speak to you, Eugene, of what it is to love God, and to
feel his love for us within our souls, you would not need consolation
then. But God himself will speak to you and instruct you in his
wondrous love, and you will be happy beyond your utmost imagination."

Euphrasie spoke as one inspired; and it was so rarely that she made
any speech of considerable length, that the effect was greatly
increased. Again there was a long pause, Eugene gazed on the crucifix,
pressed it to his lips, then hit it in his bosom. At length he said:
"Euphrasie, I can but submit. I will do my best to follow the
beautiful course you have described for me. But ere I leave you, since
since leave you I must, may I ask one favor?"

Euphrasie signified assent.

"It is this, then: You have called me friend brother. May I hope,
then, for a brother's privilege, a friends affection? I will never
again asked for more, if you will promise me these. But let your
brother be of use to you, dear sister, confide to your friend your
plans, and give him the happiness of helping them forward. Let there
be no estrangement between us, Euphrasie."

"There shall be none, I promise you, save such as prudence demands.
Your nobleness, your disinterestedness, claim my admiration, and I
promise you, my brother, to inform you when i need your proferred aid.
But you must forgive me if, for a while at least, I converse with you
only through the medium of our mutual friend. Let our excited feelings
have time to subside into a more reasonable frame ere we meet again,
Eugene. And now may the holy Angels have you in their keeping. Adieu."

She was gone ere Eugene could reply. Hid among the foliage, he had not
the courage to follow her, and in spite of his resolves the remained
desolate.

What now were to him the chances of heirship, the thoughts of
transmitting his name to a long posterity? {601} At the end of the
month Eugene signed the deed which deprived him for all time of a fair
estate. An additional motive for his doing this was found in the
reflection that he had no right to be depriving his mother of her
private property. He returned the deed of gift to her as soon as he
received the proposed annuity. There were no bells rung, according to
the custom from immemorial ages, when the heir of the Godfrey family
came of age; there was no feasting, no rejoicing among the tenantry.
All was silence and gloom, it was as if the very air were hung with a
funeral pall. Mrs. Godfrey seemed stricken to the heart. But when the
transactions became known which disinherited Eugene and appropriated
an unfair proportion of the estate to the youngest sister, all the
family were roused. Vexed as they were at Eugene's religious
demonstrations they were not prepared to give Hester so exclusive a
preference. Mrs. Godfrey, especially, felt the transaction as most
bitterly unjust. She yearned for Eugene's presence, and it was not
permitted her. Scarcely could she tolerate the sight of Hester in the
house. Her melancholy increased. Alas! poor mother!





CHAPTER XIX

Hester was now made rich. Her doting father settled on her not only
the Yorkshire farms, but also other revenues, that she might be
provided with capital to carry into execution her philanthropic plans.
Hester was endowed with many brilliant qualities. She was, as it were,
"born to reign." She perfectly understood her own dignity, perfectly
realized her own power of intellect, was well aware that both her
father and his man of business were her tools, and she managed
accordingly with intuitive prudence, not permitting Mr. Godfrey to
perceive how entirely he obeyed her bidding. Under these circumstances
she might fairly hope for success. Large iron factories on the one
hand, and large cotton factories on the other, were erected on a scale
calculated to employ many hundred hands, and to bring into extensive
operation the new steam-power that then absorbed scientific attention.
Mr. Godfrey was delighted, for it brought him into frequent contact
with the most scientific men of the day. The operations necessarily
attracted public attention, and Mr. Godfrey as director of the
scientific operations, with Hester as deviser of a new scheme for
rendering the "populations" happy and progressive, were continually
besieged by a concourse of visitors, eager to understand the new
"idea."

Hester's arrangements were on a magnificent scale. She started on the
principle of mutual co-operation united to division of labor. Instead
of separate dwellings for her employés, she had large boarding-houses
built. These were provided with halls, refectories, baths,
lecture-rooms, reading-rooms, libraries, and, lastly, schools, which
in those days were rare for the laboring population. For since the
suppression of the monasteries and convents, the schools in which the
good religious had taught the children of England to love God and
their neighbor had been shut up, education had fallen to a fearfully
low standard in this sect-divided kingdom.

Hester was a severe disciplinarian, with little compassion for the
weakness of human nature. She intended her people should become
intellectual; and when she shortened the hours of labor, expressly to
give time to cultivate the mind, when she hired lecturers and bought
books, she felt herself aggrieved that these were not responded to.
Her people were well fed at a common table; they were well sheltered
and accommodated; why should they not be intellectualized? How
discouraged she felt when she found she was speaking in an unknown
tongue to {602} the adults among her operatives. They hardly
considered short hours a benefit when they were compelled to sit and
listen to subjects in which they took no interest. "A glass of ale
and, a pipe of 'backy would do a poor body far more good than all this
preaching, and 'tain't to save our souls either." There were other
difficulties in this commonwealth; the young men and women were on
different sides of the building, and certain rules were laid down to
secure good conduct, but these rules were very difficult to enforce,
and the dismissals for disorder became frequent. The operatives began
to call the place a jail. Hester would not yield, but she turned more
strenuously to the children. Here she had better success, and she
spent days and weeks in providing for the better education of these
little ones. "The elder ones are already formed," she argued, "but we
will give these young ones better tastes, better habits, and they will
become intelligent and happy."

M. de Villeneuve was a frequent visitor at these institutions, for the
character of Hester interested him greatly, and he was constantly
endeavoring to draw her attention to the motives that actuated her
people, and to the probabilities of their producing lasting results.

"Tell me," said he, "how is a knowledge of the material law to produce
happiness? We know that a steel knife cuts flesh; will that knowledge
reconcile one to the loss of his arm when the sturgeon has cut it off
in the most masterly manner?"

"No," said Hester, "but perhaps a knowledge of the material law might
have prevented the necessity of cutting off the arm at all. Much of
disease is caused by ignorance. To banish pain needs a wide
acquaintance with the whole range of laws which govern our being. To
know and practise one law and neglect another would but result in
pain."

"You will require a life of scientific research. I see; and after all,
as we all begin with ignorance and helplessness, we must suffer some
pain during our apprenticeship. For instance, you cannot teach an
infant to cut its teeth painlessly."

"But because we cannot do everything, shall we do nothing?"

"That were a sweeping conclusion; it is not necessary to go so far as
that. But might it not be wise to examine the principle of actions
when we attempt to regulate for others on a new system? Your exterior
arrangements our splendid; your laws rigidly moral; but will you
ensure their being kept? What motive do you propose?"

"I have expelled those who, after suitable remonstrance, would not
conform," said Hester.

"A very effective proceeding, my kind hostess, but it is just possible
that eventually such a practice might create a desert. The motive
power of perseverance comes from within. The desire must be in the
heart, the understanding must approve, the will must accept, the deed
must co-operate, and until you have secured this motive power, your
arrangements rest on an insecure basis. You cannot force men to choose
good; you cannot make them studious by providing a library, or moral
by denouncing the penalties of immorality. You must subdue passions,
excite tastes. Can mere knowledge of physics do this?"

"There is other knowledge besides mere physics--classical knowledge."

"And will classical knowledge do it? Will reading Virgil and Horace
tend to evolve moral power?"

"Why not? Knowledge is power!"

"Then why are so many of the educated sickly, unhappy and immoral?"

"Because they do not act upon their knowledge; they are idle and
dissipated and worthless. The frivolities of the young men 'de bon
ton' were always disgusting to me. But then they are not really
educated; they may have been to school, but they have learned nothing
useful, nothing of the material world."

{603}

"But" said M. de Villeneuve, "how does the knowledge of the material
world affect man's existence as a moral agent? The laws which regulate
materiality leave and impress of invariability upon them--a want of
power to change themselves, at any rate. They are obedient to a will
to which they appear insentient. This is true not only of inert,
stolid matter, not only of vegetable life, but of animals, even of
those wondrous developments of instinct which approach so near to
reason that they are scarcely distinguishable from it. The highest
mere animals are creatures of circumstance--circumstance ruled,
indeed, by appetite and instinct, but not by recognition of a higher
law, not by any consciousness of affinity to a higher state of
existence. Therefore, you can tame them by an appeal to their
appetites; you can rule them by providing for their animal natures;
you can subdue them if you bring to bear on them a force stronger than
their own. But, surely, we may assume that man is more than a mere
animal. He has inborn affinities to higher natures which force cannot
subdue, and which rise superior to animal temptations. These
affinities may be starved out, it is true, by not providing them with
their own fitting nutriment, which is not the food of the body. They
may be crushed or restrained in their development by overloading the
soul with extraneous objects; but in proportion as these powers are
starved out or crushed out, the man sinks, the animal rises. And the
_animal_ man is, I assure you, a very ferocious kind of beast, and
nonetheless so for having intelligence developed; rather is he
dangerous in proportion."

"You would not, then, developed intelligence?"

"On the contrary, I think it the highest and holiest task in which a
human being can be employed. I rejoice in all the plans that tend to
raise the race; I applaud your benevolence in forming these
establishments, although I feel that you are preparing for yourself a
disappointment."

"But why?"

"Because you have begun on the wrong principle. It is good that you
have begun at all to see the principle acknowledged that man is man,
and not a mere machine to win riches for the few; that principle
emanated from selfishness in the beginning, but selfishness will not
root out selfishness. I admire your idea principally because it proves
your own zeal, your own earnestness, your own capability of
sacrificing yourself for others; even the disappointment impending
will be fraught with good if it do not discourage you from seeking the
true principle, which I hope it will not do. Faith in man is easily
overset, because man can fall of himself, but of himself he cannot
rise."

"You believe, then, as I do, that a new era is dawning on mankind, and
that the laborer must be protected and enlightened?" said Hester.

"I do!" said M. de Villeneuve.

"Yet you do not believe that my schools and arrangements will make him
happier?"

"Will you forgive me if I say I do not?"

"You are an enigma; I cannot make you out," said Hester.

"How did man fall into the degraded state in which the masses are?"
said M. de Villeneuve. "We have proof of intelligence enough in the
founders of Babylon, of Nineveh, of Thebes, and of Egypt."

"Some men must have known something, I think," said Hester, "but they
seem to have kept their knowledge very carefully to themselves, and
made slaves of those to whom they did not impart it. Knowledge was
very much an affair of class or rank. The populace was brutish, if
accounts are true, and kept in order by sheer force."

"And when that force pressed too hardly, they fled and became the
founders of the savage life. Such is the probable course. And what
power, think you, elevated the mass, even to the extent in which we
see them now? for, debased as they may be, they are {604} far above
the races that did the same work in ancient times; nay, the laborers
of Europe are far above the slaves of Asia. What has caused the
difference?"

"The march of intellect," said Hester proudly.

"Supposing that granted for the sake of the argument, what caused 'the
march of intellect?' what gave the impetus to raise the 'toiler for
bread' in the scale of humanity?"

Hester could not answer. The comte continued:

"I believe it to be that very influence which 'the age' is seeking so
earnestly to destroy. Man's selfishness oppressed his fellows,
overpowered his faculties, laid them to sleep so effectually that the
rich and great were acknowledged by the crowd to be of another order,
of another scale of being, to be judged of by another standard, to be
weighed by another measure. The gospel came: to the poor it was
preached _par excellence_; it was a call of the Father to his
downtrodden children, an appeal to their hearts, their affections, a
loving invitation to them to come, as children of the most High God,
to claim their inheritance of lofty faculty, of high intuitions, of
exalted aspiration. The understanding enlightened through the heart
changed by slow degree's the face of nations; the slave disappeared
from the christianized lands, the leaven worked from the interior to
the exterior, life became protected, the rich and the poor, equal
before God, became equal before the law also; civilization of heart
produced civilization of manners among the masses. The greater
involved the lesser. Men's intellects were awakened, roused to action,
and then followed the old story over again; they forget how they had
obtained these gifts, and from whom, and they are applying them to
selfish purposes, to animal gratification. But liberty is the gift of
the gospel, liberty emanating from emancipation of the understanding
by means of the soul. If we would preserve the gift, we must observe
the conditions."

"Do you really think 'liberty' a good?" asked Hester.

"True liberty is one of the greatest of blessings," said the comte;
"but you will find it difficult to give 'true liberty' on earthly
grounds alone, it would so easily degenerate into license. Now the
repression of license by force is a restraint to which men unwillingly
submit, and easily engenders tyranny, so that, unless license is
restrained by the spiritual sense, liberty is in continual jeopardy;
it is difficult to believe it can be lasting."

"And you think the spiritual sense necessary to liberty?"

"I do; how else can lawlessness be restrained without force?"

"Surely intellectual enlightenment ought to suffice. Common-sense even
tells us that some restraint is necessary, that the moral law must be
observed."

"It may tell us so, but does it give the power to execute its
bidding?"

"It should do so."

"It should, and would, if man's being were in harmony. All laws,
physical, mental, and spiritual teach in different forms the same
truth; the material is a manifestation of the spiritual, of which the
intellect demonstrates the beauty and the necessity; but power to
develop the spiritual facility does not reside either in the intellect
or in matter, it belongs to a higher source, and without the will is
powerless. Therefore is it, I prophesy disappointment for you; for I
see no provision made to destroy selfishness, and promote a higher
life."

"There is none needed," interposed Mr. Godfrey somewhat abruptly; "we
teach what we know. As for mysticism and matters we guess at but do
not know, we leave the people free. If they need religion let them
choose one, or make one for themselves."

The asperity with which this was said closed the conversation for that
time.

{605}

Hester continued her plans, though less firm than before in the
conviction that the spread of intelligence would annihilate evil. She
watched the results with an anxiety intent on discovering the exact
truth. She tried more and more to enforce morality. She studied the
influences by which children are won to good behavior. She thought
love was the governing principle of the little folks, and that her
indulgence would excite love. Rewards were profusely given, and a
system of excitement acted upon. This produced certain effects in
calling forth intelligence, but the children became selfish and fond
of ease and dissipation in a manner she had not looked for.

With her young people she had scarcely better success. There was no
religious restraint, and their morals soon betokened that some
restraint was called for. Then, again, Mr. Godfrey's opinions were
pretty well known, and itinerant lecturers held forth on the
unreasonableness of the marriage tie, on the necessity of easy
divorce, and other topics of like nature that placed Hester in great
perplexity. It was not a subject in which she as a woman could
properly interfere, and her father shrugged his shoulders, and passed
them by with the remark, "These are not matters that can be interfered
with, they are altogether conventional."

What could Hester do? She was in great perplexity.



CHAPTER XX.

THE TRIALS OF LADY CONWAY.

Meantime we must return to Lady Conway. Time passed on and she became
the mother of a little girl, and after another interval of a little
boy also. At this latter event Sir Philip's joy was great. The bells
rang, bonfires blazed, every festive demonstration was called into
play to welcome the heir to the estate. All the father's affection
seemed showered upon him. The misunderstanding between himself and his
lady had never been thoroughly put to rights, for Alfred still
continued to keep awake in Sir Philip's mind the suspicions he had
aroused. Had Annie been of a meek and gentle temper, she might very
soon have convinced her husband how far she was as yet removed from
religion of any kind, although conscious of secret influences creeping
over her. But Annie thought herself aggrieved, and disdained
conciliatory measures; and by degrees, under the insidious influence
to which he was exposed, Sir Philip began to assume a high tone of
marital authority which gave his wife continual provocation and
rendered her situation almost unbearable. Daily he assumed more and
more the reins of domestic government, until at last it could scarcely
be said that the ordinary jurisdiction which a woman exercises over
her household belonged to Annie. She felt this keenly at first, but
the birth of her little girl came somewhat to reconcile her. She spent
much time in the nursery, and recreated herself with books. She tried
not to notice the arbitrary manner and haughty bearing of her husband,
for, high-spirited as she was, she thought it undignified to live in a
perpetual jangle. So, gradually, the married couple learned to live in
different ideal worlds, though they continued under one roof and to
society appeared as usual. But this did not suit Alfred Brookbank. His
hatred went deeper than this, and he set himself seriously about
attempting to destroy what little was left of domestic comfort. The
birth of the young heir soon furnished him with grounds. None were
more warm than he in offering his congratulations, and in making
continual inquiries after the well-being of this young scion of an
ancient race. Indeed, the interest he seemed to take in all that
affected Sir Philip's happiness was extreme. One would have said that
he lived but for the pleasure of serving him. Sir Philip, on the other
hand, became daily more wrapt up in this specious man, and daily
congratulated himself on having secured so invaluable a servant.

{606}

"Sir Philip," said Alfred one day, after meeting the infant in its
nurse's arms during a business walk over the grounds, "that is a
splendid boy! I need not ask a man of your wisdom if you have made
provision that he should be brought up a staunch and loyal upholder of
the Protestant interest."

"Time enough yet, my worthy friend," responded the baronet, "the child
is not six months old."

"But before six months more, Sir Philip, he will begin to receive
impressions, and early impressions are of immense importance. You
remember, doubtless, that when the treaty of marriage was on foot
between the ill-fated Charles I. and Henrietta of France, the question
was mooted respecting the education of the children, and it was
finally settled that for the first seven years they should remain
under the mother's influence, and afterward be brought up Protestant.
They result was that, in the long run, the early impressions
prevailed. Charles II. certainly received the Romish sacrament on his
death-bed, and his brother James sacrificed his crown to his papistry.
I imagine that the first impressions are almost indelible, and we
never know when first impressions are made."

"But all my people are Protestants," said Sir Philip.

"And has Lady Conway renounced her predilection for the papists?"
asked Alfred. Sir Phillip's brow lowered.

"Forgive me if I go too far," continued Alfred deprecatingly. "The
inroads made by these people who came to seek English hospitality on
being driven from their own homes, are too alarming. Awhile ago it
would have been an insult to suspect a well-bred person of such folly;
but when we see such talented young men as Eugene Godfrey led away, it
puts us on our guard against future encroachments. I for one should be
sorry to see the heir apparent of Sir Philip Conway an upholder of
bigotry, or in image worshiper."

"I would see them in his grave first," thundered out the baronet. "But
there is no fear; at least I see no immediate cause of apprehension.
But the matter shall be look to. My son shall be watched over, depend
upon it".

Sir Philip's mother was still living, and with her a sister of his,
and old maid, who was a little too much of the puritanical school to
suit her brother's taste. But now he thought these ladies might assist
his views. He paid them a visit, and in strict confidence laid his
difficulty before them. He was not satisfied, he said of Lady Conway's
opinions. She went to the English Church occasionally, but he did not
consider her a member of it at heart. He wanted his children to be
interviewed from the first with strict Protestant ideas. The little
girl was now two years old, and though the little boy was but a few
months old, there was no telling how soon impressions might be made,
so he intended to have a nursery governess of the right sort at once.
This the ladies undertook to look out for, and when found to accompany
the treasure themselves to the household. Annie's annoyance was
excessive. Neither the dowager Lady Conway nor her daughter was
intellectual or high-minded, and now that they came to take the
management of the nursery out of her hands, and place a stranger there
whose office was to watch herself in her intercourse with her own
children, their presence became unendurable. Mrs. Bedford, the new
governess, was in herself a quiet, unobtrusive person, faithful to her
duties, and of gentle manners; but she had been selected on account of
her unmitigated horror of popery, and it had been whispered to her
that Lady Conway was not a little tainted with its delusion, and this
made her more constrained in manner and less deferential than she
would otherwise have been.

{607}

It was in vain that any pleaded that she was quite capable of
directing her own nursery, that this new inmate was equally
unnecessary as unwelcome to her. Sir Philip was immovable; and to
prove how intent he was on having his own way, he dismissed the nurse,
who had attended both children most skillfully, merely because she had
not shown herself sufficiently respectful to the new-comer. The
children cried after their old friend, and the little girl clung to
her dress, to beg her not to leave her. It was useless. No one is more
obstinate than a fool in power. That wife and children were unhappy
was nothing to Sir Philip now. His will was law, and to his rule of
iron all must submit.

Some months after this they were sitting at table when the letters
were brought in. Among them came one directed to Annie. Sir Philip
opened it (it was now his custom to open his wife's letters), read it,
and handed it to her, with the words:

"Dear me, I am very sorry, I suppose you must go immediately." The
letter was from Hester. It stated that Mrs. Godfrey (who had been for
years out of health) had latterly become much worse, that she was
constantly asking for any, and the physicians said she must be humored
in every wish, that her reason, if not her life, depended on it. Annie
was therefore requested to come without delay.

"How soon can I have the carriage," inquired any of her liege Lord.

"As soon as you can get ready, of course," answered Sir Philip.

"And the children?" faltered Annie.

"Mrs. Bedford will take care of the children, and I shall be at home;
make yourself easy about them."

But Annie would have liked to take the children with her; they would
interest her mother at times, and in that large mansion could not be
in the way; but her heart seemed crushed, she dared not express her
thought, and she departed without remonstrance.

She found her mother even more depressed then she anticipated. Mrs.
Godfrey had ever been tenderly attached to her children. Their
happiness had been her fondest care, and a melancholy settled upon her
as she found her hopes disappointed. The haughty Adelaide seemed quite
changed from the time when she was a joyous girl at home. Annie,
though still affectionate to herself, seemed pining away under some
secret unhappiness. But the darling of her heart--her son, whom she
loved with the whole force of her character, in whom were united alike
joy and pride--why was he banished from her sight? That Mrs. Godfrey
was sorry for her son's Catholicity there was no doubt; certainly she
was mortified at this unexpected result of her fine intellectual
training; but the love she bore this her only son far overpowered both
sorrow and vexation, and she bitterly felt his prolonged absence, and
had often endeavored to shake Mr. Godfrey's determination in this
regard. Some little passages had even occurred between herself and her
husband on the subject. "She could not understand," she said, "why a
person should be persecuted for his religion. When Mr. Godfrey told
his children to think for themselves, did he mean that they were to
think as he did, on pain of expulsion? Was not Eugene good, dutiful,
noble, and generous? Why was he treated like a criminal? Had he been a
_roué_, like so many young men of his standing, it would have been
called 'sowing his wild oats,' and every allowance would have been
made for him. Why could they not treat this vagary as intellectual
wild oats, and give him time to recover?" Mr. Godfrey tried to pacify
her, but in vain; illness succeeded. "She must see her son," she said.

Mr. Godfrey was a little too resolute. He did not even give her
tidings of him when he summoned him to the lawyers. It was by sheer
accident that she discovered they had met; and when she discovered the
result of that meeting her indignation was terrible. She could not
bear to {608} have Hester in her sight. She would not accompany her
and Mr. Godfrey to Yorkshire. She stayed at home alone whole months.
Years past; Eugene went abroad, and in the disturbed state of the
continent his letters miscarried. It was long since she heard from
him. A paroxym ensued. Her mind became affected. Mr. Godfrey was sent
for. A gentleman experienced in diseases of the brain was invited to
reside in the house. But in vain. The malady increased, and her calls
for Eugene and for Annie became so frequent and so terrific that all
hope of keeping the matter a secret seemed at an end, and the doctor
insisted that the persons she called for should be sent for. Annie
came forthwith as we have seen, but Eugene's address was not known.

On entering the room where her mother set in company with two strange
nurses, Annie was struck with the wildness of her manner: her hair was
disordered and hung loose over her shoulders; it was far whiter than
when Annie had seen it last, and her eyes were restlessly looking
round the room. She sprang up at her daughter's entrance, threw
herself on her neck, and burst into tears, "O Annie, Annie! are you
come at last? I have a strange illness upon me; I do not know how to
bear myself; but yon will not let them hurt me, you will take care of
me."

Annie was not prepared for this greeting. She could only clasp her
mother's hands, caress her, make her sit down, and try to keep down
the swelling in her own throat. Suddenly Mrs. Godfrey broke from her,
and standing up laid her hand on Annie's shoulder, saying: "Where is
Eugene?"

"I do not know, my dear mother."

"Not know! Are you all leagued against me? What share in his
inheritance had you?"

Annie looked as she felt, surprised. She had heard of the transaction
only when it was over, but she answered soothingly, not wishing to
bring forward exciting ideas. But Mrs. Godfrey was not to be Sue; all
night she raved of Eugene; when Hester approached, she sprang from the
bed and attempted to strike her; Mr. Godfrey dared not trust himself
within her hearing. "Thief, traitor, knave, rascal, villain", and
other opprobrious epithets were bestowed on him and his fondling. The
doctor was not to be shaken in his opinion that the only hope lay in
finding Eugene and bringing him to her bedside. But where? They had no
clue; his lawyer only knew he was gone abroad and would probably not
return for months. In the hope that some one might be more successful,
they at length resolve, to Mr. Godfrey's intense vexation, to have
inserted in the London and local papers a notice to the effect that
"We are sorry to announce the serious and dangerous illness of the
Hon. Mrs. Godfrey, at Estcourt Hall. Should this meet the eye of her
eldest son, now on his travels, his family request him to return
without delay."

This advertisement luckily was pointed out to M. Bertolot very soon
after it appeared at Cambridge, and he hastened to forward it by a
courier to Eugene, who, traveling by post (those were not days of
railways), arrived at Estcourt Hall within three weeks after Annie had
taken up her residence there. The old butler who answered the ring at
the gate bowed a solemn but speechless welcome, and with a significant
gesture conducted him, not through the usual entrance-hall, but by a
side door, up-stairs, till he came to Annie's apartment, which
communicated with the sick-chamber. Here he wrapped, and on Annie's
appearance left the two together without a word.

Eugene entered and sat down. "What is the matter?" He said. But Annie
answered not; her looks were those of one too wretched to weep.

Eugene repeated his inquiry, and then she softly whispered: "O!
Eugene, she has gone out of her mind!" Eugene covered his face with
his hands. {609} It was a long time ere either could speak again. At
length Annie rose on tiptoe and opened the door communicating with the
invalid's apartments. His mother was lying quietly on the sofa,
muttering at intervals. Eugene approached and listened. He thought he
caught the sound of his own name. He went nearer and knelt beside her.
The sick woman knew it not, but her arm laid itself restlessly around
his neck, and as his hot tears fell on her cheek she kept repeating in
her sleep the words, "Eugene, my dear Eugene!" Singularly enough, when
she waked she evinced no surprise at finding him there. It was as
though she knew it intuitively, or had expected it. Perhaps it was the
prolongation of her dream. She did not greet him as a stranger, or
speak as if long months had passed since she saw him, for question him
as to his occupation or place of abode. She waked, but was as if still
dreaming of him. She found him there, where she had so long wished him
to be, quietly asked him to hand her a glass of water, took it from
him contentedly, returned the glass, kissed him as he bent over her,
and sank into along, tranquil sleep, from which she tranquilly and
apparently refreshed, but still taking Eugene's appearance as a matter
of course which called for no expression of surprise.

The physician now insisted on this state of contentment being left
undisturbed. He had long wished Mr. Godfrey and Hester out of the
house on account of the excitement they produced in his patient; he
now insisted that they should not be seen, heard, board named in the
sick-room; "in fact," he said to them, "if it were convenient, it
would be better you should retire from the house until Mrs. Godfrey
can herself be moved. A paroxysm now might kill her. Spare her that,
and I hope she will recover. This illness appears to have been
occasioned by mental anguish and evidently her son only has the power
to soothe her." Hester was deeply moved; Mr. Godfrey was angry, but he
hid his vexation. "He would wait a day or two," he said; "if Mrs.
Godfrey continued to improve, he would take Hester to Yorkshire, where
their presence was greatly needed."

He was, however, so much irritated that he would not see Eugene, in
spite of his entreaties conveyed by Annie. Meals were served up to him
and Hester in a separate room, and he now appeared only anxious to get
away. Hester was, however, almost heart-broken. She had not been
allowed to speak to Eugene; but the night before their departure,
after Mr. Godfrey had retired for the night, she sent a note to him
containing these words only:

"Come to my room, I am very unhappy.
Let me see you ere I go.
  "Your own sister,
     "HESTER."

"I thought you would not deny me, Eugene," she said, as the latter
entered her apartment; "you were ever kind and forgiving. Tell me,
first, have you any hopes of mother?"

"Indeed I have, dear sister, the greatest hopes."

"Do you call me 'dear sister'? You are not angry with me, then,
Eugene?"

"Not much more angry than I was the day you took my horse away when I
wanted to go hunting; do you remember it, Hester?"

"I do, but you would not speak to me then till mother reconciled us.
Dear mother! our childish quarrels always worried her. She was never
easy till she had set them right. Would we were children again,
Eugene, and our quarrels as easily adjusted." Hester was weeping as
she spoke.

"We may be, Hester, as soon as we so will it. Why should we lose the
simplicity, love, and truth that make childhood sweet?"

"Do you love me still, Eugene?"

"I do; nay, I admire you too, though I think you are mistaken."

"You are very good to say so. Now then, dear Eugene, I may tell you to
set our dear mother's mind at rest as soon at she can understand
reason. {610} You will tell her that, at least as for as I am
concerned, there shall be no injustice committed eventually. My father
gives me the control of his property now, which he has a right to do
if he so pleases; you have your allowance such as he promised you,
that is all right too; but tell my dear mother that, as far as it
depends on me, matters shall be made right at my father's death. It
would serve nothing, as you know, to moot the matter now, but I will
never rob you or any one. Tell my mother this, Eugene, and tell her to
restore to me her love."

"I will, my darling Hester. Now make yourself easy. Be sure my mother
loves you still, that I love you, that we all love you. Be easy, my
sister, my sweet sister." But Hester was weeping bitterly; the thought
of not being allowed to see her mother, to help nurse her, was almost
more than she could bear, and she very sorrowfully acquiesced in the
arrangement.



CHAPTER XXI.

PROGRESS AGAIN.

The estates in Yorkshire were indeed in need of the master's eye. One
of the clerks had absconded with a considerable sum of money; and this
touched Mr. Godfrey nearly: while Hester was more affected by the
discovery that the insidious doctrines of 'free love' were making
terrible inroads on the morality of the young people. She was the more
affected as she felt a natural repugnance to approach the subject. She
found the people legislating for themselves, and systematizing divorce
in what they deemed a manner consonant to nature. She was not prepared
for this development, and drew back in disgust. "Is there, then, no
remedy for this?" she asked of her father. "None but to legalize it, I
believe," he replied. "You know nothing of these things, child, and
had better not meddle with them. Legalizing divorce must take place
sooner or later, from causes you do not understand; nay, I do not
think the matter will stop there. As people become enlightened, and
live more according to the laws of nature, polygamy must be legalized
too;    [Footnote 174] it is the only way to prevent disorder. In
fact, but for the prejudice created by religion, it would have been
done long since in theory as it has ever been done in practice!"

  [Footnote 174: This plea is now used by intelligent men,
  non-Mormonites, to justify the existence of legalized polygamy in an
  American State. It is gravely asserted that only in Mormondom can
  the moral laws be enforced; that the practice in other states is the
  same without the sanction of the law, and that the absence of that
  sanction creates the disorders and night brawls of our streets.
  Order reigns in Utah!]

"Are you serious?"

"Perfectly so!"

"Then there must be something wrong, absolutely wrong. I can never be
brought to believe polygamy necessary; that must enslave a woman, and
I must protest against it."

"Protest as you will you will find nature too strong for your theory.
You have been so peculiarly brought up, Hester, by your poor mother,
that you know nothing, absolutely nothing, of the world's necessities,
and I begin to wish I had never let your eyes become unsealed. You are
a privileged one, and belonging to a privileged class; the majority of
the world are not so protected. But this is not a subject for you;
shut your eyes to these matters, and attended to the spread of
intelligence."

But it is not easy to shut one's eyes when once they have been opened.
Hester was stupefied. This came as a climax to the sorrow already
arising from her mother's illness, from her remorse in having partly
occasioned it. The woman's heart within her was beginning to make
itself felt. The occupations of the Yorkshire estate grew trite and
dull, until she had found a remedy for this grievance, a principal to
propose, a power with which to act. Mr. Godfrey was also gloomy from
his pecuniary loss through the embezzlement of the clerk, and matters
were assuming a very unpleasant appearance.

{611}

M. de Villeneuve called to pay them a parting visit, the illness of
his father called him to America.

"Shall you return to Europe?" said Mr. Godfrey.

"Yes; as soon as I can get away, I must return to take care of my
ward; and if I can possibly find a location for her order, take her to
America with me."

"Your ward? Her order?"

"Did you not know that Euphrasie de Meglior is my ward, that her
father increased her to my care the night before he died? That which
has kept me in Europe so long as been the hope of assisting her to
regain her estates and to establish yourself. Fortunately for my peace
of mind, I have been able partially to succeed in both. A part, though
but a small part, of the estate has been rescued; and Madame de
Meglior is already returned to France. Euphrasie thinks herself still
more fortunate. Four of the ladies of the continent where she was
educated have found shelter in England. They have met, and by the age
of friends have wherewith to establish themselves. They have taken a
house at------, about ten miles from this, and have already commenced
community life, two Euphrasie's great content."

"And Euphrasie did not return with her mother to France?"

"No. She resigned her right to the estate during madame's life."

"And what will she live on?"

"The poor Clares support themselves by their work."

Hester looked surprised, almost shocked. M. de Villeneuve continued:

"During my absence I have deputed warm friends to look after them,
and, as I said, my object is finally to transplant them to America.
But I must not forget to inquire after Mrs. Godfrey, of whose health I
hear such sad accounts. I do not wonder to perceive you are dejected,
every one must sympathize in your anxiety. But tell me, how was it
that Mrs. Godfrey, so lofty-minded, so motherly a woman, so full of
magnetism, if I may be allowed the expression, could bring herself to
patronize this materialistic scheme of education? Her loving heart
must have felt intuitively that systems, exterior expressions which
lack the vital principle, cannot regenerate the earth."

"I do not know that my mother ever did patronize my plans. She has
never been well enough to come to Yorkshire since they were started."

"No! Then you missed the benefit of her fine intuitive reasonings, and
of the results of her experience. Believe me, Miss Hester, applauding
as I do, perforce, the zeal which animates you, I am constrained to
tell you, you must necessarily fail. You appeal but to the selfish
passions; you will be startled one day at the demoralization that will
be manifested."

"I am beginning to feel this already," said Hester. "I want some power
that as yet I do not find."

Mr. Godfrey rose impatiently and went to the window, scarcely out of
earshot, but far enough away to decline any share in the conversation.
He was always displeased when his "best policy" principle was called
in question, though just now his pocket was suffering from that cause.

"You will find out soon the sanction you require," said M. de
Villeneuve. "Every real unperverted natural law is the material symbol
of a higher supernatural law, to which it is essentially related. It
is the disunion of these two laws in your mind that now perplexes you;
but you are too sincere in your search for truth not to perceive their
relative bearings at last."

"Truth! what is truth?" said Hester.

"Truth is the harmony of all things as they exist in God; as love is
their manifestation," said M. de Villeneuve. "The simplicity of ideas,
their order, beauty, harmony, find expression in the created world;
but the ideas themselves {612} are immaterial or spiritual, and have a
relative spiritual expression in the soul. You have taken one and left
the other, hence the failure. Missing the idea itself, you necessarily
fail in power, for spiritual power is needed to develop truly even the
material type. And, moreover, you cannot understand the type until you
possess the idea."

"Something is wanted, that is certain," said Hester; "but if all
virtue is typified in some material existence, tell me where is the
type of purity?"

"Where but in the virgin-mother," responded the comte. "In the mother
of him who died to obtain for man that power over sin which had
escaped him. The world lies the victim of its own self-will: it needs
a high ideal of purity and of sanctifying love, and this it finds in
Mary; it needs the power to work out this ideal, and this it finds in
Jesus. The progression of man is dearer to Mary than ever it can be to
you, for she is our mother, and the mother of our Redeemer; but
progression consists in sanctifying the individual, in destroying that
overweening empire of sense which overlies the spiritual faculty, and
which is fatal to woman in every sense, even in this world. Did you
never observe how the progression of ancient times ever riveted
woman's chains? From Egypt to Greece, from Greece to Rome, as luxury
increased the degradation of the majority of women followed. The
temples of the gods were filled with thousands of women enacting
scenes of horror under the name of worship. This affords a key to the
disorders that always accompanied ancient civilization, for woman is
the mother of the race, the peculiar impersonation of the affections,
and in her maternity the representative of that self-sacrificing
principle which forgets self in care for the welfare of her children.
Where woman is not cognizant of her true office, where her spiritual
affinities remain undeveloped, the race can get no further than
materialism, and that sensuous gratification which contains already
within itself the germ of decay, No For it is of earth, earthy. But
the divine instinct of religion, when proclaiming the 'grace to rise'
one for us by the cross on which the God-man died, raised Mary on the
altars of his church, for the special protection of all that is holy
and aspirative to in womanhood. And since that blessed time Christian
women have been respected as virgins and as mothers; as beings formed
to foster virtue and watch over the spiritual education of the of the
members of Christ's body. Mary acts wonderfully through her daughters.
Christian queens converted their husbands, and with them their
subjects throughout Europe; Christian matrons have given that tone to
society which now, even in this age of heresy, respect security in
theory, though it throws it off in practice. All that is pure, all
that is lovely, all that is harmonious and holy invests the shrine of
Mary, and from her influence proceeds the charm that represses vice,
converts the heart to goodness as its chief happiness, and gives power
to the individual to do those works of penance, of violence to self,
which win the kingdom of heaven; a kingdom which commences here, in
our own hearts, when we once enter into the harmonies of the religious
teachings of nature and of revelation."

Hester started to her feet. "Is this the office of Mary?" she
exclaimed.

M. de Villeneuve assented by a gesture.

"True or not true," said Hester, "this explanation does not in the
least savor of ignorance and superstition it is beautiful poetry!"

"And is not poetry the highest truth?" said the comte.

"No," said Mr. Godfrey, coming forward with a frown on his
countenance. "No! I wonder you religious people can never keep within
your proper bounds. I, who have traveled in France, in Belgium, and in
Italy, and seen the painted dolls and gaudy dressed-up images, protest
against your giving a poetic or philosophic dress to this idolatry or
mariolatry. When I {613} take Hester abroad, she will see with me that
this worship is nothing but the rankest superstition."

"But I thought you said there was always a meaning under every myth.
Pop, may not this be the meeting of 'Mary'"?

"Mary is no myth," said the Comte de Villeneuve, "she is a real, holy,
pure, and loving woman, to be loved with a personal affection!"

"Beware!" said Mr. Godfrey, "our family has suffered enough already
from these fantastic dreams. Eugene's Catholicity has driven his
mother crazy. If my Hester were to succumb, it would be even worse
with me. Let us make a truce with religion, I see it will produce no
other fruits than to set people buy the ears."

"As you will. I am leaving for America, can I bear a greeting from you
to my father?"

"Tell him to inspire his son with a little of his common sense. In a
twenty years' intercourse he never mentioned the word religion in my
family."

"You must forgive me, Mr. Godfrey," said the comte rising. "I thought
to console your daughter; she is much changed since I saw her last."

Hester was much changed, but never so much as now. She longed to thank
the comte, to unsay her father's rude words, but she dared not. She
dared not anger Mr. Godfrey. Nor was it necessary: her eyes had
kindled, her countenance had glowed, and the comte felt that his words
had not been thrown away, that Hester had received a revelation, and
he departed consoled.

It was a new study that Hester now entered upon. Woman as she was in
the olden time: in Greece and Rome; in Egypt and Abyssinia; in Persia
and India. Woman as she is everywhere where Christianity is not known,
where the mothership of Mary is ignored. The facts presented to her
were appalling, and none the less so that Mr. Godfrey was so peevish
when addressed on this subject. He felt intuitively that the more
Hester knew of this, the more she would shrink from materialism; and
if she abandoned him, if she adopted Catholicity, he would have lost
his last hope. He began to tire of "perfectibility" and "progress,"
the more that they seemed to detach his only joy from his side.

Yet with an old man's obstinacy he would not yield. Hester continued
her system, but now it was to watch more closely its results, to
penetrate the secret workings of the heart. She wanted to speak of
higher motive than self, but she knew not how. She only knew, and
daily she knew it more, that some high controlling power was wanting
which could speak to the heart and regulate the inward spirit: "Was
that power God?" "And Mary, was she a real manifestation of the power
of God residing in a woman's frame?"

Hester now wished this might be true.



CHAPTER XXII.

THE CONSOLATIONS OF RELIGION.

After a few weeks spent in the company of Eugene and Annie, Mrs.
Godfrey rallied somewhat, and the physicians prescribed change of air.
Her insanity had somewhat subsided, but she was now dull and stupid,
utterly unlike her former self, and her illness had affected her limbs
also so that she was obliged to be wheeled in a chaise-longue from one
place to another.

The place chosen for their new abode was a lone house within half a
mile of the sea-coast, the road to which lay in a beautiful valley
between two hills of considerable elevation. On the highest of these
was a light-house, which gave warning of the perilous nature of the
coast, while the neat little white dwellings of the coast-guardsmen,
at the foot of the hill, betokened that this was a locality famed for
smuggling excursions. Mrs. Godfrey was often laid on a couch placed on
wheels, and drawn by hand to the beach on the sea-shore. The murmur
{614} of the waves seemed to soothe her; and though she spoke very
little, she seemed by slow degrees to be recovering her faculties, and
now and then listened to the subjects discussed by her children,
Eugene and Annie, who were seldom away from her, and who took work or
study to the seaside, that they might while away the long hours of
attendance. After a little time they observed that when the weather
was pleasant an old blind woman was often led from one of the cottages
to a pleasant seat beneath the cliff, and that the two or three
children who played near her seemed to regard her with equal reverence
and affection.

The old woman knitted in the sunshine, now and then interrupting her
work to tell her beads or relate short stories to the young ones. In
the evening a tidy young woman, of most pleasing appearance, would
come to lead the blind woman home. This happened so often that the
faces became familiar, and Mrs. Godfrey began to watch for them as for
interesting objects, and at length she also began to wish to form
their acquaintance. One afternoon she had her chaise-longue wheeled up
to the side of the blind woman, and kindly inquired after her health.

"I am well, madam. Thanks for your inquiry," was the reply.

"And is this your daughter?" asked Annie, pointing to the young woman
who was just come to lead her home.

"She is my son's wife, thanks be to God, and sure no daughter of my
own could be better to me, who am but a burden to them all."

"Don't talk of burden, mother dear," said the young woman. "Sure, what
should we do without you? Don't you teach the children their prayers
and their catechism, and without you shouldn't we be almost like the
heathens in this land of--" She paused and colored.

"Heresy," suggested Eugene, as if concluding the sentence for her.

"No offence, sir, I hope," courtesied the woman.

Eugene took up the old woman's beads which had fallen to the ground,
reverently touched the cross with his lips, and restored them to her.
"No offence at all," said he. "This is a land of heresy and of
infidelity, and it cheers us to find out now and then one who
continues faithful to the truth. Where do you live?"

"In the white cottage yonder, sir."

"And your husband belongs to the coast-guard?"

"He does, sir."

"And is he a Catholic also?"

"Glory be to God, he is!" said the old woman.

"But how do you manage? Can you ever go to mass?"

"Not often, sir."

"Is there any priest near here?"

"None that I know of nearer than Arundel Castle. The Duke of Norfolk
has a private chaplain, they say." This was all that could be drawn
from the parties on that subject. They evidently feared to compromise
some one by speaking more plainly.

After this day Mrs. Godfrey seemed attracted to the poor blind old
woman. She had always been benevolent, though she seldom took a strong
personal interest in the object of her bounty, and beyond relieving
physical want had little idea of doing good. Now a new idea had taken
possession of her, she appeared to feel reverence for the cheerful
sufferer, and treated her with a proportionate respect and sympathy.

"Is your husband long dead," she asked.

"May God rest his soul! He has been dead these ten years."

"And how long have you been blind?"

"Nearly as long, praise be to God! I took the fever immediately after,
and the disease fell into my eyes, and when I recovered I was blind."

"Do you praise God, my good woman, for making you blind?"

{615}

"And why not, my lady? Sure 'tis he that knows best what is good for
us, and what is most for his own his honor and glory."

"But how can his honor and glory be promoted by your being blind?"
asked Mrs. Godfrey, as a dim recollection of Euphrasie crossed her
mind.

"Faith, then, and its little we know of such matters, and less that we
can tell. But we are sure that God created us himself, and wishes for
our love and service; and often when things go well with us we forget
him, and love ourselves and our friends so much that we neglect to
serve him; then he sends sorrow to recall us to himself, and for this
we should bless him."

"But has not God commanded us to love our neighbor?"

"Yes, my lady; but it must be with a holy love that we love our
neighbor, because he is the creature of God, the child of the same
Father. Many our kind from a dislike to feel pain or to witness pain,
but this is not the true worship required by God, who says we must
love him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength.
This real love submits in all things to his holy will, because it
gives 'self' into his keeping."

"But if you could see you might read of God, and learn to love him
better?"

"I never could read, my lady," was the reply.

"Then where did you get your knowledge?" asked Annie.

"The priest taught me my catechism, my lady and every Sunday and
holiday he explained it, and for many a long year I never missed the
lesson. Then we often had instructions at Mass, and he taught us the
rosary and the way of the cross. Ah! it is not the good father's fault
if the children of his congregation do not know their religion."

"And you never went to school?"

"To none other than the school of poverty which our Lord founded and
blessed," said the old woman. "Oftentimes we had scarcely potatoes
enough to eat, though we little ones tried to work as well as the big
ones; but labor was worth very little at that time, and afterward my
father took sick and lay for a long time helpless. We had hard times
of it in my young days."

"And did your mother take it very much to heart?"

"No, not very much. She grieved when my father died, though she hoped
and believed he was happy, and would smile through her tears while she
told us so. But for the rest, we all knew that it was not fine clothes
or dainty food that would make us happy: we knew that we should have
as much of both as it was God's will to send us, and we tried not to
wish for more. When we were cold and hungry mother would gather us
round her, and talk of that solemn midnight at Bethlehem when, under
the clear frosty sky, the angels came to the shepherds, singing songs
of glory, because the Lord of heaven and earth lay poor and helpless
in the stable at Bethlehem. Then she would tell us of the long, dreary
flight into Egypt, when Mary and Joseph begged hospitality by the way,
because they loved poverty, for it made them more immediately
dependent upon God. Then she showed us the poverty of Nazareth, and of
the time of his ministry, who had not where to lay his head; and we
became not only reconciled to poverty, we tried to love it for his
sake, who became poor for our sakes. So you see, my lady, we could not
be unhappy even when sorrow was upon us."

"Twas a sublime philosophy," said Annie.

"Rather say a glorious religion, Annie!" said Eugene. "Well might the
boast of the gospel be that it was preached unto the poor."

Conversations like these brought a new train of ideas to the minds of
both mother and daughter. Patience, meekness, and humility were
embodied before them, bringing with them such childlike confidence in
the providence of God that they could but feel such religion to be
indeed reality.

{616}





CHAPTER XXIII.

CONTROVERSY ON IMPORTANT POINTS.

"Brother," said Annie, "I begin to perceive that it is of necessity
that philosophy divides itself into two branches, the exoteric and
esoteric. The human mind evidently needs considerable preparation to
be able t comprehend the higher ideas that lie hidden under first
teachings. It is not so much the teachings that are separate as that
the mind must pass through a given process to arrive at the meaning.
Every form of matter seems a metaphor, involving a spiritual idea, and
many minds seem powerless to penetrate to this; they necessarily
remain content with the material explanation."

"And yet you blame religion for presenting defined dogmas, practical
methods, and real precepts to her children, forgetting that this is
the necessary preparation to higher truth, and that every mind must
begin at the beginning?"

"I blame only trivial and childish practices; I reject only untenable
doctrines."

"As for example?"

"The idea that a good God will plunge us into hell!"

"Have you ever reflected on what God is, Annie?"

"No! how should we know aught of such a being?"

"Chiefly by revelation, but also somewhat by observation."

"Give me your idea on the subject, Eugene."

"God is light, power, and love. He created intelligent beings, that he
might impart to them a degree of these attributes, and in their degree
call upon them to participate in the joys they impart. The unvarying
law impressed on material agencies, whether endowed with vitality or
not, did not (in all reverence be it spoken) content the love of God;
the enforced obedience of the material world to the attractions acting
upon it, and the instincts animating the various races of the verified
matter, though beautiful, though glorious evidence of power, wisdom,
and benevolence, did not call forth a consciousness of creatureship,
could not render to the creator a free-will offering of warm,
outpouring, grateful love. This the Creator desired. It is his
pleasure to desire to be loved; and he created the human soul for the
satisfying of this desire; he rendered it free, and endowed it with
the faculty of loving, that it may freely offer the purest love to
himself."

"Go on; how do you reconcile this with hell?"

"God is pure, holy, incapable of defilement, change, or division. His
essential being penetrates all space, comes in contact, literally,
with all material and spiritual existence. Now, God created the human
soul like unto himself, with affinities to himself, and in proportion
as that likeness continues or is restored, light, love, and power
exist in that soul. The absence of these constitutes disease, which
will result in spiritual death. They are absent in the wicked, and the
divine rays entering that soul cause pain, even as the rays of the sun
cause pain when they enter the eye of the body after it has become
diseased."

"But eternally?"

"The soul preserves its identity and consciousness eternally, though
it undergoes spiritual death. If by an act of volition it has lost
light, love, and power, it has not lost immortality, and the divine
rays, penetrating this wreck of life, necessarily fill it with terror
and dismay when all affinity for purity and holiness are destroyed.
The spirit of love, culturing the spirit of hate, must produce pain,
discord, rage; and as the strife is now unequal and hate is impotent,
it creates despair also. We see this on a minor scale on earth. The
French revolution {617} brought prominently before us men whose
spiritual faculties seemed already dead--men given up to a reprobate
sense, who appeared utterly beyond conversion, and who were styled by
the vulgar incarnate demons; yet these are immortal beings who will
carry their dispositions beyond the grave. Should you like hereafter
to come in contact with such?"

Annie shuddered. She thought of Alfred Brookbank, whose mere entrance
into the room had often caused her blood to curdle.

Eugene continued: "Remember, sister, that evil means cutting ourselves
off voluntarily from God, and thereby subjecting ourselves to become
the prey of our own passions, of our own selfishness, which when once
loosed may lead to every kind of excess. Good, on the contrary, is
living in God, adoring his will, admiring his perfections, loving his
law. While on earth the choice of good and evil is before us; and what
repugnances to perfect action or to perfect dispositions we find
difficult to overcome in this our fallen state will be overcome for us
if we pray in a sincere, in a co-operative spirit, or rather we shall
receive power to overcome all evil and to accomplish all good if only
in simplicity of heart we turn to him who is faithful to fulfil all
promises; for he has said, 'Ask and you shell receive' all graces
necessary to form in you the true spiritual life. If we choose to
neglect this means appointed by God, we have no right to complain of
the result."

"I will pray," whispered Annie.

"I, too," said Mrs. Godfrey, who was for the most part a silent
listener in these discussions. "Strange it is, Eugene, that you should
be teaching the principles which I ought to have instilled into you
from youth upward."

"Why, you were not a Catholic, mother!" said Eugene.

"No! but I had many opportunities of becoming instructed, had I been
willing; but I was worldly; I cared for none of these things; I did
not think the time would come when I should consider sorrow and
sickness a blessing: without that fearful malady and these paralyzed
limbs I might have died in ignorance of all that it most concerns me
to know. I have lived without God; dare I hope, Eugene, he will accept
my tardy return to him now?"

"The grace that is working in your heart to make you wish that return
is an evidence of his love for yon, dear mother; only continue to
respond to it, and all will be well."

. . . . .

"Brother," said Annie, on another occasion, "the accounts that we have
of the ancients soon after the deluge seem to denote that they were a
race of wondrous power. The mere history we have of the building of
the city of Babylon, its wondrous walls, its bricks so well cemented
by bitumen that they seemed imperishable; its six hundred and
seventy-six squares, so planned that they preserved the ventilation of
the city in perfect order; its provision for water; its hanging
gardens and palaces--to read of such cities as this and Nineveh and
many others, one imagines a fairy tale in hand instead of realities.
Then, I presume, the raising of those immense blocks of stone which go
to form the Pyramids would puzzle our modern engineers, as would many
things in that land of wonders, Egypt. Conceive a modern traveller
losing his way among the ruins of ancient temples that strew the site
where Thebes once stood, passing the night in the rude hut of a
Bedouin or Copt erected amid these ruins, and in the morning seated
upon a fallen pillar, making his meditation on 'Progression.' All
ancient, very ancient history, is instinct with power. What does this
mean?"

"That probably the knowledge that Adam imparted to his descendants was
greater than that which we now possess, or the intellectual faculties
may have been stronger before passion and egotism again corrupted the
race."

{618}

"You think the earlier men really possessed higher intellectual
facilities than we have now?"

"I think their works would warrant the assumption. Beside, it is
reasonable to suppose that Adam was created perfect according to his
nature, that it was endowed with the highest spiritual and
intellectual faculties, capable not only of understanding the material
creation in its laws of attraction, in the relationships of matter to
matter, but also of comprehending the type enfolded in each material
manifestation; the spiritual co-relationship existing between such
manifestation and the idea it represents. This spiritual faculty was
overborne by sin, impurity deluged the world, and a material deluge
destroyed the race. But to Noah, doubtless, the mental organization as
well as the spiritual power descended; hence immediately after the
deluge we see mighty works which betoken that high creative intellect
which inspire modern imitators with mute wonder."

"Then you think sin was absolutely a destroying power?"

"I do, even from the first. The intellectual faculties, when used as
the mere servant of the selfish passions, shrink and cannot receive
their full expansion, cannot perceive spiritual relationships, cannot
perceive man's moral relationships, each one to his fellow. Indulgence
of the passions, inordinately pursued, of itself cripples the
intellect and takes away the desire of intellectual culture;
selfishness, on the other hand, shuts up the fountains of knowledge,
in order to retain the material power that knowledge gives for selfish
purposes. Both these causes were in operation to cause that inequality
of fortune which finally wrought the 'castes' among mankind. The
knowing ones kept the knowledge transmitted from Noah downward in
their own exclusive possession, which the majority submitted to at
first in order more freely to indulge their passions, and afterward
because they could not help themselves, having (under the influence of
passion) fallen out of the intellectual sphere. Laws compelling by
force certain restraints became necessary, and soon labor was
performed by force also, and most of the laborers became slaves. These
laws, in their action, usually touched only the governed, that is,
those who had let the intellectual power slip from them. The governors
had, almost universally, power to trample on the common law when
applied to themselves; it was only when they came in contact with each
other, and intruded on each other's privileges, that they were called
to account. I speak not of the theory, but of the practice; there was
one law for the rich, another for the poor, throughout all ages. What
was called civilization, before the coming of Christ, did not touch
the poor, the enslaved; the down-trodden slaves had little chance of
justice or of mercy. What was meant by liberty applied only to the
freemen; the want of remembering this leads many two mistakes in
comparing the civilization of ancient and modern times. The gospel
preached to the poor taught them to repress the empire of the
passions, thus slowly but surely causing that rise of intellect in the
masses which has swept slavery from Europe, and from all countries
where the laborer has followed even imperfectly this first requisite,
the doing which has enabled him to cultivate his intellect
sufficiently to compete with those in possession of power. A people
enslaved my passion easily succumb to external force, as a virtuous
people, however poor, have an innate power of preserving external
freedom. The external depends on the internal. One is a manifestation
of the other; almost a consequence."

"Then," said Annie, "if I have understood you aright, man was
originally in direct communication with his Creator. Sin not only
destroyed this communication, which was the source of all knowledge
and happiness, it impaired the faculties through which that
communication is held."

"Yes," said Eugene.

{619}

"And as temporal happiness is but the reflex of spiritual happiness,
the necessary result of order in the spiritual relationship, it
follows that the spiritual order must be restored before the natural
order can yield the happiness it is calculated to produce. This, then,
is the redemption, penance, violence to flesh, and to self will,
before the restoration can take place; these being the necessary
medicine to heal the soul's diseases. Those who refuse the medicine
perish."

"You surprise me, sister," said Eugene; "you are apt at
understanding."

"You forget that long since the enigma was propounded to us. I am but
just getting my ideas into form. You will tell me if I have drawn
correct inferences. Man, by the fall, lost not only actual knowledge
and actual means of knowledge, but he lost empire over the animal
world, and, worse than all, over himself; he became a slave to his own
appetites and passions, and to his own self-will. From this state no
effort of his own could rescue him. The Redeemer came to offer him
means of rescue, to enable him to re-establish spiritual
communication, to bring man again into such actual relationship with
God that he shall look up to him, practically as well as
theoretically, as the highest metaphysical teacher; as the source of
real power and light to the understanding; the restorer of all things
to their pristine harmony. Is this so?"

"It is."

"And naturally this restoration must begin by the healing of the
disorders of the soul. The first impulses of grace create desire for
goodness, purity, and truth; but the old man is still within, and can
only be subdued by violence done to ourselves. 'The kingdom of heaven
suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.' This is why the
saints welcome mortification and suffering, looking on them as tools
with which to subdue themselves, with which they may be enabled to
offer themselves a living sacrifice to God. This is why what men call
'progress' is repugnant to sanctity--progress meaning increased
facilities for indulging the passions; facilities which, as we advance
in sanctity, we learn to dispense with more and more. This is what
Euphrasie meant when she puzzled us at her first coming."

"Indeed, sister, I believe it is."

"And her non-appreciation of human learning must have arisen from the
intense pleasure she felt in personal, absolute dependence upon God.
She did not want to know the material intermediate sequences; of all
things, she preferred feeling they came to her directly from her
Father's hand."

"I presume this was the case."

"Then, too, if I understood her aright, the soul, purified by prayer,
mortification, and good works, becomes by the grace of God detached
from the things of this world; it seeks its rest only in God, and then
it begins to regain some of the sublime spiritual privileges it had
lost. Even on earth it may hold communication with the glorified
spirits in heaven, while these glorified spirits themselves, blessed
with the beatific vision, drink in sensations of beauty, harmony, and
delight, such as exist only in God, and of which we cannot form the
slightest conception."

Eugene could only press his sister's hand in silence. She continued:

"It is this union of spiritual natures with our struggling existence,
this interest taken by the saints in glory in the members of the
church militant on earth, that you term the 'communion of saints,' is
it not, Eugene?"

"Yes, Annie."

"And men have dared to call the recognition of this divine union, of
this sacred bond of love, idolatry! It is the true conquest over
death! the earnest of our own loving immortality! How absurd to call
so beautiful a demonstration of the effect of divine charity
'idolatry'!"

"As absurd," said Eugene, "as to believe that God, in providing means
to redeem men from the death of sin, should not watch over those
means, and preserve them intact from man's defilement."

{620}

"Yes," interposed Mrs. Godfrey, "it is wonderful that men who believe
in revelation should not see, _primâ facie_, that the same miraculous
interposition which produced the revelation would, as if of necessity,
watch over and protect that revelation." Then suddenly becoming very
earnest, she said: "Eugene, I am drawing near my end, I feel it every
day more. You must bring me a priest, if, indeed, one so worthless as
I can become a member of the church of Christ. O my God! it scarcely
seems possible that a life of worldliness should be followed by an
eternity of bliss! But I will hope against my feelings of justice! The
blood of Jesus is powerful to save. O my God! accept it; it was shed
for me in pity and in mercy."

"And for me, too," said Annie. "I must be a Catholic also."

"But have you considered the cost, Annie? Your husband! your
children!"

"I have weighed everything, and am resolved."

"I think feet, O my God!" said the sick woman. "O eternal justice! I
offer thee my children's faith, my children's courage, in union with
the precious blood of thy Son, to atone for my own shortcomings. Oh!
bless these my children--give them grace to persevere!"

There was a solemn pause. Than she added: "Annie, there is suffering
in store for you, but you will accept it. Eugene will be to a friend,
a protector, a guide. I made my will before this malady came on. I
dare not change it now, lest it should be disputed. I left to Eugene
all that I have to leave, but he will provide for you, if provision is
needed; and you, Annie, will confide in him when you need a friend."

"I will, dear mother," faltered Annie. "Surely, we have always loved
each other."

Eugene threw his arm around his sister's waist, and kneeling by his
mother's side, solemnly pledged himself self to watch over his sister
and care for her.



TO BE CONTINUED.

----------

ORIGINAL.


PARDON.


"Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much."


  Love may, then, hope to quite refund
    What sin hath ta'en away?
  Poor heart! thou hast a debt beyond
    Thy straitened means to pay.

  My sins in number far excel
    The sands beside the sea.
  Lord! if thou wilt, I pay thee well.
    Then lend thy heart to me.

----------

{621}



From Chamber's Journal.


SEA-SIDE FLOWERS.


Visitors to the sea-shore love to wander along the beach in search of
the beauteous shells of scallop or cowry, left by the retiring tide,
and delight to trace their exquisite design and structure; or,
scrambling over the shiny rocks, covered with treacherous algae, will
appear into the little pools, fringed with crimson and purple weed,
inhabited by various anemones, gray shrimps, and darting fish, in
hopes of discovering some new treasure to capture, and carry off in
triumph for the aquarium at home; but how few care to examine the
modest beauty of the many sea-side flowers blooming on regarded at
their very feet; nay, their very existence often unknown, or looked
upon as common weeds, devoid of all beauty or interest. Many a lover
of wildflowers and country beauty will pause in the fields and lanes,
and even dusty roads that skirt the shore--especially if they be on
the southern coasts of England--where the brier and hawthorn hedges
are tangled with luscious honeysuckle, and the primroses cluster in
masses; where the wild hyacinth peeps from amidst the nettles, and the
speedwell opens its "angel's eyes" of loveliest azure; but as they
approached the sea-beach, the proverb of its sterility,

  "Barren as the sand on the sea-sure,"

is felt, and not is expected or looked four but the rich harvest of
the ocean's wondrous things cast on the shingle, or left in the pools
beyond. The immediate banks and links of the sea-side are usually
treeless, and, to non-observant eyes, dreary wastes; but not a spot on
this wide world is without its interest and beauty, and delightful it
is, when rambling along the sandy beach, listening to the music of the
waves on the pebbly shore, to find how many lovely blossoms are
scattered even here, ornamenting the rugged sides of the chalky cliff
or rock, weaving a flowery tapestry over the sloping links, and
binding together with interlaced roots the loose substance of many a
sand-bank.

Unlike the country meadows, where the loveliest blossoms appear with
the earliest sunshine of the year, the fairest sea-side flowers are to
be gathered during the summer and autumn months; though even in
spring, the turf which enamels the links, down often to the water's
edge, will be found decked with an occasional early blossom,

  "As if the rainbows of the first fresh spring
  Had blossomed where they fell."

While, at all seasons of the year, here as elsewhere,

  "Daisies with their pinky lashes"

raise their glad faces to the sun:

  "On waste and woodland, rock and plain.
    Its bumble buds unheeded rise;
  The rose has but a summer reign--
    The daisy never dies."

The first gleam of spring sunshine is, however, reflected not only by
the silver daisy, but by that "sunflower of the spring," the golden
dandelion, which glitters as early as April on the sandy, grassy
slope, familiar to all, and common everywhere. The leaves of the
dandelion grow from the root; they are deeply cut and notched, and
from this have gained their name, which we English have corrupted from
the French _dent-de-lion_. The Scotch call the dandelion the hawkweed
gowan. The leaves are much eaten on the continent for salad, and a
medicine is extracted from the root. Every one is familiar {622} with
the downy ball that succeeds the flower:

  "The dandelion with globe of down,
  The school-boy's clock in every town.
  Which the truant puff's amain,
  To conjure lost hours back again."

When Linnaeus proposed the use of what he termed a floral clock, which
was to consist of plants which opened and closed their blossoms at
particular hours of the day, the dandelion was one of the flowers
selected, because its petals open at six; the hawkweed was another--it
opens at seven; the succory at eight, the celandine and marigold at
nine, and so on, the closing of the blossoms marking the corresponding
hours in the afternoon. Nor is this the effect of light on the plants,
because, when placed in a dark room, the flowers are found to open and
close their petals at the same times.

In the month of May many sea-side blossoms appear; but in June they
burst forth in such wild profusion that we are at a loss to know which
to gather first:

  "For who would sing the flowers of Jane,
  Though from gray morn to blazing noon.
  From blazing noon to dewy eve.
  The chaplet of his song he weave,
  Would find his summer daylight fail,
  And leave half told the pleasing tale."

We must only attempt to pluck such as are most common, and most likely
to attract attention.

Many a sea-side cliff is adorned with the handsome pale-yellow
clusters of the sea-cabbage, which flowers from May until the late
autumnal months, and is very ornamental, hanging in tufts from the
crevices of the chalky heights. It grows from one to two feet high,
has woody stems, and leaves a deep green, tinged with purple and
yellow. It is very common on the Dover cliffs, where it is gathered,
and sold to be boiled and eaten. From it spring our numerous varieties
of cabbage; and this reminds me how very greatly we are indebted to
our sea-side plants for many of our most valuable vegetables: the
fresh crisp celery, the dainty asparagus, the beet, and sea-kale, in
addition to the cabbage, are all derived from our salt-marshes, and,
under careful cultivation, have become what they are.

The rest-harrow, which we gather in the cornfield, may also be found
adorning many a green patch on on the chalky cliff-side or sandy bank
near the sea. Its woody thorns are more abundant and stronger than
when when flourishing in richer soil. Its leaves are numerous and
small, its butterfly-shaped blossoms usually a purple-rose color, but
sometimes almost white. Near the sea-side, I have often found the
little see-pearl-wort, which requires close observation to detect it.
It grows upright, has tiny, delicate leaves, and flower-cups tinged
with a reddish-purple color.

Very common in the sand is the sea-rocket, a smooth, glaucous plant,
with pretty lilac-pink flowers, which often mixes its blossoms with
the white petals of the scurvy-grass.

But June flowers press upon us: here we have plentiful at Dover and
many other sea-side places the viper's bugloss, certainly one of the
handsomest wild-flowers, either of the neglected field or beach that
we have. It is a magnificent plant, sometimes attaining the height of
three feet, its rich purple blossoms, with their long bright-red
stamens, often extending half-way down the stems. It is peculiar for
the variety of tints it exhibits in its flowers, the buds being a rosy
red, but expanded blossom a rich purple, which gradually assumes a
deep blue. Sometimes it is found white. The stems and leaves are
covered with bristles and brownish warts, or tubercles. Its name is
taken from the resemblance the seeds bear to a viper's head, and its
spotted stem to the snake's skin; and in olden times the plant was
supposed to heal the bite of a viper. It flourishes best on a chalky
bill or sandy waste ground:

  "Here the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil,"

and rears its rich spike of closely sent flowers with a stately air.
Though its foliage is coarse, its blossom is very beautiful; not easy,
however, together, for bees are ever hovering around it; {623}

  "Flying solicitous from flower to flower,
    Tasting each sweet that dwells
    Within its scented valves";

and oft tearing their delicate wings among the thick, hairy prickles.
The common kidney-vetch flourishes luxuriantly by the sea-shore,
decking the heights with its handsome yellow flowers from May to
September. It crowds its blossoms into flower-cups, thickly covered
with down; and two such tufts or beads usually grow at the top of each
stem. It is as common a flower on the continent as with us, though it
varies in color--owing, Linnaeus tells us, to the nature of the soil.
The French call it _barbe de Jupiter_, Jupiter's beard. We also give
it the names of lady's-fingers and lambtoe. Clare tells us:

  "The yellow lambtoe I have often got,
  Sweet creeping o'er the banks in sunny time."

Daring June, the common pellitory of the wall spreads over many a
rocky spot, sometimes trailing its stems over the surface, and at
others rising erect, a foot high. Its leaves grow up the hairy stalk,
and are mixed with the small purple-red flowers that lie closely
against the stem. The white ox-eye, though loving best to bow in
beauty midst the waving grass of the meadow, may yet be found straying
near the coast; and very beautiful are its large solitary
flower-heads, with their rich golden centre and pure white ray.

Several thistles are to be found flourishing by the sea-coast,
blooming from June to September. Perhaps the most familiar is the
common sow-thistle, growing on almost every waste place, and greatly
relished by rabbits, on account of the milky juices it contains. Its
leagues are deeply notched, the lobes turned backward, its flowers
yellow. The milk-thistle is easily recognized by its large leaves
veined with white, and deep purple flowers. It is a prickly plant,
often growing as high as four or five feet. Though common in England,
it is rare in Scotland, and, I have red, is only to be found on the
rocky cliffs near Dumbarton Castle, where tradition tells it was
planted by Mary, Queen of Scots. The star-thistle may occasionally be
found among the wild blossoms of the sea-side, growing on cliff-tops,
or green patches of the beach. It has hard woody spines, standing out
from the flower-cup only, and in this differs from the other thistles;
which are usually covered with sharp bristles, and seem defiantly to
announce:

  "I am sir Thistle, the surly,
    The rough and the rude and the burly;
      I doubt if you'll find
      My touch quite to your mind,
  Whether late be your visit or early."

July comes laden with a host of fair blossoms of her own, as numerous
as those of June:

  "Bright gems of earth, In which perchance we see
  What Eden was, what Paradise may be."

Perhaps one of the most attractive, as well as one of the first in
beauty, and blooming down almost to the water's edge, is the
yellow-horned poppy, scattering its crumpled golden blossoms with
every passing breeze on the surrounding sea-weed. Its stems and leaves
are a delicate blue-green, wearing the bloom that is called glaucous,
from which its botanical name is taken. It is hairy, and its peculiar,
curved, horn-like pods are often half a foot long. It is a showy,
handsome plant, but smells badly, and is said to be poisonous. Quite
as pretty, and far less harmful, is the sea-convolvulus, trailing its
rose-colored bells with yellow rays, and dark-green succulent leaves,
in clusters on the sandy links, where it presents a succession of
delicate, short-lived flowers; and equally common but less showy, are
the green blossoms and thick wavy leaves of the sea-beet (_Beta
maritima_), which, when cultivated, we often recognize as a useful
vegetable. I have often gathered near the sea the hound's-tongue,
easily recognized by its dark purple-red blossoms, and strong smell of
mice. Its soft downy leaves are supposed to resemble in form the
tongue of a dog, and from this it derives its Greek and common name.
It is a tall plant, often growing two feet hi. Its foliage is a dull
green, its flowers a rich claret color.

{624}

On the sandy downs and in the rock-crevices down even to the shore,

  "Flourishing so gay and wildly free,
  Upon the salt-marsh by the roaring sea,"

are the pink and white heads of the sea-pink, or well-known thrift, so
often used as a bordering in our flower-gardens, but here hanging in
little tufts from the rocks, thriving where little nourishment can be
afforded, and thus well meriting its name. Its leaves grow from the
root, and mostly resemble coarse grass. Its flowers form round heads
of lilac-pink blossoms, and crown downy stalks, some four inches high.
There, too, is

  "The sea-lavender, which lacks perfume,"

and is a species of everlasting, retaining its color and form long
after being gathered. Its spike of blue-lilac flowers is very
handsome. There are several species of sea-lavender; and in August we
have the delicate, lilac-blue blossoms and bluish-green foliage of the
upright-spiked sea-lavender, so often gathered to deck the winter
vase. It is smaller both in leaf and flower than the former species.

Growing down, even amid the sand, we may now gather the compact head
of the tall eryngo, or sea-holly, which has blue blossoms, in shape
resembling the thistle's; and firm prickly leaves, beautifully veined,
and adorned with that pale sea-green bloom so common in our sea-side
plants. It grows about a foot high, and is stiff and rigid.

One of the purest-tinted blue flowers that we have may be found
flourishing by the sea. It is the narrow-leaved pale flax, a sweet,
delicate, fragile blossom, that drops its petals as we gather it. It
is a tall plant, with a solitary flower on each stem, and small
alternate leaves, adorning each to the root. Its stem is tough and
fibrous, like all its species. The flax cultivated for commerce is a
pretty pale-blue bell, erect and fragile, dancing and trembling with
the faintest whisper of the passing breeze. Mrs. Howitt well describes
it:

  "Oh! the goodly flax-flower!
    It groweth on the hill;
  And be the breeze awake or asleep
    It never standeth still!
  It seemeth all astir with life,
    As if it loved to thrive,
  As if it had a merry heart
    Within its stem alive."

How pretty are the little sendworts now in blossom, especially the
sea-pimpernel, or sea-side sandwort, which blooms in shining, glossy
patches only a few inches high. Its clustering white flowers are
almost hidden by the sick, crowding, succulent leaves. There are ten
species of sandwort. Perhaps the commonest of all is the sea-spurry
sandwort, which hangs its little blossoms in trailing tufts from the
cliff-sides.

In this month also we may gather the white-rayed flowers of the
sea-side feverfew, which often grows far down on the beach. Its
blossoms are the size of a daisy, its stems tick, its leaves stalky,
its growth low. And now also, decking the size of the banks, is the
perfoliate yellowwort with its bright yellow flowers, and pale
sea-green leaves, which grow in couplets, joining at the base, the
stalk passing through them. The plant grows about a foot high, is not
uncommon, and to be found in flourishing abundance on the Kentish
coast.

Fringing the summit of the tall sea-cliffs, and clothing with its
clusters of yellowish-white flowers and fleshy sea-green leaves the
many crevices on the steep sides of the rocks, we may see the
samphire, so plentiful on the southern shores, and especially at
Dover, where it is gathered during May 4 pickle. That there is danger
to the gatherer we may infer from Shakespeare's mention in King Lear,
whence the scene is laid near Dover:

        "Half-way down
 Hangs one that gathers samphire: dreadful trade!"

{625}

Several kinds of sea southern wood are now showing their green
flowers; the saltwort and funny-looking, jointed-branched, leafless
glasswort are to be gathered now, both so useful for the soda they
contain.

There is a species of nightshade often to be found flourishing on our
see beaches, with blossoms shaped like the potato-flower, but white,
and followed by black berries, highly poisonous.

These are also the dwarf-centaury and dwarf-tufted centaury, neither
growing beyond a few inches in height, both possessing light-green
stems and clusters of rose-colored blossoms.

The buck's-horn plantain is common on the sea-shore. It derives its
name from the peculiar cutting of its leaves.

Very common on the rocky bank is the wild mignonette. Though lacking
the sweet fragrance of the garden species, its pale greenish-yellow
spikes are very ornamental. The sea-side pea grows on the links and
banks of our beaches, but is uncommon. Its butterfly shaped blossoms
remind one of the sweet-pea of the garden:

  "Where swelling peas on leafy stalks are seen,
  Mixed flowers of red and azure shine between."

During the great famine of 1555, it is said that thousands of families
subsisted on the seeds contained in the pods of the sea-side pea.

Near the beach, I have often gathered the knot-grass, so named from
the knottiness of its stem, and to be found flourishing everywhere:

      "By the lone quiet grave,
  In the wild hedgerow, the knot-grass is seen,
      Down in the rural lane,
      Or on the verdant plain,
  Everywhere humble, and everywhere green."

Shakespeare has called it "the hindering knot-grass," on account of
the obstacles its trailing, tangled stems offer to the husbandman.
Milton speaks of it as

 "The knot grass, dew besprent."

It is familiar to almost every eye, forming little green patches even
between stones of our streets, its tiny pale-pink blossoms growing so
closely to the stem as to be half hidden among the leaves. Its seeds
and young buds afford a store of food for birds; and it is said that
swine and sheep love to feed upon it. Milton tells us,

      "The chewing flocks
  Had ta'en their supper of that savory herb,
  The knot-grass."

It bears little resemblance to a grass but this reminds me that among
our sea-side plants the grasses are perhaps the most interesting, as
well as useful and important, and are often of great service by their
spreading mass of tough underground stems offering a strong resistance
to the inroads of the sea. Several of the shores of England are so
protected; and the greater part of the coast of Holland, being
composed of dikes, owes its security to the powerful obstacles the
peculiar growth of these grasses affords. Thus we see

  "The commonest things may ofttimes be
  Those of the greatest utility.
  How many uses hath grass which groweth,
  Wheresoever the wild wind bloweth."

Useful as the sea-side grasses are, however, we have not space in this
short paper to take more than a passing glance at them, remarking that
the two most deserving of notice for their value in sea-resistance are
the sea-wheat grass and the sea-reed.

I have often seen flourishing near the sea-coast the rich clusters of
the ragwort (_Senecio Jacoboea_), bright as the golden sunbeam, waving
its tall blossoms in the breeze, and emitting a strong smell of honey.
It opens its flowers first in July, but often,

  "Coming like an after-thought,
  When other flowers are vainly sought,"

lingers on until Christmas; and when cold winds and wintry snows have
withered every other flower, this remains,

  "A token to the wintry earth that beauty liveth still".

Very pretty is the yellow carpet spread on the dry bank by the yellow
bed-straw, with its mass of tiny blossoms and slender thready leaves
of brilliant green. Its flowers, like those of the ragwort just
mentioned, also smell sweetly of honey. In the Hebrides, a
reddish-brown dye is extracted from its roots.

{626}

In September, we see the tall, handsome golden-rod, not only in our
woods and hedgeways, but also on the sea-side cliff, somewhat stunted
in growth, but still beautiful with its crowded clusters of golden
blossoms, over which butterflies, moths, and bees hover incessantly,
in spite of its

  "Florets wrapped in silky down,
    To guard it from the bee."

In the days of Queen Elizabeth it was sold in the London markets by
herb-dealers. It was supposed to cure wounds.

Then also the Michaelmas daisy, or sea-starwort, opens its pale lilac
petals, and continues to blossom until other flowers have nearly all
faded away:

  "And the solo Lawson which can glad the eye
  Is yon pale starwort nodding to the wind."

It often grows as high as three feet; its leaves are smooth, a sickly
green in color, and very succulent. At this time we shall also find
the marsh-mallow. It is a medicinal plant, containing a quantity of
starchy mucilage, which is formed into a paste, and taken as a cure
for coughs. Its flowers are a pretty rose-tint; its leaves soft,
downy, and very thick. It grows about two feet high, and is altogether
an attractive, handsome plant, the more more valued,

  "Because a fair flower that illumines the scene
      When the tempest of winter is near;
  'Mid the frowns of adversity, cheerful of mien,
  And gay, when all is dark and serene".

Such are a few of the sea-side blossoms to be gathered on our coasts.
Let my reader, next summer, take a ramble along the beach, and hunt
for themselves, when they may discover a host of fresh beauties rising
on all sides, creeping over the loose sand, topping the rocky heights,
or decking the grassy slopes--

  "As though some gentle angel,
    Commissioned love to bear,
  Had wandered o'er the greensward,
    And left her footprints there."

Let not the humblest, most neglected flower be discarded, for each
bears its own little mine of beauty, front with instruction, and the
promptings of pure and holy thoughts, that lead the mind from "nature
up to nature's God."

      "Nature never did betray
  The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege
  Through all the years of this our life to lead
  From joy to joy; for she can so inform
  The mind that is within us, so impress
  With quietness and beauty, and so feed
  With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
  Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
  Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
  The dreary intercourse of daily life,
  Shall e're prevail against us, or disturb
  Our cheerful face, that all that we behold
  Is full of blessings."

----------

ORIGINAL.


ON THE REQUEST OF THE DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS.


  "I will that forthwith thou give me
  in a dish the head of John the Baptist."


  Fie, silly child! Thou askest more
  Than Herod doth engage to grant--
    As time hath truly shown.
  That head, enshrouded in its gore,
  Would be a price exorbitant
    For all of Herod's throne.

------

{627}

ORIGINAL.


THE CHURCH AND MONARCHY.


Mr. Bancroft, the learned and philosophical historian of the United
states, in one of his volumes devoted to the history of the American
Revolution, makes the remark that "Catholics are in general inclined
to monarchy, and Protestants to republicanism." This is a very common
opinion with non-Catholic American writers, and a large portion of the
American people honestly fear that the rapid spread of catholicity in
this country is pregnant with danger to our republican institutions.
Dr. England, late bishop of Charleston, one of the most illustrious
Catholic prelates the country has ever had, maintained, on the
contrary, with great earnestness and force, that the church does not
favor monarchy, but does favor republicanism. What is the fact in the
case? The question is not doctrinal, but historical, and relates to
Catholics and Protestants, rather than and Protestantism.

It should be observed before entering into any investigation of the
historical facts in the case, that in the Catholic mind theology is
superior to politics; and no intelligent Catholic ever consents or can
consent to have his religion tried by a political standard. The
church, the Catholic holds, represents what is supreme, eternal,
universal, and immutable in human affairs, and that political
principle or system which conflicts with her, is by that fact alone
condemned as false; for it conflicts with the eternal, universal, and
immutable principles of the divine government, or the truth and
constitution of things. Religion is for every one who believes in any
at all the supreme law, and in case of conflict between religion and
politics, politics, not religion, must give way.

Well grounded in his faith, sure of his church, the Catholic has never
any dread of historical facts, and can always, so far as his religion
is concerned, enter upon historical investigations with perfect
freedom and impartiality of mind. He has no fear of consequences. Let
the historical fact turn out as it may, it can never warrant any
conclusions unfavorable to his religion. If the fact should place his
politics in conflict with his religion, he knows they are so far
untenable, and that he must modify or change them. The historian of
the United States is deeply penetrated with a sense of the
independence and supremacy of moral or spiritual truth, and with a
justice rare in non-Catholic writers, attributes much of the
corruption of French society in the last century to the subjection of
the church to the state. Most non-Catholic writers, however, consider
what is called Gallicanism as far more favorable to society than what
they call Ultramontanism; and in doing so, prove that they really,
consciously or unconsciously, assume the supremacy of the political
order, not of the religious. But in this they grossly err, and make
the greater yield to the less; for not only is religion in the nature
of things superior to politics, but one is always more certain of the
truth of his religion than he is or can be of the wisdom and soundness
of his politics.

The church teaches the divine system of the universe, asserts and
maintains the great catholic principles from which proceeds all life,
whether religious or political, and without which there can be neither
church nor state; but it is well known that she prescribes no
particular constitution of the state or form of civil government, for
no {628} particular constitution or form is or can be catholic, or
adapted alike to the wants and interests of all nations. Whatever is
catholic in politics, that is, universally true and obligatory, is
included in theology; what is particular, special, temporary, or
variable, the church leaves to each political community to determine
and manage for itself according to its own wisdom and prudence.

Every statesman worthy at all of the name knows that the same form of
government is not fitted alike to the wants and interests of all
nations, nor even of the same nation through all possible stages of
its existence; and hence there is and can be no catholic form of
government, and therefore the church, as catholic, can enjoin no
particular form as universally obligatory upon Catholics. Were she to
do so she would attempt to make the particular universal, and thus war
against the truth and the real constitution of things, and belie her
own catholicity. The principles of government, of all government, are
catholic, and lie in the moral or spiritual order, as do all real
principles. These the church teaches and insists on always and
everywhere with all her divine authority and energy; but their
practical application, saving the principles themselves, she leaves to
the wisdom and prudence of each political community. The principles
being universal, eternal, and unalterable, are within the province of
the Catholic theologian; the practical application of the principles,
which varies, and must vary, according to time and place, according to
the special wants and interests of each political community, are
within the province of the statesman.

Such being the law in the case, it is evident that the church does and
can prescribe no particular form of civil government, and Catholics
are free to be monarchists, aristocrats, or democrats, according to
their own judgment as statesmen. They are as free to differ among
themselves as to forms of government as other men are, and do differ
more or less among themselves, without thereby ceasing to be sound
Catholics. Mr. Bancroft, however, does not even pretend that the
church requires her children to be monarchists, and he more then once
insinuates that her principles, as Bishop England maintains, tend to
republicanism, the contrary of what is done by most non-Catholic
writers.

To determine what is the fact we must define our terms. _Monarchy_ and
_republic_ are terms often vaguely and loosely used. All governments
that have at their head a king or Emperor are usually called, by even
respectable writers, monarchies, and those that have not are usually
called republics, whether democratic like ancient Athens, aristocratic
like Venice prior to her suppression by General Bonaparte, or
representative like the United States. But this distinction is not
philosophical or exact. All governments, properly speaking, in which
the sovereignty is held to rest in the people or political community,
and the king or emperor holds from the community and represents the
the majority of the state, are Republican, as was Imperial Rome or is
Imperial France; all governments, on the other in which the
sovereignty vests not in the political community, but in the
individual and is held as a personal right, or as a private estate,
are in principal monarchical. This is, in reality, the radical
distinction between republicanism and monarchy, and between
civilization and barbarism, and it is so the terms should be
understood.

The key to modern history is the struggle between these two political
systems, or between Roman civilization and German barbarism, and
subsequently to Charlemagne, were especially between feudalism and
Roman imperialism. In this struggle the sympathies and influences of
church have been on the side against barbarism and feudalism, and in
favor of the Roman system, and therefore on the side of republicanism,
Rome, theoretically and in name, {629} remained a republic under the
emperor from Augustus to Augustulus. However arbitrary or despotic
some of the Caesars may have been and certainly were in practice, in
principle they were elective, and held their power from the political
community. The army had always the faculty of bestowing the military
title of Imperator or emperor, and all the powers aggregated to it, as
the tribunitial, the pontifical, the consular, etc., were expressly
conferred on Augustus by the senate and people of Rome. The
sovereignty vested in the political community never in the person of
the emperor. The emperor represented the state, but never was himself
the state. In principle Roman imperialism was republican, not in the
strict or absolute sense monarchical at all.

The barbarian system brought from the forests of Germany was in its
principle wholly different. Under it power was a personal right, and
not, as under Roman imperialism, a trust from the community. With the
barbarians there were tribes, nations, confederations, but no
commonwealth, no republic, no civil community, no political people, no
state. Republic, _res publica_, Scipio says, in the _Republica_ of
Cicero, cited by St. Augustine in his _De Civitate Dei_, means _res
populi_; and he adds, that by people is to be understood not every
association of the multitude, but a legal association for the common
weal. "Non esse omnem coetum multitudinis, sed coetum juris condensu
et utilitatis communione sociatum."  [Footnote 175] In this sense
there was no people, no _res populi,_ or affairs of the people, under
the barbarian system, nor even under the feudal system to which, with
some Roman ideas it gave birth after Charlemagne. Absolute monarchy,
which alone is properly monarchy, according to Bishop England, did not
exist among the barbarians in its full development; but it existed in
germ, for its germ is in the barbarian chieftainship, in the fact that
with the barbarians power is personal, not political, a right or
privilege, not a trust, and every feudal noble developed is an
absolute monarch.

  [Footnote 175: Apud St. Augustine, tom. vii. 75. B.]

These two systems after the conquest occupied the same soil. What
remained of the old Roman population continued, except in politics, to
be governed by the Roman law, _lex Romanorum_, and the barbarians by
the _lex barbarorum_, or their own laws and usages. But as much as
they despised the conquered race, the barbarians borrowed and
assimilated many Roman ideas. The ministers of the barbarian kings or
chiefs were for a long time either Romans or men trained in the Roman
schools, for the barbarians had no schools of their own, and the old
schools of the empire were at no time wholly broken up, and continued
their old course of studies with greater or less success till
superseded by modern universities. The story told us of finding a copy
of the Civil or Roman Law at Amalfi, in the eleventh century, a fable
in the sense commonly received, indicates that the distinction between
barbarian and Roman in that century was beginning to be effaced, and
that the Roman Law, as digested or codified by the lawyers of
Justinian, was beginning to become the common law in the West as it
long had been in the East, and still is in all the western nations
formed within the limits of the old Roman empire, unless England be an
exception. There was commenced, even before the downfall of Rome, a
process of assimilation of Roman ideas and manners by the barbarians,
which went on with greater force and rapidity in proportion as the
barbarians were brought into the communion of the church. This process
is still going on, and has gone furthest in France and our own
country.

The barbarian chiefs sought to unite in themselves all the powers that
had been aggregated to the Roman emperor, and to hold them not from
the political community, but in their own personal right, which, had
they {630} succeeded, would have made them monarchs in the fall and
absolute sense of the term. Charlemagne tried to revive and
re-establish Roman imperialism, but his attempt was premature; the
populations of the empire were in his time not sufficiently Romanized
to enable him to succeed. He failed, and his failure resulted in the
establishment of feudalism--the chief elements of which were brought
from Germany. The Roman element, through the influence of the church
and the old population of the empire, had from the close of the fifth
century to the opening of the ninth acquired great strength, but not
enough to become predominant. The Germanic or barbarian elements,
re-enforced as they were by the barbarians outside of both the church
and the empire, were too strong for it, and the empire of Charlemagne
was hardly formed before it fell to pieces. But barbarism did not
remain alone in feudalism, and Roman principles, to some extent, were
incorporated into feudal Europe, and the Roman law was applied,
wherever it could be, to the tenure of power, its rights and
obligations; to the regulation, forfeiture, and transmission of fiefs,
and to the administration of justice between man and man, as we apply
the Common Law in our own country. But the constitution of the feudal
society was essentially anti-Roman and at war with the principles of
the Civil or Roman Law. Hence commenced a struggle between the feudal
law and the civil--feudalism seeking to retain its social
organization based on distinctions of class, privileges, and
corporations; and the civil law, based on the principle of the
equality of all men by the natural law, seeking to eliminate the
feudal elements from society, and to restore the Roman constitution,
which makes power a trust derived from the community, instead of a
personal right or privilege held independently of the community.

In this struggle the church has always sympathized with the Romanizing
tendencies. It was under the patronage of the Pope that Charlemagne
sought to revive Imperial Rome, and to re-establish in substance the
Roman constitution of society; but his generous efforts ended only in
the systematization and confirmation of feudalism. The Franconian and
especially the Swabian in emperors attempted to renew the work of
Charlemagne, but were opposed and defeated by the church, not because
she had any sympathy with feudalism, but because these emperors
undertook to unite with the civil and military powers held by the
Roman emperors the pontifical power, which before the conversion of
the empire they also held. This she could not tolerate, for by the
Christian law the Imperial power and the pontifical are separated, and
the temporal authority, as such, has no competency in spirituals. The
Popes, in their long and severe struggles with the German emperors, or
emperors of the holy Roman empire, as they styled themselves, did not
struggle to preserve feudalism, but the independence of the church,
threatened by the Imperial assumption of the pontifical authority held
by the emperors of pagan Rome. This is the real meaning of those
struggles which have been so strangely misapprehended, and so grossly
misrepresented by the majority of historians, as Voigt and Leo, both
Protestants, have conclusively shown. St. Gregory VII., who is the
best representative of the church in that long war, did not struggle
to establish a theocracy as so many foolishly repeat, nor to obtain
for the church or clergy a single particle of civil power, but to
maintain the spiritual independence of the church, or her independent
and supreme authority over all her children in things spiritual,
against the Emperor, who claimed, indirectly at least, supreme
authority in spirituals as well as in temporal's. For the same reason
Gregory IX. And Innocent IV. Opposed Frederic II., the last and
greatest of the Hohenstaufen, the Ward in his childhood of Innocent
III. {631} Frederic undertook to revise Roman imperialism against
mediaeval feudalism, but unhappily he remembered that the pagan
Emperor was Pontifex Maximus, as well as Imperator. Had he simply
labored to substitute the Roman constitution of society for the feudal
without seeking to subject the church to the empire, he might have
been opposed by all those Catholics, whether lay or cleric, whose
interests were identified with feudalism, but not by the church
herself; at least nothing indicates that she would have opposed him,
for her sympathies were not and have never been with the feudal
constitution of society.

In the subsequent struggles between the two systems, the church, as
far as I have discovered, has uniformly sympathized with kings and
kaisers only so far as they simply asserted the republican principles
of the Roman constitution against feudalism, and has uniformly opposed
them, whenever they claimed or attempted to exercise pontifical
authority, or to make the temporal supreme over the spiritual, that is
to say, to subject conscience to the state. But in this she has been
on the side of liberty in its largest and truest sense. Liberty, as
commonly understood, or as it enters into the life, the thought, and
conscience of modern Christian nations, is certainly of Greek and
Roman, not barbarian origin, enlarged and purified by Christianity.
The pagan republic united in the sovereign people both the pontifical
and imperial powers as they were in the pagan emperors, and hence
subjected the individual, both exteriorly and interiorly, to the
state, and left him no rights which he could assert before the
republic. The Christian republic adds to the liberty of the state, the
liberty of the individual, and so far restricts the power of the state
over individuals. This personal or individual freedom, unknown in the
Graeco-Roman republic, Guizot and many others tell us was introduced
by the German invaders of the Roman empire. They assign it a barbarian
origin; but I am unable to agree with them, because I cannot find that
the German barbarians ever had it. The barbarian, as the feudal,
individual freedom was the freedom of the chief or noble, not the
freedom of all men, or of all individuals irrespective of class or
caste. This universal individual freedom, asserted and in a measure
secured by the Christian republic, could not be a development of a
barbarian idea, or come by way of logical deduction from the barbarian
individual freedom, for it rests on a different basis, and is
different in kind. The only ancient people with whom I can find any
distinct traces of it are the Hebrew people. It is plainly asserted in
the laws of Moses for the Jewish people. Christianity asserts it for
all, both Jews and Gentiles, in that noble maxim. We must obey God
rather than men. Every martyr to the Christian faith asserted it, in
choosing rather to be put to death in the most frightful and
excruciating forms than to yield up the freedom of conscience at the
command of the civil authority, and the church shows that she approves
it by preserving the relics of martyrs, and proposing them to the
perpetual veneration of the faithful. The martyr witnesses alike to
faith and the freedom of conscience.

To this individual freedom, as the right of manhood, the real enemy is
the feudal society, which is founded on privilege; and where then
should the church be found but on the side of those who asserted
Graeco-Roman civilization as enlarged, purified, and invigorated by
Christianity against the barbarian elements retained by the feudal
society? It was her place as the friend of liberty and civilization.
There can be no question that since the beginning of the fifteenth
century the interests of humanity, liberty, religion, have been with
the kings and people, as against the feudal nobility. It is owing to
this fact, not to any partiality for monarchy, even in its
representative sense, that the church has supported the monarchs in
their struggle against feudal privileges and corporations.

{632}

But it is said that she has favored Roman imperialism not only against
feudalism, but also against democracy. This is partially true, but she
has done so for the very reason that in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries she opposed the German emperors, because everywhere, except
in the United States, it seeks to unite in the republic or state,
after the manner of the pagan republic, both the imperial and the
pontifical powers. In the United States this has not been done; our
republic recognizes its own incompetency in spirituals, protects all
religions not _contra bonos mores_, and establishes none; and here the
church has never opposed republicanism or democracy. In Europe she has
done so, not always, but generally since the French revolution assumed
to itself pontifical authority. In the beginning of the French
revolution, while it was confined to the correction of abuses, the
redress of grievances, and the extension and confirmation of civil
liberty, the Pope, Pius VI., the cardinals, prelates, and people of
Rome, encouraged it; and the Pope censured it only when it transcended
the civil order, made a new distribution of dioceses, enacted a civil
constitution for the clergy, and sought to separate the Gallican
Church from the Catholic Church, precisely as the Popes had previously
censured Henry IV., Frederic Barbarossa, Frederic II., Louis of
Bavaria, and others. She opposes to-day European democrats, not
because they are democrats, but because they claim for the people the
pontifical power, and seek to put them in the place of the church,
nay, in the place of God The more advanced among them utter the words,
people-pontiff and people-God, as well as people-king, and your German
democrats assert almost to a man humanity as the supreme God. She
opposes them not because they make deadly war on monarchy and
aristocracy, and assert the sovereignty, under God, of the people, but
because the war against catholic truth, the great eternal, universal,
and immutable principles of the divine government, which lie at the
basis of all  government and indeed of society itself, and of which
she is the divinely appointed guardian in human affairs. If she
supports the European governments against them, it is not because
those governments are monarchical or aristocratic in their
constitution, but because they represent, however imperfectly, the
interests of humanity, social order, civilization, without which there
is and can be no real progress. She cannot oppose them because they
seek to establish democratic government unless they seek to do so by
unlawful or unjust means, because she prescribes for the faithful no
particular form of civil government, and cannot do it, because no
particular form is or can be Catholic. She offers no opposition to
American democracy.

The church opposes, by her principles, however, what is called
Absolutism, or what is commonly understood by Oriental despotism, that
is, monarchy as understood by Bishop England, under which the monarch
is held to be the absolute owner of the soil and the people of the
nation, and may dispose of either at his pleasure. This is evident
from the fact that when she speaks officially of the state generally,
without referring to any particular state, she calls it _republica_,
the republic; especially is this the case when she speaks of the civil
society in distinction from the ecclesiastical society. Our present
Holy Father, in his much miss apprehended and grossly misrepresented
Encyclical of December 8, 1864, calls the civil community _republica_,
or commonwealth. St. Augustine denies that God has given to man the
lordship of man. He gave man the lordship or dominion over irrational
creations, but not of the rational made in his own image, "Rationalem
factum ad maginem suam noluit nisi irrationabilibus, dominari: non
hominem homini, sed hominem {633} pecori. Inde primi justi pastores
pecorum magis quam reges hominum constituti sunt."  [Footnote 176]
Hence he denies that the master has the lordship of his servants or
slaves, and admits slavery only as a punishment, as does the civil law
itself. For the same reason we may conclude against despotism. If the
master has not the absolute lordship of his servants, far less can a
king have the absolute lordship of a whole nation. St. Gregory the
great cites St. Augustine with approbation, so also, if my memory
serves me, does St. Gregory VII., the famous Hildebrand, who tells the
princes of his time that they hold their power from violence, wrong,
Satan.

  [Footnote 176: De Civit. Dei. Opera, tom. vii. 900.]

Catholic writers of the highest authority St. Augustine, St. Thomas,
Bellarmin, and Suarez, whom to cite is to cite nearly the whole body
of Catholic theologians, follow in the main the political philosophy
of Greece and Rome as set forth by Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero; and
there is no doubt that, while vesting sovereignty in the community, or
the people politically associated, they generally incline to monarchy,
tempered by a mixture of aristocracy and democracy, as does Aristotle
himself. But the monarchy they favor is always the representative
monarchy, the Roman, not the feudal or the oriental. The prince or
king, according to them, holds his power from the people or community,
_jure humano_, not _jure divino_, and holds it as a trust, not as a
personal and indefeasible right. It is amissible; the king may forfeit
it, and be deprived of it. St. Augustine asserts, and Suarez after
him, the inherent right of the people or political society to change
their magistrates and even their form of government; and the Popes, on
more occasions than one in the middle ages, not only excommunicated
princes, but declared them by a sovereign judgment deprived of their
crowns, which proves, if nothing else, that kings and kaisers are held
by the church to be responsible to the nation for the manner in which
they use their trusts, for the Popes never declared a forfeiture
except on the ground that it was incurred by a violation of the civil
constitution.

There were numerous republics in Europe before the reformation, as
Venice, Genoa, Florence, the Swiss Cantons, and many others, not to
speak of the Lombard municipalities, the Hanse towns, and the Flemish
or Belgian communes, all of which sprang up during Catholic times, and
were founded and sustained by a Catholic population. Nearly all of
them have now disappeared, and some of them almost within our own
memory; but I am not aware that there is a single republic in Europe
founded and sustained by Protestants, unless the United Dutch
Provinces, now a monarchical state, be a partial exception. The fact
that Catholics as a body are wedded to monarchy is therefore not
susceptible of very satisfactory proof, not even if we take monarchy
only as representing the majesty of the people, in which sense it is
republican in principle.

Protestantism is in itself negative, and neither favors nor disfavors
any form of government; but the reformation resulted, wherever it
prevailed in Europe, in uniting what the church from the first had
struggled to keep separate, the pontifical and the imperial or royal
powers, and also in maintaining the feudal monarchy instead of the
Roman or representative monarchy. In every nation that accepted the
reformation the feudal monarchy was retained, and still subsists. The
crown in them all is an estate, as in England, and in some of them is,
in fact, the only estate recognized by the constitution. The elector
of Saxony, the landgrave of Hesse, the margrave of Brandenburg, the
kings of Sweden, of Denmark, and of England and Scotland, became each
in his own dominions supreme pontiff, and united in his own person the
supreme civil and ecclesiastical powers. The same in principle {634}
became the fact in the Protestant Netherlands and the Protestant
cantons of Switzerland; and though some Protestant European states
tolerate dissent from the state religion, there is not one that
recognizes the freedom of religion, or that does not subject religion
to the civil power. The political sense of the reformation was the
union of the imperial and pontifical powers in the political
sovereign, and the maintenance of the feudal monarchy and nobility, or
the constitution of society on feudal principles. Nothing, then, is or
can be further from the fact than that Protestants generally incline
to republicanism, except the pretense that Protestantism emancipates
the mind and establishes religious liberty.

No doubt, the feudal monarchy and nobility struggled in all Europe to
maintain themselves against the Greco-Roman system represented by the
Civil Law and favored by the theologians of the church and her supreme
pontiffs. So far as the struggle was against the feudal nobility, or,
as I may term it, the system of privilege, the church, the kings, and
the people have in their general action been on the same side; and
hence in France, where the struggle was the best defined, the great
nobles were the first to embrace the reformation; they came very near
detaching the kingdom itself from the church, during the wars of the
Ligue, and were prevented only by the conversion, interested or
sincere, of Henri Quatre. Henry saw clearly enough that monarchy could
not struggled successfully in France against the feudal nobility
without the support of the church and the people. Richelieu and
Mazarin saw the same, and destroyed what remained of the feudal
nobility as a political power. They, no doubt, did it in the interest
and for the time to the advantage of monarchy. Louis XIV. concentrated
in himself all the powers of the state, and could say "_L'état, c'est
moi_--I am the state," and tried hard to grasp the pontifical power,
and to be able to say, "_L'église, c'est moi_--I am the church;" but
failed. Always did and do kings and emperors, whether Catholic or
non-Catholic, seek to enlarge their power and to gain to themselves
the supreme control not only of civil but also of ecclesiastical
affairs, and courtiers, whether lay or cleric, are always but too
ready to sustain absolute monarchy. Warring against the system of
privilege, for national unity against the disintegrating tendencies of
feudalism, monarchy threatens in the seventeen and eighteenth
centuries to become absolute in all Europe, but it met with permanent
success in no state that did not adopt the reformation, and ceased to
be Catholic.

I hold that Roman constitution, as modified and amended by
Christianity, is far better for society and more in accordance with
religion and liberty, then the feudal constitution, which is
essentially barbaric. If we look at Europe as it really was during the
long struggle hardly yet ended, we shall see that it was impossible to
break up the feudal constitution of society without for the moment
giving to the kings and undue power, which in its turn would need to
be resisted. But in all countries that remained Catholic, monarchy was
always treated as representative by the theologians, and the
republican doctrines that subsequent to the reformation found
advocates in Protestant states were borrowed either from the agents or
from Catholic writers--for the most part, probably, from the mediaeval
monks, of whom modern liberals know so little and against whom they
say so much. It was only in those countries where the reformation was
followed and religion subjected to the state that the feudal monarchy
developed into the oriental. England under Henry VIII., Edward VI.,
Elizabeth Tudor, and James and Charles Stuart, had lost nearly all its
old liberties, and nearly all power was centred in the crown. The
resistance offered to Charles I. was {635} not to gain new but to
recover old liberties, with some new and stronger guaranties. The
Protestant princes of northern Germany governed as absolutely as any
oriental despot. The movement toward republicanism started in the
south, not in the north, in Catholic not in Protestant states. The
fact is patent and undeniable, explain it as you will.

I admit that Catholic princes, as well as Protestant, sought to grasp
the pontifical power, and to subject the church in their respective
dominions to their own authority, but they never fully succeeded. The
civil power claimed in France more than belonged to it; but while it
impeded the free movements of the Gallican Church, it never succeeded
in absolutely enslaving it. Louis XIV., or even Napoleon the First,
never succeeded in making himself the head of the Gallican Church; and
the Constitutional church created by the Revolution, and which, like
the Church of England, was absolutely dependent on the civil power,
has long since disappeared and left no trace behind. In Spain,
Portugal, Naples, Tuscany, Austria, attempts to subject religion to
the state have not been wanting, but, though doing great harm to both
the ecclesiastical and the civil society, they have never been
completely successful. It is only in Protestant states that they have
fully succeeded, or rather, I should say, in non-Catholic states, for
the church is as much a slave in Russia as in Great Britain.

Bossuet, courtier and high-toned monarchist as he was, and as much as
he consented to yield to the king, never admitted the competency of
the king in scriptuals strictly so called; and if he yielded to the
king on the question of the regalia, it was only on the ground of an
original concession from the head of the church to the kings of
France, or the immemorial custom of the kingdom, not as an inherent
right of the civil power. He went too far in the Four Articles of 1682
to meet the approbation of Innocent XI., but he did not fall into
heresy or schism. And it may be alleged in his defence, that if he had
not gone thus far the court would most likely have gone further, and
have actually separated the Gallican Church from the Holy See.

Bossuet was unquestionably a monarchist and something of a courtier,
though he appears to have had always the best interests of religion at
heart; and we can hardly say that he did not take the best means
possible in his time of promoting them. As one of the preceptors of
the Dauphin, father of the Duke of Burgundy, of whom Fénelon was the
principal preceptor, he taught the political system acceptable to the
king; but he impressed on his pupil as much as possible under that
system a sense of his responsibility, his duty to regard his power as
a high trust from God to be exercised without fear or favor for the
good of the people committed to his charge. Fénelon went further, and
hinted that the nation had not abdicated its original rights, and
still retained the right to be consulted in the management of its
affairs; and he was dismissed from his preceptorship, forbidden to
appear at court, and exiled to his diocese, while every possible
effort, in which it is to be regretted that Bossuet took a prominent
part, to degrade him as a man and a theologian, and to procure his
condemnation as a heretic, was made by the French court. But heretic
he was not; he simply erred in the use of language which, though it
had been used by canonized saints, was susceptible of an heretical
sense. The Congregation condemned the language, not the man, nor his
real doctrine. He retracted the language, not the doctrine, and
edified the world by his submission.

There is hardly any doctrine further removed from every form of
republicanism than that of the divine right of kings, defended by
James I. of England in his Remonstrance for the Divine Right of Kings
and the Independency of their Crowns, written in reply to a speech of
the {636} celebrated Cardinal Duperron in the States-General of France
in 1614--the last time the States-General were convoked till convoked
by the unhappy Louis XVI. at Versailles, in May, 1789. In that work, a
copy of the original edition of which, as well as of "his majestie's
speech in the Star-chamber," now lies before me, their kingship
immediately from God, and are accountable to him alone for the use
they made of their power. He denies their accountability alike to the
Pope and the people. This was and really is the doctrine, if not of
all Protestants, at least of the Anglican Church and of all Protestant
courts; but it is not and never was a Catholic doctrine. The utmost
length in the same direction that any Catholic writer of note, except
Bossuet, ever went, so far as I can find, is that the king, supposing
him to be elected by the people, does, when so elected, reign _de jure
divino_ or by divine right; but Suarez   [Footnote 177] refutes them,
and maintains that the royal power emanates from the community, and is
exercised, _formaliter_, by human right, _de jure humano_, and thus
asserts the real republican principle. Balmes, in his great work on
the Influence of Catholicity and Protestantism on European
Civilization compared, cites an instance of a Spanish monk who in the
time of Philip II. ventured one day to preach the irresponsibility of
the king, but was compelled by the Inquisition to retract his doctrine
publicly, in the very pulpit from which he had preached it.

  [Footnote 177: De Legibus, lib. iii., cap. 3 and 4, i.]

He who has studied somewhat profoundly the internal political history
of the so-called Latin nations of Europe, will find that they have
had, from very early times, a strong tendency to republicanism, and
even to democracy, and that the tendency has been checked never by the
church, but by the kings and feudal nobility. The doctrines of 1789
were no novelty in France even in the thirteenth century, and they
were preached very distinctly and very boldly in the Ligue when the
nation was threatened with a non-Catholic or Huguenot king, even by
Jesuits. The great Dominican and Franciscan orders have never shown
any strong attachment to monarchy in any form, and have rarely been
the courtiers or flatterers of power. That the sad effects of the old
French revolution produced a reaction in many Catholic minds, as well
as in many Protestant minds, in favor of monarchy, is very true; and
perhaps the most influential portion of European Catholics, living as
they do in the midst of a revolution that makes war on the church, on
civil order, on society, on civilization itself, cling to the royal
authority as the lesser evil and as their only security, under God,
for the future of religion.  And it is not strange that they should.
But this, whether wise or otherwise, is only accidental, and no people
will be more loyal republicans than Catholics, when the republic gives
them security for life and property, and more than all, for the free
and full exercise of their religion as Catholics, as is the case in
the United States.

The republic of the United States, we are told, was founded by
Protestants, and it is only the United States that can give the
slightest coloring to the pretense that Protestants are inclined to
republicanism. But, closely examined, the fact gives less coloring
than is commonly supposed. The republic of the United States can
hardly be said to be founded either by Catholics or Protestants: it
was founded by Providence, not by men. The Puritans, the most disposed
to republicanism of any of the original colonists, were dissenters
from the Church of England, and the principles on which they dissented
were in the main those which they had borrowed or inherited from
Catholic tradition. They objected to the Church of England that she
allowed the king to be both king and pontiff, and subjected religion
to the civil power. In this they only followed the example of the
Popes. They {637} with the Popes denied the competency of the civil
power in spirituals. This was the principle of their dissent, as it
has recently been the principle of the separation of the Free Kirk in
Scotland from the national church. As the king was the head of the
Church of England, making it a royal church, they were naturally led
to defend their dissent on republican principles. M. Guizot seems to
regard the English revolution, which made Cromwell Lord Protector of
the realm, as primarily political; but with all due respect to so
great an authority, I venture to say that it was primarily religious,
that its first movement was a protest against the authority of the
king or parliament to ordain anything in religion not prescribed by
the word of God. I state the principle universally, without taking
notice of the matters accidentally associated with it, and so stated
it is a Catholic principle, always asserted and insisted on by the
Popes. It was primarily to carry out this principle, and to regain the
civil liberties lost by the nation through the reformation, but not
forgotten, that they resisted the king, and made a republican
revolution, which very few foresaw or desired. The Puritans who
settled in the wilds of America brought with them the ideas and
principles they had adopted before leaving England, and if they had
republican tendencies, they were hardly republicans.

Mr. Bancroft, in Volume IX. of his History of the United States, just
published, shows very clearly that at the beginning of their disputes
with the mother country the colonists were not generally republican in
the ordinary sense of the word, but attached to monarchy after the
English fashion, and also that the struggle in the minds of the
colonists was long and severe before they reluctantly abandoned
monarchy and accepted republicanism. The American revolution did not
originate in any desire to suppress monarchy as it existed in Great
Britain and establish republicanism, but to resist the encroachments
of the mother country on their rights as British colonists, or rather,
as British subjects. The rights of man they asserted had been derived
from the civil law, for the most part through medium of the common
law, and the writings, if not of Catholic theologians, at least of
Catholic lawyers. They held as republicans not from Protestantism, but
chiefly from Greece and Rome. Moreover, a monarchical government was
impracticable, and there really was no alternative for the American
people but republican government or colonial dependence. In the main
our institutions were the growth of the country, and were very little
influenced by the political theories of the colonists or the political
wisdom and sagacity of American statesmen. Hence they are more
strictly the work of Providence than of human foresight or human
intelligence and will. It is therefore that their permanence and
growth are to be counted on. They have their root in the soil, and are
adapted to both the soil and the climate. They are of American origin
and growth.

Religious liberty is not, as I have shown, of Protestant origin. Most
of the colonists held the Catholic principle of the incompetency of
the civil power in spirituals, but the greater part of them held that
the civil power is bound to recognize and to provide for the support
by appropriate legislation of the true religion, and that only. Yet as
they were not agreed among themselves as to which is the true
religion, or what is the true sense of the revealed word, and having
no authoritative interpreter recognized as such by all, and no one
sect being strong enough to establish itself and to suppress the
others, there was no course practicable but to protect all religions
not _contra banos mores_, and leave each individual free before the
law to choose his own religion and to worship God according to the
dictates of his own conscience. This was of absolute necessity in our
case if we were to form a political community and carry on civil
government at all.

{638}

I do not claim that Catholics founded civil and religious liberty in
the United States, nor do I deny that so far as men had a hand in
founding them, they were founded by Protestants, but I do contend that
our Protestant ancestors acted in regard to them on Catholic rather
than on Protestant principles. We have so often heard civil and
religious liberty spoken of as the result of the reformation that many
people really believe it, and many good honest American citizens are
really afraid that the rapid increase of Catholicity in the country
threatens ruin to our free institutions. But the only liberty
Protestantism, as such, has ever yet favored, is the liberty of the
civil power to control the ecclesiastical. There is no danger to any
other liberty from the spread of Catholicity. There is a great
difference between accepting and sustaining a democratic government
where it already legally exists, and laboring to introduce it in
opposition to the established and to the habits, customs, and usages
of the people where it does not exist. And even if Catholics in other
countries had a preference for the monarchical form, they would not
dream of introducing it here, and would be led by their own
conservative principles, if here, to oppose it, since nothing in their
religion requires them, as a Catholic duty, to support one particular
form of government rather than another.

Protestantism affords in its principles no basis for either civil or
religious liberty. Its great doctrine, that which it opposes as a
religion to the church, is the absolute moral and spiritual inability
of man, or the total moral and spiritual depravity of human nature, by
the fall. This is the central principle of the reformation, from which
all its distinctive doctrines radiate. This doctrine denies all
natural liberty and all natural virtue, and hence the reformation
maintains justification without works, by faith alone, in which man is
passive, not active, and that all the works of unbelievers or the
unregenerate are sins. Man is impotent for good, and does not and
cannot even by grace concur with grace. All his thoughts and deeds our
only evil, and that continually, and even the regenerate continue to
sin after regeneration as before, only God does not impute there seems
to them, but for his dear Son's seek turns away his eyes from them,
and imputes to them the righteousness of Christ, and with it covers
their iniquities. There is no ground on which to assert the natural
rights of man, for the fall has deprived man of all his natural
rights; and for republican equality the Reformation phones at best the
aristocracy of grace, of the elect, as was taught by Wickliffe, and
attempted to be realized by Calvin in Geneva, and by the Puritans in
New England, who confined the elective franchise and eligibility to
the saints, which is repugnant to both civil and religious liberty for
all men.

It is time that our historians and popular writers should reflect a
little on what they are saying, when they assert that the reformation
emancipated the mind and prepared the way for civil and religious
freedom. This has become a sort of cant, and Catholics here it
repeated so often that some of them almost think that it cannot be
without some foundation, and therefore that there must be something
uncatholic in civil and religious liberty. It is all a mistake, and
illusion, or a delusion. The principles of the reformation, as far as
principles it had, were and are in direct conflict with them, and
whatever progress either has made has been not buy it, but in spite of
it, by means and influences it began its career by repudiating. The
man reared in the bosom of the reformation has no conception of real
religious, civil, or mental liberty till he is converted to the
Catholic faith, and enters as a freeman into the Catholic Church.

I have dwelt at length on this subject for the sake of historical
truth, and also to quiet the fears of my non-Catholic countrymen that
the spread {639} of the church in our country will endanger our
republican or democratic system of government. That system of
government is quite as acceptable to Catholics as it is to
Protestants, and accords far better with Catholic principles then with
the principles of the reformation. The church does not make our system
of government obligatory on all nations; she directly enjoins it
nowhere, because no one system is adapted alike to all nations; and
each nation, under God, is free to adapt its political institutions to
its own wants, taste, and genius; but she is satisfied with it here,
and requires her children to be loyal to it. It is here the law, and
as such I supported it. I might not support a similar system for Great
Britain, France, or Russia; because, though it fits us, it might not
fit equally well the British, the French, or the Russians, or as well
as the systems they already have fit them. My coat may not fit my
neighbor, and my neighbor's coat may not fit me. I am neither as a
Catholic nor as a statesman a political propagandist. But I love my
own country with an affection I was unconscious of as a Protestant,
and Americans bred up Catholics will always be found to be among our
most ardent patriots, and our most stanch defenders of both civil and
religious freedom.

The mistake is that people are too ready to make a religion of their
politics, and to seek to make the system of government they happen to
be enamored  of for themselves a universal system, and to look upon
all nations that do not accept it, or not blessed with it, as deprived
of the advantages of civil society. They make their system the
standard by which all institutions, all men and nations, are to be
tried. They become political bigots, and will tolerate no political
theories but their own. Hence, the American people are apt to suppose
there is no political freedom where our system of government does not
prevail; and to conclude because the church recognizes the legitimacy
in other forms of governments in other countries, and does not preach
a crusade against them, that she is the enemy of free institutions and
social progress. All this is wrong. Religion is one and catholic, and
obligatory upon all alike; political systems, save in the great
ethical principles which underlie them, are particular, national, and
are obligatory only on the nation that adopts them. There are catholic
principles of government, but no catholic or universal form of
government. Our government is best for us, but that does not prove
that in political matters we are wiser or better than other civilized
nations, or that we have the right to set ourselves up as the model
nation of the world. Other nations may not be wholly forsaken by
Providence. Non-Catholic Americans cry out against the church that she
is anti-republican; but if we were monarchists we should cry out as
did the monarchical party in the sixteenth century, that she is
anti-monarchical and hostile to the independence of kings. Let us
learn that she may in one age or country support one form of civil
constitution, and without inconsistency support a different system in
another.

--------

{640}


From All the Year Round.


"DEO OPT. MAX"

  Art thou drowsy, dull, indifferent,
    Folder of the hands,
  Dreaming o'er the silent falling
    Of life's measured sands?

  Living without aim or motion,
    Save thyself to please,
  Careless as the beasts that perish,
    Sitting at thine ease?

  Not for thee the mighty message
    Rings in startling tone;
  Vainly would its peeling accents
  Strike through hearts of stone.

  Sounding o'er the clash and clatter
    Of this earth's vain din,
  Unto you, that live in earnest,
    And that work to win,

  Thus it speaks: "Aspirants, toilers
    For some lofty gain,
  See ye spend not strength and spirits,
    Hope and faith, in vain!

  "All that soars past self is noble--
    Every upward aim--
  Make it nobler yet--the noblest!
    And immortal fame!

  "Let not good or great content ye--
    Higher and still higher,
  Only for the best, the greatest,
    Labor and aspire!

  "Spurning all that's partial, doubtful,
    All your vigor bend
  (Worthiest aim and worthiest effort)
    To a perfect end!

  "Thus have all true saints before ye,
    All true heroes striven,
  Reaching for the best, the highest,
    Beyond earth to heaven."

------

{641}

Translated from the French.



ROBERT; OR, THE INFLUENCE OF A GOOD MOTHER.



CHAPTER FIRST.


  "Although young on the earth,
  I am already alone.
   . . . . .
  And when I ask myself
    Where are those I love?
  I look at the green turf."
                 LAMARTINE.


THE ORPHAN.

The traveler who passes through the village of the baths of Mount
Dore, situated at the base of the mountain of Angle, will find that
between the mountains the little streams of Dore and Dogne unites, and
take the name of the river Dordogne. In looking at the course of this
new-born River, he will see to the left of the mountain of Ecorchade,
thus named for its ruggedness and its deep ravines. This mountain
crumbles away each day under the powerful hand of time, and its
volcanic wrecks move the valley with strange sounds, which the echo
takes up and wafts to the most distant spots. On the other side of the
valley, to the right of the mountain, and in front of Ecorchade, is
another mountain, the round top of which is covered with verdure and
with wood. Its base is formed of basaltic columns of black, white, and
gray rocks of different shapes and sizes, which stand there like a
troop of phantoms. Near the base, and in one of the fissures of this
mass of rocks, piled up by some giant hand, there was, about
twenty-five years ago, a little house, constructed, one might imagine,
by the spirit of the mountain, to serve as a refuge for travellers
when the furious children of the tempest were unchained. Hidden by the
abrupt flanks of the mountain, and masked in the spring and summer by
the dense foliage of trees centuries old, this retreat suddenly became
visible to mortal eye. But the chief interest attached to it is, that
for twelve years it was inhabited by a high-bred lady, who chose this
secluded spot, and placed herself, one might say, on the first step of
this gigantic ladder, which seemed by degrees to draw her nearer to
heaven, and away from the vain pursuits of earth. She came unattended,
carrying in her arms an infant several months old. This child, her
son, was the object of her most tender care, and was the only thing
that was to endear her to this savage solitude. From whence came this
person, who was she, and what were her resources for living? No one
knew. Her real name even was to remain a mystery for all, even for
those eager and pitiless people who are always ready to unravel the
causes of secret sorrow, and who rejoice when they can see tears and
suffering. Such people are like a species of wasp that only approach
to sting you most cruelly. The people of the valley had on many
occasions tried to stop this young woman and capture her confidence by
testimonials of friendship and feigned sensibility, but they had seen
their insidious advances repulsed with such coldness that, deceived
and disappointed, they were obliged to put an end to their efforts.
Finally, when all curiosity had subsided and given place to the most
complete indifference, they learned in some way that she called
herself Madame Dormeuil, and her little boy Robert. There was one
person, however, who had received the intimate confidence of Madame
Dormeuil, and that was the curé of the village, and from time to time
he was seen directing his steps toward the solitary abode, where more
than one indiscreet eye had wished to penetrate. At the time this
story opens it is {642} night, one of those glorious nights of the
month of May, nights full of sweet mysteries and soft perfumes, nights
the nightingale resounds in harmonious cadences. It is the hour of
silence and repose for humanity; but still a dim light shone through
one of the windows of this isolated house. As the hours of the night
advanced, when all nature slept, even the smallest insect under the
humid leaves of the rose, hard necessity constrained even the inmates
of this house to sleep, but alas! It proved a funeral awakening. The
tender mother, who, during the infancy of her child, had tasted in
this modest asylum moments of happiness, pure and chaste, such as our
only given to maternal love, closed her eyes, and breathed out her
last sigh, with no one here but her little son. In vain he calls his
dear mother, her voice can reply to him no more. Poor child! what will
become of him? for he has no one in the wide world to love and protect
him; and in the bitterness of his grief he sobs and cries, "Dead!
dead! I have no mother now!" and takes her hand, but it is cold and
stiff, and no longer sensible to the soft pressure of his. The
unaccustomed silence of those lips, that never parted but to speak
tenderly to him, is more than he can bear, but suddenly his face
recovers its habitual serenity, and a smile lights up his pallid
cheeks. What means this sudden change, this almost instantaneous
forgetfulness of sorrow, which drives in an instant the tears of love?
But do not blame him; it is not forgetfulness, but remembrance--the
remembrance of his mother's last words--her last adieu, her last
sublime expression of a love which cannot be extinguished, even by the
cold shadow of death, for it re-lives in heaven. "My child," said his
mother to him on that day, "I have loved you much, but I must leave
you. I am going to live with the angels, but I will watch over you. Be
wise, honest, laborious; love God with all your heart, and others as
yourself, and he will bless you. Do not grieve for my loss, for I will
still be useful to you in heaven. I will pray there for you. Take
courage, and always remember, when you are in trouble, to raise your
thoughts to the eternal throne, and consolation will not be denied
you." These were the words which Robert remember, and which stopped so
suddenly the violence of his grief. This was why he almost thought his
mother was not dead; this was why he felt no fear, though alone; with
these sweet thoughts forever present, he fancied her eyes would reopen
and smile upon him. He knelt in prayed with fervor, seeming to solicit
some special manifestation, and his attitude told that he mentally
invoked of his mother and the Protector of children what he knew to be
good for them; and his prayer, no doubt, was favorably received, for
it his imagination he saw the home of the saints. "My mother!" cried
the child, transported with joy, "is it thee? Oh! speak, I pray thee,
speak to thy Robert!" But the celestial vision faded, and he saw
nothing but the thousands of little globes of light, the sparkling
fire of which dazzled his eyes. Thus maternal influence, even from the
tomb, comes as a gentle authority to this pious orphan. We will see
him in each important event, and in each critical phase of his life
invoking this mysterious and beneficent power that presides over him
from heaven, in the presence of his mother. It is already under the
generous impulse of this belief that he is consoled and strengthens,
and returns to the funeral chamber, and calls again upon prayer and
reflection.

Robert had never played with children. Always with his mother, whom he
passionately loved, and who conversed with him as she would have done
with an older person, he had acquired a seriousness of conversation
and a precocity of judgment which made him, though still a child in
years, almost a man in his intelligence and good sense. Child of
solitude, wild flower of the mountain, he was {643} entirely ignorant
of the habits of cities and of society, but he possessed an instinct
which took the place of large experience in human nature. He was what
God had made him, good and generous, loving the beautiful with the
fervent adoration which characterizes great souls, and feeling a deep
repugnance for even the appearance of evil. These inestimable gifts
God in his wisdom has seen fit to endow to certain souls.

Robert was not more than twelve years of age, but he could read and
write well. Possessed of a good memory, he had retained the many
recitations made him by his mother in geography and sacred and profane
history. His course of reading had not been extensive, for his mother
had but few books; but she had been to him the living book from which
he had gained all he knew, and which developed the qualities of the
heart and Christian virtues which, later in life, shone so brilliantly
in him. Robert was often absorbed in thinking over his past life, so
rich in delicious memories. He remembered that his mother had spoken
to him of Paris with an emotion which betrayed itself in her trembling
voice. She was born there, she had told him, and had passed a part of
her youth there. He remembered perfectly that, each time his mother
referred to the subject, she exercised upon him a charm which entirely
captivated his attention. If by her glowing descriptions of Madame
Dormeuil had any intention of exciting in her son the wish to go to
that city, she completely succeeded, for, notwithstanding his tender
years, the words of his mother had filled him with an ardent desire to
see the place predestined to be the most beautiful and most wonderful
city ever built by the hands of man. This desire taking hold of him,
he naturally thinks of the means of satisfying it, if the unfortunate
circumstances in which he finds himself will forget. Moved by the
strong wish, which was not weekend when obstacles presented
themselves, Robert tried to get things ready to start. Opening a
closet where he had often seen his mother put things she intended for
him, the first object that met his eyes was a package, tied, and
bearing this inscription, "For my son when he is twenty-one years of
age." Under this was another paper, folded double, but not tied. He
opened this, looking at the words which were written at the top: "My
last requests." "When I shall be no more, my son," said Madame
Dormeuil (and unfortunately the hour of death approaches very near)
"quit this mountain where thou hast been a happy child, and go to
Paris, where thou wast born. God and my love will conduct thee there,
but constantly place thyself under his protection. Work; make thyself
beloved, by thy sweetness and perseverance and good conduct. A voice
within said to me one day, that happiness crowned all virtuous
efforts, and this prediction of my heart will be realized, and thy
mother will rejoice in heaven when she sees it descend on thee. Thou
wilt find in a purse some crown pieces; it is all that I possess.
Start soon, walk the short roads, have courage. Avoid bad children,
seek the old and the wise. Pray to God fervently, and he will never
abandon the good who walk in his presence and keep in their hearts the
counsels of a mother. Adieu, my child, my dear and much loved Robert I
will meet you in a better world than that in which I leave you, my
poor little one, and then we will never part again."

Robert covered with kisses and with tears the words traced by the
failing hand of his mother; then, when he was a little calmed, it made
him happy to know that she had conceived a plan which was precisely
the same he had thought of, and that she was solicitous for him to go.
The rest of the night passed slowly enough to the young orphan. At
daybreak he came down from the mountain and knocked at the door of the
rectory. The virtuous and worthy curé, who preached to the inhabitants
of the village of Bains, received him with the utmost kindness, for he
had known him long and well, and had already initiated him into the
{644} mysteries of our divine religion, and from his pure and touching
morals he had been led to give him his first communion. When he saw
the poor child in such distress he could scarcely utter a word, so
much did he feel for his bleeding heart, either could he ask him the
questions he knew he ought relative to his leaving the isolated place
in which he had lived, nor could Robert have answered them so full was
he of emotion; but he said to him in a paternal tone and full of
interest: "Let us see, my child, what is to be done with your effects.
Don't you think that you should leave the place, now that you are
alone? What do you intend to do? Have you formed any project? If you
have confidence in me, tell me your ideas, speak to me openly, and all
that I can possibly do for you I will with pleasure I have no
occupation but to do good to others, to console them in their sorrows,
and take them by the hand with a need assistance." "Thank you, good
curé," replied Robert, with sweetness and respect. "I desire to obey
the wishes of my mother, who tells me to go to Paris. See what she
says to me--this dear, good mother--before she dies," holding to him
with the trembling hand the precious paper containing the
interpretation of his mothers wishes. He then said: "Is it not a
sacred duty I owe my mother, that of accomplishing her last request?"
"Yes, my dear child, but you are very young to make so long a journey
on foot to Paris. Do you know any one there?" "No, sir; but my mother
said I must go, and no matter how I get there I must do it." "Your
resolution is praiseworthy my child, yet it seems to me that you
should reflect a little, before undertaking what seems so much for
you. But if you really must attempt it, I will give you a letter to a
friend of mine, who is now curé of the Church of Saint-Germain
l'Auxerrois. This recommendation, I hope, will be of great assistance
to you, for my friend is a man of rare virtues and inexhaustible
charity Place your cell under his protection, and I do not doubt but
you will soon be out of embarrassment. I think you should sell your
furniture, the proceeds would in large your funds very much. But, my
child, your extreme youth frightens me. I am afraid you will never get
to Paris." "Oh! be tranquil, good father. I trust so much to God as my
guide that I know I shall arrived without accident, and with but
little fatigue." "Go, my child, I have no longer any objection; and
since you desire it so much, I will do all I can to facilitate your
project. While I am gone refresh yourself; take something to eat, it
will strengthen your body, which cannot but be feeble under the
sufferings of your soul.  Do you hear, my child? I want you to take
some nourishment, if it is only a little you will feel better after
it. I will return directly," and, looking kindly at him, the venerable
curé went out, to see which of his parishioners would purchase the
furniture belonging to the orphan.


CHAPTER II.

  "Still  an hour of suffering,
    Still a sad farewell".

. . . . .

THE FAREWELL.


The curé was a all time absent, and when he return had no good news
for Robert; his errand had been ineffectual. "My child," said he, "my
wishes for disposing of your furniture have been in vain, but do not
be discouraged. Let us go and pay the last mark of respect to your
mother, and then we will speak of other things." Robert followed him,
and on the way told him of the package of papers he had found in the
closet, the contents of which he was not to know until he had attained
his majority.

"I advise you, my child, to leave me the package to take care of. If
you should lose it, it would be an irreplaceable loss, and might be
attended with {645} serious results. You need fear no accident on my
part, for, if God should call me to him, before we meet again, I will
put it in safe hands; for instance, if it please you, to the Notary of
Besse, a small town about two leagues from here. It might be a long
time before you would return, but the grave of your mother will draw
you here, and I know you are too good a son to forget it. I am sure,
then, of seeing you sometimes if God wills it, for it is the Supreme
Arbiter who decides the length of our days." They had come by this
time to the house, the door of which was opened by a woman who had
been sent there by the curé to "lay" out the mother of the poor
orphan. Her body was then enclosed in the coffin, and the _cortége_
took the way which led to the churchyard, where rest at last the king
and his subjects, the rich and the poor. Oh! what courage it requires
to bear up under the sorrows of this last sad walk, above all when the
earth receives the remains of a cherished mother. How each sound that
fell on the coffin bruised this poor child's heart! And were it not
for the consoling hope, the firm belief, that his mother was in
heaven, his life would be one of despair; but he believed what she
told him before she died, that she would rest on the bosom of God, and
that she would watch over him with the same love and the same
solicitude of which she had given him so many proofs during her life.
He was the last to leave this new grave, which hid from his sight
forever the only being he ever loved, and which was watered with
filial tears. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "if I can only put a stone over my
good mother, it will be a consolation to know, when I visit the spot
where I leave my heart, that it is marked by the love of a son." Full
of this idea he revealed it afterward to the good curé, who took an
interest in it, and listened, with tears in his eyes, while the child
cultures the cost of a simple so. "But, my child," he said sadly, "all
simple as it may be, it will still be too dear for your feeble
resources. Wait for executing this pious wish until you have more to
spare. I cannot promise you that it will be a new one, but I will
place a wooden cross on your mother's grave." Robert, although
saddened at the non-success of his project, felt the wisdom of the
advice which was given him. He resigned it for the present, hoping
that a more prosperous time would come, when miserable pecuniary
considerations need not stop him in the accomplishment of what he felt
was a filial duty. Then after having thanked the pastor, and told him
how grateful he was to him for his paternal care and loving advice, he
asked his permission to pass another night in the house where he first
remembered the light of day. "Go, my child," said the curé, moved by
his touching resolution, "go if you feel strong enough: solitude
raises the soul and purifies its approach to the Creator. Sometimes
remember the consoling words of our divine Saviour, 'Blessed are they
who mourn, for they shall be comforted.' It is time for you to go. May
God in the silence of your solitary night visit your desolate soul,
and with his paternal hand wipe away your tears. To-morrow morning I
will see you, and we will arrange about your affairs."

The courageous child, for he was courageous to put himself face to
face with so many dear remembrances, wished to visit once more the
haunts of his infant joys, where his mother had guided his tottering
steps, and, later, where she had explained to him the wonders of
nature in the presence of these wonders. Yes, he wished to see them
all again, and engrave them in an ineffaceable manner upon his memory.
They were all dear to his heart, all filled with thoughts of his
mother, and the most tender caresses had been exchanged there between
them. He recalled the dreams of those days when his head rested on his
mother's bosom, and he felt himself {646} bathed in love and
happiness; he recalled the charm of that intercourse, when two hearts
are bound in sweetest sympathy; and it was for this purpose that he
wandered over the mountain, stopping at each loved spot, until he
reached the highest plateau. There he sat down, but not before looking
around him, for, for the first time in his life, he felt a little
timid and frightened. The magic beauty of his surroundings was not
new, he had seen it all often before, had contemplated it a thousand
times, but a sort of unquiet terror seizes him, and betrays itself in
tears. It seems but a day since he bounded and frolicked gayly in the
same places, under the eye of his mother, and now what a strange and
sorrowful change! He is alone; his strength and courage all gone. He
seems so small and insignificant by the side of these masses of rocks,
so gigantic and imposing, which look at him as though they would crush
him. Little by little he becomes reassured; he thinks he hears above
him chords of infinite sweetness; these ravishing sounds seem to come
from the sky; it is a choir of angels, who chant the notes of some
sweet melody. The child is transported with delight: he listens; his
soul is strengthened, he is not deceived. From among those harmonious
voices he discovers one well known to him, the sound of which makes
him happy. He knows it is his mother's, and she calls tenderly to him:
"Robert, what do you believe? am I not always with you? Look, my
child, and admire this grand picture, radiant with waves of gold and
purple from the declining sun. Look in wonder at what God has done for
you." These words transformed Robert. He is transported with a new
emotion, and, prostrating himself on his knees, cries, "O God! O God!
how wonderful art thou, how grand are thy works!" After he had
satisfied his soul with the enchanting scene, he went to all the spots
where he had sat with his mother, and gave them each a long and
sorrowful look, and then bade farewell to them. "Farewell, dear
mountain, farewell beautiful valley. I gaze at you perhaps for the
last time. And, shady wood, where I have so often slept, watched by my
tender mother, you who have protected me from the two great heat of
the sun, farewell also. I must leave you now, and I know not if I
shall ever gaze upon your glories again. I would I could pass my life
in your deep shades, and hear you whisper unceasingly the cherished
name of my mother. But it cannot be; and now farewell. And thou,
beautiful and fertile Limagne, that I see shining in the distance, I
salute thee, and will soon traverse light green fields. Be hospitable
to the poor little orphan, and made by smiling aspect and fresh
verdure be a happy presage for me." He stood some moments silent and
immovable, lost in regrets, and then returned to the house. During the
night involuntary fear filled his mind. When the rays of the moon
penetrated his chamber and the stars shed their soft light, he felt
revived, and waited for the vision of the preceding night, but it came
not, and his lips quivered, and at last sleep came to close his
eyelids and repair the strength of his body and mind. The next day the
curé found him somewhat consoled, at least more calm than before he
slept. Together they made an inventory of his modest furniture, which
was worth about fifty pounds. In one of the drawers they found a small
medallion containing the portrait of a gentleman. The face was
handsome and expressive, though a little hard. It was easy to see that
it was a person of high rank; and if the good curé had been less
preoccupied and had examined closely the face, he would, perhaps, have
been struck by the resemblance which existed between the features of
the child and those of the miniature. He would have concluded beyond
doubt that it was his father. But he simply handed it to Robert,
saying almost mechanically, "It is necessary to preserve this with
care." The {647} examination being concluded, he said to him: "My
child, I have not found any purchasers for this furniture, and may not
for some time. I will give you, however, what I suppose to be its
value, and if I should get more for it shall be glad to remit it to
you; by thus doing I will have time to look about, and can, perhaps,
dispose of it two more advantage." The poor child knew not how to
reply to this kindness, but he said, "All that you have done is right,
my dear father, you are too good to take so much trouble for me, and I
thank you with all my heart." Again the curé closed the door and took
Robert's hand. He burst into sobs at the idea of being separated from
all which reminded him of his mother, but he baked him to have
courage. "Courage, my child. I know you suffer in leaving a spot
sacred to your mother's memory; it is but a natural feeling but you
cannot stay. Leave all to my care, accomplish the wish of your mother,
go to Paris, and if the blessing of an old man, a blessing which calls
down that of God, can inspire you with resolution and confidence in
the future, I give you mine, and made it make you happy." In saying
these words he had laid his hands on the head of the child, who was
kneeling before him.

Robert past several days with the kind father, where he gained
strength and courage; and one morning at sunrise, with a small bundle
of his shoulder and a stick in his hand, set out, accompanied by the
good curé, who had wished to render less painful by his presence the
first steps of this sad journey. He had sent a letter to his friend
the curé in Paris, in which he enclosed the fifty pounds, not thinking
it prudent that Robert should carry it with him. A half league from
the village, on the route to Claremont, the excellent man embraced the
child, pointed to heaven, and bade him farewell!


CHAPTER III.

  "We may know by a child's actions
  If his motives are pure and right."
                   Proverbs.

As long as it was possible, Robert followed, with burning eyes, the
charitable man who had comforted him in his severe affliction. Several
times he turned to see if the mountain had yet disappeared, on which
he had passed so many happy days. At last the charm was broken, it was
no longer visible, and tears chased each other down his checks, but he
walked on quickly, saying, "My mother wishes it." His mind was so
occupied that he walked on without looking at the road which ran ahead
of his thoughts and his regrets, until, involuntarily raising his eyes
to the scene before him, he stops in the extremity of his surprise;
his eyes refuse to believe their evidence; they wander from object to
object without knowing why, without being able to explain the mystery
which plunges him into a sort of stupor, and he believes himself under
the dominion of a feverish and fantastic dream. He raises his hand to
see if he is asleep, but he is wide awake, and laughs at his
simplicity. It is easy for us to understand this. He recognizes no
longer men, things, or even nature. All that he left behind him was
different from what was before and around him. He was in a new world,
on strange ground, and everything which was presented to his sight
caused him an undefinable sensation. Was there not enough to surprise
him? These large fields, these plains of vendure, these yellow
harvests, were to him a new spectacle, strange, singular, sometimes
even monotonous to the eye of a little mountaineer, habituated to the
fantastic forms of the rock and the sombre and imposing verdure of the
woods which covered the sides of his native mountain. Where are the
great heaps of volcanic rocks among which he had been reared and which
were so familiar to his eyes? All had {648} disappeared, and it seemed
to him that, without transition he had passed from severe and grand
nature to simple and gay, rich with flowers and fruits and corn white
and golden. It was the contrast which frightened him, and made him
think he had been transported by some invisible hand a thousand
leagues from his home. Like a bird slightly wounded which flies to the
parent nest and seeks shelter under the warm wings of its mother, so
Robert, restless and inquiet, longs for the maternal arms in which he
can hide his fears. He feels his loneliness; the road seems longer at
every step, and he cannot see the end of it. He invokes through his
mother the blessing of God, and his fears are dissipated, and strength
and hope are given him to hasten on. With the versatility which is the
happy accompaniment of childhood, he put a sweet security in place of
the most foolish fears. And now he was brave again. This transition of
sentiment, this quick changing of the most lively sorrow into a kind
of gayety, is natural to youth. They have extremes of joy and sorrow,
and, without being prepared for either, we see them pass suddenly from
one to the other. Happy, happy childhood! Robert was now full of a new
sentiment, and the birds fluttered round him and sang their merriest
songs; the long, low murmur of the insects was delightful to his ears.
Why should he be sad when all nature was so joyous? A universal hymn
of gratitude and love is being sung by all that exist, by everything
that breathes, in honor of our divine Creator; and, no matter how many
the sorrows and desolations of man, calmness comes to his heart, in
the sweet perfume of joy, the suave harmony and gracious gayety that
fill all nature under the life-giving influence of a beautiful summer
morning. As we are all, sooner or later, initiated into the sufferings
of life, we must feel for others and pour what balm we can into every
wounded heart. Robert walked on until he came to an inn where he asked
to pass the night. His fresh, open face, his gentleness, and the title
of Orphan, gained for him the heart and good graces of his hostess.
She asked him whither he was going and if he wished to go. He told
her, and that it was his mother's wish, and, of course, if hers, his,
that he should go to Paris. The next morning he started off,
overwhelmed with the caresses of this woman, for she was a mother, and
felt a tear moisten her cheek, as she saw this little boy take up his
bundle and resolutely pursue his way, and she prayed God to take care
of him. Robert felt his mother's loss hourly when fatigue weakened his
limbs and hunger made him cry, but he saw her with the eyes of faith
in heaven. Yes; believe me, dear little children who have lost your
mothers! turn to heaven, and there you will see them looking at you
with eyes of love, and saying to you: "Be good, my darlings, and when
you are asleep I will visit you, and kiss your pure and innocent
foreheads." Yes; look to heaven, and I promise you you will see your
mothers there, if you are good. It was this which recalled to Robert's
heart each day the remembrance of his mother and filled his eyes with
tears. It carried also to his heart a secret encouragement and gave
him strength.

As he walked on he left behind him Clermont, Rion, Aigueperse, and
Grannot. Some leagues before this he had bid good-by to the beautiful
district of Limagne, which had charmed him by its sea of verdure, it's
deep golden foliage, and its rich and fertile plains. This was the
first canton of France which was considered worthy of a particular
description, and it was of this part of l'Auvergne that Apollo Lidoine
said: "It is so beautiful that strangers who go there cannot leave it,
and there have even then instances of persons forgetting their own
country when there." It was of this country, so favored by heaven,
that King Childebert said, "that before dying he desired but one {649}
thing, and that was to see beautiful Limagne d'Auvergne, which is the
masterpiece of nature, and a scene of enchantment." We cannot say that
Robert shared in their opinion, but it is certain that he passed it
with regret, although he was drawn by so strange of feeling toward
Paris, the object of his hope and his ambition. He walked to St.
Pourçain, Moulins, and all the small places, and rested a day when
overfatigued. Great was his delight when he reached Fontainebleau,
which royal residence had witnessed the first abdication of the
emperor. All was still in motion at this place, and more than one old
soldier twisted his mustache, and with a fierce and martial air walked
on the edge of this great forest, weeping for the liberty of his
emperor, his god, his idol. It was with delight that our young hero,
the child of the woods and solitude, sought the fresh shades, which
recalled to him, by a striking similarity, his cherished mountain
home; and the immense piles of irregular rocks attested that this
place, too, had been the theatre of some great convulsion of nature.
At mid-day, when the sun sheds his fiercest rays, when the tired
flowers lean on their stems, when the birds hide under the leaves,
when all nature seeks repose, the better to enjoy the freshness of the
evening, Robert, too, followed the example, and lay down and slept at
the foot of a huge chestnut-tree many centuries old; the vast shade of
which form and impenetrable cover from the heat of the sun. He awoke
refreshed, rose, and ventured into one of the long alleys or walks to
which a sign conducted him. For several hours he wandered about lost
in this tangled maze and looking in vain for an opening. But he was a
patient child, and obstacles did not stop him, neither was he
discouraged by his unfruitful efforts; on the contrary, he redoubled
his ardor, and finally reached a clear space, in the center of which
was a fountain ordered by rose-beds. Four paths diverged from it, and
of such great length were they that it fatigued the eye to look at
them. In exploring in turn each of these paths, Robert found in one of
them a sign pointing out to strangers the various labyrinths of the
forest. He had nothing else for a guide, but thought if he could only
find his way to the palace again, there must be some one there who
could tell him how to go; so he followed the path which he thought
might be right, and it was, and led him into the avenue which wound
round by the palace. When he got right in front of the principal and
only truly royal edifice of France, or rather of Napoleon, he stopped
and wondered at the vast aspect of this assemblage of buildings,
producing an effect at once imposing and majestic. Nothing like this
had ever entered his imagination, and the most lively astonishment
shone on his face, and his eyes burned with the fire of intelligence
and pleasure. A few steps from him was an old soldier who was entirely
absorbed in contemplating the building, and who looked worn and sad.
He, too, was in a sort of ecstasy, but he gazed in silence and seemed
lost to all around him. His expression was of one in anguish, and his
eyes rested with a strange fixedness upon the steps of honor. He waits
and watches as if hoping to see some one whom he ardently loves
appear; but his hope is deceived, and two tears trickle slowly down
his dark cheeks, scarred and burned by the fires of a hundred battles.
At this moment when marks of supreme sorrow told so eloquently of his
sufferings, Robert turned, and seeing his tears he was deeply moved at
this testimony of profound sorrow, and, eagerly approaching the
soldier, said to him in a touching voice: "Why do you cry, sir? Have
yon also lost your mother? I fear you have." Robert had never wept but
for one sorrow, and that we all know, and in happy ignorance of the
other misfortunes of life he thought all wept {650} for the same
thing; and in his great loss he looked to older persons to console
him, which proved how tender, delicate, and generous are the
sentiments that live in the hearts of children. Their young souls are
mirrors have to which we should only give pure, chaste, and pious
images to reflect and show them good examples, that without effort
vice might be crushed out, and the world left an Eden of purity.

Hearing so touchingly compassionate a voice, the old soldier turned
and looked at the child, while tears glistened in his eyes. "No," said
he in a coarse tone, "it is not for my mother that I weep, it is for
my emperor." "And who is it that is your emperor?" "Alas! I have no
father, and have just lost my mother," he said sighing. "Was your
emperor good, and did you love him so much that you weep or him? I
shall never forget my mother, she was so sweet and good to her little
son. But tell me, sir, tell me of your emperor. My mother said I
should always love those who were good, and I want to love him too."
The old fellow twisted his mustache, and growled some words between
his teeth, looking alternately at the palace and the child, who smiled
at him with an expression so gentle that it moved the soldier's heart.
You could see he was the victim of an emotion he vainly sought to
conceal. "Wonderful!" cried he, vanquished by the magical eyes of
Robert. "You are a good child, and speak to my heart when you tell me
that you love my emperor. But who does not love him, except those
cowards! those scoundrels! those traitors! But stop, I have said
enough." He saw that Robert was a little frightened, for his ears had
only been accustomed to the caressing voice of his mother. "Do you see
that staircase? My emperor descended by it to embrace the eagles of
his flag, the victorious eagles which have made him immortal, and
which led his way to glory. Yes, the embraced them, and wept because
he could not embrace all his old soldiers had not betrayed him and
would have followed him to the end of the world. And some of his old
guard still live. Oh! if they had only sent me with him into the loan
island of his misfortunes, if I could be with him there, I should be
content. But since I cannot, I must go to Paris and see what is doing
there. See, my child, you are going there too, and I believe you said
you had neither father nor mother. Have you any relatives?" "No," said
Robert. "Why, then, are you going to Paris if you have no friends
there?" "My mother said I must go, and I'm going." "I don't wish to be
too curious, but tell me from whence you come?" "From the village of
Mount Dore, eight leagues from Clermont." "Pretty walk for such little
legs, I think; but as we are both going to Paris, and you have no
father or mother to protect you, and I and a poor old soldier, I will
take care of you, for you have moved my heart by your gentle words,
and we will travel together, so that the walk will be shorter for
both." "Oh! how delightful," said Robert; "and then you can tell me
about your emperor. I know I can walk fast enough in hearing you talk
about one whom you love so much." "Yes, my boy," he replied, "I could
speak forever of my emperor; but it must be when we are alone, for his
glorious name, which once made kings and conscripts alike tremble, is
now called usurper, and is forbidden to be pronounced. A thousand
thunders! the thought enrages me; and if I had his traitorous subjects
I would strangle them, or my name is not Cyprien Hardy." This
conversation was held with furious gestures on the one side and great
astonishment on the other, until they came to the modest inn where
Robert had left his bundle. The child in his new friend, the old
soldier, who justified the name, made a frugal repast, and continue
{651} their journey. On the way Robert related the history of the
twelve years he had passed on his cherished mountain with his beloved
mother, which simple recital gained him the lasting friendship of his
companion, whom Robert looked upon as a friend provided for him by
that kind Providence who watches over orphans. He bore the fatigue of
the journey well, and was in perfect health when they reached that
magnificent chaos called Paris. The old soldier is, then, the second
friend that God has given our little hero. And how strange it was that
these two were isolated beings should meet in such a place, before the
grand palace of kings--the one a man of resolute energy, who carried
on his bold forehead great scars of glory, but who shed tears of
despair at the fall of his well-beloved chief, in whom he had found
parents, country, family; the other a charming youth, representing
brilliant promises for the future, young, beautiful, and full of
ambition. Cyprien Hardy was one of those true French hearts to whom
the name of patriot was not a vain word. He was moved like many others
when dangers threatened the republic and the when powerful allies
audaciously invaded its territory. He was one of the first to take up
arms, having entered the army as a volunteer at twenty-one. Some years
later he served in the first regiment of the soldiers of the guard,
after having made the memorable campaigns of Italy, Egypt, and
Germany, always following the "Little Corporal," always the first in
battle, and always respected. Dangers made him smile; his courage was
inexhaustible. One thing alone could move him, and that was the voice
of his chief. This electrified him, and made him forget all but noble
actions. He had always loved Napoleon, and this affection increased
with the fortunes of the great man whose word or look transformed
soldiers into heroes. It was in the forts of Moscow that his emperor
had given him the "Cross of Honor," for a wound which he received from
a cannon ball while waving his flag. In this disastrous retreat the
brave soldier, dying with cold, fatigue, and hunger, preserved his
heroic exaltation and his confidence in and love for his emperor; and
if he ever grumbled, it was only because he could not kill every
Cossack that he laid his eyes upon. His courage and energy never
diminished, and he believed so implicitly in his emperor that he
thought good fortune must return. But it had gone forever. His heart
revolted at the thought; and he swore that the author of this infamous
treason should repent, and this was why he was going to Paris to see
if he could find any of his old companions.



TO BE CONTINUED.

----------


ONE MOMENT.

  A trooping forth of buried griefs like ghosts,--
  Temptations gathering swift in serried hosts,--
  Of angel guardians a glittering band,--
  God watching all--shall we desert or stand?

--------

{652}




PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.  [Footnote 178]

  [Footnote 178: erratum: In the last number, p. 524, 2d col. 12th
  line, for "created in sanctity and justice," read "constituted."]

(CONCLUDED)


XII.

THE MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION.

The next article of the creed, in order, is that which expresses the
Mystery of Redemption: "Crucifixus etiam pro nobis, sub Pontio Pilato,
passus, et sepultus est." "Who was also crucified for us under Pontius
Pilate, who suffered, and was buried." The redemption implies the
incarnation, and is based on it. The incarnation having been already
treated of, in immediate connection with the Trinity, we have only to
proceed with the exposition of the doctrine of satisfaction for sin
and restoration to grace through the sufferings and death of the
Divine Redeemer.

It is no part of the Catholic doctrine that it was necessary for the
second person of the Trinity to take upon himself human nature and
suffer an infinite penalty, in order that God might be able to pardon
sin without violating his justice. All Catholic theologians, from St.
Augustine down, teach that God is free to show mercy and to pardon,
according to his own good pleasure. The reason and end of the
incarnation has been shown already to be something far above this
order of ideas. The incarnation does not of itself, however, imply
suffering or death. We have to inquire, then, why it was that in point
of fact the incarnate Word was manifested as a suffering Redeemer; and
why his death on the cross was constituted the meritorious cause of
the remission of sin and restoration of grace.

The church has never made any formal definition of her doctrine on
this point, and it is well known various have been the theories
regarding it maintained at different times. We shall endeavor to
present a view which appears to us adequate and intelligible; without,
however, claiming for it any certainty beyond that of the reasons on
which it is based.

The original gift of grace not having been due to Adam, or to any one
of his ordinary descendents, injustice, the restoration of that gift,
when lost, was not due. Aside from the incarnation, there was no
imperative reason why Adam and his race should not have been left in
the state to which they were reduced by the original transgression.
God, having determined to accomplish the incarnation in the human
race, owed it to himself to complete this determination, in spite of
all the sins which he foresaw would be committed by men. The foreseen
merits of Christ furnished an adequate motive for conferring any
degree of grace upon any or all men, he might seek to be fitting and
necessary for the fulfillment of his eternal purposes. It was not
necessary, however, that the Son of God should suffer or die in order
to merit grace for mankind. By the define decree, indeed, the shedding
of his blood and his death was made the special meritorious act in
view of which remission of sins and grace are conferred. But all the
acts of his life had the same intrinsic worth and excellence, which
was simply infinite on account of the divine principle of imputability
to which they must be referred. There must have been some reasons,
therefore, of fitness, on account of which it was determined that
Jesus Christ should suffer death for the human race.

{653}

We may find one of these reasons in the law of suffering and death
which God had imposed, out of a motive of pure love, on the whole
human race. This law was, indeed, promulgated under the form of a
penalty, but in its substance it was a real blessing. The way to
heaven through the path of penance and by the gate of death is a sure
and safer way then the one in which Adam was first placed; it is one,
also, affording higher and more extensive scope for virtue, heroism,
and merit. It was, therefore, fitting that the chief and prince of the
human race should go before  his brethren in this way of sufferings.
"For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all
things, who brought many sons to glory, to perfect, by suffering, the
author of their salvation." [Footnote 179] As a particular consequence
of this general law, heroes, patriots, reformers, prophets, and
saints, have always been especially exposed to suffering and to
violent modes of death. They have been obliged to sacrifice themselves
to their own fidelity to conscience and to that sacred cause to which
they have been devoted. And this sacrifice of life has consecrated
their memories in the hearts of their fellow-men more than any other
acts of intellectual or moral virtue, however brilliant. It was
fitting, therefore, that the Saint of saints, the Saviour of the
world, should not exempt himself from the peril of death, to which the
very character of his mission exposed him.

  [Footnote 179: Heb, II. 10.]

Another reason for the suffering of the Divine Mediator, is found in
the manifestation thereby made of the love of God in Christ to the
human race. There is no need of dwelling on this, or of noticing other
reasons of a similar kind which have been so frequently and so fully
developed by others.

We pass on, therefore, to the consideration of the final and highest
reason for the death of Jesus Christ, the expiation of sin.

The true and only possible notion of expiation or satisfaction is that
which apprehends it as a compensation for the failure to perform some
obligatory act, by performing another act of at least equal value in
the place of it. Every noble soul, when conscious of having been
delinquent, desires to repair the injury which has been done, as well
as to redeem its own honor, by some act which shall, if possible, far
exceed the one which it failed to perform. The same principle impels
those who have a high sense of honor to make reparation tor the
delinquencies of others with whom they are closely related in the same
family, the same society, or the same nation. Now, the human race has
been delinquent in making a proper return to God for the infinite boon
of grace. The fall of man and the innumerable sins of the individuals
of the human race have deprived Almighty God of a tribute of glory
which was due to him, and have brought ignominy upon mankind as a
race. Although, therefore, Almighty God might provide for the
glorification of the elect who are to share with the Incarnate Word in
his divine privileges, by an act of pure mercy; it is far more
glorious both to God and man that a superabundant satisfaction should
be made for the injury which has been done to the Creator by the
marring of his creation, and a superabundant expiation accomplished of
the disgrace which man has incurred. It was, therefore, an act of
divine wisdom and love in God to determine that this satisfaction and
expiation should be made by the second person of the Trinity in his
human nature. The Incarnate Word, being truly man, identified with the
human race, and its chief, necessarily made its honor and its disgrace
his own. Although he could redeem his brethren without any cost to
himself, his solicitude for their honor and glory would not permit him
to do it. He desired that they should enter heaven on the most
honorable terms, without any of the humiliation of the delinquency of
the race attaching to them, but, on the contrary with the {654}
exulting consciousness that every stain of dishonor had been effaced.
Therefore, as their king and chief, he fulfilled the most sublime work
of obedience to the divine love which was possible; he made the most
perfect possible oblation to God, as an equivalent for his boon of
grace which had been abused by sin. In lieu of that glory which God
would have received from the perfect obedience of Adam and all his
posterity, and that glory which would have been also reflected upon
the human race, he substituted the infinitely greater glory of his own
obedience unto death, even the death of the cross. By this obedience
Jesus Christ merited for the human race the concession of a new grant
of grace, more perfect than the first, by virtue of which not only the
original sin which is common to all men was made remissible to each
individual, but all actual sins were made also pardonable on certain
conditions.

That this statement completely exhausts the true idea of the
satisfaction of Christ, we will not pretend to affirm. It appears to
us, however, sufficient to give a clear and definite meaning to the
language of Scripture and the fathers, and to include all that
Catholic faith requires a Christian to believe.

Jesus Christ having merited by his death the right of conferring grace
without stint or limit upon mankind, and all the grace given after the
fall and before the redemption having been bestowed in the foresight
of his death, every spiritual blessing enjoyed by men is referred to
the death of Jesus Christ as its cause and source. Strictly speaking,
it is only the meritorious cause. By giving himself up to die, he
merited the right to communicate the grace contained in the
incarnation to men, notwithstanding the failure of the father and head
of the race to fulfil the probation on which the transmission of the
grace to his descendants depended. He merited also the right to renew
this grace in those individuals who should lose it after having once
received it, as often as these, without regard to the number or
grievousness of their sins, or the frequency of their lapses. It is,
however, the Holy Spirit; dwelling in the Incarnate Word in the
plenitude of  his being, and communicating to his human nature the
fulness grace, not for itself alone, but for all men; which is the
ultimate and efficient cause of all spiritual life. It is the grace of
the Holy Spirit which actually removes all guilt and stain of sin from
the soul, and constitutes it in the state of justice and sanctity. The
Holy Spirit is, therefore, the efficient cause of justification. The
formal cause is the personal sanctity of each individual. That is,
this personal sanctity is that which makes each one worthy of the
complacency of God, of fellowship with him, and of everlasting life.
The work of the incarnation and redemption must, therefore, produce
its results and attain its consummation through the Holy Spirit as the
sanctifier of the human race. Consequently, the creed, after finishing
it's expression of the Catholic faith so far as the person of Christ
is concerned, proceeds to enunciate it as regards the person and
operation of the Holy Spirit, is sent by Christ to complete his work.
The articles containing this enunciation complete the creed, and bring
man to his final destination.



XII.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, AS THE INSTRUMENT OF
THE SANCTIFICATION OF THE HUMAN RACE.


The next articles of the creed are: "Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum
et Vivificantem, qui ex Patre Filioque procedit, qui cum Patre et
Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur, qui locutus est per
prophetas; et in unam sanctam, Catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam;
confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum." "And in the Holy
Ghost, the Lord and Lifegiver, who proceedeth from the Father and the
Son, {655} who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and
glorified, who spake by the prophets; I confess one baptism for the
remission of sins."

The relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son in the
Trinity has been already considered. The temporal mission of the Holy
Spirit as the consummation of the divine work _ad extra_ is exercised
through the Catholic Church; and, therefore, the article concerning
the church follows immediately in the creed the one concerning the
Holy Spirit.   [Footnote 180]

  [Footnote 180: Vid. Archbishop Manning's Mission of the Holy Ghost.]

The organic unity of the Catholic Church follows necessarily from the
principles laid down in the foregoing essays. It is an immediate
consequence of the unity of the race, and of the incarnation, which
are two distinct facts, but which have one principle. The order of
regeneration must follow the order of generation. Mankind exist
essentially as a race; as a race they received the original gift of
supernatural grace; as a race they lost it. All human life and
development is generic. The redemption of mankind must, therefore,
re-establish the generic relations which were disturbed by the fall.
Jesus Christ, the second Adam, must become the head of a redeemed and
regenerated race of men, organized in a supernatural society.
Continuity and perpetuity of life are, therefore, the essential notes
of the divine society, or human race regenerated, in which true
spiritual life is communicated to the individual. The sole possession
of these notes demonstrates the divine authority of the Catholic
Church.  [Footnote 181] The continuity of life, embracing integrity of
doctrine and law and the faculty of conferring grace, descended from
the patriarchal church through the Jewish, with the increment added by
the immediate intervention of the divine Lord of the world in person,
to the Catholic Church.

  [Footnote 181: Vid. Leo, Univ. Hist., vol. I. Lacordaire's
  Conferences, and the Works of Dr. Brownson, passim.]

The Catholic Church is, therefore, the human race, in the highest
sense. In early times, one nation after another broke away from the
unity of the race, carrying a fragment of the integral, ideal humanity
with it. Integrity, continuity, and perpetuity of life were,
therefore, rendered for them impossible. The same phenomena are
exhibited at the present time in all nations and societies outside of
the Catholic Church. Partial and temporary developments only can be
made of that integral, universal, perpetual life, whose seat is in the
bosom of the church, and which is sufficient to vivify the whole human
race, if the impediments were removed. The proof, _à posteriori_, or
by induction, of the Catholic Church, must be sought for in those
works which treat professedly of the subject. Our object is merely to
show the conformity of the idea of the Catholic Church with the idea
of reason, by deduction from primary, ontological principles. The
attributes of the church follow so immediately from its primary note,
as the human race restored to unity in the fellowship of God in
Christ, that they require no special elucidation; especially as this
particular branch of theology has been so repeatedly and so amply
treated by authors.

In regard to special dogmas of the church, most of those which present
any great difficulty to the understanding have already been discussed
in the former part of this essay; and the remainder find an easy
explication from the same principles.

The doctrine of the sacraments is explicated from the principle that
the church is the instrument of sanctification. The sacraments are the
particular acts by which the church communicates the spiritual
vitality which resides in her to individuals. They have an outward,
sensible form, because the nature of man is corporeal, and all human
acts are composed of a synthesis of the sensible and the spiritual.
They contain an inward, spiritual grace, because the nature of {656}
man is spiritual, and receives life only from a spiritual principle.
The only one of  the sacraments which presents any special difficulty
to the understanding is the holy eucharist; on account of  the mystery
of transubstantiation which is included in it's essence. The ground of
this difficulty, which lies in crude, philosophical notions, and is,
therefore, purely a spectre of the imagination, has been already
removed by the doctrine we Have laid down respecting the nature of
substance and the proper conception of space and extension. The senses
transmit to the soul nothing more than the impressions of the
phenomena, which the soul, by an intellectual judgment, refers to a
real, intelligible substance, or active force, as their productive
cause. The substance itself is not sensible, but intelligible; is not
seen as an essence by the eye, but concluded by a judgment of the
mind. By divine revelation it is disclosed to us, that the substance
of bread and wine is the eucharist is succeeded by the substance of
the body and blood of Jesus Christ; the phenomena or sensible effects
of the former substance still continuing to be produced in an
extraordinary manner. There is a mystery here it is true; but it is
only the mystery which belongs to the inscrutable nature of the
essence of matter as active force, and the mode in which this active
force produces various sensible phenomena. The definitions of the
church do not furnish a complete explanation of the Catholic dogma,
which is left to theologians; and even theologians do not precisely
coincide in their conceptions or expressions. All we can do then,
after stating the Catholic dogma, is to give the explanation which
appears to be the most probable, according to the judgment of the best
authors and the most weighty intrinsic reasons. This is enough,
however, for our purpose; for all that is required is to furnish a
conception which is, on the one band, theologically tenable, and, on
the other, rationally intelligible.

We may separate the synthetic judgment pronounced by the church, in
the definition of the dogma, into four analytic judgments. First, the
absence of the substance of bread and wine after the consecration.
Second, the presence of the substance of the body of Christ. Third,
the absence of the natural phenomenon of the body of Christ. Fourth,
the presence of the natural phenomenon of bread and wine. In order to
reconstruct these elements of the church's dogmatic judgment into a
more perfect synthesis, it it is necessary to analyze further these
separate propositions. There are three principle, distinct conceptions
contained in them: the conception of substance; the conception of
presence, or relation in space; and the conception of phenomena, or,
to use the precise term employed by the schoolmen, of _accidents_.
There is, also, the conception of the mode in which the phenomena of
bread and wine subsists out of relation to their proper productive
substances, or, the conception of the immediate, efficient cause to
which they must be referred. These first three conceptions have been
sufficiently analyzed in a former part of this treatise. The absence
of the substance of bread and wine after consecration may be
explained, in accordance with the conception of substance, by
annihilation, removal, or identification with the substance of the
body of Christ. The senses cannot take cognizance of its presence
before consecration, it being there office merely to report phenomena;
they cannot, consequently, take cognizance of its absence. They are
not, therefore, deceived in reporting the phenomena as unchanged after
the consecration, since they really remain unchanged; nor is the mind
qualified to pronounce on the report of the senses, that the substance
is unchanged, by an intellectual judgment; since the judgment which
would otherwise be validly made is superseded by a divine judgment,
made known through revelation, that in this instance the substance has
been {657} changed for another by the creative power of God. The
simplest mode of conceiving the effect of consecration on the
substances of the bread and wine is to suppose their annihilation. St.
Thomas, however, denies that they are annihilated, because the
terminus of annihilation is nothing, whereas the terminus of the act
of transubstantiation is the body of Christ. In plain words, the
argument is: if the substances were annihilated, the effect of
consecration would be properly expressed by saying that they are
reduced to nothing, whereas the language of the church is, that they
are converted into the body and blood of Christ. The same argument
applies to the notion of their removal elsewhere. Nevertheless, since
they are not supposed to be annihilated or removed simply for the sake
of getting rid of them, and their destruction or removal is not the
end or final term of the act of divine power, but only its proximate
term, in order to the substitution of the body of Christ, this
argument is not decisive. It is proper to say that the substance of
bread is changed into the body of Christ, if the body of Christ is
substituted for it; The natural phenomena which formerly indicated the
presence of the one substance remaining the same, and indicating the
presence of the other substance instead of that of the former
substance.

Another explanation is based on the notion of one generic substance
individualized in all distinct, material existences. According to this
explanation, the bread and wine, being deprived of their individual
existence, are not thereby destroyed; but, as it were, withdrawn into
the generic substance, which is identical with the substance
individualized in the body of Christ; and therefore properly said to
be converted into the substance of his body. We are unable to
understand how the notion on which this explanation is based, which
appears to require us to accept the realism of William de Champeaux
and the schoolmen, can be made intelligible; and, therefore, prefer
the former, which, we believe, is the one more commonly adopted.

The presence of the body of Christ, without its natural phenomena, and
under the phenomena of bread and wine; which presents usually much the
greatest difficulty to the understanding, is really capable of a much
more easy and certain explanation. It is present not by its extension,
but by its pure substance, or _vis activa_, that is, as Perrone says,
_per modum spiritâs_, after the manner of spirit. Spirit, as all
Catholic philosophers teach, is related to objects in space, by the
application of its intrinsic force to them. The presence of the body
of Christ in the eucharist is, therefore, the application of its _vis
activa_; which is, indeed, finite, but, by virtue of its supreme
excellence in the created order, through the hypostatic union,
commensurate with the whole created universe and all its particular
parts. The body of Christ, therefore, while it is circumscribed as to
its extension; and, according to the ordinary sense of the word, is
present only in one place; is, in a different but real sense, present
everywhere where the species of the eucharist are present. These
species or phenomena of bread and wine in the eucharist, are the signs
indicating its presence by its substantial force or _vis activa_. They
may be produced, as every one will admit they can be, by the immediate
act of God; or, by the _vis activa_ of the body of Christ; which, as a
perfect body containing eminently all the perfection of inferior
material substances, can produce their proper effects. The body and
blood of Christ contain substantially and essentially the virtue of
bread and wine, and, being in hypostatic union with the divine nature,
may be capable of producing the phenomena and effects proceeding
naturally from this virtue in many places at once. It appears to us
more in accordance with the language of Scripture and the church to
make this latter supposition. We sum up, there fore, the explanation
of the mystery {658} which appears to us the most probable and
rational, in this short formula. By the effect of the divine power,
exercised through the act of consecrating the eucharist; the sensible
phenomena, indicating before the act the presence of the _vis activa_,
of bread and wine, cease to indicate it; and indicate instead of it,
the presence of the _vis activa_ of the body and blood of Christ, The
language of the definition pronounced by the church is thus exactly
verified. There is a change of substance, without any change of
phenomena. There is a transition of the substance of the bread and
wine; which ceases either altogether as a distinct existence, or, at
least, as the cause of the phenomena; in order to give way to the
substance of the body of Christ; which is properly called a
transubstantiation.

The mystery still remains, and must remain, incomprehensible by the
human understanding, however clear the explanation of the difficulties
which beset it may be made. Neither the senses nor the intellect can
perceive the presence of Jesus Christ in the eucharist. It is believed
by an act of faith in the word of Jesus Christ. The mode of this
substantial presence and of its action on the soul is, moreover, but
dimly apprehended; because substance itself, as a _vis activa_, and
the mode of its activity, are impenetrable to reason. The rational
argument respecting the dogma of faith, therefore, merely proves that
it is not contrary to reason; and that it is partially intelligible by
analogy with other known truths and facts. We thus understand that the
presence f Jesus Christ in the species of the eucharist is _possible_.
And, the revelation of its reality once made, we see also its fitness.
It is most fitting and congruous that Jesus Christ should unite
himself in the most perfect manner which is consistent with the
condition of man in this life, with his human brethren; and that this
union should be manifested to the senses. This is accomplished in the
eucharist in such a way that the intellect, the imagination, or the
heart of man, cannot conceive or desire anything more perfect and
admirable.   [Footnote 182]

  [Footnote 182:  _Vide_ F. Dalgairn's on the Holy Communion for a
  more complete elucidation of the philosophy of substance and accidents.]

We shall simply note with the greatest brevity the remaining doctrines
whose consideration falls under the present head.

The absolute necessity of grace for works worthy of eternal life, and
the inability of man to perform them by his natural strength, is
explained by the supernatural principle of which we have already given
exposition.

The merit of good works is explained by the doctrine of probation; and
the distinction between this kind of merit and the merits of Christ,
as well as their natural relation and harmony, is obvious from the
exposition which has been made of the latter.

The Catholic doctrine respecting the Blessed Virgin and the Saints is
explained by the doctrine already laid down of the glorification and
deification of human nature through the incarnation.

The whole exterior and visible _cultus_ of Catholic worship is
explained by the doctrine, of sensible things as signs and
representations of the invisible, and of the essentially corporeal
constitution of man. These, and all other particulars of Catholic
doctrine, are contained in the universal or Catholic idea, which
shines by its own light, and proves itself by its sublimity,
integrity, symmetry, and correspondence with all the analogies of the
natural world.


XIV.

 THE FINAL DESTINATION OF ANGELS AND MEN;
 CONDITION OF THE UNREGENERATE IN THE  FUTURE LIFE;
 ETERNITY OF THE PENALTY OF SIN;
 STATE OF FINAL THE  BEATITUDE.


The closing articles of the creed are: "Expecto resurrectionem
mortuorun et vitam venturi saeculi, Amen." "I look for the
resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world of come, Amen."

{659}

Thus, the creation, which proceeds from God as first cause, is shown
to have returned to him as final cause. This is especially
accomplished in the beatification of the elect; and consequently it is
the glory and blessedness of heaven which is immediately and
explicitly affirmed in the creed. The entire creed, however, implies,
what the Catholic church in her exposition of the creed teaches
dogmatically, that only a portion of the angelic hierarchy and the
human race attain heaven. The doctrine of hell, or the place and state
of those who are excluded from heaven, is, therefore, the necessary
correlate of the doctrine of heaven. So far as the human race is
concerned, we have to consider, first, what is the condition in
eternity of those who are subject to the consequences of original sin
only.

It follows from the doctrine already laid down, namely, that the state
to which man is reduced by original sin, is entitively the same with
that in which consists the state of pure nature; that the condition of
this class of human beings in eternity is the same that it would be if
they had never been constituted in the order of the supernatural. They
are destitute of supernatural beatitude, but attain to all the
felicity of which they are capable in the natural order. They are
elevated in the due course of nature to that integrity and perfection
of soul and body which, in the case of Adam, was anticipated by a
gratuitous gift. Their felicity consists in a perfect exemption from
an liability to sin, in the complete evolution of their natural
capacities, and in the possession of the proper object of their
intelligence and will, that is, in the knowledge and fruition of the
works of God, and of God himself by abstractive contemplation. This
last expression needs some explanation in order to show its conformity
with the doctrine we have laid down at the beginning of these essays
respecting the primitive intuition of reason. We have there affirmed
that the original intuition of reason is the intuition of that idea
which is afterward demonstrated by reflection to be identical with the
being of God. Some, rejecting this doctrine of the idea, object to it
that it leads to a confusion of the act of intelligence constitutive
of rational nature with the act proper only to beatified nature, that
is, the intuitive vision of God. Others, who accept it, endeavor to
rebut this objection, and to show the distinction between the
knowledge of God derived from rational intuition and that which is
communicated by the light of glory. But in doing this they make the
first to be only the inchoation of the second, and the second the
completion or full evolution of the first. It would follow, then, that
a rational creature cannot attain to the proper object of his
intelligence and will, consequently cannot attain perfect felicity,
without the beatific vision. We cannot admit either that the objection
is a valid one or that the explanation which is made in order to do
away with it is sufficient. We venture, therefore, to suggest another.

It is real and concrete being, not possible and abstract being, which
is the intelligible object of reason. Reason, however, does not, by an
intrinsic, perceptive power, actively elicit the intuition of its
intelligible object. In other words, it is not by its virtue as
intelligence that real being, or the intelligible, becomes
intelligible to it. The intelligible has the precedence and the
superiority in the act of intelligence. The presence of the object
makes the subject intelligent in the first act, and this first act is
one in which the creative spirit is the agent and the created spirit
the terminus of the act. The original, immediate contact of the
intellect with real, concrete being, that is, with God, is, therefore,
a contact in which the soul is passive, because this contact precedes
and is the cause of its activity. It is only by reflection, or bending
backward upon itself, that the intellect can have distinct
self-consciousness and elicit thought. When it does so, it takes
always the affirmation of real, necessary being, by which {660} God
created it rational, as the first and absolute elements of its
thoughts. But this affirmation, as soon as it enters into reflection,
and becomes an element of the spontaneous activity of the soul,
becomes _abstract_. It is not a pure abstraction, or an act which
terminates on the abstract or possible as its ultimate object, but an
abstraction formed from the concrete object as apprehended by the
passive intelligence, or an abstract conception of the concrete idea.
It would require too much time to develop this statement fully. But it
is plain at a single glance that it is justified by the facts of
consciousness. All our judgments respecting necessary and universal
truth are abstract. The judgment respecting necessary cause, that
respecting the infinite and the eternal, that respecting ideal space
and time, those which respect mathematical relations, and those which
form the data of logic, are all of this kind. There is no direct,
immediate intuition of God as the infinite, concrete, personal truth,
to be found in our consciousness; as we have previously proved in our
demonstration of the being of God. The necessity of using the term
_intuition_ in reference to our apprehension of the idea is,
therefore, an unfortunate one, and gives rise to a confusion of the
act in which we conclude the existence and attributes of God by a
rational, deductive judgment, with the act in which the soul
immediately beholds him by an intellectual vision. Intuition and
vision are, strictly speaking identical. Experience teaches us that
our first distinct vision is the vision of sensible objects, and that
we refer constantly to this as the standard of clear vision, since
there is nothing which appears to us equally clear and distinct. By
the aid of our perception of the sensible, we attain to the perception
of ourselves as existing, thinking spirit, and of other spirits like
our own. But we never attain a similar intuition of God by the mere
exercise of our intellective activity. It is of the essence of a
created spirit that its active intuition or intellective vision is
limited to finite objects as its immediate terminus, commensurate to
its finite visual power. It sees God only mediately, as his being and
attributes are reflected and imaged in finite things, and therefore
its highest contemplation of God is merely abstractive. The natural
felicity of created spirits is, therefore, at its maximum, when they
attain the most perfect exercise of their faculties in this mode of
action which is connatural to them. It is the fruition of God
mediately through his creation.

We now proceed to show that the Catholic doctrine permits us to
believe that this perfect felicity which is possible without
supernatural grace is actually conceded to those who die in original
sin only. It is reasonable to believe that any felicity which those
souls can attain, consistently with their position as liable to the
eternal consequences of original sin, will be actually attained by
them. For God has created them for good; and to what end as he made
them capable of this felicity, unless it be that they may possess and
enjoy it? We shall quote from a treatise written in the seventeenth
century by F. Maria Gabrielli, in defense of the doctrine of Cardinal
Sfondrati, a very thorough summary of the opinions of the theologians
on this point: [Footnote 183]

    [Footnote 183: Dispunctio Notarum, 40 etc, Colon. 1699.]

"Joseph Maria de Requesens [Footnote 184] enumerates in his little
book on the state of infants many theologians of great name who
concede to these infants a certain kind of imperfect natural
beatitude.

  [Footnote 184: de Statu Parvui. Rom. 1684.]

He says that Richard (of St. Victor) teaches that these children will
have more goods and greater joy in their possession than sinners have
who possess created goods in this life. Lyra says, that according to
the opinion of all doctors they will enjoy a happier life than would
be naturally possible in this present world. Almost in the same way
speak Origen, Marsilius, St. Buonaventure, Cajetan, and others {661}
cited by Cornelius à Lapide, who all teach that children dying without
baptism lead a happier life than those who are living on the earth.
Lessius writes, that although they may be said to be damned because
eternally deprived of the celestial glory for which they were created,
it is nevertheless credible that their state is far happier and more
joyful than that of any mortal man in this life. Salmeron says, these
children will rise again through Christ and above this natural order,
where they will daily advance in the knowledge of the works of God and
of separate substances, _will have angelic visits_, and will be like
our rustics living in the country, so that as they are in a medium
between glory and punishment, they will also occupy an intermediate
place.  Suarez says, that children will remain in their natural good
and will be content with their lot; and, together with Marsilius as
quoted by Azor, he describes to them a _knowledge and love of God
above all things_, and the other natural virtues. Didacus Ruiz, a
theologian of extensive reading, lays down this conclusion: Great
mercy will be mingled with the punishment of infants dying in original
sin, although not a diminution of the punishment of loss, since that
is incapable of diminution; yet in the remission of death which was
the punishment directly do to original sin, and would naturally have
endured to eternity, so that in spite of this infants will be
resuscitated at the day of judgment nevermore to die, endowed with
supernatural incorruptibility and impassibility, and they will also
supernaturally receive accidental, infused sciences, and will be
liberated from all pain, sadness, sickness, temptations, and personal
sins, which are naturally wont to arise from original sin.
Consequently, they are liberated from the punishment of hell which
they might have incurred. Albert (the Great), Alexander (de Hales),
and St. Thomas agree with this doctrine. Suarez shows that these
children obtain some benefit, in a certain way, from the merits of
Christ; and says that it pertains to the glory of Christ that he
should be adored and acknowledged as prince and supreme judge on the
day of universal judgment even by infants who died without grace. He
also considers it more probable that they will understand that they
have done neither good nor evil, and therefore receive neither glory
nor pain of sense, and also that they are deprived of glory on account
of sin (that is, original). He adds the reason of this, to wit, that
they may understand the benefit which they received, first in Adam and
afterward in Christ, and on this account may worship and adore him.
Martinonus adds: when even the demons love God in a certain way even
more than themselves as the common good of all, according to St.
Thomas, why shall not these children love Christ as their benefactor
and the author of their resurrection, and of the benefits which they
receive with it through Christ, who is the destroyer of corporeal as
well as spiritual death? He cites also what Suarez says, that although
one who should speak of the bodies of infants in the same way as of
the other damned would say nothing improbable, since St. Thomas speaks
of all indifferently, nevertheless since those bodies will have a
greater perfection and some gifts or benefits which are not at all due
to nature, therefore, in regard to these gifts, Christ may be said to
be their model. The same Martinonus subjoins: although those words of
the apostle, "In Christ all shall be made alive," Suarez affirms, must
be properly and principally understood of the predestined,
nevertheless they can probably be applied to a certain extent to these
children, inasmuch as they will have in their risen bodies a certain
special conformity and relation to Christ, which will be much less and
more imperfect in the damned than in the predestined. Nicholas de Lyra
affirms that "infants dying without baptism do not endure any sensible
punishment, but have a more delightful {662} life than can be had in
this present life, _according to all the doctors_,  [Footnote 185] who
speak concerning those who die in original sin alone."

  [Footnote 185: This is true of the great majority, but not of all.]

Those who die in actual sin, and the fallen angels, although in the
same state of existence with those who die in original gin only, that
is, in the Infernum, or sphere below the supernatural sphere of the
elect angels and men, have to undergo a punishment corresponding to
their individual demerits. This truth, which is clearly revealed in
the Holy Scriptures and defined by the church,  is confirmed by the
analogies of this present life. The transgressions of law is punished
in this world in accordance with the sense of justice which is
universal among men. There is no reason, therefore, for supposing that
the same principle of retribution is not continued in the future life.
Moreover, there is positive proof from reason that it must continue.
There has never been a more absurd doctrine broached than that of the
Universalists. To suppose that all men are saved on account of the
merits of Christ without regard to their moral state or personal
merits, is most unreasonable; and subversive of the moral order as
well as destructive of the idea of a state of probation. It is equally
absurd to imagine that the mere fact of death can make any change in
the state of the soul, or that separation from the body causes the
soul to make a mechanical rebound from a state of sin to a state of
holiness. The soul can be made happy only from its own intrinsic
principles, and not by a mere arbitrary appointment of God, or a
bestowal of extrinsic means of enjoyment. Sin brings its own
punishment, and the state of sin is in itself a state of misery. Plato
and other heathen sages taught the doctrine of future punishment, Mr.
Alger, who has written the most elaborate work on the subject of the
history of the doctrine of a future life which has appeared in recent
times, has fully proved the universality of the doctrine of future
punishment. Other rationalistic writers of ability have also of late
years seen the impossibility of removing this doctrine from the
teaching of Christianity and from universal tradition. We have already
fully proved that God does not deprive any of his rational creatures
of the felicity which is proper to their nature by his own act. It
follows from this that it is the creature himself who is the author of
his own misery. Existence is in itself a good, a boon conceded from
love by the Creator. So far as this good is turned into an evil, it is
by a voluntary perversion of the gift of a benevolent sovereign by the
subject himself.  The punishment which he must undergo in eternity is,
therefore, the necessary consequence of his own acts, together with
such positive penalties as are required by the ends of justice and the
universal good. This doctrine, which is the doctrine of the Catholic
Church, based on the clear evidence of Scripture and ecclesiastical
tradition,  [Footnote 186] is also the doctrine of calm, unbiased
reason, and of the common sense of mankind. The probation of the
Angels having been finished with their first trial, and the probation
of men ending for individuals at death, and for mankind generically at
the day of judgment, the epic of grace is closed for ever with the
completion of this present cycle of providence; and consequently the
state of all angels and men is fixed for eternity. Hell is, therefore,
an eternal state out of which there is no possibility of transition
into heaven.

  [Footnote 186: It is now considered by the best authorities as fully
  proved that Origen and St. Gregory Nyssen, who have been so often
  cited by the advocates of the doctrine of universal salvation, did
  not teach anything contrary to the Catholic doctrine of eternal
  punishment.]

Heaven, or life everlasting, is the eternal state of supreme,
supernatural beatitude, to which the elect angels and men are elevated
by the grace of God, and in which they participate in the {663}
glorified and the deific state of the Incarnate Word, through and
ineffable fellowship with the three persons of the Blessed Trinity.

Man being integrally composed by the union of soul and body, and his
corporeal nature being hypostatically United with the divine nature in
the person of the Word, the resurrection of the body must necessarily
precede his complete glorification. The only difficulty which the
doctrine of the resurrection of the body presents to the understanding
relates to the principal of identity between the earthly and celestial
body. This principle of identity, or unity and continuity of life,
must be the same with that which constitutes the unity of the body in
all the stages of its natural growth; and through all the changes of
its material particles, from the instant of its conception to its
disintegration by death. It is the soul which is the form of the body,
its vivifying principle. The soul and body have an innate
correspondence with each other, not only in the generic sense, but in
the sense of an individual aptitude of each separate soul for its own
body, and each separate body for its own soul. The soul and body act
and react upon each other perpetually while the development of both is
going on, producing a specific type in each individual which is a
modification of the generic type of manhood. The determination of the
active force of the soul to the production of this type remains with
it after the separation from the body. At the resurrection, it forms
anew its own proper body in accordance with this type which is the
product of the conjoint action of the soul and body during the earthly
life. There is, therefore, the same continuity and identity between
the earthly body and the celestial body that there is between the body
of the embryo and that of the full-grown man. The celestial body is
the same that it would have been if there had been no death
intervening between the two corporeal states, but a transformation of
the earthly body into the celestial perfection and glorification of
its proper type. If this is not all which is included in the
definition of the church respecting the identity of the body in the
two states, we must believe, in addition to what has been stated
already, that there is a material monad which forms the nucleus of the
corporeal organization and is a physical principle of identity. This
physical principle must contain virtually the whole body, as the germ
does the plant; it must be preserved when the body is disintegrated;
and reunited to the soul at the resurrection, in order to become the
physical germ from which the celestial body is developed.

The natural beatitude of the glorified angels and saints, which is
only a more exalted grade of that felicity which is accorded to the
inferior intelligent creation, need not be specially noticed. It is
the essential and supreme beatitude consisting in the clear, intuitive
vision of God, which is the principal subject of the divine revelation
proposed by the creed as the object of faith.

The possibility of this divine vision will not be called in question
by any who are properly speaking theists and rationalists, and with
others we have nothing to do at present. Much less will it be
questioned by any class of believers in the divine inspiration of the
Scriptures. We have not, then, the task of laboring to show the
intrinsic reasonableness and credibility of the doctrine, but merely
of setting forth that which can be made intelligible respecting the
_relation between our present state in which we are unable to see God,
and the future state in which we may be enabled to see him_. The
examination of this relation includes that of the means and method by
which the soul is elevated to an immediate intuition of that which
constitutes the divine essence and personality. It requires a
statement which shall show what is the nexus between the act which
constitutes the soul in the power to exercise {664} intelligence, and
that which constitutes it in the power to behold God immediately. It
may be said, that the essence of the soul is transformed or enlarged
in such a way that it becomes able, _per se_, to see God as it now
perceives the creation. But this would be equivalent to the creation
of a new essence with a new personality; which would destroy the
identity of the subject who is supposed to be elevated to this new
grade of existence. Moreover, according to the doctrine we have laid
down, that supernatural grace elevates the soul _super omnem naturam
creatam atque creabilem_, the supposition is impossible. We cannot go
over again the principles already discussed, but merely endeavored to
state such a theory of the mode of the beatific vision as shall be in
harmony with these principles. We, therefore, dismiss this first
supposition without further discussion. Another supposition may be
made, that the complete evolution of the idea of God which the soul
possesses in the present state in an obvolute manner bring it to that
relation _vis-à-vis_ two God as its intelligible object, which
corresponds to the relation of the visual faculty to the visible,
material object. We cannot accept this supposition any more than the
other. It contradicts the principles we have previously laid down, and
the generally accepted maxims of Catholic theology respecting the
supernatural quality of the power conceded by God to the creature of
beholding his intimate essence, just as palpably as the first one. We
do not deny that the reason of man is to a great degree in a obvolute
condition in this life, and that it is capable of evolution in another
and higher life. In this higher life the soul may be capable of
perceiving immediately the essence of things, and spiritual
substances, after the mode of intelligence which is proper to the
angels. But the angels themselves, according to Catholic theology,
though created at the summit of the intelligent order, with the
complete exercise of intelligence in the highest possible grade, have
no natural power to see God immediately; and their natural knowledge
of him, though very perfect, is merely abstractive contemplation like
that of men. The power of seeing spiritual substances, and the perfect
evolution of the idea of God in the soul, therefore, do not give the
intuition of the essence of God which constitutes the beatific vision.
The beatific vision is supernatural, by means of immediate light
communicated by God to the intelligence, called by theologians _lumen
gloriae_, the light of glory. By means of this light the intelligence
perceives God by an active intuition, or a clear, distinct act of
reflective consciousness, as immediately present to it in the creative
act, the cause of its existence, the source of its active power, the
light of its reason, in whom it lives in moves and as it's being. God
presents himself to the intelligence immediately in his concrete
being, as the visible world is presented to the eye by the light of
the sun. This is not accomplished by the creation of any new essential
faculty in the soul or the addition of anything to its substance. The
very same intelligent, thinking principle, or subject, which in this
present state of existence of firms to itself the existence of God by
and intellectual judgment, behold him in the beatific state by an
intuitive vision. It must be, then, by a concurrence of God with the
same faculties of the mind by which we think and reason and perceive,
and our self-conscious, in our natural mode of rational activity, that
the intelligence is raised to this higher power of supernatural
intuition. That act which constitutes it rational in the natural
order, must be the basis and substratum of its supernatural tuition of
the divine essence. It has already been proved that a created spirit
cannot be constituted rational in the first instance by the beatific
vision of God; that is, cannot have an essence whose intrinsic,
necessary act is a clear intuition of the divine essence, like that
{665} act in which God has the eternal, necessary intelligence of
himself. The created spirit must first be constituted a rational,
intelligent subject, before it can be capable of a supernatural
illumination. It must be extrinsicated from God, made a distinct,
thinking substance, and constituted in its own finite, rational
activity; before there can be any subject, or really existing, active
force, with which God can concur; with which he can unite himself, and
to which he can communicate the power of looking back upon himself by
a distinct intuition. The created spirit must be, therefore, in a
certain sense, self-subsisting, or containing in itself its own
rational principle. It must have its own separate self-consciousness
as a thinking substance, containing within itself all the necessary
principles of thought. The necessary, the universal, the eternal, or,
in a word, the idea, cannot be contained in a created spirit in its
concrete being, but only in an abstract form, any image, or a created
word. This is identical with the intelligence itself; it is what
constitutes its intellective force and principle of activity. In man,
as we have already seen, this intellective activity needs the
concurrence of exterior, sensible objects, acting on it through the
senses and occasioning perceptions and reflections, before it can
attain distinct reflective consciousness of itself, and evolve its own
ideal formula. This reflective consciousness cannot go back of the
soul itself, where it finds the abstractive idea passively received
from concrete being. The contact of being, or of God who is alone
being, gives the apprehension of being to the soul by creating it. The
creative act, and the being who produces the creative act, are
unperceived by the soul, and lie back of its existence, which is the
terminus of the creative act. The soul's separate activity begins at
the terminus of God's activity, and is projected forward to its own
proper terminus. Its natural activity would never bring it face to
face with its creator, God, or enable it to contemplate him in any
other way than it is now able to do so, by the vividly apprehended
demonstration of his being from its own first principles and exterior
works of his hand. In order that the soul, in its reflexive acts, may
see God continually and clearly, it is necessary that he should unite
himself in a new and ineffable manner to its substance and its
faculties, and concur with them in such a way that they can look
beyond their natural limit of vision into the infinitude of the being
of God which surrounds the creation like an ocean on every side. The
soul, which is, so to speak, projected from God by creation, must
receive a movement of return, which does not arrest itself at the mere
fact of self-consciousness, but brings the soul to a consciousness of
God as immediately and personally producing its self-consciousness.
This act is most perfect in the human soul of Jesus Christ, the
Incarnate Word. The personality of the human and divine natures in him
being one, there is but one Ego. The human soul, therefore, terminates
its act of self-consciousness, not upon itself, as its own
_subsistentia_, but upon the divine Ego or person. It is conscious of
itself as a distinct substance, but not a substance completed and
brought to distinct subsistence in itself. Its consciousness
terminates in the divine person, and is referred to it, so that Jesus
Christ, in every human act, affirms himself by self-consciousness as
both God and man in one person. The union of glorified spirits to God
is similar to this hypostatic union, though not so perfect, and not
implying personal identity. The nature and mode of this union of the
created spirit with God, by which it is glorified, beatified, and even
deified--as the doctors of the church fear not to affirm, in
accordance with the declaration of the Holy Scripture--is impenetrable
to the human understanding. The Indian philosophers, having retained a
confused idea of it from the primitive revelation, have expressed this
idea in their sublime mysticism with all the superb imagery of their
luxuriant imaginations. With {666} them, it is an absorption of all
individual souls in the infinite fount of being. Nearly all their
language may, however, be adopted, in a good sense, as expressing the
Christian dogma, if clear, philosophical conceptions are substituted
for their obscure and unscientific notions of the creative act.
Without these clear conceptions and definitions, it is impossible to
escape money into pantheism. The language of Christian mystic writers,
even, is liable to misapprehension as expressing the pantheistic
notion of the identity of God and the creatures, unless their terms
are properly explained. In point of fact, Eckhart did give expression
to some propositions which implied pantheism and were condemned by the
Holy See. The mystic writers continually affirm that the soul is made
_una res cum Deo_, and becomes God by participation. By this, however,
they do not mean that the soul loses its distinct substance or becomes
identified with the divine nature. They intend to signify and
ineffable union between the soul and God, in which, each remaining
distinct in its own proper essence, God communicates his own
knowledge, sanctity, glory, and beatitude to the soul; and admits it
into the Fellowship of the Blessed Trinity. This is the vanishing
point of all theology, and of all sciences, beyond which even the most
illuminated eye cannot penetrate. The return of all things which
proceed from God as first cause to God as final cause, consummated in
this beatific union, solves all the problems of time; there remains
only the problem of eternity, which eternity alone can solve.

--------


ORIGINAL.


MY AUNT'S WORK-BOX.


  Sure, such a mess was never seen
  Of white and brown and black and green!
  Not Noah's Ark, Pandora's box,
     Such dire confusion e'er displayed
  Here's wool, shorn from the fleecy flocks
     That o'er Circassian Meadows strayed,
  With spools of cotton, every number;
  Buttons and studs, and other lumber;
  Needles of every size and kind,
    The blunts and sharps, the coarse and fine;
  White linen, recent wounds to bind;
    And rows of pins in order to shine.
  Lo! Thimbles, for each finger fit,
  And yarn too darn with or to knitt.
  Here's sewing-silk of every hue
  From brilliant red to modest blue;
  And floss, with which the maiden traces,
    With all the painter's art and skill,
  Flowers, landscapes, birds, and human faces,
    The verdant field or purling rill.
  Here every sort of thread is seen,
  The jolly ball and languid skein;
  And here's the ivory thing that shapes
  Small eyelet-holes in caps and capes.

{667}

  Look at that pair of rusty tweezers!
  They must blame their many years.
  Dear! what a tiny pair of scissors!
  Sure, they're the twins of those huge shears.
  Here's lots of crewel, which I mean
  To use, someday, to work the screen.
  Here are pin-cushions and emery bags,
  Small shreds of lace and other rags,
  Linen, calico, and crape,
  And hanks of twine and bits of tape.
  In short, here's every earthly thing
  That thrifty wife could wish, I ween;
  But I've not time to say or sing
  The treasures of this magazine.

--------


Original.

HOW MY AUNT PILCHER FOUND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.


Perhaps you don't know my aunt, Patients Pilcher? Very likely not. i
know her very well, and am going to tell you something about her. She
is my  mother's sister, and was born in the town of Squankum, Vermont,
where she lived until she was over thirty years old--she says,
twenty-five, but that don't matter--when she came to New York to see
Uncle George. Well, Aunt Pilcher was mightily pleased and surprised
when she saw New York; and as she knew every house, barn, and fence,
and every lane and field in Squankum, and to whom they belonged, she
thought she must find out as much about New York. She had no sooner
taken off her bonnet and shawl when she got to our house--I say _our_,
because I live with Uncle George since mother died--than she wanted
to put them on again and go out "and see the places, and find out
where people lived, and git introduced," as she said, adding that she
would "hev to begin directly, or she would never git through."

My Aunt Pilcher is a very tall, thin woman, with a very cold face, as
I found out on the first day she came to our house, when she bent over
and kissed me. She thought I wiped off her kiss, and said "Oh, fie!"
but it wasn't that, it was the cold. As I was saying, she wanted to
see all of New York, and I believe she has, too, by this time; but she
soon got disgusted with what she called "the offishness of the
Yorkers." "You don't know anybody," said she, "and nobody 'pears to
want to know you." She never tired, however, of seeing the many
beautiful buildings in the city, and among them all the churches seem
to her to be the most attractive and the most worthy of her close
investigation.

"I'm gittin 'most ashamed of our wooden meetin'-house to Squankum,"
said she, one day, after returning from a visit to Trinity Church; "we
used to be kinder proud of it, though, when some of the folks down to
Rattlebog came over to spend Sabbath with us; 'cause ye know what a
mis'able little country skule-house of a place they've got over there.
Then, ye've got sich a lot o' churches, my! I'm 'most afeered never
see them all, or I'll forgit abeout the first ones afore I git
through."

"What sort of churches have you seen, aunty?" I asked.

{668}

"Oh! I've seen white-marbled ones and brown-stun ones, and a sort o'
speckled mixed ones like Washin'ton cake, ye know, a streak o' jelly
and a streak o' cake. Then agin, I've seen all kinds o' styles;
Grecian, Beshantem, Gothys, high-steepled style, low-steepled style,
and no-steepled style. But I haint seeing a green winder-shutter one
like ours to Squankum yit. I s'pose the taste in architectur here in
York don't run that 'a way."

But I was not thinking of the outside of the churches when I asked her
the question, but of their inside. The truth was that Uncle George and
I had been two or three times to see Mass and Vespers in the Catholic
Church, and I was so full of all I had seen and heard there that I was
nearly dying to talk with some one about it. But Uncle George had told
me that he thought Aunt Jane--that is, Uncle George's sister who keeps
house for him and me--might possibly disapprove of our going again if
I happened to mention it, and so I took care to say nothing about it.
I was very anxious to find out if Aunt Pilcher had seeing a Catholic
Church, so I asked her if she happened to see any boys in the churches
she had been to.

"Boys!" said she. "Why boys? Of course boys. Shouldn't boys go to
meetin' as well as girls?"

"But boys dressed up," said I.

"Dressed up! Laws yes, in their best Sunday-go-to-meetin', as they ort
to be."

"In long red coats, perhaps, down to their heels," I suggested, in
spite of Uncle George's frown; "with nice white lace jackets over that
again, and carrying torch-lights and censers, and going up and down
and all around?" I added, eager to describe all I had seen.

"Why! what's come to the boy?" exclaimed Aunt Pilcher, raising up her
hands in astonishment. "He ain't right," meaning in my head."'

"Oh! yes, he is!" said Uncle George, "that's the way the Catholics go
on in their churches, and I suppose that Fred must have seen it
somewhere."

"Catholics!" ejaculated Aunt Pilcher, in a tone of horror, and half
looking over her shoulder as if some ghost of one might come in at the
sound of the word. "Ye don't mean them papists and other Jesuits that
call themselves Catholics! It's enough to make a body hate the name."

"That won't do, you know, sister Pilcher," said Uncle George, "because
it is in the Apostles' Creed."

"I know it," returned Aunt Pilcher, "but I'd like to know what the
Holy Catholic Church in the Apostles' Creed has got to do with them
ignorant idolaters, the Catholics, the Roman papists, I mean?"

"It's the same name, that's all," said Uncle George, with a sly
twinkle in his eye; "and they say it's the same thing."

"Which in course is nonsense!" ejaculated my aunt.

"Oh! of course it is," rejoined Uncle George. "We are the real and
true Catholic Church, and if some one wanted to come to our true and
real Holy Catholic Church we would just tell him to ask for the
Catholic church and anybody would show him."

"Well, they ort to, that's all I got to say," said Aunt Pilcher
doubtfully.

"Certainly," continued Uncle George, "and I've no doubt now, sister
Pilcher, that if you were to go out and ask people in the street here
to point you to a Catholic church that they would show you our
Protestant churches directly."

Aunt Pilcher looked very hard at Uncle George, as if she feared he
might be making game of her; but he looked so solemn and sedate that
she didn't suspect, but I did, and I got a crick in the back of my
neck trying to keep from laughing. She seemed to think that she was
bantered by my uncle, and said:

"Well, I never sot eout to do a thing yit that I didn't do it, and I'm
going to do _that_."

"Hurrah! Aunt Pilcher," I shouted, "I would too, if I were you." And
that confirmed her in her engagement, {669} for the very next morning
she put on her bonnet and shawl, and hung her reticule on her arm,
without which she never went out of doors, and off she started. She
was gone all day and did not return until tea-time, appearing
completely fagged out and exhausted. She was not in the best of humors
either, to judge of the way she pulled off her out-door additions to
her ordinary dress, and bade me "carry them things up-stairs, for
people dead a'most and starved can't always be expected to wait on
theirselves." But not a word did she say about the object of her long
day's journey. I was all curiosity to know where, she had been and
what she had seen; and when we had nearly got through tea, that is,
Uncle George, Aunt Jane, Aunt Pilcher, I, and Bub Thompson, who had
come to play with me in the afternoon, and said he smelt short-cake,
and wondered whether Aunt Jane could make it nice, and so got invited
to try them--then I could stand it no longer, and said I, "See
anything nice to-day, Aunt Pilcher?"

"I didn't particularly _see_ anything, my dear, but I heered something
I shan't forgit, I can tell you, if hearin' a thing a hundred and
ninety-nine times over is enough to' make a body remember it."

"What did you hear, aunt?" asked everybody at once.

"Hear!" exclaimed she. "These Yorkers never knows anything if a body
asks them a perlite question abeout who lives in any house, or which
is the way to somewhere; but to-day I do think they was all possessed,
for everybody 'peared to know only one church, when, dear knows, they
ort to know their own churches, I should think, and not be a'
directin' everybody everlastin'ly to St. Peter's."

"How was that, aunt?" asked every one again.

"Well," said she, "I told you what I was goin' eout for, and I went.
Neow I always do things in order: commence at the beginnin', I say,
and then ye'll know when ye git to the eend. So I went clean deown to
the battery, and then I turns reound and comes up. Not wishin' to ask
questions of people _too_ fur off (for these Yorkers don't know where
anythin' is ef it ain't right deown under their nose), I walked on
till I got pretty near Trinity Church, belongin' to the Episcopals,
and says I to a knowledgable lookin' man, says I, 'Couldn't ye pint me
eout, neow, a Catholic church?' 'I can't precisely pint ye to it,'
says he, which I thort was queer, with a Christian church right afore
his eyes, 'but I can tell you where one is: in Barclay street, right
up Broadway, ma'am, Saint Peter's church,' and off he went like a
shot. These Yorkers air in _sich_ a hurry, they won't stop to hear a
body eout. Well, on I walks, and I saw another church, Saint Paul's in
Broadway, similarly belongin' to the Episcopals; and this time I got
straight in front of it. The folks 'peared to be in sich an orful
hurry jist here that I thort somebody must be dead; or somebody's
house had ketch't afire, and I couldn't git eout the first word afore
the person I spoke to was a whole block off, and I got kind o'
bewildered like. At last, I tried a lady--for I give the men folks
up--and says I to her:

"'Is this a meetin'-house of the Holy Catholic Church, ma'am?'

"'No, ma'am,' says she rather short, 'ef you want to go there, you had
better go deown Barclay street, next street above, St. Peter's on the
left,' and off she went. Well; I goes deown Barclay street, jist to
see this St. Peter's, and do you believe, I found eout it was one of
them papist churches.'

"That was rather strange," interrupted Uncle George.

"I thort it was a leetle so myself," said Aunt Pilcher, "and I began
to conceit people took me for a papist or a Jesuit, so I made up my
mind to say so to once; and on I walks agin till I come to Broome
street, deown which I went till I found a nice look-in' church, and
says I to a minister-lookin' gentleman, says I:

{670}

"'I'm not a Jesuit, sir.'

"'Glad to hear it, ma'am,' says he, 'there are concealed Jesuits all
over.'

"'I'm a Protestant,' says I, 'pre-haps you can show me a meetin'-house
that believes in the Holy Catholic Church; is that one there?'

"I am grieved,' says he, 'that anybody should wish to know anythin'
abeout the Catholic Church, and I hope you have no intention of goin'
to sich a place of abomination.'

"He didn't 'pear to know my mean-in', so says I, 'I mean the _real_
Catholic Church.'

"'Ma'am,' says he, 'real or unreal, it is always the same thing;
always was and always will be. That is a Baptist church, ma'am, before
you, and not a Catholic mass house. There is one of them, called St.
Peter's, in Barclay street, I believe,' and off he walked without
sayin' another word. 'Patience,' says I to myself, 'be true to your
name,' for, to tell the truth, I was gettin' a leetle bit flustrated.
I walks on, turnin' corners and reound and reound, and at last I got
into a street called Bedford street. There I saw a meetin'-house with
a sign over the door tellin' it was a Methodist. Says I to a man that
was jist then sweepin reound the door--thinkin' to begin right this
time--says 'I:

"'My Christian friend, the apostles believed in the Holy Catholic
Church.'

'"Not a bit of it,' says he.

"'Oh! yes,' says I, 'they did; it is in the Apostles' Creed.'

"'Is it?' says he.

"'Yes, it is, and what's more, you ort to know it,' says I, gettin'
bothered with sich ignorance.

"'None o' yer impudence,' says he.

"'Why, good lands!' says I, almost swearin', 'they believe in the Holy
Catholic Church in this meetin'-house, don't they?'

"'No, they don't, and don't want to,' says he, and slammed the door in
my face. Then I wanders reound and seen lots of churches, but I didn't
see anybody, to speak to till I got ever so fur off in the Fifth
avenue, where I saw a handsome brick church with a tall steeple, and
there I saw some people goin' in. I asked what was goin' on, and they
said it was a prayer--meetin". I should liked to have jined in a York
prayer-meetin', but I wasn't in a fit state jist then--in sich a
twitter as I was--so I ups and speaks to a young lady who looked like
a Sabbath school teacher, and says I:

"'The real Catholic Church in the Apostles' Creed is where the gospil
is preached.' She kinder opened her eyes at me, and says she:

"'The gospil is preached here, ma'am; but this is not a Catholic
church; this is a Presbyterian church.'

"'But,' says I agin,' where the gospil is preached is the true
Catholic Church.'

"'I guess not,' says she, 'the gospil is not preached in the Catholic
Church.'

"'Well, ma'am,' says I, feelin' considerably riled, 'I guess I larnt
my catechism, not afore you was born, but abeout the same time, I
should say; and I'm jist lookin' for somebody else that knows it, and
if anybody in York knows what and where the Holy Catholic Church is;'
and do you believe she actually turned 'reound to another gal and said
I was crazy, and had run away from a 'sylum. I went away disgusted and
tried agin, one plase and another. I even tried the Washin'ton cake
church in the Fourth avenue, but not a soul would own up to what they
ort to believe. You wouldn't get papists sendin' you to their St.
Peter's, I'll be bound, if you asked them for a Protestant church."

"Of course not," said Uncle George, "and what conclusion have you come
to, sister Pilcher?"

"I've come to the conclusion," said Aunt Pilcher, "that these Yorkers
don't know the Apostles' Creed."

"I should say," said Bub Thompson, "that those folks you 'saw didn't
believe it."

{671}

"Boy!" exclaimed Aunt Pilcher, with an awful expression of
countenance, "speak when you air spoken to."

"How is it when you're spoken about?" asked Bub; "'cause I'm a
Catholic, a papist as you say, and you've been speaking about my
church."

"My! I never!" ejaculated Aunt Pilcher, looking first at one and then
at another for explanation.

"Sister Pilcher," said Uncle George, "the truth is, it is no use for
us Protestants to call ourselves Catholics, for we are not. You see
how everybody denied it. Of course you could never get a Protestant to
own to the name of  'Catholic,' either here in New York or anywhere
else, any more than you could persuade any one to give us the name;
and it seems to me that where the name is, and always has been, the
reality is likely to be. As for your experiment to-day, it is just
what would have happened thirteen hundred years ago; for I read in a
book that Bub Thompson's father lent me, that St. Augustine said,
speaking about the sects that tried to call themselves 'Catholics' in
his time: 'The very name of _Catholic_ detains me in the Catholic
Church, which that church has alone, and not without cause, obtained
among so many heretics, in such a way as that while all heretics wish
to be called Catholics, nevertheless not one of them will dare to
point out his basilica or house to a stranger inquiring for a place of
Catholic worship."  [Footnote 187]

  [Footnote 187: Epist. contra Manich. I. 5, 6.]

"Well! sakes alive! live and larn," exclaimed Aunt Pilcher, "but it's
enough to make a body think they never knowed anythin' when they find
oat some things!"

----------


Translated from Le Contemporain.

A PORTRAIT OF FRA ANGELICO.

BY EDMOND LAFONDE.


At dawn of a summer's day in the year of grace 1453, a Dominican monk
set out from his convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, at Rome. He was
an old man, but the brightness of youth still shown in his aged
countenance, attributable, perhaps, to the shadowless sanctity of his
life, and the purity of a soul which had never known wrinkles. He
walked slowly in his dress of white woolen covered with a black
scapular, his shaven head bared to the sun, his eyes cast down, and
his hands employed in rolling the beads of the Rosary of St. Dominic.
He traversed the square of the Pantheon, and was going to cross the
bridge of St. Angelo, when, in passing the prison of the Tor di Nona,
he saw coming out of it a funeral cortége; a condemned person, led to
death in the usual place of execution, the piazza della Bocca Verità.
A man nearly forty years of age, of noble and proud figure, but
seemingly worn out by vice or grief; his costume curious, and wholly
oriental; clothed in red silk, with a turban ornamented with gold and
ermine. A Franciscan accompanied him, but endeavored in vain to direct
his thoughts to heaven, and make him kiss the crucifix, from which he
turned away his lips in discussed. The crowd that followed, becoming
infuriated, exhorted him to penitence, crying out, "Amico, pensa a
salvar l'anima." "My friend, think of saving thy soul."

{672}

As soon as the Franciscans saw a brother priest, he called to him,
saying: "Ah! Fra Giovanni, in the name of the holy friendship which
united our two glorious patriarchs, St. Dominic and St. Francis, come
to my aid. You see this unhappy man. He is one of the Greeks just come
from Italy, since the taking of Constantinople. His name is
Argyropoulos. He has murdered a Roman woman; is doomed to die, and
will not reconcile himself with God. He is not merely schismatical,
but pagan. Try if you can be more successful than I." At a sign from
the chief of the guard the _cortége_ stopped--for in Rome, since the
earliest age, pontifical justice does not wish to kill the soul, and
makes every effort to save it while sacrificing the guilty body. Fra
Giovanni tried to speak to the Greek, but was met with repulse and
blasphemy. With tears rolling down his cheeks he whispered a few words
to the Franciscan, who, elevating his voice, thus addressed the chief
of the guard: "This son of St. Dominic," he said, "is Fra Giovanni of
Fiesole, the favorite painter of his holiness. He is going to the
Vatican, and will ask the Holy Father a delay of one day, in order to
try once more to induce the sinner to repent." The people applauded,
and the captain of the guard declared himself willing to assume the
responsibility of suspending the execution while awaiting a new order
from the sovereign pontiff. The condemned man, who remained apparently
immovable during this debate, was re-conducted into the prison of Tor
di Nona, where still later were to be enclosed the guilty family of
Cenci, and the Franciscan entered with him. The crowd remained a long
time before the door, losing none of its interest or curiosity. Fra
Giovanni again pursued his way to the Vatican, his soul, so calm
ordinarily, deeply agitated and troubled by the unfortunate event.
Arrived at the square of St. Peter, he kneeled by the obelisk which
contains a piece of the true cross; then passing the guards, who were
daily accustomed to see him, entered without difficulty into the
pontifical palace. He repaired immediately to the new chapel, which
Pope Nicholas V. had just finished, and charged him to decorate; for
it is time to say that Fra Giovanni was the painter-monk of Fiesole,
whose purity of genius and sanctity of life had surnamed him Beato
(blessed) or Fra Angelico (the angelical brother), under which latter
name he is most generally known, and which is equally appropriate to
his beauty of soul and to his works. The great Pope Nicholas V., who
had known him at Florence, and watched the budding of these marvellous
products of his pencil in the convent of St. Mark, had just called him
to Rome, where Eugene IV. had already bid him come, to enthrone in his
own person Christian art in the Vatican. Nicholas V. had built in his
palace a small chapel, in which he desired the painter-monk to retrace
for him the story of St. Lawrence and St. Stephen, reuniting them in
the same poetical commemoration; as had been the custom of the
faithful to invoke them, since their bones had lain united outside the
walls in the ancient basilica of St. Lawrence. This chapel being very
small is lighted by a single arched window; happily it has been
preserved, and is one of the sanctuaries where the friends of
Christian art love to make a pilgrimage. Below the window is now
placed the altar which formerly faced it. On the three other sides Fra
Angelico has painted two series of compositions, one above the other;
in the arches of the upper part is represented, in six compartments,
the history of St. Stephen, and in the lower that of St. Lawrence. On
entering the chapel Fra Angelico fell on his knees to pray God to
guide his pencil, then commenced to paint the scene where St. Stephen
was led to martyrdom. He there represented an enraged Jew, who
conducts the saint outside of Jerusalem, while others pushed and
pursued him with stones in their hands. While painting the violence of
the Jews Fra Angelico {673} thought deeply of the Greek whose
execution he had arrested, and awaited with pious impatience the
arrival of the Pope, who never failed daily to visit the works of his
favorite painter. The Dominican interrupted his work now and then to
rest, reposing his mind with prayer and singing occasionally a stanza
of Dante, who was then for mystical painters an unfailing source of
religious inspiration. He recited the exquisite passage where Dante
paints the glorious martyrdom of St. Stephen:

  "Poi vidi genti accese in fuoco d'ira
  Con pietre un giovinetto ancider, forte
  Gridando a se pur; Martira, martira, ect."

"Then I saw an excited and angry crowd, stoning and forcing onward a
young man, with loud cries of 'Kill him, kill him!' And him I saw bent
to the earth by the weight of death, but with eyes uplifted and turned
to heaven; in the midst of the terrible struggle praying the sovereign
God to forgive his enemies, with an expression so beautiful as to
command pity and respect."

At last the door of the chapel opened and the Pope entered. Nicholas
V. was old, but more bent by sorrow than age. In his youth he was
called the poor student of Sarzana, and had passed his life in the
society of saints and literary men. Become sovereign pontiff, he
encouraged piety, science, art, and letters; laid the foundation of
St. Peter's, embellished Rome, and merited truly to give his name to
the fifteenth century as Leo X., gave his to the sixteenth. During the
Council of Florence he had known Fra Angelico, and soon perceived that
the soul of the Dominican artist was worth far more than his pencil.
Pope Eugene IV. had thus judged him when he wished to name this holy
religious Archbishop of Florence. Fra Angelico, seized with fear on
learning the intentions of the pontiff, besought to be spared so great
a weight. His vocation, he said, was not to govern, but stated at the
same time he could recommend a brother of his order far more worthy
than he of such a dignity. Eugene IV. listened to his suggestion and
named for archbishop the monk who was afterward to be St. Antonine.
When Nicholas V. entered the chapel he appeared so unhappy that Fra
Angelico, in kneeling to implore his blessing, could not forbear
asking the cause of his sadness; if some recent misfortune had not
befallen him. "O my son," replied the Pope, "the misfortune which has
happened me is the catastrophe long since foretold, but not the less
bitter to all Christian hearts, the taking of Constantinople by the
Turks! My dreams, even, are troubled, for since I have been Pope the
principal aim of my pontificate has been the pacification of
Christianity, so as to unite and direct all our forces in a crusade
against the Turks. But the unfortunate Greeks have upset all my
projects in their hatred of the papacy, preferring the turban to the
tiara. They have broken the peace of Florence, ill received the
assistance of the Latins, and now their capital is no longer for Jesus
Christ, but Mahomet. Ah! Fra Giovanni, can any one in the world be
more wretched than I? Were it not that I fear a failure of duty, I
would renounce the pontifical dignity, to become again Master Thomas
of Sarzana. Then, one day gave me more true happiness than I have
since enjoyed in a whole year." The Pope shed tears abundantly.
[Footnote 188]

  [Footnote 188: See this scene in Muratori, volume 25th, page 286.
  The taking of Constantinople was a mortal blow to Nicholas V. From
  that day he was never seen to smile.]

Fra Giovanni deeply commiserated him, and replied in a voice choked
with emotion: "Most Holy Father, let us resign ourselves to the will
of God. Bear your cross as did he of whom you are the vicar; I wish I
were the good Cyrenean to aid you. Let us contemplate the images of
the two martyrs I am to paint on the walls of the chapel, and, like
them, let us learn to suffer." "You are right, Fra Giovanni. Your soul
and talent are truly consolatory, and I love to come here and open my
heart, charged as it is with incurable anguish." {674} Just then
twelve o'clock struck. The Pope knelt down to recite the Angelus, and
dried the tears which since St. Peter so often had reddened the eyes
of the sovereign pontiffs. At this moment a prelate came to announce
that the dinner of his holiness was ready. "My son," said the Pope,
"do not leave me in this hour of affliction. I beg you to dine at my
table." "Holy Father," replied the humble monk, "without the
permission of the prior I dare not do so. I must dine with my
community." "But, my son, I can dispense with this obligation. Come,
come!" The Dominican dined, therefore, _tete-à-tete_ with the Pope,
but in silence, and with eyes cast down, as if he had been in his own
refectory. It was not a day of abstinence, and meat was served on the
Pope's table, but the monk refused to partake of it, "Fra Giovanni,"
said Nicholas, "you exhaust yourself with this painting, and I perhaps
urge you too closely to finish it. You have worked hard to day, and
should strengthen yourself anew by eating some meat." "Holy Father, I
can not without the permission of the prior." The Pope smiled, but
could not help admiring the innocent scruples of the pious monk. "My
son," said he, "do you not think the authority of the sovereign
pontiff greater than the permission of your prior? For to-day I
dispense with the rule of St. Dominic, and order you to eat all that
is offered you."  [Footnote 189]

  [Footnote 189: This scene, which so well portrays the virtue of Fra
  Angelico, is related by Vasari and Fra Leandro Alberti; De Viris
  Illustribus Ordinis Predicatorum, libri sex.]

The Dominican obeyed in silence, but his mind seemed preoccupied. He
thought unceasingly of the poor guilty Greek whose execution he had
suspended, but he dared not speak of him to the Pope. Nicholas V.
perceived his distraction and asked him of what he was thinking. Then
Fra Angelico related to him the story of Argyropoulos, and added:
"Holy Father, with justice your government has condemned this unhappy
man to be executed, but I know your holiness desires not the death of
his soul, and I have hoped your mercy would grant him the delay of a
day that he may still have time to repent." "My son, I thank you for
having acted thus. I accord you not only one day,  but several if
necessary." Nicholas V. then wrote an order suspending the execution,
and gave it to Beato, who full of joy, asked permission to retire
without finishing his repast. He obtained it, and in haste quitted the
Vatican. After passing the bridge of St. Angelo, he was strongly
tempted to stop at the prison of Tor di Nona; but he considered his
duty to his convent, where doubtless his absence from dinner had
occasioned surprise. When he entered the cloister of Santa Maria sopra
Minerva, the brothers had left the refectory, so the prior exacted of
the dilatory monk a penance, which consisted of eating his dinner in a
kneeling posture. The Beato, without saying a word to excuse himself,
knelt down and simply made a sign he would rather not eat. The prior
then ordered him to explain his absence. "My Father," said he, "I am
guilty; mea culpa. His Holiness wished me to dine with him, and
obliged me to eat meat without your permission." The prior admired the
simplicity and obedience of the blessed one, but said nothing to
disturb his humility. The habit of obedience was so natural to him
that all orders for his art were received through his spiritual
superior; and when any work was requested of him, his friends were
referred to the prior, as nothing could be done without his consent.
He refused to stipulate a price for his works, and distributed all
they bought him to the poor and unfortunate. "He loved the poor during
his life," said Vasari, "As tenderly as his soul now loves the heaven
where he enjoys the glory of the blessed." If he loved the poor, Fra
Angelico better loved souls; he obtained from the prior permission to
go immediately to the prison. He ran thither with the wings of
charity, and showed the order from the Pope which delayed the
execution. He gained {675} admittance to what is now called the
prisoner's cell, now that so many of our ancient abbeys are
transformed into houses of detention. Argyropoulos presented himself,
grave and sad, clothed always in his red dress and white turban, which
gave him an air of majesty quite oriental. He was seated on a straw
bed, but his attitude was King Solomon enthroned. The Dominican, with
his white robe and angelical figure, resembled one of the beautiful
lilies he so often painted in the hands of the angel of the
annunciation; one of the lilies of the field, of which the Saviour
himself has said, "Not Solomon in all his glory could be arrayed like
one of these." Fra Angelico, without saying anything at first, stopped
at the entrance, and, kneeling, prayed God to cure this ulcerated
soul. A ray of light, which shone obliquely through the only window,
illuminated his bared and shaven head, and gave him the anticipated
crown of glory of the blessed. The Greek contemplated with
astonishment this luminous apparition, and thought he dreamed again
the dream of the patriarch Jacob, who saw angels ascend and descend a
mysterious ladder. Having strengthened himself by prayer, Fra Angelico
approached the prisoner, and said in a voice truly angelical: "My
brother!" But the charm to which Argyropoulos had given himself up at
the vision of the blessed one was broken by the sound of his voice; he
saw in him only a Catholic monk, and thus a being he detested. "I am
not thy brother, we have nothing in common, and I hate the religion of
the Azymites."  [Footnote 190]

  [Footnote 190: A name that the Greeks gave the Catholics on account
  of the discussion on the _unleavened_ bread as material of the
  eucharist.]

"My brother, you and I are Christians, although fifteen years ago you
have separated the Greek and Latin churches, which the Council of
Florence so happily united."

"No! As our great Duke Notaras said, there is no peace between us. I
would rather see the turban of Mahomet at Constantinople than the
tiara of the Pope."

"O my brother, can you say so? If you are not Catholic, are you not
Christian?"

"No, I am so no longer. I do not believe in God; and besides, if there
is a God, I have committed crimes too great for him to pardon. I am
pagan and of the school of Plato; I prefer Jupiter to Jehovah, Plato
to the Scripture, and the gods of Homer to the Saints of
Christianity."

"Why, my brother, you have gone backward two thousand years, to
breathe what Dante calls the fetid air of paganism, 'Il puzzo del
paganes mo.'"

Fra Angelico tried in vain to move this heart, as hardened and
desperate as that of Judas; during three days he fasted, prayed, and
begged the prayers of his fraternity, offered himself to God as a
victim to save this soul, and employed against his own body the
instruments of penance. But God did not grant him the grace he sought.
Every morning, while painting at the Vatican, he rendered an account
to the Pope of his unsuccessful efforts, and recommended the Greek to
the pontifical prayers. The three days expired; again he solicited a
still longer delay of the execution. "Holy Father," said he, "a
residence in prison seems to exasperate this unhappy man; perhaps I
might obtain a better hearing if I could take him out and let him
breathe the fresh air." "I can refuse you nothing, Fra Giovanni. Bring
him to see this chapel, I am sure your painting will do his soul some
good." "I will bring him to-morrow, since your Holiness permits me,
and at the same time solicit your daily visit, as I am certain his
meeting the vicar of Jesus Christ will have more effect on him than my
pictures." Nicholas V. promised to do so, and wrote an order to place
the captive at liberty for one day, and at the responsibility of Fra
Giovanni. It was a touching spectacle to see the Pope and the monk so
generously united in their {676} efforts to convert this paganized
schismatic.

The next morning Fra Angelico ran to the prison, brought out the
Greek, and proposed to him to see his pictures, without mentioning the
Pope. Argyropoulos, who rather prided himself on his knowledge of art
as well as of literature, willingly accepted the invitation. The fresh
air and the glorious Roman sun softened his mood, hitherto so
ferocious, and gave him an air almost of serenity. Fra Angelico,
transported with joy, conducted his future neophyte to the Vatican,
and introduced him to the chapel, praying God to work in him the same
miracle which he had granted to St. Methodius, whose painting of the
Last Judgment, on the walls of a palace belonging to the King of
Bulgaria, had not only converted the king, but as many of his subjects
as looked upon it. The Greek was deeply affected by these admirable
pictures, and took upon himself to explain them lengthily. To show his
artistic knowledge, he criticised the executioners who stoned St.
Stephen, and thought their countenances lacked sufficient energy. The
painter monk humbly accepted the criticism, which was not wanting in
justice. A competent judge has said that the character of Fra Angelico
was so formed of a love amounting to ecstasy that he never could
familiarize himself with dramatic scenes where hateful and violent
passions had the ascendency. In the painting of the life of St.
Lawrence, the Beato begged the Greek to particularly observe the
prison window where the martyr was converting a man on his knees, who
afterward became St. Hippolytus. "In painting this scene of conversion
I thought of you, my brother," he said, in a voice so sweet and tender
it would have touched a heart of marble; but Argyropoulos turned away
his eyes, and pretended not to hear him. Fra Angelico's heart was
grieved, and he felt his only hope was in the sovereign pontiff. He
had not long to wait for him. Nicholas V. entered into the chapel,
with a dignity tempered by an ineffable tenderness. The Beato knelt
down--his forehead in the dust--to kiss the feet of His Holiness. The
sight of the Pope always caused him transports of joy, equal to those
of St. Joseph of Cupertino, who went into ecstasy whenever in the
presence of the vicar of Jesus Christ. But a contrary effect was
visible in the mind of the pagan of Constantinople. At the sight of
the pontiff he reassumed all his dignity. "On your knees, my brother,
on your knees!" in vain said Beato to him, while pulling his dress.
"Never," cried the Greek, "never will I bend the knee before the idol
of the Azymites--before a priest who wished our submission at the
Council of Florence." Angelico sighed in the dust at the obstinacy of
this pagan, but the Pope, calm and dignified, began to converse in
Greek with Argyropoulos, who, captivated instantaneously by this
graciousness, replied by a verse of Homer. "My son," said Nicholas V.,
"I also will cite you a passage from Homer. In the second book of the
Iliad, the prudent Ulysses cries out: 'All Greeks cannot reign, too
many chiefs would do harm; let us have but one sovereign, but a single
king, him to whom the prudent Saturn entrusted the sceptre and the
laws to govern us:

  [Greek text]

Thus, my son, God wished in his church but one chief, one flock, and
one shepherd." At these words the Greek grew angry and replied in
harsh terms. "My son," said the Pope to him with tenderness, "I
forgive you, I pity your blindness, and I will continue to pray God to
enlighten you."

Nicholas V. withdrew.

Argyropoulos, mortified at his own conduct, returned to Fra Angelico,
and again commenced to eulogize the pictures. "My paintings are worth
nothing," cried the monk, bursting into tears, "since they have failed
to convert you. I am unworthy the name of preacher, since all my
teaching has not succeeded, {677} and I have brought you before the
holy father, only to hear you outrage the dignity of God's
representative on earth." The remembrance of this scene completely
overcame the tender and pious soul of Fra Angelico. He became pale and
weak, sank on his white robe like a lily on its stalk, and fell on the
pavement as one dead, according to Dante:

  "E cadi, come corpo morte cade."

The Greek, seized with pity and astonishment, tried vainly to restore
him. He thought he had killed him, and this man, whose hands were
already bloodstained, imagined he had committed another murder. He
hated himself when he saw this angel extended at his feet. He knelt
before him, rubbed his hands in his own, and threw in his face the
water in the vase which was used in his painting. "Father, father,"
cried he, "come back to life, and I swear to do all you wish." The
Angelico opened his beautiful eyes, languishing and moist with tears.
"My brother," said he, "you restore me to life, but again you will
give me to death if you forget your promise. Now we must leave the
chapel; it is time, according to my duty, that I take you back to
prison." Notwithstanding his pallor and feebleness Fra Angelico
insisted on leaving the Vatican immediately, and returned home leaning
on the shoulder of Argyropoulos. He said nothing until they reached
the prison of Tor di Nona. But there again, alone with him, the
angelical monk knelt before the prisoner, and reproached him for his
conduct toward the Pope with that sweetness he never lost, and which
so greatly astonished his biographer Vasari.  [Footnote 191]

  [Footnote 191: "Never," said he, "could one surprise him in an angry
  moment. This seemed to me incredible: Il che e grandissima cosa e mi
  pare impossibile a credere."]

This touching kindness greatly affected the Greek, who had been
already so deeply moved by the fainting of Beato. He began to
comprehend the love with which this pious monk was inflamed for the
salvation of his soul. "My brother," said the Dominican to him, while
joining his hands, "you have restored me to life, but in promising to
do as I wish, and I only desire to save you. You must discharge your
conscience of its weight of sin--you must confess." "But I cannot
believe in the necessity of confession, or in its divine institution."
"O my brother, if you could contemplate your poor soul in its mirror
of truth, it would appear so shaded and sullied. Your soul is bound in
cords ruder than those that chained your body when they led you to
execution. But confession would deliver you from all." "Let me see
this with my eyes, or I can never believe it." A sudden inspiration
came to the mind of the angelical painter. "My brother, we will speak
again of this. I am hurried to finish a picture; would you be pleased
I should paint it with you by my side, that I might every morning
distract your thoughts and keep you company?" "Oh! yes, my father, I
should be most happy, for you are very good to the poor prisoner." The
Beato obtained permission from Nicholas V. to suspend for some days
his work at the Vatican, and from the next morning he installed
himself in the prison, accompanied by his pupil Benozzo Bozzoli, who
brought with him an easel, some brushes, and a box of colors. After a
fervent prayer, he placed on the easel a small panel of wood, upon
which he commenced to paint rapidly, and without retouching, according
to his custom; he never perfected his paintings, leaving them
according to his first impression, believing, as he said, so God
wished them. "His art," says M. de Moutalembert, "was so beautiful in
his eyes, and so sacred, that he respected its productions as the
fruits of an inspiration much higher than his own intention." He
commenced by painting, as a foundation for his picture, some trees,
which rose near a house of simple appearance, and a modest church,
decorated by a portico supported by four pillars in Florentine style.
In a court grown over with herbs and studded here and there with {678}
flowers, he grouped five personages. At the right our Saviour, clothed
in a blue robe and draped in a red mantle, is seen in profile; a large
nimbus of gold encircles his tender and majestic countenance, his
golden hair falls on his shoulders. The Saviour has an attitude of
command, and extends his arm and hand which holds a golden rod. He
accomplished one of the greatest acts of his mercy, he institutes the
sacrament of penance, he gives to his apostles the power to remit
sins: one can almost hear him repeat the words which he addresses to
Peter, that he may transmit them to the entire Christian priesthood:
"Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and
whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
[Footnote 192]

  [Footnote 192: In the convent of St. Mark at Florence, the Beato has
  painted the grand scene of Calvary, where he represents St. Benedict
  holding in his hand the rod of penitence.]

The painter monk put into action these words of Christ. He painted a
priest in Florentine costume; a red cap encircled with ermine and a
blue dalmatic, which hung in graceful folds; his figure is youthful,
and expression benignant. This priest approaches a sinner in a red
dress, and turbaned with a cap of gold and ermine. The sinner is bound
with cords which are passed several times around his body. The priest
approaches him with ineffable compassion. With what care, what
delicacy, what respect, what love, he unties the cord with his white
and pure hands! With what grace and dignity he fills his office of
priest and confessor! The seven capital sins are figured by seven
demons chased from his body by absolution, and who are making every
effort to re-enter it. Rage and impatience are depicted on the faces
of these servants of Satan, and their attitudes are as various as
strange. One of them still threatens the sinner with his iron trident.
In the second part, Fra Angelico represents a person in a green robe
and turban, who expresses, by figure and gesture, his admiration at
the sight of this miracle of divine mercy, which is called the
institution of confession. Near this man, and right against the
Saviour, is a second personage, of whom the face only is seen. His
head is bared, and his angelical features seem to recall those of the
Beato, such as they are sculptured on his tombstone at Santa Maria
sopra Minerva. The Greek had followed with curiosity and profound
interest all the details of this picture, accomplished in three days
under his own inspection. He had admired the piety of the Angelico,
who, according to his custom, had not dared to paint the head of the
Saviour but on bended knees. Contrary to his usual manner, he had only
lightly sketched the face of the sinner bound with the cord. It was on
the third day that he suddenly finished it. But how express the
surprise and emotion of Argyropoulos, when he perceived that, under
the pencil of the painter-monk, this face became his own portrait! The
blessed one had painted his gray beard, his noble profile, and
expressed in his face at the same time the grief of being restrained
by sin and the hope of a speedy deliverance. Argyropoulos, in the
midst of the picture, had truly an expression of contrition in the
intensity of his regard. "It is I," cried the Greek, "it is I indeed!"
And he burst into tears. The divine touch of grace had vanquished him
at last. "My father, my father, untie me also, deliver me from the
bonds of many sins." The Angelico seized him in his arms, and in
transports of joy pressed him to his breast, then begged him to kneel
with him and render thanks to God. He passed several days in
explaining to him Catholic truths; then he received the acknowledgment
of his faults, baptized him conditionally at St. Jean de Latran, in
the baptistry of Constantine.  [Footnote 193]

  [Footnote 193: The author has here fallen into a mistake; the
  sacraments of the Greek Church are never reiterated conditionally.
 --Ed. CATHOLIC WORLD.]

{679}

The eve of this great day he had enjoined him, as penance, to go to
the Vatican, throw himself at the feet of the Pope, and ask pardon on
his knees for the invective he had cast on the holy father in the
chapel. Nicholas V. received him kindly, and said: "My son, Jesus
Christ has pardoned you, and I could not do otherwise than he of whom
I am vicar; I absolve you, not only for what you have said against me,
but the crimes committed against society. I grant you full and entire
pardon from the punishment you have merited, in the hope that your new
life will atone for the past." The Greek prostrated himself with
gratitude, and kissed his feet; then showed the picture from which he
would never part. The Pope admired it, and said to the painter-monk:
"Your pencil has worked another miracle of conversion." The humble
artist replied that only to God must be given the glory, and recited
the verse of David: "Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da
gloriam." This was the device of the Templars, and we have seen it in
Venice engraved on the wall of the old palace Vendramini. "Most holy
father," said the Greek. "I know with what goodness your Holiness has
received my compatriots, Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond,
Calchondylos, and Gemistos Plethon, who after the taking of
Constantinople took refuge on a Venetian galley, and have come to
Italy, bringing with them the precious manuscripts of the ancient
Greek authors and fathers of the Greek Church, which but for them
would have been burned by the infidels. They have been most happy to
repay your hospitality by enriching the library of the Vatican with
these literary treasures." "It is true," said Nicholas V. "Thanks to
their and other conquests, we have become able to reunite in the
Vatican nearly five thousand manuscripts; it is, we believe, the
richest collection made since the dispersion of the Alexandrian
library. But I still have one gap to fill, and I have promised a
reward of fifty thousand ducats to him who will bring me the gospel of
St. Matthew in the original language." "O holy father, how can I
express my happiness! I possess this manuscript, which I brought from
Constantinople. After having committed the crime by which I merited
death, I hid this book in a place in the Roman campagna, where I could
easily find it again. To thank your Holiness for all your goodness, I
am only too happy to offer you the gospel of St. Matthew," Nicholas V.
was delighted, he who ever thanked God for the taste given him from
his youth for literature, and the faculties necessary for its
successful cultivation. On the receipt of the manuscript the Pope paid
to the Greek the fifty thousand ducats, who, finding himself possessed
of so great a fortune, resolved to go to Venice, and engage in
commerce with one of his compatriots. He quitted Rome with regret to
leave Fra Angelico, but returned at Easter to confess to the saviour
of his soul, as he called him, and receive the communion from his
hands in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The mass said by the
Beato inspired him with great devotion, and he was happy to receive
from such pure hands the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The year that
followed 1455, the Greek appeared at the same epoch, carrying ever
with him, in a casket of cedar, the precious painting which had been
the determining cause of his conversion,   [Footnote 194] and which,
he never ceased to contemplate with love and, gratitude, repeating
what Vasari said of another picture of the Beato: "I can affirm I
never contemplate this work that it does not appear new to me, and I
am never satisfied gazing upon it."

  [Footnote 194: This picture on wood is painted _a tempera_ and
  enriched with gold. It is twenty-seven centimetres high, and
  twenty-three broad. After various vicissitudes it was carried from
  Rome to Venice, from Florence to Turin, and finally found an asylum
  in Paris, in the celebrated Pourtales gallery. To-day it is in
  possession of him who relates the story, according to a traditional
  account received by him at Rome.]

{680}

Scarcely landed at Rome, Argyropoulos hastened, according to his
custom, to the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva and asked for Fra
Angelico. At this name grief overshadowed the countenance of the
brother porter, who replied: "Alas! signor, the blessed one has gone
from earth and left us to sorrow. His death was as angelical as his
life." The prior, who appeared, confirmed the sad news and gave the
details to the heart-broken Greek. The holy father said he was so
impatient to enjoy his beautiful chapel that he hurried continually
our blessed brother to finish his work; and he, ever willing to be
sacrificed to duty, and believing he worked for God in serving this
vicar, would not even interrupt his work during the fever season,
which is always more pernicious at the Vatican than elsewhere. His
health was lost by it entirely, he languished, and died at last of
malaria. Argyropoulos shed tears and asked to pray by the tomb of his
friend. It is still seen at the left of the church choir, a simple
tombstone encased vertically in the wall; the painter-monk is rudely
sculptured in bas-relief in his Dominican robe, with hands joined, his
head uplifted, and mouth partly opened as in prayer, as he was in
life, as he was particularly in death. I have often contemplated this
sepulchral stone, and recalled the verse of Dante, which could so well
have described the heart of Argyropoulos:

  "Come, perche di lor memoria sia,
  Sovr' a sepoiti le tombe terragne
  Porton segnato quel ch'elli eran pria;
  Onde li molte volte siripiagne.
  Por la pun ura della rimenbranza
  Che solo a pii da della calcagne."

"As to preserve the memory of the dead, the tombs given them on earth
bear the impress of their features as they were in life, so each time
one weeps over them the pious heart is pierced with the remembrance."
"Nicholas V.," said the prior to the Greek, "was inconsolable at the
death of his painter and friend, and survived him but a few weeks. It
is this great Pope who has erected this monument to Fra Angelico, and
who composed the epitaph you can read on this stone:

  "'Hic jacet ven. Pictor.
    Fr. Jo. de Flor.  Ord. P.
    MCCCCLV.
  Non mihi sit laudi quod eram velut alter Apelles.
  Sed quod lucra tuis omnia Christe dabam
  Altera nam terris opera extant, altera caelo;
  Urbs me Joannem flos tulit Etruriae.'"

"Here lies the venerable painter.  [Footnote 195] Brother John, of
Florence, of the order of Brother Preachers; 1455. Let me not be
praised because I have painted as another Apelles, but because I have
given all I made to the poor. O Christ! I have worked for heaven at
the same time as for earth. I am called John, the town which is the
flower of Etruria was my country."

  [Footnote 195: We must remark this title of venerable given the
  Angelico immediately after his death, and which justifies the
  popular canonization which has surnamed him in Italy, Il Beato.]

Argyropoulos remained long kneeling by the tomb, then on rising said
to the prior: "Tell me exactly the day of his death; for me it will
ever be an anniversary to be celebrated with prayers and tears." "It
was the 18th of last March," replied the prior, "that the blessed one
went to heaven, there to contemplate the true models of the dear and
holy pictures which, with so much love, he painted on earth."


------

ORIGINAL.


"I  AM   THE   WAY."

  "I am the way."  I well believe thy word;
  The truth of it is plain enough to see.
  For never was there yet a man, O Lord,
  So roughly trodden under foot like thee!

--------

{681}

ORIGINAL.

CHRISTINE.   [Footnote 196]

  [Footnote 196: Christine, and other Poems. By George H. Miles
  New-York: Lawrence Kehoe.]


The writer of the present remarks made his first acquaintance with the
volume under consideration during the magic season of Indian summer,
and perused many of its pages beneath the shade of sycamores by the
side of a woodland streamlet, ever and anon lifting his eyes from the
book to scan the many-colored foliage of trees mellowed by the
distance and draped in luminous haze. He took it up a second time when
driven into the house by equinoctial storms, and a third when the
trees had doffed their painted leaves and stood as black and cold as
the iron woods we read of in the Scandinavian Edda. But whether
in-doors or out, by waterside or fireside, he always found Christine
and her sisters the same genial and charming companions.

Who does not prefer the sunny side of a landscape to the dark one? Are
not coins and medals more pleasing when viewed on the side bearing the
principal legend and inscription? Juicy fruit, whether plum, peach, or
apple--does not the eye dwell with more pleasure upon the side which
is tinted with the finest blush and which glows with the rosiest
bloom? The same may be said of a pigeon's neck, a maiden's cheek; and
why not of a volume of poems? Let us, therefore, fix our eyes upon the
bright points, the beauties; and as every human production _must_ have
its imperfections, let us, when we discover these last, pass them over
lightly and almost in silence. The poet, when he composed his book,
hoped that its perusal would add to our enjoyment, and expected to
accomplish this, not by means of its defects, but by reason of its
many excellences.

Many, many such excellences belong to Christine. Open the book,
reader, and as if by magic you will find yourself transported some
eight hundred years backward in the world's history, and will fly on
fancy's wings from the age of steam-cars and telegraphs to that of
chivalry and the crusades. You will find yourself now in the
south-east of France, now in Savoy, gazing in succession at the Rhone,
the Isère, the Alps, Pilate's Peak, and the Grande Chartreuse, and, in
short, wandering over that romantic land so dear to all true lovers of
poetry, and so renowned of old for

   "Dance, Provençal song, and sun-burnt mirth."

The story is founded on one of those old devotional legends of the
early church, many of which have afforded such fine subjects both to
the painter and poet. Were I to enumerate one-tenth part of the fine
specimens of pictorial art which have been founded on such subjects, I
should soon swell out the list to a sufficient number to constitute a
good-sized picture-gallery. I will only allude, in passing, to a few
masterpieces, most of which are familiar, even to the untravelled
reader, from engravings, copies, and written descriptions. Among the
most noted are the St. Cecilia by Raphael, the Vision of Constantine
by the same artist, the the Assumption of the Virgin by Murillo, the
Marriage of St. Catharine by the same, the Archangel Michael by Guido,
and St. Patronilla by Guercino. These two last have been copied in
mosaic to adorn the interior of St. Peter's. Of poems of this nature
might be cited as among the best, Dryden's Ode to St. Cecilia, the
Virgin Martyr by Massenger, the Golden Legend by Longfellow, and the
Eve of St. Agnes by Keats.

{682}

Christine, I think, may fairly be catalogued among the same sainted
sisterhood.

These traditions and legends of an earlier and more credulous age may
be likened to the eggs, beautifully spotted and fantastically marked,
which some delighted school-boy finds in spring-time, after hours of
climbing and nest-hunting. Such eggs, curious in themselves, and
brooded over by genius, often break forth into winged and musical
poems, which afterward soar high above the nests and the tree-tops in
which they were first cradled. Such is the case with the one now under
consideration. In a new world, in a land which was not then even
dreamed to be in existence, it arises lark-like, soaring and singing
toward "heaven's gate." Let us watch it for a few moments, reader, and
listen to its matin melody; my word for it, we shall be none the
worse, either in heart or head, for having done so.

I shall not mar the beauties of this radiant little poem by attempting
a cold and prosaic outline; this would, indeed, be to offer a dingy
silhouette in place of a picture glowing with all the colors of a
Tintoretto. Instead of this, I say, let the volume speak for itself;
procure it, read it aloud to your friend; there is music sleeping in
the book, awaken it to the sound of your own voice, and even though
you may be a Protestant of the strictest school, you will find here
nothing to offend, nothing to call forth a word of disapprobation,
with one proviso, however, and that is that you read it as the
title-page directs. Remember always that it is supposed to be "A song
by a Troubadour."

A troubadour? And what was a troubadour? And what were his mainsprings
of action? Hear an answer in the language of one of the most gifted of
their number.

  "A Dien mon ame, ma vie au roi,
  Mon coeur aux dames, l'honneur pour moi!"

This, interpreted into tamer and more prosaic language, means that his
ruling principles of action were religion, loyalty, gallantry, and
honor; in other words, his soul, his life, his heart belonged
respectively to God, to the king, to the ladies, and only his honor he
reserved to himself. Such was his creed, such was the disinterested
and noble spirit which animated him, and which breathed through all
his lays, his vire-lays, his morning songs, his serenades, his
sonnets, his idyls, his villanercas, his madrigals, and his canzonets.
In this spirit acted the enthusiastic Rudel, who became enamored of
the Countess of Tripoli from the reports which he heard of the
hospitable manner in which she treated the Crusaders, and who, without
having ever seen her, actually started of on a long voyage to visit
the object of his admiration. Who has not heard of Blondel, and of the
romantic incident by which he discovered the lion-hearted Richard
while imprisoned in the castle of Lovenstein?

But in addition to the above-mentioned motive principles, the
troubadour was influenced by another sentiment, which had a powerful
effect on all the feelings and actions of his life. This was an
intense and romantic veneration for the Virgin Mary. In fact, with
little variation the following words, which we find in another poem in
the same volume, entitled "Raphael Sanzio," might with equal propriety
be attributed to one of the troubadours.

 --"Her whose colors I have worn since first
  I dreamed of beauty in the chestnut shades
  Of Umbria--Her for whom my best of life
  Has been one labor--_Her, the Nazareth maid,
  Who gave to heaven a queen, to man a God,
  To God a mother_."

Such, then, was the troubadour. His birthplace was Provence. It was
there, in fact, that during the darkness of the Middle Ages the muse
relit her torch which had long been extinguished. Many years before
Dante's great poem rose like a sun--never again to set--the
troubadours, those morning-stars of poesy, "sang together and shouted
for joy." The troubadour preceded the Saxon bard, the Anglo-Norman
minstrel, and the German minnesinger. There were held those curious
courts of love where {683} queens and noble ladies often presided, and
there were exhibited, on green and flowery meadows, those poetical
contests, those festive jousts and tournaments, the idea of which
seems to have been caught from the neighboring Saracens of Spain. The
cross and the crescent both added something to the great result, the
one contributing the deep and earnest glow of devotion, the other the
pomp and circumstance of chivalry.

Of all these circumstances our poet has, with exquisite tact and
skill, availed himself. Christine herself, when only ten years old,
had accompanied her father to the Holy Land. This throws an oriental
richness around her whole bearing and manner of thinking:

  "Sooth thou art fair,
  O ladye dear,
    Yet one may see
  The shadow of the East in thee;
    Tinting to a riper flush
    The faint vermilion of thy blush;
    Deepening in thy dark-brown hair
    Till sunshine sleeps in starlight there."

The gray charger which plays so conspicuous a part in the action was
born under the palm-trees of Palestine, and his name, Caliph, would
seem to indicate an Arabian descent. By this subtle link the
connection between Provençal and Arabic poesy seems delicately to be
hinted at. The fact that the main poem concludes in sonnet-form, if
accidental, is curious; if brought about by design, is a happy
thought, inasmuch as the sonnet derived its birth in Provence, and
also from the fact that, from the number of its lines (twice _seven_),
and the collocation of its rhymes, it is instinct with Christian
symbolism.

The song itself, or story of Christine, is divided into five cantos or
sub-songs, which, like the five acts of some romantic melodrama,
arrest the attention from the start, and conduct the reader by five
stages of increasing interest to the jubilant conclusion.

This main picture, as it may be called, has hanging on each side of it
a smaller lateral one, one of which is a kind of _prelude_ and the
other the _finale_ to the whole performance. This reminds us of some
of those works of art by the older masters, in which a smaller
side-picture may be seen to the right and left of the main
representation. These appendages, though apparently slight and worded
with extreme conciseness, are artistically conceived and add greatly
to the general effect. They are also in fine keeping with the time and
spirit of the legend itself, reminding us of one of those
triple-arched emblazoned windows so often seen in old Gothic edifices.
But the chief advantage derived from such an arrangement is, that the
two smaller or lateral pieces serve as links to connect the more
confined interests of the story with that grandest event in history,
namely the Crusades, and thus to impart to the whole a breadth and
grandeur of design which the size of the poem scarcely led us to
expect. In the prelude we are presented with a view of the troubadour
himself, who is supposed to sing the song, and not only himself, but
his lady love, together with Richard of the Lion Heart, his queen, and
all his chivalry. These last are at the time gazing over the blue
Mediterranean, on which, in the distance, King Philip of France is
seen sailing homeward with his receding vessels. The finale exhibits
the arrival of a fleet under English banners. In both, a glimpse is
caught of the troubadour who sings the song; in the one case, before
he commences his romaunt, in the other, as he retires unnoticed and
unthanked by the English monarch.

In the midst of so many beauties and artistic excellences, it is with
reluctance that I notice two little circumstances which some might
consider as slight blemishes. Caliph, the charger above alluded to, is
spoken of as "the gallant gray." This expression sounds almost too
trite and commonplace to find a place in so original a poem. Even if
the color were preserved, I should {684} prefer some more novel and
striking form of words. But would not pure _white_ be a hue more
suitable in itself, and also form a finer contrast with the
_coal-black_ steed which is ridden by the Goblin Horseman of Pilate's
Mount? The last personage forms the evil, as Christine forms the
_good_, principle of the poem. By placing one upon a white and the
other on a black horse, the antagonism would be brought out in bolder
relief, and we should be reminded of the fine allegory in Plato's
Phaedra, where the chariot of Psyche is represented as drawn by two
steeds of opposite colors, under the guidance of Reason, who is the
charioteer.

The other--a trifle scarcely worthy of mention--is this: For the
expression "Santo sudario" I should like to see substituted
"Veronica," not so much on account of its effect upon the ear, as on
account of those subtle trains of associated ideas which either lead
us _off from_ or _on_ to poetical ground, as the case may be.

In justice to the author I must add that of these supposed blemishes I
am doubtful, whereas of the beauties above alluded to I feel perfectly
certain. It is much more easy to suggest alterations when a work is
finished than by one's own effort to finish a perfect work. As a
whole, there is a youthful fire and glow about the poem which cannot
fail to render it captivating to the young, and a devotional and
earnest tone of feeling which must be extremely acceptable to those
more advanced. Reserving the "other poems" which accompany it for a
future article, I shall conclude my remarks by a short extract taken
almost at random from the third song:

  "They are coming from this castle,
    A bevy of bright-eyed girls,
  Some with their long locks braided,
    Some with loose golden curls.
  Merrily 'mid the meadows
    They win their wilful way;
  Winding through sun and shadow,
    Rivulets at play.
  Brows with white rosebuds blowing,
    Necks with white pearl intertwined,
  Gowns whose white folds imprison
    Wafts of the wandering wind.
  The boughs of the charmed woodland
    Sing to the vision sweet,
  The daisies that couch in the clover
    Nod to their twinkling feet
  They see Christine by the river,
    And, deeming the bridegroom near.
  They wave her a dewy rose-wreath
    Fresh plucked from her dark-brown hair.
  Hand in hand tripping to meet her
    Bird-like they carol their joy,
  Wedding soft Provençal numbers
    To a dulcet old strain of Savoy."

How trippingly and buoyantly do these verses gallopade adown the
jocund page, as if one of the blithest of the old masters of the "gaya
scientia." had been thrown by Merlin into an enchanted sleep, and,
awaking from his slumber of eight centuries, was even now pouring into
verse one of the freshest of his matin visions. And that bevy of
dancing maidens! long may they continue to bound in tiptoe jollity
adown the salient page. The glad creatures are as yet ignorant of the
fact that Christine's noble lover is lying in a death-like a swoon,
and that Christine herself has just had an interview with the fearful
demon who wishes to bear her off in triumph. Each one of them seems to
be a kind of Provençal Minnehaha, and may be compared to one of those
merry waterfalls which come tumbling down the mountain-side, leaping
in joy from rock to rock, and quite heedless of the black precipices
which surround them.

But enough. As Cleopatra's barge of old went sailing down the river
Cydnus, with burnished hull and perfumed sails, and silver oars rowing
in unison with dulcet flutes, so ever and anon, at long intervals, is
launched into the world some rare poem, which moves sailing down the
river of time, to the admiration of all beholders. It behooves us,
when such an apparition heaves in sight, whether it be poem or vessel,
to be on the lookout and not to miss the pleasure of saluting it with
our heartiest cheers.

--------

{685}

ORIGINAL.

GENIUS IN A PARISIAN ATTIC  [Footnote 197]

   [Footnote 197: In a private letter received from a member of the
   Guérin family--one whose name is held in gentle reverence by all
   the readers of Eugénie's Journal--we are asked if it would be
   possible to interest devout souls in America in the reconstruction
   of the little church of Andillac. We would gladly answer this
   question in the affirmative, for the restoration of Eugénie's
   parish church would be a monument that even her humility could not
   reject.

  The smallest sums for this purpose will be gratefully received and
  forwarded to Andillac by Miss E. P. Cary, Cambridge, Mass., or
  Office of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, 145 Nassau Street, New-York.]



In a former article   [Footnote 198] we traced the course of Maurice
de Guérin's career at La Chênaie; and left him in Paris, bewildered by
the rush and whirl of such a city, one day to become so familiar to
him. We will now let his journal and letters exhibit the curious
change through which he passed in turning from the fair Utopian dreams
of Lamennais to the work-day experiences of an unsuccessful author.

  [Footnote 198: See article in THE CATHOLIC WORLD of June, 1866,
  entitled: Two Pictures of Life in France before 1848.]

To do this fully we must retrace our steps to Le Val, the asylum
thrown open to him by Hippolyte de la Morvonnais when he left
Ploërmel. Guérin's record of that peaceful sojourn in Brittany is as
distinct from our popular ideas of French life as Eugénie's sketches
of Rayssac and Le Cayla. The brother and sister have successfully
proved that all Frenchmen are not deceitful and unbelieving, nor all
Frenchwomen vain and perfidious. Surely no young man in any country
ever met with influences more sound and elevating than Maurice found
in the society of Eugénie and Mimin; of Louise de Bayne, Madame de la
Morvonnais, and Caroline de Gervain; or with friends more enduring
than Hippolyte, Paul Quemper, Marzan, Trébutien, and D'Aurevilly.

There is in France an undercurrent of domestic life as pure and fresh
as the superficial existence in her great  cities is shallow and
turbid. Indeed, the more familiar one becomes with French life and
manners, the more one appreciates the truth of the _mot_ of a certain
cardinal: "There is no purgatory for Frenchmen; they go straight to
heaven or hell." But we will no longer detain the reader, by moral
reflections, from the perusal of the selections we have made from
Guérin's writings.

LE VAL, Dec. 7th, 1833.

After a year of perfect calm, but for interior tempests for which I
must not blame the solitude that has unfolded me in such silent peace
that any soul less unquiet than mine would have slumbered deliciously
therein; after a year, I say, of absolute tranquillity, Fate, who had
let me enter the holy house to rest awhile, smote on the door to call
me forth again; for she had not gone on her way, but had sat waiting
on the threshold till I should gather strength to resume the journey.
"You have tarried long enough," she said; "Come." And she took me by
the hand and tramped on like the poor women you meet in the road,
leading a tired, lagging child. But what folly it is to complain; are
there no troubles in the world but mine to weep for? I will say
henceforth to the fountain of my tears, "Dry up," and to the Lord,
"Lord, heed not my complaints," whenever I am tempted to invoke God
and my tears in my own behalf; for suffering is good for me, who can
merit nothing in heaven by my actions, and, like all weak souls, can
earn nothing there except through the virtue of suffering. Such souls
have no wings to raise them up to heaven, and the Lord, who would fain
possess them, sends help. He lays them on a pile of thorns, and
kindles the fire of grief; the consuming {686} wood mounts up to
heaven like a white vapor, or like the doves that used to spring
upward from the dying flames of a martyr's stake. This is the soul
which has completed its sacrifice, and grown light enough in the fire
of tribulation to rise to heaven like a smoke. The wood is heavy and
immovable; set fire to it, and a part of itself will ascend to the
clouds.

8th.--Yesterday the west wind blew furiously. I watched the shaken
ocean, but to me its sublime disorder was far from equalling the
spectacle of a calm blue sea, and yet why say that one is not equal to
the other? Who can measure these two sublimities and say that the
second surpasses the first? Let us only say: "My soul delights rather
in serenity than in a storm."

Yesterday there was a great battle fought in the watery plains. On
came the bounding waves, like innumerable hordes of Tartar cavalry
galloping to and fro on the plains of Asia--on to the chain of granite
islets that bar the entrance to the bay. There we saw billows upon
billows rushing to the assault, flinging themselves wildly against the
rocky masses with hideous clamor, tearing along to leap over the black
heads of the rocks. The boldest or lightest sprang over with a great
outcry; the others dashed themselves with sluggish awkwardness against
the ledges, throwing up great showers of dazzling foam, and then drew
off growling, like dogs beaten back by a traveller's staff.

We watched the great struggle from the top of a cliff, where we could
hardly keep our feet against the whirling wind. The awful tumult of
the sea, the rushing boisterous, waves, the swift but silent passing
of the clouds, the sea-birds floating in the sky, balancing their
slender bodies on wide-arched wings; all this accumulation of wild,
resounding harmonies, converging in the souls of two beings five feet
(French) high, planted on the crest of a cliff, shaken like two leaves
by the energy of the wind, and not more apparent on this immensity
than two birds perched on a clod of earth. Oh! it was something
strange and wonderful, one of those moments of sublime agitation and
deep revery combined, when the soul and nature rear themselves in
majesty before each other.

From this height we clambered down into a gorge which opens a marine
retreat, such as the ancients could have described to peaceful waves
that rock themselves to sleep there murmuring, while their frantic
brethren lash the rocks, and wrestle among themselves. Huge blocks of
gray granite, embossed with white lichens, are thrown in disorder on
the slant of the hill which has hollowed out an inlet for this cove.
They look, so strangely are they tossed about, half tipping toward the
slope, as if a giant had amused himself with hauling them from the
height above, and they had been checked by some obstacle, some a few
feet from the point of departure, and others half way down; and yet
they seem to have paused, not stopped, in their course, or rather they
appear to be still rolling. The sound of the winds and waves pouring
into this echoing recess makes glorious harmony. We stood there a long
time, leaning on our walking-sticks, looking and listening and
wondering.

9th.--The moon was shining with a few stars when the bell called us to
mass. I especially enjoy this mass, celebrated in the early morning
between the last rays of starlight and the first beams of the rising
sun.

In the evening Hippolyte and I wandered along the coast, for we wished
to see what the ocean is like at the close of a calm, gray December
day. Mist veiled the distance, but left space enough to suggest
infinity. We stationed ourselves on a point where a tidesman's hut
stands, and leaned against the wall. To the right a wood, spreading
over the slope of the coast, stretched its thin, naked branches out
into the pale light with a faint, sighing sound. Far away to our left
the tower of Ebihens vanished into the {687} mist, and then appeared
again with a faint gleam upon its brow, as some furtive ray of
twilight succeeded in eluding the clouds. The sound of the sea was
calm and dreamy, as on the fairest days, but with a more plaintive
tone. We followed this sound as it swelled along the shore, and only
taking breath when the waves that had poured it forth gave place to
another. I believe it is from the deep, grave tone of the advancing
wave as it unfurls itself, and from the shrill, pebbly sound of the
retreating wave, gritting against the shells and sand, that the
marvellous voice of the sea is created. But why dissect such music? I
could say nothing worth hearing on the subject, for I am no adept at
analysis, so we'll go back to sentiment.

The shadows thickened around us, but we never thought of going away,
for as the earth grew still, and the night unveiled its mysteries,
grander grew the harmony of the sea. Like those statues set on
promontories by the ancients, we stood immovable, fascinated and spell
bound by the beauty of the ocean and the night, giving no sign of life
except to look up when we heard the whistling wings of the wild duck
overhead.

The thread of my wandering fortunes led me to a solitary headland in
Brittany to dream away an autumn evening, there for several hours
those interior sounds were hushed that never have been still since the
first tempest arose in my breast. There a sweet, heavenly melancholy
stole into my heart with the ocean chords, and my soul wandered in a
paradise of revery. Oh! when I shall have left Le Val and poured my
parting tears into the bosom of your friendship; when I shall be in
Paris where there is neither vale nor ocean, nor any soul like yours;
when I shall wander alone with my sadness and with an almost
despairing heart; what tears I shall shed over the memory of our
evenings; for happiness is a fine, gentle rain that sinks into the
soul, and then gushes forth in torrents of tears.

21st.--For several days the weather has done its worst. The rain falls
and the wind blows in gusts till it seems as if everything would be
torn to pieces by the storm. These three nights I have started up wide
awake as the gale swept by at midnight, besieging the house so
furiously that everything in-doors shook and trembled. I spring up in
my bed white, and listen to the hurricane, while a thousand thoughts
that swept, some on the surface, others deep down in my soul, start
into shuddering wakefulness.

All the sounds of nature; the winds, those awful breathings from an
unknown mouth, rouse up the innumerable instruments in the plains or
on the mountains, hidden in the hollow of valleys or massed among the
forests; the waters with their marvellous scale of tone, ranging from
the tinkling of a fountain through moss, to the wondrous harmonies of
the ocean; thunder, the voice of that sea that floats above us; the
rustling of dry leaves beneath a human foot or before a whirling
breeze; in short, for I must stop short in enumerating innumerable
sounds, this continual emission of tone, the floating rumor of the
elements, dilates my thoughts into strange reveries, and throws me
into unutterable amazement. The voice of nature has taken such hold
upon me that I can hardly free myself from its perpetual influence,
and in vain I try to turn a deaf ear. But to wake at midnight amid the
cries of the storm, to be assailed in the darkness by a wild,
tumultuous harmony, overthrowing night's peaceful empire, is something
incomparable among strange impressions. It is ecstasy in the midst of
terror.

CAEN, 24th January.

I have been wandering along the streets of this city by the dim light
of the street lamps. What did I see? Black phantoms of steeples and
churches, whose outline I could barely trace. The mystery of night,
which enveloped them without limiting their dimensions {688} like dear
daylight, added to their impressive influence, and filled me with an
emotion that was worth more, I believe, than forms. My thoughts soared
up to heaven with the never-ending spires, and wandered awe-struck
through naves that were mournful as sepulchres. That was all. The
streets were crowded, but what is a crowd by night, or even, by day?
At night I enjoy more the sound of the wind, and in the daytime those
grand assemblies, now silent and now rocking and roaring, called
forests. Besides, I met several of that class of men who always put me
to flight; students strutting along in gown and cap, and wearing in
every feature a nameless expression that reduces me to rout and
discomfiture. Oh! my dear journal, my gentle friend, how I felt that I
loved thee, as I worked my way out of the multitude. And here I am
with thee now, though the night is far advanced and I am half dead
with fatigue; all alone with thee, telling thee my griefs, and letting
thee peacefully into my secrets. Can I recall often enough those
memories all steeped in tears, that will ever dwell incorruptible
within my soul? Kind Hippolyte and his exquisite Marie! I bade her
farewell; she answered me in a few words of touching kindness. I
stammered out a few words more, and was running down the steps
thinking that she had not come beyond the threshold, and that all was
over; when I heard another farewell coming to me from above, and,
looking up, saw her leaning over the balustrade. I answered very
softly, for her voice had taken away the little strength I had to keep
back my tears.

  MAURICE   DE   GUÉRIN   TO
  M.  H.   DE   LA MORVONNAIS.

  PARIS, Feb. 1st, 1834

You thought you would receive news of me by the end of this week. Your
calculation has proved false, and you are feeling impatient, and
thinking that I am neglectful, and that the tumult of Paris has dulled
my ear to the sweet, lovely voice of friendship that sings unceasingly
in the depths of my soul. Imagine no such thing, my dear friend. God
knows that since I came to Paris I have listened to nothing but the
two farewells that I heard on that black Thursday evening, one from
her whom you must let me call your sweet Marie, who, as I went
down-stairs thinking that everything was at an end, leaned over the
balustrade to say good-by once more; and the other from you, on the
steps of the carriage, uttered half aloud as you clasped my hand. I
hear these two voices incessantly, and never fail to listen to them,
while all other sounds pass by as if they were not.

I did not see Quemper until two days after my arrival, Tuesday
morning, when I surprised him in bed, dreaming, between sleeping and
waking, of music, dancing, fresh garlands of young maidens, and all
the other vague and enchanting images that float through the
imagination long after the magic of a ball has passed away. Our friend
had spent the night at one of those radiant entertainments, whose
brilliancy his pen, fresh as if dipped in a dew-drop, depicts with
such sparkling charm. All of a sudden my pale and melancholy visage
appeared to put these fair dreams to flight; but though it must have
looked among them much like one of those crows that we used to see
flying among flocks of white sea-gulls, he embraced me with all the
cordiality that you remember in him. I sat down by his bedside, and
the vivacity of our first greetings having effervesced, a long and
charming conversation gradually unrolled itself, of which this is the
substance: remember that he was the speaker and that I interrupted him
very seldom, so anxious was I to gather up all his instructions.

The most difficult task to accomplish at the beginning of the career
which we have chosen _is to get published_, to bring one's name before
the public; {689} and he mentioned the names of several young men who
had been vainly knocking at the gates of journals for several years
past. We are already far advanced, since two are thrown open to us,
Catholic France and the European Review. Booksellers have no faith in
the unknown, and would refuse obstinately to have a masterpiece
printed if it were the first attempt of its author, while if they have
seen his name ever so little in reviews and journals they would prove
facile and accommodating. Therefore we must devote our whole strength
to making our names known through magazines and papers.

But in order to write acceptably for this sort of publication one must
adapt one's self to its habits, speak its language, and become all
things to all men--in matters of style merely, you understand. Let us
strive, then, to catch their ways, as the saying is, and to throw our
thoughts into the conventional mould, until we shall have attained to
such independence of pen as will leave us free to clothe our thoughts
after our own fashion. There is no use in disguising the fact that as
long as we serve under an editing committee (I dwell upon this point
because it is an important one, and Quemper insisted upon it very
strongly), we must, to a certain degree, renounce the habits of style
peculiar to ourselves, and adopt those of the journal; so that, while
preserving our individuality, we may blend and combine it with customs
foreign to our nature. It is hard for men like us, with characteristic
traits of their own, proud and independent of the fashions they have
railed at and disdained; it is hard for such men to muffle themselves
in the livery of the day, to follow instead of leading, to copy
instead of designing; but necessity with her iron nail stands before
us. Finally, the committee of the European Review refused an article
of Cazalès himself because it was in Germanic form.

As to the Review, we must share the editing of it thus: Each number
should contain a leading article purely philosophical, an article of a
high order of literary criticism, and an article, artistic or
imaginative, of a light character fitted to relax the mind after
reading the first two. You, Duquesnel, and I could share the labor and
play into each other's hands, so that each number should have as often
as possible three articles from us, conceived in the manner that I
have just indicated; only remember that you must leave the light
article for me, because I know nothing of philosophy or criticism.

. . . . .

And now let me tell what my present position is. I have hired a little
room at twenty francs a month, near my cousin. He could not take me
into his own family; my friend, Lefebvre, could not accommodate me
either; and besides, the fact is that one must be alone and quite
independent if one would work well; it is better to have a house of
one's own. I take my meals at my cousin's; in short, I am in a very
tolerable position, and one that will allow me to try my fortune for
three months to come, and I hope much longer.

Add to this a most charming perspective, from which I hope much for
the advancement of my fortunes and the maintenance of my courage. At
the end of this month Quemper is going to change his lodgings. He has
in view, still, in the rue des Petits-Augustins, an apartment
consisting of three rooms, two bed-chambers and a parlor. He proposes
that I should take one of these rooms, which would cost me twenty
francs, like the one I have at present, and that we should share the
parlor. You may imagine that I accepted the plan with both hands,
especially because it will be so delightful to live with such a
friend. We have already laid out a life of uninterrupted happiness not
to be described, a sort of Le Val for us two in the midst of Paris.
{690} Can discouragement seize upon me there? and if it comes, cannot
we put it to flight? Quemper has drawn up a rule of life for me, and
given lessons in a double economy of which I knew nothing--that of
time and money; in short, as he says, he will pilot me through life
and Paris, two paths where I lose myself completely, though I number
twenty-three years of life and eight years of Paris. I begin to
believe that in spite of myself or any evil genius, I shall accomplish
something.

If I turn to the source of all these blessings, I find you, my dear
friend, who by your exhortations and generous reproaches, sowed in my
soul the first germs of the courage that I feel stirring within me
now. You urged me to come to Paris when I was contemplating a cowardly
retreat; you bound me in that ripe sheaf of friendship with yourself,
Quemper, and Duquesnel, an endless blessing from which, perhaps, all
the success of my life will grow; to you I owe two months of beautiful
impressions and pure happiness. You let me look upon Le Val as a
second Le Cayla, love it with the affection that belongs to one's
birthplace, for it was the June of my second birth; weep for it in
momenta of sadness, and sing of its charms when I am glad.

My cousin's little girl is nine months old; she is charming, can stand
alone already, without walking of course, has an enchanting smile; in
short, would be a companion angel for Marie. When her tongue is
loosed, I will teach her all the little words that her baby sister in
Le Val can say, "_Bon jour, ma, à tantôt, le v'la lia_" and I will
swing her in a napkin; in short, I will do everything I can to make
her another Marie, her faithful and bewitching likeness.

I have not yet written to my sister. I shall do so this evening with
exhortations and entreaties. How happy it would make me to see a firm
friendship grow up between Madame de La Morvonnais and Eugénie! those
two souls so formed for mutual understanding, and to draw forth the
wealth of sweetness from each other's souls.

Offer my homage to her who will, I hope, soon call my sister friend,
and win the same title from her; as it is between you and me, my dear
friend. Countless kisses to Marie. Don't forget me, I beg, when you
write to Mordreux and St. Malo. Love to Duquesnel and François.

At the time the following idyl was written, the pernicious style of
literature which it satirizes was confined to France. To-day, when our
bookstores teem with works of the same class, we fear that the
allegory may meet with less favor among American readers than it would
have aroused thirty years ago.

  MAURICE   DE   GUÉRIN   TO
  M.   H.   DE   LA MORVONNAIS.

  PARIS, February, 1834.

I fear me much that the month of May will bring us snow-balls instead
of roses.

When I left you, dear friend, your solitude was just ready to burst
forth into flowers and verdure. The reddening fruit walls in your
garden, and the little chilly shrubs that love the sun, were trusting
their tender foliage, in all confidence, to the benign and gentle
winter, smiling upon them with the grace of spring. The wood that
stretches over your sloping shore, dipping almost into the sea, wore
that look of life and gladness that trees put on as spring-time draws
near. The sticky, oval buds of the Indian chestnut, glistened in the
sun; beech buds, sharp and slim, pricked themselves up with pert
vivacity, even the small round oak buds were beginning to gather in
bunches at the end of the branches, and yet the oak leaves out later
than other forest-trees. We saw the young shoots of undergrowth
blushing with the red tint that colors them at the awakening of
vegetation, as if blood were purling through their veins instead of
sap. The grass, pushing its way up through the bed of dead leaves and
withered vegetation, thrown over {691} it in autumn, was bordering the
paths, and spreading a velvet carpet in every glade, decked with the
enamel of a thousand Easter buds and daisies. Everything was gay in
preparation for the great feast of nature. Oh! if nightingale,
swallow, oriole, and sparrow knew all this, how they would bestir
themselves to fly _dulcesque revisere nidos_. It may be that their
European brothers have sent messengers to tell them that everything is
ready for their reception, woods, groves, hedge, and bush; that seeds
and berries will come early; that, morning and evening, the gnats are
whirling in myriads in the beams of the rising and setting sun; that
all is lovely here, and they must hurry home to enjoy the glorious
festival. I don't know that our domestic birds have paid this
attention to their travelled brethren, but at least they have given
themselves up to joy and harmony in awaiting their return. Do you
remember, Hippolyte, how the blackbirds whistle, the gay, sweet warble
of the thrush, or the twitter of some wren perched on the top of a
wall, used to beguile us from our study, tempting us forth to pleasant
rambles?

Such was your Thebaïd, as you call it, the day before I left you, full
of warmth and animation, vivid with rising sap and the labor of
vegetation. To-day I will wager that the eruption of leaves and
flowers is far advanced, that the birds are hopping about in search of
moss, twigs, stray feathers, and bits of down, and that you are
wandering in spring revery under the first shade of your chestnut
trees. But, my friend, are you slumbering serenely on these fair
promises? Does it never occur to you that this may be all a stratagem
of winter, and that the old despot may have manoeuvred, merely to draw
out verdure and blossom, and kill them with his baleful breath? Do you
never fear that thus the acme may be reached of our delusions? What if
this balmy, perfumed air turned to a north wind; if a black, sharp
cold condensed all this living sap, this fecundity now gushing through
the veins of nature; if the frost crystallized your woods and their
tender leaflets; if your little eddying brooks were to clasp in ice
the flower, stems, and stalks of herbs that grow upon their beds and
borders; if, instead of nightingales and singing-birds from southern
shores, you should see triangles of long-necked geese and swans
pouring down from the north, and files of those ducks that we used to
hear cutting the clouds with whistling wings on December evenings; if
the exterminator, winter, were to kill in one night all these
first-born of the year; in short, if your Thebaïd were to turn into a
Siberia, what would become of your dreams of plenty, fruits, and
flowers, soft siestas under the shade of a tree, songs on the
sea-shore, and of that whole existence, nourished upon sunlight,
gentle breezes, and sweet odors, that you lead in your dear
wilderness?

If you had power over nature, I should say to you: "Give your gardens
and woods and birds a lesson of wisdom. Bid those buds that I saw
gaping in the sunshine to hold back well in their envelope the leaves
entrusted to their care, scare them with the rigors that may surprise
them; the brightest sun is a deceiver. Put them on their guard against
the wiles of a fair day, teach them to be austere, and tell them the
thousand tales you know of flowers that have crumbled into dust
because they heeded the lures of a passing breeze or of a glowing
sunbeam. Tell them that, if perchance a few be saved amid the general
havoc, they will one day bear shrivelled, meagre, tasteless fruit that
no fair hand shall ever gather, and that shall wither on the branch or
fall a prey to the vile appetite of insects. Tell them that their thin
and pallid foliage shall draw disdain upon them from the panting
traveller, the young maidens, and the winged musicians that take
refuge under their shade to rest or dance or sing. Men will take them
for useless cumberers of the earth, and one day {692} perhaps the axe
will be laid at their root." As to the birds, the best advice you can
give them is, to leave their brothers in exile until the first day of
true spring shines. It is better to bear banishment a little longer
than come home to find their country the wretched slave of winter. Let
your birds beware how they recall their brethren or begin to build
their own nests. The brood would not prosper; the poor mothers would
shiver on their eggs, and the bitter cold, stealing under their wings,
would kill the chicks in the shell, despite the warmth of the maternal
bosom. Oh! if you had, power over nature, what a discourse I would
send you for your Thebaïd, to save it from the seductions of this
perfidious spring whose perils I know so well.

Do you take all this seriously, my friend? I fear not, and that you
will dismiss it with a smile, as the prattle of a child. I even fear
that you may regard my letter as very eccentric, and say to yourself:
"What nonsense is this? Talking of woods and flowers to a hermit;
wandering on into homilies addressed to birds and flowers, when he is
writing from Paris, and not one word of what is stirring in the world!
He deserves in punishment that I should send him an essay upon the
dramas and romances of last year!" My friend, restrain your wrath, and
contain yourself long enough to hear, my reasons.

Horace said: "At Rome I prate of Tiber, and at Tiber I prate of Rome."
Don't imagine that my taste is light and changeable as the wind, and
thus explain to yourself my long tirades on your solitude. When I was
in your Thebaïd, did I ever speak regretfully of the joys of Paris?
Did I not, on the contrary, say always that a city life is repugnant
to my taste, and that I care not at all for any pleasures to be
enjoyed here? Don't you remember how the little rough huts of your
tidesmen used to excite my envy, and that I used to have dreams of
hollowing out a cool, dark grotto in the heart of a rock in one of
your creeks, and letting my life glide away in the contemplation of
the vast ocean, like a sea-god? If you recall all this, you'll easily
understand why in Paris I talk of the country and forget Paris.
Indeed, you will see that it cannot be otherwise; for having said to
the fields, as you know,

  "Le corps s'en va, mals le cocur vous demeure,"  [Footnote 199]

my discourse must turn on them, and I can only live in this mad
tornado of Paris as not belonging to it.

  [Footnote 199: Froissart (manuscript note).]

If you know me well, these reasons will more than suffice to make you
understand the beginning of my letter. But will you be able to resist
the perpetual impulse that makes you look for mysteries in the
clearest things, so insatiable is your taste for divining? No; you
will look under the natural sense of my words, and think you have
surprised a sly meaning, crouching like a serpent under flowers,
beneath my sentences, which breathe only sweet images of spring. I'm
not afraid of your discovering some political allusion in them, for
you are too solitary, and hold yourself too much aloof from such
things for that idea to occur to you. But, if your eyes turn from the
arena of politics, they will settle on the noble field of literary
doctrines; and because lately the combat has grown hot, and the noise
of the mêlée is resounding far and wide, you will fancy that I am a
passionate spectator of the struggle, amusing myself with winding the
opposing party in subtle mocking allegories. Let me tell you that this
interpretation, or any similar one given to my idyl on the precocious
spring, misses its aim; that my idyl veils no satire; and that if it
seems to you the least in the world insidious or guileful, 'tis only
because you've breathed your own malice upon the innocent thing. I
repeat, it conies merely to discourse with you about nature; and what
can be more natural? Know that never has a ray of sunlight shone
directly {693} into the room where I live; I receive it only by
repercussion. Toward noon the sun strikes some garret windows opposite
that send across to me a few pale reflections, without warmth or
cheerfulness, like the rays of a lamp; and even this vague,
languishing light vanishes in a quarter of an hour. These are the
beams that gladden my eyes, accustomed to the broad overflowing
liberality of a southern sky. A narrow, sombre court-yard, where
there's not a blade of grass growing in the cracks of the pavement,
nor a flower-pot on a window-sill to smile upon me--this is the
horizon to which I am reduced; I, who so many, many times have scaled
with you your rocks and downs and sea-cliffs, whence our eyes embraced
the divine expanse of ocean, the marvellous indentures of your coast,
and the wide fields all green with wheat and flax. And now that I've
fallen from these fair heights into a hole that hardly admits the
light of day, do you suppose I shall not try to live over again these
charms in imagination, or that I shall talk to you of anything but
yourself and your solitude? And you, you cynical recluse, would
envenom these sweet, innocent recollections, and find some apologue or
another in the images of nature among which I seek recreation? But as
I have every reason to suppose that you are not attending to me, and
are still working to disentangle the metaphors, let us see if
perchance malice can make anything out of my precocious spring, and to
what allusion it can be turned.

Interested as you are in literary matters, and attentive to the
disturbances that have risen tip lately among our authors, I am sure
that it will not be long before the _facile literature_ comes to your
mind. Then you will think you have the clew, and with that thread
you'll plunge into the labyrinth of my supposed allegory, hoping to
emerge maliciously triumphant and content. I allow that, without any
extraordinary flights, imagination might pass from the buds, opening
prematurely on the faith of a brilliant winter sun, to this young
literature, which has burst into blossom before its time, and
innocently exposed itself to the returns of frost that I predict to
your woods and groves. But, my friend, will you, who rejoice so
ardently at sight of an almond-tree in flower, will you reproach
severely these trusting souls that have opened in the broad-day light
and displayed with touching faith their treasures to the graces of
heaven? Blame rather the burning sun of our day, and the atmosphere
all charged with fatal heat, which have hastened this development and
perhaps reduced the harvest of our age to a few ears.

And the trees whose blossoms are only born to die, and those that bear
bitter fruits which no one will ever pluck, or will gather only to
throw away--ah! you'll not have much trouble in seeing in them the
emblems of the many authors who have appeared once and vanished for
ever; the many authors whose books, distasteful to a few grave judges,
are welcomed by seekers after novelty and romance readers; and who,
having filled these vain souls with vain ideas, often sink into the
well of oblivion with hands relaxed by the lethargy that comes from
dull satiety.

Will you have it that the trees shunned by travellers, young maidens,
and birds figure those renowned books, worthy of their fame as works
of art, which do not contain a grain of the hidden manna, nor one of
the sweet, beneficent thoughts that nourish the soul and relax it
after fatigue?--books that maidenly hands dare not touch, and that put
to flight everything fresh and innocent--a thought to make one die of
shame and grief! Will you have it so? I yield the point with good
grace, for in truth my thoughts bear your interpretation as well as if
I had really hidden it therein, and I will follow you no further in
your suspicious investigations, feeling sure that my test will not
suffer violence from you, {694} and that you will go on to the end
without losing your way.

What conclusion do you draw from all this? First, that, resolved to
enter the lists, I am preparing in secret my lance and chariot, and
kindling my wrath. But are my peaceful inclinations unknown to you, or
the weakness of my arm and my very doubtful courage? I a combatant!
Just remember that the least tumult scares and routs me like a flying
prey, and that my strength bravely suffices to drag me out of danger;
so how could it drag me in?

In the second place, you will suppose that I am nursing an aversion
for the new school and calling out for a classical reform. M. Nisard,
of course, does not wish the new school to perish, but to amend its
ways; and it is with that belief, and, I dare to say, on that
condition, that I pray ardently for the success of the campaign he is
about to open. The Catholic faith would never allow me to sympathize
entirely with a sceptical and fatalist literature, that sets no value
upon morality. But, on the other hand, the same faith makes me feel a
certain interest in it; for is not this disorderly, frantic new school
a truant from our fold?

No, dear friend, I am not a prey to devouring anger; but I must groan
in solitude over the wanderings of this literature, which has
forgotten the home and the teaching of its father, and has so
hopelessly lost itself, until the last and most terrible romance, in
that style, would now be its own history. Amid these sighs there come
to me a few reflections upon the cause of the evil and the means to
remedy it; and that is what I meant to announce to you in this
incoherent letter, in which I beg you to see only a whimsical prelude
of my imagination, turning, as it always does, toward you.

  MAURICE   DE   GUÉRIN   TO
  M. H.  DE  LA MORVONNAIS,
  AU VAL SAINT POTAN.

  AU PARC, July 9th, 1834.

I wrote to you  on leaving Paris a short letter, of which I begged you
not to take any notice. To-day, dear Hippolyte, when I have all
possible leisure, and the untroubled peace of the country is around
me, I resume our talk with every intention of carrying my confidence
to the utmost limits; that is, to the point where I shall begin to
fear that my chattering bores you.

I announced to you a complete account of my affairs and my position
during these five months past. Now I am going to begin and you must
listen. You know what my hopes were when I left Le Val; I felt a
decided taste for literary life, the profession of a journalist smiled
upon me, and I was hugging some bright phantom or other of the future
that had sprung up in my imagination; and in spite of the distrust
that you know I mingled with my love, I had given myself up to this
dream with intense ardor. For, let me tell you, _en passant_, that I
throw myself impetuously into every new project that can modify my
existence; and whether a walk is proposed to me for the next day, or
whether I am told, "To-morrow your destiny is to be completely
altered," I feel equally excited, and rush to meet the two events with
equal impatience. A strange activity of thought possesses me, and I
shake myself and champ my bit because time prevents me from seizing at
a bound what I am already devouring with my eyes. You may imagine
that, with a soul subject to such ardent cravings, I reached Paris
full of enthusiasm and seized the journalist's pen with a quiver of
delight. But, as usual, my enthusiasm did not last long, and
difficulties, personal as well as external, made themselves felt. I
saw the entrance to the journals bolted and barred by that selfishness
which guards the gates of everyplace against the approach of poor
young fellows who come to Paris full of innocent hopes. Catholic
France alone admitted me within its circle; but this journal,
notwithstanding the good-will of its directors, could not satisfy my
needs. My articles were favorably received, {695} but the narrow frame
of the journal cut me off from frequent contributions, and in four
months I had only appeared four times.

In the mean time expenses were not behindhand, and, although I lived
in a very small way, my expenditure was large in comparison to my
resources. I was exhausting fruitlessly time and money, my own
patience and my father's. For several months I persisted in this
disposition, holding my ground against adverse fortune in order to
save appearances and not yield the field without making fight. But at
last everything went so badly that I had to decide promptly upon a
plan suggested by the extremity of the ease. If I had been alone, I
don't know what would have become of me in my utter failure of
strength and courage; but God, as if for my preservation, has placed
around my wavering soul friends who prop and sustain it, restoring me
to myself with touching solicitude. I went to Paul, and laid before
him the whole story of my painful position. I proposed to him the
terrible enigma of my destiny and asked him for a solution. Without an
effort he untied the Gordian knot with these words: "If you leave
Paris, the future will slip through your hands. Do not let go your
hold at any cost. Make your father feel that this concerns your whole
life, that our last effort may save everything, and a first refusal
may ruin everything." And thereupon we set to work to compute article
by article all the necessities to be satisfied, all the debts to be
paid, all the most threatening possibilities of the future; and the
whole account, amounting to the sum of twelve hundred francs, I sent
to my father, with a petition written by my cousin in order to give it
more weight.

At the end of a fortnight my father returned it with his approbation
and a gift of the sum I had asked. What happiness it was to go in
search of Paul that I might thank him, triumph with him, overwhelm him
with joy for my joy; for I knew his kindness too well to doubt that he
would share all my transports. I was not mistaken; his rejoicings over
my success were sweeter to me than my own, and I had the inestimable
pleasure of seeing it communicated to my other friends, François,
Elic, etc. How delightful it is to receive such proofs of pure,
heartfelt sympathy! In short, my dear Hippolyte, here I am launched
upon the waves, provisioned with money and courage, and walking with
assured step to meet the future; I feel as if a light were guiding me,
and as if I were advancing toward an unknown goal. For the present
this is what I mean to do: I shall spend the end of August and the
whole of September at the College Stanislas, where I shall have a
class during vacation: when the term begins, I shall establish myself
in the college if there is a place for me; if not, I can have quite an
advantageous situation at my cousin's, by helping him to keep his
little _pension d'elèves_. This is an abridged history of these last
five months; it gives only a superficial view, but you are well enough
acquainted with my inner life to understand the course of my thoughts
during the time. Here I am at rest, dreaming of the future, giving
myself up to the pleasures of friendship and conversation, and
drinking in the country-life and all the dear idleness that one can
never fully enjoy except in the fields. Our solitude is so profound
that we do not even know the result of the elections. Another
ignorance, harder to bear, is concerning all that is going on among
our friends and affairs in Paris. I know nothing more than when I left
them, and it is a very long time also since I heard from my sister.

Pray, present my respectful compliments to Madame Morvonnais, and my
remembrances at Mordreux and Saint-Malo. I am going to write to
Amédée. Ask Marie, who can answer me now, if she remembers M. Guérin,
who sends her a thousand kisses.


  TO M. H.  DE LA MORVONNAIS.
  PARIS, Sept. 21st, 1834.

I have just  received your manuscript, my dear friend, and the letter
{696} it enclosed; it has only this moment arrived, and I write before
reading, that my despatch may be ready for Paul, who leaves day after
to-morrow in the morning. You are to possess this inestimable treasure
of friendship, freshness of soul, and warmth of heart. He will rest
from his busy, devoted life in the fair sanctuary of peace and
friendship, of which you are the priest; he will bathe in the current
of those easy, limpid days that murmur beneath your roof. What an
interruption and vacuum in my life will be between his departure and
the day of his return with the other brothers! What will become of me
in my _ennui_. Tomorrow evening we shall have our farewell _soirée_.
Do you know what evenings we have now and then? We meet at dinner-time
and have a cosy dinner, intimate talks, long wandering walks under the
chestnut-trees of the Tuileries, through the perfume of
orange-blossoms and flower-beds in the gleams of the setting sun.
These talks come and go between Paris and Le Val, from one friend to
another, from present to future, from melancholy to the liver,
philosophy to poetry, weak sadness to firm and manly resolutions, from
one thing in life to another. To paint these conversations for you
would be like trying to render with a style the colors of twilight,
the vague nonchalance of the breezes, or, a still more difficult task,
what comes more softly shaded to our hearts. Tomorrow will be the
farewell evening, the close of these melodious evenings. How many
things come to an end under our eyes! I will not speak of my own
affairs; Paul will tell you where I stand, and how my hopes ebb and
flow, rising to the chair of rhetoric of Juilly, and falling to a
little schoolroom. He will tell you about my firm resolutions and the
manly efforts of my will to seize the empire of my soul. It would be a
long story to relate the history of my interior revolutions, changes
of government, civil wars, anarchy, despotism, gleams of liberty.
These are annals that write themselves in rude characters upon the
soul and in wrinkles on the brow. Sometimes I feel that I _can no
more_, like an old empire. O my charming hermit, my sea-swan, my
poet-philosopher, how shall I express the jumble there is in my soul
at this moment of pleasure and pain, the pell-mell of joyful and sad
tears that rush from my eyes and roll over each other down my cheeks?
I see you in my soul; I see Paul's departure and embrace him in
farewell; I see Le Val, your meeting, the charm of your life, the
isolation of mine, and my longings after my dear Brittany. My friend,
sometimes the soul wanders out of sight, and is restless and troubled
like the sea.

  MAURICE   DE   GUÉRIN
  TO   M. H. DE LA MORVONNAIS.

  PARIS, Oct. 19th, 1834.

At last, my dear friend, I can be with you, I can open my heart and
confide my soul to you; a doubtful privilege, perhaps you think, but
unluckily I cannot keep it to myself. Today, then, this gray Sunday, a
calm day, a day of decline quite suited to the fall of leaves and the
emigration of souls, my busy life, heated with action, pauses to
recover its strength, and resume its confidential intercourse so long
interrupted; to give itself up to the genius of autumn and lend its
ear to the memories whose rustling we hear so distinctly on certain
days; and, all laden with impressions, reminiscences, and autumnal
melodies, to retire into some lonely corner far from chances of
interruption, and pour itself out to you. But I have left behind me
the mystery that I wish to unveil to you: _My busy life, heated with
action_. What! I a man of action! Some potent voice must have bade me
take up my bed and walk! The day after Paul left me I was to go to
Versailles, where I had reason to hope I could have a place as teacher
in an institution. I went to Versailles, and this was what I found:
four hours of teaching {697} every day, _des salles d'études_,
recreations, walks with the pupils, and a salary of 400 francs.    The
position I had hoped for in the College Stanislas having failed me
also, there remained only my last plan, that of going to my cousin's.
But, as if to complete and crown the lesson that she was resolved to
give me, fortune decreed that my cousin should all of a sudden be
absolutely without scholars.  Thus for a time was I trampled beneath
the feet of destiny.  Then indeed I had time to write to you, I had a
superabundance of leisure. To punish me for my sins--me, so long a
rebel against the ancient condemnation to labor, God took from me the
possibility of doing anything. He turned aside and removed from my
reach all working tools at the moment when my hands were eager for
them. Leisure on every side, far stretching, never ending, condemned
to bury myself in unlimited leisure as in a doleful desert.  Why did I
not write to you when my whole life lay before me at my own disposal?
My friend, I had nothing to tell but misfortunes, and my recital would
only have grieved you.  I preferred waiting for the wind to blow away
these black days and clear my atmosphere. The tempest was short; the
sky of my little world is tinged anew in the east, and it is by the
light of its first gleams that I write to you.  The professor of the
fifth class at Stanislas asked leave of absence for a month; I have
taken his place and shall have 100 francs for the work. I am looking
for private lessons and have found several. Classes and recitations
occupy my day from half-past seven in the morning until half-past nine
in the evening; I sleep at my cousin's, the college dinner serves me
for breakfast, and in the evening I get a dinner for twenty-four sous
like a _débutant_.   Such has been my life for the last three weeks; a
sudden revolution in my existence, an abrupt transition from careless
revery to breathless action.  An urgent pressure, a little reason, a
few grains of irritating self-love, supply fresh strength to my soul,
which is exhausted at the first tug. However, I must say that in the
deepest and most hidden recesses of my being, in the sanctuary of the
will, lives a resolution, that is, I believe, firm and steady, to
sacrifice half my existence to external things, in order to insure
repose to the inner man; and therefore I have decided to prepare
myself for the _agrégation_ (corresponds to the expression, master of
arts). I have explained to you the facts, accidents, and external
circumstances; let us go deeper. Latin, Greek, and all the bustle of
laborious life, absorb a certain portion of my thoughts; but it is
that floating and least, valuable portion which, without regret, I let
flutter in the wind like the fringe of a cloak. These are the waves
that break upon he beach; the sand drinks them in, men gather their
spoils, the sea tosses them to any one who wants them. Thus, as I tell
you, my mind near its shores is occupied by the cares and duties of
active life; but far out at sea nothing touches it, nothing passes
over it, nothing is lost from its waves, except by the continual
evaporation of my intelligence drawn up by some unknown star.

It will soon be a year since from the heights of Créhen I hailed Le
Val, lying all golden on the hillside beneath the beautiful autumn
sun. Dear anniversary, full of gentle melancholy like the season that
brings it. Every morning, on the way to college, I cross the Tuileries
where the ground is covered with the heaps of autumn leaves, the wind
sighs through the branches as in a desert, and, like the ring-doves
that build their nests in ancient chestnut-trees, a few of the poems
of solitude flutter about in these city groves. Sometimes the murmur
of a breeze among the boughs recalls to me the sound of the sea, and I
pause to possess myself of the delusion, and isolate myself with it
from the whole world: these are the waves, I am walking along the
shore with you, wandering over headlands in the evening twilight; I am
sitting on La {698} _Rôche-Alain_. Then when I feel the illusion is
fading away, I resume my walk, all full of emotion, all full of you,
and cry like the _Young Bard_: "Good God, give us back the sea!"


  MAURICE   DE   GUÉRIN
  TO   M.   H.   DE   LA MORVONNAIS.

  PARIS, Dec. 5th, 1835.

Your impatience to know how I dispose of my time, and all the turnings
of the roads I am following, that you may go with me in thought,
roused in me a very delightful feeling, and one that does not easily
find expression in words. But your idea of my life is quite too
elevated; you attribute to it a dignity with which it is not invested
when you speak of my sufferings and the courage with which I bear
them. No, my dear Hippolyte, my lot is not so beautiful as you would
make it out. The difficulties of my life consist in a few material
fatigues, to which the body easily becomes hardened, even deriving a
certain strength from contending with them; and in the distaste for a
profession which is conquering my antipathy through the slow but
irresistible action of habit, which tames the wildest spirits, and
reduces them to complete submission almost without their knowledge,
everything becomes deadened, everything dissolves insensibly. The
firmest revolutions yield each day something to the progress of the
hours. All rebellions are absorbed again by degrees into the common
soul. All things lie upon a declivity which opposes itself to
continued ascent. I have chosen my course in life; I come and go in
the leading-strings of habit, keeping my mind in the middle of the
road, restraining it carefully from those thoughts that would draw it
aside, and mar the blessed monotony which lends something to the
pettiest existence. Being reduced to this state, I have no need of
courage. I required, of course, some resolution to arrive at it, but
it was not worth much and was borrowed from circumstances.

These are the principal features of my day: I set forth on foot at
seven o'clock to give a lesson in the neighborhood; then I go to the
College Stanislas; at the other end of Paris, and remain there until
six in the evening. That leaves me an hour and a half to dine and
retrace my steps again to the further extremity of Paris, where my
last lesson awaits me, which ends at half past eight. My liberty
claims possession of the night. Custom having worn away the asperities
of this life, only one defect remains, but a capital one; and that is
the difficulty of using the fragments of time that are left to me
after using the larger portions for studies that are to raise me above
my present condition. How to make the cares of self-subsistence agree
with these exacting labors seems to me an insoluble problem in Paris.
But time is so fertile in good advice, and sometimes unties knots so
easily that would have defied a sword, that I await its solution in
patience. You wish me to compose, to unveil the gifts which you think
I possess. My friend, why interrupt the course of a wise resolution
and mar a work that is so slow of formation and so costly? Let the
waters flow in their natural hidden course, following their tranquil
destinies in a narrow, nameless bed. My mind is a domestic animal, and
shuns adventure; that of the literary life is especially repugnant to
its humor, and excites its contempt, speaking without the least
self-sufficiency. I see delusion in the career, both in its essence
and in the prize we seek, charged often with the venom of a secret
ridicule. Looking at life with the naked eye, in the severe,
monotonous expanse she presents to some of us, seems to me more
conformable to the interest of the mind, and more in accordance with
the laws of wisdom, than unceasingly applying one's eyes to the prism
of art and poetry. Before I embrace art and poetry, I wish to have
them demonstrated with an eternal solemnity and certainty, like {699}
God. They are two doubtful phantoms, and wear a perfidious gravity
that conceals a mocking laugh. That laugh I will not bear.



  MAURICE
  TO MLLE. EUGÉNIE DE GUÉRIN.

  PARIS, Feb. 9th, 1836.

I saw Madame ------ (name illegible) day before yesterday. She is to
leave Paris in a fortnight, and offered very obligingly to take charge
of my commissions to Gaillae. I shall profit by her kindness to send
you what you ask, the velvet neck-ribbons, the net for your hair (but,
pray, why have you adopted this very ugly coiffure?) and the albe that
Mimi asked me to send her. I hope the little articles I send will suit
you both and fulfil your expectations exactly. But why be afraid of
being indiscreet in drawing upon my purse a little? Think, dear
friends, that I am your treasurer here, and that I wish you to
consider me as such. If you had reminded me sooner of the cloaks, you
would have had them now. I would gladly have deferred getting one for
myself until next year, and should not now be regretting the fact that
my shoulders are well covered, while I know that cold and damp air are
penetrating to yours as you go to Andillac. I am quite provoked with
myself for not having thought of it. Am I not very ungracious, never
beforehand with any idea, but waiting to be urged out of what looks
like indifference? Are you annoyed with me for this, and could you
ever judge me by mere external signs? Never, I am sure. You have too
much penetration to deceive yourselves for a moment about my
affection, when it is most hidden or most ungainly.

I am glad to know that the union which has been so long uncertain is
at last secured. I have no doubt that all the conditions of happiness
will be found in it, if only health can be added to them.

The lime of papa's journey is drawing near. From a distance it is
difficult to judge his course correctly; the moment itself must have
arrived before one can appreciate it truly.

I am trying to find out at this moment what I may count upon in the
future for the accomplishment of my dearest hopes.


The last sentences in this letter refer to Guérin's marriage with
Mlle. de Gervain, which is so fully described in Eugénie's letters
from Paris that it needs no comment here. Then followed a few months
of tranquil success, a lingering illness at Le Cayla, a happy
death-bed; and our story ends, as all true stories must end, in a
graveyard. By the gateway of that old cemetery of Andillac, where
Eugénie sunned herself one day sitting on a tombstone, while waiting
for her turn to go to confession, is a white marble obelisk surmounted
by a cross. Caroline placed it there as her last gift to her husband,
and it bears these words:

  Here rests my friend
  Who was my husband
  Only eight months. Farewell.
  Pierre George Maurice
  De Guérin du Cayla.
  Born August 4th, 1810,
  Died at Le Cayla
  July 19th, 1839.

Close by stands the little church whose chief ornament is a delicately
wrought statue of the Blessed Virgin, presented by Queen Marie Amélie
at Eugénie's petition. The belfry is crumbling to decay, and the
tottering porch under which the dove of Le Cayla passed so often
appeals pitifully to those who have a zeal for the preservation of
God's house.

--------

A record has been made of Eugénie's daily life by one who had hourly
opportunities of watching her actions, and we cannot refrain from
laying it before our readers. Nothing concerning the sister of Maurice
can be inappropriate in an article devoted to him, and it will be well
to see how holy and regular a life may be led in the world without
singularity or narrowness.

{700}

"She rose at six in the morning when she was not ill. After dressing
she made a vocal or mental prayer, and never failed when she was in a
town to hear mass at the nearest altar. At Le Cayla, after saying her
morning prayer, she went into her father's room, either to wait upon
him, or to carry his breakfast in and read to him while he took it. At
nine o'clock she went back to her room and followed mass spiritually.
If her father was well and did not need her assistance, she occupied
herself with reading and writing or with sewing, of which she was very
fond (fairy in hands as she was in soul); or in superintending the
household, which she directed with exquisite taste and intelligence.
At noon she went to her room and said the Angelus; then came dinner.
When it was over, if the weather was good, she took a walk with her
father, or sometimes made a visit in a village if there was any
invalid to see or any afflicted person to console. If she resumed
reading on her return, she took up her knitting also and knitted while
she read, not admitting even the shadow of idle hours. At three she
went to her room, where she generally read the Visit to the Blessed
Sacrament by St. Alphonsus Liguori, or the life of that day's saint.
This ended, she wrote until five o'clock if her father did not call
her to be with him. At five she said her rosary and meditated until
supper time. At seven she talked with the rest of the family, but
never left off working. After supper she went into the kitchen for
evening prayers with the servants or to teach the catechism to some
little ignorant child, as often happened during the vineyard times.
The rest of the evening passed in working, and at ten o'clock she went
to bed, after reading the subject of meditation for the next day, in
order to sleep upon some good thought. And, finally, it should be
added that every month she prepared herself for death and chose some
saint whom she loved best that she might imitate his virtues. Every
week she went to communion, and even oftener during the last years of
her life, when her failing health would allow her to go to the church,
which was at some distance from Le Cayla."

The hour of release came at last for her too, after a lingering
illness of which we possess few details. After receiving the last
sacraments, she gave a key to her sister, saying: "In that drawer you
will find some papers which you will burn; they are all vanity." She
died in 1848 on the last day of the beautiful month of Mary, which she
and Mimin had always observed with such tender devotion in the
_chambrette_.

  "All was ended now, the hope and the fear and the sorrow,
  All the aching of heart, the restless unsatisfied longing,
  All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience."

The dear old father survived "his angel, his second self and much
more," only six months. Grembert died in 1850. Three graves now
surround Maurice's, and on one of them, which is already regarded with
veneration by the country people, is a wooden cross, bearing a
circular medallion that encloses a virginal crown with these few
words:

  "Eugénie de Guérin, died May 31st, 1843."

"Soft as the opals of the east at dawn, and sad as the gleams that die
away so quickly in the twilight, she will be, for those who read her,
the Aurora of her brother's day; but an Aurora who has tears too! May
these tears fertilize the grave over which she wept, and make the
flower of glory spring up rarer than ever now for poets! The
materialism of our times has thickened the earth, so hard to break at
all times. We know there is a flower that pierces the snow, but one
that can penetrate the mind of an age devoted to matter is harder to
find." (Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's unpublished notice of Mademoiselle
de Guérin.)

--------

{701}



From The Month.

SYRACUSE AND AETNA.


Tourists bent on the ascent of AEtna leave Catania at the end of the
long straight street which terminates in the Piazza Giorni. The ascent
begins at once. On both sides of the road luxuriant groves of orange,
citron, almond, and carouba trees alternate with vineyards and
cornfields rich in the promise of future crops. Yet all are growing on
the lava, and lava meets you at every turn: the walls, festooned with
the "Bourgainviller," the passion-flower, and beautiful yellow roses,
are still of lava; so are the pretty villas and the _riant_
farm-houses and the lodges in the vineyards--all are built of it. The
streets through the villages are paved with it. There is a sort of
allegorical beauty and poetical justice in the way in which the great
common enemy has been, as it were, conquered and subdued--at least for
a time--and forced to repair the terrible mischief it has wrought. As
the road ascends higher and higher, the vegetation diminishes, and you
come at last to a wild waste of rock sprinkled with broom and dwarf
oak. A twelve-miles' drive brought our travellers to Nicolosi, where
their first visit was paid to the kind old professor and geologist,
Dr. Gemmellaro, from whom every kind of assistance is obtained for the
ascent of the mountain, which is, as it were, both his child and his
home. He is a most good-natured and agreeable old man, whose whole
life has been devoted to this one great interest, and whose greatest
pleasure seems to be to make others share in the knowledge which he
himself possesses. His house a museum of curiosities, and contains a
carefully arranged collection of all the geological phenomena of the
mountain. Among other things, he showed the party a ptarmigan which
had been "caught sitting" by the lava stream, and had been instantly
petrified, like Lot's wife! the bird preserving its shape perfectly.
The village of Nicolosi is composed of low houses built up and down a
long straggling street, with a fine church in the centre. Horse-races
were going on the day of our travellers' arrival, and causing immense
excitement among the people, who were all in the street in holiday
attire. The horses ran, as at the carnival in the Corso, without
riders, and were excited to a pitch of madness by the shouts of their
starters and the _bandeleros_ stuck in their sides. After watching the
races for some little time, our travellers  returned to the kind
professor's, who had seen the guides required for their ascent of
AEtna, but who advised them to delay their expedition for two or three
days to allow of a greater melting, of the snow, the season being
backward, and to procure the requisite number of mules for so large a
party. It was also necessary to send some one beforehand to clear out
the snow from the Casa Inglese, the small house of refuge which the
professor had built on the  summit  of the mountain, at the base of
the principal cone, and where travellers rest while waiting for the
sunrise, or before commencing the last portion of the ascent to the
crater. He is very anxious to have this house better built and
provided with more comforts, and tried to enlist the interest of  our
travellers with the English Government in its behalf. Having arranged
everything with him, our party retraced their steps to Catania, having
decided to visit Syracuse first, and take AEtna on their return.

{702}

The following morning, consequently, at half-past three, they started
for Syracuse, so as to arrive there before the great heat of the day,
and also in time for mass. A long marshy plain occupied the whole of
the first stage; after which the road wound through limestone rocks
and rich cultivation, till they reached the picturesque village of
Lentini. The lake of Lentini is the largest in Sicily, famous for its
wild fowl, but also for its malaria. There is a beautiful view of the
little town, with its wooded cliffs and deep ravines, from the
Capuchin convent above. The scenery increases in beauty as you
approach Syracuse, the road descending into deep glens full of ilex,
myrtle, oleander, and a variety of aromatic shrubs, and rising again
over rocky hills scented with thyme and every kind of wild flower.
From hence comes the delicious Hybla honey, which rivals that of Mount
Hymettus. Over the wide downs which stretch seaward, the picturesque
town of Augusta was seen, perched on the edge of the broad sandy bay.

Our travellers had excellent horses; so that it was not more than
half-pas ten when they reached the gates of Syracuse and found
themselves in the comfortable little hotel near the port. One of the
party started off at once to find a mass; but the good people of
Syracuse are very early in their habits, and the lady wandered half
over the city before she found what she sought in the beautiful little
church of St. Philip, where there happened to be on that day the
exposition of the blessed sacrament, and in consequence masses all the
morning. On her return she found that the vicar-general had been
kindly sent by the archbishop to show her the curiosities of the
place. He first took them to the temple of Diana, now converted into a
private residence, and of which nothing remains to be seen but some
very ancient Doric columns. From thence they proceeded to the
world-famed fountain of Arethusa. The spring rises from an arch in the
rock, and is protected by a bastion, which defends it from the sea.
The papyrus grows here in great luxuriance, and the party gathered
some as a specimen, having first duly drank the anciently sacred
water. Resuming their carriages, their kind guide now conducted them
outside the town to the interesting church and crypt of San Marzian,
the first church of Sicily, built on the spot where St. Paul preached
during his three days' stay in Syracuse. It is a simple, massive
building, of the shape of a Greek cross, and contains the episcopal
chair of St. Marzian. Here also is the tomb of the saint, who was the
proto-martyr of Sicily. Near the tomb is the rude stone altar where
St. Paul said mass. A column of gray granite is shown as that to which
St. Marzian was attached for the scourging previous to his execution:
it is tinged with his blood. The crypt, however, is the most sacred
spot. Here came the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, with the
evangelists St. Mark and St. Luke, on their successive visits to the
holy bishop, St. Marzian; where also the local tradition affirms that
St. Mark was martyred. The curious font now in the cathedral was found
in this crypt, and was probably used for the baptism of many of the
early Pagan converts. Adjoining is the place of St. Marzian's
martyrdom. The church itself is built over the site of an ancient
temple of Bacchus. Leading out of a side door is the entrance to the
catacombs, which are more extensive than even those of Naples or Rome,
and abound in Christian emblems: crosses, palm-branches, the dove, and
other Catholic symbols, are rudely carved on all the vaults and
niches, with here and there an early fresco of the Blessed Virgin and
Child, or a Greek inscription.

From the catacombs our travellers crossed the plain, thickly studded
with ancient columns, sarcophagi, and remains of Greek and Roman
buildings, till they came to the little church of St. Nicolo.
Underneath is a reservoir with an aqueduct, leading to the great
amphitheatre; the principal monument left of Roman work in Syracuse,
and {703} still in perfect preservation. Recent excavations have
cleared the space, so that the seats and arena are clearly visible.
From the amphitheatre, a five-minutes' walk leads to the Latomia del
Paradiso--a quarry containing in its further recesses the famous Ear
of Dionysius. This cavern was excavated by the tyrant for a prison,
and so constructed that the faintest whisper could be heard in the
chamber above, where he sat listening to the conversation of his
victims. It is to be supposed that the listener, according to the
proverb, rarely heard any good of himself. It is a wonderfully
picturesque spot; the sides of the quarry being lined with fruit-trees
and ferns and flowering shrubs, mingled with masses of fallen rock and
fragments of ancient masonry. Pistols were fired off by the guides to
let the party hear the full force of the echo, which is tremendous.
Round a deep spring at the further end of the cavern grew the most
beautiful maiden-hair fern. Close by is the Greek theatre, the largest
in Sicily, hollowed out of the rock, and capable of containing more
than 20,000 spectators.

Returning home to luncheon, the ladies visited on their way the
Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, who are lodged in one of
the fine old mediaeval palaces of Syracuse, with beautifully carved
windows and doorways. But it is very much out of repair, and very
inconvenient for their large orphanage. There are only six or seven
sisters here. Their superior is a charming person, and only another
proof, if one were needed in that wonderful religious order, of the
way in which energy, zeal, and, above all, a burning charity can
triumph over the sufferings entailed by a delicate frame and sickly
constitution.

After luncheon our travellers started again to meet Monsignor B------
at the cathedral. It is built on the site of an ancient temple of
Minerva, but has been ruined by modern church-wardenship and
whitewash. There are two fine side chapels, however; one dedicated to
the Blessed Sacrament, the other to St. Lucia, in which, is exposed a
large silver figure of the saint of great antiquity. The font, of
which notice has been taken above, is of marble, supported by seven
fine bronze lions. There is a beautiful renaissance doorway leading to
the sacristy. A beautiful benediction service with litany was being
sung; after which the relics and treasures were examined, which
include a beautiful chalice of amber, cut out of one piece, and a
pastoral ring of great size and value. In the Place, or court of the
cathedral, are fourteen fine columns of Cipollino marble, supposed to
have formed part of the ancient temple of Ceres. Opposite the north
door of the cathedral is the museum, containing all the antiquities
lately discovered in Syracuse and its neighborhood. The finest is a
beautiful torso, a Venus of the best date of Greek art. There are also
some very fine cameos and medals. The day was closed by a sweetly sung
benediction at the orphanage of the Sisters of Charity.

The next morning, after a daybreak mass at the cathedral, one of the
party breakfasted with the archbishop, who afterward showed her his
palace and gardens, which are very fine. In the latter grew the
largest citrons she had ever seen, very nearly equalling the gigantic
oranges at Jaffa. Adjoining his garden-wall is a convent of
Benedictine nuns, which was likewise visited. The good-natured prefect
then insisted on taking the whole party in his carriages to the
Franciscan convent of St. Lucia outside the town. There is an
interesting Norman church attached to it, raised over the site of the
saint's martyrdom; and a granite column is shown as that to which she
was fastened on the occasion. Her tomb is cut in the rock at the back
of the altar, underneath which is a fine statue of the saint by
Bernini.

From this spot a narrow lane, traversing vineyards fenced by stone
walls, leads to the convent of Sta. Maria di Gesù, in front of which
is a fine stone {704} cross. Passing by an aqueduct in very tolerable
preservation, and by a succession of old tombs cut in the cliff, our
party arrived at the Capuchin convent--a fortified building, with
fosse and drawbridge and machicolated battlements. A little gate at
the side led them into the Latomie, or quarries, from whence the stone
was taken to build the city. Here is one of the most beautiful spots
in the neighborhood of Syracuse. It is a vast pit, about a hundred
feet in depth; and of many acres in extent, planted with oranges,
citrons, pomegranates, figs, and cypresses, with an undergrowth of
roses, arums, acanthus, ferns, and creepers of every kind, and overrun
with ivy and wild vine. The whole is walled in by lofty gray cliffs
hung with creepers; and from the midst of this wilderness of beautiful
and almost rank vegetation rise two tall insulated masses of rock,
with an ancient flight of steps cut in the side of one of them, but
now inaccessible. The cliffs are hollowed into vast halls or caverns,
in one of which the prefect told our travellers that he had given a
_fête_ to Prince Alfred on his first visit to Syracuse. The kind old
monk who had been their escort brought them fruit, bread, and wine in
this deliciously cool retreat, and sat a long time talking of the Holy
Land, where he had been, and which he was delighted to find was
equally well known and appreciated by his guests. Here and there,
embedded in the rocks, are traces of ancient sepultures; and one or
two Protestant epitaphs on the cliffs prove that the quarries have,
even in late days, been used for purposes of burial. Leaving this
beautiful spot with great regret, and acceding to the request of the
good old monk that they would first pray with him for a few minutes in
the church for a blessing on the Holy Land Mission, our travellers
visited one or two more of the antiquities in the neighborhood,
including the recently excavated baths of Diana, full of beautiful
marbles and mosaics; the sepulchral road, the perpendicular sides of
which are lined, with niches for cinerary urns; the tombs of
Archimedes and Timoleon, and other interesting remains of Greek and
Roman times; after which they returned once more to the city and to
the museum, where the collection of natural history had yet to be
seen, which contains everything most interesting of the kind in
Sicily, and also the library. The latter contains priceless treasures,
of which the most remarkable are--a rare copy of the gospel of St.
John, of the twelfth century; a Koran on paper, of 1199, brought from
Egypt by Lord Nelson, and given by him to the Cavalier Landolina, who
was the real founder of the library; a very fine block-book, a replica
of one of those in the Wilton library; and many beautifully
illuminated martyrologies and missals.

Nothing can be kinder or more hospitable than the residents of
Syracuse. The visit of our travellers was necessarily too limited in
point of time to enable them to profit by it; but every one offered
their carriage and horses, and put their palaces, not figuratively,
but actually _à leur disposition_. There are still some beautiful
medieval palaces in the town, especially the Palazzo Montalto, with
its pointed windows and dog-tooth mouldings. It bears also some
curious Gothic inscriptions, like the houses at Avila, and with the
date 1397.

A charming boating excursion was made by one or two of the party from
Syracuse to the fountain of Cyane, up the river Anapus, the only spot
in Europe where the papyrus still grows wild. Nothing remains of the
temple of Jupiter Olympus, which one visits by the way, but two broken
columns. But there is a lovely sketch a little further on of a ruined
bridge, with a date-palm overhanging the stream, and a foreground of
magnificent tangled vegetation of reeds, sugar-cane, acanthus, iris,
and every kind of aquatic plants, and which the slow progress of one's
boat through the weeds enables one fully to enjoy. The Anapus {705}
leads into the Cyane, which is a far clearer stream, but very narrow.
Here the papyrus grows luxuriantly among flags and castor-oil plants.
It was sent from Egypt by Ptolemy to King Hieron II., and has
flourished ever since. Struggling up the narrow stream and through the
choking mass of vegetation, which threatened to  close the passage
altogether, our travellers' boat at last arrived at a beautiful
circular basin, fringed with papyrus and purple iris; the water, very
deep, was clear as crystal, and swarming with fish. This was known in
old times as the famous "dark-blue spring," converted  by heathen
mythology into a nymph; and an annual festival was  held  here in
honor of Ceres. Now it is utterly deserted, save by  an  occasional
traveller  or sportsman seeking food for  his   gun from   the
multitude  of   snipes and wild fowl which resort to  its  banks and
make their nests in its undisturbed arid reedy shores.  That same
evening our travellers returned to Catania, charmed  with  their
expedition, and full of gratitude for all the kindness which had been
showered upon them.

The following morning found  one of   the party very early at the
convent of her old friends the Benedictines, where the superior
received her with his usual fatherly kindness, and presented her, as a
surprise, with the deed   of   affiliation   to   their   order, which
he had obtained for her from Monte Casino;  together with   a picture
of the saint and the miraculous medal or cross of St. Benedict, with
its mysterious letters, _C.S.S.M.L._ (Crux sacra sit mihi lux), a
medal always given by St. Vincent de Paul to his Sisters of  Charity,
as  a  defence in the many perils of their daily lives. Once more the
traveller heard that glorious music, which, beautiful at all times, is
so especially thrilling at the benediction   service.    The organ
begins with a low, sweet, wailing sound, which those beautiful and
cultivated voices respond:  and then  bursts into thunder, expressing,
as  far as mortal instrument can, the glorious majesty of God. It was
the feast of St. Monica--that saint so dear to every widowed mother's
heart; and the fact, in connection with the English stranger, had not
been forgotten by the kind abbate, who came up and whispered to her as
she knelt before mass: "My child, the prayers and communions of the
community this day will be offered up for _you_, that you may follow
in the steps of St. Monica, and finally reap her reward."

Returning at seven to the hotel, the whole  party  started  once  more
for Nicolosi, on   their way to  undertake the more formidable ascent
of AEtna. Arriving, after a four hours' drive, at the house of their
old friend Professor Gemmellaro, they found he had kindly made every
arrangement for their start; and after about an hour's delay in
settling the pack-saddles, packing up provisions for the night, and
arranging everything with the guides, they mounted their mules and
began the ascent. For some miles they passed through a tract of lava,
sprinkled here and there with broom and heather, till they reached a
cattle-shed, called Casa di Rinazzi, where they came to a picturesque
wood of dwarf oak looking like the outskirts of an English park. From
thence to Casa del Bosco the road is both easy and pleasant, and our
travellers began to think that the difficulties of the ascent (to
people who had crossed, as they had done, the Lebanon in deep snow)
would be comparatively trifling. They soon, however, discovered their
mistake. At the Casa del Bosco they stopped to rest their mules and
make some tea, while the guides advised them to put on as much
additional clothing as they could for the coming cold. The peasants
were at work round them collecting the snow in reservoirs close to the
cavern called the Grotta delle Capre--that snow so invaluable to the
dwellers in the plain, and the sole substitute for ice to the
inhabitants of Catania.

{706}

But here the real toil of the ascent begins. It is only nine miles
from hence to the summit; but those nine miles are terribly severe,
not only from their steepness, but from the nature of the ground,
composed of a black loose ash, interspersed with sharply pointed lava
rocks, on which you tread and stumble, and seem to recede two steps
for every one you take. As you ascend higher the snow conceals the
inequalities of the ground, but does not make them the less fatiguing.
The cold, too, increases every instant, and our travellers regretted
that they had not followed their guides' advice and brought both
overstockings and gloves. After toiling up in this manner for two
hours, they came to a pile of lava which marks the distance halfway
between the Casa del Bosco and the Casa Inglese. The snow here
increased in depth--the rarefaction of the air became painfully
intense; while the clouds of sulphur from the eruption, which still
continued on the opposite side of the mountain, driven in their faces
by the wind, made some of the party so sick that they could scarcely
proceed. The cold, too, became well-nigh intolerable. The mule of one
of the ladies sank in a snowdrift, rolled and fell some way down the
precipice, compelling her to continue the journey on foot; but her
feet and hands were so numbed and so nearly on the verge of being
frostbitten, that it was with the utmost difficulty she could go on.
At last the Casa Inglese was reached. It is a low stone house, built
on what is called the Piano del Lago, a small ledge of frozen water,
10,000 feet above the sea. In spite of the orders of the professor, it
was still half full of snow when they arrived; and this had to be
cleared out, and made into what the children call "snow men," before
the frozen travellers could enter and endeavor to make a fire with the
wood they had brought with them. The guides cautioned those who were
still on their mules to descend very gently, as, in the semi-frozen
state they were in, the least, jerk or slip might occasion a broken
limb. One of the party was lifted off her horse at last and laid on
some rugs by the fire, which for a long time resisted all efforts to
light; and then her limbs had to be rubbed with snow to restore some
kind of animation. When this object was attained, the overpowering
smoke--for there was no chimney or fireplace--made the remedy almost
worse than the disease. All this time they had been well-nigh deafened
by the detonations from the mountain, which, at regular intervals,
sounded like artillery practice on a large scale. Everything they had
brought with them was frozen, including the milk they had got at
Nicolosi, and of which they were obliged to break the bottle before
they could melt any for their tea. After a time, the younger portion
of the travellers lay down to rest on some straw arranged in wooden
shelves or layers round the inner room, one at the top of the other,
after the manner of pears and apples in a kitchen-garden house in
England. A French geologist and two other professors had joined their
party, and of course had no other place to go to; but the appearance
of the company, roosting in this way on the shelves, was comical in
the extreme.

At three o'clock, however, every one rose, and commenced the ascent of
the cone, so as to reach the top by sunrise. The distance is short,
but intensely steep; it is like going up the side of a house; and the
difficulty is heightened by the loose ashes in which you sink at every
step, and the hot fumes of sulphurous vapor which pour out of the
sides of the cone. Only a portion of our travellers persevered to the
top; the others being reluctantly compelled by faintness and violent
sickness to retrace their steps. On reaching the crater, they at first
saw nothing but a deep yawning chasm, full of smoke, which kept
pouring out in their faces. The eruption, which one of the party had
{707} seen in perfection two months before, was some miles off, and
had burst out of a new crater on the Taormina side of the mountain.
But with the dawning light the whole magnificent scene was revealed to
them. It has been so admirably and accurately described by Mr.
Gladstone, that any attempt at a fresh description could be but a poor
repetition of his words. Sufficient, then, is it to say that the view
at sunrise repaid all the sufferings of the ascent. AEtna, unlike
other mountains, stands alone, rising straight from the plain, with no
rivals to dispute her height, or intercept any portion of the glorious
view below. The whole of Sicily is stretched out at your feet, the
hills below looking like the raised parts of a map for the blind. Not
only is the panorama unequalled in magnificence, but there are
atmospherical phenomena in it which belong to AEtna alone. As the sun
rises over the Calabrian coast, a perfect and distinct image of the
cone is reflected--as on the sheet of a magic-lantern--on the horizon
below, gradually sinking lower and lower as the sun becomes brighter,
and finally disappearing altogether. As it was early in the season,
the snow extended over the whole of the so-called desert region, while
the wood below seemed to encircle the mountain as with a green belt,
which added to the beautiful effect of the whole. Tired and exhausted,
and yet delighted, our travellers descended the cone, and rejoined
their companions at the Casa Inglese, who had been compelled to
content themselves with seeing the sun rise from a green hillock just
below the house. They determined on their way home to diverge a little
from the straight route, in order to visit the Val del Bove, that
weird and ghost-like chasm which had struck them so much when looking
down upon it from the height of the cone. Floundering in the snow,
which was a good deal deeper on that side of the mountain, their mules
continually sinking and struggling up again, breaking their
saddle-girths in the effort, and consequently landing their riders
continually on the soft snow, the party arrived at last on the edge of
this magnificent amphitheatre. It is of vast size, enclosed by
precipices 3,000 feet in height, and filled with gigantic rocks, of
wonderfully strange and fantastic shapes, standing out separately,
like beasts--hence its name. The perfect silence of the spot reminds
one of some Egyptian city of the dead. Smoke, explosion, dripping ice,
or rushing torrents characterize the other extinct craters in this
wonderful mountain; but in this one all is still and silent as the
grave. It is stern as the curse of Kehama, and as if the lava had been
cast up in these wonderful shapes in some extraordinary convulsion of
nature, and then had been petrified as it rose. Our travellers
lingered long, looking over the edge of the precipice, vainly wishing
to be able to descend into the enchanted valley, and at last
reluctantly turned their muels' heads in the direction of Nicolosi.
The descent was intensely fatiguing, from the continual jerking and
slipping of their beasts; and they arrived more dead than alive at the
kind professor's house, after being more than eight hours in the
saddle. A few hours later found them once more in the burning sunshine
of Catania, where the thermometer in the shade, was 86°, while it had
been 27° on the mountain, a difference in one day of 59° degrees of
temperature. But no difficulties should discourage the traveller from
attempting the ascent of AEtna, which is worth coming the whole way
from England for itself alone. A few days later saw our party on the
deck of the Vatican steamer, _en route_ for Naples, carrying away with
them recollections of enjoyment and kindness such as will ever
associate piety in their minds with pleasant thoughts and grateful
memories.

------------

{708}

From The Dublin University Magazine.

THE FIRST SIEGE  OF LIMERICK.


JAMES'S FAREWELL.

The fight at the Boyne was over; the English, Dutch, Danish, and
French allies resting, or preparing to rest, as well as the ground
near the Pass of Duleek would allow, and their defeated but not
dispirited foemen marching wearily in the summer night toward Dublin.
James accompanied by Sarsfield's horse was already far in the van, and
in due time he reached the castle. We can scarcely fancy a more false
or uncomfortable position than that in which James now stood, when,
calling together his council, the lord mayor, and other notables, he
addressed them for the last time. An ill-disposed historian might have
invented this speech for him if no memory of the one really delivered
had survived. "My dear and loyal Irish subjects, I believe I ought not
to have risked the disastrous battle of yesterday against the advice
of my judicious officers. After the fighting was determined on, I
unhappily did much to discourage the undisciplined fellows who so well
exhibited their loyalty and bravery at the Boyne. We are beaten, I am
sorry to say, and I am getting away as fast as I can to place hundreds
of miles between myself and the cannons and muskets of my callous
relative. Make as good terms, my poor people, with William as he will
grant you. I. can do no more for you than leave you my blessing, to
which you are heartily welcome. Adieu!"

There is an ill-natured tradition still afloat that in his greeting to
Lady Tyrconnell he alluded to the agility of the Irish in running away
from the field, and was in return complimented by that lady for having
outstripped such very fleet runners. The anecdote bears every mark of
a lie about it. The orderly retreat at the Boyne was nothing like a
dastardly flight, and James's disposition would have been worse than
his ill-wishers have ever represented it, had he cracked that bitter
jest on his loyal supporters. We prefer the following sketch of the
final interview from the pen of a writer whose Williamite leanings,
though strong, are regulated by calm judgment and generous feelings:

  "In the cold grey of the winter's morning it were hard to imagine a
  drearier or less inviting spectacle than this group of loyalists
  presented. While they were waiting thus, James, a man of punctuality
  to the last, was employed in paying and discharging his menial
  servants, previously to his taking final leave of his Irish capital.
  At last however the door opened, and James followed by two or three
  gentlemen and officers, including Colonel Luttrell who kept garrison
  as governor of the city, entered the apartment. . . . There was that
  in the fallen condition of the king, in the very magnitude of his
  misfortunes, which lent a mournful dignity to his presence, and
  which in spite of the petulance which occasionally broke from him,
  impressed the few disappointed, and well-nigh ruined followers of
  his cause who stood before him with feelings of melancholy respect.

 "'Gentlemen,' said the king after a brief pause, 'it hath pleased the
 Almighty Disposer of events to give the victory to our enemies. . . .
 The enemy will be in possession of this city at least before many
 days are passed. . . . Matters being so, we must needs shift for
 ourselves as best we may. Above all we do command you, we do implore
 of you, gentlemen, in your several stations, and principally you,
 Colonel Luttrell, as governor of this our city, to prevent all undue
 severities, all angry reprisals, all violences .... upon the
 suspected within its walls. We do earnestly intreat of you all to
 remember that this is our city, and they our subjects; protect it and
 them as long as it shall seem wise to occupy this town for us. This
 is our last command, our parting request.'"

{709}

The poor king was overcome during his speech by the part his own
daughters were acting in the bitter drama then in progress. However,
that does not excuse the reference to the want of capacity or courage
which he was pleased to discover among his Irish supporters. For from
the beginning they appeared more interested in his success than he did
himself.


WILLIAM IN DUBLIN.

But the speech came to an end, and the king departed, and conflicting
and varying hopes and fears agitated the citizens, as the Irish troops
marched in with drums beating and colors flying, and again quitted the
city, and proceeded to Limerick, and so on till the arrival of the
Duke of Ormond and the Dutch guards on Thursday.

The king rode in from the camp at Finglass on the next Sunday,
attended divine service in St. Patrick's cathedral, and returned to
the camp in time for dinner. On the 7th of the month he issued a
proclamation from which a few extracts are here presented:

  "WILLIAM, R.

  "As it hath pleased Almighty God to bless our arms in this kingdom
  with a late victory, . . . . we hold it reasonable to think of
  mercy, and to have compassion on those whom we judge to have been
  seduced. Wherefore we do hereby declare, we shall take into our
  royal protection all poor labourers, common souldiers, country
  farmers, plough-men, and cottiers whatsoever: as also all citizens,
  trades-men, towns-men, and artificers, who either remained at home,
  or having fled from their dwellings, shall return by the first of
  August. . . We do also promise to secure them in their goods, their
  stocks of' cattel, and all their chattels personal whatever, willing
  and requiring them to come in, . . and to preserve the harvest of
  grass and corn for the supply of the winter."

Those who held from Protestant landlords were to pay their rent as
usual, but tenants of Roman Catholics should hand their money to
commissioners appointed to receive it. The term REBELS is applied in
the proclamation to all in arms for King James, a proof that privy
councillors dating from the royal camp at Finglass, 7th July, 1690,
were determined to hold the adherents of James sternly to their
constitutional position.

Devoted partisan as was our chaplain,  [Footnote 200] he was sometimes
blessed with kindly feelings toward his master's foes. He thus
continues after copying the proclamation:

  "This declaration was published in the camp two days after, and had
  it been punctually observed according to the intent of it, we had
  had fewer enemies at this day by at least 20,000. For though the
  king was punctual in his observance of it, some officers and
  soldiers were apt to neglect the king's honour, and the honour of
  our country and religion, when it stood in competition with their
  own profit and advantage."

    [Footnote 200: Rev. George Story, chaplain in King William's army.]


DOUGLAS'S SLOW JOURNEY TO ATHLONE.

On the 9th of July, William divided his forces, sending one portion
under General L. G. Douglas to force the pass at Athlone, himself
conducting the rest toward Limerick. Douglas did not tire his soldiers
with rapid marches. The first night they bivouacked at Chapel
_Issard_, which place a citizen of Dublin will reach easily on foot in
an hour. The second night they encamped at _Manouth_ (May-nooth?), but
here we must quote our historian.

  "Friday we encamped at _Glencurry_ (Clon-curry?) about five miles
  further, and we had not got this length till we begun to plunder,
  though the general gave strict orders to the contrary. Saturday the
  12th, we marched to _Glenard_ (Clonard) bridge, and here we staid
  all Sunday. The soldiers went abroad and took several things from
  the Irish, who had staid upon the king's declaration, and frequent
  complaints came already to the general'; but plundering went on
  still, especially among the northern men who are very dexterous at
  that sport. . . At _Mullingar_ several of the Irish came in for
  protections, though when they had them they were of little force to
  secure their goods or themselves.".

{710}

General Douglas and his soldiers arrived before Athlone, which our
authority locates fifty miles north of Dublin, though it happens to be
nearly due west, on the 17th, having marched out of Chapelizod on the
9th (six and a quarter miles per day). Not a whit fatigued or daunted,
they summoned stout old Colonel Grace to surrender. Story says he
fired a pistol at the herald, to show the value he set on his request.
We must pronounce the old warrior a recreant, unless the charge was
mere powder, or the muzzle pointed upward, which we opine was the
case. Colonel Grace expressed at the same time his determination to
eat his old boots rather than capitulate; hence the application of
_Boot-eater_ to stout defenders of fortresses. So besiegers and
besieged fired guns long and short, wide and small bores, at each
other till the 25th, when General Douglas, hearing that Sarsfield was
coming to the relief of the place, raised the siege, and marched
southward to meet the main army near Limerick. Mr. Story says that
about three or four hundred men were lost between Dublin and Limerick,
of which number thirty only were slain before Athlone, say three men
and three quarters of a man each day. Very indifferent gunners were
those behind the walls of Athlone if this statement be true, Our
observant author makes curious mistakes in topographical matters at
times. In this portion of' his narrative he mentions the Shannon as
falling into the sea beyond Knoc Patrick. Every child exercised on the
map of Ireland, is able to lay finger on Cnoc-Patrick in Mayo, seventy
miles or so north of the Shannon's mouth.

After laying the deaths of the three or four hundred men missing to
sickness, hard marching, six and a quarter miles per diem, surprises
by Rapparees, and sundry other disadvantages, he cracks a gentle joke
by way of cheering up his reader's spirits. "W e killed," says he,
"and took prisoners a great many thousands, but more of' these had had
four feet than two." Having brought this division of the army safe
through the "Golden Vale," let us see what the other portion under the
immediate attention of the king were about.


HOW WILLIAM ENFORCED DISCIPLINE:

On the 9th of the month, William encamped at Crumlin, and the next
night between the Ness  [Footnote 201] and Rathcoole. It was well for
the inhabitants of the line of march that the king commanded in
person.

  [Footnote 201: Naas was anciently the seat of the kings of North
  Leinster. The word means a fair or a commemoration. Rathcoole
  implies a lonely fortress.]

  "Little hapned remarkable except the king's great care to keep the
  souldiers from plundering, and every night it was given out in
  orders that on pain of death no man should go beyond the line in the
  camp, or take violently to the least value from Protestant or
  Papist. The 11th the army marched to _Kill-Kullen_, Bridge, the king
  this morning passing by the _Ness_ saw a souldier robbing a poor
  woman, which enraged his majesty so much, that he beat him with his
  cane, and gave orders that he and several others guilty of the like
  disobedience should be executed on the Monday following. People were
  so wicked as (to) put a bad construction on this action of the
  king's, but it had so good an effect upon that part of the army,
  that the country was secured from any violence done by the souldiers
  during that whole march. Two of the sufferers were _Iniskillin_
  dragoons."

Had General Douglas acted thus the worthy chaplain would not have had
to record so much cruelty and injustice inflicted upon the harmless
country people.

Story takes occasion, on Colonel Eppingar's proceeding with a party of
1,000 horse and dragoons  [Footnote 202] to Wexford, to inform his
English readers about the people in the south of the county.

    [Footnote 202: In 1660, Marshal Brissae, fancying or feigning
    dragons to be in the habit of spouting fire out of their mouths,
    get the muzzles of short muskets adorned with the effigies of
    these monsters, and therewith armed some troops of horse. The
    early dragoons discharged the duties of infantry and cavalry. The
    Scots Grays formed in 1683 were the earliest British dragoons.]

  "Hereabouts were the first English planted in Ireland. They were a
  colony of west-countrymen, and retain their old English tone and
  customs to this day. I am credibly informed that every day about one
  or two o'clock in summer, they go to bed, the whole country round;
  nay, the very hens fly up and the sheep go to fold as orderly as it
  were night."  [Footnote 203]

    [Footnote 203: The people of "the barony" are the descendants of a
    Flemish colony who had settled in Wales at the invitation of Henry
    I. Beans were the favorite crop, and dry bean-stalks furnished
    their chief fuel. If the gossip of the inhabitants of the northern
    part of the county could be credited, the barony of Forth formerly
    furnished priests for all Ireland.]

{711}

Good Mr. Story was as fond of a bit of picturesque or romantic hearsay
as Herodotus himself. The well-to-do farmers really indulged in a
siesta, but as to the degeneracy of manners among the hens and sheep
we are altogether incredulous. Some time before the _Ninety-Eight_,
household and village councils were held for a month in a townland of
the barony to decide whether a farmer, to whom a legacy had been left
in Dublin, should relinquish his right to it, or encounter the risks
of the journey to the city. At last it was decided that prayers were
to be solemnly offered up for his safety in all the neighboring
churches and chapels, and then let him in God's name brave the perils
of the way.

A good deal of irresolution prevailed at this time in William's
proceedings. Ill news came rife across the water, and at one time he
retraced his route even as far as Chapelizod with the intention of
crossing to England. There, however, he received tidings which
reassured him, and he returned to the camp at Golden Bridge, which he
reached on the 2d of August. On the 8th General Douglas arrived, and
on the 9th the united forces approached the Irish stronghold.


INTERIOR OF THE IRISH COUNCILS.

The Irish and French chiefs who had collected to Limerick after the
day at the Boyne were far from being of the same opinions or
aspirations. According to Colonel O'Kelly, Tyrconnell desired nothing
more than to give up Limerick and all the other garrisons to King
William, and Count de Lauzun was more anxious to get back to that
centre of delights, the city of Paris, than co-operate in the defence
of their present hold, which, he said, required only a smart discharge
of roasted apples to be made listen to terms.


THE PARLEY BEFORE THE FIGHT.

Limerick, now apparently devoted to destruction, consisted of an
island within two arms of the Shannon, and a smaller area outside
called the Irish-town, both portions being connected by Ball's-bridge.
King's Island was and is connected with the Clare side of the river by
'I'homond-bridge, and contains a legacy left by King John in the shape
of a castle. William's people set to work forming batteries and
trenches as well as the balls coming from the ramparts of' Irish-town
would allow them, and the moment they were ready they proceeded to
exchange iron and leaden compliments with the folk behind the
parapets.

Hostilities, however, did not really begin till some civil
communications had taken place on both sides. A herald-trumpeter,
blowing his instrument and displaying his white flag, entered the city
with a polite request to the authorities to surrender the place.
Monsieur Boiselieu, chief in command, calling the Duke of Berwick and
Major-General Sarsfield to council, indited a politely expressed
letter to Sir Robert Southwell, secretary of state, in which was
implied some wonder at the request, and a determination on his part,
and that of his officers and soldiers, to gain the good opinion of the
Prince of Orange by defending the city against his forces while
defence was feasible. On the return of the trumpeter firing began, the
king inspecting the hot business from Cromwell's fort.

Story says that a Frenchman, escaping into the city the day the enemy
sat down before it, gave accurate information to Sarsfield of the
complete economy of the English camp, and of a battering-train, tin
boats, wagons of biscuits; etc., approaching William's camp from
Dublin. {712} Part of the sequel is given in his own words:

  "Monday the 11th in the morning, came one _Manus O'Brien_ a
  substantial country gentleman to the camp, and gave notice that
  _Sarsfield_ in the night had passed the river with a body of horse,
  and designed something extraordinary. . . . . The messenger that
  brought the news was not much taken notice of at first, most people
  looking on it as a dream. A great officer however called him aside,
  and after some indifferent questions, askt him about a prey of
  cattel in such a place, which the gentleman complained of
  afterwards, saying he was sorry to see general officers mind cattel
  more than the king's honour. But after he met with some acquaintance
  he was brought to the king, who, to prevent the worst, gave orders
  that a party of five hundred horse should be made ready, and march
  to meet the guns. . . . Where the fault lay, I am no competent
  judge, but it certainly was one or two of the clock in the morning
  before the party marched, which they then did very softly till about
  an hour after they saw------"

What shall be told farther on.

SARSFIELD'S GREAT FEAT.

  "From Limerick that day bould Sarsfield dashed away,
  Until he came to Cullen where their artillery lay;
  The Lord cleared up the firmament, the moon and stars shone bright,
  And for the Battle of the Boyne be had revenge that night."

Poor John Banim inserted these stirring lines in his romance of the
Boyne Water as belonging to an old ballad; we suspect them to have
been his own composition. Whoever might have given Sarsfield
information--a rapparee was as likely as the Frenchman mentioned by
the chaplain--he crossed Thomond-bridge at the head of five hundred
horse on Sunday night as soon as it was sufficiently dark, and the
party moved up as noiselessly as they could along the western bank of
the Shannon to Killaloe, or _Killalow_, as Rev. Mr. Story spells it.
There they crossed the river and penetrated among the Tipperary
mountains, over which the Keeper and the "Mother of Mountains" towered
in pride. Among the hills they spent the rest of the night and the
whole of the next day, being kept aware of the movements of the convoy
which meantime was working its slow way along the Cashel road. Toward
evening Sarsfield and a few who were most in his confidence, lying
among the dry grass and fern of the hill-pass since called
Lacken-na-Gapple (_Lagan-na-Capal_, "Hollow of the Horses"), were
inspecting the last stage of the convoy. At that hour the train had
passed the village of Cullen, and were about taking their rest on and
about the road leading up to the grassy platform on which stood the
old fortalice of Ballyneedy. This was about five miles from the
mountain pass where the Jacobite general was on the watch. He waited
as patiently as he could till the sun had sunk some time behind the
Galteigh mountains, and the watch-fires began to glimmer from the
encampment.

The watch-word that night among the wearied men and their sentinels
was SARSFIELD, an ill-omened coincidence. How the party conspiring
their destruction found it out is not so very apparent; but when the
officers were asleep in the waste castle, and the soldiers by their
wagons, Sarsfield's men sang out the password to the sentinel placed
in advance of the village, to the sentinels in the village, and to the
sentinels immediately in advance of the unconscious groups. There the
commander thundered out "Sarsfield is the word, and Sarsfield is the
man." Deafening shouts came from the rushing horsemen, and of the
awakened slumberers some were slain gallantly resisting, a few
escaped, and a few others got quarter. The spoils consisted or eight
pieces of heavy battering-cannon, five mortars with their carriages, a
hundred and fifty-three wagons of ammunition, twelve carts loaded with
biscuit, eighteen tin boats for the passage of rivers, and all the
cart and cavalry horses.

The commander, wisely judging that troops were at the moment marching
from Limerick to interrupt his plans, had the cannons charged to the
mouth and set in the earth, muzzle downward. {713} These he surrounded
with the wagons and their contents, and skifully laid trains of powder
were not neglected. The successful party then withdrawing to a safe
distance--they needed a wide berth, taking the quantity of powder into
account--set fire at once to the lines of powder, and at one and the
same moment all the contents of the great guns and the
ammunition-carts were ignited. There was an intolerable blaze, a roar
and its reverberations; accompanied by a blowing up in the air of
pieces of metal and blazing wood, and the combined effect was sublime
and terrible beyond conception. The darkest recesses of the mountain
glens were lighted up as in the summer noon, and the shock was felt
for many miles in every direction. Sir John Lanier, who was hastening
when too late to protect the convoy, saw the blaze and heard the
terrible explosion at several miles distance, and comprehended the
terrible disaster in a moment. The concussion was perceptible even in
William's camp at a distance of about thirteen miles, and it is
probable that the general who had "_askt_" Manus O'Brien about the
prey of cartel, felt (to use a provincialism) very lewd of himself.
Sir John Lanier directed his squadron of five hundred horse to the
left to intercept the Irish party, but it was not his fortune to meet
with them, and Sarsfield recrossed the Shannon without the loss of a
man.

The Rev. Mr. Story relates that no one was made prisoner at Ballyneedy
"only a lieutenant of Colonel Earle's, who being sick in a house hard
by, was stripped and brought to Sarsfield, who used him very civilly."

While the Irish chief is snatching a short relaxation after his
successful sortie, and all within the walls are filled with a
momentary joy for the signal benefit, let us introduce a slight sketch
of the career of the brave Earl of Lucan, whose memory is still held
in love and veneration by the great mass of the Irish people, and of
whom no disrespectful word is ever pronounced by the descendants of
the brave men against whom he often waged battle.


SARSFIELD'S CAREER.

The first of the name known in Ireland was Thomas Sarsfield,
standard-bearer to King Henry II. In the reign of Charles I., Patrick,
the then representative of the family, married Anne, daughter of
Ruaighré (Roger) O'Moore, and their children were William and the
subject of our sketch Patrick, who succeeded to the estate on the
death of his brother. "He had received his education in one of the
French military colleges, and saw some early campaigns in the armies
of Louis XIV. His first commission was that of ensign in the regiment
of Monmouth in France, after which he obtained a lieutenancy in the
Royal Guards of England." He commanded for James in one of those
skirmishes which took place with William's Dutch troops on their march
from Torquay. At the commencement of the Irish campaigns his estates
produced £2,000 annual revenue, so that it did not inconvenience him
much to raise a. company of horse. We shall not here touch on his
achievements during the war in Ireland, as these have found, or will
naturally find their places in the course of our narrative. On
arriving in Paris after the treaty of Limerick, "he was received with
kindness and distinction by the ex-king of England and Louis XIV."

  "The former appointed him colonel of his body guards, and his most
  Christian majesty bestowed on him the rank of lieutenant-general in
  the French armies. He might have obtained a marshal's staff had his
  life been spared. He fought under Luxembourg at Steenkirk in 1692, .
  . . . and on the 29th of July, 1693, a little more than one year and
  a half after his voluntary banishment from his own country, he was
  killed in the command of a division at the great battle of Landen.
  It was a soldier's death on a glorious and memorable field.

{714}

  "There are few names more worthy to be inscribed in the roll of
  honour than that of Patrick Sarsfield, who may be quoted as a type
  of loyalty and patriotic devotion. In the annals of Irish history he
  stands as a parallel to Pierre du Terrail, Chevalier de Bayard in
  those of France, and may be equally accounted 'Sans peur et sans
  reproche,' the fearless and irreproachable knight; in his public
  actions firm and consistent; in his private character amiable and
  unblemished. . . . (At the end of the war) William III. would gladly
  have won his services, and offered to confirm him in his rank and
  property; but he listened to no overtures, and left his native
  country attended by thousands of that gallant body, who, under the
  title of the Irish Brigade, filled the continent of Europe with
  their renown."  [Footnote 204]

    [Footnote 204: "Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, a Biography;"
    Dublin University Magazine for November, 1853; the writer, John
    William Cole, Esq., formerly captain in the Royal Fusiliers. Mary,
    sister of the earl, was married to Colonel Rossiter, County
    Wexford, and to a lineal descendant of theirs, the gentleman just
    mentioned, we are indebted for the only life of Sarsfield yet
    given to the world. He could find but scant materials, though it
    is supposed they might be made available if the living
    representative of an old family of the Pale would take the trouble
    of a search among the archives of his house. Mary Sarsfield's
    great granddaughter was the wife of Lieutenant (afterward colonel)
    James Cockburn, who was on the personal staff of General Wolfe on
    the memorable day at Quebec. His portrait (to the right of General
    Moncton's) was introduced by West into his picture of the "Death
    of Wolfe." He afterward commanded the Thirty-fifth in the American
    war of Independence. Colonel Cockburn's daughter, Margaret,
    married Thomas Cole, Esq., of Callan, in the county of Kilkenny,
    major in the King's Fencibles. Our authority the issue of this
    marriage could not resist the martial impulses of his race; so he
    smelled powder along with Rev. R. Gleig at Washington and New
    Orleans and elsewhere. Since he laid aside the "spurtle blade and
    dog-skin wallet," he has usefully employed his leisure hours in
    literary composition of a healthful character. We suspect the
    papers in the University Magazine on ancient military tactics
    illustrated by plans of battles to be his. Among his other
    productions are biographies of General Vallancey, Tyrone Power,
    and other Irish theatrical celebrities.]

In his Military Memoirs of the Irish Nation, Mathew O'Connor speaks
thus of his military qualifications:

  "As a partisan and for a desultory warfare, he possessed admirable
  qualifications; brave, patient, vigilant, rapid, indefatigable,
  ardent, adventurous, and enterprising; the foremost in encounter,
  the last in retreat. He harassed his enemy by sudden, unexpected,
  and generally irresistible attacks, inspiring his troops with the
  same ardour and contempt of danger with which his own soul was
  animated. . . . No general was ever more beloved by his troops."


A SIEGE INCIDENT OR TWO.

Whatever William might have felt on being made acquainted with the
loss of his cannon and ammunition, he said very little on the subject.
He was one of those whose fixed purpose is not to be set aside for
defeat or check. With his battering-train augmented by two great guns
and a mortar from Waterford, he continued to pound the walls day after
day. The trenches were relieved at midnight till the following unlucky
mistake occurred, all the particulars of which are not very
intelligible to civilians:

  "Monday 18th August at night the trenches were relieved by
  Lieut.-General Douglas, My Lord _Sydney_, and Count _Nassau_, as
  major-generals, and Brigadeer _Stuart_. We made our approaches
  towards the fort outside the wall, and Lieut.-General _Douglas's_
  and Brigadeer _Stuart's_ regiments were posted towards the right. It
  was dark when they went on, and they did not perceive the enemy to
  be so near them as they really were. [What brought the enemy outside
  their walls?] for there was at that time scarce twenty yards
  distance between them. They were ordered to lye down upon their arms
  which they did, and a great part, both of the officers and soldiers,
  fell asleep. The enemy perceived this, and attacked them, which
  presently put them into a confusion, and several of them gave
  ground, but presently recovered themselves and fired, but did not
  know at what. The _Danes_ to the left took our own men for the enemy
  sallying, and so fired upon them; they believed the Danes to be the
  Irish; and so returned the compliment. The Irish fired upon both,
  and they at one another. This confusion lasted nigh two hours, in
  which several men were killed; nor did the king or any body else
  know what to make of it. At last our men found their mistake, and
  the Irish were beat in, crying 'quarter' and 'murder' as they used
  to do. After this his majesty ordered the trenches to be relieved in
  the day, and our men marched always in and out in the very face of
  their cannon."

If truth lies in a well, it is a pity she should make choice of a
muddy one, where her contours and lineaments are so admirably
confused. Hear another version by John Banim, the novelist, from what,
if any, authority we know not:

  "While day after day the battering, at this one point continued, the
  garrison made a midnight sortie upon the besiegers. Taken by
  surprise, and thrown into such confusion as to be unable to discern
  friend from foe, they attacked each other, and the Irish {715}
  having retreated unperceived, so continued until the morning light
  showed them their mistake and the shocking havoc that resulted from
  it."

Our chaplain did not much relish that classic and severe style of
composition which critics assigned to a great historical work.
Moreover he was ever as ready as Homer to introduce a gossiping or
traditional episode, and repose his pen from the dry or terrible
details of the main course of events.

On the 19th of the month King William had another providential escape.
He was riding slowly up toward Cromwell's fort, when, as he was
entering a gap, an officer stayed him about some business. Within a
second or two after the pause of the horse's feet, a cannon-ball swept
through the spot where he and his horse would have been but for the
interruption.

All this time the people within the walls were in ill-condition, their
diet consisting of beans, or very coarse bread, and the enemy's
mortars throwing bombs and carcasses among them with little
interruption. These things disturbed them much, as Mr. Story says, for
they had not seen the like before. The round or oval iron carcasses
which flashed forth through it's holes a fierce and inextinguishable
fire for some eight or ten minutes was nearly as terrible as the bomb.
Still they doggedly held on, and made no complaint; Sarsfield's energy
and hopeful spirits kept up their courage. The chaplain relates with a
sort of remorseful feeling how his party and himself enjoyed the
burning of a part of the town one night by the bombs and red-hot
balls, "which made me reflect upon our profession of soldiery not to
be overcharged with good nature."


HOW LIMERICK AS ASSAILED AND DEFENDED.

By the 27th of the month, a twelve yards breach being made in the wall
of Irishtown, and William looking on from Cromwell's fort, the
grenadiers, supported on either side by Dutch, Danes, and
Brandenburghers, on hearing a signal of three cannon-shots, sprang out
of their trenches, and cheering loudly, dashed forward to the glacis.
[Footnote 205] They were hotly received from the covered way, whose
occupants mounting the banquette, and resting their muskets on the
edge of the glacis, poured a shower of balls among them; and the guns
on the ramparts, great and small, volleying fast and fiercely, made
wide lanes among the brave fellows. However, the guns from Cromwell's
fort, enfilading the ramparts, soon silenced the engines of death
stationed there, and the grenadiers, undaunted by the thinning of
their ranks, gained the glacis, sprang into the covered way, and after
a terrible struggle forced the defenders from that post, from their
trenches in the ditch, and over the breach into the city.

  [Footnote 205: For the behoof of young renders not conversant with
  the outworks of besieged towns, a few explanatory words are given.
  Outside the strong walls is a wide and deep, dry ditch. The sloping
  side from which the wall rises is the scarp, the opposite slope is
  the counterscarp, its upper line meeting with the platform called
  the covered way. This covered way is about thirty feet wide, its
  outward boundary being the face of the glacis or sloping plane, this
  last so situated that men marching along it to attack the fortress
  are in the direct range of the guns. The level of the glacis is
  higher than that of the covered way by seven or eight feet. The
  defenders standing on a small terrace called the banquette at the
  base of the glacis, and resting their muskets on its edge, can fire
  on the advancing foe.]

The guns on the ramparts to the right of the breach being silenced,
the firing from the Danes and Dutch on the flanks of the storming
party did considerable damage to those on the ramparts and in the
ditch, but the guns of a fort constructed in King's Island opened on
the foreigners, killed many, and afforded some relief to the
defenders. While these were mowing each other down at a distance, the
grenadiers, driving their opponents across the breach, cheered
lustily, and flung in their hand-grenades, whose bursting and
destructive iron shower were ill calculated to recall the
self-possession of the fugitives. But the pikes and bayonets of their
follows in shelter, now levelled full at their breasts, were {716} as
much to be dreaded as what they expected from behind. Over the breach
and inward dashed Lord Drogheda's grenadiers, but a battery snugly
placed in front of the yawning breach on stones, timber, earth, and
other stuff, all at once belched out a storm of grape upon them, and
after struggling for some time, a second discharge sent them back over
the ruins and into the ditch.

But no dastard feeling was to be found among the survivors.
Re-enforced by new comrades who had yet done nothing, they returned
once more to the assault, flung their grenades, and cleared the
tumbled masses of lime and stone. Undaunted by the havoc made among
them by a fresh discharge, they rushed on the battery, effectually
silenced it, and now looked on the capture of the town as certain. But
here they were met by fresh and untired foes, who being kept to that
moment in inaction by Sarsfield, now rushed on from either side, and a
dreadful struggle commenced, the badly armed defenders showering
volleys of stones where more effective weapons were not at command,
the mere townsmen and their wives and daughters mingling fiercely in
the desperate fray. Those who had pushed on the furthest were slain to
a man, neither asking nor receiving quarter, and the others, after
effecting everything in the power of energy and dauntless courage,
were for the second time driven forth from the rescued city.

  "From the walls and every place (we quote our chaplain) they so
  pestered us on the counterscarp (properly the covered way), that
  after nigh three hours resisting bullets, stones (broken bottles
  from the very women who boldly stood in the breach, and were nearer
  our men than their own), and whatever ways could be thought on to
  destroy us, our ammunition being spent, it was judged safest to
  return to our trenches. When the work was at the hottest, the
  _Brandenburgh_ regiment, who behaved themselves very well, were got
  upon the black battery, where the enemie's powder hapned to take
  fire, and blew up a great many of them, the men, faggots, stones,
  and whatnot, flying into the air with a most terrible noise."

In some Jacobite memoirs mention is made of a sortie made by Sarsfield
and his driving the wearied assaulters to their camp, and their
rescuing many of the enemy from an hospital which had taken fire. The
exploit is overlooked by the chaplain, who thus concludes his short
account of the day:

  "The king stood nigh _Cromwell's_ fort all the time, and the
  business being over, he went to his camp very much concerned, as
  indeed was the whole army, for you might have seen a mixture of
  anger and sorrow in every bodie's countenance."

William thus disappointed of bringing the Irish issue to a conclusion,
and his presence being much needed in England, drew off his forces,
and he himself made little delay till he set sail from Waterford to
make matters in London comfortable, and keep a sharp lookout on the
unfriendly proceedings of his bitter foeman, Louis XIV.

In September Count Solmes, who was left in command after William's
departure, went to England, and Ginckell succeeded to his office. A
better choice could not have been made; he established his
head-quarters at Kilkenny.


TYRCONNELL'S POLICY.

Tyrconnell, who all along was no better than a drag on his party, who
desired peace in order to secure his own estates, and who was accused
of holding secret correspondence with William, sailed to France soon
after the siege of Limerick. Previous to his departure he appointed
the young Duke of Berwick commander-in-chief; giving him twelve
councillors to aid him with their advice. Some of these were men after
Tyrconnell's own heart, such as in our own days are called
_Cawtholics_ by their own party. Sarsfield happened to be among them,
because, if he were not, Tyrconnell's arrangements would have been
little regarded by the men of heart and head among the loyalists.
Count O'Kelly declares that Tyrconnell's reasons for repairing to the
presence of Kings Louis and James were to nullify tile {717} effect
that the gallant defence of Limerick might have made upon their minds.
He would so twist and remould circumstances as to show that there was
not a shadow of hope for ultimate success. James appears to have long
entertained the notion of recovering England by losing Ireland, hence
his enduring patronage of Tyrconnell. Berwick was influenced, of
course, by what he knew were the cherished wishes of his father and
his father's favorite, and by his inaction, and want of cordial
co-operation with Sarsfield and the others, who, like him, were in
earnest, did all that in him lay to make General Ginckell's task easy.
On more than one occasion the Irish party were about deposing the
young duke, but he managed by a show of compliance to still retain his
power.

In September of this year the brave soldier but faithless adherent,
Lord Churchill, afterward Duke of Marborough, took Cork, which the
Duke of Berwick had previously advised the brave M. Elligot to burn,
and then retire to Kerry, as its defence seemed hopeless. He rather
chose to hold it out for five days. The Duke of Grafton, a natural son
of Charles II., and who bequeathed his name to the Bond street of
Dublin, commanding the navy, perished at the siege, fighting against
his uncle's supporters. Marlborough next marched against Kinsale,
which he entered without opposition, but the new fort commanded by Sir
Edmund Scott held out for twenty days.


THE RAPPAREES: UNCOMFORTABLE WINTER QUARTERS, 1690.

Those patriotic and troublesome light-armed irregulars, the rapparees,
continued during the decline and fall of the year 1690 to do the
English in Leinster and Munster much mischief by unexpectedly visiting
places supplied with provisions, either cattle or corn, and carrying
off all they could seize. So General Ginckell finding himself
straitened, conceived the idea of effecting a settlement in Kerry,
from which Limerick obtained much provender. With this object he
directed Lieutenant-General Douglas to march on Sligo, and take it if
possible, at all events to move down the west bank of the Shannon, and
co-operate with Colonel Richard Brewer, then at Mullingar, in attempts
to pass the river at Jamestown and Lanesboro' above, and Banagher
below Athlone. While the attention of King James's generals would be
drawn to these proceedings in the north and east, Major-General Tettau
would quietly proceed from Cork into Kerry, and take possession of
that ancient "kingdom," seconded in his expedition if necessary by
forces from Clonmel under the brave Ginckell himself. The advance was
really made, and skirmishes and attacks of forts ensued, and after
all, the English forces were withdrawn, leaving matters pretty much as
before, except the damage mutually inflicted. Some desultory
encounters took place on the east bank of the Shannon between portions
of the hostile forces, and the rapparees improved every opportunity of
despoiling the English foe, and collecting munitions into their boggy
or hilly retreats. There are sufficient materials for a dozen romances
in the adventures of Maccabe, Grace, O'Higgins, O'Callaghan,
O'Kavanagh, the White Sergeant, Galloping Hogan. The last-named worthy
indeed figures in the two standard romances of the Jacobite wars which
we are happy to possess. It may be supposed that the deeds of these
heroes smelt unsavorily in the nostrils of our chaplain, who thus
descanted both in sorrow and anger on their proceedings. He prefaced
his remarks with an expression of Lord Baltimore to King James I.,
namely, that "the Irish were a wicked people, and had been as wickedly
dealt withal," and conscientiously adds, "I make no application of the
expression to ourselves, the most people that have been in that
country know how to do it."

{718}

One expedition of some moment was made by Colonel Foulkes into an
island in the Bog of Allen. This was connected by two toghers or
causeways to two points on the dry land, one of them being furnished
with twelve trenches. These the brave colonel, who brought three
field-pieces along with him, was obliged to fill up one after the
other. When he arrived he found Colonel Piper, who had approached by
the other causeway. The rapparee garrison had all carefully retreated
into the woods when they became aware of their danger, leaving, as Mr.
Story says, "only some little things for the invaders."

Of course no quarter was ever extended to the poor rapparees. However,
the usual forbearance was exhibited by the regular forces on both
sides toward each other. Opposite Lanesboro, on the other side of the
Shannon, were posted three regiments of Irish, with the duty of
watching the English on the east bank, during some days in December;
and (in Mr. Story's words) "then little hapned of moment only some
small firings, and sometimes they made truces, Colonel _Clifford_ and
the other Irish officers drinking healths over to our men, and those
on the other side returning the compliment."

It never entered the mind of the warlike chaplain to throw a halo of
interest round one of his rapparee chiefs, though some were perhaps
more worthy of the name of hero than Redmond O'Hanlon or Rob Roy. They
were contemporaries of his, and were directing their chief energies to
bring his master's rule in Ireland to an end. So it was against nature
that he could see in them anything but "thieves, robbers, tories, and
bogg-trotters."

The most distinguished of the heads of these free companies was
Anthony O'Carroll, named _Fadh_ from his great height. After the first
siege of Limerick he fixed his head-quarters at Nenagh, and
_discomforted_ the English and their allies from that period to the
beginning of the second siege. Though he or any of his followers if
taken prisoners would be hung according to the laws of war, without
mercy, he observed a different demeanor to his captives. Those who had
money ransomed themselves; others were kept as prisoners. When he
found himself crowded by his foes after the day at Aughrim, he set
fire to the town, and brought his garrison of 500 men safe to Limerick
Mr. Story says that he was able to collect 2,000 men to his banner at
any moment while he ruled at Nenagh.

--------

ORIGINAL.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

SERMONS PREACHED AT THE CHURCH OF
ST. PAUL, THE APOSTLE, NEW YORK,
during the years 1865 and 1866. 12mo,
pp. 440. New York: Lawrence Kehoe.

The new volume of Sermons by the Paulist Fathers, which Mr. Kehoe has
just issued in a very neat and tasteful shape, derives a special
interest from the fact that it contains several of the hitherto
unpublished discourses of the Rev. Francis A. Baker. In the earnest,
vigorous, affectionate sermons on Penance, on the miracle of Pardon,
on the power of the Holy Ghost as exemplified in good Christians, and
on the duty of Thankfulness, it is easy to recognize the impulses of
that beautiful soul which has now gone to its reward. We have spoken
before of the characteristics of Father Baker's preaching. Here is an
extract, taken at random from the first of the four discourses which
we have mentioned:

  "Do you know, my brethren, what it is that consoles the priest in
  his labors in the confessional? Why does he shut himself in that
  dark closet for hours? Ah! I will tell you, Like Elias in the cave
  of Horeb, he is watching for the manifestation of God; and as the
  prophet found the power of God, not in {719} the tempest or the
  earthquake, but in the still small voice, so the priest finds the
  greatest work of God, the most beautiful, that which consoles him
  for every sacrifice; not in the works of nature, not in sensible
  things, however great; but in the still small voice of the
  trembling, self-accusing soul, that has really come to shake off the
  slavery of sin, and to claim once more, through the blood of Christ,
  the glorious liberty of the children of God. Beautiful is the earth
  and sky, and glorious is the jewelled city of God; but if I may say
  what I think, I do not believe in all God's universe there is a work
  so stupendous, so grand, so beautiful, as the conversion of a
  sinner.

  "Well, then, does St. Augustine say, that to convert a sinner is a
  greater work than to create heaven and earth. Well do the saints cry
  out, Glory and empire for ever to Jesus Christ, who has loved us and
  washed us from our sins in his own blood! Well do the angels in
  heaven rejoice over one sinner that does penance. It is a thing for
  heaven and earth to wonder at. But, my brethren, it does not speak
  well for us that we think so little of it. It shows that we have
  very imperfect ideas of the evil of sin, a very inadequate
  remembrance of what Christ has done and suffered for us, a very
  insufficient conception of the conversion that is required of us. It
  seems to me that some men imagine that God pardons sin in much the
  same way that a good-natured parent overlooks the slight offences of
  a child who owns his fault. Whereas, in fact, God is a holy God, who
  tries the reins and hearts, who demands of us, as the condition of
  preserving his favor, that we love him with all our mind and
  strength and heart. When I see a man who has recently been to
  confession, and who has had grievous sins to confess; when I see him
  no more thoughtful than before, no more watchful over himself, no
  more grateful to God; when I see him forget all about it, and take
  it as a matter of course, I fear that he has come away as he went;
  that no angel has smiled on his penance, no saint rejoiced over it;
  that no droop of the precious Blood has fallen on his heart. Surely
  if he had been pardoned he would think more of it. Let it not be so
  with us, my brethren. Have we been forgiven a deadly sin, then from
  reprobates and castaways we have become children of God. How sweet
  it is to receive any grace from God! To look on the sky and earth,
  and think that he has made it, to look on ourselves and think that
  we have come from his hands, fills us with delight.

  "But to have sinned and to be pardoned, to have sinned and to be
  washed in the precious Blood, and then to belong to the family of
  God. To have tasted of the heavenly gift, and the powers of the
  world to come. To have the love of God, and the peace of God, once
  more to renew these dark and stubborn hearts. Where is our gratitude
  for favors such as those? Magdalene hath loved much because she was
  much forgiven. When is our love and our zeal proportionate to the
  pardon which we have received from God? Go, pardoned sinner--sin no
  more. Go, and ponder deeply the graces yon have received. Go, and by
  your life show what great things he has done for you. Once in
  darkness, but now light in the Lord, walk as children of light,
  living with St. Paul in the faith of the Son of God, who hath loved
  you and given himself for you."

The same fervent spirit and the same vein of practical exhortation
which we see so admirably combined in the passages which we have
cited, are conspicuous in many other pages from the anonymous hands
which have contributed to the authorship of this volume. The Paulist
Fathers have little to do in their book with controversy; and not a
great deal with dogma, except in so far as it has a direct practical
relation to the duties of every-day life. They seem, in this
collection of sermons, to care more for exhorting than expounding;
more for arousing sinners to the comprehension and performance of what
the church requires of them, than for setting forth the church's
sacred attributes. As discourses addressed to ordinary congregations,
made up of people of the common run who are burdened with the common
imperfections of average humanity, we know of few specimens of pulpit
literature which we rate higher. And they have also the great and
unfortunately rather rare merit of being very impressive and effective
when read in the retirement of the closet.

   J. R. G. H.


LYDIA, A TALE OF THE SECOND CENTURY.

Translated from the German of Hermann Geiger, of Munich. 12mo, pp.
275. Philadelphia: Eugene Cummiskey. 1867.

We are inclined to believe that the now world-renowned tales of
Fabiola and Callista have prompted the composition of this beautiful
story. The heroine is a young Christian of Smyrna, named Seraphica,
who is cast into prison and condemned to death for her faith. A
terrible earthquake, most powerfully depicted by the author, sunders
the walls of her prison, and she is liberated; but learning that her
{720} mother was carried off to Athens as a slave, she follows her
thither. The captain of the vessel in which she embarks seizes her and
makes a present of her as a slave to a wealthy Athenian lady named
Metella, who names her Lydia from the place of her birth. In the
service of this lady, who is a pious heathen, the Christian slave
passes several years, exhibiting in her life many traits of that
heroic patience, humility, love of suffering, and divine charity which
were inspired by her holy faith; and which is beautifully contrasted
with the pure, natural virtue of her heathen mistress.

Her Christian patience is rewarded at last by the conversion of
Metella and her son. Freed from slavery, she goes to Rome to seek her
mother, who she finds has in the mean time suffered martyrdom, and
returns to Metella to become her bosom friend and companion.

We could scarcely wish anything added to the plot of this charming
tale, but the impression made upon us during its perusal was that the
different descriptions, scenes, and tableaux were wanting in a proper
connecting link, being presented to us rather, as it would appear, for
their own sake, than as necessarily united with, or dependent upon,
the life and fortunes of the characters of the story. The translator
has fallen into a common fault from a desire to be too literal; the
intermingling of the historical present with the past. We have not
observed it in any instance without feeling that it detracted very
much from the force and beauty of the description. The volume does the
enterprising publisher the highest credit, its typography and binding
lacking in nothing that we could desire for elegance and taste. We
predict and wish for it a wide circulation.


HISTORY OF A MOUTHFUL OF BREAD.
By Jean Macé. Translated from the French by Mr. Alfred Gatty.
New-York: American News Company, 121 Nassau-street.

This is a very popular work on the branch of physiology which relates
to the organs and processes of nutrition. It is written in a pleasing,
lively style, and with the express purpose of being readable by
intelligent children. Excepting the absurd notion that the globules of
the blood are animalculae, and the grovelling definition of the body
as a digestive tube served by organs, we see nothing worthy of censure
in the book, which, otherwise, imparts valuable information respecting
the merely physical facts of animal life.


Goodrich's PICTORIAL HISTORIES OF
GREECE AND THE UNITED STATES,
and
CHILD'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
New editions. Philadelphia: Butler & Co. 1867.

These new and improved editions of very popular and well-written
histories are very suitable for elementary instruction. We have
examined the history of Greece with some attention, and find it an
excellent epitome. The illustrations are remarkably good.


LAWRENCE KEHOE, New-York, has in press, and will soon publish, Lady
Herbert's new work, which has just appeared in London, entitled Three
Phases of Christian Love--namely, Life of St. Monica, Life of
Victorine de Galard, Life of Venerable Mere Devos.


BOOKS RECEIVED.

From AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, New York. The New Gospel of Peace,
according to St. Benjamin. 1 vol, 12mo, pp. 343; price $2. Alderman
Rooney at the Cable Banquet. Pamphlet illustrated; price 50 cts. Olive
Logan's Christmas Story. Pamphlet; price 50 cts.

From LEE & Shepard, Boston, Mass. Oliver Optic's Magazine for Boys and
Girls. No. 1, pp. 12; price 5 cts.

From the OFFICE OF THE AVE MARIA, Notre Dame, Indiana. The Ave Maria
Almanac for 1867. Illustrated, pp. 32; price 20 cts.

From HURD & HOUGHTON New York. The Riverside Magazine for Young
People. No. 1, pp. 48; price 25 cts. Lalla Rookh, by Thomas Moore. 1
vol. 12mo, pp. 332. Illustrated; price $1.50.

From P. O'SHEA, New York. The Rosa Mystica; or, Mary of Nazareth, the
Lily of the House of David. By Marie Josephine. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 290;
price $2. Spirit of St. Francis de Sales. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 372; price
$2. The Manual of the Immaculate Conception, a collection of prayers
for general use. Compiled from authentic sources. Published with
approbation of the Most Rev. J. McCloskey, D.D., pp. 1122.

From John Murphy & Co., Baltimore. The Southern Poems of the War.
Collected and arranged by Miss Emily V. Mason. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 456;
price $1.50. Good Thoughts for Priest and People; or, Short
Meditations for every Day in the Year, etc., etc. By Rev. Theodore
Noethen, pastor of Holy Cross, Albany, N. Y. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 383;
price $2.

From KELLY & PIET, Baltimore, Md. Sermons Delivered during the Second
Plenary Council of Baltimore, October, 1866. And Pastoral Letter of
the Hierarchy of the United States, together with the Papal Rescript
and Letters of Convocation. A complete list of dignitaries and
officers of the Council; and an introductory notice, with plates. 1
vol. 12mo, pp. 244; price $3.

From BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York and Cincinnati. School Recreations;
or, The Catholic Teacher's Companion. Compiled for the use of Catholic
Schools, with approbation of Archbishop Purcell. l vol 12mo, pp. 94.

----------

{721}


THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. IV., NO. 24.--MARCH, 1867.


ORIGINAL.

THE CATHOLIC CEREMONIAL.

BY REV. M. O'CONNOR, S. J.

Outside the Catholic Church there is a general opinion that we
Catholics make all devotion to consist in the performance of a certain
routine of ceremonies, and are entire strangers to what is called
vital religion. These ceremonies to which we are supposed to attach
such excessive, or rather such superstitious value, are looked on by
those outside the church as an unnecessary and worse than useless
display, or as an empty pageant. Our love of them is set down as one
of the damning ingredients in that bug-bear which they have conjured
up, and designated by the name of "Popery." We, on the contrary, look
upon our ceremonial as one of the most beautiful things in the church,
one of those that most clearly mark the finger of God, and operate
most efficaciously in the work of true vital religion.

The point, therefore, is a most important one, and well deserving our
most serious consideration. To understand it rightly, let us consider
the principles on which ceremonial is based, and its
practical-working.

It has been admitted by all nations, that worship is due to the deity;
that worship needs an external and a public expression. Not only the
people of God under the old and new dispensations have admitted this,
but the Turk and the Pagan of every shade have admitted and acted on
it. Many have erred egregiously, and have had recourse to disgusting
and execrable· means to put it in practice; but the feeling itself is
universal, and, therefore, may be enumerated among the first
promptings of reason.

Its necessity is based on our relation to God; and on our own nature.
God, as in himself infinitely perfect, as our creator, our ruler, and
provider is entitled to our acknowledgment of his perfections and of
his dominion over us, to thanks for benefits conferred, to
supplication for their continuance. We owe him this duty not merely as
beings having souls, but as that which we are--beings, having a body
and soul--as men. The feelings of the soul, especially if earnest,
cannot be pent up in it. They need expression. When strong and earnest
they flow over into the body, they express themselves in bodily
action. Man, as such, acts with the body and the soul. Moreover, we
owe God worship not merely as individuals, {722} but as society. God
made society and all that gives it charms. He is the author of the
bonds that hold it together; he gave us those faculties that force us
into it; the wants that in it alone are satisfied; and the powers that
contribute to their satisfaction. Society, as well as the individual
man, is one of those beautiful and bountiful works that call forth our
admiration and demand our gratitude. Society can recognize and thank
its author only by external and common public worship. The internal
feeling needs something to lean on, as it were, to give itself
strength and almost to give itself an existence. The internal act, is,
of course, the soul of true worship, but, like the soul itself of man,
it needs a body in which it may become incarnate to fill the end of
its being. Without this it has neither life nor power. It needs this
to give itself intensity.

The external act becomes as it were a depository in which the soul
lays what is produced at one moment, while it is adding more and more.
As the iron receives in deposit the powers of each of the circles of
the magnetic wire that turn and turn again around it, and is ready to
discharge their combined force at any moment, so the external act
catches as it were the fire of the internal emotion, holds it until
that of another is added, and enables the soul to seize again the
power of those that have vanished and resume its work with redoubled
vigor. Thus going on from faith to faith, from worship to worship,
from virtue to virtue, all these rise higher and higher, strike their
roots deeper and deeper, until the internal feeling becomes
intensified and strong and as worthy of the great object to which it
is directed as it can be in a mere creature.

The ceremonial is nothing else but this external expression of inward
worship. It is an expression that gives it consistency and strength.
It intensifies and preserves it. It transmits it from one to another,
and to succeeding generations. In it society expresses itself. The
individual man has his own organs of expression. The organ of the
Christian body is the minister of the church. Through him she acts as
a body; she expresses herself as a unit. On this account she very
properly regulates minutely, how he shall discharge this duty. This
gives his actions a meaning and a value over and above, and to some
degree independent of, the value they possess, as expressions of his
own individual devotion.

Worship does not consist, properly speaking, in receiving instruction.
This is, of course, a good thing, but it is only a means to an end. It
is like the ladder to ascend, or the scaffolding used in the erection
of a building. To receive it with respect and other dispositions due
to the word of God, may imply faith in him, and submission to him;
but, properly speaking, in as far as it is mere instruction or
information, it is not worship. Worship is our submission to God, a
performance of the duty we owe him. As far as instruction shows us
how, and leads us to do this in a proper manner, it is good, but in
itself--as a mere expansion of the mind, or the storing of it with
knowledge, it is not worship. In paying worship, we must act, not
merely be acted upon; we must do, not merely hear. For this, the
ceremonial affords most useful aid; not, of course, as far as it is a
mechanical movement, which if it stop there would be useless, but
inasmuch as it is the instrument of the inmost soul. Light and
instruction must precede to give it significance, but when life has
thus been breathed into it, it becomes itself an action, a practice of
virtue, a discharge of the highest virtues, which are those that have
God himself for their immediate object.

This ceremonial consists of the words that are used, and the acts that
are performed. Words, said or sung, are a part of it, but only a part.
Many acts often express the feelings more effectually. These are
sometimes {723} more or less natural; at other times they may be said
to be conventional. But though arbitrary as words themselves, when
they receive a determined meaning, they become capable of effectually
and powerfully expressing the internal feelings of the individual and
of society. Kneeling or standing erect, raising up or clasping the
hands or striking the breast, an uplifted glance to heaven or a
reverent bowing of the head, will express adoration, reverence,
sorrow, or supplication as well and often better than words. When you
walk in a procession with torch in hand, accompanying the blessed
sacrament, or to honor some other mystery of religion, you are
professing your faith in it as effectually, and impressing that faith
in your soul, perhaps, more deeply than when you recite the creed,
just as the citizen expresses forcibly his political principles by
analogous acts. These, of course in particular cases, may be acts of
hypocrisy or hollow pageant, just as words may be a lie or an empty
sound, but this takes nothing from their intrinsic appropriateness.
Nay, acts of this kind would seem to draw the soul into what is
intended to accompany them and be expressed by them more powerfully
than words.

Some of the acts of this worship have, in themselves, a power and
efficacy apart from any impression they may produce on the beholder.
Such is the case in all the sacraments. The sacred rite, duly
performed may be compared to the spark, which, however powerless of
itself, when falling on the proper material, awakens a great power of
nature, that will rend mountains, and hurl into shapeless masses, the
proudest works of man. The sacred rite has been chosen by omnipotence,
as his agent and instrument, and its power has only the limits which
omnipotence has been pleased to assign. It is the same thing in the
celebration of mass. The words of Christ, pronounced by his minister,
effect a great change. For he who first took bread and said, "This is
my body," and by his infinite power made true what he said, addressing
his apostles, added. "Do this"--yes, even this, great as it is--"in
commemoration of me." And they "do" it, and by doing it, "show forth
his death until he come." The effect follows by the power of God, no
matter who is present, no matter who is instructed or edified, even
though no heart beat more in unison than did the hearts of the Jews,
who stood by while the great offering was made on Calvary. But other
parts of the ceremonial, which, though not of equal importance, occupy
more time, realize their end only when they express our feelings of
reverence, or give them strength and light. Many are directed to aid
the priest alone, in the proper performance of his high duties. Many,
while they have this object also, are likewise directed to instruct,
and become expressions of the devotion of the people. The ceremonial,
therefore, first of all makes provision for the priest. It is
important for himself and for the people that he be a worthy minister
of Christ; that he discharge the duty of offering up the holy
sacrifice with all the reverence, the humility, the fervor which so
great an act demands. The ceremonies become a means of his doing this.
In performing them properly he exercises all these virtues. The church
makes him descend to the foot of the altar, and there acknowledging
himself a sinner before God and the heavenly court, express by words
and acts his sorrow, demand pardon before venturing to ascend the
altar on which is to be laid the holy of holies. He then ascends with
trembling step, and having again silently prayed for forgiveness, he
intones the noble hymn,"_Gloria in Excelsis Deo_." Whether the voices
of the choir take up its thrilling notes and make the vault resound
with a call to give glory to God on high or he continue it in a
subdued tone, every word he utters, every motion he is called on to
make, enables him to express more and more {724} earnestly his desire
for God's honor, his homage to Christ, "alone holy, alone Lord, alone
most high."

Prepared by this introduction and having admonished the people to turn
to God, he pours out in simple but touching words his supplications
for our various wants. He then reads choice extracts from the sacred
volume conveying the most important teachings of our holy religion. I
will not stop to describe to you the ceremonies at the offertory, nor
speak of the sublime "Preface" preparatory to the most sacred part of
the sacrifice. Having prayed for all conditions of the church, having
appealed to the blessed in heaven with whom the church on earth is in
communion, he approaches the solemn act of consecration. Every word he
utters, every glance, every motion, is directed to fill him with awe,
with reverence, to express a demand, an act of homage, of gratitude or
of invocation; and when the sacred words are pronounced, and he stands
before the incarnate God truly present, though not visible to corporal
eyes, with profound inclination he expresses his adoration, while the
victim is raised up, that all present may, like him, kneel down and
adore. And so all through the holy sacrifice.

While these lessons are taught and put in practice by the priest, the
people, before whom they are performed, learn from them to cherish
similar dispositions, and to unite their spirit in the expression of
his devotion. It is the same thing with all the ceremonies, which,
like those alluded to, are expressive of the feelings we should
entertain for God. They frequently express them more forcibly than
words could. Even ordinary feelings often become too strong for
language and seek expression in some action. The fond mother would
find words too tame to express the love she bears her child. She hugs
it to her bosom, and impresses warm kisses on its face. We meet a
long-lost friend. Words would not express all we feel. We clasp him in
our arms, and press him to our heart. The model of repentance, the
prodigal, when he meets his father, forgets a part of the discourse he
had resolved to pronounce, and folded in his father's arms, expresses
his sorrow more forcibly in silent tears and heart breaking sobs, and
is forgiven. Even anger, which cannot find an adequate expression in
the most impassioned language, seeks to manifest itself in the
uplifted clenched fist, if it cannot gain its object by striking a
blow. Do not tell me, then, that all this action in the church
ceremonial is mummery. It is often a higher expression of devotion
than words would afford.

If yon wish to test this, look at a devout congregation of Catholics
kneeling before the altar. The organ that had lifted up their hearts
when singing the "Glory to God in the highest" is silent, or a few low
notes are heard that make the silence of the congregation more
sensible. No voice, scarcely a breath, is heard, when the priest,
having raised his eyes to heaven, is now inclined over the sacred
elements. Thousands are kneeling around in awe. A slight stroke of the
bell announces that the act is done. The priest prostrates himself in
silent adoration, and then elevates the consecrated host. Every head
is bowed in the presence of a God. Will anyone who has witnessed that
scene, who has tried to enter into the feelings of that congregation,
please tell me the words, or write out the speech, that would have
expressed so powerfully their reverence, their adoration, their
gratitude, and their love? Yes, ceremonies are a noble expression of
our highest feelings. They are even more; for they intensify them,
embalm them, and preserve them from evaporating. They communicate them
and spread them abroad, and transmit them from generation to
generation.

All this is a consequence of human nature, and this is so true that it
is made an objection to our system. It is said that we build too much
on human nature. But if worship be made for man it must accord with
his nature {725}--not, indeed, with that which is corrupt in it, but
with his nature as it came from God. Now, this need, this power, this
efficacy of the expression of feeling by outward ceremony, is no
effect of the fall: it is in the very nature of man. Hence we have
recourse to it in everything else. What is the shake of the hand when
we meet a friend, or the salute, or the banquet to which we invite
him, but a ceremony to express friendship or esteem? Look at our
processions and various political demonstrations. What are they but
ceremonies in which political or other feelings seek expression--an
expression which we know will strengthen them, deepen them,
communicate them to others by creating and giving force to what may be
called a contagions influence? What are our national and party airs;
our national and party festivals, but expressions of a similar
character looking forward to similar results?

In these things, as I said in the beginning, the feelings of the soul
seek an embodiment, that will give them consistency and duration.

No matter what the external manifestation be, even though it be merely
conventional, when it expresses a feeling, it becomes an instrument
for all these purposes. It becomes, as it were, a permanent part of a
structure, to which another stone is added as often as the act is
repeated, until the building grows up in solid beauty that defies the
ravages of time. This is the case with our political or social
sentiments, because it grows out of our very nature. Why then should
it not be the case, or rather is it not evidently the case, with those
also which are connected with religion? These external rites not only
express and intensify the interior feelings, but let philosophers
explain it as they may, they become as it were a depository in which
they may be laid by to be recalled almost at pleasure, nay, even to be
drawn out by others who wish to acquire them.

Look at that piece of bunting hanging from a flag-staff and flying
before the breeze. What is it? A first glance will tell you that it is
a piece of stuff purchased for a trifle a few days ago from the
merchant, on whose shelves it lay unnoticed and uncared for, except as
far as it was capable of producing some day a few dollars for its
owner. But now it has received a new destiny. It bears the national
symbols, and it is the flag of the country. And, oh! what a change has
taken place! It recalls the glories of the past, the hopes of the
future; it is the symbol of the majesty of the nation. The patriot
heart warms in beholding it; the warrior-breast is bared to do it
honor. Through a hail of fire he stands by it or bears it on, and will
see unmoved a thousand of his companions strewed o'er the battle-field
while this yet floats before the breeze. And, when victory has crowned
his efforts, he salutes it as the genius that nerved his right arm
during the contest. Though torn almost to tatters, he bedews it with
his tears of joy. It is his pride in life. He looks forward to descend
in honor into the grave wrapped in its folds.

Wherever that flag is raised, one glance leads us to behold the genius
of our country standing up before us with all her claims to our
devotion and our love. Let it receive but the slightest insult, and a
thrill vibrates throughout the land, every heart is wounded, every
hand is ready to be raised in its defence. Yet it is, after all, but a
piece of bunting, worth so many cents per yard. But by becoming a
symbol, by being the object of a rite, it has become the depositary of
the enthusiasm of the nation. It is made capable of evoking this, of
quickening and communicating it, whenever it is unfurled.

Look at our national airs: what are they? The scientific musician will
find little in them that is soul-stirring; but the feelings of our
fathers are deposited in them. They were the tunes in which we
expressed our gladness in days of triumph, by which we were aroused on
the national holiday, in which we sung our joy on all {726} important
occasions. Our love of home, of kindred, of fatherland, has been
embalmed in them; and when they fall on our ears, all these dear and
stirring feelings, as if buried in their notes, are sent forth, now
unlocked, and again take possession of our souls. They thus arouse the
warrior and the patriot, calling out all the feelings that cluster
around what is most dear.

The Swiss soldier in foreign lands was so vividly recalled to the
memories of home, by the airs to which he listened in childhood, and
the recollection of his native mountains, and the associations revived
by them, had such power, that a special disease, called
"home-sickness" was frequently the result. As this proved fatal to
many, the playing or singing of such tunes was forbidden in Swiss
regiments in foreign service. And who does not know the stirring
effect produced on certain occasions, when Yankee Doodle or Patrick's
Day has been struck up, no matter what musical professors may say of
their artistic merits.

In a similar manner our feelings of devotion are consigned to some
homely religious tune. They are first expressed in it. They cling
around it. They become identified with it. They are recalled vividly
when we hear it again. They all come back in their original freshness,
with accumulated force. They are transmitted to others, and thus we
inherit the treasure of the devotional feeling of preceding
generations.

Though _our_ being supplied with music by great artists, who are
constantly changing, if not improving their compositions, deprives us
in a great measure of the advantages that might arise from this
source, we can feel it at times, in what is allowed to retain this
traditional force. Who is there that does not feel the devotion so
often experienced in assisting at the benediction of the blessed
sacrament, or on other occasions renewed by the tones of the Tantum
Ergo or other familiar tunes, when the performers do not destroy, or
at least smother the old airs by their exquisiteness? Where the songs
of the church are in more general use, the intonation of the Miserere
or the Stabat Mater or the Pange Lingua and many other tunes is like
the opening up of a flood-gate, through which feelings of devotion
rush as it were in a torrent and take possession of a whole
congregation.

What is said of songs may be applied to other rites. The feelings of
the past are deposited in them; they express them, they arouse them,
they communicate them. This occurs, though they may be chosen
arbitrarily. What more arbitrary, generally speaking, than the meaning
attached to words? The word "home," for example, for all that is in
the sound, might as well have been adapted to signify anything else of
the most different character. Yet now having received a definite
meaning, it recalls uniformly a whole definite series of ideas and
feelings. So it is with a rite--say that of anointing with oil, that
of sprinkling with water, burning incense, the use of candles, or the
making of the sign of the cross. Many rites were established primarily
for this purpose, others had their origin in necessity or convenience
or usage; but the church, anxious to make even these things a source
of edification and an instrument of devotion, gave them a meaning,
attached to them a lesson which they reproduce forever after. Even
those which have a certain intrinsic fitness to signify what they are
established for, derive their chief efficacy in this respect from
their having been chosen for the purpose, or having gradually received
a social meaning, well understood in the Christian family. These have
the additional advantage of speaking out, as it were, a whole
instruction at a glance. The moment you look at one of these acts, a
lesson is presented which could scarcely be communicated in many
words, and in performing them the heart says more, and that more
simply and more effectually, than it could in a long discourse.

{727}

I have referred to the flag of the country; of its being raised, and
how a look at it, or a salute, powerfully expresses at once the most
important emotions and lively enthusiasm. Well, we do the same through
the Christian's glorious standard, which is the sacred symbol of the
cross. Be it of wood or of the most precious metal--be it the
production of the most unskilful or the most cunning workman--it is
for us the symbol of man's redemption, and around it cluster our most
tender feelings of veneration and love. It is placed over our altars,
over our churches; it hangs in our rooms; where Catholic feelings can
save it from insult, it is raised up in the highways, and is made to
meet our eyes wherever we turn. We impress its form on our persons
whenever we call on God in prayer, whenever we find ourselves exposed
to temptation or danger. In that one act the faith, the hope, the love
of the church for Christ and Christ crucified, are all expressed. All
these feelings are imbedded in it. All are called out again whenever
that sign is made. What we have heard of him from the pulpit, what we
have read in our private study, what has occurred, to our own minds in
meditation, is all brought before us with the accompanying sentiments
and feelings as soon as that sacred symbol presents itself to our
eyes. All are a wakened, are revived, and seized again at its glance.
No wonder, then, that the Catholic loves the cross; that he loves to
prostrate himself in adoration before it; that he looks to it when he
seeks consolation in suffering, support in affliction, light in his
difficulties, purity of spirit in his joys. Do not tell me that it is
of lifeless wood or of metal, that it is but the work of the
craftsman, Oh! this is like stopping the soldier in battle, to direct
his attention to the price per yard of his flag, or to the name and
address of the store where it was bought, while he is advancing
enthusiastically under its inspiration against his country's foes.
Yes; who does not know that it is of wood or metal? but to me it is
the symbol of my Saviour's love. As such, I love it; as such all my
most sacred feelings cling around it: I impress kisses on it; I bathe
it with my tears. And when, on Good Friday, the priest after bringing
before us the whole scene of Calvary, having led us, in the service,
to look on the death of Christ' as the great turning-point in the
world's history, having shown us the woes of the past that were there
to find a remedy, and the blessings for the future that were thence to
spring forth, holds up the crucifix before the prostrate multitude,
and sings out, in a solemn tone, "Ecce lignum Crucis," "Behold the
wood of the cross on which did hang the salvation of the world," will
we not all send up our whole souls in the deacon's answer, crying out,
with him, "Venite adoremus," "Come, let us adore"? And when the priest
looses his shoes, and on bare feet approaches the sacred symbol of
redemption, that he may kneel down and kiss it with fondness, on the
anniversary of the day on which the tragic scene was enacted; who is
there that will not vie with him in kneeling and pressing the sacred
symbol to his lips?

The same thing can be applied in different degrees to the various
rites throughout the year, when succeeding festivals bring before us
the other great mysteries of religion, or when we are called on to
express the ordinary feelings of Christian devotion. He who has
studied the simple devotions of the rosary, or the way of the cross,
will be astonished at the mine of devotion, of enlightened piety
contained in them, and at the treasures that are drawn from them by
faithful souls, simple and unpretending as they are, and puerile as
they appear to the self-sufficient.

But these acts and exercises intended to express and nourish our
Christian feelings, can only be appreciated where there is faith. It
is only into {728} hearts animated by faith that they can enter. It is
only in such they can be aroused. A certain amount of instruction is
even necessary to understand the conventional meaning of many. This
instruction and training is received by the Catholic almost with his
mother's milk. As he learns the meaning of words, which is still more
arbitrary, and acquires a practical skill in the use of language,
notwithstanding its complicated laws, so he learns the meaning of the
ceremonial, and is initiated into its use. With clasped hands the
child kneels before the crucifix, and imprints kisses on it. Little by
little he learns the history of him whose figure is nailed to that
cross, and knowledge grows in him with reverence and love. He goes to
the church, and is struck with what he beholds. He catches reverence
from those around, and infuses it into his own imitation of their mode
of acting. As he learns more and more of what is there done, this
reverence becomes more and more enlightened, and he grows up a devout
and enlightened Christian, performing the acts expressive of worship
with the same ease and intelligence with which he uses the ordinary
expressions of social life. The looker-on who is without faith or
instruction, who has no sympathy, and wishes to have no sympathy, with
him, thinks his acts a mummery, if he do not give them a harsher name.
Such a person may be compared to one who has no ear for music, to whom
the enthusiasm of those who are aroused by a beautiful composition is
incomprehensible; or to one who listens to an eloquent discourse in a
tongue which he does not, and cares not to understand; or he is like
Michol, who laughs at David dancing before the ark, because she has no
sympathy with his jubilant gratitude. The Catholic ceremonial is made
for Catholics. If it enable them to express and strengthen their
reverence, it answers its purpose. Those who have no such feelings to
be awakened cannot be surprised if it strike them without producing
emotion. The ceremonial is useful, not only as an expression of
feeling, it is eminently instructive and educational, if I may use the
expression, by instilling and developing both the knowledge and the
devotion it is intended to express. While it teaches, it leads to act
in accordance with the teaching; properly performed it is itself such
action. It thus instils truth into the mind, and shapes the heart in
accordance with it, which is the highest aim of the best education.

Some are pleased to look upon the mass of our people as very ignorant
in matters of religion. If by this it be meant to say, that all are
not experts in quoting texts of scripture; that they know nothing of
many controversies that appear of great importance to our separated
brethren; that they do not understand the meaning of many phrases that
have become households words amongst them, though, sometimes, I fear,
passing round without any very, definite meaning, I am willing to
acknowledge the charge. But if it be meant to say that they are
ignorant of those great facts and truths of religion which it is
necessary or important for men to know, I repudiate it most solemnly.
Nay, I contend that there is a better knowledge of these amongst many
or most Catholics who can neither read nor write, if they have only
followed in the paths where the church led them, than amongst many of
our opponents who are considered learned theologians; and this they
owe chiefly to this very ceremonial of which I am treating. They may
know nothing of Greek particles, or of many other things good enough
and useful in their place, but which God has not required anyone to
learn; but they know that the incarnate God died for the salvation of
man. They know the mystery of the Trinity, which is implied in that of
the incarnation. They know the sinful character of man, their need of
such a Redeemer. They are led to thank him, to love him, to {729} obey
him. They know his sufferings, one by one; they are familiar with his
thorns and his nails; they have pondered over his wounds and mangled
flesh; they penetrate into the side pierced for their love. He who
knows even this much is not ignorant. Yet all this, and, much more, is
familiar to every one accustomed to look with faith on the crucifix.
He sees in the face of the crucified One patience, resignation,
compassion for sinners, love even for his enemies. He sees the
consequences of sin, and he beholds their remedy. Looking on this, the
Catholic finds support in his trials or afflictions and moderation in
his joy. Show me the volume he could ponder over and learn as much.
All that he heard at his mother's knee and from the preacher's lips is
brought before him in a single glance at his crucifix. All is brought
up again when he makes the sign of the cross. Yet the cross, so
fraught with instruction and moving appeals, is that which is
presented to him a thousand times in the rites of the church, inasmuch
as it is the great pervading principle that must animate all his
devotion and all his actions. It is brought before him, not in a cold
way, merely teaching him a lesson. He is taught to know and to
believe; he is led to adore and to confide; he is brought to invoke
through it all the graces of which he stands in need. All this is done
every time that he makes the sign of the cross, pronouncing the
blessed words, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost."

While many of your learned expounders of scripture are comparing text
with text on these subjects, trying to remove, but scarcely removing
the doubts which they know to exist among their hearers, which they
feel, perhaps, rising up in their own breasts, or what is worse while
they are proposing theories in a Christian pulpit which make nought
the cross of Christ and the mystery of redemption as ever taught in
the Christian family, the poor Catholic, on whom they look with
contempt, is making his starting point what others are but trying to
prove, and while signing himself with the cross, believing, adoring,
penetrating into the depths of the love of the incarnate God, and
endeavoring to shape his own soul into conformity with its teachings.
And you call him ignorant. Indeed, a pure though simple faith, among
these people enables them to see the great truths of religion with a
clearness that supplies frequently an apt reply to difficulties that
seem very embarrassing to their opponents.

Yet, this is the first lesson that the Catholic child learns at his
mother's knee, As he goes on, he learns more and more of God's works
of mercy toward man, of his institutions for our salvation and our
sanctification, and all he learns he sees reproduced in a glance in
the ceremonial of the church, which speaks to him in accents more and
more eloquent, as his knowledge expands and his heart is brought more
fully into conformity with God's holy teachings. In the liturgy and
the various other rites of the church, she has enshrined all the great
dogmas of religion. There she teaches them, there she keeps them
beyond the reach of the innovator. The priest himself, the bishop, and
the pope, there see them inculcated, and from thence, as from a rich
treasury, draw them out to present them to the faithful. This teaching
by rites in use from the beginning of the church, addresses itself to
all with power, for in it they find the teaching of the saints and the
sages of by-gone ages, and feel themselves breathing the same
atmosphere with them. The martyrs, who bore testimony to their faith
with their blood, the apostolic men, who by their preaching, their
labors, and their prayers, brought nations to the knowledge of Christ,
the holy confessors and virgins, who, in frail vessels, showed forth
his power in every age, practised these same rites, and were therefore
animated by the same faith. The church, throughout the whole world,
uses them, and therefore believes as we do. What {730} more powerful
for bringing home to each one the faith of the universal, everlasting
church!

There is great security for the faith of a Catholic in his receiving
it through the teaching of a pastor in communion with the church of
the whole world, and sanctioned by its highest authority; but I would
venture to say that there is something even more solemn in this voice
of the ceremonial, which is a voice of the living and the dead--of
the church of the Catacombs, and of the church of this day--throughout
the world. With all the force which this gives, leaning as the church
does upon Christ, who died to sanctify her in truth, we are taught the
great dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation; of the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ; the plan and means of the redemption,
the need in which we stand of divine grace, and the means of obtaining
it. We are taught the character of the great Christian oblation, the
nature and effects of the sacraments, as well as the dispositions they
require, and the duties they impose.

Far be it from me to undervalue the oral teaching of the ministry.
That found in the ceremonial presupposes it, and is based on it. Both
are, as they should be, combined in the ministrations of the church;
but the ceremonial fixes the oral teaching. It gives the Christian
system a body, as it were, in which it enables it to prolong its life
beyond the moments of the passing voice. When once embodied in a rite,
the impressions of oral instruction, which otherwise so easily pass
away, live for ever. They are seized in their whole entirety at a
glance; they are brought down to the comprehension of the lowest; they
are put forth with a majesty that the highest may admire. Men are
taught there, and, what is most important they are led to act on the
teaching, and thus conform their hearts as well as their minds, to the
holy dogmas of faith, which is the best and most useful way of
imparting Christian instruction. But I will be told that this
teaching, however useful for those who understand it, is lost for the
great mass of the people, as the language used is a dead one, which
few understand. But, in the first place, it is not lost, even though
the clergy alone should understand it. Is it not an important thing
that the clergy themselves should have something to keep alive
powerfully, amongst them the one, universal and everlasting faith?
Will not all the faithful find strength in their strength, and light
in their light? If they are kept right, the truth spread abroad by
them will easily he preserved pure among the masses of the people.
Almost all heresies--be it said to our shame--either had their source
in the sanctuary, or could not have succeeded if they had not found
support there. And is it not a great thing that he who would become a
prevaricator, must first brand himself as unfaithful, must cease to
minister today, all he did yesterday, and thus give public notice, as
it were, that he seeks to devour the flock which he had undertaken to
feed; that instead of keeping the deposit which was the first duty of
his office, as dispenser of the mysteries of God, he is substituting
some new-fangled theory of his own, palming it off as an institution
of heaven? Luther can establish a new system only by ceasing to say
mass. The church of Cranmer is not at ease until it has formed for
itself a new liturgy. The Greeks and other orientals by preserving
their ancient rites and ceremonies, have preserved almost all their
ancient dogmas, and to re-enter the church have little else to do but
to submit to the authority of its supreme pastor. But apart from this,
the ceremonial itself speaks to all the people in a language which all
understand. The rites are themselves a language easily learned, and
speaking with silent eloquence to men of every tongue. They are to
some extent what the learned have been so long looking for, a
universal language. In fact, when the priest raises up the host, the
Irishman and the German, the Greek and the Armenian, see the presence
of Christ {731} preached to them, and they kneel down and adore. When
the water is poured on the head of the child that is baptized, men of
every clime know that the regenerating rite is being performed. The
rite once properly explained ever after expresses to them better than
any combination of words, the internal change that is effected in the
soul. Then, it must be remembered that the main thing in the public
service is what is _done_, not what is _said_. Every moderately
instructed Catholic is fully aware of what there takes place, and with
this knowledge he can assist, not only devoutly but intelligently,
though he may not understand or even hear one word.

The great source of mistake, in this connection, with our separated
brethren, arises from the fact that they go to church merely to hear
instruction, or to have words put into their mouths, in which to
address Almighty God. The Catholic also often goes for instruction,
and this he receives in the language which he understands. But he goes
for what is even more important--he goes to take a part in the great
act that is performed in God's holy temple. He knows the nature and
ends of this, and the dispositions required of him, and as I said
before, he can perform his part though he may not even hear, much less
understand one word that is pronounced. I will suppose a case of the
surrender of a large army. The vanquished soldiers march to the place
appointed. They lay down their arms, they lower their flag. The
victorious general, with his warriors, stands, by and receives them. A
speech perhaps is made. But all who are present take an intelligent
part in the Proceedings, though many may not hear one word that is
uttered. So it is with the great action at mass. I will not have
recourse to the common reply, that all that the priest says at the
altar is translated and published; that any one who desires may read
and know for himself; for though the fact be true, it is not the true
solution of the difficulty. I have no hesitation in saying that in
assisting at the most solemn part of the celebration of the divine
mysteries, it is best not to attend to the particular prayers recited
by the priest, whether one hear them or not whether he be or be not
capable of understanding them. It is better to assist with an
enlightened faith in the action that is performed, and then give full
play to such sentiments as this faith will awaken in each individual
soul. This is evidently the view of the church. For this reason, after
the offertory, that is, when the most important portion begins, the
priest is made to recite almost all his part of the liturgy in a low
tone, so that those present cannot hear him even if they be capable of
understanding what he says. Among the Greeks a curtain is drawn across
the sanctuary, so that they cannot even see him, but merely know by
some signals, if I may so call them, given from time to time, in what
part of the sacred act he is engaged.

The church, by, this evidently tells us, that by an assistance in
faith, each one yielding to the promptings of his own devotion will
derive more profit than by following the priest's words. Indeed, the
parts of the priest and people in this sacred act are so essentially
different, that it is scarcely to be expected that the same prayers
should be best for both. While the church has minutely arranged the
rites and prayers used by him who offers the sacrifice, she is
satisfied with awakening the faith and enlightening the devotion of
others who assist: and then leaving it to their enlightened faith what
each shall say to God on such occasions. She acts like the master of
the house, who prepares the banquet, where each guest finds abundance
of everything agreeable to the palate, and nourishing to the body.
With great care he has prescribed the parts of those who are occupied
in preparing or serving it up, so that all present may receive
substantial proofs of his interest; but when, this is done, he {732}
leaves the invited to partake of what is prepared, as their own tastes
will prompt. It is thus that the Catholic system, which is accused of
tying men down to a performance of mere routine, is that which really
gives more scope to individual liberty in public worship, while public
decorum and dignity are effectually secured by an established ritual.
With your extempore prayers, he who utters them has indeed full scope
for his feeling and his fancy, but he is liable also to their
vagaries, and his hearers are at his mercy. As he weeps or rejoices,
all must weep or rejoice, or he becomes to them a hindrance. Their
hearts move or try to move, not as the spirit, but as the leader
willeth, and not unfrequently may he lend them into paths from which
their instincts will recoil. They, whose whole time is engaged in
following a prescribed liturgy, must ever go on in the same groove.
Whatever be the feelings or the wants or the temper of mind of each
individual habitually or at the moment, the same unchanging road is
chalked out for all. What they hear may be beautiful, but it may be
far from being the best suited for many at that moment. Hence disgust
or cold indifference is sure to follow, of which beautiful forms may
be only a pompous covering. Amongst Catholics on the other hand, while
the church to secure order and truth and public decorum, has carefully
regulated every word and act of the priest, and presents in the
celebration of the divine mysteries the most powerful incentive to
faith and devotion in all its bearings, she leaves each one else who
is present to assist as his own wants and dispositions may prompt.

The ingenious zeal of pious men has provided helps for all in manuals
of various kinds, and each one will select what he finds best suited
for himself. He will use it or interrupt its use, or drop it
altogether as experience will show him to be most useful in his own
case. When it is not done through apathy or listlessness, he may find
it better to dispense with them all, being satisfied with a look, with
vivid faith, and such other interior acts as a faithful soul will soon
learn to perform with alacrity. Knowing what he himself is, and who is
before him, he will not be at a loss what to say. At one time he will
weep over his sins; at another he will give thanks to God; at another
he will lay open his wants, or ask pardon for his transgressions.
Where can he do any of these things more effectually than in the
presence of him who died for our sins, and to procure for us every
blessing.

And many, in fact, thus assist in silent prayer, but with more
intelligent and true devotion, though they neither use a book nor hear
a word, than others who are pondering over most beautiful manuals.

The danger of cold formality from the steady use of prescribed forms,
and nothing else, is so thoroughly realized by the church, and this
fear is so fully justified by her experience that the priest himself
is warned over and over against it. The remedy that is given him, is
the practice of what might be called private individual prayer. All
spiritual writers tell him that if he be not fond of this, if
especially he be not careful to renew his spirit by it, in immediate
preparation for the exercise of his sacred functions, they will
degenerate into mere formalism. With this private preparation he will
prepare and carry into them a proper spirit and will then find them a
heavenly manna, having every sweet taste; without this, he will be but
as the conduit pipe, carrying to others the refreshing waters, but
retaining himself' none of the effects of their invigorating powers.

These remarks apply to the most sacred and most important part of' the
mass. If the church do not wish us even to hear them, much less
require us to understand them, if she be right in believing that we
may thus assist most advantageously, it is a matter of no consequence
what language the priest uses in addressing the Almighty {733} God,
for he understands him, and that is enough. The rites he performs give
all the instruction of admonition that is useful at that moment, and
this instruction does not disturb our individual devotion. On the
contrary, whatever turn it may take, it enlivens, supports, and
directs it.

As to the first parts of the mass, to which these remarks are not so
applicable, the "Gospels," which vary at every festival, are required
to be read at least on festivals in their own language, and explained
by each pastor to his people. The "Collects," are known to be all
substantially supplications for grace, to which, therefore, we may
heartily answer, _Amen_, though we do not understand each word. Little
else remains but the "Kyrie," the "Gloria," and the "Credo," and these
like the "Pater Noster," and a few other things sung by the priest,
might be easily learned, so as to be understood by any diligent
person. Indeed, I may say it is the wish of the church that all should
learn them. She would be glad that all would take a part in singing
them, as the people do in many countries. The study of Latin required
for this is not much; for all that I have referred to might be
contained in two or three pages, and is not beyond the reach of
anyone, not even of those who cannot read. Many such learn it by
heart, and understand what they have learned. Doing so would be but a
light task in view of the many advantages gained. All might then join
in the public chants of the church and be gainers in spiritual life,
even if they did not discourse equally elegant music; or, if our
apathy compels the church to let our parts be discharged, as it were,
by deputies in the choir, we would assist and join in the beautiful
sentiments which are expressed, and not merely sit inactive to receive
the sweet impressions of their melodies.

But though this would better accord with the spirit of the church, if
these parts also through our own apathy are unintelligible, the
intrinsic character of the act for which we are preparing will suggest
pious sentiments that will enable us to pass the time with substantial
profit to our souls.

But, be it that there is some little disadvantage in having the mass
in a dead language, what I have said, I think, abundantly proves at
least that it is not very great. Look, on the other hand, at the
immense advantages gained by keeping it uniform and without change,
which implies keeping it in the language in which it was first
established. By this, uniformity and steadiness is secured in the
faith. The faith of every nation embalmed, as I said before, in the
liturgy, is before the eyes of the universal church; it is transmitted
untarnished from generation to generation. This uniform and steady
liturgy becomes as an anchor to which every church is moored. As long
as it clings to this, it is safe. And can anyone who knows the value
of faith, of that faith for which legions of martyrs shed their blood,
deem the little loss that is sustained, if any, by our Latin liturgy,
not well compensated by the stability of faith which it secures. For
this reason, though the world in the apostolic days was even more
divided in language than it is now, yet in those times, as we know
from all antiquity, the liturgy was celebrated only in three
languages--the three languages of the cross. These are, the Hebrew,
in its cognate dialects, which are but branches of the one Semitic
tongue, as a homage to the ancient dispensation; the Greek, which was
the language of the civilization of that age, and that adopted in the
New Testament; and the Latin, which was the language of the people
whose capital was to be the seat of the government of the Church of
the New Dispensation. In these three languages was written the
inscription over the bloody sacrifice on Calvary; in these, and in no
others from the beginning, was the unbloody one offered to God by the
church. No others having been adopted was a clear proof that in the
apostolic {734} view it was not deemed necessary that all should
understand the language used in the sacred mysteries; and, when even
these ceased to be popular languages anywhere, what had always been
the condition of the great number became the condition of all.

In after ages a few exceptions, and only a few, were permitted or
rather tolerated. The liturgy was allowed to be celebrated in one
other language in Asia, the Armenian; in two in Africa, the Coptic and
the Ethiopic; and in one in Europe, the Slavonic. No others were used.
But these were exceptional cases--they occurred at a later period, and
under peculiar circumstances, showing rather the sufferance than the
genuine spirit of the church, while she cordially adopted from the
beginning, and ever clung to the three languages of the cross.

It is both beautiful and useful to the Catholic to assist at the
divine offices in the same language, and in the main, with the same
rites, in which they have been performed for eighteen hundred years.
They seem like the voice of the martyrs, the confessors, the saints
who have lived through these eighteen centuries. They echo their faith
and their devotion. We feel that in them we are breathing the life of
a church now and ever spread throughout the whole world, everywhere
offering to God one sacrifice of praise.

A dignitary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country has
lately written an angry letter against those of his brethren who are
called "Ritualists," because they are anxious to introduce into their
church many Catholic, or, as he calls them, "Romish" ceremonies. His
ground of complaint is that behind these ceremonies stand the
doctrines of the Catholic Church. "Their course," he says, "means
return to what the reformation cast out with indignation." "It means
Romanism in all its strength and substance," and he enumerates the
various doctrines which it implies, which he considers abominations. I
do not wish to pronounce an opinion on the extent to which his remarks
are justifiable in their application to the parties against whom he
writes; but he is certainly right in believing that behind the
Catholic ritual stands Catholic doctrine, which is nothing else but
Christian doctrine; and as the reformation "cast out" many of the
rites in use in the Christian family from the beginning, with them it
"cast out" a great portion of the Christian dogma. The good man's
charge will only make those who preserve the dogma see more clearly
the value of the rites in which it is enshrined, and cling more
tenaciously to dogmas thus shown to be coeval with Christianity.

Every rite has thus a lesson, and becomes an act of devotion. The
cross above our churches and our altars, continually reappearing in
all our ceremonies, impresses on us the incarnation, death, and
atonement of Christ crucified, as the great central point of all
religion. To this we are constantly brought back in every prayer which
concludes by asking what we demand, through Jesus Christ, the familiar
closing of which, the "_per omnia saecula saeculorum_," known to every
child, calls forth from all, the heartfelt _Amen_! To this, and to
what should accompany it, the Catholic is constantly directed by the
ceremonial. The church bell, signed with the cross, and anointed with
oil, which is a symbol of Christ, swings in the tower, and as his
messenger, calls us in his name to his house--now, ringing out with
joy, when some great mystery is to be commemorated--now, in deep
solemn notes, to pray for one of his departed members. Three times
every day it summons us to the recital of the Angelus, in which we
commemorate the great mystery of the incarnation, and invoke the
merits of the Saviour's death, and ask the benefit of his
resurrection. If we enter the {735} church, the font at the door, from
which we take a drop of blessed water to sprinkle our foreheads, is
itself a sermon on the purity with which we should approach, and bids
us cleanse our souls before we come near to him in prayer. The burning
lamp speaks to us of him who is the light of the world, now dwelling
on the altar, as well as of the constant fire of devotion, and pure
adoration, due to the present God. The priest whom you see at the
altar, clad in those quaint old vestments, tells you at a glance that
you are in the presence of a worship that has come down from the
remotest ages. The burning lights on the altar, which have now become
an emblem of gladness, speak to you of the catacombs, in which our
fathers took refuge, and preserved for us the sacred deposit, at the
cost of property, of liberty, and of life.

Like old heirlooms, with their quaint old forms and their several
indentations, these vestments and rites tell at the same time of their
real antiquity and of the many vicissitudes through which they have
passed. They are not like those imitations of the antique in use
amongst some of our friends got up by studying ancient drawings and
descriptions, having all the inconvenience without anything of the
venerable character of what is truly ancient. With us they are
inherited through uninterrupted use from the beginning. Whatever
changes have occurred in minor details, only render them more
venerable, for if on the one hand we are brought back to ancient days,
these are marks of the many ages through which they have passed.
Everything in the rites of the church is fraught with instruction,
with devotion. It enables you to know, and what is better, to
practice--for while it teaches, it leads you to love and adore. Do you
wish to know the efficacy of that ceremonial? Look at those who have
been nursed under its training. See the all-pervading influence of
religion, that exists among them. Long and powerful discourses may
make men skilful talkers and ardent partisans. Those who have been
reared under a divinely inspired ritual have religion deeply engraven
on their hearts. It takes possession and enters into the whole nature
of the man; and even when he gives way to the allurements of iniquity,
it retains its hold on him. This may indeed make him appear, and be,
an inconsistent object of pity or of scorn. But, happy inconsistency!
For if he will not be consistent in good, far better that he be
inconsistent or not consistent in evil. He would otherwise become a
monster. The links by which he is yet bound to what is good, may one
day draw him within the pale of that mercy to which no sinner appealed
in vain, before which no sinner is too great to be pardoned.

To the Catholic, in every position, the ceremonial is light and
nourishment--a plentiful source of vigor and life.

----------

{736}

From Le Correspondant.

MADAME DE SWETCHINE.

BY REV. FATHER LACORDAIRE.


Many times already have I rendered to illustrious Catholics who have
died in our day, a funeral and a pious homage. In turn, General
Drouot, Daniel O'Connell, and Frederic Ozanam have heard my voice
above their tomb, a voice far below that which their glory merited,
but which, nevertheless, holds from a sincere admiration the right to
praise them. To-day, after these familiar names for which praise can
do nothing, I pronounce another name, a name which may appear almost
unknown, perhaps even that of a foreigner, which, however, belongs to
the nation of the great minds of our age. A superior writer, Madame de
Swetchine published nothing; a conversationalist of the first order,
the fame of her salon never penetrated beyond that circle which,
though not public, is more than privacy; a woman of antique faith and
of active piety, she neither founded nor presided over any orders; and
yet, for more than forty years she swayed an empire, to which the
Count de Maistre submitted, before which Madame de Staël inclined, and
which retained around her, even to her last days, admirers accustomed
to act on public opinion, but still more accustomed to enlighten their
own by hers. To the Count de Maistre succeeded M. de Bonald. The Abbé
Frayssinous, M. Cuvier, to these M. de Montalembert, the Count de
Falloux, Prince Albert de Broglie, and many others, a younger
generation, but not less submissive to the ascendency of a soul where
virtue served genius.

Why should we be silent? Why not tell the living what they have lost
in the dead? While a man lives, modesty should guard all his actions,
and friendship itself should be restrained by it; but death has this
of admirable; that it restores to memory as to judgment all its
liberty. In taking away those from whom it strikes the double rock of
weakness and envy, it permits those who have seen to lift the veil,
those who have received to acknowledge the benefit, those who have
loved to pour forth their affection. Even the obscurity of merit adds
to the desire of making it known; and if this merit was illustrious,
being all hidden, it is almost a religious duty to draw it forth from
the tomb, and to render it before men the honor it has before God. So
I hope I shall be pardoned these few pages; but did I not, yet I
should still write them. I owe them to a friendship which began in the
shadows and perils of my youth, and which since, through all the
vicissitudes of a quarter of a century, never ceased to open to me
perspectives of honor so difficult to recognize in the confused and
agitated times when faith itself is troubled by earthly events, and
seeks a route worthy of its mission.

Madame Sophie Jeanne de Swetchine was born in Russia, on the 4th
December, 1782. Her family name was Soymonoff. She had a sister who
married the Prince de Gagarin, a former Russian ambassador at Rome;
she herself was united at the age of seventeen to General de
Swetchine, Military Governor of St. Petersburg. She belonged by birth
to the Greek religion, but her education had abandoned her to the
scepticism of the eighteenth century, and {737} according to the
natural course of things, she would have died an unbeliever or a
schismatic in the depth of some half-oriental estate. God willed it
otherwise, and hence arises from the first the lively interest
attached to her life. For a Christian, a soul's predestination, and
the mysterious ways by which God conducts it to its end without
infringing its liberty, are a spectacle that has above all others an
inexhaustible charm. The secrets of grace and free will, so intimate
in our own hearts, are less enlightened in a history which is not our
own; and the communion of saints which makes us all, believing and
loving, one in a single light and a single goodness, gives us, in the
account of a difficult conversion, the feeling of a conquest in which
we ourselves have shared.

The young Sophie de Soymonoff was then a Greek and an unbeliever. She
had been beguiled from her birth by the illusions of rationalism, and
the snares of the most singular fortune which error ever had; for the
Greek religion has this trait solely its own, that it presents a much
restricted and very firm negation to the true faith, under an
authority cut loose from its base; yet which, however, preserves all
the rest with a profound respect for antiquity. In seeing this exact
episcopal succession, this unaltered symbol, this inviolable
discipline, these sacraments which Rome herself recognizes, we ask if
an error, respecting so long and so well the limits which it traced
when it first arose, does not seem like those rocks which an irruption
has thrown from their foundations and which remain immovable under the
eye and the action of ages? Whilst in the West, Protestantism is
unable to create either dogmas or discipline or hierarchy, and floats
as a wandering cloud from mind to mind, the East, on the contrary,
sees produced the fixity of error. Here dissolution, there
petrifaction; and between the two the truth which is immutable without
being inert, progressive without being subject to change. However
surprising may be this contrast, it is not difficult to account for
it, if we consider, on the one hand, the difference of nature between
the eastern man and the western; and on the other, the diversity of
the political destiny assigned them. The eastern man contemplates and
adores, while his rival, less happy in contemplation, is more so in
acting. Thus the one has created generous institutions, under which he
has from age to age extended his empire, while the other has passed
from servitude to servitude, incapable of seating himself in the shade
of a regular authority, and of developing in a free atmosphere either
the evil or the good which, he has conceived. Hence in Europe error
takes a character of life which conducts it to its most extreme
logical consequences, at the same time that it wears at Constantinople
a character of death, which leaves it what it was, by impotence, not
by virtue.

Nevertheless, it is easy for a vulgar intelligence to be deceived,
especially where family and national traditions give to error the
reflex of patriotism, and when an absolute government, the jealous
guardian of a religion of which it is the head, suffers no emanations
of the truth to reach the soul. Sophie de Soymonoff was born a
prisoner in an empire of seventy millions of souls. She was six
hundred leagues from St. Peter's, and a thousand years from the true
faith. But, however vigilant despotism may be, however thick its
dungeon walls, God remains ever near, and he draws therefrom, when he
wills, the instruments which his Providence uses to preserve for man
the share which he assigns him in all his works. At an age when Madame
de Swetchine could not yet sound either the poverty of the Greek
schism or the abyss of unbelief, a man of God came to her. He was not
a priest, but an ambassador of a king despoiled of the greater part of
his possessions, shut up in an island of the Mediterranean, and who,
in sending to St. Petersburg a {738} representative of his
misfortunes, thought not that he sent there a _chargé d'affaires_ of
divine grace, marked with the seal of the elect. Count Joseph de
Maistre, tor he it was, detested with all his soul the two Colossuses
of his day, the French revolution and the French empire, because in
the one he saw the oppression of European nationalities; and the
other, because he thought he saw it imprinted forever with an
anti-Christian spirit. But he loved France, because, though it was the
seat of the revolution and of the empire, he discerned there an
indestructible faith, the faith of Clovis, of Charlemagne, and of St.
Louis, and I know not what predestination that ravished his judgment,
and rendered him the prophet of that very country which he esteemed so
culpable and yet so great. Born in Savoy, in the country of St.
Francis de Sales, and of Jean Jacques Rousseau, he was French like
them in his genius, but even more so by his faith and his heart, which
had but two pulsations, one for the church, the other for France;
generous mortal who silenced his antipathies by his convictions, in
whom blindness did not extinguish the light, and who, like
Philoctetes, wounded by the arrows of Hercules, could be separated
from Greece, neither in his accusations nor in his affections. Madame
de Swetchine soon met this extraordinary man in the saloons of St.
Petersburg, and it was the first great event of her life. A positive
spirit, but amiable, as his posthumous correspondence proves, M. de
Maistre loved conversation. He did not love it as a throne from which
his genius could display its brilliancy, but as a free and delicate
interchange of thoughts, in which grace unites with intelligence,
taste with boldness, freedom with reserve, bringing together in an
hour all times and all gifts; and forming a bond of union between men
who are pleased with sentiments of kindness and esteem. Generous focus
of cultivated minds of all countries, conversation is the last asylum
of human liberty. It speaks when the tribune is silent; it supplies
the place of books when books are not to be had; it gives currency to
thoughts which despotism persecutes; finally, it warms, and agitates;
it moves, and is, where it can live, the principle and the
all-powerful echo of public opinion. It is not astonishing then that
great men find in it a pleasure which is for them like the
accomplishment of a duty. So long as society converses it is safe.

It did not look much as if the Count de Maistre could find at St.
Petersburg an aliment for this noble want of his heart. The Russian is
endowed with facility of expression, a quickness of apprehension, and
it is no flattery disrobed of justice which has named him the
Frenchman of the North. But he is closed up as soon as he comes into
the world; deprived of all political liberty, he has not even in his
religion room for his breast to expand, and the Christ he adores
appears to him only under the sceptre of his masters and behind their
implacable majesty. A fortress encloses at St. Petersburg the temple
where sleep the Czars, and, once dead, their people cannot even freely
visit their ashes. Fear, suspicion, doubt, all the shades of
inquietude dwell in the Russian, and are translated on his brow by a
calm which nothing destroys, on his lips by a reserve which nothing
dissipates. To converse it is necessary to be open; and to open one's
self, one must possess his life, his goods, his honor, his liberty.
When therefore the Count de Maistre entered St. Petersburg, he might
say that he entered the capital of silence, and that his genius would
be there only a monologue.

He was deceived. I knew Madame de Swetchine only during the last
twenty-five years of her life; and she was fifty when I first rested
my eyes on her benevolent countenance. Doubtless age had ripened her
art of thinking and speaking, but it is impossible that she should not
have had something of it in that young outburst which early announced
to others, and to herself, the treasure which was carried in her
bosom. Certain it is that M. de Maistre had soon discovered it. In
{739} the midst of that society of great lords and diplomatists, he
discovered a young woman who bore in her language the marks of
superiority, and whose conversation, springing from a source still
purer than the mind, touched with remarkable tact the frontiers of
liberty, without ever passing beyond them. Confidence is an
irrepressible want of our poor heart; it cannot live alone; it opens
itself unconsciously, and when life's experience has revealed the
peril of abandoning it to itself, it becomes wiser but no fonder of
reserve, and counts it a supreme happiness to meet with security in
the intercourse of society. Less happy, however, than the greater part
of men, the man of genius has need also of a certain elevation in the
minds that come in contact with his own; and, though the crowd has its
charm and its power, were it only in hearing him who rules, yet it is
in the shock of two intelligences, each worthy of the other, that
conversation has its highest flight, and reaches the last fibres of
our being, and reveals to it the eternal pleasure of minds speaking
with minds. Demosthenes discoursing before the Athenians, Cicero
pleading in the Forum or the Senate of Rome, did not make, as perhaps
some may think, a monologue: the multitude responded, and their
eloquence was the fruit of a great soul heard by a great people. There
is no solitary eloquence, and every orator has a double genius, his
own and that of the age that hears him.

Madame de Staël, who was the first conversationalist of her time, said
she was unhappy because of the universal mediocrity, and yet she
conversed at Paris among the people the most prompt in the world to
speak, and the most confiding: what would she have said at St.
Petersburg? M. de Maistre was there, but he was there with a
Frenchwoman, born in Russia, who would one day, recognizing the
mistake of her birth, live and die in her true country, the country of
an incorruptible faith, and of a liberty which had only an eclipse,
because conversation has always sustained it. Louis XIV. conversed at
Marseilles without suspecting that conversation would kill his
despotism. In the East, the destined seat of absolute power, the
prince does not converse; he gives his order, and is silent.

It is impossible for two souls to meet each other in a conversation
which mutually pleases them, without having religion, sooner or later,
enter into their discourse. Religion is the interior vestment of the
soul. There are some who tear this vestment to tatters; there are
others who soil it; but there are a few who despoil themselves of it
all save some shred, and this shred, such as it is, is sufficient to
prevent them from appearing absolutely destitute of divinity. Madame
de Swetchine was an unbeliever, and, she had behind her, and beyond
her unbelief, the Greek schism. The Count de Maistre was a Catholic,
not only by faith, but by direct mental intuition. He was at that
point where a man can say, so obvious was the truth to him: I believe
not, I see. What were the talks of these two souls on a subject in
regard to which they had nothing in common, except their genius? What
did they say from 1803 to 1810, from the day when they met for the
first time, to that on which one of them bent before the other, owned
herself vanquished, and, on the bosom of friendship, sighed the last
sigh of error? Doubtless God alone knows. God alone knows the
stratagems which suspended for seven years the efficacy of an
eloquence sustained by divine grace, and disputed with it, step by
step, the victim and the victory. However, two immortal books of the
Count de Maistre: Soirées de Saint Petersbourg, and the book Du Pape,
may give us the secret of that controversy lost to the memory of man,
but which we shall one day find in that of God.

It is manifest that the wife of the Governor of St. Petersburg opposed
from the first to the ambassador of Sardinia all the negations of the
eighteenth century, those shadows which Voltaire had invested with all
{740} the transparency of his mocking spirit, and around which Jean
Jacques Rousseau had thrown the poetry of his melancholy imagination.
Doubt, which in all men is a profound abyss, is still more so in the
heart of woman. Nature cannot be denied with impunity, and the nature
of woman is to believe, for it is her vocation to love. Happily Madame
de Swetchine was strong and sincere; she could follow with her mind's
eye her friend's thought, and penetrate, little by little, as she
became accustomed to it, into those regions of truth where mockery had
not left even a trace, and where imagination raised not a single
cloud. Laughter ceases as we ascend nearer to God, and so also do
tears without cause; the intellect becomes serious, and the heart
contented.

When the Count de Maistre had dispelled the phantoms, did Madame de
Swetchine see at a glance the whole reality of Christianity, or did
the Greek Church interpose itself, as a half-light between a doubt
which was no more, and a faith which was not yet? In considering the
slowness of her progress it is natural to believe, and the Count de
Maistre's correspondence confirms it, that the neophyte took the
longest route, and that she did not give herself up to any sudden
illumination. It was then the book Du Pape which succeeded to the
Soirées de Saint Petersbourg. M. de Maistre had dictated it with one
eye on Russia and the other on France. Not that there was any relation
between the two countries in the point of view of religion. France,
since God had made her the eldest daughter of the church, had not been
for a single day a traitor to the sacred unity of her mother; and from
the battle-fields of Tolbiac to the scaffolds of the Reign of Terror,
she held herself faithful on the only and immovable rock where God had
sealed in this world the mystery of truth. But if is true that she was
withdrawn from the public law of Europe, which during several
centuries had accorded a political supremacy to the Roman pontiff and
that she had derived from this sort of resistance, I know not what of
personal independence, which without detracting from her theological
submission, had given her in certain matters a more apparent reserve.
Yet if Louis XIV. had not taken it into his head to establish as a
maxim what was only a national instinct, regulated by a profound
faith, the sentiments of France would never have assumed in the eyes
of Christendom the doubtful coloring which after the ruins of the
revolution struck the genius of the Count de Maistre and inspired him
with the book, Du Pape. He saw in Russia the immense fall of the Greek
Church, caused by this single point of infidelity to St. Peter, and
without fearing for France what no one feared for her, he erected to
the papacy that beautiful and proud, statue, which posterity will ever
regard with honor, even though they should accuse the artist of having
known the past less well than the future.

_Thou art Peter, and on this rock I build my church, and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it_. These simple words, regarded in
the gospel and in history, taught Madame de Swetchine that the Greek
Church, although preserving the traditions of episcopal authority, was
detached from the centre of unity, and consequently from the throne
itself of life. After this it was easy to recognize its effects in the
spiritual miseries she had under her eyes. The clergy are not the
whole church; they are only a portion of it. The church is the
assemblage of all souls who know God, and do not consciously reject
either the words he has given the world, or the authority which he has
founded to preserve and propagate his words and his grace. Though a
visible body in the faithful exteriorly marked with his seal, she yet
embraces under the eyes of God, who penetrates and judges all
consciences, a multitude unknown to herself, in whom invincible
ignorance {741} creates good faith, and who live unknowingly the truth
of which she is the depositary. This is the church. As to the clergy,
all is said in these words of our Lord ascending to heaven: _Go and
teach all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to keep my
commandments._ The clergy are the apostolate of the church; they are
the venerated summit of faith, the army of souls called by God to
spread the only law which is infallible, the only force which conquers
the flesh, the only unction which gives humility. "_Who hears you
hears me_," our Lord has said: "_who despises you despises me_." All
may and must befall the clergy, hate, exile, torture, death; there is
but one thing which they cannot and should not merit, contempt. When
Christ suffered in the judgment hall under the blows of the vilest
executioners, when he bore his cross from Jerusalem to Calvary, when
he was raised on it in the face of the whole world, there was against
him from heaven to earth, from Satan to man, a hate deeper and broader
than the ocean. But respect survived; and Pilate in washing his hands,
the centurion in beholding the cross, the virgins in weeping, the sun
in hiding its light, were the revelations of a conscience greater than
the punishment, and which held the astonished universe in expectation
and awe. Now, by a judgment of God, which is the chastisement of a
fault of centuries, the Greek clergy are despised. They are despised
not only by the unbeliever but by the believer; they are despised by
the penitent whose confessions they hear, by the purified Christians
to whom they give the body and blood of their God. This contempt is
striking and universal; the pope or Greek priest bears it on his
forehead as an avenging sign, and even the kiss of the Czar confirms
and enlarges it.

Placed between this spectacle and the vision of the Count de Maistre,
the whole light came to Madame de Swetchine, and then commenced for
her the second struggle, the struggle of the truth against the holiest
affections of the heart. Truth is, no doubt, the great country of the
mind; it is father, mother, brother, sister, and native land; but man
has on earth another family and another country, the better he is the
more he loves them, and virtue; in so far as it is human, makes them
the cherished centre of all that is good, amiable, and generous. To
these ties already so strong, religion adds its divine influence, and
from the same table to the same altar man leads his happiness, and
there attaches by a single chain time and eternity. What a blow is
that when some day, by an evidence which leaves no possible retreat,
the daughter shall see God standing between her and her mother,
between her and her husband, between her and her native country, and
there shall be said to her in the same voice which Abraham heard: "_Go
out from, thy land and thy kindred, and from the house of thy father,
and come to the land which I shall show thee_." There are some, it is
true, who think this voice should never be heard, but for three
thousand years, since Abraham, it has commanded and been obeyed. God
is stronger than man, and man is great enough to sacrifice to truth
more than himself.

Madame de Swetchine had not only to fear the rending of her heart, she
had before her an intolerance which the opposition of our century had
only irritated. The Emperor Nicholas did not yet reign, but the
conversion of a Russian soul to the Catholic Church was none the less
an act of high treason, which exposed her to the severities of the
morrow, if she escaped the inattention of the evening. After having
endured this stormy situation for six or seven years, Madame de
Swetchine turned her eyes toward France, and obtained from the Emperor
Alexander, a generous prince, himself agitated by an unknown
inspiration, the permission to live there. France received her in 1818
at the age of thirty-four, in the plenitude of her faculties ripened
by a long intercourse with men and events.

{742}

It is not without a purpose that God draws to himself' a creature
condemned to error by all the ties of family and country, and
transports her far away to a foreign capital in the midst of a new
people. Much less so is it when this grace falls on a choice
intelligence, placed in the first ranks of society, and who unites in
herself all the gifts of nature, and all those of the world. Paris
since 1750 had been the centre of the European mind. It had by half a
century's crusade against Christ, drawn the nations from those old
certainties to which they owed their existence. An unheard of
revolution had been the chastisement of this fault, a chastisement so
much the more remarkable, as France had invoked just principles,
conformed to its ancient traditions, and as it was the defect of a
superior light to restrain herself, that she had traversed everything
with a devastating impetuosity. She had remained faithful only to her
sword, and still after twenty-five years of victory, worthy of her
happiest days, she had just succumbed by excess in the battlefield,
and twice the foreigner had soiled with his presence that superb city,
the mistress, by the ascendency of her intelligence, of the modern
world. It was there on the day after its reverses, that Providence
conducted Madame de Swetchine. The question was to know if France,
aware of the need she had of God to reconstruct her, would hear the
voice of her misfortunes; if recalled to her ancient kings, and
reconciled in her old temples, she would, consent to be again
Christian in order to give her liberty the sanction of the faith which
had always guided and always served her.

Few minds in either camp discerned this relation of Christianity with
the institutions of a liberally governed people. The example of
England, where the church had always supported the commons, said but
little to the publicists who were the most charmed with her
Parliament. Madame de Swetchine herself had had in the author of
Considerations sur la France, a master who saw plainly the vices of
the French revolution, but who without betraying civil and political
liberty, did not well comprehend, perhaps, either all its necessity or
all its future. Happily she had lived under absolute power; she had
had under her eyes for nearly forty years a Christian Church in a
servile land, and this lesson could not be lost on a mind as true as
hers. The evils of liberty are great among a people who do not know
how to measure it, who at every moment refuse it by jealousy, or go
beyond it through inexperience. But these evils, great as they may be,
belong to the apprenticeship of liberty and not to its essence; they
still leave it daylight, space, and life, a resource for the feeble, a
hope for the vanquished, and above all the sacred emulation of good
against evil. Under despotism good and evil sleep on the same pillow;
souls are invaded by a dull degeneracy because they have no longer a
struggle to sustain, and Christianity itself, a protected victim,
expiates in unspeakable humiliations the benefits of its peace. Madame
de Swetchine saw this. Her great heart was full of this when she
entered Paris, and amid the roar of tempests she knelt, for the first
time in her life, at altars combated, but esteemed. It is necessary to
have suffered for liberty of faith to know its price. It is necessary
to have passed under the gibbets of schism, to be able fully to know
what it is to breathe the atmosphere of truth. How often have I seen
Madame de Swetchine's eyes fill with tears at the thought that she was
in a Catholic country! How often has she been inwardly moved at seeing
a good priest, a good religious, a good brother of the Christian
Schools, in a word, our Lord's image on a sincere brow or in a
virtuous life! Ah! this it is which here we never lose. We {743} can
dishonor I know not how many human and even divine things; but in the
shipwreck Christ remains visible to us in many who worthily love and
serve him.

The life of Madame de Swetchine during the forty years she passed in
our midst was one continual thanksgiving. More than once under a reign
of persecution, like that of the Emperor Nicholas, she had fears for
the security of her sojourn in France. Once, notwithstanding her great
age, she believed it necessary not to leave it to the zeal even of her
most tried friends, and rushed to St. Petersburg to implore the
forgetfulness of the Czar. God still saved her. She had acquired such
a prestige, that it might be said that she represented at Paris the
honor and intelligence of Russia, and this, it is probable, was what,
in the most difficult times, saved her from being recalled.

This dependence which she still had on her country, because her
estates there might be held to answer for her personal conduct,
imposed on her an extreme prudence in a saloon which was frequented by
her compatriots and by men of all ranks and all opinions. But this
reserve, which she had acquired as a habit in her own country,
detracted nothing from the grace and sincerity of her discourse;
whether she was silent or whether she expressed her thoughts,
according to the degree of confidence inspired by those present, she
never betrayed it; and in her silence even, she seized things on the
side which remained accessible, and gave them clearness enough, to
instruct without displeasing. An exquisite naturalness covered her
speech, though tact and unexpectedness were its most usual
characteristics. When she met Madame de Staël for the first time, each
knew the other without being told; and happening to be placed at
opposite corners of a large hall, they observed each other with
curiosity. Madame de Staël, accustomed to homage, waited for Madame de
Swetchine to come to her. Seeing she did not, she all at once crossed
the long space which separated them, stopped before her, and said in a
lively and caressing tone: "Do you know, Madame, that I am much hurt
by your coldness toward me?" "Madame," was the reply, "it is for the
king to salute first." This remark can give some idea of the ingenuous
and submissive style of Madame de Swetchine's conversation. Different
from Madame de Staël, who disserted rather than conversed, Madame de
Swetchine raised her voice but slightly, and had no accent of
domination; she waited her time without impatience, without caring for
success, always more happy to please than ambitious to dazzle. An
inexhaustible interest in those whom she had once loved, gave to her
intimacy a sweet and maternal character. Her genius was approached as
a focus of light, no doubt, but with a filial disposition which
endeared its brilliancy, which was the fruit of a goodness as manifest
as was her intellectual superiority. Introduced into the highest
French society by the Duchesse de Duras and the Marquise de Montcalm,
sisters of the Duc de Richelieu, she was not long in making felt
around her that attraction which is produced in society by
acknowledged eminence of character. What she had been when young at
St. Petersburg in her husband's salons, she was in the heart of
France; but what at St. Petersburg was only a conquest of suffrages
and of admiration, became at Paris an apostolate.

When a soul passes to God's side, that is to say, to the side of
Christianity, the only expression here below of the divine life, she
can find nowhere else the principles and motives of her actions. All
in her proceeds from the sacred height and returns to it, Madame de
Swetchine lived in the world, but was not of it; she was held to it
only by its good--only to make her protest for God, and to serve him;
an admirable office in which the world assumes all its grandeur; in
which fallen under the strokes of a mind that {744} knows what it is
worth, it arises and occupies with him every instant of thought and
every vibration of the heart. He who is disabused by the simple
experience of life, despises the world, while he who is disabused by
light from on High esteems it. Being then no longer in the world for
the world, Madame de Swetchine was more than ever there for God; she
followed his course with all-powerful interest, attentive to seize
whatever might remove or approach her to the principle of all life. M.
de Maistre was no more. A different school from his was forming;
Madame de Swetchine saw unfold its first germs, and she surrounded
with her counsels and her affection the young representatives of an
idea which her recollections, perhaps, would have repulsed, but which
the freedom of her mind rendered her capable of judging, for this was
the character as the temper of her genius. In a time of intellectual
dependence, in which parties bore away everything in their train,
Madame de Swetchine made no engagement, and submitted to no
attraction; she isolated every question from the noise around her, and
placed it in the silence of eternity. Thus was one sure after having
heard all that was said, to encounter on crossing her threshold
something which had not been heard, an original view of the truth; and
even when she was mistaken, a proof that her thought did not belong to
herself alone, because she sought it in God.

It was after the failure of L' Avenir that I first saw her. I
approached the borders of her soul as a seaweed broken by the waves,
and I remember yet, after twenty-five years, how she placed her light
and strength at the service of a young man unknown to her. Her
counsels sustained me both against despondeney and exaltation. One day
when she thought she noticed in my words a doubt or lassitude, she
said to me with a singular accent, the simple words: "Take care." She
was wonderful in discovering the point to which one inclined, and
where it was necessary to bear assistance. The measure of her thought
was so perfect, the freedom of her judgment so remarkable, that I was
long in comprehending to whom and to what she was devoted. Where in
others I should have known in advance what was to be said, here I was
almost always ignorant, and nowhere did I feel myself more out of the
world. This charm from above was not diffused over me alone. Other
minds, my predecessors or my contemporaries, felt its action, and it
is impossible to say for how many souls this single soul was a lamp.
Not only the day, at fixed hours, not only the evening until midnight,
but at almost every moment, confidence sought her with an importunity
which was never complained of. Thus was formed around a foreigner I
know not what country, which was of all times and of all lands, for it
was the truth which was its ground, its atmosphere, its light, and its
motion.

Nature, it is evident, could not suffice of itself to feed this
inexhaustible conversation. It was nourished by an assiduous reading
of all that was remarkable which appeared in Europe. No book, as no
man, escaped her ardent curiosity. After the example of the Count de
Maistre, who inspired the taste, Madame de Swetchine pencil-marked
every page which struck her, and in her first leisure hour between two
conversations she engraved on a light leaf of brass the thought which
had illumined hers. She added her own reflections with the rapidity of
a first glance, and this triple commerce with books, men, and herself,
which was never interrupted, gave to her intelligence a spring which
was never exhausted. What, however, in the midst of the contradictions
of her century were the principles which guided her, and of which she
shed around her the unfailing clearness? In recalling my recollections
of her, I should say they were Our Lord the life of heaven and earth;
the Catholic Church, the only society of the mind, because it alone
possesses the foundation of faith and the {745} inspiration of
charity; Rome, the centre of the world, because she is the centre of
the church; the human family progressive on a basis that does not
change; civil and political liberty, the daughter of Christianity;
commerce, industry, science, all grand things, but under things
grander still, honor and justice; all man's toil powerless to diminish
poverty without virtue; France, a people loved by God--its revolution
a vengeance and a mercy, a germ under ruins; philosophy, as old as
man, the vestibule of Christianity when not as yet enlightened by
faith, and its crown when faith has transformed it; reason, the inborn
light whence philosophy proceeds, and which Christianity perfects; the
future, an uncertain abyss, but in which God is ever found; error, a
crime sometimes, a weakness oftener; tolerance, an homage to the
truth, a proof of faith; force, which is next to impotency; authority,
an ascendency which has its source in antiquity and in right;
property, the union of man with the earth by labor, the first liberty
of the world, without which no other subsists; liberty the guaranty of
right against whatever is not right. These, if my memory is faithful,
are the sound which at every hour and under every touch was given
forth by that harmonious lyre which we now hear no more. A constant
simplicity in an equal elevation, a goodness which came from Christ,
gave to her doctrines, apart from their merit as truth, a personal
influence. In hearing her this double charm might be resisted, but she
could not be hated or despised; she could not but be loved, and
inspire the desire to become better. Happy mouth, which for forty
years made not an enemy to God, but which poured into a multitude of
wounded or languishing hearts the germ of the resurrection and the
rapture of life.

Yet, perhaps I deceive those who read me. They may persuade themselves
that the friend of the Count de Maistre and of so many eminent
Christians won their friendship only by the merit of a superior
intelligence. That would be much, but in Madame de Swetchine it was
not all. Intellect, when it comes from God, is inseparable from
charity. Madame de Swetchine loved the poor. Like Frederic Ozanam,
another blessing of Providence that we have lost, she knew how to
forget science in presence of misfortune, and her lips, accustomed to
things profound, had only divine things in the face of suffering and
death. In entering her dwelling this might not be believed. Pictures
by the great masters, dazzling candelabras, precious vases, books
enclosed under crystals richly encased, flowers and drapery, all
suggested the idea of costly magnificence hardly compatible with the
secret love of the unfortunate. But, as I have said, Madame de
Swetchine had in all things, even in duty, a point of view which was
her own. Persuaded that she owed it to her family and to her country,
to represent them worthily in the capital of a great people, she had
the art of being simple in the midst of a splendor which she
considered necessary, and to find economy in unseen privations. Long
before her death, for example, she had no carriage. She walked with
scrupulous exactness to the offices of St. Thomas of Aquina, her
parish church, although she had a private chapel, and though her age
as well as her infirmities would permit her to remain at home or go
out only in a carriage.

One day her secret escaped her, Troubled, I imagine by something she
had read, or some discourse which I had made her, she asked me with a
kind of anxiety if I believed that in giving a sixth part of her
income to the poor, she accomplished the precept of almsgiving.
Another time, when some early vegetables were served at her table, at
which I appeared surprised: "What would you?" she said to me; "there
are people who raise these for us; would it not be ungrateful for
those who can, not to recompense them for their labor?" This remark
opened to me a new order of ideas. I understood that riches should not
be {746} used simply to support those who cannot gain their own living
whether from want of strength or want of work, but that they should
also, according to their amount, be used to protect all the honest
developments of human toil. It is thus that in the beautiful days of
Venice, Genoa, Florence, and of Pisa, so many Christian merchants
raised immortal monuments to their country, and that at Rome so many
cardinals have built palaces. Magnificence is a virtue, says St.
Thomas Aquinas, when it is regulated by reason, and very different
from luxury, which is vanity and ruin.

At Madame de Swetchine's house was seen a mute, whom she had adopted
as if in return for the gift of speech, which she had received in so
eminent a degree. It was her custom to associate the care of the poor
with the happy events of her life. Each of them recalled a happiness
which he represented. She visited them on fixed days; she herself
carried them assistance, and above fill the light of her presence.
This intercourse kept alive in her the memory of the man, so quick to
be effaced from those who have not the memory of God. She continued it
even to the last days of her life; and when already the breath was
uncertain and trembling on her lips, she asked for accounts of her
poor. I saw, when we were seated around the sad couch of this
beautiful light, her dear mute watching from an adjoining chamber, a
vigilant sentinel of a life which had given her so much of itself, and
which was fading away between friendship remaining faithful, and
poverty remaining grateful.

Shall I speak, after the poor, of that beloved chapel, where the
former unbeliever of St. Petersburg opened her heart before the God of
her maturity? It was there, above all, that she lived, and there that
she had gathered into a narrow space all that taste and riches could
do to express and satisfy her love. Charming and pious sanctuary! you
could not contain many souls, but there was one which sufficed to fill
you, and which you filled also. Now you are no more. Death has
despoiled the seats where so many friends came to pray; where prayer
was so sweet, and peace so profound. We shall see you no more, nor
your images, nor your precious stones, nor the tabernacle where at the
side of the Lord reposed the virtue all entire of our friend. You had
her last thought; it was of you she murmured at the moment eternity
seized and carried her before God. Can I, then, better end than with
you? For whom should I still ask a remembrance, a tear, an admiration?

For several years Madame de Swetchine had had preludes of her end. The
consequences of a fall had left on her face a serious hurt which at
intervals and without warning, rendered speaking very painful. This
pain did not arrest the rapture of her communications. She remained
what she had ever been, the mistress of herself, and occupied with
all, winning hearts as in the days of her youth, when the Count de
Maistre sent her his portrait with these words, written by his own
hand:

  "Docile à l'appel plein de grâce
    De l'amitié qui vous attend,
  Volez, image, et prenez place
    Où l'original se plait tant."

Happier than this great man who saw only the first dawning of Sophie
de Soymonoff, we have enjoyed her perfect day; he formed her for us,
and happier herself than her master, she could, by the clearness of a
tempered reason, bring to her age a judgment in which hope surpassed
fear, and which best indicated the true route to minds desirous of
knowing and serving it. But at last we had to lose her. Every star
below fades, every treasure vanishes, every soul is recalled. God did
not spare his servant the agonies of death, but he left her to
surmount them the influence which she had acquired over all things by
seventy-five years of combat. Seated in her parlor to the last hour,
she continued to receive those whom she loved, to speak {747} to them
of themselves, and of the future, to foresee all, and to animate all.
Her reclining figure raised itself to smile, she kept the accent and
the thread of her thought, and her eyes with their serenity still
brightened the touching scene in which we disputed for her with God. A
last shock took her from us on the 10th September, 1857, at six
o'clock in the morning, having a few days before received the viaticum
and the unction of eternal life.

Alas! dear and illustrious lady. I cannot attach to your name the
glory of those Roman women whom St. Jerome has immortalized, and yet
you were of their race: you were of the race of those women who
followed Christ through all the stations of his pilgrimage, who
watched him as he died, who embalmed him in his tomb, and who were the
first to salute him on the morning of his resurrection. You believed
all and saw all. Born in schism, brought up in unbelief, God sent you
to open your eyes, one of the rarest minds of this century; his hand
touched your eyelids, and the sight which your country refused you,
came to you from foreign skies. A Christian, you aspired to the
liberty of Christ; conquered for, God through the language of France,
you wished to live under the French speech, and quitting a country you
always loved, you came among us with the modesty of a disciple and of
an exile. But you brought us more than we gave you. The light of your
soul illumined the land which received you, and for forty years you
were for us the sweetest echo of the gospel, and the surest road to
honor. No failure annoyed you, no success ensnared you; you were ever
the same, because truth and justice do not change. Ah! doubtless your
mission was to do us good in our pale West, but you had another
mission, I believe; you were near us as an advance guard of the
conversion of the East. Daughter of Greece! God wished to show us in
your person, as he already had in several of your compatriots, what
will, one day, be that old church of our first fathers in the faith,
when, brought back from a fatal separation, she shall receive from the
might of St. Peter that emission of unity which she formerly sent us
from Jerusalem and Antioch, and of which we guard for her with
fidelity the precious deposit. Yes, we trust the love which you
preserved for your country; trust the presentiments of your
Evangelist, the great Count de Maistre; trust in the long hopes of the
Latin Church, and its constant respect for Christian Greece. Yes,
sooner or later, the East will bend before the West, as a brother
before a brother. St. Sophia will hear resound again in the two
languages the symbol which has not ceased to unite us. Liberty of
conscience, acquired by the human race, will no longer permit error to
guard itself by persecution. Veils will fall; the obscure victims of
political fear shake off their chains; all minds from one end of
Europe to the other will follow the inclination of nature and grace;
and if there remain, as there must, unbelievers and Protestants, at
least there will remain no longer a nation crucified for error. In
those days, dear and noble friend whom we have lost, and live here to
weep--in those days, you will raise a little your cold stone at
Montmartre, you will breathe an instant the air in which you lived,
and recognizing at once the balm of your first and of your second
country, you will bless God who called you before others, and to whom
you responded with that faith without stain which enlightened us
ourselves, and by that unconquerable hope which sustained us against
all the failures of a century so fruitful in lapses and abortions.

--------

{748}

ORIGINAL.

THE CRY.

  I sail on an ocean at midnight.
    With darkness above and below;
  And never a star in the heaven
    To pilot me where I would go.

  Fierce tempests that roar in the midnight,
    The tempests both cruel and strong,
  Are driving me hither and thither;
    What wonder if I should go wrong?

  Many thousands of others are sailing,
    Like me, o'er this tempest-vexed sea,
  All bound for the very same haven,
    All bound to the same land with me.

  But some to the leftward are sailing.
    Whilst others they steer to the right;
  I oft hear the voice of the captains
    Who hail me aloud through the night.

  Each one, though so diversely sailing,
    Calls out to me, "You are astray!
  For this is the course you should steer by
    To enter the kingdom of day.

  "See, yonder the light shineth clearly,
    Right full on the way that we go."
  But which is the right and the true way,
    Oh! tell me, for how can I know.

  I look where they're pointing before them,
    But never a star do I see;
  Where they tell me the beacon is shining
    Is nothing but darkness to me.

  My soul is athirst with its longing
    To rest on the beautiful shore.
  Where is felt not the surge of the billows.
    Where the tempest is heard nevermore:

{749}

  Where the gardens of amaranth blossom,
    And meadows of green asphodel
  Fill the air with a fragrance immortal;
    Where the satisfied voyagers dwell

  Who have passed o'er this ocean before me,
    And rest with the holy of old,
  In the city whose walls are of jasper.
    And roofs of the finest of gold.

  O Lord of the wonderful city!
    O King of the kingdom of day!
  Let the light of thy truth shine out clearly
    To pilot me safe on my way!


THE ANSWER.

  I hear thee, my child, in the darkness;
    I know where thou wishest to be:
  But why in a pilotless vessel
    Didst venture alone on this sea?

  Thy way is in doubt and in darkness.
    Because thou dost voyage alone,
  Rejecting the old Ship of safety.
    To choose a frail bark of thine own.

  That vessel is sailing beside thee.
    Its course the great Pilot controls.
  The tempest will ne'er overcome it--
    It never will wreck on the shoals.

  Who sail in this old Ship of safety,
    Know nothing of doubt or of strife.
  How can they with him who commands it--
    The Way, and the Truth, and the Life?

  And all through the mist and the darkness
    Faith shows a mysterious way,
  O'er which sails the good ship of Peter
    Straight on to the kingdom of day!

A.Y.

--------

{750}


ORIGINAL.

THE GODFREY FAMILY; OR, QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.

CHAPTER XXIV.

DEATH OF MRS. GODFREY.

A missive soon brought M. Bertolot to the trio. He came as secretly as
possible, and departed in the same way; not so secretly, however, as
to prevent his visit being shortly made known to Alfred Brookbank,
who, with the view of making a final breach between Sir Philip and his
wife, had set spies to watch the movements of the party. He discovered
from the jealousy of the neighbors the intimacy at the Irish cottage,
and surmised the attraction which produced these visits, but could
make no use of this surmise until his agent recognized in M. Bertolot
the French priest who had accompanied the countess to England. The
secrecy of the visit told its purport. Alfred now informed Sir Philip,
as if he had just made the discovery, that Annie had been in Eugene's
company all the time she had been away; that Catholics were their only
society, and that a priest visited them in secret, adding that there
could be no rational doubt that Lady Conway and her mother were both
Catholics.

Sir Philip's indignation was excessive. Without taking time to
consider the matter at all, he ordered his carriage and drove
post-haste to Estcourt Hall, to which place the family were now
summoned in consequence of the increasing weakness of Mrs. Godfrey.

Mrs. Godfrey had been brought there by short stages, and had arrived
the night before. Mr. Godfrey and Hester were there to meet her, and
to Hester's great joy she was once more pressed lovingly to her
mother's heart, who was more than happy to see her children united
again in affection. Adelaide was hourly expected; and when Sir Philip
made his appearance he was supposed to come in obedience to a similar
summons. Mr. Godfrey received him; but Sir Philip's agitation was such
that he made no answer to the customary greeting. He looked round the
room, and seeing they were alone, he said in a choking voice:

"Is Lady Conway here?"

"She is; she arrived last night."

"And her brother Eugene?"

"Is here also."

"And have they been together all this time? O Mr. Godfrey, how you
have deceived me!"

Mr. Godfrey was puzzled. He was constitutionally timid, and certainly
was just now in no mood for quarrelling; so he said quietly: "Why, has
any harm come of it?"

"Harm! What can be greater harm than that Annie and her mother should
both of them be papists?"

"Is it that which frightens you? Be composed, my dear friend; put such
thoughts from your mind; Annie has too much sense for that. And my
poor wife, she has been a little weak in the head lately, it is true,
but she is not given that way in the least degree; besides, I greatly
fear she cannot live long; her strength is less than I could have
imagined. Come, and see her."

But Sir Philip was absorbed in one idea. "I tell you," said he, "that
the mischief is already done; that your wife and mine have both been
on their knees to a priest, and that the secrets of both families are
already on the way to Rome."

"Impossible!" said Mr. Godfrey.

{751}

"Try," said Sir Philip; "ask the question; if they dare deny it, I
will produce the proofs."

Mr. Godfrey laid his hand on the bell-rope. A servant appeared.
"Request Mr. Eugene to come to me immediately." The man bowed and
disappeared. Eugene soon entered. The door was carefully closed. Sir
Philip could scarcely keep himself from springing on him; but Mr.
Godfrey stood between them, and said in a hollow voice: "Eugene,
answer without circumlocution or disguise, say yes or no, are your
mother and sister Annie Catholics?"

"They are."

Mr. Godfrey pointed to the door; he could not speak. Eugene left the
room. The two strong men trembled with impotent rage.

"A curse has fallen upon the house," muttered Mr. Godfrey at length,
as he paced the room. "Who could have dreamed of this?"

"Mr. Godfrey," said Sir Philip, in tones of thunder, "you will tell
your daughter that she never again will enter my doors. Prepare what
settlements you please, send them to my lawyer; anything in reason I
will consent to, but see her again I will not."

He quitted the house, nor did he ever see his injured wife again.

Scarcely had Sir Philip's carriage driven away when another drove up,
containing Adelaide, the young Dowager Duchess of Durimont. She
entered the house in a scarcely less agitated state than Sir Philip
had left it in; but her excitement proceeded altogether from a
different cause. Among Adelaide's numerous faults, want of affection
for her mother certainly did not form one. On the contrary, she was
accustomed not only to love but to reverence her mother as a very
superior woman. Through the sunshine of youth, while enjoying the
warmth of a mother's fondness and protection, Adelaide's affections
had strengthened without that sentimentality of expression which Mrs.
Godfrey would have taught her to repress had she seen it manifested,
but they were none the less deep or tender for having hitherto found
no occasion, of great display. On the first intimation she had
received of her mother's illness, Adelaide had hastened at once to
Estcourt Hall, and was with difficulty persuaded by Mr. Godfrey to
retire. He feared that Adelaide's presence would but increase the
excitement under which Mrs. Godfrey labored, and as the doctor's
opinion was to that effect also, Adelaide was compelled, however
reluctantly, to yield. They gave her no clew whatever as to the cause
of her mother's malady, and though she had a general idea of some
unworthy transaction in which Eugene was wronged and Hester enriched,
she did not enter into particulars, nor mentally connect the facts
with her mother's illness. The only effect it had upon her was to
estrange her from Hester, and in a slighter degree from her father
also.

When she heard that Eugene and Annie were summoned to her mother's
side, again she endeavored to share their cares; but Mr. Godfrey was
fearful of suffering too great intercourse between Adelaide and
Eugene, and used his utmost endeavors to dissuade her. He insisted
that the physicians absolutely ordered that none should approach her
save those she asked for. The father dreaded the judgment of the
daughter when she should know the cause of her mother's trouble. He
was accustomed to be looked up to by his children, and shrank from
incurring the disapproval of this one in particular; for Adelaide had
ever been considered the most talented and the most intellectual of
the family. He had a sort of consciousness that to the mother's
influence in veiling his foibles from his children's eyes, he owed
much of that reverence with which they habitually approached him; and
he could but feel that he had made but a poor return for a life of
devotedness, when he refused to yield to the first {752} important
demand she had ever made him, and that in favor of his own son.

But now Eugene had written to Adelaide to say her mother was calm, and
would welcome her. Adelaide entered her father's house pale and
trembling, an attendant supporting her.

"Is she still alive?" she whispered, as she saw her father; then, as
if fearful he would still oppose her seeing Mrs. Godfrey's, she
refused by a gesture to enter the sitting-room, but made her way at
once up the broad staircase to the room her mother had ever been wont
to occupy. She opened the door, and flinging herself on her knees by
the side of the bed, took the pale hand, and, as she kissed it, said,
with streaming eyes: "Ah! dear mother, why was I not permitted to come
to you before?"

"And who forbade you, my love?"

"My father said the doctors--"

Mrs. Godfrey looked at her husband, who had followed Adelaide into the
room; there was surprise and sorrow, but no anger on her countenance.
She pressed Adelaide's hand and whispered, "Perhaps he was right, I
was unconscious and delirious a long while, my poor child; but now you
will stay with me the little time that I remain on earth."

"You feel better to-day, my dear mother," said Annie, hopefully.

"I do, but it cannot last; we must not deceive ourselves. I am glad to
see my dear Adelaide, but I cannot talk to her yet."

The effort of saying even so much exhausted her; she lay back, and
they watched long hours in silence by her pillow.

Day after day passed away, the loving children surrounding her, and
Mr. Godfrey sharing their watch. All traces of excitement had gone, in
the solemnity of that watch. Mrs. Godfrey seemed so thoroughly in
peace, that that peace seemed to pass into the circle of hearts
surrounding her. She became, however, perceptibly weaker everyday. Ten
days after Adelaide's arrival she whispered to her one morning: "Tell
your father I wish to speak to him."

Adelaide summoned her father. Whatever were the words spoken, they
appeared to distress him very much. He gazed at his wife as though in
a stupor. She held his hand and faintly whispered, "My last wishes,
can you refuse them?" "No," said he, half choked, "he shall be sent
for;" and he left her to seek Eugene. That evening a stranger was
ushered by Eugene, as it were by stealth, into his mother's room.
Annie alone was present. The last sacraments of the church were
administered, and the stranger priest passed down the back staircase
so secretly that none knew of or suspected his visit save those
present and Mr. Godfrey, who had insisted on such secrecy being
observed.

Adelaide had at length gathered all the facts concerning her brother
being disinherited, and the effect the transaction had produced on
Mrs. Godfrey's mind. A great feeling of repulsion for Hester was the
consequence, and her manner soon betrayed symptoms of the feelings
that swayed her.

"I can never again call her sister," she whispered, half-aloud, one
day, in her meditation, by her mother's side; Mrs. Godfrey's eyes
opened. "My children, love one another," she said. "Love, for he loved
even sinners; forgive, for he forgave those who crucified him." She
sank to sleep after pronouncing these words, and when the watchers
bent over her to see what prolonged that sleep to so unusual a time,
they found that the sweet purified spirit had already winged its way
to the mansions of the blessed.

Of all the mourners there, perhaps the grief of Adelaide was the most
violent. The feelings of Annie and Eugene were tempered by the hope
that their mother was now happier than she had ever been before.
Hester's were modified by the deep meditation in which she was plunged
by the fact that her mother had received full insight into that faith
of which she had caught but a glimpse, and of which {753} she so
earnestly desired to know more. But she dared not question Eugene or
Annie, for fear of angering her father and her mother! "O mother, pray
for me!" was in her heart, and checked the outward demonstration of'
her grief.

They were standing round the coffin, those four children, whom she had
brought so faithfully through the cares and dangers of childhood! No
pride of station had withdrawn her from fulfilling her nursery duties;
no sloth, no command of riches had caused her to delegate to hireling
hands the cultivation of their infant minds; riches to them had been
as an accessory, not, as too often happens, causing a withdrawal of
maternal offices. How had they requited her? Oh! happy they who can
stand by the bier of those to whom they are bound by duty or by love,
and feel no remorse for duty oft neglected.

Adelaide was standing on one side at the head of the coffin, rapt in
grief, Eugene and Annie were on the other side. Hester at the foot
absorbed in intense thought, but tearless and as it seemed to Adelaide
not paying homage in her thoughts to that dear mother. "Was she even
then dwelling on her own wild schemes?" The thought maddened Adelaide,
and forgetting the self-control for which she was usually so
remarkable, she in the overmastering impulse of the moment seized
Hester's arm, led her to the head of the coffin, and, pointing to the
sweet pale face before them, said in a frenzied tone, regardless of
the presence of Mr. Godfrey, who just then entered the room: "And did
you dare to wring the heart of that most noble woman? Was it for you,
whom she loved so dearly, to crush her loving spirit, and then stand
by so calmly contemplating her remains? How my heart loathes you!"

"Hush! hush! dear sister," said Eugene tenderly, as he disengaged her
clasp from Hester, who fell nearly fainting into her father's arms.
"Hush! Adelaide, hush! she bade us love each other; you have
misconceived this matter. Come with me, I will explain it"--and he
took her to another apartment, and tried to make her understand
Hester's intentions of ultimately settling all according to equity,
while Mr. Godfrey and Annie did their best, to restore Hester to her
usual equanimity.

Mr. Godfrey was so much moved by this affront put upon his darling
that he forgot his intention of keeping Mrs. Godfrey's change of
religion secret, and in the evening he called Adelaide to his private
study, and there explained that the delusions under which her dear
mother had labored had no particular reference to Hester, but were
caused by religion. "In fact,'" said; Mr. Godfrey, "what she wanted
the day you came to summon me to her, was a Catholic priest. Of course
I refused her nothing; the priest came that night, but secretly, out
of respect to the reputation of the family."

"Was my mother a Catholic?"

"She became one latterly."

"And was it for her religion that you persecuted her?"

"Persecuted her! Why, Adelaide, how dare you apply such words to your
father? Your mother was never persecuted; even when out of her mind
she had everything she asked for, and as I tell you, a Catholic priest
attended her the other evening. Persecuted, indeed!"

Adelaide cared not to pursue a theme which brought her out as her
father's accuser, though the impression still remained on her mind
that injustice had occasioned the illness and subsequent death of her
mother, and this prevented her from recalling the offending words.

The father and daughter parted somewhat coldly that evening, nor were
matters much mended by the family consultation held shortly afterward
as to what was to become of Annie. Sir Philip's message was now first
delivered to her, as Alfred Brookbank had arrived as his agent, with
offers of settlement for Mr. Godfrey's approbation.

{754}

"And is Annie not to see her own children again?" asked the duchess,
as she gazed on the speechless, the agonized face of her sister.

"So says Sir Philip."

"But have you reasoned with him on the subject? Have you protested
against such a monstrous piece of tyranny?"

"It were useless, may it please your grace," interposed the soft low
tones of Alfred Brookbank, who was secretly gloating in the agony of
his victim. "It were perfectly useless. Sir Philip's hatred of
papistry--"

"Please to speak with more respect of the Holy Catholic Church, Mr.
Brookbank," interrupted the duchess.

"I beg pardon; I knew not that your grace--"

"It matters not what you knew," haughtily rejoined the duchess. "It
behoves every man of common sense, or of common education, to speak
respectfully of a faith which for so many centuries has formed the
religion not only of the commonalty but of the heroes of the race. The
names of Alfred the Great and Charlemagne, of Copernicus and Michael
Angelo, with countless others, may weigh a little perhaps against the
opinion of so enlightened an individual as Sir Philip Conway."

The withering sarcasm of tone with which this was uttered made Mr.
Godfrey bite his lips. He felt at once that he had not lowered her
mother in Adelaide's estimation by informing her of that mother's
becoming a Catholic; and he began to wonder which would be the next
seceder from rationalistic principle. "A curse is fallen upon our
house," he again muttered between his teeth.

The conference was necessarily a painful one; but it was with
indescribable surprise and emotion that the assembled family heard Mr.
Godfrey propose that Annie should take refuge in the convent in which
dwelt her friend Euphrasie.

"Why, papa;" whispered Hester, "have you changed your opinion of
convents? You used to call them sinks of iniquity. Why do you wish to
imprison Annie in one?"

"Hush, my dear," answered her father, in the lowest possible whisper,
"all convents are not alike. I happen to know the antecedents of the
superioress and of several of the nuns in this one; they are all
ladies of high birth, and are altogether above suspicion. They are
austere fanatics, that is all. Annie will take no vows, and there she
will see the extent of the folly to which religious enthusiasm lays us
open. If a twelvemonth's residence among the poor Clares does not set
her brain in order, then she is irrecoverably lost to us--we may set
her down as incurably insane."

While this little dialogue was going on, Eugene and Adelaide, jointly
and severally, were urging Annie to make a home with one or other of
themselves, each promising to do the utmost to regain for her the
custody of her children; but Annie, while she mournfully thanked them
for their kindness, decided that, at least till she had taken time for
reflection, she would abide by her father's advice, that is, provided
the sisterhood would consent to receive her.

After vainly endeavoring to shake her resolution, the duchess resolved
on accompanying her to the north to see whether suitable arrangements
could be made for her comfort.



CHAPTER XXV.

THE JOURNEY--THE CONVENT.

It was well for Annie that the care of a sister watched over her
during that sad journey, for sometimes her mind seemed almost to have
lost its balance, and she would weep frantically over the loss of her
little ones, as one who would not be comforted; then with a sudden
revolution of feeling she would stop, and say, "Thy will be done, O
Lord," and would begin to say her beads, as Eugene had taught her,
with most edifying resignation. After awhile the thought of her little
ones would make her weep anew, and again the thought of God would
check her tears.

{755}

These alternations were for Annie alone, however. Adelaide felt
unmitigated disgust at the barbarity which could sever a loving mother
from her infants.

"As if those babes were safer with that bigoted, soft-pated Mrs.
Bedford than with my intellectual, high-minded sister!" she thought.
Certainly the duchess's horror of Catholicity had wonderfully abated
of late. There was little said at first between the sisters on that
three days' journey. But once or twice the exclamation on Adelaide's
lips, "My mother a Catholic!" showed which direction her thoughts were
taking. Once, when Annie was a little calmer than usual, she suddenly
asked her: "What made my mother desire to be a Catholic, Annie?"

"The grace of God, as I humbly hope," answered her sister.

"The grace of God! What do you mean by that, Annie?"

"I mean the special provision with which God deigns to bless every
human soul that desires it with knowledge and love of himself. Adam
had this grace conferred on him at his creation. He lost it, not only
for himself, but for us also. But Christ has repurchased it for all
who come to him. My mother heard this voice pleading within her for a
higher life. She listened and obeyed. This is what theologians call
co-operation with grace. The grace of God needs man's co-operation to
be efficacious, because God will not compel the human will. He desires
free service."

"Ah, yes," said the duchess, "all other were a mockery. Nature is
bound by stern, inevitable law; that is easily seen: but intelligent
love must have freedom for its sphere of action, or it ceases to be
the love of intelligence; that, too, I comprehend. I thought your
words intended to convey some mysterious action of God on the soul not
given to all men."

"All do not correspond with it, by a large majority, I fear," said
Annie.

"And think you God speaks to all alike?" asked Adelaide.

"Theologians say that a grace corresponded to merits another,"
answered Annie, "and that one rejected or unused often loses that
grace, so slighted. This, at least, we know: God loves us all, and
places at our option higher degrees of spiritual attainment than we
oftentimes profit by."

"God! What is God?" murmured Adelaide. "Truly a _Deus absconditus_ for
man."

"'He who followeth me walketh not in darkness,' said the Man-God,"
replied Annie. "God was a hidden God for the nations of olden time,
perhaps; but for us, Adelaide, he is God manifested in the flesh! and
to as many as receive him gives he power to become 'sons of God.'"

Where was Adelaide's sharpness at repartee as of old? She meditated
now instead of replying; and Annie solaced her own sorrows by praying
for her sister's conversion. It was in something like tranquillity of
spirit that, she reached the district in which the convent was
situated.

The next day the duchess accompanied her sister to the dwelling of the
sisterhood. They found it even poorer than they had anticipated. When
it had been first contemplated, Eugene had handed over a well-filled
purse to M. Bertolot with strict injunction to, procure everything
needful; but Eugene's idea of what was needed differed from that of
the superioress. "We did not take vows of poverty," she said, "to live
with every elegance like ladies. The spirit of our holy father, St.
Francis, as also that of our beloved mother and foundress, St. Clare,
requires the utmost plainness and poverty compatible with existence."
Eugene's large offering was refused, and when he on his part refused
to replace it in his pocket, it was distributed among the sick poor.

{756}

Euphrasie received her friends with open arms, and conducted them to
the superioress with love and respect. Many of the sisterhood had now
gathered together, and even postulants were not wanting. The
superioress greeted the ladies with calm dignity, and entered with
much feeling into the account given to Euphrasie in her presence of
Mrs. Godfrey's conversion and happy death.

"And am I to understand, dear ladies," said the superioress, "that you
also share these blessed dispositions?"

"Annie is a Catholic," answered the duchess, "and a persecuted one.
Sir Philip has shut the doors on the mother of his children because
she has embraced Catholicity."

Euphrasie, by a sudden impulse, rose and knelt by Annie's side;
kissing her hands and bathing them with her tears. "Now, God be
praised for all his mercies!" she said: "How shall we welcome you,
dear martyr, for his sake?"

Annie could only reply by returning Euphrasie's caresses and
affection. She placed her arm round her friend, and compelled her to
sit by her side.

"Will you ask the reverend mother to let me stay with you awhile, dear
Euphrasie?" she said.

"What! Here? here in the convent? in this poor place?" replied
Euphrasie. "You who have been, cradled in luxury and reared in
abundance? You know not what you ask, dear friend; it is impossible."

Annie looked at the superioress; she read more promise there. "Dear
reverend mother," she said, "Almighty God has seen how unfit I am as
yet to train my beloved children in the narrow path of mortification
and of humiliation, trodden by our Divine Master. He has sent me to
learn it of you. Will you accept me as your disciple in Jesus Christ?
At least, I can promise you reverence and submission."

"You are welcome, most welcome, my daughter," said the superioress,
"and may Almighty God, in his own good time, restore your children to
you, to be brought up in the faith and love of Christ."

"Thank you, dear mother; and if you and the dear sisters will assist
me by your prayers, doubtless he will. He has but sent me here to
school awhile, that I may be able to teach them rightly. I stand as
yet but on the threshold of the church; I have looked in and seen her
glories, but selfish and worldly as I have been from childhood, I
scarce know how to share in her unworldly triumphs."

"Dear cousin," said Euphrasie, "you must not defame yourself. You were
ever kind and generous, and now your humility will surely bring you a
blessing. We will try to make you happy here."

"Indeed, yes," said the superioress, "it is a great consolation to us
to receive you. Your heart, so long accustomed to the incredulity of
the age, needs rest--such rest as is produced by dwelling on the love
of Christ for us. After a while it will become for you a necessity to
reciprocate that love, by pouring yourself out as it were in deeds of
charity and kindness for the pure love of him who died for you. Once
accustomed to converse familiarly with him, you will no longer regard
him as divided from yourself, but as one same self with you, so that
with St. Paul you may be able to exclaim, '_I_ live now, not _I_, but
Christ liveth in me.' Yes, my dear daughter, from him you may hope all
things for your children as well as for yourself. Detach yourself from
this world, seek Christ crucified, that you may repose surely in his
love."

Adelaide listened and wondered. She looked around at the bare walls,
the uncarpeted floor, the plain deal tables, and the common
rush-chairs. "Is the rest of the house like this?" she asked of
herself: "and am I to leave Annie here?"

Begging the superioress to excuse her for an instant, she drew Annie
apart, and urged upon her that it was useless for her to subject
herself to such privations as these.

{757}

"Come home with me, dear Annie, I beg of you."

"Nay, sister, think not so meanly of me, as to deem that I cannot
endure for a few weeks or months, privations which these dear ladies
suffer always."

"Oh! they are nuns, you know."

"But that does not alter, their nature, and once, they were in the
world, rich, titled, honored. I would learn of them what has given
them power thus to trample the world beneath their feet. Leave me for
a while, my sister; if I find the life too hard for me, I will come to
you."

"You promise?"

"I do, believe me, Adelaide."

And with this promise Adelaide was obliged to be content. She prepared
to wend her way homewards. As she rose for that purpose, the
superioress said: "Your grace will have a solitary journey. May I
venture to offer you a book to beguile the tedium of the way?"
Adelaide smilingly assented, and on getting in her carriage, Euphrasie
placed into her hands Avrillon's meditations for every day in Lent.
Absorbed at first in her own thoughts, Adelaide, heeded the book but
little: but after a while, to relieve ennui, she began its perusal,
and was soon astonished at the interest it excited within her breast.


CHAPTER XXVI.

On the morning of Annie and Adelaide's departure for the convent, Mr.
Godfrey had ordered breakfast for himself in his library, and had
summoned Hester to attend him, on the pretext of not feeling well, but
in reality to avoid a parting scene with his children. Hester, on the
other hand, dreaded nothing more than they should depart without
farewell; she had keenly felt Adelaide's words beside her mother's
coffin, but in despite of her efforts could not effect an interview
which should dispel the ill-feeling that oppressed her. Her father's
jealousy of her holding any private intercourse with the rest of the
family on the one hand, and the coldness of Adelaide on the other,
seemed to present insurmountable obstacles. At length she heard the
carriage draw up, and the voices departing; hastily she quitted the
breakfast table, and rushed into the hall. The travellers were already
there; she approached Annie with tears in her eyes. Annie was too sad
herself to be angry just then, she imprinted on her sister's forehead
the silent kiss her gesture pleaded for; but Adelaide went forward and
seated herself in the carriage, waving her hand for a general adieu,
and Hester fell back weeping on her brother's shoulder as the vehicle
drove away from the door.

"O Eugene! I had no hand in this; tell me at least that you believe
me," sobbed the poor girl.

"I do believe you, and so will Adelaide after a time; take comfort,
Hester."

"I cannot, with them all against me. Oh! who could ever dream our love
for each other could melt away to this?"

"It is not, melted a way, dear sister, only obscured; it will one day
return warmer and brighter than ever."

"Then you, you will write to me, you will not cast me off?"

"Never, never will I cast you off! never cease to love you!"

"Then, Eugene, you will help me also; I want to read, to know the
cause of these unhappy divisions."

"And my father?"

"O Eugene! that is the misery my father must not know. Eugene, I love
my father; there can be nothing wrong in that, he has only me now. We
cannot help that; but I must be true to him, I cannot break his heart.
He must not know we correspond or that I read your books, or that I am
thinking on the subjects he hates so much. He need not know it; I am a
woman now, I have a right to my {758} freedom. If I conceal my
thought, it is out of love to him; you know well how it would pain him
were he to suspect I read a work that treats on religion."

"Our correspondence must be secret; then?"

"I fear it must; at least till my father gets over this miserable
prejudice. You can write and send to me under cover to Norah, my
little maid. I will send her to you presently for some books, and now
good-by, my father will be wanting me. Pray for us both, Eugene."

Mr. Godfrey was considerably unhinged by the change that had taken
place in his family, and he watched Hester closely. She had truly said
she was now his last hope. That she was dejected at her mother's death
could not surprise him or any one, but that her sprightliness had
altogether departed, that her energy was depressed, her color faded,
and her appetite gone, were sources of great anxiety. Again he took
her to Yorkshire, to endeavor to reinspire her with interest in the
promotion of the "March of Intellect."

Hester did not feel justified in withdrawing her interest or exertions
from the institutions which she had raised and fostered; but it must
be confessed that these institutions were gradually assuming the
character of mere money-making factories. Mr. Godfrey, dissatisfied
with certain losses, had engaged a man of business to overlook the
whole concern, and in addition to a stipulated sum, this person was to
receive a certain percentage of the profits. This rendered him
particularly sharp-sighted as to doing matters economically; that is,
with the fewest number of hands, at the lowest rate of wages, and
oftentimes employing children in lieu of adults.

"This is altogether, foreign to our first idea," said Hester, "and I
do not approve of it at all."

"It cannot be helped, my dear; no enterprise that will not pay can be
proceeded with in the long run."

"But these children shut up in the close rooms at eight or ten years
of age, for such long hours! it will numb every faculty they possess."

"If their parents are willing to permit it, I do not see what we have
to do with it."

"O father! ignorant people often sell their children, without knowing
the harm they do; but this cannot be the way in which the world is to
improve."

"You were not satisfied with the results of your new plan, which did
not make money. I have put the matter into Mr. Fisher's hands for a
while, because, I know that in his hands, if money is to be made, it
will be made: his talent for business is unrivalled."

"Money is not the principle of progression."

"Nothing can be done without it, at any rate."

These discussions annoyed Mr. Godfrey the more because he felt the
inconsistency between the past idea and the present practice. On the
other hand, Hester was not in possession of the principle she was
seeking; that was acknowledged with regret on her part, though she by
no means gave up the search, and still less rested contented with the
inferior motive of placing all development, all future improvement on
the mere basis of money-making.

Among Mr. Godfrey's friends, one of the most intimate, because the
most scientific after the fashion of this world's science, was a Mr.
Spencer--a gentleman whose works had already acquired for him a great
share of reputation, and who was gradually acquiring great influence
over Mr. Godfrey. He was a man of about five-and-thirty years of age,
being some twelve years older than our Hester, whom he greatly
admired, notwithstanding that he found her mind a little difficult to
understand. Perhaps he liked her the better that she puzzled him, that
she took different views from him. Certain it is that he haunted her
society whenever he could find an excuse, and Mr. Godfrey seemed
particularly well pleased to find them together, as he {759} hoped
that interviews with such a learned man would dissipate any tendency
to religion, especially the Catholic religion, that Hester might be
fostering in consequence of the proclivities of her mother and of the
rest of the family in that direction.

. . . . .

'Twas autumn, a walk through the woods had brought the trio together,
and together they returned to the house; the gusty and fitful wind
scattering in their path the tinted leaves that fell like showers from
the trees beneath which they were passing. Wild clouds were hurrying
through space, as if summoned suddenly to assist at some tempestuous
commotion, and though many miles distant was the sea, the roar of
waves was heard beating on the far-off shore; every sign betokened
that a storm was at hand. The pedestrians hurried to the house, and
scarcely had they reached it, than impulsively they went to the window
to gaze in mute amazement at the scene. A sudden wind was uprooting
trees, unroofing houses, and carrying off all things before it. An old
barn long doomed to be pulled down, which was but awaiting hands to
perform the work, suddenly reeled like a drunken man, and in a few
moments more fell to the ground with a great crash. The servant girls
screamed in the hall, "the men went in for shelter, they must be
crushed to death!" The door was opened that the serving-men might rush
to the rescue, but the wind swept like a tornado through the hall,
tiles were rattling from the house-top, bricks tumbling from the
chimneys. To leave the house was impossible, none could stand against
such a blast. A large boarded roof that was being prepared by the
carpenters was carried off the scaffold, and after being for some time
balanced in the air as if it were a paper kite, fell at length with a
loud splash into the lake some quarter of a mile distant from the spot
whence it was first uplifted. The scene was at once terrific and
sublime, and but for the screams and sobs of the girls, who feared to
have some father, brother, or friend buried beneath the fallen
building, Hester could have enjoyed the spectacle; but she was
occupied in endeavoring to soothe the panic-stricken tremblers, and
for consolation what could she say? She could but stand by and
sympathize, and utter words of hope, meaningless because unfelt. It
was a relief when the storm abated to find that all the men had been
able to quit the building at the first creaking of the rafters, and by
crawling on all fours had reached a place where they lay safely till
the storm had passed--all save one, and he was protected by the manner
in which the beams fell over him, they being prevented from falling
perpendicularly by some obstacles, and formed a sloping defensive
shelter for the young man who happened to find himself in that
particular corner, from which, when the storm abated, he was
extricated by his companions, with no other injury suffered than the
alarm endured for several hours; and in this alarm he had many
sharers, for few of the neighbours could rest in peace until he was
drawn forth unhurt.

A feeling of relief pervaded the party as with closed shutters, drawn
curtains, and every appurtenance of comfort, they drew round the
bright coal fire, which shed a glowing, cheering warmth throughout the
apartment--while the rain which had succeeded to this storm of wind
was pattering against the windows, enhancing the comfort within by a
sense of dreariness without.

"How remorseless is nature!" said Mr. Spence, as at length the silence
which had pervaded the three friends became almost painful; "decay,
change, transition, pain, with transient gleams of beauty, as if to
render the surrounding gloom more painful still, and no escape: how
remorseless is nature!"

"All things have their bright side, I believe," she said, "even so
terrible a storm as to-day's. It is good to feel a grand sensation
sometimes, it stirs up the very depths of one's being."

{760}

"How would it have been if those men had been crushed to death, or
worse, hopelessly maimed for life?"

"That did not happen. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof."

"But similar events often do happen. The battle-field, the pestilence,
man's evil passions, or the remorseless sea tossing man's feeble bark
in sport against the rocks, cause many a grand sensation that is not
good. See in that newly settled swamp the settler's wife surprised
amid her household drudgeries with a startling shriek, and, hurrying
to the water's edge, to find a rattlesnake coiled round her prattler's
leg, inflicting the painful sting that causes the innocent child to
expire in torture: do you call that good?"

"It does not follow that there is no good because we see it not! The
design of the creation may involve a hidden good to be evolved out of
what seems evil."

"And meantime the longer we pursue our researches, the more we become
convinced that an all-pervading inexorable law governs events by
necessary connection; that there is no resisting the force of this
law, no disarming it. All that we can do is to study it, and take what
comfort we can individually by an intelligent application of it to
ourselves."

"And our neighbor's happiness is to tell for nothing?"

"You will do no good by forcing any system on men for which they are
not prepared," said Mr. Spence. "Ideas remain inoperative when the
civilization or intelligence to which it is addressed is unequal to
its realization; practice does not depend on theories, but on
development, on individual assimilation of the principles, if I may be
permitted to use this word. For instance, moral theories are ever the
same. The Hindoo, the Chinaman, the follower of Zoroaster and the
transcribers of the precepts of Menu, declare with the Jew and the
Christian, that the law is to be honest, virtuous, heedful of others'
pleasure or good, to seek justice, love mercy, reverence age, and
submit to all lawful authority, etc.--each precept requiring a willing
obedience; yet where are the fruits to be found?"

"But do men believe these precepts to be the rule of right?"

"Theoretically they are not disputed, but practically man is made by
the external objects that surround him. Give society a system below
its advancement, it rises superior to it; give it one above it, it
does not come up to it. This is observable in nations. Among the lower
order of French Catholics there is less of bigotry and civilization,
with more of the real charity enjoined by religion, than among the
lower order of Scotch Protestants, despite the theory of their
theology.   [Footnote 206] Again, the Swedes and the inhabitants of
some of the Swiss Cantons are less civilized than the French, and
therefore it avails them little that they three centuries ago adopted
a creed to which the force of habit and the influence of tradition now
oblige them to cling. Whoever has travelled in these countries will
see how little the inhabitants have benefited by their religion, while
in France you will see an illiberal religion accompanied by liberal
views, and a creed full of superstitions professed by a people among
whom superstition is comparatively rare."  [Footnote 206]

  [Footnote 206: See Buckle's Civilization in England.  Vol i. pages
  191-193, from which above is extracted. (There are two references
  and only one footnote on this page.--Transcriber)]

"That would rather go to prove Catholicity to be better than
Protestanism," said Hester; "at least, if liberal views and tolerant
actions be a proof of the advancement of society."

Mr. Godfrey bit his lips, and Mr. Spence, suddenly mindful of certain
proceedings in his friend's family not exactly of the tolerative
description, hastily essayed to cover his mistake:

"Practically," he said, "men's religious demonstrations are a thing
apart from their theory, and are governed by the character of
individual mental development, rather than (what they are assumed to
be) a power governing development."

{761}

"I think that proposition illogical. If religion acts at all, it must
act according to its character as a power. Granting that with many it
is a dead letter, without any action, yet with those it does
influence, its action must be the legitimate result of its doctrine;
and if the civilization resulting from Catholicity is superior, is not
that the superior agency?"

"You forget how the guardians of the Catholic faith have ever
persecuted science; that proves them intolerant."

"Not necessarily. The guardians of a faith, amid a crude, undeveloped
people, may well be jealous of novel notions, dispersed out of their
connexion amid an unthinking, unreflecting populace. If the object is
to raise people from the phase of their present existence to a higher
phase, our late experiments have shown that it needs caution in
disturbing present moral influences. The mass are not philosophers;
they will not travel the whole round of a series to trace the whole
chain of what you call the necessary connection. Were I to begin my
experiment again I should take the highest motive then active on the
mind, and try to build higher on that. The first results of science
are usually destructive, and therefore not fit for the masses;
something must be built up again ere we present it to them. As it is,
these masses seem only to amuse themselves by hurling the stones of
the ruined theory at the world and at each other, destroying much, but
advancing nothing good."

"But philosophy must not be controlled. Science must not be impeded in
its onward march; the hopes of ultimate civilization lie in free
investigation. The evil is transient--the good permanent."

"Yet you admit that a system may be in advance of a people?"

"Yes, and forerunners are martyrs, sacrificed to the ignorance, to the
inaptitude of the age in which they live; yet there is a sort of
necessity for their existence, the law for which is not as yet
discovered. Future ages will probably be more enlightened on this
head. All that we know is, that there is a law for all evolutions, a
practical principle--if we could only trace it--to which every
action, every development may be referred. Statistical tables show us
that even crime follows method. In a given number of people in a given
state of civilization there will be a certain percentage of murders, a
certain percentage of thefts, robberies, and the like; nay, a certain
average number of suicides. You may verify these facts by comparing
the statistical tables of large cities such as London and Paris,
[Footnote 207] for a definite series of years.

  [Footnote 207: See Buckle's Civilization in England. Vol. i. page 17
  _et seq._ ]

"And through what agency is this effected?" asked Hester, in
amazement.

"Nay, that I can scarcely answer save in general terms. The cause of
law, the cause of evolution, the cause of everything is utterly
unknown. The most we can do is to observe phenomena, to class them,
and then note the sequences which form necessary connection together;
in this way we discover the law, but beyond that science can affirm
nothing. The cause we can know nothing, and affirm nothing of, save
its bare existence as the incomprehensible cause of all phenomena. The
sole possible predication is merely that he, or more properly it, is."

"Why, surely the cause is God," said Hester, who, new as she was to a
personal recognition of God's rights to her own devotion, had never
dreamed of doubting, that "absolute intelligence" ruled "as cause."

"God," said Mr. Spence, "is too indefined a term for science, or
rather there are ideas connected with the term which we cannot
scientifically apply to the unknowable. We cannot affirm of this
unknowable that he is either matter or mind; because this would be to
degrade him, by representing him in terms of our finite and human
conceptions. Matter and mind are in fact but phenomena of which the
unknowable is the unknown cause. {762} He is of a far higher nature
than matter or mind, for he is the common cause of both. Of this
nature we can form no idea whatever. We cannot attribute to the
unknowable _reason_; since that would represent him as finite, for all
reasoning is limitation. We cannot affirm of him either justice or
mercy; because these are words borrowed from the human, and to express
the unknown in such terms is anthropomorphism and blasphemy. Such a
religion is but one grade higher than the ancient theologies that
represent God with hands and feet and other human members."

"Stay," said Hester, "I cannot admit all your assumptions. That the
cause is the great I Am, of whose essential being we know nothing, is
doubtless true, as also that finitude cannot comprehend infinitude:
but that it is wrong or blasphemous to speak of him in the language of
earth, I cannot see. We know the expression is inadequate, that it is
metaphorical, an application of the less to signify the greater, but
it is the only voice we have, and the degree of worship depends on the
spirit of reverence which prompts the utterance, as the freedom from
idolatry must depend on the spirit of appreciative love and submission
with which that worship is offered.

"But," said Mr. Spence, "all theologies set out with the great truth,
that the deity is incomprehensible. But they immediately contradict
and stultify themselves by proceeding to assign him attributes. In
this way all religions become suicidal as well as irreligious. The
only true religion is to worship God as the unknown and forever
unknowable. True religion and science agree in this, that the cause of
all phenomena is the unknown. Science, in affirming the cause to be
material or mental, becomes unscientific, just as religion, by
pretending to reveal his nature or attributes, becomes irreligious."

"Pardon me," said Hester, "I think you are begging the question.
Because we know nothing of the interior being of God, it does not
follow that we may not discover the relationships which he wishes to
establish between himself and ourselves, and to the manifestations of
these relationships we may in all reverence and with consistency
assign attributes. Within himself God is the great I Am, unknown and
unknowable to us. Reason, justice, mercy, probably find there, no
exercise. Their exercise is outside in creation; for all creation is
outside God, an expression of his power, as of every other attribute
justly assigned him. Creation itself is limited: man's expression more
so yet: but we do not therefore believe in the limitation of the
deity. We cannot conceive infinity, still less express it; still the
idea exists, and our minds invest the deity with it in reverential
awe, not in blasphemy."

"You have given the modern theology assuming God to be a spirit and a
creative spirit; and assuming also that the creation is a work of his
design. You do not perceive that you make God the author of evil as
well as good, and that you assume matter was created. Now, the
eternity of matter would be no greater enigma than the eternity of
mind; and we do not know whether the cause be 'matter or mind.' It is
unknown, as it is also unknowable."

"Why this is sheer Atheism," said the startled Hester.

"Not so! This doctrine is neither Atheism nor Theism. It is merely the
highest and last formula, at once, of science and religion, ceasing to
represent the unknowable in any conceptions of human thought, and thus
leaving free scope for worship, which (worship) is not assertion, but
humility and transcendent wonder."

"Nay," said Hester; "religion, as far as I can make it out, consists
in acknowledging the relationships which God has established: first,
between himself and man, and secondly, between man and man. Religion,
if true, is a manifestation or revelation if not of God's essential
nature, yet of his will {763} in man's regard. The discrepancies
between our conceptions of what is evil and evil itself may explain
your difficulty about God being the author of evil. It may be that
mere change, mere transition, is not evil, even when accompanied by
some pain. I read yesterday that the only real evil was, a voluntary
act on the part of a rational creature, performed contrary to the
known will of God."

"That is so evidently a theological subtlety," said Mr. Spence,
"science deigns it no reply."

"And yet," said Hester, "your last and highest formula, which refuses
to represent the unknowable in any conception of human thought, bows
down in worship and transcendent wonder to the 'cause' which makes
murder, suicide, and every species of human wickedness result from 'A
Law'!

"Because we believe that ultimately that law will evolve good. It
appears a fact now thoroughly established, that all the organisms we
are acquainted with, have been evolved by a gradual process rather
than produced by a series of special creations, as has been so long
the theory. And the evolution tends upward; that is, to produce new
and more complicated organisms as time speeds on. This must in the end
evolve higher good."

"Do you mean that the lesser is ever producing the greater; and that
in the aggregation of insentient matter life is evolved?"

"Does not the infant grow into the man by the aggregation of
insentient matter assimilated into his being in the shape of food?"

"Yes, but life was there already; character and power, expansion and
development it receives, but no new function."

"That is not so certain; or rather it is certain that evolution
constantly manifests changes, which can only be accounted for on the
ground of a great universal law, a law ever producing diversity of
phenomena in unity of operation."

"But I do not see that it explains anything of the ultimate cause."

"Have I not already said that the cause is unknown and unknowable?"



CHAPTER XXVI.

MODERN PHILOSOPHY,--
THE SOUL WITHOUT GOD.

  Eternity and space! Remorseless law!
    Without a voice or tone of love to man,
  Without a sign to soften into awe
    The terrors of necessity's dark plan.
      Oh! what a wail of dark despair
      Rent the unblest, unhallowed air,
  As through the spheres the last dark utterance ran--
  There is no God! no deity for man!
  The glowing thoughts that thrill man's frame,
  And bid him glorious kindred claim.
  With all of brilliancy divine
  That through the dazzling circles shine;
  The thoughts unspeakable that swell
    The heaving breast to ecstasy,
  And cast their sweet and mystic spell
    Until, attuned to harmony,
  The winged soul is borne throughout all space
  To read the symbols of celestial grace;
  Tracing the wondrous lore from sky to sky,
  Inflamed by consciousness of Deity
  Though veiled, yet present still, and still
  "Educing good from seeming ill"--
  That thought is quenched in deepest night!
  Vanished each ray of holy light!
  The winged soul, all tempest-tost,
    Rushes in vain throughout all space;
  Amid dark waves of horror lost
    No sign appears, her course to trace
  In speechless agony, alone,
      Finding rest--never!
  The wearied spirit hurries on
      Wandering forever!
  All, all is lost! a dark despair
  Fills up the void, the tainted air.
  A Upas tree with poisoning shade
  Monopolizes every glade;
  And shadows flit and utter: "Woe!
  Remorseless nature rules below."

  . . . . . .

  Throughout all space-no rest--
        No ray
  By which the human heart is blest;
        No day
  Breaks th' interminable gloom
        Around--
  A foul, dark, loathsome tomb!
        A burial ground!
          Without a star
        To light th' abyss!
          Stern, elemental war!
            No bliss!

  The evolution of a vast decay:
  Its beauty transient, as the fleeting ray
  That gilds the clouds on fitful April's day.
  Eternity! Immensity!
  All unillumined lie,
  No trace of high design
  Doth through their glimpses shine:
    Destruction and decay
    Repeated day by day--
  Music forgets to joy the earth,
  Beauty to give the flowerets birth,
  Banished all providence, banished for ever--
  What from the fainting heart sorrow shall sever?
{764}
  One charnel-house is the all-teeming earth;
  That Fetid Vapor rising sickly bright
  To which foul rottenness is giving birth,
  Is now man's _only_ source of mental light!
  And shadows flit around and utter, "Woe!
  Remorseless nature rules _Alone_ below!"

  . . . . . .

Such were our heroine's reflections.

Poor Hester! With no settled principle, with no defined religion, it
was little wonder that the gloomy speculations of a conceited science
should overpower her imagination, and that she should become
melancholy and dispirited. Indeed, it became evident that the false
philosophies, the exposition of which she was constantly called upon
to hear, and from which her heart recoiled, even when she could find
no reply to its specious reasonings, were preying on her health, and
the gentleman who had acted as medical attendant to Mrs. Godfrey, now
warned her father that Hester must be looked to, unless he would see
her also fall into despondency.

Not that Hester believed in a theory which contradicted her instincts,
annihilated for her the use of a faculty. No; but the very enunciation
of such dogmas oppressed her, seemed to spread a snare for her, raised
doubts of disturbance, at the very moment she was seeking to gain from
works her brother had lent her the peace of mind she so much needed.
In spite of herself her mind recurred to the theory which tormented
her, and which she saw was favored by her father. "And yet," mused she
in sadness, "can high ideas spring from the evolutions of matter? Is
matter creative? This panting after justice that I feel, the love of
order, beauty, moral harmony, for which so willingly I'd give my ease,
my leisure, my exertions, nay, to forward the permanency of which I
should esteem my life well bestowed, does that proceed from blind
necessity, from evolution of organic life, itself unconscious of the
boon conferred? Impossible! Idea is as real as is the brain: and there
were mighty minds in days of old, who left examples men have not yet
equalled. He who died upon the cross, and left twelve laboring
unlettered men to propagate his most unselfish lore, was he evolved
from matter's slow progression? And the men who roused the souls and
waked the intellects of poverty, who preached the gospel to those
lowly ones who live a life of toil and weariness, who kindled thoughts
that raised them high above the tyrant's might to claim their heirship
as the sons of God, inheritors of freedom, justice, truth, which
naught save their own act can rob them of, were they evolved from
rottenness? And if they were, why since that time, two thousand years
ago, have there no nobler souls than these appeared, who could show
finer instincts, higher views? Why, amid the luxury of Roman proud
patrician life, did there spring up so suddenly a class who conquered
by defeat, and laid foundations among the lowly of the earth cemented
by their blood, that to this day proclaim their origin to be something
different from the world's natural influences--a class whose leaders
sought renunciation rather than gratification of the senses; who wore
the chains themselves to free the slave, faced death to solace the
plague-stricken, and abjured riches to feed the hungry with their
stores? Why, among this class alone of all the earth's various
classes, is woman honored, and protected alike in her virginity, her
maternity, and her widowhood? Why, here alone, are we taught passion
is to subject itself to the great idea of good, and why here alone is
found that power is given to act on the idea?--that hundreds and
thousands borne above this earth by that idea, have lived a life such
as the poets deem belongs to angels only, justice and truth their path
illumining, and love divine inspired by heaven (so deemed by them at
least) infusing love of all humanity, to bear them nobly through the
world's rebuffs and contradictions, toil and want? That so empowered,
by no exterior means, they walk superior to earthly types, to earthly
influence, erect {765} as sons of God, though meanly clad; their
sorrow only, that amidst this earth good does not reign supreme, that
passion's sway so oft usurps that power to quell high thoughts and
sink their brethren's souls to misery. No! no! it cannot be that all
those glorious acts of heroism, which bore witness to a higher
existence than that lived by the majority of men, an existence which
realized that truth and love could bring down heaven to dwell upon the
earth, amid all untoward exterior appliances, that a power exists
independently of exterior surroundings, a happiness independently of
materialisms--it cannot be that those acts were evolved from the
polluted state of society in which they were performed, but which they
tended to amend, and to guide into a new channel. I do believe in
justice, truth, and love, as motive powers, irrespectively of selfish
gratification to myself. I do believe in a state of being in which
they reign; and as I am not a creator, I must believe in a higher
ideal of this justice, truth, and love, than the one in my own mind,
as also that from that higher ideal my own is derived, for the greater
cannot derive from the less: nor can a newly formed organism, whether
evolved or created, originate."

Thus mused Hester as she pondered over the lives of the saints which
Eugene had sent her, and as she read that book of books--the gospel.
Yet she dared not confess even to herself the impression she received.
Her father! that source of dread was ever in her thought.

Meantime that father was uneasy at the evident disturbance in Hester's
mind. Once or twice he had observed a light in her room at late hours
of the night, and yielding to his uneasiness he had softly turned the
handle and opened the door; books were on the table, but the light was
very low, and Hester! could he believe his eyes? Hester was on her
knees, so absorbed as neither to perceive his entrance nor exit. He
closed the door as silently as he had opened it, and turned to think.
What did this mean? Verily, wonders were heaped upon him! What should
he do? That very day Mr. Spence had proposed for Hester's hand,
because of her supposed freedom from superstition, What was to be
done?


CHAPTER XXVII.

A CHANGE OF SCENE.
THE SISTERS.

Adelaide was wondrously desolate on her return home. Her noble
mansion, rcplete with elegance, what was it worth to her now? The
famed Pantheon, for which a splendid gallery had been built, she never
entered. The thought of it seemed to sicken her. Company wearied her,
solitude distracted her. Miss Fairfield, the daughter of a decayed
noble family, who acted as humble companion to her grace, was quite at
a loss. What could be the matter with the lady? The poor humble lady
companion did her best, her efforts were altogether unheeded. The
duchess remained for the most part plunged in a profound reverie.

Adelaide was reviewing the past; comparing characters; examining
principles. She had not loved the duke, but none the less his death
had proved a loss to her. Rich as she was, powerful as she was, she
was neither so rich nor so powerful as she had been while he lived.
But there was a bitterer feeling far than this. It was, that she had
never been an object of love to him, or to any one. She had coveted
honor, power, wealth. She had these; but there were times when she
would have given them all for the consciousness of having been loved
as Ellen had been. She was jealous of the affections now laid in the
grave, and would ask herself whether, had she been the one whom the
duke had seen first, had they met ere his affections were engrossed,
would he have loved her as he had loved the injured one? "I had youth,
beauty, and intellect," thought she; "why should he not have loved me
as he did that orphan girl?" {766} Strange that these thoughts should
come upon her now; but only now had she compelled herself to
acknowledge the great depth of feeling as well as the power of
intellect which the duke had possessed.

Until she had read the mystery of the "Passion" in Avrillon, she had
not understood the profound heavings of a contrite heart, which she
had "mocked at" when he lay dying. Her eyes were beginning to open
now; the world to wear a new aspect, although as yet a cloudy mist
hovered over her higher visions; for she understood not the yearning
of her own heart.

She was in this softened mood when she received a letter from her
father. Six months had elapsed since her mother's death, and Mr.
Godfrey complained that he could not yet rouse Hester to become
anything like her usual self. He had taken her to Yorkshire, but she
no longer cared to interest herself in "progression;" she had been
disgusted at some scenes of immorality, and had voted that
intellectual improvement without the observance of the moral law was a
failure. "In fact," said Mr. Godfrey, "she is absorbed in discovering
a 'new principle,' and more than once I have found her on her knees,
bathed in tears. What can this mean? Has she also been tampered with?
I am uneasy: I am coming next week to pay you a visit, and shall bring
her with me. Help me to rouse her from her melancholy, and above all
to banish fanaticism, if it is that disease which has taken hold of
her."

Adelaide was not altogether reconciled to Hester, in spite of Eugene's
explanation; but the moment that she realized from this letter that a
restraint was likely to be put upon her sister's freedom of thought,
the images of her mother and Annie rose before her, and she determined
to use such influence as she could to prevent "persecution." "It is
but a mistaken method after all," pondered she, "persecution can only
tend to engender obstinacy, and rouse the pride of our natures. If
Hester has any tendency to Catholicity, it can only be combated by
reason, by showing its absurdity. My father will have to bring out his
learned friends, and we will have the arguments of both sides plainly
propounded. It will be an excitement, if nothing else. What was it
that disgusted Hester with her 'march of intellect' scheme? She is not
fickle-minded naturally; there is something fermenting in her mind
which must be worked out. I am curious to see the termination; and if
Hester makes a friend of me, she shall have freedom to think, and
freedom too to act according to her conscience. There shall be no more
persecution in the family."

Ah! Adelaide, you have learnt a lesson then from sorrow; it was not
thus the proud young duchess reasoned when at the zenith of her power.

Adelaide received her visitor most kindly, and soon made Hester feel
at home, though there was a sedateness, almost a melancholy, about
her, quite foreign to her previous deportment. Mr. Godfrey fidgeted
concerning her in a manner quite unusual with him, and seemed to make
it his principal occupation to provide her with interest and
amusement.

One morning, to the surprise of the sisters, as they were sitting
together Mr. Godfrey entered, accompanied by the rector and his lady.
Adelaide had certainly done the indispensable before, in receiving and
returning a formal call with these parties, but nothing like intimacy
had existed. Adelaide was so rarely at church, that the reverend
doctor and lady did not feel encouraged to push themselves into her
society. However, Mr. Godfrey now insinuated that his youngest
daughter had taken a religious turn, and that he hoped from the
doctor's reputation for learning that he would be able to give that
turn a right direction, since unfortunately some developments in his
family in religions matters had not been satisfactory.

{767}

Dr. Lowell had looked somewhat askance on hearing this, as Mr.
Godfrey's latitudinarian opinions and Eugene's Catholicity were both
pretty well known, and had immediately enquired if Hester were a
Catholic also. On receiving a decided negative he complied, though
with some hesitation of manner. Controversy was not to the reverend
gentleman's taste, and but that his wife offered to accompany him, and
do her share of the talking, he would probably have backed out; but
the lady possessing at once more earnestness of character and more
confidence in her power of suasion than her husband, was anxious not
to lose this opportunity of setting forth the value of Protestantism,
and thus preserving Miss Hester Godfrey from following the pernicious
examples set by Eugene and Lady Conway.

With these dispositions Dr. and Mrs. Lowell were ushered into the
presence of the duchess and her sister, not altogether at ease at
finding themselves in such aristocratic society. Adelaide received
them with her usual quiet dignity, and turned the conversation to
flowers, paintings, sculpture, literature, everything, in fact, save
the topic which they came to discuss. At length, turning to Mr.
Godfrey, she asked if he had introduced Dr. Lowell to the Pantheon.

"No, indeed," said Mr. Godfrey, laughing, "the doctor is more anxious
about another subject just now; he is desirous of restoring his
church, which has fallen out of repair."

"Indeed," said Adelaide, "then I must have the pleasure of assisting
him," and she placed a well-filled purse before the doctor.

"Your grace is very good;" said the reverend gentleman. But Adelaide
had risen to seek a volume of engravings on church architecture, which
she placed in the lady's hand, telling her, as she presented it, that
she presumed it would interest her, and might give her a hint or two
to the style of embellishment suitable.

The doctor now took courage. "I am glad to see your grace so much
interested in our church," he said. "I feared--" but here he stopped.
Adelaide waited, perhaps a little maliciously, for the conclusion of
the sentence. but it came not.

"May I ask what you fear, Dr. Lowell?" she said.

But as the answer did not seem quite ready, the lady of the reverend
gentleman took up the word. "Your grace will pardon us," she said,
"but as we have so seldom the pleasure of seeing you at church, the
doctor feared that its reparation would not interest you so much as
your kind acts now prove that it does."

Adelaide bowed, but replied simply by turning to an engraving. "I
think it was in this style our church was originally built," she said;
"do you propose to restore it in any way similar to the primitive
idea?"

"I think not," said the doctor, "we only intend thoroughly to repair
and cleanse it, unless, indeed, your grace desires your own pew
altered."

"Oh! I will leave that matter to Miss Fairfield, she goes to church
every Sunday, I believe, and I wish she should be made as comfortable
as possible. If you will be kind enough to consult with her in this
matter, I will agree to any arrangement she may make." And the duchess
rang the bell; to request the attendance of the lady named.

"But," said the doctor, unwilling to lose the opportunity that seemed
now to open, "I cannot believe that one so kind, so considerate, can
be indifferent to matters of religion."

By this time Adelaide was amused, so she answered with a quiet smile:
"It does not follow that one is indifferent to religion, because one
does not consult the statute-book to find it. Great as is my reverence
for English kings, queens, parliaments and prime-ministers, it is not
to them I should go to learn religion."

{768}

The rector stared; his wife was equally confounded. The latter spoke
first. "It is to church we were inviting you grace, to hear the word
of God."

"The word of the preacher you mean, expounding what is termed the word
of God, according to act of Parliament, and varying according as Henry
VIII., Edward VI., Elizabeth, James, William, Anne, or the Georges
have dictated. You must excuse me, Dr. Lowell, I am a loyal subject,
and as such duly uphold church and state, and you will ever find me
willing to assist your wishes; but to take my religion by act of
parliament home to my heart, to regulate my private motives, and unite
my being to God, is quite another affair. Ah! in good time, here comes
Miss Fairfield. My dear Lucy," continued the duchess, "Dr. Lowell
wishes the advantage of your good taste in rearranging his church; I
give you _carte blanche_ to act in my name on the subject. I must also
beg your kind offices in entertaining him and his lady this morning.
They will like to visit the hot-houses, the conservatories, the
gardens, perhaps, also the picture gallery and the hall of sculpture.
Dr. Lowell, Mrs. Lowell, I hope at my return from my drive I shall
still find you here; you will favor me with your company to dinner."

Adelaide swept from the room like a queen who had issued commands none
dared to gainsay, carrying off Hester with her.

Mr. Godfrey accompanied the rector and his lady on their tour through
the house, but neither he nor anyone of the parties made the slightest
allusion to Adelaide's remarks respecting the state religion; nor was
the subject ever broached by them in her presence again. The dinner
passed off pleasantly enough, and in the evening the carriage of the
duchess conveyed the married pair to their homes, they feeling
themselves honored by the gracious reception which on the whole they
had experienced.

Mr. Godfrey could not but perceive from this attempt that it would be
useless for him to attempt giving any direction to a religious
movement, should such be the subject that occupied his daughter's
mind; though in truth she was habitually so silent now, it was
difficult for him to discover what did interest her. Suddenly he took
it into his head he would like to go to London, and he asked Adelaide
if she would not open her town house, and, go too.

"Certainly, if you wish it, father. It might amuse Hester also, for as
yet Hester has never gone through the campaign of a London season."

But on their arrival in town Hester did not seem in any way eager to
launch forth into the great world of fashion; its frivolities
disgusted her, some of the fashions shocked her, particularly the ball
dresses of some of her young compeers. She could not reconcile her
native modesty to do the like, and was soon voted a prude by the
exclusives of _bon ton_. However, as she made no effort to shine, and
had "no success" in attracting the attentions of the gentlemen, she
was soon forgiven and most times overlooked.

But this latter fact she did not even perceive; she was living within
herself for the most part just now, and looking for a principle when
she took a glance outside. It was not perhaps at Mayfair, among the
sons and daughters of dissipation, that she might expect to find it.
The only thing that was remarkable about her was her propensity to
take a walk before breakfast; this in London was unusual, and but that
the duchess imperiously forbade her household to comment on the
subject, and jealously contrived to conceal the matter from Mr.
Godfrey, threatening dismissal to anyone who spoke to him about it, it
would have been a never-ending topic of discussion. Hester was
accompanied in these walks by her little maid, Norah, but Norah could
never be brought to tell where they had been. "Sure 'twas sometimes
this way and sometimes that, and how should she know the names of all
those fine London streets?"

{769}

Mr. Godfrey was not often up on her return, so did not perceive that
she had been absent. One day, however, when Hester came in later than
usual, Adelaide met her in the hall, took her bonnet and clock from
her, and whispered that Mr. Godfrey was already in the breakfast-room.

Hester entered; but she found Mr. Godfrey so busy unfolding the
newspaper that he did not perceive her entrance. She passed behind him
ere he was aware, and impressed a kiss on his forehead; it was her
usual morning's greeting.

"Ha! Hester, so you're up at last. I have a letter on your account."

"A letter for me?"

"No! yet one that you must answer; the great philosopher of the day is
smitten with the charms of the fair vestal; he asked me ere we left
Yorkshire if her heart was free."

"And what did you answer him?"

"That I did not know, but would enquire; this letter is a sort of
reproachful remonstrance for not having fulfilled my promise."

Hester smiled, and Adelaide enquired who the gentleman was.

"A man," said Hester, "who thinks we have evolved into human beings
from worms or bats or lower creatures still. By-the-by, father, he
never told us why so many lower creatures remain unevolved."

"You piece of mischief, be serious; what answer shall I give him?"

"That I don't like his pedigree: I am looking higher than worms for my
forefathers."

"But seriously, Hester--"

"But seriously, father, he says the character of the ancestry often
reappears in the posterity, even after the lapse of many generations;
and as he may have had, a tiger, a hyena, or even a boa-constrictor in
his genealogical tree, I do not feel well inclined to trust myself to
his keeping."

"Is that the new philosophy?" said Adelaide; "the vicious propensities
of so many of the race are then accounted for, they are but beasts of
prey in tailor's clothes."

"And yourselves, ladies?" said Mr. Godfrey.

"Oh!" said Adelaide, hastily, "please do not put us into the same
category, Hester and I are well content with the old story. We are
daughters of men and women, created in the good old style; reigning
over the brutes by special privilege, and claiming no sort of kindred
with them whatever."

"And Mr. Spence, Hester--"

"Mr. Spence, father, must seek a mate among his kindred, I am of
another order of beings."

"Is that your final answer?"

"It is."

"You will revoke it, Hester; I will tell him to come and plead for
himself."

"It will be useless; I shall tell him as I tell you, that I do not
like his pedigree."

"Is that your only objection?"

"It is sufficient for a lady to give one objection, I think,
especially when that one is insuperable."

Mr. Godfrey seemed disappointed, but he made no reply: the entrance of
Miss Fairfield to pour out the coffee summoned the party to the
breakfast table.

Mr. Godfrey took up the newspaper, and sipped his coffee in silence;
it was his habit to read in company when annoyed. Suddenly, however,
he laid the paper down. "De Villeneuve dead," he said, "my first, my
earliest friend!" He rose and went to the window, but shortly
afterward he left the room, evidently overpowered with the sudden
news. Adelaide took up the paper. "It is the father, the old marquis,
and his eldest son, drowned on Lake--in a sudden squall of wind. Why,
Hester, our old acquaintance now succeeds to the property and title."

"Was not the elder brother married?"

"The paper says not; or at least it says he was a widower and
childless, and that the estates now devolve on the second, the
youngest son, the one who was in England last year."

{770}

"Yes, and it says that he was about to start for England again when
this event detained him, and that he is expected shortly; why, it is
three months ago since the old marquis died."

"It's strange the news did not reach us before, but what business can
our M. de Villeneuve have in England now?"

"There is some talk of his coming over to take the 'Poor Clares' back
with him. He was Euphrasie's guardian, and I know he wished to get her
and the community established in America. It was that wish that took
him back, to see what arrangements could be effected."

"But will they go?"

"Nay, that I know nothing about; I suppose he talked with them on the
matter ere he made his plans."

By this time the breakfast table was cleared, and the sisters were
alone together, and Adelaide suddenly turned the conversation into
another channel. "Hester," she said, "you must make me your friend;
you know that you are pursuing a path of difficulty. You are my
father's idol, have you thought what it will be to break his heart?"

"O Adelaide! forbear; I have thought of that, and the thought is
nearly killing me, but I must on in spite of myself."

"It is true, then?"

"What is true?"

"That you go to mass every morning, and weep yourself to sleep every
night, my poor, dear sister!"

"How did you discover this?"

"Your attendant showed your pillow to Lucy Fairfield, it was no longer
fit to use; and Lucy followed you more than once, and saw you enter
the Bavarian Ambassador's chapel in Warwick street."

"But she did not tell my father?"

"No, I have threatened with dismissal anyone who makes a remark on the
subject; meantime tell me, are you a Catholic?"

"No! but I must see the end of this. Adelaide, out of Christianity
there is no 'power;' and 'power' it is that we want to effect good.
Science is taking the form of Atheism more and more. It represses
rather than elevates. The masses are awakening to consciousness of
possessing a right to intellectual culture under influences that will
finally subject them even more to tyranny; for when man seeks only
sensuous gratification by his science, he must eventually fall under
the empire of the appetites, and then barbarism results. Is not this
the history of all anterior civilization? Our modern rise has been the
gradual growth of intellect evolved under the restraining influence of
religion; and though men have very imperfectly submitted to these
restraints, they have produced immense fruit among the masses. Even
indirectly, the consciousness of the possession of soul, of immortal
power, has elevated the ideal, and the laborer assumes a legitimate
place in humanity. And woman, Adelaide, what is woman out of
Christianity? What was she in Pagan Greece and Rome; what will she be,
again if Christianity is abolished? I see but three phases for her.
The Turkish harem, the Mormon polygamy, or that worse than either
state, which consigns an immense number of our sex to debasement utter
and desperate."

"There is too much truth in this. But, Hester, be cautious; I will not
hinder you, rather will I help you, and study with you, but you are
not yet a Catholic. I must then say again, be cautions: I dare not
think on the result of my father's knowing your present study!"

"Indeed it has troubled me more than a little. O Adelaide! why should
there be such a prejudice against any one form of religion?"

"I cannot answer that, still less can I tell why men of science should
hate it so supremely; but it is so, and you know, dear Hester, that
the shock of your conversion might occasion a terrible convulsion in
my father. Let us proceed quietly, until the result is decided. Have
you ever considered {771} what is the first step to take in the
investigation of truth?"

"I am inclined to think the process must be a moral one, as well as an
intellectual one. I heard a preacher say lately: 'Souls who would come
to Christ, must first be gathered to the Baptist!'"

Adelaide hid her face in her hands, "There is a deep meaning in that,"
she said. "Hester, I too have my secret. Do you remember the Catholic
priest whom I ordered to quit the house as soon as the duke was dead?
His visage haunts me, he looked up from his prayers at my words, and
his face seemed so full of pity, pity for me, that I half relented;
but matters had gone too far. Well, I wrote to Eugene lately to
inquire about him, and Eugene says he is at H---- on a mission, among
the poor Irish laborers, and that young Henry, the duke's son, is with
him. The mother too, the Ellen of the duke's romance, lives in the
neighborhood. I have an intense desire to pay the place a visit; had
you not come, I should have gone alone; now will you go with me?"

"Willingly; you are, then, in communication with Eugene?"

"Slightly; I dare not tell him all that is in my thoughts, lest I
should raise false hopes. I have not faith, but I feel it would be a
great gift."

"So great that it would be worth any sacrifice; but Catholics say it
is a supernatural gift, and that it must come from God."

"And Eugene insists that the presence of sin blinds the soul; by
obscuring the spiritual faculty, thus hindering the reception of
faith."

"If so," said Hester, "we must do what we can to get clear of sin,
even at the price of confession."

"It is therefor I intend to see the abbé, to make reparation. I will
not voluntarily put an obstacle to the reception of God's gifts. If
grace comes, it shall find me ready to receive it."

Hester looked at Adelaide in surprise. The haughty duchess had
disappeared; another spirit so gentle looked from those eyes, that
Hester could only throw herself into her sister's arms and weep.

TO BE CONTINUED

------

ORIGINAL.

ON THE CURE OF BARTIMEUS.

  "Bartimeus, the blind man,
  sat by the wayside begging.
  And they say to him:
  Be of better comfort:
  arise, He calleth thee."


  Out of the windows of my mind----
    From my heart's idly open door,
    My gaze the wide world wanders o'er,
  And yet, alas! how blind, how blind!

  My sight of things divine how dim!
    Though there be not a single day
    But Jesus passeth by the way;
  All else I see, but blind to him.

  Though rich, I seek the beggar's mite----
    His beauty only do I prize;
    And all is darkness to my eyes
  Whilst he is hidden from my sight.

  I hear a voice within my soul----
    "Arise, of better comfort be,
    And come: the Master calleth thee----
  Thy faith shall also make thee whole."

--------
{772}


From the Dublin Review.

ORIGEN AT CAESAREA.

Origenis Libri contra Celsum (inter Opera omnia). Ed. Migne.1857.


In concluding our survey of the character and work of Origen, it will
be useful to recall the leading dates in the chronology of his life to
the date of his exodus from Alexandria. Born in or about 186, he
became the head of the Catechetical school at the age of eighteen:
About 211 he visited Rome. From that year till 231, he labored at
Alexandria, with no other interruptions than short journeys into
Arabia, to Caesarea, and into Greece. In 231 he left Alexandria never
to return, and thenceforward the chief place of his residence was
Caesarea of Palestine. In the fourth or fifth year of his sojourn
there (235), Maximin's persecution compelled him to flee to Caesarea
of Cappadocia. Returning to the other Caesarea in 238, he remained
there for about eleven years, that is, until the commencement of the
Decian persecution. During these years, however, he made another
journey into Greece, and two more into Arabia. After the cessation of
the persecution he lived a short time in Jerusalem, and thence removed
to Tyre, where he died in 253, or 254, in the sixty-ninth year of his
age. The chief divisions of his life after attaining manhood are
therefore the following:

  1. The twenty years (211-231) of his Alexandrian teaching.
  2. The twenty years (231-251) of his life at Caesarea.
  3. The three or four years from the end of the Decian persecution
    (251) till his death (254.)

In our present essay we shall be concerned chiefly with the second of
these periods. It was the time of Origen's most active and dignified
labor. He was now not so much the teacher of disciples as the teacher
of teachers and the doctor of the whole East. The church was, on the
whole, at peace, her numbers were increasing, her organization
developing, and her doctrines becoming daily more and more a subject
of inquiry to intellects, friendly and hostile. We have before taken
notice (Dublin Review, April, 1866, p. 401) how Caesarea was an
important centre, political, literary, and religious; and here Origen
spent the twenty years of which we now speak, in intercourse with such
bishops as S. Alexander, S. Theoctistus, and Firmilian, in training
such pupils as Gregory Thaumaturgus, in preaching such homilies as
those on Isaiah, Ezechiel, and the Canticles, in writing such
apologies as the Contra Celsum, and in carrying through such an
enterprise as the Hexapla. It is to this period that we must refer the
emphatic testimony of S. Vincent of Lerins. "It is impossible," says
he, "to tell how Origen was loved, esteemed, and admired by every one.
All that made any profession of piety hastened to him from the ends of
the world. There was no Christian who did not respect him as a
prophet, no philosopher who did not honor him as a master." The word
piety ([Greek text]) is worth noticing, because something much more
wide and broad was meant by it then than now; indeed, the original
word would be better translated religion or religiousness. The term,
prophet, is also worthy of being remarked; a prophet means one who is
at once teacher of the most exalted class and an ascetic who has
perfectly trampled this world under his feet. Finally, the
philosophers looked to him as their {773} master, though he professed
to teach no philosophy but Christianity, and quoted the Hebrew
scriptures instead of Plato and Aristotle when men came to him with
difficulties about the soul, the logos, and the creator.

In the present article, therefore, we shall be concerned with his
Caesarean life; and as it is impossible to compress within moderate
limits all that might be said of the literary productions of this
exceedingly rich period of his labors, we shall confine ourselves
chiefly to the consideration of the great work Contra Celsum. First,
however, let us take a glance at the events of the twenty years, for
they are not void of events which give us a notion of the man.

Since his principal charge at Caesarea was to preach the Word of God
to the people, perhaps the largest part of his extant writings has
come to consist of the homilies that he delivered in the discharge of
this honorable duty. It was the bishop himself who, as a rule,
preached in the church, and no priest was substituted whose learning
and piety were not beyond all question. We have before quoted the
strong words in which Eusebius has handed down the opinion of Origen
held by S. Theoctistus, bishop of Caesarea. On the Sunday, therefore,
as we learn from himself, on festivals, and sometimes, it would seem,
on Fridays or other week-days, he stood forth from among the clergy
with all the weight of his bishop's mandate and of his own character,
to interpret and comment on the Holy Scriptures. It would be
interesting to be able to picture to ourselves that church at Caesarea
in which the great light of the east spoke, Sunday after Sunday, to
the mingled Greek and barbarian Christians of the capital of
Palestine. It would probably be a building designed and founded for
the purpose. Yet it cannot have been grand or sumptuous, or in any way
resembling. a heathen temple, for Origen himself allows that the
Christians had no "temples." 'What it was inside we can better guess.
We know from Origen's own hints that there existed in it the usual
distinctions of position for the various ranks of faithful and of
clergy that are so well known from writers of a century later. We may
therefore conclude that the chancel or altar part was clearly
separated from the rest of the interior, and perhaps elevated above
it; that the altar itself stood at some distance from the eastern
wall, and that round the apsis behind it ran the [Greek text] or
presbyters' bench. Here, in the centre, stood the chair of the bishop,
and here he sat during the sacred liturgy in the midst of his priests,
all in a semicircle of lofty seats. The deacons and inferior clergy
occupied the rest of the sanctuary, which was separated by a railing
from the nave. In the nave, immediately outside the rails, stood the
_ambo_ or reading-desk, sometimes called the choir, for here clustered
the singers and readers whose place it was to intone the less solemn
parts of the liturgy. Hangings, more or less magnificent, according to
circumstances, suspended above the rails, were closed during the canon
of the mass; and shut out the holies from the sight of the people.
Over the altar was the canopy, on four pillars, and upon the altar a
linen cloth; and the chair of the bishop was usually covered with
suitable drapery. When the bishop preached, he stood or sat forward,
probably in front of the altar, but within the chancel-rails; it was a
very unusual thing to preach from the _ambo_, though S. John
Chrysostom is recorded to have done so in Sancta Sophia, in order to
be better heard by the people. Origen, therefore, would preach from
the sanctuary on the Lord's-day; bishop, priests, clergy, and people,
in their places to hear him; the pontiff in his flat mitre with the
_infulae_ of the high priesthood; the priests in the linen chasubles
that came down and covered them on every side; the deacons and others
in their various tunics and albs; the singers and readers with the
diptychs and books of chant laid {774} ready open on the desk of the
_ambo_; the faithful in the nave, men on one side and women on the
other; the virgins and the widows in their seats apart; the various
orders of penitents in the nave or in the narthex, and the band of
listening catechumens in front of the "royal gates" (of the nave) that
they hoped soon to be allowed to enter. His hearers would be of all
degrees of fervor, and of many different ranks; they might include
Greek philosophers and poor _vernae_ or house slaves, patricians of
Roman burghs, and Syrian porters; doubtless the bulk of them were the
poor and the lowly of Caesarea. He had to say a word to all, and he
found means to say it, in the word of Holy Scripture. He had, by this
time, dispensed himself from previously writing his discourses; and
hence many of those that have come down to us are the shorthand
reports that were taken down as he spoke, and afterward corrected by
himself. The text or subject of the discourse was that portion of
Scripture which had just been recited by the reader, or part of it;
though sometimes we find that he had a text given him by the bishop or
by the presbytery, and that occasionally he selected a particular
subject at the desire of "some of the brethren." He held his own copy
of the Scripture in his hand; for we find him comparing it with the
version just used by the reader. His discourses were not set pieces of
eloquence; they were true homilies, that is, familiar and easy
addresses, almost seeming to have developed themselves out of an
earlier style of dialogue between priest and people. They have all the
abruptness, all the questionings and answerings, all the explanations
of terms and sentences, and all the appreciation of difficulties that
suggest rather the catechist with his class than the preacher with his
auditory. We miss the poetry and fine fancy of Clement, but we gain in
orderly and connected development. One is certainly tempted to think
that more artistic and ornamental treatment might have been expected
from the son of Leonides and the teacher of rhetoric. But Origen tells
us more than once that he studiously avoids worldly and profane
eloquence. His reason seems not far to seek. Rhetoric was the main
profession of the pagan teachers that abounded in every town of the
empire; and S. Augustin's expression, that rhetoric meant the art of
telling lies, was not exaggerated. Rhetoric in those days did not mean
the sound and immortal precepts of Aristotle, but the vain heaping
together of empty words. It was the necessity of protesting against
this that has undoubtedly given much of their ruggedness to the
homilies of Origen. His watchword was, edification; his rule and law,
as he expressly says, was, not completeness of exposition, not parade
of words, but the benefit of those who listened. Because he was a
speaker, he rejected tedious and minute disquisitions, which were more
suitable for "the leisure of a writer." Because he was a speaker of
the truth, he avoided, even to austerity, the imitation of profane and
perverted art. He was rich in matter, and poured forth a stream of
doctrine, of exhortation, of reproof. His name and character did the
rest. A word from Origen had more weight than a treatise from an
unknown mouth. We have no record of how his audience took his
discourses, save what is implied in the general testimony to his
prodigious reputation. But, on the other hand, he presents us with a
few facts about his audience. We learn that some were readier to look
after the adorning of the church than the beautifying of their own
souls. It appears that it was difficult to get an audience together on
common week-days, and that they were somewhat remiss in assembling
even on festivals, though he speaks of a few as "constant attendants"
on the preaching. Those who did come to church, too often came not so
much to hear God's word, as because it was a festival, and because it
was pleasant to have a holiday. And {775} some escaped the sermon
altogether by going out immediately after the reading: "Why do you
complain of not knowing this and not knowing that," he says, "when you
never wait for the conference, and never interrogate your priests?"
Moreover, many who were present at the discourse in body, were far
away in spirit, for "they sat apart in the corners of the Lord's house
and occupied themselves with profane confabulation." He did not preach
to an immaculate audience: there were many who were Christians in
name, Pagans in life; many who turned the house of prayer into a den
of thieves; many who preferred the agora, the law courts, the farm,
before the church; and many who could provide pedagogues, masters,
books, money, and time, that their children might learn the liberal
arts, but who failed to see that something of the same diligence and
sacrifice was necessary on their own parts if they wished to become
true disciples of the word of God. But from all this it would be wrong
to infer that Origen's hearers were worse than others in their
circumstances. Doubtless they listened with reverence both to his
teaching and to his rebukes. Perhaps even they applauded him by
acclamation; such a thing was not unknown a century or so later. It
would be little to Origen's taste to have his audience waving their
garments and rocking their bodies in ecstasy or calling out
"orthodox!" as they did to S. Cyril, of Alexandria, or "Thou art the
thirteenth apostle!" as the excitable Constantinopolitans did to S.
Chrysostom; like S. Jerome, he preferred "to excite the grief of the
people rather than their applause, and his commendation was their
tears." S. Vincent, of Lerins, two centuries after Origen's preaching
at Caesarea, speaks of the way in which his "eloquence" affected
himself. If his audience were as well satisfied, they must have
listened to him with great pleasure and profit. "His discourse," says
S. Vincent, in the Commonitorium, "was pleasant to the fancy, sweet as
milk, to the taste; it seems to me that there issued from his mouth
honey rather than words. Nothing so hard to believe, but his powers of
controversy made it plain; nothing so difficult to practise, but his
persuasiveness rendered it easy. Tell me not that he did nothing but
argue, There has never been a teacher who has used so many examples
out of the Holy Writ." The homilies of Origen did not pass away with
the voice that delivered them. Till he was sixty years old he had
generally written them out beforehand. After that time the shorthand
writers beside him caught every word as it fell, and so the discourses
became a treasury for ever. Fortune and time have indeed destroyed far
the greater part of the "thousand and more tractates" which S. Jerome
says he delivered in the church, and of what remain some only exist in
abbreviated Latin translations. But though their letter is diminished,
their spirit pervades the whole field of patristic exposition, and
many of the greatest of the Greek and Latin fathers have not hesitated
over and over again to use at length the exact words of Origen. And so
the sentences first uttered in the church of Caesarea have become the
public property of the church universal, and while Caesarea is a ruin
and its library scattered to dust, the living word and spirit of him
who spoke there, speaks still in cities far greater, and to auditories
far more wide; for every pulpit utters his thoughts, and Christian
people, though they may not know it, are everywhere "edified" by that
which was first the offspring of' his intellect.

Origen had been laboring at Caesarea for barely four years when one of
those interruptions occurred that he had already become familiar with
at Alexandria. The Emperor Maximin (235), a barbarian giant, whose
unchecked propensities for cruelty and blood seem to have driven him
absolutely mad before the end of his three years' reign, followed up
the murder of his {776} benefactor Alexander Severus by a series of
horrors, in which were involved both pagans and Christians alike. Any
man of name, character, or wealth, in any part of the world that could
be reached by a Roman cohort, was liable to confiscation, torture, and
death in order to appease his frantic suspicions. Caesarea was an
important Roman post, and as no one in Caesarea was better known than
the head of the Christian school, we soon find that Origen is marked
out for a victim. He escaped, however, by a prompt flight, and reached
the other Caesarea, of Cappadocia, the see of his friend Firmilian. He
had no sooner arrived there than the capricious persecution fell upon
the city of his refuge, under the auspices of Serenianus the governor,
"a dire and bitter persecutor," as he is called by Firmilian. In these
straits he managed to lie hid for two years in the house of a lady
called Juliana--a house, indeed, to which he was attracted by other
considerations beside that of safety; for this lady was the heiress of
the whole library of Symmachus the Ebionite, one of those learned
translators of the Hebrew Scriptures whom Origen incorporated in the
Hexapla. He himself mentions with great satisfaction the advantages
which his biblical labors derived from the opportunities he enjoyed in
his Cappadocian retirement. We are also indebted to this period for
two, not the least interesting, of his works. Maximin's informers seem
to have contrived to implicate the good Christian Ambrose in some
trouble. That Ambrose was a man of wealth we have seen, and he was
undoubtedly, also, in some considerable charge or employment which
necessitated his journeying frequently from one Roman city to another.
Whether this persecution caught him at Alexandria or Caesarea, or
elsewhere, is uncertain; but he had received notice of his danger and
was preparing to place himself in security when the insurrection of
the Gordians broke out in Syria and Asia, and in the confusion and
trouble that ensued he became the prisoner of Maximin's troops, and
was immediately sent, or destined to be sent, to Germany, where the
emperor had just concluded a triumphant campaign. The news of the
danger of his zealous friend and patron drew from Origen the letter
that we know now as the Exhortatio ad Martyrium. It was accompanied by
another, the De Oratione, which he had perhaps already composed. These
two works, into an examination of which we cannot enter, show more of
the interior spirit of their writer than anything else that has
reached us. When a history of the early methods of prayer comes to be
written, the treatise on prayer will have to be thoroughly examined.
The Exhortation to Martyrdom is full of the true Adamantine vehemence
and piety. Though addressed to Ambrose, it is really, and would be
accepted as a general call to the Church of Palestine to stand fast
and do manfully in the dangerous times on which they had fallen. The
name of Protectetus, a priest of Caesarea, which is associated with
that of Ambrose in the dedication, as he was also in danger of death,
felicitously localizes it, and we may look upon it as a homily,
delivered in writing and from a distance, and on a new and stirring
subject, to that church which he had been accustomed to edify with his
words during the three or four years preceding. We unwillingly omit to
enter upon it at large. At Maximin's death (238) he returned to his
own Caesarea. After this, his literary enterprises, completed and
undertaken, come thick and frequent. Among other works we meet with
the commentaries on Ezechiel and Isaiah, on S. Matthew and S. Luke, on
Daniel and the twelve minor prophets, and on several of the epistles
of S. Paul. It is to this time also that belongs the celebrated
exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, of which S. Jerome has said,
that whereas in his other works he surpassed all other men, so in this
he surpassed himself. But little of the original has come down to us,
and the translation {777} of Rufinus is too free and abridged to
enable us to understand how this high praise was deserved.

About the same period he made a second journey into Greece. What
occasion brought him to Athens we are not informed. We find, however,
that he thought very highly of the Athenian Church. In his reply to
Celsus, speaking of the influence and weight that Christians were
everywhere acquiring, he instances the Church at Athens, and boasts
that the assembly of the Athenian people was only a tumultuous mob in
comparison with the congregation of the Athenian Christians. Since
Athens was even then the central light of the whole world, we may
perhaps conclude that Origen's journey thither was caused by some
phase of the conflict between Philosophy and the Gospel with which he
had been all his life so familiar. On his return to Caesarea he wrote
the answer to Celsus, with which we shall concern ourselves presently.
It was written during the reign of Philip the Arabian. We are told by
Eusebius that Origen wrote a letter to this emperor. What this letter
can have been about is somewhat of a puzzle in history. Eusebius, to
be sure, a couple of chapters before he mentions the letter, relates a
story, rather coldly, about Philip's coming to the church (at Antioch)
one Easter time as a Christian, and his seating himself among the
penitents when the bishop (S. Babylas) refused to admit him on any
other terms. S. Babylas might well reject him and place him among the
penitents, for his career, which commenced, as that of most of the
Roman emperors, with the murder of his predecessor, the young Gordian,
had been anything but innocent. Certain it is, however, that the story
was current of Philip's being a Christian. Even if he were not, which
seems the more probable, there is no improbability that he may have
questioned such a man as Origen about Christianity. It must be
recollected, moreover, that this Emperor Philip was by birth an
Arabian, being a native of Bostra. He was the son of a robber-chief,
and we are first introduced to him as taking an important part in the
campaign of Gordian in which the Persians were driven out of
Mesopotamia. The important Roman city of Bostra, though not within the
boundaries of Arabia, was sufficiently near them to be considered the
metropolis of the upper part of Arabia, as Petra was of the middle.
Philip, therefore, was evidently nothing more than a powerful Bedouin
Sheik, such as may be seen at this very day in the countries of which
he was a native, and had succeeded his father in the possession of
wide influence over the predatory tribes that ranged over all
Palestine, Syria, and Arabia, except the actual spots occupied by a
Roman military force. His character is significantly illustrated by
the incident that raised him to the purple. When Gordian's army was in
Mesopotamia, his dangerous captain of Free Lances took care to have
the whole of the commissariat supplies intercepted, and thus caused
the mutiny which, terminated in Gordian's death. Such a feat was easy
and natural to a chief whose wild horsemen commanded every part of the
great Syrian desert that lay between Mesopotamia and the Roman
stations off the Mediterranean coast. But what is more to our purpose
is, that Origen was frequently at Bostra, and was there at the very
time of Gordian's campaign and Philip's accession. Bearing in mind the
extent to which the name of Origen was known among the pagan men of
letters, as well as among the Christian churches, it seems impossible
but that Philip must have heard him mentioned. Only let us grant that
the emperor had a leaning to Christianity, even though in no better
spirit than that of an eclectic, and the occasion of Origen's letter
becomes clear. The mention of the Syrian desert reminds us of another
celebrated name. Palmyra, or Tadmor of the Wilderness, was, at the
time of which we write, almost in the zenith of her beauty, though it
was not till {778} twenty years afterward that her splendor culminated
and collapsed under Zenobia and Longinus. Origen knew the great
philosopher, who had been his auditor at Alexandria, and whom he had
most probably met again at Athens. It is quite possible that Longinus
may have become the guest of Zenobia before Origen left Caesarea for
the last time, and, therefore, during the time he was so familiar with
the Arabian Church. We know that he had more than a mere acquaintance
with the author of the Treatise on the Sublime, and, perhaps, there
were no two minds of the age more fitted to grapple with each other.
Of their mutual influence we have no certain traces, but it may be
noted that amongst the lost works of Longinus there is a treatise,
[Greek text]. Can it have had any relation to that of Origen under the
same name?

It was at Caesarea, between the years 243 and the breaking out of the
Decian persecution in 249, that was written the famous Contra Celsum.
It is justly considered the masterpiece of its author. Ostensibly an
answer to the gainsayings of a heathen philosopher, it really takes
up, with the calmest scientific precision, the position that
Christianity is so true and hangs together with such completeness of
moral beauty, that the barkings of Gentile learning cannot confute it,
nor the violence of Gentile hatred stop its inevitable march. With no
rhetorical passion, with profound learning, with a knowledge of Holy
Scripture truly worthy of Adamantins, with frequent passages of noble
and profound eloquence, the Christian doctor builds up the monument of
the faith he loved and taught; and the work that has come down to us
through all those ages since it was written, has been recognized for
fifteen hundred years as one of those great, complete, finished
productions that are only given to the world by the pen of a genius.
Eusebius, his biographer, speaks of it as containing the refutation of
all that has been asserted, and, "by pre-occupation," of all that
could ever be asserted on certain vital matters of controversy. S.
Basil and S. Gregory Nazianzen strung together a series of favorite
passages mainly from it and called their work Philocalia, "love for
the beautiful." S. Jerome, whose praise cannot be suspected of
partiality, puts him by the side of two other great apologists his
successors, and exclaims that to read them makes him think himself the
merest tyro, and shrivels up all his learning to a sort of a dreamy
remembrance of what he was taught as a boy. Bishop Bull takes the
Contra Celsum as the touchstone of Origen's dogmatic teaching; "he
meant it for the public," he says, "he wrote it thoughtfully and of
set purpose, and he wrote it when he was more than sixty years of age,
full of knowledge and experience."

It must have been about the time when Marcus Aurelius was engaged in
persecuting the church (160-180) that a certain eclectic Platonist
philosopher called Celsus, in order to contribute his share to the
good work, wrote an uncompromising attack on Christianity, and called
it by the title of The True Word; or, The Word of Truth. We have
called him an eclectic Platonist; but, in fact, it is very much
disputed among the learned what sect of philosophers he honored with
his allegiance. Some call him a Stoic, others an Epicurean, and this
latter opinion is the common traditional one; and what would seem to
settle the question, Epicurean is the epithet given to him by Origen
himself. That Origen, when he took up The Word of' Truth to refute it,
thought he was going to refute an Epicurean, is quite evident; but it
is no less evident that he had not read many sentences of the work
itself before he began to doubt and more than doubt whether the name
of Epicurean was a true description of its author. In one place he is
amazed to hear "an Epicurean say such things," in another he charges
him with artfully concealing his Epicurism for a purpose, and in a
third he {779} supposes that if he ever was an Epicurean he has
renounced its tenets and betaken himself to something more sound and
sensible. What made Origen hesitate to state plainly that he was no
follower of Epicurus seems to have been the broad tradition that had
attached the epithet to the name of Celsus, thereby identifying the
writer of The Word of Truth with the writer of a certain work against
magic, well known to literary men, which was beyond all doubt from the
pen of an Epicurean Celsus. This latter was also probably the same as
the Celsus to whom the scoffer Lucian dedicated his Alexander, in
which he shows up that impostor's tricks and sham magic; and Lucian,
in his dedication, alludes to the works against magic, just as Origen
does. As Lucian died some years before Origen was born, the works
against magic must have been very widely known, and their author must
have been accepted as _the_ Celsus, and as he was certainly an
Epicurean, that designation fastened itself also upon the other
Celsus, the author of The Word of Truth, who had not had the advantage
of an admiring Lucian to fix his proper title in the memory of the
literary world. But an Epicurean he certainly was not. One proof is
quite sufficient. The subject of magic was a decisive test of a true
Epicurean. Not believing in Providence and professing, in fact, a sort
of philosophic atheism, he considered that gods and demons never
interfered in the concerns of the earth and the human race. Human and
mundane atoms, as they got created by a species of accident and came
together fortuitously, so they continued to blunder against each other
in various ways, and thus caused what men foolishly called the cosmos,
or order of the universe; whilst the divine nature of the immortals,
serene on Olympus

  Semotá a nostris rebus, sejunctaque longè,
  Jam privata dolore omni, privata periclis,
  Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nil indiga nostri,
  Nec benè pro meritis capitur nec tangitur irâ.

     Lucretius, de Rerum Naturtâ, I. 50.

The Epicurian, therefore, laughed alike at the notion of benevolent
god and malignant demon, at providence and at magic, and crowned
himself with flowers and drank and sinned, if his means allowed it,
under the soothing persuasion that "to-morrow" he was "to die." When,
therefore, we find that the author of The Word of Truth not only
attributes miracles to AEsculapius, Aristeas, and others, and magic to
Christ, but also considers that this world and its various parts are
committed to the custody of demons, whom it is, therefore, proper to
propitate by worship and sacrifice, we need no other evidence that he
was no follower of Epicurus.

On the other hand, a prominent belief in the agencies of unseen powers
was a mark of the Platonist of the day. Whatever Plato may have
thought of the inferior gods and demons (and on some occasions, as in
the Timaeus, he speaks of them with considerable levity), the
followers, who revived his doctrine in the first centuries after
Christ, gave them a very large share of their attention. A creator or
first father of all things was a Platonic dogma, and man and matter
must have in some way come from him; but in order to bridge over the
interval between two such extremes as God and matter, recourse was had
to an immense army of intermediate beings, of which the highest was so
dignified as to be little more than an abstraction, and the lowest
shaded off into a species of superior animal. It is this, multitude of
good and bad demons that makes its appearance in modified shape and
number in Platonist and Gnostic cosmogonies, and which is so puzzling
to follow through all its fantastic intermarriages and combinations.
When Celsus must have been writing, that is, about the time S. Clement
of Alexandria began to teach, the spirit of Plato was abroad, not only
at Alexandria but at Athens and in Rome. Theurgy was openly professed
by the most reputable teachers; their enemies called it sorcery; but
whatever it was, it meant some intimate communion with {780} the
invisible world. A writer; therefore, who puts the moon and stars
under the guardianship of heavenly powers, who pathetically defends
the case of the demons and deprecates their being deprived of the
gratification they derive from the "smell" of a sacrifice, and who
attributes supernatural powers to friends and enemies--calling them in
the one ease miracles, in the latter, magic--is evidently closer to
Saceas and Porphyry than to Epicurus and Democritus. Celsus, however,
though he says all this, cannot be called a real Platonist or
Neo-Platonist. He came in the early days of a revival, and his
philosophic pallium hung rather loosely about him; he was not above
following a new leader on an occasion, provided he saw his way to a
new stroke against the Christians. It must be admitted that he shows a
fair share or learning, some acuteness, and some acquaintance with a
variety of different peoples and customs. On the other hand, he is
occasionally guilty of the most absurd and transparent sophisms, his
conceit is unbounded, and his tone generally sneering and often very
offensive.

It was this philosopher then, Eclectic, Platonist, and man of the
world, whose Word of Truth seemed to the pious and indefatigable
Ambrose to be so dangerous and damaging that no time ought to be lost
in answering it. With this view, he attacked Origen on the subject,
and by dint of prayers and representations made him take in hand its
refutation. Origen was by no means eager to undertake the work; and we
can partly enter into his objections. The book of Celsus was not a new
one: it had been in the hands of the reading world and in the centres
of learning, such as Athens, Antioch, Caesarea, and Alexandria, for at
least sixty years, and it is to be supposed that answers to its most
important objections were common enough in the Christian schools,
though, perhaps it was itself ignored. Then, it was not the sort of
book that could do the faithful any harm, for they could not read it,
or, if they did, they distrusted it even where they could not refute
it. It was too late in the day for an open-mouthed pagan to have any
chance against the gospel of Christ. The dangerous people were those
who, like the heretics, came with the elements of this world disguised
under the sheep's clothing of Christianity; but an honest wolf only
lost his trouble; and so Origen, whilst promising to comply with the
wishes of his friend, plainly says that what he has undertaken to
overthrow, he cannot conceive as having the least effect in shaking
the orthodoxy of a single faithful man. "That man," he says, "would be
little to my taste, whose faith would be in danger of shipwreck from
the words of this Celsus, who has not now even the advantage of being
alive; and I do not know what I should think of one who required a
book to be written before he could meet his accusations. And, yet,
because there might possibly be some professing believers who find
Celsus's writings a stumbling-block, and would be proportionally
comforted by anything in the shape of a writing that undertook to
crush him, I have resolved to take in hand the refutation of the work
you have sent me." The expressions, "a book to be written,"
"writings," and "hand-writing," are noticeable, for they show clearly
enough, what has not been much observed, that Origen's chief objection
to answering Celsus was that Celsus was already answered in the oral
teachings of the church. In this also we have the explanation of the
contempt in which he seems to hold his antagonist--a temper which is
seldom advisable either in war or polemics. But Celsus had been, and
was daily being answered, and the only question was, whether it was
worth while to put formally on paper what every Christian catechist
had by heart. Was it not better to imitate the majestic silence of
Jesus Christ, who spoke no word, but let his life speak for him? "I
dare affirm," he says, "that the defence you ask me to write will be
swamped and disappear before that other defence of {781} facts and the
power of Jesus, which none but the blind can fail to see." And he
adds, that it is not for the faithful he writes, but for those who
have not tasted the faith of Christ, or for those weak believers who,
in the apostle's phrase, must be kindly taken up.

And yet Ambrose seems to have been quite right in insisting that
Origen should answer the book of Celsus. Its arguments might be stale,
and its influence small, but there it was, a formal written record of
some of the ugliest things that could be said against Christianity and
its founder. What seemed more becoming, than that the foremost
Christian doctor of his day should take in hand, at a time when
external peace and internal growth seemed to warrant it, to give a
formal, written answer to an attack that was a standing piece of
impertinence, even if it did no harm? Besides, some harm it must have
done, at least in the shape of keeping well-meaning pagans from the
truth; and though Origen is always more fond of working for the
spiritual welfare of his own household than of direct proselytizing,
yet Ambrose, as a convert, knew what prejudice was, and what was the
importance of a work from the pen of a Christian doctor who had the
ear of the Gentile world. And Ambrose, moreover, was perfectly aware,
as was everyone except the Adamantine himself, that even if the
refutation embraced only the common topics that were handled daily in
the Christian instructions, yet the result would be as far above the
ordinary catechetical lesson as the master was above the ordinary
catechist. Perhaps he hardly knew, as we know, that his instances
would produce a master-piece of polemical writing, from which all ages
have borrowed, and in which the immense knowledge of Scripture, the
beautiful and tender piety, and the sustained eloquence of expression
were unrivalled until, perhaps, Bossuet wrote his Histoire
Universelle.

It is by no means our intention to give a detailed analysis of this
wonderful work: it is described at great length in easily accessible
authors. But it will be interesting to seize on some of its most
salient characters, and thus to throw what light may be possible upon
the subject of our discussion. And the first remark that occurs seems
to be a contradiction of Origen's own statement. The Contra Celsum was
written more for the faithful than for the philosophers, and was less
aimed at the dead and gone Celsus than at the living children of the
church. It may be true that it was not meant precisely to confirm
tottering faith or to prop up consciences that the objections of
Celsus had shaken; but its effect would naturally be to encourage the
devout Christian by showing him how much could be said for his
profession, and exposing to scorn with irresistible logic the best
that could be said by his gainsayers. If Origen had not had in view
the same audience as that to which he preached on Sundays and Fridays,
he would hardly have dealt so abundantly in the citations from Holy
Scripture which are such a marked. feature of the work, and he would
not have cared to expand as he does the bare polemical branch into the
flowers and fruit of homiletic exhortation. But the faithful were
always his first thought, and the ground-color of all he has written
is warm and outspoken piety. He knew much about pagan philosophy and
worldly science, but when Porphyry (quoted by Eusebius) says that
Plato was never out of his hands, we can only say that Plato is never
mentioned in his writings save where an adversary or an error-compels
him. A far truer picture of himself is given in his own words to his
favorite pupil, Gregory Thaumaturgus. "You have talents," he says,
"that might make you a perfect Roman lawyer, or a leader of any of the
fashionable sects of Greek philosophy; but the wish of my heart is,
dear lord and my most honored son Gregory, that you make Christianity
your last end" ([Greek text]--alluding to the _summum bonum_ of the
stoics), "and that you {782} use Greek philosophy and all its
attendant sciences as handmaids to the Holy Scriptures, and as the
means ([Greek text],) toward Christianity." This was written, of
course, long after Gregory had become a Christian, and, indeed, about
the very time that the Contra Celsum would be in progress. Not a
little, therefore, in the work which would seem to beg the question,
as against an enemy, becomes an eloquent development, as toward those
who already believed. And this remark will be found not unimportant in
explaining more passages than one.

The attack of Celsus is that of a clever, well-informed, travelled
man. It is to be feared that we cannot call him a well-meaning one.
The extra-ordinary impudence of one or two of the leading sophisms and
a general tone of rancor and rabidness, very different from the
politeness of Numenius and Porphyry, seem to force the conclusion that
we are dealing with a man who ought to have known better but whose
heart had been hardened by the world and the flesh. He goes over a
large variety of topics, is not at all remarkable for order (as his
opponent complains), and repeats himself more than once. Several
German writers have published accurate accounts of his philosophic
tenets, as far as they can be ascertained. For the present, in order
to arrive at some definite knowledge of the sort of people who opposed
Christianity from the time of S. Clement to the Decian persecution, we
shall present Celsus in a few of the chief characters that he assumes
in his onslaught on Christianity. For he is very many-sided in his
anxiety to get at all the vulnerable points of his enemy, and perhaps
it might be said that his memory is not so good as a polemic's memory
ought to be, and that he contradicts himself once or twice. At any
rate he acts with some success more parts than one.

The Scoffer was a character in which Celsus had the advantage of a few
recent traditions. Perhaps the thorough pagan scoffer, who really
laughed at Christianity because he believed it deserved to be laughed
at, was rather out of date. But Lucian (and he may have known Lucian)
could have let him see how a man of genius may scoff impartially at
religion in all its shapes. Celsus was not a scoffer of this latter
sort. Either he was really too conscientious, or else he instinctively
hated Christ more than Zeus, and therefore tried to ridicule and crush
the former, while he waived hostilities against the latter. The
scoffer, as impersonated by him, is a decent, lawfearing citizen, who
is quietly engaged in doing his duty to society and making what he can
out of the queer problem called Life, when suddenly a man that calls
himself a Christian bursts in upon his calm existence with the
intelligence that he must believe in a person called Christ, or expect
to burn everlastingly. Of course, the first thing the amazed Gentile
does is to think the man mad. His second, and more charitable idea,
which is the result of some little inquiry and of a comparison of
notes with other amazed acquaintances at the bath and the theatre, is,
that the obtrusive person is an adherent of a new and peculiar sect of
philosophers. He, therefore, resolves to examine the tenets of these
philosophers with the serene impartiality of one who sets small store
by any tenets of philosophy. He finds that their doctrines are not
new, but most of them quite old--the immortality of the soul and a
future life, a rather strait-laced verbal morality, and so on; ideas
which many respectable philosophers have held, and do hold. But is
there any reason in the world for making such a parade, and noise,
merely because another philosopher, called Christ, has chosen to teach
them also? How impertinent, absurd, and unpleasant it is for these
people, instead of keeping their doctrines to the schools, to force
them with threats upon practical men! Of course, practical men and
good citizens do not regard them. If the gods do interfere in the
concerns of the earth {783} (a doctrine which Celsus, in his character
of scoffer, is inclined to waive rather than to admit), why all this
indispensable dogmatism about a Son of God? Let it be enough that we
do admit that there is a God, who in some way is supreme; as sensible
people you can demand nothing more. We call him Zeus; you call him the
Most High, Sabaoth, Adonai, or what else you please, just as the
Egyptians call him Ammon, and the Scythians, Pappaeus. Doubtless you
talk of miracles; so do all these new-fangled sects, but they mean in
reality Egyptian magic. You appeal, moreover, to your intellectual
teaching; we know about that also: no sect is good for much in these
days which does not hang on to the skirts of Plato. Besides, what is
this we hear about disputes among yourselves? This makes the absurdity
of the thing better still! The Jews say the Messiah is to come; the
Christians declare he has come. Pray, which are we to believe? On what
side are we solemnly to arrange ourselves in this momentous dispute
about a donkey's shadow? Why, here we have a squadron of bats--or an
army of ants swarming from their nest--or a congress of frogs in
solemn session on the banks of their ditch--or a knot of worms
assembled in full ecclesia in a corner of their native mud, in hot
controversy which of the lot are the wickedest. We are the ones, they
keep saying, to whom God has foreshown and announced all things; he
has left the whole universe, the broad heavens, and the earth, to look
after themselves, and makes his laws for us alone; to us alone he
sends his heralds, and us he will never cease to prompt and to provide
for, that we may be united with him for ever. He is God; and we are
next to him, as being his sons and like him in all things. We are
lords of all things, earth, water, air, and stars; on our account is
everything, and all is ordained to minister to us. If some of us sin,
God will come, or he will send the Son, to burn up the wicked, that
the rest may live with him eternally. One could listen to worms and
frogs going on in this fashion with more composure than to you Jews
and Christians.

It is not Origen's object to prove directly the importance of
Christianity. He says that it was no barbarous system of doctrine, and
challenges any philosopher, fresh from the teachings and the schools
of Greece, to come and examine it. "He will not only pronounce it
true," he says, "but he will work it up into a logical system, and
will be able to supply it with a complete demonstration, even to a
Greek. But I must also add this: our doctrine has a certain method of
demonstration peculiar to itself, and far more divine than any that
the Greeks have in their schools. It is that which the apostle calls
the demonstration of spirit and of power; of spirit, that is, by
prophecies, which abundantly prove our whole system, especially those
parts of it which concern Christ; of power, by the miracles which can
be shown to have taken place among us, and traces of which still
remain among those who live according to the will of the Word." And as
Christianity was now well known to the whole world, to scoff at it
either for its insignificance or its absurdity seemed very foolish: it
was a standing fact, and challenged examination. This is partly taken
for granted partly incidentally expressed throughout the reply. But
the impudent scurrility of the passage about the bats, frogs, and
worms, rouses Origen's indignation. "The Jews and the Christians," he
says, "because they hold dogmas which Celsus does not approve, and
which he does not seem to be very well acquainted with, are worms and
ants, are they? The peculiar opinions in which the Jews and Christians
differ from other men, are not unknown to the world. If a man,
therefore, feels inclined to call a part of his fellow-men worms and
ants, I will show him whom to call so. The men who have lost the true
knowledge of God, whose religion is all a sham--the worshipping {784}
brute beasts and graven stocks, and lifeless matter--creatures whose
beauty should have led them to glorify and adore their Creator--these
are the worms and ants. But those who, led on by reason, have risen
above stocks and stones, above silver and gold, and everything
material; who have risen above this whole created universe unto him
that made all things; who have confided themselves wholly to him; who
recognize him almighty over every creature, seeing every thought and
hearing every prayer; who send up their prayers to him only, doing all
that they do as though he saw it, and speaking all their words that
none may be displeasing to him who heareth them all--these, surely,
are _men_; nay, if it were possible, more than men. They may have,
been worms once, but shall not such religion ([Greek text]) as this,
that no trials can shake, no danger, not even death itself, destroy,
no persuasiveness of words overcome, be their shelter against such
jibes for the future? What! shall they who restrain the appetites that
make men soft and yielding as wax--and restrain them because they know
that by continence alone they can obtain familiarity with God
[Footnote 208]--shall they be called the brothers of worms and the
kindred of ants and the near neighbors of frogs? Forbid it Justice!
glorious Justice, that gives social rights to fellow-men, that guards
the equitable, the humane, and the kind--forbid that such men as these
should be likened to birds of night! Call those worms of the slime,
who wallow in lust--the common herd of men, who do evil and call it
right--but surely not those who have been taught that their bodies,
inhabited by the light of reason and the grace of the omnipotent Lord,
are the temples of the God whom they adore.'" It is a subject that
warms him, and he pursues it at some length. He does not imitate the
scurrility and abusiveness of his adversary, though he must have been
sorely tempted sometimes, to say some plain things about paganism.
Celsus shows all the liveliness of language of a man who carries on a
personal quarrel. He is not above calling his enemies "drunken" and
"blear-eyed;" he hardly takes the trouble to mention that they are
irrational fools; and for a specimen of his more fanciful bad language
the passage quoted above will suffice. Origen sometimes complains of
this, as well he may. He says that Celsus "scolds like an old woman,"
that he shouts calumny like the lowest of a street-mob, and, as a sort
of climax, that he reminds him of a couple of "women slanging each
other in the street." But the scoffer and the reviler is after all not
our philosopher's favorite _rôle_. Perhaps he will show better as the
man of intellect.

  [Footnote 208: The expression of the contemporary Platonists.]

The man of intellect has a face of severely classic mould, whereon
sits normally a thoughtful frown, as though he were ever asking
himself the reason of things, varied by a pitying smile when he finds
it necessary to recognize the existence of a non-intellectual being.
His hands are very white, his pallium neat, his hair scented, and his
whole appearance bespeaks him to be on the most distant terms with the
profane multitude. When Christianity first had the bad taste to talk
to him of penance and hell-fire, he did not deign to speak, but only
scowled disgust; but in a century or two he began to see he must say
something for his own credit. He therefore began to utter lofty
sentences and to employ his smile of pity, though the early look of
disgust was so very deeply printed on his countenance that it never
afterward left him. This is the sum of his case:--"This foolish system
called Christianity makes some little noise, it is true. But a
philosopher has only to glance at it, to despise it. I have read and
examined the books and writings of the sect; I have conversed with its
learned men, and I find that it is essentially low, grovelling, and
vulgar. It repudiates wisdom altogether; it formally forbids the
educated, the learned, and the wise to be numbered among its {785}
members. On the other hand, it energetically recruits its ranks from
among the uneducated, the weak-headed, and the imbecile. These are the
sort of men the Christian teachers declare to be most acceptable to
their God, thus showing clearly that they have neither the ability nor
the wish to make converts of any but the feeble-minded, common people,
and country boors, slaves, women, and children. They are wary; they
are like the quacks and cheap-jacks of the agora, who take care not to
obtrude themselves upon those who could find them out, but show off
before the children in the streets and the loitering house-slaves and
an admiring mob of any fools they can collect. They are mean and
underhand. You shall see, in a private house, your slave, your weaver,
your sandal-maker, or your cloth-carder--a fellow wholly without
education or manners, and silent enough before his master and his
betters--the moment he finds himself alone with the children and the
women, beginning to hold forth in marvellous style. Parents and
preceptors are no longer to be obeyed, but he is to be believed
implicitly; they are mad and doting, immersed in fatuous trifles, and
incapable of seeing or doing what is really good, he alone can impart
the secret of virtue; let the children believe him, and they will be
happy themselves and bring a blessing on the house. Meanwhile, let
father or tutor make his appearance, he mostly gets frightened and
stops; but if he be a determined one, he just whispers in parting,
that children of spirit should not submit to parental tyranny; that he
has much to explain which the presence of others will not allow him to
utter; that he cannot bear the sight of the folly and ignorance of
such corrupted and lost men, who moreover are seeking every pretext
for punishing him; finally, that if the dear children want to hear
more, they must come, with the women and as many of their companions
as they know of, into the women's apartment, or into the carding-room
or the leather-shop--and so he contrives to get hold of them."

Perhaps there was nothing in Christianity that disgusted the
philosophers so much as the fact that it went out after the poor, the
lowly, and the sinful, and offered them a share in all that it could
teach or promise. That the common herd had no need and no right to
philosophy was an accepted tenet with the new Platonists. The passage
just quoted is interesting; through its transparent misrepresentation
we can see the poor man and the slave, in the second century, in the
actual process not only of having the gospel preached to them, but
also actively preaching it as well as they could to others. The
sophism of Celsus, that Christians prefer fools and sinners for
converts, therefore they must be all a foolish and wicked set, must
have been stale, we may hope, by the time Origen undertook to answer
it. He enters into the whole accusation, however, and refutes, almost
word for word, the whole of what we have just given and more to the
same purpose.

But the intellectual objector has something positive to say, as well
as something negative. He announces, therefore, with almost ridiculous
solemnity, that he will have pity on these poor Christians, and tell
them how they are to obtain union with God, what masters they are to
follow, and what heroes they are to imitate; in short, he will provide
them with a theology, a gospel, and an assemblage of saints. For the
saints, they are our grand Grecian heroes--Hercules, Orpheus,
AEsculapius, and the rest, from Anaxarchus, who encouraged the tyrant
who was having him bruised in a mortar to "pound away on the mortal
coil of Anaxarchus," to Epictetus, who made a cheerful remark when his
master broke his leg. For the gospel, it is the most powerful teaching
of the divine and immortal Plato; and for the theology, it is the
following sentence from the Timaeus: "To discover the maker and the
father of the universe is a hard {786} thing; to make them known to
others, when discovered, is impossible." This last doctrine he is
afraid the wretched Christians will not be able to take in. They are
such a poor frightened set that the sublimity of Platonic dictum
scares them into their holes; they are such a body-loving race that
they must have a God with a body, and be able to see him with the eyes
of their flesh, which all philosophers pronounce to be impossible.
Origen, in his reply, first of all disposes of these two sneers: "The
Christians a timid set! when, rather than renounce a syllable of their
Christianity, they are prepared to suffer torture and death in its
worst shapes! The Christians a body-loving race! when they are readier
to lay down their bodies for piety's sake than a philosopher is to put
off his pallium! and when the injunction to be dead to sense and
living to soul lies upon the very surface of their teaching! But let
it pass. We must speak to Plato's theology." Here is the answer, as
terse as an epigram, as luminous as the sunlight. "Plato, when he said
God was hard to find, impossible to impart, said a sublime and a
wonderful thing; but our Scriptures give a message from God to man
that changes all the facts, and it is this: God the Word was with God
in the beginning, and the _Word was made flesh_. It is not only hard
for man to find God; it is impossible for him to seek him at all, or
to find him in an elevated order ([Greek text]) unless he whom he
seeks assist him. The knowledge of God is indeed far above man's
nature; but God, out of his kindness and _philanthropy_" (Origen's
usual expression when speaking of the incarnation), "through his
wonderful and godlike grace, has willed that his knowledge appear unto
those whom he foresees will live worthily of it, and whose piety will
be firm even against death itself, though they who know not what piety
is may jeer and ridicule. God, I think, seeing the arrogance and the
insolence of those who, with all their boasted philosophical knowledge
of the divine nature, are idol-ridden and temple-ridden and
mystery-ridden as much as the most ignorant of the mob, has chosen the
foolish things of this world, the poor, simple Christians, whose life
is purer than the lives of most philosophers, to put to the blush
those wise men who can unblushingly treat a lifeless thing as a god or
the likeness of a god. Surely the man of sense must laugh to see the
philosopher, after all his sublime talk about God and things divine,
go and ogle his idol and pray to it, or think there is some being
behind it that requires prayer to be offered up with such a ritual as
that. But the Christian knows that God is everywhere; no image limits
his vision, no temple bounds his power, for the whole world is his
temple; and his servant, therefore, shutting the eyes of his body,
raising on high the eyes of his soul--transcending all this world,
piercing the concave of heaven itself, out of the world and above the
heavens--makes his prayer to God: no sordid or grovelling prayer, for
he has learnt from Jesus to ask for nothing little or sensible, but he
prays only for what is great and really divine--for such things as
lead to that blessedness which is in him, through his son, the Word,
who is God." He has no wish to disparage Plato; Plato has spoken very
beautifully, but the Christian Scriptures have not only beauty; but
they have, what is much more important, plain morality and the divine
virtue of changing the heart. The "ambassadors of the truth" propose
to themselves to convert the whole world, the clever and the dull, the
Greek and the barbarian; not a rustic, not a poor unlettered simpleton
will they consent to abandon. Of what use is Plato in such a work as
this? His brilliant and polished periods may possibly be of use to the
few literary men that can understand them; but in the art of
attracting the attention of the rude populace he is outdone even by
Epictetus. But the Scripture has something in it that not even
Epictetus can show. Its doctrines may possibly in certain cases seem
to repeat the teachings of Grecian philosophy; but {787} it has the
power of making men act on those doctrines, which never a Greek
philosopher yet could boast of. And now as to the heroes and
philosophers, the fathers and saints of paganism. "Let us see what
leaders Celsus wishes us to follow, to the end that we may not be
without ancient and reverend models of heroism. He sends us to
God-imbued poets, as he calls them, the sages, and the philosophers,
whom he indicates in a general way, without naming particular names.
He sends us, also, to Hercules, AEsculapius, and the rest, to learn
heroism from their brave contempt of death, not unfittingly rewarded
by the myth that has deified them. Where he does not mention names it
is hard to refute him. Had he named his divine poet or sage, I should
have tried to show him to be a blind guide; but since he has not done
so, I must content myself with appealing to what everyone knows of the
divine poets as a body, and asking whether they can be compared for a
moment to Moses, for instance; to the prophets of the creator of all
things; above all, to him who has shone forth on all the race of man,
and announced to all the true way in which God would be served; who,
as far as lay in him, has willed that none should be ignorant of his
secret teachings, but, in his super-abounding philanthropy, has both
given to the learned a _theology_ that can raise their souls above all
things here below, and yet at the same time condescends to the weak
intellect of the untaught man, of the simple woman, and the household
slave--himself assisting them to lead a better life, each in his
degree, according to the teachings about God that _every one of them_
has been enabled to share. He mentions Hercules. Has he forgotten the
ugly story about that hero's base servitude to Omphale. It would take
some persuading to make us pay divine honors to the ruffian that
seized the poor farmer's ox by main force, and devoured it before his
eyes, whilst the owner cursed him, and he seemed to enjoy the curses
as much as the meal itself; whence is derived the edifying custom of
accompanying his sacrifices by a rite of powerful execrations. He
mentions AEsculapius. I have already dealt with AEsculapius: he was a
clever doctor, but he did nothing very extraordinary. He puts up
Orpheus. Of course, Celsus is aware that Orpheus wrote about the gods
far more impiously and fabulously than Homer ever did. Now, he
considers, with Plato, that Homer's poems are unfit to be permitted in
the model republic; so that it is perfectly evident that he introduces
Orpheus here for the sole purpose of defaming us and disparaging
Jesus. Poor Anaxarchus in his mortar undoubtedly affords a great
example of fortitude; but as this happens to be the solitary fact that
is known about Anaxarchus, it would be difficult to make him a model
hero and absurd to make him a god. Then, as to Epictetus: there is no
need of depreciating him; it is enough to say, that his words and
deeds are not worthy of the most distant comparison with the words and
deeds of one whom Celsus despises; for the sayings of Jesus _convert_
the wise and the simple. Celsus asks: 'What did your God say in his
sufferings, like to this?' I answer that his patience and his bravery
in his scourgings and his thousand ignominies were better shown by his
_silence_ than by any word ever uttered by suffering Greek. But he did
speak." And then he touches on some of the words of Jesus in his
agony. It is to us like a new revelation of the gospel, like a new
Epiphany, to read the comparison of the life of Jesus with the lives
of the best and noblest of antiquity. It brings vividly to our
imagination the brilliancy of the dawn of that day of Christ Jesus
(into whose light we are baptized, and in which we live with little
appreciation), when we can call back again the shades of paganism, and
watch the gross darkness as it lifts and moves slowly off before the
sun of justice. We can realize something of the feelings of earnest
hearts as they came within the reach of that light, and share a little
in the {788} excitement of a conflict wherein the victor overcame,
not, like Perseus, by displaying the horrors of a Gorgon's head, but
by unveiling, philosophically, artistically, enthusiastically, the
charms of a "theology" upon whose beauty and truth there were no
drawbacks, and in whose abysses of gladdening hope there were resting
places for every want and wish of a human heart. Origen lets the light
in upon the poor heroes and purblind sages of a Cimmerian night, and
he forgets the scoffings of wretched philosophy, as he expiates on the
love, the kindness, the philanthropy, the condescending grace of the
Word, who is God. We cannot follow him far. The intellectual objector
has much to say about the unreasonableness of faith; and the Christian
doctor vindicates scientific theology, whilst he shows how the crowd
of men must simply believe or be without any teaching whatever. He
says deep and pregnant things about faith, science, and wisdom, that
would bear fruit if reproduced in an age like ours. Then he enters at
great length into the critical objections of the man of intellect
against the life and actions of Jesus, more especially against the
great corner-stone of faith, the resurrection. And throughout the
whole of his demonstrations on intellectual grounds, he is fond of
calling attention to two grand arguments of fact, that no amount of
subtlety can explain away, and that the dullest wit cannot help
seeing: first; that Christianity has changed and reformed men's morals
in a way totally unexampled; second, that such a system of dogma and
morality can never by any possibility have been the product of human
thought, especially seeing what sort of men have propagated and
professed it, "not many wise, not many noble;" therefore its origin is
divine, and its author is the great creator of whom Plato spoke in
stammering words, and whom all philosophy has sought.

Celsus, after having laughed at Christianity, and argued against it,
and having sometimes laughed argumentatively, and at other times
argued by a laugh, appears toward the end of his book in the entirely
new character of the citizen, or patriotic opponent of impious
innovations. He defends the old faith in the gods and the myths, the
old sacrifices, in a word, the old civilization, from the awful
radicalism of a sect that were upsetting the very foundations of
social order, and endangering what little religion the common people
could be got to practise. "All this private association and
sectarianism is clearly against the law of the empire. They repudiate
temples, they despise statutes, they mock at the offerings of incense
and the sacrifices of living things; and they tell decent temple-goers
and frequenters of the sanctuaries that they are doing an abomination
and worshipping devils. Now, the proper, sensible, and right thing is,
that each nation preserve its own customs and laws. One people has
found the advantage of one set of institutions, another of another;
let each keep what is once established by due and competent authority.
The Jews are perfectly right in being tenacious of their particular
laws." (This is cool, in one who had just been abusing the Jews with
all his powers of ridicule and logic--but then he is now speaking in a
different character.) "Besides, there is another and a deeper reason
for this. It is probable that in the beginning of things the diverse
parts of the earth were committed to diverse powers and dominations to
be presided over and governed according to their pleasure; it must
therefore be wrong to attack those institutions which they have
established from the beginning in their several prefectures. It seems,
indeed, perfectly certain that there is nothing in the world that is
not given in charge to some demon. Man himself, the moment he enters
the prison of his body, passes under the power of the keepers of this
prison-house. Nay, the Egyptians, who are unexceptionable {789}
authorities here, tell us that to look after the various parts of a
man's body, there are told off no less than six-and-thirty demons or
aerial powers (some say more); and they even mention their names, as
Chnoumen, Chnachoumen, Cnat, Sieat, and others, by invoking whom you
obtain health in your various limbs. Certainly, therefore, if a man
prefer health to sickness, and happiness to misery, there is no reason
why he should not deliver himself from evil by propitiating these
beings who have him in charge. One or two things, therefore; either
the Christians must live in this world and worship those who rule this
world, or they must abjure marriage, never have children, take no part
in the affairs of men, in fact depart from the earth altogether, and
leave no seed behind them. If they are to share in the goods, and to
be protected from the evils of this world, then it is both
unreasonable and ungrateful not to render tribute to the guardians of
what they enjoy and the powers from whom they have so much to fear."
The proud and fastidious philosopher has fallen low. What an interval
between the grand sentences of Plato and the humiliating confessions
of the apologist of idol-worship! And yet both extremes must be duly
considered, before we can realize the Paganism of the Neo-Platonic
revival. The demonology of Zoroaster, which was the practical religion
of the whole East, had encountered the Platonic philosophy and
engrafted itself upon it; and the sages of such Greek cities as
Caesarea found themselves seriously defending the devil-worship of the
wandering Arabs that roved over the plains of Syria and Asia, ignoring
the centres of civilization that Alexander's conquest had erected in
their midst."

The first part of the objectors patriotic appeal on behalf of
established "institutions" is easily disposed of. The argument,
carried to its lawful lengths, becomes ridiculous. "The Scythian law
kills all the old men; the Persian law sanctions incest; the Crimeans
sacrifice strangers to Diana; in one part of Africa they immolate
their children to Saturn. One national law makes hanging a virtue,
another commends death by fire. Some nations reckon it pious to
worship crocodiles, others pay divine honors to cows, others again
make gods of goats, and one people adores what another eats. This is
making religion, not a truth, but a whim and a fancy. This is making
piety, holiness, and righteousness, affairs of opinion, and not
ascertainable, fixed realities. Suppose some one were to get up and
say the same of temperance, prudence, justice, or fortitude, would he
not be considered an imbecile? The truth is, there are two sorts of
laws; the unwritten law of Nature, of which the author is God, and the
written law of the state. If the state-law is not at variance with
God's law, it ought to be kept and to be preferred before the laws of
strangers; but if it oppose the law of God, it must be trampled upon,
even though danger, ignominy, and death be the consequence." Thus much
for the sentiment of nationality, and the common and obvious reasons,
as Origen calls them, that will make plain men repudiate it. But the
demon-theory and the alleged distribution of things to the aerial
powers, leads to a deeper and more serious question. Knowing,
therefore, that his book will fall into the hands of some who will be
inclined to examine such questions to the bottom, he undertakes to
speak more at length on the matter. This gives him an opportunity of
showing, by the history of the dispersion of Babel, how it is that we
find such diversity of peoples in different parts of the earth. Their
dispersion was a punishment; the ministers of this punishment are the
wicked spirits, acting as the instruments of God. One nation alone
remained in God's favor, and even it had to be punished through the
"princes" or spirits of other nations. Of God's mysterious dealings
with this nation, and of the redemption that was to come {790} through
it to all the other nations, he says he cannot speak out, an account
of the _disciplina arcani_, which forbade the Christian teacher to
enter into explicit details about the evil spirits, and this far the
sake of not affording encouragement to idolatry.

The time had now come when all the nations were called to the one
saviour, the one lawgiver Jesus Christ, who "issuing a master and a
teacher from the midst of the Jews, feeds with the word of his
teaching the universal world." For punishment, therefore, were the
peoples of the earth delivered to demons; for salvation they must all
return to the law of God, through Jesus. Then, as usual, the Christian
doctor lays down the grand principle that withers with its first
breath all this base and futile service of devils. "The Lord our God
do we adore, and him only do we serve." If demons punish men, or if
angels rule this lower world, it is by his supreme will that they act.
"God, therefore, the one Supreme Lord of all--him we must conciliate
and make propitious, by religion and all virtue. Is not this simple?
Is it not reasonable? Bethink you for one moment. There are two men,
of whom one devotes himself entirely to the Almighty God, the other
busies himself in searching out the names of the demons, their powers
and their deeds, the rhymes that raise them, the plants that please
them, the magic gems and the wizard characters that will elicit their
answers; which of these two, think you, will be most pleasing to the
Lord of All? But little wisdom is required to see that the former, in
his simplicity and trust, will be accepted of the Almighty God and his
familiars; whilst he who for the sake of his health and his comfort
and his base and mean wants, deals, in demon-worship and magic, will
be rejected as evil and impious, and be left to the tender mercies of
the devils he invokes, to the confusion and despair of diabolical
suggestions, and to infinite evils. For Celsus himself owns that these
demons are wicked, that they are covetous of blood, of the savour and
smoke of a sacrifice and of the singing that evokes them; let their
worshipper, then, beware lest they prove slippery in their faith to
him, and lest the adorer of yesterday be abandoned or ruined in favor
of the more ample offerings of blood and of burnt odors that are
brought by the adorer of today. And let not Celsus accuse us of
ingratitude. We know perfectly well what true gratitude is, and to
whom we ought to be grateful for all that we possess; and we fear not
to be ungrateful to the demons, our adversaries and our enemies; but
we fear to be ungrateful to him with whose benefits we are laden,
whose workmanship we are, whose Providence has placed us in our varied
lots in life, and at whose hands we look for life eternal when this
life shall be ended. And we have a symbol of this our thankfulness; it
is the bread that we call the Bread of thanksgiving--the Eucharistic
Bread." This last sentence would read commonplace to the infidel or
the catechumen that might fall upon this answer of Origen to Celsus.
They could not know what the faithful Christian knew, and what the
writer himself knew and must have felt to his innermost heart, that
these passing words were a veil that covered nothing less than the
Tabernacle of the Blessed Sacrament. The great central mystery, for
well-known reasons, does not meet the eye in the pages of Origen, save
in suggestive passages like this; but we Christians of today can
pierce the mystery because we have its key, and can respond with our
Catholic sympathies to a Catholic voice that speaks to us in veiled
accents across the expanse of sixteen centuries. "For our
citizenship," he concludes, "we are no rebels or traitors. You say,
quoting the words of an ancient--

  'King there is but one,
  whom Saturn's son hath established,'

We say with you, King there is but one; but in the place of Saturn's
son' {791} we put him who 'raiseth up kings and deposeth them,' and
'who provideth a wise ruler in his season upon the earth.' The kingly
power is from God, and by God's will we obey it; would that all
believed this as we do! You exhort us to enter the imperial armies and
fight for the state. But no men serve their country as the Christians
do. They are taught to use heavenly arms in behalf of their rulers,
and to pray to heaven for 'kings and all those who are in high
places;' and their prayers, their mortifications, and their
self-restraint are of more avail than many soldiers set in array of
battle. And beyond all this, they teach their countrymen the worship
of the Lord of All, and there is no earthly city so little and mean
but they can promise its citizens a heavenly city with God. You exhort
us to enter the magistracy and protect our country's laws and
religion. We have in every city an organization that is to us a second
_patria_, created by the word of God, governed by those who are
powerful in word and sound in work; excuse us if we concern ourselves
mainly with the magistracy of the church. The ambitious we reject;
those whose modesty makes them refuse the solicitude of the church of
God, these we compel to accept it. The presidents of God's state are
called by God's will to rule, and they must not defile their hands
with the ministry of human laws. Not that a Christian refuses his
share of public burdens; but he prefers to reserve himself for burdens
and for a service of a diviner and more necessary sort, wherein is
concerned the salvation of men. The Christian magistrate has a charge
over all men; of those that are within, that they live better every
day; of those that are without, that they may be numbered among those
who act and speak the things of God-service. Serving God in very
truth, instructing whom he may, he lives full of the divine word and
law, and so he is able to lead to the Lord of All every one that is
converted and wishes to live in his holy law, through the divine Son
of God that is in him, his word, his wisdom, his truth, and his
righteousness."

With this description of the Christian bishop, we conclude our remarks
on Origen. It will doubtless have occurred to most of our readers that
we have too completely ignored the charges of heterodoxy that have so
often been made against the name of Origen. But we do not admit that
Origen was unsound in faith, much less that he was formerly heretical.
Although not unprepared to justify this conviction, we cannot do more
at present than invoke the authority of a new and important
contribution to the Origen controversy, which was notified in our last
number.  [Footnote 209] Professor Vincenzi, it is confessed by
competent and impartial critics, has totally dissipated the notion
that Origen denied the eternity of punishment. As to the other
accusations, he goes through them one by one and confutes them,
without admitting anything whatever in the genuine works of Origen to
be theologically unsound, "excepting a few points on which the fathers
of his age were as doubtful and uncertain as himself, since the Church
had not then defined them."  [Footnote 210] Thirdly, he undertakes to
prove that S. Jerome was completely mistaken, through no fault of his,
with regard to the merits of a controversy in which he played so
memorable a part; and, lastly, he maintains that Origen was never
condemned by Pope or council, discussing especially the alleged
condemnation by the fifth general council. Under shelter, then, of the
authority of a work that comes to us with the approval of the Roman
censorship, and which on two separate occasions has been warmly
praised in the Civiltà, we cannot be wrong in waiving, at least, all
discussion, in articles like the present, on the alleged errors of
Origen. What has been said, though it has left the greater {792} part
of his work unconsidered, may perhaps have served to draw attention to
one who is in some respects the greatest of the Greek fathers. He did
not live long after the completion of the Contra Celsum. As he had
been the faith's champion from his orphaned boyhood to his old age, so
he merited at least to suffer as a martyr for the Truth he had served
so long. His tortures in the Decian persecution did not immediately
cause his death, but they hastened it. He died at Tyre in 253 or 254.
The cities where he taught are now mere names. Alexandria is a modern
Turkish town, Caesarea is a heap of broken columns and ruined piers,
Athens is the capital of a pitiful nation of mongrel Hellenes, Bostra
and Petra are tombs in the deserts of Arabia. But two things are not
likely to grow less in their greatness or to lose the vividness of
their importance, the faith of Christ and what Origen has done for it.
In another region of the world, and in cities with names that are
different, yet with histories as grand as belonged to the cities of
the East, unbelief seems to be bringing back a condition of mind, to
encounter which the Catholic writer will have to put himself into the
circumstances of those ancient giants who met and overthrew scientific
paganism in the second and third centuries. Faith, and what is faith,
and why men must believe, occupied Clement and Origen. The same
questions are occupying the thought of our own day; and many a hint
may be gathered and many a suggestive argument started, by those who
will take the Alexandrian stand-point and look at faith as it is
looked at in the polemical works of the great Alexandrian school.

  [Footnote 209: In S. Gregorii Nysseni et Origenis scripta et
  doctrinam nova recension, per Aloysium Vincenzi. 4 vols. Romae
  1865.]

  [Footnote 210: "Dummodo tamen nonnulla exceperis, quae pariter apud
  Patres coaevos adhuc dubia manebant et incerta; quippe nondum ab
  Ecclesiá definita."--_Vincenzi_, ii. 524.]

------

ORIGINAL.

THE TALE OF A TOMBSTONE.

BY D. O'C. TOWNLEY.

It is quite true to say, that the American makes a mistake who, in his
European tour, leaves Ireland out in the cold unvisited. He at least
fails to make an acquaintance which could not prove otherwise than
interesting, and possibly to find a burying-place where, if he had
them, he might dispose of his superfluous prejudices bearing upon that
island and its people--prejudices for the most part begotten of
ill-directed reading or formed with the hasty conclusions of a very
limited experience.

If a politician, he cannot fail to learn, ere he travels many miles,
whether in Connaught or in Ulster, what he ought _not_ to do with a
people having a desire to see them prosperous and contented. If a
historian, he may find food for a chapter unwritten by Hume and
Smollet, or even by the more impartial Macaulay; a chapter which may
throw some light upon the cause, ever obscurely and often untruthfully
given, whose effect is that spirit of retrogression which hovers over
the unhappy island and lays its blighting hand upon every acre from
Cork to the Giant's Causeway. If he be a painter, a poet, or a
novelist, he may find in Ireland and her people an Eldorado with mines
as inexhaustible as the ore is rich. If a tourist merely, even such a
one as does London in a fortnight, Paris in a week, and the Rhine on
the fastest steamer upon that ancient river--that brilliant soul who
takes his sleep o' moonlit nights, and on the days which follow, sits
yawning over dinner till the shadows fall, and the storied head· {793}
lands have been passed unseen--even such as he, stupid or _blasé_, as
the case may be, may find in Ireland something to awake to momentary
energy, at least, his sleeping thought and action.

Approaching the fall of 18--, having done the continental celebrities
the year before, and having been in England since early in the month
of May, I concluded, before returning to New York, that I should pay a
flying visit to the emerald cradle of that prolific race, which is, in
the language of the stump, when it suits the orators to say so, the
bone and sinew of these States; the great level which uproots our
forests; the great spade which hollows our canals; the huge pick and
shovel and barrow, that lay our iron roads over mountain and morass;
and the mighty polling power which develops the peculiarities of
legislators, contributes most generously to the revenue of the excise,
and to the sustenance of the many good and bad people whose business
of life it is to get this truly erratic people into all manner of
trouble, including jails, and out of it.

With no prejudices against the Irish people, and some
clear-sightedness as to the causes of their proverbial discontent,
unthriftiness, and frequent turbulence, I went quite ready to sorrow
or be glad, just as either mood was suggested by my surroundings;
neither to sneer at their emotional enthusiasm nor to turn disgusted
from their hilarious mirth.

Crossing from Holyhead to Dublin, I remained in that city for a few
days, then visited the south and west, leaving the industrious north
to finish off with. But as the purpose of this sketch is not to retail
either impressions of the country or its people, or all the personal
experiences of my journey, I must proceed to the narration of the
single incident, the object of this writing, referring the reader, if
his appetite lean in the direction, to the pencillings of Mr. Willis
or the much more truthful story-telling of Mrs. Hall. My immediate
purpose is gained if I have in a slight degree awakened the reader's
interest for that which follows, and if he understands that I had now
almost reached that period which I had set down for the close of my
tour and my return home.

Of the month I had set apart for Ireland--the _bonne bouche_, or, if
you like the Celtic better, the "_doch an durhas_" of my feast--I had
but one week left when I found myself at Warrenpoint, a pleasant
watering place on the margin of the bay of Carlingford, going
northward to Belfast. Here I had been two days, rather longer than I
had proposed to remain, but the season and the place at this time of
the year are especially attractive. So near Ireland's' highest
mountain as I then was, it occurred to me how discreditable the
confession would be that I had not seen it save in the purple
distance, and I concluded to do myself the honor of a near
acquaintance--sit upon its topmost ridge, and rifle a sprig of heather
from its venerable crown as a relic of the nearest spot to heaven on
the Isle of Saints.

"No," said mine host, "your honor must never say good-by to Ireland
until you see her only living monarch who has not emigrated or been
transported to a penal colony!"

Slieve Donard, the king in question, was but twelve miles distant, or
rather the village nestling at its foot. The road to Newcastle, the
name this village bears, was one of peculiar beauty all the way, and I
chose, to me, the most enjoyable of all ways of reaching it--I
determined to walk there. So, about eight o'clock on a beautiful
autumn morning, the dew still upon the grass and glistening upon the
rustling leaves of the beeches in a grove of which my rustic hotel lay
shadowed, armed with a stout blackthorn, a book in either pocket, and
a light breakfast in its appropriate department, I set out upon my
journey; accomplished it most enjoyably, arriving with but a {794}
faint remembrance that I had eaten any breakfast whatever, and just in
time for the _table d'hôte_ at Brady's.

The hotel was full with the motley occupants peculiar, there as
elsewhere, to hotels by the seaside in the bathing season. Among the
guests were reverend gentlemen assorted in the nicest manner, lean
kine and fat; the good-natured parish priest and the more
sanctimonious and exclusive curate of the orthodox persuasion; surly
country squires who had rushed down to please their wives and the
girls--"what did they want with salt water?" the city shopkeeper and
his prim property, exulting in evidence of _ton_ in every word and
movement. Even the eye-glassed, red, and wiry-whiskered Cockney could
be seen and heard, possibly attracted there by the reputation of the
"Hirish girls for fine hiyes and hintellects," or probably from a
peculiar horror, for private reasons, of other watering places nearer
home, where landlords were less generous and accommodating, being more
experienced. These, and such as these, with a few who came to see
rather than to be seen, made up the guests at Brady's.

After dinner I joined a party of the class last mentioned who purposed
devoting the rest of the afternoon to an excursion upon the mountain,
ascending as high at least as would enable them to enjoy a scene
pronounced by travellers to be one of the finest in a land praised
alike in song and story for its scenic beauty. The unmingled enjoyment
of that ascent--for the labor of the journey was a pleasure too--is
one of the most pleasant of the many happy memories which I owe to the
"Isle of Tears." The landscape which unrolled itself like a scroll as
we ascended was of remarkable beauty. Rich with all the gorgeous
coloring of the season was spread out as far as the eye could reach
the unshorn wealth of corn-field and of meadow. Here and there a clump
of beech or chestnut sheltered, half hidden among the foliage, the
snow-white walls of a farm house. Liliputian figures crept stealthily
along through lane and over pasture, more like the tiny figures in a
Flemish painting than men and cattle at their labor. The rock-bound
bay was alive with its freight of toy-like fishing-boats, whose white
sails borrowed the golden hues of evening as the sun stole down toward
the heathery forehead of Slieve Donard. The whole scene, embraced from
an altitude of fourteen hundred feet, is again before me, and I revel
for a moment, whilst the illusion lasts, in the unspeakable emotion
which was born of it.

But as I set out to tell a story whose theatre is not the mountain but
the valley underneath, I must e'en come down again to supper and to
prose, leaving, however reluctantly, Slieve Donard and its poetry
behind me.

Leaving Newcastle with that regret which all must feel who leave it at
such a season, I started next morning after breakfast for
Castlewellan, where I intended taking the coach for Newry, having
ordered my luggage to be forwarded there from my hotel at the Point.

Castlewellan is but four miles distant, and the journey thither was
said to be one of the most enjoyable walks in this romantic region.

The road, for the entire distance, is one uninterrupted ascent toward
the summit of one of the lesser hills on which the village stands,
affording from every point--unless when now and then a jutting
mountain crag overhangs the path, and for a moment, intercepts the
vision--a view of the broad expanse of sea, the valley widening as you
rise--each footstep of the ascent adding some new beauty of form and
color, light and shadow to the scene.

Half way upon my journey I sat down to rest for a minute or two by the
road side and lighted a cigar. Under its soothing influence and that
of the scene beneath me, I dropped into one of those blissful reveries
in which we sometimes forget our earthliness for a while, our souls
absorbed in ecstatic {795} contemplation of the wondrous beauty, yet
still more wondrous mystery, of the Creator's handiwork.

I had been thus but a short time indeed when the sound of approaching
footsteps broke in upon my thought, followed by the customary
salutation, "God save you, sir, 'tis a heavenly morning that we have."

Replying in the country phraseology, "God save you kindly," I raised
my eyes to see the passing figure of a stooped old man, with a spade
upon his shoulder, moving slowly onward 'neath his weight of years and
in my direction. Always fond of a companion, when wandering in this
way, being usually fortunate enough to meet with those to whom the
scenes around me were familiar, and from whom I often learned much
indeed that was new and interesting, I arose to resume my walk.
Strongly impressed by the venerable form of the old peasant, as I
deemed him, and thus attracted, I joined him, making some casual
remarks about the appearance of the country, which easily opened the
way to conversation. Enough of years have passed since that autumn
morning to have worn out the then feeble thread of the old man's life,
but palpable to my memory as the recollections of my wedding day is
every lineament of that expressive face. I hear again, as I write, the
gentle music of his voice, his white hairs float before me stirred by
the morning mountain breeze, and I greet again his expressive
salutation, felt again if again unspoken, "God save you kindly."

To all my inquiries touching the country round about, and the harvest,
then all but gathered from the fields, he replied in that simple yet
lucid manner common to the most uneducated Irish peasant, when he
speaks of things familiar to him, chastened in his every remark by
expressions of his gratitude to God for bounties received, and of his
reliance upon his wisdom and goodness in affliction.

His calling, he told me, was a sad one. He, too, was a laborer in the
field, but the harvest he gathered was moist with the tears of many.
Death himself was the reaper. He was the village sexton.

I had often before met men of his melancholy occupation, but the
hearts of these seemed to have been hardened by the very nature of
their handicraft, as they became familiarized with that sorrow,
bitterest to human nature--the parting for ever in this world with the
truest and best beloved; but in the good old man beside me the keenest
sympathy for his suffering fellow mortals seemed to have found a meet
and fitting resting-place.

I learned from him that a few rods further on my way stood the chapel
and burying-ground of Drumbhan, where, for some fifty years back, he
had made the last dwelling-places of his friends and neighbors. Five
minutes' walking brought us to the open gate and to the pathway
leading to the modest village church, within whose sacred walls a
number of the villagers had already gathered to early mass.

Guided by my new acquaintance, I also entered, joining in the sacred
ceremony, which began soon afterward.

How is it, I ask you who have accompanied me thus far, reader, how is
it--and the feeling is common to almost all of us--that in such a
simple edifice as that I knelt in, paintless and unpictured, unadorned
by the bright conceptions of genius or the cunning fingers of art;
with naked floor and whitewashed wall; window untinted with Scripture
story, itself suggestive of devotion; no ornament save the simple
embellishments of the altar; no music save the solemn voice of the
priest, distinctly audible in the respectful stillness of the place;
how is it, I ask you, that in such a sanctuary our souls seem to reach
nearer to their God in silent adoration, than when we kneel on velvet
cushions in the temples of the city, with their graven oak and marble
pillars, their lofty domes of painted glass, their frescoes and their
statuary, their mighty organs and their hundred choristers?

{796}

On leaving the church, at the conclusion f the mass, I rejoined the
sexton, who had stopped a moment at the porch for his spade, where he
had left it in an angle as we entered. I followed him across the yard
and through the wicket which separated us from the burying-ground.
Calling my attention to some of the more imposing monuments of the
place, he passed forward along the narrow pathway to perform the
melancholy task which he had told me was his first duty of this
morning--to make a grave for the last, the very last, of the
companions of his boyhood; one, he said, whose death, like his life,
was all peace, and that was part of the reward of the gentleness of
his nature, the fulness of which was hereafter.

Passing from stone to stone, to linger for a moment at this which told
its tale of the early call of the young and innocent, or at that which
spoke of many years and mayhap of many sorrows, I stopped near to one
which, from the quaintness of the inscription and chaste simplicity of
its form had a peculiar attraction for me. It was a cross in granite
with a wreath not unskilfully chiselled crowning the upper limb,
whilst along the extended arms was a single line, "The 'Widow and her
Son."

Leaning on a more aspiring tombstone near, I read again and again
these simple words, all the while imagination doing its work of making
a history for the mother and her child, when from this my second
reverie of the morning, I was again aroused by the voice of my aged
friend.

"I see you have been reading that inscription, sir," he said. "I
have," I, replied, "and it has stirred my curiosity rather strangely.
It seems to me that there is much which the tombstone does not tell."

"Very much indeed, sir," returned the sexton; "look around me as I may
at these familiar forms, there is not one amongst them tells as sad a
tale as this one."

"Your reply does not lessen my curiosity," I said; "and even if it be
the saddest of your sad experiences, and that I did not fear to
trespass too much upon your feelings or your time, I should ask you to
tell me the story of those whose resting-place is thus beautifully,
yet strangely marked."

"No trespass, sir, no trespass," the old man replied. "If the story be
one to recall a scene which will make my old eyes weep, it will just
be such a one as suits my heart this morning. So having yet an hour to
spare before the remains of my old friend can reach the ground, we
shall sit down upon this grave here whilst I tell you the story of
Mary Donovan and her boy."

Glancing around to see that no unexpected duty called him, he seated
himself on the mound proposed. I sat down beside him, an eager
listener to that which follows, given to you in words as near his own
as may be, but wanting in that richness of accent and figurative
expression peculiar to his class and to his country.

Had business or pleasure called you to Castlewellan some six years
ago, began the sexton, you could hardly have failed to meet a
good-natured innocent,  [Footnote 211] some seventeen or eighteen
years old, ever to be seen the first at Blaney's when a traveller
pulled up his horse for refreshments or coach or car, to set down or
to receive a passenger. Ere the rattle of hoof or wheel had ceased in
the courtyard before the inn, the voice of poor Ned Donovan was sure
to fall upon the stranger's ear in a greeting, wild, yet musical, and
with that peculiarity of expression which told the story plainly, that
he was one of those to whom, for his own wise purpose doubtless, God
had been but sparing in the gift of mind. And yet there was a childish
joyousness in his every look and tone that compensated in some measure
for his misfortune, evidence as it was that he was saved from the
cares and anxieties common even to those of his early years.

  [Footnote 211: Synonymous with "Idiot" among the Irish peasantry
  when used in this way; they rarely use the word idiot unless in
  derision.]

{797}

Ned loved the horses and the cars, and knew every professional driver
that came that way to fair or market for miles and miles around. He
reserved, however, especial affection for the regular roadsters, man
and beast; these I mean that drove daily to Blaney's from Newry,
Rathfriland, or Dromore. The men, well acquainted with his ways, never
spoke a hasty or unkind word to him, although he was occasionally
self·willed in the matter of the horse-feed and the watering. The
horses naturally returned the affection of one whose attendance upon
them was untiring. He talked to them incessantly in public or in
private; their comfort occupied the first place in his thought. He
curried, whisked them down, patted and praised their best points with
all the enthusiasm of a connoisseur, or, when the like happened,
mourned over a broken knee or a windgall as over some serious domestic
trouble, as indeed to him it was. All this and more of the kind was
done without fee or reward, save the privilege at all hours of the
kitchen fireside and the stables, with an occasional ride down to the
river, "wid the creatures for a drink," as he would say or "to wash
the mud from their legs, and bad scran to it."

Few days passed, however, failing to bring him a chance horse to hold
for a fine gentleman "wid boots and spurs bedad," or when he had not
an errand to run or to lend a helping hand with the luggage of some
generous traveller; and with these opportunities came sixpences,
sometimes even shillings, for his trouble, but oftener still just
because he was Ned Donovan. Many to whom his story was unknown often
wondered at the glistening eager eye with which he counted his
earnings over, and at the happiness an additional sixpence seemed to
give him; all this was so unlike the hourly evidences of his most
unselfish nature. Strangers, less charitable in mind than in pocket,
led astray by this seeming love of money, not unfrequently thought
that much of the boy's idiocy was put on, and they said so; but they
did not know him, nor happily he the meaning of their sneer. It was
amusing to follow him at the lucky moment when he got a shilling or so
in this way, when be invariably made straight for the bar of the inn
to deposit it with the utmost gravity of manner in the safe keeping of
good Mrs. Blaney. He had learnt from bitter experience how unsafe it
was to be his own banker, as he had frequently lost his earnings in
the hay loft or the stable, before the happy thought had struck him to
find a better keeper for them. You would have heard there, too, how he
invariably came at night to withdraw his funds, and how he always had
money given him, more or less. For there were unlucky days for Ned,
when travellers were few or forgetful; but his memory was far from
faithful in this regard, and good Mrs. Blaney was more than kind.

The reason for this seeming selfishness of Ned is easily told. He had
a mother whom he loved with all his strange impassioned nature, a
widowed mother. To receive her grateful smile in return for the wages
of his industry each evening when he reached his home was the crowning
happiness of the day.

God was kindly with him--he was not alone, poor boy! He had a mother,
and all that mother's love. Had you travelled that way you must have
noticed their little cottage at the turning going up the hill to St.
Mary's. You may see it even now as you pass, but the roses Mary
trained there are dead and gone, the little latticed window broken,
the garden weedy and desolate, telling its tale of sorrow like the
tombstone.

Mary Donovan had lived there for many years--since her boy was quite a
child. She came one morning, so the gossips said, a passenger by the
coach, somewhere from the North. Her child was then but four years
old, and then, as ever after, an object for the sympathy of the kind
of heart. She took humble lodgings and applied to the {798}
shopkeepers and the neighboring gentry for employment at her needle,
with which she was wonderfully skilled, they said. The prejudices
which met her at the first, from all save the kind landlady of the
"Stag," soon gave way before her patient, unbending uprightness of
character and the unfathomable sorrow that weighed her down, for
sorrow is a sacred thing; even the voice of scandal hushes in its
presence. Her past history was her secret. Whether it was one of shame
or of suffering virtue no tongue could tell. Silent as the grave to
all impertinent inquiry, meek and humble before her God, and gentle as
gentleness itself with every living thing, her mystery became
respected, and she and her boy beloved.

From that evening, when wet and weary from her journey, she first
awoke the kindly sympathies of the hostess of the "Stag"--the same
good-natured Mrs. Blaney--for twelve long years the widow pursued her
peaceful way, earning for herself and for her child not merely a
livelihood, but many of the comforts of dress and food, which were
looked upon as luxuries by those around her; and never did mother
receive more fulness of reward in the passionate love of offspring
than she in that of her all but mindless boy.

When he was yet a child often have I watched him sitting at her feet,
as she sat at the cottage door or window plying her ever busy needle,
listening to the strange stories of the fairies and the leprechauns of
the olden times she could tell so well. Of Heaven and its glories,
too, she would sometimes speak, to be interrupted by some strange
remark, suggestive of more than human wisdom. Then the startled mother
would fix her eyes upon his face so earnestly, as if in hope that God
at last would shed light upon the shadowed mind of her bereaved one,
to meet ever and always the glance of childish adoration, but with it,
alas! the vacant smile that spoke forgetfulness already of the
transitory ray of reason that a moment rested there.

Often have I stopped, as I passed that way, to listen to some quaint
old ballad full of the melancholy music of her voice, and make my
friendly inquiries for herself and child, sure to find him in his
usual resting-place. My welcome was a warm one always, and my grey
hairs--for they were grey even then, sir--often mingled with the
yellow curls of the boy as he clambered up my knee to kiss me. We were
warm friends, sir, Mary and I, for I and I only, of all living beings,
knew her secret and the story of her sorrow--and this was the way I
learned it:

One day, soon after her arrival in the town, I had just risen from
early mass in the chapel and turned in here upon my morning round,
when the voice of some one weeping bitterly, and the sad wail of a
child accompanying, drew my attention to a corner of the yard and to
the kneeling figure of a woman and that of a little boy, seated among
the long grass of the grave beside her. Mourners were no unfamiliar
sights to me, even at such an early hour, but the woman's dress
bespoke the stranger and awoke my curiosity. I neared the grave and
recognized it as that of a good old man, once the village
school-master, who had died two years before. I knew him well; for
many years he had dwelt amongst us, respected for himself as for his
calling. He had been happy in the affections of an only child--a
daughter, the very picture of her mother, he used to say, whom he had
buried amongst strangers. In her was centred his every earthly hope.
She was his pride, and her pleasure all the reward he sought in a life
laden with all the petty vexatious of the teacher. She forsook him and
her happy home, and fled to England with one whom she had known for a
few weeks only, who had met her at Rostrevor, where her father's fond
indulgence had sent her for the season; forsook all for a
husband--scandal said, a lover--who, whilst enamored of her beauty,
scorned her father's poverty. The old man never raised his head again
in the village. Two years of sorrow, and the grave closed over him.
{799} I made it. The savings of his industrious life still lay in the
hands of the village pastor in safe-keeping for the lost one should
she ever return to claim it; but Mary never claimed it.

I drew nearer, for my heart told me who the mourner was. I, too, had
loved the girl, as who indeed had not? I, too, had shared the sorrow
of her honest father, and many a time had yearned to know the fate of
the fair-haired daughter of his affection.

I drew still nearer; my step was noiseless upon the grass. I leaned
upon a headstone near me. I spoke the words that pressed for
utterance, "Mary, Mary," I said, "You come too late, too late!"

She started from the grave; an exclamation of terror and surprise
broke from her. She looked me wildly in the face as if the spirit of
her injured father stood in shape before her, and recognizing the sad
features of that father's friend, she sank, sobbing convulsively, upon
the grave again, hiding her pale face in the long grass which covered
it.

I raised her kindly in my arms, and sitting down beside her, her
wondering yet gentle boy between my knees, I heard her sad tale of
passion and remorse. No other ever heard that story; she asked my
silence and I spoke not.

From that time forward, year after year, the penitent paid frequent
visits to her lather's grave; her gentle manner asked for no inquiry,
and none was made, and there was nothing left of the once joyous
daughter of the school-master to challenge recognition. The boy, too,
seemed to love the place, and oftentimes accompanied her. For her sake
it was he loved it, seeming to comprehend that here there was
something sharing with him her affection, some link which bound them
both to the place for ever.

Well, years passed on; and, as I have said, the voice of scandal had
long been hushed; the child had almost reached to manhood, and the
silver threads of time and sorrow had stolen in among the once golden
locks of the mother. Childlike ever, and uniformly good and cheerful,
Ned rose each morning, and as it had been for some years, the daylight
was not more certain to enter the pleasant bar-room of the "Stag" than
was the shadow of the innocent to fall across its threshold, its
earliest visitor. Evening brought him home with his caresses, his
childish chat; and his petty earnings to his mother, who, happy at the
pleasure his employment gave him, was profuse in the praises that he
loved to hear.

And so matters had gone on for years, just as if they might have done
so for ever, when God in his wisdom brought that sore affliction upon
us all--the famine and the sickness of '47. Who that has lived
through that year of misery and horror, but shudders at the
remembrances its very name recalls? Who but wails some beloved one
snatched away with scarce a moment's warning?--the child from its
mother's arms; the mother from the child's caresses; the youth
standing, full of hope on the threshold of his manhood, when the warm
blood froze suddenly in his veins, the glad visions of his future
faded before him as the relentless hand of death seized him with a
grasp of iron, leaving him upon the earth but one hour of agony, and
the breath to say farewell; the aged flung into the grave upon whose
brink they had, trembling, stood for years clinging to life with more
than the tenacity of the young;--all, all stricken with that horror of
dissolution; bowed down as if a curse had fallen upon us for our sins
as once came the plague upon the Egyptians.

First amongst the victims was the long-tried, patient Mary. With
sufficient warning only to bring the good priest to her side, to
receive the last rites of her faith, to press in her enfeebled arms
her terror-stricken son, and upon his lips one agonizing kiss--and her
soul was with its God.

The agony of the boy when once he realized the great grief that had
fallen upon him was, they told me, so fearful and so wild as, to wring
with horror the {800} hearts of all who heard him. After a time he was
somewhat pacified by the gentle persuasion of the priest and the kind
soothing of some good-natured neighbors, who, disregarding the danger
of the infection, had gathered in, out of love and pity. They strove
to lead him from the death-bed; but no! the first paroxysm of despair
once over, he sat him down, silent yet stern, by the bed side. He
spoke not, he wept not. Apparently unconscious of the presence of
others as of his own existence, the icy fingers of one hand clasped in
his, he thus sat gazing, motionless as stone, upon the dead face of
his mother.

On through the long hours of that autumn night sat the stricken
mourner, and though daylight came, aye, even the sunlight that he
loved stole in and crept up upon the bed till it fell upon the placid
features of the dead illumining them as with the glory of immortality,
still he moved not. Dead as the dead he seemed, in all but the
strange, weird evidence of being in his eyes. Stolid he remained to
all remonstrances; silent as motionless to all words of comfort. The
hour came at last for preparation toward the removal of the body--for
the cholera did not spare the poor body after death, decay set in so
rapidly--when, contrary to the expectation of all, the innocent
voluntarily arose and even assisted at the necessary duties, duties
which must have conveyed to him the knowledge of his approaching
parting with her to whom he still clung as lovingly in death as he had
done in life.

It was the afternoon of the day following that of Mary's death when a
few neighbors gathered to see her home, poor girl! I should not, say a
few either, for they were many at such a time, when the dead cart
rattled hourly past the door, and sorrowing and desolation was in
every home.

They bore her from the cottage and along the way leading to the
burying ground of Castlewellan, the parish she had lived and died in.
The wailing orphan walked stealthily behind, his head low bent,
unearthly pallor on his face, his fingers interlaced before him every
motion and expression speaking of the sorrow unto death, of the mortal
agony of desolation.

Mournfully the procession passed along till it reached the cross road
leading to this village here; but continuing their journey, those
forming it were suddenly interrupted by a wild unearthly cry from the
lips of the idiot.

"Where are yez goin', men, where are yez goin', men, I say? You must
take her to Drumbhan, you must take her to Drumbhan! She said she
would lie there some day beside her father; do you hear that, men? So
bring her to Drumbhan, I say!"

His agony was fearful, his shriek inhuman in the fierceness of its
passion. The bearers stopped, the mourners gathered around the boy,
but vain was every effort to appease him, and still his cry rose far
above their words of comfort: "Bring her to Drumbhan, oh! bring her to
Drumbhan!"

None there knew, as I have said, the mother's story, and all believed
this but a wild unreasonable fancy of poor Ned's; but had it been
otherwise, what could they do? The grave was already made, and the
good priest waiting to give the last religious rite to the body of
this patient and enduring Christian.

Seeing that they again moved on, Ned suddenly ceased his cry, as if he
had formed some strange resolution which pacified him, and relapsed
into the sudden gloom that had preceded the outcry of his anguish.
They buried her; he came away quietly with them. They sought, some of
them, to bring him to their houses, thinking to save him the agony of
returning home just then to miss her presence; but all efforts to lead
him any way but that toward his desolate home were fruitless He
returned to the cottage. He sat down by the vacant bed and rocked
himself to and fro, singing with mournful pathos snatches from an old
ballad, a favorite of his mother's.

{801}

An old neighbor promising to remain with him that night and care for
the cottage till next day, when arrangements were to be made for the
disposal of its contents and for the future of poor Ned, the others
went to their homes.

The shadows of the night came down. In and near the cottage all was
silent. The old woman crept toward the boy to rouse him from his
lethargy, and to urge him to take some food which she had prepared for
him. He was asleep. Thanking God for this, his greatest gift to the
sorrowing heart, the old woman sat down, and, covering her shoulders
with her clock, dozed away an hour or two, then awoke and watched,
then slept again, again awoke to find the idiot still asleep, then
slept again.

About an hour after sunrise she started from her seat, alarmed by an
outcry at the door, her name being loudly called, "In God's name,
what's the matter? who's dead now? is it the priest, alanna?"

"Oh! may the Lord be betune us an harum," said a voice from amongst a
crowd of excited people at the door, "if they haven't raised poor
Mary's body in the night! Here's Brian an' myself saw the empty grave
as we passed by the chapel yard just now. Sure never was such a thing
as that ever heard of before in Castlewellan anyhow."

"Whisht, whisht, for the love av God," said the old woman, "or Ned
will hear yez," and turning toward the bedside, hoping that he still
slept quietly, she saw but his vacant seat--the boy was gone.

"I know it all, I know it all," she cried. "As sure as God's in heaven
this day, he's gone and raised her up himself. I heard him in his
sleep, the crature, but thought nothing of his demented talk. Go after
him, men! Go after him, I say! He has gone wid her to Drumbhan."

They hurried off with many others who now heard this extraordinary
story. They ran eagerly down the hill toward the village here. You
know the distance, maybe? Two long miles at least. Well, when they had
reached within half a mile of this spot, sure enough, God knows, they
overtook the crazy boy, wheeling before him on a barrow the coffin
containing the dead body of his mother.

Never did human eye see sight like this before. He heard their hurried
footsteps coming on behind him, and setting down the barrow gently on
the road, he turned suddenly upon them with all the frenzy of the
fiercest madness in his face, and raising up the spade that lay beside
the coffin, and brandishing it above his head, he cried, "Back, back,
I tell you all; touch her one of you, and I'll cleave him! Didn't I
tell you to bring her to Drumbhan? Didn't I tell you she wanted to
sleep down here beside her father? You thought that you were good, did
you, and Father Connor, too, to put her up in the hill beside the big
church there? But what did you know? what did you know? Did she tell
any of you last night that she couldn't rest there; did she do that, I
say? No, no, she came to me who loved her, to her own poor Ned--she
came and asked me to bring her to Drumbhan; and so I will--so I will,
I say, in spite of you all! in spite of you all!"

So saying, he raised the barrow once again and passed onward with his
burden. They spoke not. They made no effort to turn him from his
purpose. Many there were who would gladly have eased the exhausted
creature of his burden, but, awe-stricken, they feared to approach
him, and silently fell behind a second time in sad procession at the
widow's funeral.

At last he reached the gate there. I was standing at it when he came.
He wheeled his burden along that path behind us, and to the grave,
here. I followed with the rest, as powerless to interfere as they. He
laid down the barrow gently again, and taking up the spade he had
carried with him, began to dig the grave. I joined him. He looked at
me at first inquiringly; then recognizing me, muttered something to
himself as if approvingly. Other hands besides ours were soon at work,
and a {802} few minutes more found Mary resting by her father's side
and the last sod carefully replaced--when, failing only when his task
was done, the worn-out boy sank senseless upon the grave.

They carried him away gently, and when consciousness returned, they
soothed him with kind words. The women blessed him and praised his
mother, and his love for her, till recollection returned, and tears
for his loss stole silently down the idiot's cheeks. All traces of
passion had disappeared, and in its place there seemed the evidence of
a new-born intelligence in the mute yet expressive sorrow of that pale
face.

He went with them without a murmur; several times turned hastily
whilst in sight of the graveyard to look back, then disappeared.

All that day the picture of that poor creature and the scene in which
he played so strange a part, haunted me at every step. Still I saw him
coming as he did that morning down the hill; the barrow, the coffin,
the crowd walking solemnly after. Still I saw it through that long,
long day, and leave my fancy it would not. That night I could not
rest. True, I had loved poor Mary and I had loved her boy; still I had
laid away in their narrow beds many, very many that were dear to me,
linked to my affection by the closest ties of kindred, but I had never
sorrowed, old man as I was, as I had done that day; never felt such
awe at the untold mystery of our nature and the wonderful ways of my
God.

In the morning I arose early, early for me, and although no duty
called me here till after early prayer's, I took my spade upon my
shoulder and came upon my way, feeling drawn toward the place, I knew
not why.

The morning was as beautiful as this one, and, as I think I have said
before, the season of the year the same. Already here and there I
noticed, as I came along, familiar faces in the fields, and some, too,
of my neighbors I met upon the road; but contrary to my usual custom l
avoided the familiar chat so frequently indulged in when we met each
other at such an early hour, passing on with a "good morrow" only,
eager to reach Drumbhan.

Some twenty minutes brought me to the chapel, for I lived then as I do
now, a short mile below there. I went in to say a prayer, conscious of
my weakness, in the hope to shake the weight from off my shoulders
that pressed me down so heavily. Thence passing into the graveyard
here, I turned my eyes in this direction to behold, prostrate upon the
grave of his. mother, the loving, harmless boy.

My knees trembled as with palsy. How came he here? I said, and when?
Why, I asked not; I knew too well of this love that was more than
earthly. Tottering, I drew near; I called him by his name. He answered
not. I called again. No voice replied; nor sound, nor motion was there
save the echo of my voice and my hurried footfall as I neared the
spot. I stooped, I raised him in my arms, I parted from his brow the
long hair damp with the dew of morning. I gazed upon that pale, pale
face, which, in the holy peace that rested there, spoke of the
goodness and the mercy of our Heavenly Father, into whose holy keeping
the spotless soul had passed. He was dead.

The sexton's tale was told.

----------

{803}

ORIGINAL.

LIGHT.

Gaudium lucis AEternae.


  When the twilight veil is closing
    Gently o'er each darkening scene,
  Love we not the shades reposing
    Underneath its misty screen?

  When, like ruins dim and hoary,
    Forms are outlined on the sky,
  See we not surpassing glory
    In the day-god's closing eye?

  Yes! But from the LIGHT is given
    All the grace of coming night;
  And the change from day to even
    Is a change of varied light!

  Silent midnight reigneth over
    Scenes so lately bright and fair,
  Shades like gliding spectres hover.
    Round each faint-traced image there;

  And the darkness' onward stealing
    Shrouds the earth with dusky pall,
  But from LIGHT, the dim revealing
    Even of midnight's glories fall.

  And the purer spirit-vision
    Is a world all fair and bright;
  Ever in the dream elysian
    Joy is of "eternal light."

Marie.

--------

{804}

From The Dublin University Magazine.

MEDIAEVAL BOOKS AND HYMNS.  [Footnote 212]

  [Footnote 212: The reader will bear in mind that the author of the
  following paper is a Protestant minister.-ED. CATH. WORLD.]

The fall of Rome was the annihilation of a great dominant power, a
power which had been supreme; and when the barbarians marched into her
streets and devastated her homes, the world sunk back into a tenebrous
night of social, intellectual, and moral darkness. Her mighty empire,
held together like one country by her genius, was broken up and
divided amongst the different tribes who had poured down from the
north and overrun Europe, divided just as the fortune of war or the
caprice of choice indicated. It was the approach of a moral chaos; but
the hand whose guidance is to be felt in the life of individuals, and
may be traced in the history of nations, did not abandon the world to
the utter confusion of its own impulses. As the imperial power of Rome
fell away and died out like an effete thing, wasted by its own'
corruption, a new power was springing up in vigorous youth by the side
of that which was declining. Christianity was advancing toward the
west with rapid strides, victorious through the persecution of tyranny
and the jealousy of philosophy; it was then taking its stand in the
world as an influence; but if at this moment amid the vast changes and
subversion of things which took place after the fall of Rome,
Christianity had been merely a reformed philosophy, and had been left
to the mercy of pagan barbarians, it would have been extinguished in
its infancy. That was avoided by a remarkable concatenation of
circumstances. For centuries there had been an apprehension in the
Roman empire of an advance of the barbarous nations in the north of
Europe, symptoms of which had manifested themselves in the earliest
period of the Christian era. Toward the latter end of the second
century the most powerful of these tribes, the Goths, impelled by some
influx of other barbarians, advanced from their position near the
mouth of the Vistula, invaded the Roman frontier, and took Dacia,
where they were found by the Emperor Caracalla at the opening of the
third century, in the middle of which they were allowed by Aurelian to
settle along the banks of the Euxine, when they were divided into two
parts--the "Ostro" or Eastern, and the "Visi" or Western Goths. In the
next century a terrible alarm was raised amongst them, which even
penetrated into the Roman empire, and up to its capital, where it was
related that an awful race of beings--savage, ugly, inhuman, begotten
of the devil--were pouring in thousands out of the deserts and plains
of Asia into Europe. Such were the Huns. Already they had reached the
territory of the Ostrogoths, whom they compelled to supply them with
guides to lead them on toward the Visigoths. These latter at their
approach fled in the extremity of terror toward the Danube, and
implored the protection of Valens the emperor, who allowed them to
settle in Moesia, upon the condition that they should defend the
imperial frontier. In less than forty years afterward from defending
the Roman frontier they sacked Rome. But during this interval an
incident took place which had a great influence upon the destinies of
Christianity. After the settlement with Valens, an intercourse of a
somewhat friendly character sprung up between the Romans and {805}
these barbarian defenders of the frontier. The church was suffering
from her great Arian apostasy--a form of scepticism exactly parallel
to that new light of modern times called Rationalism. Valens was an
Arian, and, wishing to convert these pagan barbarians, sent a
missionary amongst them in the person of the renowned Ulphilas, whom
he made bishop of the Moeso-Goths. This great bishop labored
assiduously for the conversion of the barbarians, invented an
alphabet, and translated the Scriptures with his own hand into their
strange idiom. His labors were blessed with success; the Goths
embraced Christianity, though in the Arian form; and fifty years
afterward, when Alaric led them into Rome, amid the tumult of the
unfettered license of the soldiers, an order was issued to respect the
churches of the apostles and the sacred places. In the midst of the
devastation of the city and through the very thick of the riot, a band
of priests and devotees were seen marching under the protection of
Gothic soldiery, carrying on their heads the sacred vessels of St.
Peter, and mingling with the shoutings of the ravagers the chant of
solemn psalms. Under Gothic protection, and by the express order of
the Gothic king, the sacred vessels were deposited in safety at the
Vatican; numbers of Christians joined the procession and received
shelter, whilst many who were not Christians also availed themselves
of the opportunity to join the band of believers and escape in the
general confusion.  [Footnote 213]

  [Footnote 213: Oroslus Hist., lib. vii. c. 39.]

This was the first indication of the new life which was to dawn upon
the world under the influence of Christianity. Gradually all the
tribes of barbarians yielded to its influence--the Burgundians in
Gaul, the Vandals in Africa, the Suevi in Spain, the Ostrogoths, the
Franks, and then the Saxons in England; but the early conversions of
these barbarians were to the Arian form of Christianity then in the
ascendant. Its principal tenet was the denial of the equality of the
Son to the Father; and the heresy spread until the error, after being
vigorously combated, was suppressed, and the new nations won back to
the orthodox faith. Thus was this compensation for the overturn of
civilization effected; the world was not abandoned to utter
destruction, it was indeed given up to the hands of rude barbarians,
but they in turn were subjected to a new influence which accompanied
them to the various kingdoms founded upon the ruins of' the extinct
empire, and formed the basis in each of those kingdoms of a new and
higher civilization. With the fall of Rome the gods of the pagans were
overturned, their temples destroyed; and in the midst of the
devastation, the ruin, and, the despair into which the world was
sinking, the Church of Christ arose as the guiding spirit, the pioneer
of the new life. Another incident in connection with the establishment
of Christianity, which saved the lore of ancient times from
destruction, was the adoption of the Latin language by the church; for
although that language had made a settlement in many of the countries
subject to the Roman arms, yet a tendency soon sprung up, from the
mixture with barbarian invaders, to the degeneracy of the Latin tongue
and the rise of new and separate idioms. But it was preserved in
comparative purity in the church, which naturally led to the
preservation of its most noble monuments; and it ultimately became,
when the modern languages were in their infancy, the tongue especially
devoted to the transmission of learning. History, poetry, science, and
what little there was of literature, found a medium of communication
and a means of preservation in the Latin language. Had it not been
adopted by the church then for some centuries, whilst the new tongues
were gradually developing and settling into a form, the world would
have been dark indeed, not a book, not a page, not a {806} syllable
would have reached us of the thought, the life, or the events of that
period.

From the fourth to the seventh century there would have been an
impenetrable gap in the annals of humanity--the voice of history would
have been hushed into a dead silence, and the light of the past which
beacons the future would have been extinguished in the darkness of a
universal chaos. In England, however, the case was somewhat different.
From the earliest period of the Saxon domination there was a struggle
for a literature in the vulgar tongue. The Saxons had brought with
them a vast store of traditional poetry out of which one specimen has
been preserved, consisting of an epic poem in forty-three cantos, and
about 6,000 lines--the oldest epic of modern times. It is called, "The
Gleeman's Song," and was composed by Beowulf in their native wilds and
brought over with them in the fifth century. It is a strange poem,
impregnated with the vigorous air of the North; strength and
simplicity being its chief characteristics. The principal personage is
Hrothgar the king, and the poem is full of incidental descriptions of
manners and customs which afterward became native to England, and
linger about among us even now: there are great halls, ale-carousals,
fighting with giants, the elements of a rude chivalry, and an
invincible prowess which dares both dragons and ghosts. But the first
native writer in Anglo-Saxon after the conversion to Christianity is
Caedmon, who lived in the latter part of the seventh century (680);
The story of his miraculous inspiration is recorded by Bede.
[Footnote 214]

  [Footnote 214:  Eccl. llist., lib. iv., c. 24.]

He was born in Northumbiria and was a monk of Whitby. He paraphrased
large portions or the Scripture, and has aptly been called the
Anglo-Saxon Milton; indeed it is more than probable that the Puritan
poet borrowed the ideas of his sublime soliloquy of Satan in
Pandemonium from this Saxon monk; After Satan's overthrow, Caedmon
says--[Footnote 215]

  [Footnote 215: Thorpe's edition of Caedmon.]

  "Then spake he worde:
  This narrow place is most unlike
  that other that we formerly knew
  high in Heaven's kingdom,
  which my master bestowed on me,
  Though we it for the All·powerful
  may not possess.
  We must cede our realm."

So Milton--

  "O how unlike the place from whence they fell!"

and in the words of Satan--

  "Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,
  That we must change for heaven, this mournful 	gloom
  For that celestial light? Be it so, since he
  Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid
  What shall be right."

Caedmon's notion of Pandemonium is the prototype of Milton:

  "But around me lie
    iron bonds;
    presseth this cord of chain,
    I am powerless!
    me have so hard
    the clasps of hell
    so firmly grasped.
    Here is a vast fire
    above and underneath;
    never did I see a loathlier landskip;
    the flame abateth not
    hot over hell.
    Me hath the clasping of these rings,
    this hard polished band,
    impeded in my course,
    debarred me from my way.
    My feet are bound,
    my hands are manacled
    . . . . .
    About me the
    huge gratings
    of hard iron,
    forged with heat,
    with which me God
    hath fastened by the neck."

Nearly all these ideas are incorporated in Milton's sublime picture--

  ". . . .   down
  To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
  In adamantine chains and penal fire."
  . . . . . _Line 48_.
  "Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild?"
  . . . . . _Line 180_.
  "A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
  As one great furnace, flamed."
        _Line 61_
  ". . . . torture without end
  Still urges, and a fiery deluge fed
  With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed."
       _Line 67_.

But after the death of Caedmon (680), there must have been a great
deal of poetry written which is now lost, for we read that Bede, on
his {807} death-bed, repeated several passages from national poets,
one of which is preserved in that interesting description of the last
moments of the great historian, written by S. Cuthbert, who was with
him to the end.  [Footnote 216] But the chivalrous poetry of tradition
gave way to that of  religion, which is the characteristic of Saxon
song after the sixth century.

  [Footnote 216: Asseri Annaies (Gale's Collec.) ann.; 731.]

We are also told that Aldhelm,
bishop of Sherbourne, who died in the year 709, was one of the best
poets of his day. But still at this period, although there was a
struggle after a national literature, the great works were all written
in Latin; and Bede, much as he admired the Saxon poets of his country,
intrusted his Ecclesiastical History to the only idiom sacred to
learning. Gildas and Nennius, who preceded Bede, also wrote in Latin.
But the Saxons were the first out of all the barbarians to acquire a
vernacular literature. Of that literature we are scarcely competent to
judge; but from what has come down to us, from allusions in history,
from the state of education among them, we may safely conclude that
although little has survived, it was not a poor literature. We must
remember the continual scenes of devastation which took place during
the period of their domination; when monasteries were rifled, books
burnt, and manuscripts wantonly destroyed. From the time of Alfred,
only one Anglo-Saxon writer of any consequence has come down to us,
Olfric; but from what we know of Saxon progress we may be assured
there were many others. It is evident from the state of education
among them. Before the middle of the seventh century schools had
sprung up, and toward the latter end an impetus was given to learning
by the labors of Theodore and Adrian, of whom Bede asserts that they
gathered together a crowd of disciples, and taught them not only the
books of Holy Writ, but the arts of ecclesiastical poetry, astronomy,
and arithmetic, and adds in proof that some of their scholars were
alive in his day who were as well versed in the Greek and Latin
tongues as their own.  [Footnote 217]

  [Footnote 217: Eccl. Hist. lib., iv., c. 2.]

Even the ladies among the Saxons were well educated, for it was to
them that Aldhelm addressed his work De Laude Virginitatis, and
Boniface corresponded with ladies in Latin. In the ninth century also
we find that schools were flourishing in various parts of the kingdom,
especially the one at York, under Archbishop Egbert, who taught Greek,
Latin, and Hebrew to the scholars, amongst whom was Alcuin the friend
of Charlemagne. From the letters of Alcuin, but more especially from
his History of the Church of York, we may learn that for the same
there was a renowned library there, and as it is the earliest list of
books--the first catalogue of an English library extant--we may as
well subjoin it. Alcuin says that in his library were the works of
Jerome, Hilarius, Ambrose, Augustine, Athanasius, Gregory, Pope Leo,
Basil, Chrysostom, and others. Bede and Aldhelm, the native authors,
of course were there. In history and philosophy there were Orosius,
Boethius, Pompeius, Pliny, Aristotle, and Cicero. In poetry, Sedulius
Juveneus, Prosper, Arator, Paulinus, Fortunatus, Lactantius; and of
the classics, Virgil, Statius, and Lucan. Of grammarians there was a
great number, such as Probus, Phocas, Donatus, Priscian, Servius,
Eutyehius, and Commianus. Boniface was a great book collector, and
used to send them home to England. So that we may fairly conclude that
if the Danish depredations and the internal dissensions of the country
had not been so fatal to the treasures hoarded up in monastic
libraries we should have had much more of Saxon literature. The
influence of Dunstan, too, gave an impulse to learning both in the
country {808} generally and in the church. He himself was a scholar, a
musician, an artist, an illuminator, and a man of science;  [Footnote
218] but the most prominent figure is Bede, who, as we observed, wrote
in Latin; he was well versed in Greek and Hebrew.

  [Footnote 218: "Artem scribendi necne citharizaudi pariterque
  pingendi peritiam diligenter excoluit."--Cotton MSS.---Cleop., B
  xiii., fol., 69. ]

He wrote many works--thirty-seven according to his own list, including
compilations; but the most important was his Ecclesiastical History,
which traces the course of the national church from the earliest times
down to 731, within four years of his own death. In his introduction
he honestly gives us a list of his materials, from which we can gather
that in all parts of the country the bishops and abbots had
instinctively turned their attention to historical writing; for he
says he was indebted to Albinus, abbot of St. Augustine's, Canterbury,
for the particulars of the Augustinian mission and the history of the
Kentish Church generally, and to Northelm, a priest of London, who had
discovered at Rome the epistles of Pope Gregory upon the subject; from
Daniel, bishop of the West Saxons, he received much assistance as to
the history of that province and the adjoining. Abbot Esius, of East
Anglia, and Cunebert, of Lindsey, are also mentioned as contributing
valuable materials. So that this history of Bede is compiled from the
most authentic sources, and forms one of the most valuable collections
of ecclesiastical annals extant in any nation. It is a fact worthy of
note in the history of letters, that these early prelates of the Saxon
Church, and in fact the monks in the various monasteries scattered
over the country from the earliest period, and even down to their
decadence, silently and patiently recorded the events of their times
and of their church, and that their labors, such as have been rescued
from the ravages of the past, form the only true "materia historica"
of modern writers. But we pass on from the time of Bede to that of
Alfred, under whose influence the Saxon language almost displaced the
use of the Latin. The extraordinary vicissitudes of his life have been
elsewhere recorded, but in literature he was an historian, a
theologian, a commentator, and a transcriber. His principal works were
translations of Gregory's Pastoral Care, the Universal History of
Orosius, Boethius's Consolations of Philosophy, Bede's Ecclesiastical
History, and several parts of the Bible; but he not only translated,
but interpolated whole pages of his own. In the Pastoral Care he has
inserted original prayers; in the History of Orosius there is a sketch
of the state of Germany by him, and the translation of Boethius is
tesselated with profound and pointed thoughts, which fairly entitle
him to the name of philosopher. The greatest achievement of King
Alfred was perhaps the reviving and restarting the Saxon Chronicle. It
is probable that from the earliest times of the Saxon rule a national
record of events had been kept somewhere, either from the instinct of
preservation or by concert. The evidence of Bede proves that it was
done in the church as regards ecclesiastical matters, and we know that
in the time of Alfred there was a short record of bare events, with
now and then a genealogy treasured up and handed down from age to age.
It was his thought and care to reform these records and restart the
Chronicle as a great national archive. For this purpose, he enjoined
Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, to collect what could be found,
write it out fairly, and commence his labors as the chronicler of the
period. From that time the records are fuller and more in detail, and
down to the year 1154 it was kept up by different men in different
monasteries, who were eye-witnesses of the events they recorded, and
out of whose labors there are only six original MSS. extant of this
great national work. The first is called the Plegmund, or Benet MSS.,
because it was, as we have said, compiled by Plegmund at the
instigation of Alfred, and is preserved in Benet {809} (Corpus
Christi) College, Cambridge. From the year 891 it is written in
different hands and by different people down to the year 1070. The
second copy is in the Cottonian Collection at the British Museum
(Tiberius, A vi.), written apparently by one hand, which has been
attributed to Dunstan, and it terminates at the year 977, eleven years
before his death. The third copy is in the same collection (Cotton
Tiberius, B i.), and is thought to have been written in the monastery
of Abingdon; it reaches down to 1066. The fourth copy is also in the
Cottonian collection (Tiberius, B iv.), written by different men down
to the year 1079. The fifth manuscript is in the Bodleian library at
Oxford (Laud, E 80), from internal evidence, written in the year 1122,
compiled from older materials, and carried down in different hands to
the year 1154, showing the gradual degeneracy of the Saxon language
under Norman influence, from 1132 to the end. The sixth and last
manuscript is in the Cottonian library (Domitian, A viii.). It has
been accredited to a Canterbury monk; it is written in Latin and
Saxon, and terminates in 1058. Besides these six, one other MS. is
mentioned as of great value, being a transcription of a Cottonian MS.,
which perished in a fire at Dean's yard in 1731. It is in the Dublin
library (E, 5-15), and was written by Lombard in 1863-64.  [Footnote
219]

  [Footnote 219: For a more detailed account of these MSS. see Preface
  to Bohn's edition of the Translation of Bede and Saxon Chronicle.]

Scarcely any country in Europe possesses such an historical treasure
as this, so authentic and so characteristic. It is a very interesting
study to note its many peculiarities; there are sad gaps in its
records, as though the sorrow of the land was too great to be
recorded, and the hand had failed; there are songs of triumph at the
defeat of the enemy, and pathetic lamentations over desolated homes;
there are noble panegyrics upon men of blessed memory, who had fought
up bravely for their church and country, and words of bitter scorn for
traitors, cowards, and profligates; it contains pious reflections,
ejaculations, and aspirations; it is a most vivid picture of the
manners, the thoughts, the joys, the sorrows of the most interesting
and important period in the history of our country, as though the life
itself, with its characters and incidents, were made to pass before
our eyes in a rapid panorama.

Such was the result of one of Alfred's many plans for the good of his
kingdom. His own diligence as a writer and translator told vitally
upon the language, then rapidly improving. Latin manuscripts had for
some time previously been interlined with Anglo-Saxon "glosses"--that
is, interpretations of Latin words and passages in Anglo-Saxon--and
this gradually led to the complete transcription of Latin MSS. into
Anglo-Saxon, and the writing of original matter in the vernacular
tongue.  [Footnote 220]

  [Footnote 220: A specimen of this interlinear translation may be
  seen in the Cottonian collection--Vespasian, A i.--a Psalter
  written in the year 1000, in Latin capitals, with an Anglo-Saxon
  interpretation between the lines.]

Although only one writer of any consequence has been handed down to us
from the time of Alfred, yet we may fairly infer that many others
lived and wrote, whose works were destroyed in the ravages made by the
Danes from that time to the Norman conquest, and afterward when Norman
monks looked with contempt upon Saxon MSS., and used them for other
purposes, such as binding or transcription after erasure. The Latin
then once more became the language of literature in this country.
Still the Saxon lived, and would not be trampled out by the Normans,
though it degenerated sadly until, in the fourteenth century, an idiom
sprung up by a mingling of the two, which has been called Semi-Saxon.
Out of this came the early English, from which, after an additional
Saxon infusion from Puritan times, came the idiom we now use, whose
strong Saxon basis bids fair to make it live through all time, and, is
spreading it in every quarter of the world.

{810}

It will be interesting to note at this point that two men managed to
preserve a great deal of literary matter out of the gross Vandalism
which was rife, Archbishop Parker and Sir Robert Cotton. Parker's
collection is in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and those of
Cotton in the British Museum, the present reference to which, under
the titles of Roman emperor's, arose from the circumstance that in his
own library they were arranged on shelves, over each of which was a
bust of one of the Roman emperors. In this way, and by the diligence
of these two men, many valuable MSS. were rescued which had passed
into the hands of private individuals and booksellers.

All hopes of a national vernacular literature were, however,
frustrated by the advent of the Normans. Centuries before, the French
had ceased to sing their mournful litany, "A furore Normannorum libera
nos Domine," and had found it advisable to give these troublesome
strangers a settlement. Here they had multiplied and thriven until the
middle of the eleventh century, when they were the most promising
people in Europe. There are traits in the Norman character not unlike
the Roman. The Gothic tribes generally adopted the language and, to a
certain extent, the customs of the countries they conquered; but the
Normans, like the Romans, always endeavored to graft their own
language and customs upon their vanquished. As soon, therefore, as
William had made his tenure sure in England, he began the work of
Saxon extermination by ordering that the elements of grammar should be
taught in the French language, that the Saxon caligraphy should be
abandoned, and all deeds, pleadings in courts, and laws should be in
French. Saxon then sunk into contempt, and those of the old race who
were more politic than patriotic set to work vigorously to acquire the
elements of the favorite tongue. Then also the custom of writing books
in Latin was revived, and continued, as regards all important works,
down to the sixteenth century; for although books were written in
English before that time, the language was in a very crude state; for
as in Germany and other countries, so in England, the event which
first fixed the language was the translation of the Bible into the
vernacular; the book, which everybody read, soon became an authority,
and was appealed to on points of language. Still the influence of the
Normans was beneficial, both upon the manners and the literature of
the country. The Saxons, with all their greatness, were not a very
refined people; they were given to carousals of which we can scarcely
form any conception, their diet was coarse, and their manners
unpolished; but the Normans, if not more simple in their habits, were
more refined. Norman extravagance found vent, not in drunken orgies
and riotous feasting, but in fine buildings, horses, trappings, and
dress. [Footnote 221] The importation of provincial poetry in the
shape of Trouvère poems, romances, and fabliaux, had a refining effect
upon the literature, and laid the foundation of English chivalry. But
the most beneficial effect was the introduction of two or three master
spirits into the country, whose friendship William had formerly
cultivated. Of the two most important we will give a rapid sketch.

  [Footnote 221: There is a very good comparison of the manners of the
  two races drawn by William of Malmesbury in his Gesta Regum; and,
  being related to both, he is likely to have given a fair estimate.]

In the early morning of a day in the first quarter of the eleventh
century, a poor young scholar walked through the gates of Pavia, staff
in hand, into the open country, and made his weary way across the
Alps. He was heavy in heart and light in purse; he had lost his
parents, and had left his native city to seek the scanty livelihood of
a vagrant scholar, and yet bound up in that ragged form, as it were in
an undeveloped germ, were wealth, power, and influence; he was making
his way, {811} as far as he knew, to some of those French schools of
disputation which had sprung up, where a poor scholar whose wits had
been sharpened by scanty fare, might, by a happy sophism or a crushing
conclusion, earn a bed and refreshment for the night; but he was in
reality making his way to fame, distinction, and wealth, to a
conqueror's court, and to the episcopal throne of Canterbury. This
ragged scholar, who thus left his native city, was Lanfranc, a name
familiar to English ears and ever memorable in English history, For
some years he led this vagrant life, travelling from place to place,
disputing and studying, when he once more returned to Pavia and
established himself as a pleader. His eloquence soon brought fame and
competence; but urged by some hidden impulse, he threw up the
prospects open to him; once more left the city, and once more took his
way across the Alps and settled at Avranches in Normandy, where many
schools were established. He soon found disciples; but the secret
yearning of his heart developed itself--the monastery of Bea was not
far distant, and to it he bent his steps, hoping to find that peace
which the cloister alone could afford. But he was not allowed to
remain in obscurity, his scholars and others, attracted by his fame,
crowded around him, flocked to his lectures, and the school of Bea
became so renowned that the attention of the young Duke of Normandy,
who also had in him the germ of a glorious career, was attracted to
this rising dialectician, and through the medium of intellectual
intercourse a friendship was engendered which procured for the
conqueror of England a wise and trusty adviser, and paved the way to
fortune for, the poor student. The remainder of his career may be
summed up in a few words. William had just founded a new monastery at
Caen, and over it, he placed his friend as abbot. But during the
twenty years which had elapsed between the time of his settlement at
Bea and his elevation to the abbacy of Caen, the school he had founded
had become most renowned, and some of the great men of after times
boasted of having sat there at Lanfranc's feet. Among these were
Bishops Guimond, Ives, and another Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm.
On one occasion after the elevation of Lanfranc to the primacy of
England, he was obliged to visit Rome and have an audience of Pope
Alexander II., who paid him such marked respect that the courtiers
asked the reason, and the Pope replied, "It is not because he is
primate of England that I rose to meet him, but because I was his
pupil at Bea, and there sat at his feet to listen to his instruction."

While at Caen, however, he entered into the renowned controversy with
Berenger upon the doctrine of the real presence in the Eucharist,
Berenger admitting the fact but denying the change of substance. The
results of this controversy, however, were anticipated by neither
party. It led to a thorough change in the mode of investigation of
truth, more especially of divine truth. Berenger had adopted the
course of arguing the point upon the grounds of pure reason, a course
not unfamiliar to an expert dialectician like Lanfranc, but utterly
novel in theological disputation, where authority was omnipotent.
Lanfranc himself says of his opponent that he desired "relictis saeris
auctoritatibus ad dialecticam confugium facere." But like a true
athlete, he meets his adversary with his own weapons, and for the
first time in Europe men beheld a vital theological dogma being
discussed by champions who had agreed to throw aside all the weight of
authority and rely upon the strength of their own logic. This was the
first signal for the union of scholasticism with theology, which
prevailed in Europe for centuries, tingeing even the writings of the
early reformers. What Lanfranc had done in the pressure of
controversy, Anselm took up with all the ardor of a convert; and the
change which passed over the thought of Europe {812} amounted to a
sort of intellectual revolution. But to return to the fortunes of
Lanfranc;--soon after William had been consecrated he returned to
Normandy, taking with him Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose
deposition he ultimately procured, when he immediately installed his
friend and adviser, Lanfranc, into the see of Canterbury. At first,
however, Lanfranc declined the post, upon the grounds that he did not
know the language; but his objection was overruled, and in the year
1070 he was consecrated and took up his residence in England.

To him at Bea succeeded as teacher, Anselm, who made great advances in
the scholastic mode of teaching. He was also prior of the monastery,
and during this period he wrote six treatises on the Fall of Satan, on
Truth, on Original Sin, on the Reason why God created Man, the Liberty
of the Will, and the Consistency of Freedom with the Divine
Prescience. These great questions were then uppermost in men's minds,
and they were treated by Anselm in the new and more attractive mode of
appeal to pure reason. Whilst in the midst of these studies he was
appointed abbot of his monastery, which he reluctantly accepted, and
in the year 1093, fifteen years afterward, four years after the death
of Lanfranc, he was appointed by William II. to the archbishopric of
Canterbury. His relations with the king were not happy; he opposed
that obstinate and rapacious monarch, and a series of
misunderstandings ensued, which led him to retire to Rome to consult
with the Pope. During his absence he wrote that book by which he is
most known, Cur Deus Homo, Why God was made Man. He also took a
prominent part in the Council of Bari, in 1098, where he procured the
decision against the Greek delegates, upon the question of the
Procession of the Holy Ghost. Upon the death of William he returned;
but the rest of his life was occupied in continual disputes on points
of privilege with the king, Henry, and he died in the year 1109.

But we will now advance to the consideration of that great change
which came over the thought of Europe, and bears the name of
scholasticism. The controversy of Lanfranc with Berenger on the
doctrine of the real presence, may be accepted as the point where the
new method was applied to theology; from that time it became the
favorite mode. But although the scholastic philosophers professed to
rely upon bare reason, they appear to have instinctively felt that
great want of human nature, the want of an oracle, and they found
their oracle in the works of Aristotle, then in use in the university
and schools of Spain, sadly perverted by being filtered through an
Arabic translation. Men flew to Arabic grammars, and to Spain, to
Arabic versions of Aristotle, and the Stagyrite then became the oracle
of the Scholastics just as the fathers were of their opponents. But
still, as is and must be the case in all religious controversies, both
parties lay under the same necessity, and, after all, drew their
premises from the same quarter. The defender and the opposer were
alike subject to the influence of revelation; without that, the
opponent would have wanted the subject of opposition, and the defender
the object of his defence, so that the premises of both appear to be
involved in the same thing, and in fine the Scholastics fell back also
upon the fathers, as may be seen in the Sentences of Peter Lombard,
the handbook of scholasticism, which is nothing but a mass of extracts
from the fathers and popes, worked up together into a system of
theology. In its earliest form it cannot be denied that scholasticism
did good. It was a healthy revival of intellectual life, it stimulated
all classes of thinkers, and created a passion for inquiry; it brought
out such great minds as Abelard, Duns Scotus, and Thomas Aquinas. The
very subjects upon which men debated gave an elevation to thought, and
the result was an intellectual activity which has rarely been
equalled. It must be remembered also that the schoolmen did not
discard {813} the facts laid down by the fathers; they were not
infidels, but their investigations turned more upon the mode of
operation--they accepted the divine presence in the Eucharist, but
what they wanted to ascertain was the way in which it manifested
itself. They believed in the Incarnation, but they desired to know the
exact mode in which that sacrifice had worked out human redemption.

But we must return to the development of English literature. After the
Norman Conquest, we have already observed, the Latin tongue became
once more the medium of communication for the learned, and all great
works were written in that idiom, so that there were three tongues
used in England: the Latin by the clergy and scholars, the
Norman-French by the court and nobles, and the Saxon, which fell to
the common people. The literature of that period was rich in some
departments, poor in others. In philosophy, whatever we may think of
its merit, it was anything but scanty, and a perfect library of
scholastic writings has come down even to our times, a desert of
argumentation and reasoning, but containing veins of gold, could a
mortal ever be found endowed with the patience to dig deep enough, and
labor long enough to open them. The Book of Sentences, by Peter the
Lombard, bishop of Paris, to which we have already alluded, was one of
the wonders of the twelfth century. It was divided into four parts:
the first treated of the Trinity and divine attributes, the second of
the Creation, the origin of angels, of the fall of man, of grace, free
will, of original and actual sin; the third of the Incarnation, faith,
hope, charity, the gifts of the spirit, and the commandments of God;
and the fourth treated of the Sacraments, the Resurrection, the Last
Judgment, and the state of the righteous in heaven. Although a great
deal is borrowed from the fathers, yet there is in this work a marked
tendency toward the scholastic method; he wanders into abstruse
speculations and subtle investigations as to the generation of the
Word, the possibility of two persons being incarnate in one, sins of
the will and of the action. It did much to mould the thought of
succeeding writers, and it won for its author the title of Master of
Sentences; it was appealed to as an authority; what the "Master" said
was a sufficient answer to an opponent. Another great work was the
Summa of Thomas Aquinas, a book which excites admiration even now.
Duns Scotus and Occam, also contributed voluminously to the stores of
scholastic theology. The literature, however, was richer in history.
Whilst the theologians were debating about questions beyond the reach
of the human intellect, a band of quiet pious men devoted their time
to the recording the tale of human actions. Upward of forty men lived
from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, who have written the
history of the country from the earliest periods down to the dawning
of the sixteenth century. Probably no country in the world is richer
in historical material than ourselves; and as an admirable instance of
monastic diligence, and evidence of intellectual activity in what has
been usually termed an age of dense ignorance, we subjoin a table of
the historical writers, upon whose labors the authentic history of the
country must rest.   [Footnote 222]

  [Footnote 222: We omit in our list the supposititious history of
  Croyland, by Ingulphus, which has been disposed of by Richard
  Palgrave, as of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, and of little
  historical value.]


MONASTIC WRITERS OF ENGLISH HISTORY.

_Twelfth Century._

  William of Poictiers, History of Conquest--Chaplain to William I.

  Ordericus Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History to
  1141--Monk of St. Evroult.

  Anonymous, Gesta Stephani.

  William of Jumièges, History of
  Normandy--Monk of Jumièges.

  Florence of Worcester, Chronicon ex
  Chronicis to 1119--Monk of Worcestcr.

  Matthew of Westminstcr, Flores
  Historiarum--Doubtful.

{814}

  William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, Historia
  Novella, Gesta Pontificum, Vita Anselmi,
  De Antiquitate Glastoniae--Monk of Malmesbury.

  Eadmer, Historia Novorum, and others--
  Monk of Canterbury.

  Turgot, Confessor of Margaret, Queen of
  Malcolm Canmore; wrote her Life and
  History of Durham (called Simeon of Durham),
  History of St. Cuthbert, De Rebus
  Anglorum, and other works--Monk of Durham.

  Ailred, Account of Battle of Standards--Abbot
  of Rivault, York.

  Geoffrey of Monmouth, British History--Monk of Monmouth.

  Alfred of Beverley, Gestis Regum--Canon of
  St. John's, Beverley.

  Giraldus Cambrensis, Itinerarium Cambriae,
  Topographia Hiberniae, De Rebus a se Gestis,
  etc--Politician.

  Henry of Huntingdon, Eight Books History,
  Julius Caesar to 1154--Archdeacon.

  Roger of Hovenden, Chronicle, 732 to 1202,
  in continuation of Bede.

  William of Newburgh, Hist. from Conquest to
  1197--Monk of Newburgh.

  Benedictus Abbas, Chronicle, 1170 to 1192
 --Abbot of Peterboro'.

  Ralph de Diceto, Two Chron., one 589 to
  1148, and the other to 1199, Hist. of
  Controversy between Henry and à Becket,
  Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury to
  1200, in the Anglia Sacra--Archdeacon of London.

  Gervase of Canterbury, Chronicle, from 1100
  to end of century, three other pieces, Contests
  between Monks and Archbishop Baldwin,
  History of the Archbishops, from Augustine
  to Walter, 1205--Monk of Canterbury.


_Thirteenth Century._

  Richard of Devizes, Chron. of Reign of Richard I--Monk.

  Jocelyn de Brakelond, Chron., 1173 to 1202
 --Monk of St. Edmondsbury.

  Roger of Wendover, Hist. to 1235--Monk of St. Albans.

  Matthew Paris, Historia Major. Conq. to
  1259--Monk of St. Albans.


_Fourteenth Century._

  William Rishanger, Continuation of M. Paris
  to 1322, Wars of the Barons--Monk of St. Albans.

  John of Brompton,  [Footnote 223]
  Chron. to 1199, from Saxons--Monk of Jerevaux.

  [Footnote 223: Authorship doubtful.]

  Thomas Wickes, Chron., of Salisbury to 1304
 --Canon of Osney.

  Walter Hemingford, Hist. Conquest to 1273
 --Monk of Gisbro'.

  Robert of Avesbury, Hist. Reign of Edward
  III to 1356--Register of Canterbury.

  Nicholas Trivet, Hist. from 1135 to 1307--Dominican.

  Adam Murimuth, Chron. 1303 to 1337--Monk.

  Henry Knyghton, Hist. from Edgar to Richard II--Canon of Leicester.

  Thomas Stubbs, Chron. of Archbishops of
  York to 1373--Monk.

  William Thorne, Chron. of Abbots of St.
  Augustine, 1397--Monk.

  Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon  [Footnote 224] to 1357--Monk.

    [Footnote 224: Caxton printed it, with a
    continuation of his own, to 1460.]


_Fifteenth Century._

  Thomas Walsingham, Hist. Brevis to Hy. of
  Normandy--Monk of St. Albans.

  Thomas Otterbourne, Hist. to 1420--Franciscan.

  John Whethamstede, Chron. 1441 to 1461--
  Abbot of St. Albans.

  Thomas Elmham, Life of Henry V.--Prior of Linton.

  William of Worcester, Chron. 1324 to 1491--Monk.

  John Rouse, Hist. Kings of England to 1490--
  Chaplain to Earl of Warwick.


_Monastic Registers._

  Glastonbury,   63 to 1400
  Melrose,   735 to 1270
  Margan,  1066 to 1232
  Waverly,   1066 to 1291
  Ely,  156 to 1169
  Abingdon,  870 to 1131
  Bishops of Durham,  633 to 1214
  Burton   1004 to 1263
  Rochester,  1115 to 1124
  Holyrood,   596 to 1163

Add to these many historical documents which have been preserved from
destruction, such as the Doomsday Book, the Liber Niger, rolls and
public registers, and we have a repertoire of historical materials
such as scarcely any other nation in Europe can boast of. From the
time when the Saxon Chronicle was commenced down to the age of
printing, the pens of the monks were unwearied in recording the
history of their country; and although they had their share of human
weakness, and were influenced in matters of opinion frequently by the
treatment shown to their order, still among such a mass of writers the
truth may surely be ascertained. The severity of criticism applied to
history in these {815} days is driving men rapidly to active research
among these _origines histoicae_. Formerly when a man wrote a history,
he framed his work upon other men's labors and his own fancy, as was
instanced in the case of Robertson, who coolly tells us that he had
made up his mind to write a history of something, but was undecided
whether it should be a history of Greece, of Leo X., William III. and
Anne, or Charles V. At last he decided upon the latter, and we may
infer from a letter of his to Dr. Birch in what degree of preparation
he was for the work. He says: "I never had access to any copious
libraries, and do not pretend to any extensive knowledge of authors,
but I have made a list of such as I thought most essential to the
subject, and have put them down as _I have found them mentioned in any
book I happened to read_." In another letter he admits: "My chief
object is to adorn as far as I am capable of adorning the history of a
period which deserves· to be better known." Hume was no better than
Robertson, for it appears that the latter had consulted the great
English historian about Mary, who sent him a version which Robertson
at once used. But shortly after Hume received some MSS. from Dr.
Birch, who went more deeply into these things, and in consequence he
wrote to his friend Robertson to the following effect: "What I wrote
to you with regard to Mary, etc., was from the printed histories and
papers, but I am now sorry to tell you that by Murdin's State Papers
the matter is put beyond all question. I got these papers during the
holidays by Dr. Birch's means, and as soon as I read them _I ran to
Millar_ and desired him very earnestly to stop the publication of your
history till I should write to you and give you an opportunity of
correcting a mistake so important, but he _absolutely refused
compliance_. He said that your book was finished; that the whole
narrative of Mary's trial must be wrote over again; that it was
uncertain whether the new narrative could be brought within the same
compass with the old; that this change would require the cancelling a
great many sheets; and that there were scattered passages through the
volumes _founded on your own theory_." [Footnote 225]

    [Footnote 225: Disraeli's Literary Miscellanies.]

We quote these letters to show how history was written in bygone times
by men who until the days of Maitland and Froude have been regarded as
authorities. The blind led the blind, and the History of Scotland--
whole sheets of which ought to have been rewritten, and scattered
passages founded upon theory erased--was given to the world, because
the printer refused to disturb the press, and the author was
disinclined to demolish such a fair creation. But the day for
imaginative history is past, and a new light is dawning upon the
world, the necessity of which is apparent from these revelations. For
the future the historian must write from manuscripts or printed copies
of manuscripts, or his theories and his fancies will be soon
dissipated under a criticism which is becoming daily more powerful,
and acquiring new compass as fast as the labors of the Record Office
are being brought to light. The narrative of the most vital periods of
our country's history will have to be rewritten. We are being
gradually taught that the dark ages were not so dark as our
conceptions of them; that some of our favorite historical villains may
yet be saved; and that many of the gods we have worshipped had very
few claims to divinity. The very fact of there being such a repertoire
of historical materials created by the labors of those forty monks of
different monasteries; the existence of a voluminous and important
controversy involving the vital questions of religion, and argued with
scholarship, logical acuteness, wit, and vigor; the works of piety,
art, and architecture which have come down to us from that age--must
convince us that, however rude the physical mode {816} of life may
have been, the intellectual activity and mental calibre of the men of
those days, when we remember their immense disadvantages, were little
inferior to those of our day. We produce many things, but not many
great things; but the labors of mediaeval monasticism were not _multa
sed multum_, and they live now, and probably will live when much of
this multiform literature of our times will be obliterated by the
impartial, discriminating hand of time.

We cannot pass over this period of what we may call national Latin
literature--that is, when the literatures of all nations were written
in Latin--without noticing the history of one book which has ever
stood out prominently from the mass of mediaeval productions, not only
from its intrinsic excellence, but from the unfathomable mystery
connected with its authorship. We allude to the treatise De lmitatione
Christi, popularly attributed to Thomas à Kempis. His claim rests
chiefly upon the fact that the first printed copy was made from a
manuscript written by him and signed "Finitus et completus Anno
Domino, 1441, per manus patris Thomae Kempis in monte S. Agnetis prope
Swoll." But there is in this subscription no evidence of authorship;
it was the usual formula appended to copies. Kempis was an inveterate
copyist, and it will be a sufficient proof of the untenable nature of
this argument if we mention that a copy of the Bible made by him is
subscribed in a similar manner--"Finitus et completus Anno Domini,
1439, in Vigilia S. Jacobi Apostoli per manus Fratris Thomae à Kempis
ad laudem Dei in Monasterio S. Agnetis." There is no evidence,
therefore, of authorship in the subscription of the MS.

But doubts existed soon after the publication of the work about its
authorship, and another MS. was discovered at Arône bearing the
inscription, "Incipiunt capitula primi libri Abbatis Johannis _Gesen_
De Imitatione Christi et contemptu omnium vauitatum mundi," and at the
end was written "explicit liber quartus et ultimus Abbatis Johannis
_Gersen_ de Sacramento Altaris." The house in which this document was
found belonged to the company of Jesus, but as it had formerly been
held by Benedictines, some vigilant members of that active body at
once declared it must have been written by one of their order. They
managed to get possession of it, and immediately brought it out with
the addition in the title after the name of Gersen of "Abbatis Ordinis
Sti. Benedicti." Then commenced that celebrated controversy between
the two monastic orders, the Augustines, who advocated the claims of
Thomas à Kempis, and the Benedictines, who fought for Gersen. A volume
might be written easily upon the bare history of that controversy, as
some hundreds of volumes were during its progress. It began
immediately after the publication of this Benedictine claim in the
year 1616, and it raged in different countries in Europe for more than
two centuries, the last controversy coming to a conclusion in 1832,
which arose from the discovery of a MS. at Paris, copied in 1550, and
a document purporting that it was bequeathed to one of the De'
Avogadri family in the year 1347. This further confirmation of the
antiquity of the work gave rise to the last controversy which ended
like all the others in increasing the doubt as to Thomas à Kempis's
authorship and the uncertainty of the whole question.

We think it can be shown that the De lmitatione was known before the
birth of Thomas à Kempis, and about the time of the existence of
Gersen; but the evidence of the claim of the Gersenites is so slender
that the mere chronological coincidence is not sufficient to maintain
it. Passages have been collected from works written long before the
time of à Kempis word for word the same as in the De Imitatione. In
the conferences of Bonaventura to the people of Toulouse, written
about 1260, there are many such passages; {817} and in an office
written by Thomas Aquinas for the Pope Urban IV., about the same time,
there are many other passages.  [Footnote 226] In fact, in the
Conferences a whole paragraph is quoted verbatim, concluding with the
phrase, "as may be seen in the pious book on the 'Imitation of
Christ.'" Criticism has labored diligently to discover in its text
evidences indicative of the nationality of the author, but they have
ended in contradictions which seem to insinuate that it might be the
joint production of pious minds in different countries, which would
leave to Thomas à Kempis the honor of having collected and arranged
them into one form. However, instead of wasting time over a fruitless
investigation, we prefer taking the book as it is with its wealth of
spirituality, with its calm beauty, its power of soothing the
perturbed spirit, its subtle analyses of the human heart   [Footnote
227] and the springs of human action, its encouragement to a godly
life, its fervor, its eloquence, and its strange power; and we are
driven to the conclusion that it is the most marvellous book ever
produced--most marvellous from the universal influence it has exerted
over the minds of men of all creeds, ages, and countries, and from its
adaptability to the common yearnings of all humanity. Like the gospel,
of which it is the exponent, and therefore from which it derives the
quality, it stands out in its marked individuality, in the midst of
every phase of life through which it has passed, a distinct thing,
having nothing in common with the world or worldly pursuits, but
trying to wean men from them, or at least from allowing them to gain
an ascendency over their affections. In the present age this isolation
is more striking. We are far too philosophical, too scientific, too
logical, to attend to the ascetic ravings of this "monkish" book. The
business of life runs high with us, runs too noisily, to allow us to
listen to its small voice. We are so deeply engaged in the pursuits of
pleasure and the acquisition of wealth, that we have no time for the
"Imitation of Christ." We are involved in great undertakings--Atlantic
telegraphs, principles of physical science, railway committees,
parliamentary reforms, and drainage questions, absorb all our
attention. But philosophy, science, and logic fail to exempt humanity
from its ills. The hour comes when man falls sick, sick unto death;
then in that moment when philosophy deserts pain, and science affords
no consolation; when logic is dumb, and the soul with instinctive
apprehension is clamoring for help, then is the moment for such a book
as this. And it was in such a moment that La Harpe, cast into a
dungeon of the Luxembourg, with nothing but death before him,
accidentally meeting with this book, and opening its pages at the
words "Ecce adsum! Ecce ad te venio quia vocasti me. Lacrymae tuae et
desiderium animae tuae, humiliatio tua et contritio cordis
inclinaverunt me et adduxerunt ad te," [Footnote 228] he fell upon his
face heartbroken and in tears. We must conclude this portion of the
subject by repeating that the Latin language retained its position as
the language of literature until the time of the Reformation. But
during the fourteenth century there was a tendency to blend the two
vernacular tongues spoken in England--the French and the Saxon. In the
struggle for precedence the Saxon conquered, and out of it came the
present vigorous idiom spoken by the English; but nothing of any
consequence was written in this tongue until it became settled and
confirmed.

  [Footnote 226: These passages may be seen collected in parallel
  columns in a work by M. De Gregory on L'Histoire du Livre de
  l'Imitation. Paris,1843.]

  [Footnote 227: Vide the analysis of Temptation, lib. I., c. xiii.,
  and the well-known chapter on the Royal Road of the cross, lib. II.,
  c xii.]

  [Footnote 228: "De Imi., lib. III., c. xxi., sec. 6. Behold me!
  behold I come to thee because thou hast called me. Thy tears and the
  desire of thy soul, thy humiliation and contrition of heart have
  inclined and led me unto thee."]

We now advance to the consideration of one of the most beautiful
emanations of Christianity in the world---her hymns. We take up these
{818} hymns of the church, and we find that they bear testimony, not
only literary but historical, as to the state of the church at any
given time, and certainly one of the best and purest testimonies that
can be found. Few, if any, writers have sufficiently investigated this
branch of ecclesiastical history, the evidence of the hymnology of the
church. If we appeal to her controversial theology we shall find
invariably a mass of one-sided representation, mutual vituperation,
and invective; if we go to ecclesiastical history we shall find that
those histories are written by minds working under the bias of some
inclination toward sect or theory; but if we take up the hymns of the
church we shall have the pure, free, outspoken voice of the church--we
shall see, as it were, its internal organization, its emotions, its
aspirations, its thoughts, living, throbbing, palpitating--the very
heart of the church itself.

The song of Christianity has never ceased in the world; it has
continued in an unbroken strain. It began at its very outset in the
song of the mother of its founder, and it has been going on ever
since. As the voice of one age dies away, the strain is taken up by
the next. It has sunk at times into a low plaintive melody, and at
others mounted into a grand swelling psalm, heard above the noise of
the world, which ceases its strife to listen· to its music. Of this
melody we shall now endeavor to give a brief history. We begin at the
coming of our Lord; but the whole worship of the true God is marked by
the psalmody of rejoicing hearts. The children of Israel by the Red
Sea broke out into the first recorded song; a considerable portion of
the Scripture is in that form; Jesus with his disciples sung a hymn at
the Last Supper; the apostles continued the practice, and from
post-apostolic times there have come down to us three great hymns,
whose origin is lost in their remote antiquity--the Ter Sanctus, the
Gloria in Excelsis, and the Te Deum. These hymns were used in the very
earliest ages of the church. Of the latter there is a legend that it
was sung by Ambrose spontaneously at the baptism of Augustine.

The periods of hymnology may be divided into two great sections--the
earliest or Greek period, extending to the dawn of the fourth century,
when the second or Latin division commences; and this latter may be
subdivided into three parts--the Ambrosian, the Barbarian, and the
Mediaeval. The earliest Greek hymns are anonymous; there is one to
Christ on the Cross:--

  "Thou who on the sixth day and hour
  Didst nail to the cross the sin
  Which Adam dared in Paradise,
  Read also the handwriting at our transgressions,
  O Christ our Lord! and save us."

There is one on repentance, commencing:--

  "Receive thy servant, my Saviour,
  Falling before thee with tears, my Saviour,
  And save, Jesus, me repenting."

And a simple doxology:--

  "God is my hope,
  Christ is my refuge,
  The Holy Spirit is my vesture.
  Holy Trinity, glory to thee!"

The first name of a hymn-writer which has reached us is that of
Clement of Alexandria, who lived toward. the close of the second
century. One of his hymns is called, Hymn of the Saviour. But it is
recorded by St. Basil that a hymn was well known in the first and
second centuries, called, Hail, Gladdening Light! which was sung in
the churches at the lighting of the lamps:--

  "Hail, Jesus Christ! hail, gladdening light
  Of the immortal father's glory bright!
  Blessed of all saints beneath the sky,
  And of the heavenly company!

  "Now, while the sun is setting,
    Now, while the light grows dim,
  To Father, Son, and Spirit,
    We raise our evening hymn.

  "Worthy thou, while time shall dure,
  To be hymned by voices pure.
  Son of God, of life the giver,
  Thee the world shall praise forever!"

There were several Syriac hymns at this period. Ephraim Syrus, a {819}
monk, and deacon of Mesopotamia. wrote, The Children in Paradise, On
Palm Sunday, The Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, and another, called,
The Lament of a Father on the death of his Son, which used to be sung
at the funerals of children. Gregory of Nazianzen is the best known of
the Greek hymn-writers. There are two hymns to Christ extant by him,
and an evening hymn. In one of the hymns to Christ the following
passage occurs:--

  "Unfruitful, sinful, bearing weeds and thorns,
  Fruits of the curse--ah! whither shall I flee?
  O Christ, most blessed! bid my fleeting days
  Flow heavenward, Christ, sole fount of hope to me!

  "The enemy is near--to thee I cling!
  Strengthen, oh! strengthen me by might divine;
  Let not the trembling bird be from thine altar driven--
  Save me--it is thy will, O Christ!--save me, for I am thine."

Gregory's life was spent in a continual conflict with Arianism. At the
age of fifty he went to Constantinople, and as all the churches were
in the hands of the Arians, he preached in the house of a relative. He
was soon subject to persecution, was pelted in the streets, arrested,
tried, and with much difficulty acquitted. Ultimately he succeeded;
the Arian heresy passed away; the house where he had so faithfully
preached became the Church of "Anastasia;" the truth had risen there.
But time, though it brought success, had left him a sad, lonely old
man. He was made Patriarch of Constantinople by the Emperor
Theodosius; but he had lost all his dearest relatives, and he threw up
his dignity and retired from the world. In that retirement he wrote a
beautiful hymn, which sums up his life. We quote the first and last
verses:--

  "Where are the winged words? Lost in the air.
  Where the fresh flower of youth and glory? Gone!
  The strength of well-knit limbs? Brought low by care.
  Wealth? Plundered. None possess but God alone.
  Where those dear parents who my life first gave,
  And where that holy twain, brother and sister? In the grave.

  "This as thou wilt, the Day will all unite,
  Wherever scattered, when thy word is said;
  Rivers of fire; abysses without light,
  Thy great tribunal, these alone are dread.
  And thou, O Christ my King, art fatherland to me--
  Strength, wealth, eternal rest, yea all, I find in thee."  [Footnote 229]

    [Footnote 229: These extracts from translations of Greek hymns are
    quoted from The Christian Life in Song, where the full versions may be
    seen.]

St. Andrew of Crete, St. John of Damascus, St. Cosmas, Bishop of
Maiuma, and Chrysostom, were amongst the Greek hymn-writers. Their
productions are characterized by the greatest simplicity and fervor,
reliance upon Christ and love to God being the most prominent topics.
We now come to the period of Latin hymns, and we begin with the first
or Ambrosian division. The principal writers are Ambrose, Hilary, and
St. Prudentius. Augustine, in his Confessions, quotes one of Ambrose's
hymns, as having repeated it when lying awake in bed, "Atque ut eram
in lecto meo solus, recordatus sum veridicos versus Ambrosii tui: Tu
es enim.   [Footnote 230 ]

  [Footnote 230: August. Confess., lib. ix., c. 12.]

  "Deus creator omnium
  Polique rector, vestiens
  Diem decoro lumine
  Noctem sopora gratia.

  "Artus solutos ut quies
  Reddat laboris usul,
  Mentesque fessas adievet
  Lactusque solvat anxios."

Ambrose was born about the year 340; his father was a prefect of Gaul,
and belonged to a noble family. Before the age of thirty he himself
was consul of Liguria, and dwelt in Milan. Up to this time he had no
notion of becoming an ecclesiastic. But Anxentius, the Arian bishop,
having died, a dispute arose between the citizens of Milan and the
emperor, as to who should appoint the successor, each trying to evade
the responsibility. It was left to the people; the city was in a state
of great excitement, and a tumultuous assemblage filled the cathedral,
in the midst of whom appeared Ambrose in his civil capacity, to
command peace, and it is said that in the lull which ensued, a voice
was heard crying, "Ambrose is bishop," which the whole mass of people,
seized by a sudden impulse, repeated. {820} Soon afterward he was
ordained and consecrated. The majority of the people were opposed to
Arianism, and he was soon involved in a dispute with the Empress
Justina, who required him to give up the Portian Basilica to the
Arians. He refused, and accompanied by a multitude of people, took
possession of the church, and fastened the doors. The imperial troops
besieged them for several days, during which time the people kept
singing the hymns of Ambrose. Monica, the mother of Augustine, is said
to have been amongst the crowd in the church. One of Ambrose's hymns
was used for centuries as a morning hymn, called Hymn at the
Cock-crowing; another Advent hymn, Veni Creator gentium; one for
Easter, Hic est dies verus Dei. St. Hilary, Bishop of Arles in the
sixth century, is the next of the Ambrosian period; the best known of
his hymns is that to the morning, Lucis largitor splendide. But the
most prominent name of the period after Ambrose is Prudentius, who was
born about 348, practised in the courts as a pleader, and in his
fifty-seventh year forsook the world, and spent the rest of his days
in religious exercises. One of his great hymns is for Epiphany, O sola
magnarum urbium, another on the Innocents, Salvete flores martyrum;
but the hymn most known is a very beautiful, perhaps his most
beautiful composition, a funeral hymn, beginning Jam maesta quiesce
querela. After the reformation, this hymn was adopted by the German
Protestants as their favorite funeral hymn, their version beginning
"Hört auf mil Trauern und Klagen."

The resurrection of the body is thus expressed--

  "Non si cariosa vetustas
  Dissolverit ossa favillis
  Fueritque cinisculus arens
  Minimi mensura pugilli:

  "Nec si vaga flamina et aurae
  Vacuum per inane volantes
  Tulerint cum pulvere nervos
  Hominem periisse licebit"

  "For though, through the slow lapse of ages,
    These mouldering bones should grow old,
  Reduced to a handful of ashes.
    A child in its hands may enfold.

  "Though flames should consume it and breezes
    Invisibly float it away,
  Yet the body of man cannot perish,
    Indestructible through its decay."

The next period of hymnology is what we have termed the barbarian,
because it began at the time when the northern invaders were settling
down in the various parts of Europe, which had fallen to their arms.
Though not so fertile in hymns, yet some beautiful things were
produced in this period. We shall only mention three
hymn-writers--Gregory the Great, Venantius Fortunatus, and Bede. The
principal hymn of Gregory's is the Veni Creator Spiritus; but the most
distinguished hymn-writer of this era is Fortunatus; he was an
Italian, born about 530; a gay poet, the delight of society, until
Queen Radegunda persuaded him to be ordained, and to settle at
Poictiers, where she, having left her husband, was presiding over a
monastic establishment. There is a beautiful hymn of his, which
commences--

  "Pange lingua gloriosi
  Praelium certaminis."

We quote two verses (v. i. and viii.) of the late Dr. Neale's
translation:

I.

  "Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle,
    With completed victory rife.
  And above the cross's trophy,
    Tell the triumph of the strife;
  How the world's Redeemer conquered,
    By surrendering of his life.

VIII.

  "Faithful cross, above all other,
    One and only noble tree,
  None in foliage, none in blossom,
    None in fruit, compares with thee;
  Sweetest wood and sweetest iron,
    Sweetest weight sustaining free."

A portion of one of his poems, on the resurrection of our Lord, was
sung in the Church for ten centuries as an Easter hymn. It commences,
Salve festa dies toto venerabilis aevo.  [Footnote 231] In another of
his poems, De Cruce Christi, there occurs a beautiful image of the
Cross as the tree around which the True Vine is clinging:

  "Appensa est vitis inter tua brachia, de qua
  Dulcia sanguineo vina rubore fluunt."  [Footnote 232]

    [Footnote 231: Trench's Sacred Latin Poetry, p. 152.]

    [Footnote 232: For the whole see Trench's Sacred Latin Poetry, p.130.]

{821}

But his most celebrated hymn is the one written on the occasion of the
sending the true cross by the emperor to Radegunda, at the
consecration of a church at Poictiers. It is called Vexilla Regis
prodeunt:

I.

  "The royal banners forward go,
  The cross shines forth with mystic glow,
  Where he in flesh, our flesh who made,
  Our sentence bore, our ransom paid.

  VI.

  "With fragrance dropping from each bough,
  Sweeter than sweetest nectar thou:
  Decked with the fruit of peace and praise,
  And glorious with triumphant lays.

  VIl.

  "Hall, altar! hail, O Victim! Thee
  Decks now thy passion's victory,
  Where life for sinners death endured,
  And life by death for man procured."  [Footnote 233]

  [Footnote 233: Dr. Neale's Mediaeval Hymns.]

Bede the Venerable wrote hymns also; the two best known are the Hymnum
canamus gloriae, and Hymnum canentes martyrum.

We now advance to the last and richest of all the periods of
hymnology, the mediaeval. The list is headed with the royal name of
Robert II. of France, who wrote, hymns, one of which is a Veni Sancte
Spiritus. Peter Damian, the cardinal bishop of Ostia, who died in
1072, wrote many hymns, but the two greatest are De Die Mortis and Ad
perennis vitae fontem.  [Footnote 234] Adam of St. Victor was another
prolific hymn-writer; thirty-six of his productions are extant, and
well known.  [Footnote 235]

  [Footnote 234: Trench's Sacred Latin Poetry, pp. 278, 315. ]

  [Footnote 235: Ibid., pp. 53. 111, 160, 202, 212, 227.]

Peter the Venerable and Thomas à Kempis have also left hymns behind
them. But it was reserved for Archbishop Trench to dig out of the
mouldering relics of the past a hymn written by a monk of Clugny, one
Bernard de Morlaix, the translation of which, by Dr. Neale, has
supplied the church of every denomination with favorite hymns; The
most general name by which it is known is Jerusalem the Golden. The
original is a poem of about three thousand lines, called De Contemptu
Mundi, a melancholy satire upon the corruptions of the times. The
first appearance of it in print, is in a collection of poems, De
Corrupto Ecclesiae Statu, by Flacius Illyricus. We cannot speak too
highly of this poem of Bernard, nor of the merits of Dr. Neale's
translation. The original is written in one of the most difficult of
all metres, technically called "leonini cristati trilices daetylici,"
a dactylic hexameter, divided into three parts, with a tailed rhyme
and rhymes between the two first clauses. Dr. Neale gives a specimen
of this verse in English:

  "Time will be _ending soon_, heaven will be _rending
    soon_, fast we and pray we;
  Come the most merciful; comes the most terrible,
    watch we while may we."

The imagery in the original poem is gorgeous; but Dr. Neale has
exceeded the original  [Footnote 236] in many parts of his
translation'. We add a few gems. The opening lines are--

  "Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt vigilemus!
  Ecce minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus.
  Imminet, imminet, ut mala terminet, aequa coronet
  Recta remuneret, anxia liberet aethera donet."

  "The world is very evil,
    The times are waxing late,
  Be sober and keep vigil,
    The Judge is at the gate;
  The Judge that comes in mercy,
    The Judge that comes with might,
  To terminate the evil,
    To diadem the right."

  [Footnote 236: The best edition of this poem is the little shilling
  volume by Dr. Neale, called the Rhythm of Bernard de Morlaix,
  published by Hayes, Lyall-place, Eaton-square. It contains between
  two and three hundred of the original lines, with Dr. Neale's
  complete translation.]

Dr. Neale has proved himself a true poet in this translation; the
rendering is most happy, and the whole version forms one of the finest
sacred poems in the language. The lines--

  "Patria luminis, inscia turbinis, inscia litis.
  Cive replebitur amplificabitur lsraelitis
  Patria splendida, terraque florida, libera spinis
  Danda fidelibus est ibi civibus, hic peregrinis,"

are thus happily rendered--

  "And the sunlit land that reeks not
    Of tempest nor of fight
  Shall fold within its bosom
    Each happy Israelite;
  The home of fadeless splendor,
    Of flowers that fear no thorn,
  Where they shall dwell as children,
    Who here as exiles mourn."

{822}

Then the episode--

  "Sunt radiantia jaspide moenia clara pyropo."

    "With jaspers glow thy bulwarks,
      Thy streets with emeralds blaze,
    The sardius and the topaz
      Unite in thee their rays;
    Thine ageless walls are bonded
      With amethyst unpriced;
    The saints build up its fabric,
      And the corner·stone is Christ.
      * * * * *
    Thou hast no shore, fair ocean!
       Thou hast no time, bright day!
    Dear fountain of refreshment.
      To pilgrims far away.
      * * * * *
    They stand, those halls of Sion,
      Conjubilant with song,
    And bright with many an angel
      And all the martyr throng;
    The Prince is ever in them,
      Their daylight is serene;
    The pastures of the blessed
      Are decked in glorious sheen.
    There is the throne of David,
      And there, from care released,
    The song of them that triumph,
      The shout of them that feast;
     And they who, with their leader,
      Have conquered in the fight,
    For ever and for ever
      Are clad in robes of white."

But we must pause, for to give all the beauties of this poem would be
to transcribe the whole. Another St. Bernard, the well-known abbot of
Clairvaux, was a contemporary with him of Clugny. He was one of the
most influential men of his age, a man far in advance of it; the
adviser of popes and the confidant of kings. Many hymns are attributed
to him, one of the most beautiful being that known as Jesu Dulcis
Memoria. In Trench's Sacred Latin Poetry there is a selection of
fifteen verses, but the original consists of forty-eight verses.
[Footnote 237] It is a fine specimen of the ardent loving poetry so
characteristic of the period. A very beautiful version, or rather
imitation of this poem, is extant in the Harleian MSS., written in the
reign of Edward I., and as it is a very good specimen of the English
of the period, and represents the spirit of the original, we venture
to quote a verse or two.  [Footnote 238]

  [Footnote 237: Sti. Bernardi Clarae Vallensis Opp: Benedictine
  edition, vol. ii., p. 895.]

  [Footnote 238: Printed also in the Percy Society's Publications,
  vol. iv., p. 68.]


I.

  "Jesu, suete is the love of thee,
  Nothing so suete may be;
  Al that may with eyen se
  Haveth no suetnesse ageynes the.


XIV.

  "Jhesu, when ich thenke on the,
  And loke upon the rode tre;
  Thi suete body to-toren se,
  Hit maketh heorte to smerte me.


XVIII.

  "Jhesu, my saule drah the to,
  Min heorte opene ant wyde undo;
  This hure of love to drynke so,
  That fleysshliche lust be al for-do.


XLV.

  "Jesut thin help at myn endyng,
  Ant ine that dredful out-wendyng
  Send mi soule god weryying,
  That y ne drede non eovel thing."


We can only notice one other grand hymn, selected also from a long
poem of Bernard, addressed to the different portions of the body of
Christ on the cross. This is from the Ad Faciem, and commences--
[Footnote 239]

    [Footnote 239: For the Latin, see Trench's Sacred Latin Poetry, p.
    139.]

  "Salve caput cruentatum
  Totum spinis coronatum."

As it is one of the finest mediaeval hymns, and has been translated
into nearly all European languages, we give the translation:--

  "Hail! thou head so bruised and wounded,
  With the crown of thorns surrounded;
  Smitten with the mocking reed,
  Wounds which may not cease to bleed,
         Trickling faint and slow.
  Hail! from whose most blessed brow
  None can wipe the blood drops now.
  All the flower of life has fled;
  Mortal paleness there instead.
  Thou, before whose presence dread,
        Angels trembling bow.

  "All thy vigor and thy life
  Fading in this bitter strife;
  Death his stamp on thee has set,
  Hollow and emaciate,
         Faint and drooping there.
  Thou, this agony and scorn,
  Hast for me a sinner borne;
  Me, unworthy--all for me,
  With those signs of love on thee.
        Glorious face appear!

  "Yet in this thine agony,
  Faithful shepherd, think of me;
  From whose lips of love divine
  Sweetest draughts of life are mine,
        Purest honey flows,
  All unworthy of thy thought,
  Guilty, yet reject me not;
  Unto me thy head incline.
  Let that dying head of thine
        In mine arms repose.

  "Let me true communion know
  With thee in thy sacred woe,
  Counting all beside but dross,
  Dying with thee on the cross;
        'Neath it will I die.
  Thanks to thee with every breath.
  Jesus, for thy bitter death;
  Grant thy guilty one this prayer--
  When my dying hour is near, 	t
         Gracious God, be nigh.

{823}

  "When my dying hour must be,
  Be not absent then from me;
  In that dreadful hour I pray
  Jesus come without delay,
        See and set me free.
  When thou biddest me depart,
  Whom I cleave to with my heart,
  Lover of my soul be near,
  With thy saving cross appear;
        Show thyself to me,"  [Footnote 240]

   [Footnote 240: Quoted in Christian Life in Song.]

There is an excellent version of this in German in the Passion Hymn of
Paul Gerhard, beginning--

  "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,
  Voll Schmerz und voller Hohn!"

But the grandest of all the mediaeval hymns is that attributed to
Thomas of Celano, known as the Dies Irae. Its authorship is uncertain;
it burst upon the world after a long silence in the church, like some
strain wafted over the earth on the winds of heaven. It has always
been the favorite hymn for solemnities in every country. In Germany
upward of sixty translations have been made of it. Goethe has
effectively introduced it into the "Faust" in the cathedral scene,
where Marguerite is tempted by the evil spirit, who, when the choir
chanted the words--

  "Dies irae, dies illa,
  Solvet saeclum in favilla,"

whispers sardonically into her ear--

  "Grimm fasst dich!
  Die Posaune tönt!
  Die Gräber beben!
  Und dein Herz,
  Aus Aschenruh
  Zu Flammenquallen
  Wieder aufgeschaffen
  Bebt auf;"

and so on through the whole scene, corrupting the meaning of the hymn
in the mind of the broken-hearted girl. It was muttered by the dying
lips of Walter Scott, and has employed the genius of such men as
Schlegel, Fichte, and Herder. We give one passage--

  "Recordare, Jesu pie,
  Quod sum causa tuae viae,
  Ne me perdas illa die.

  "Querens me sedisti lassus,
  Redemisti crucem passus,
  Tantus labor non sit cassus."

  "Think of me, good Lord, I pray,
  Who troddest for me the bitter way,
  Nor forsake me in that day.

  "Weary sat'st thou seeking me,
  Diedst redeeming in the tree,
  Not in vain such toil can be."

The mediaeval period was one rich in art and active in intellectual
work. The great difference between that age and this is, that in
mediaeval times intellectual life was concentrated, and now it is
spread abroad; we get more books and readers, but less great books and
thinkers. Perhaps there has never been a time of such vigorous
intellectual effort in England, unless we except the Elizabethan age,
than that of the scholastic controversies of the twelfth, thirteenth,
and fourteenth centuries. It was in this age, too, that the
essentially mediaeval art of illumination flourished in all the
lettered monasteries of Europe, the age when all the great cathedrals
were built; and when that enchanting song whose notes we have just
been listening to was improvised and sung. The God who presides over
the economy of nature presides also over that of life. His hand is in
both, upholding, protecting, guiding. We take up a phase of human
history like this mediaeval phase, and to us it appears contradictory,
objectless, useless; but we must remember that it is but one part of
the great economy, that as every phase of nature has its separate use,
so every period in the history of humanity contributes its share to
the general result. There are no arid dark wastes in history any more
than in nature. Progressing geographical science is gradually
revealing to our minds the fact that Central Africa is not the deadly
useless desert of our imagination, but is probably belted and
intersected with rivers, whose fertilizing power has only to be
applied. So a progressive historical science is rapidly clearing away
the darkness of these dark ages, revealing to us treasures which have
long lain hidden. We speak of the past as antiquity, and we are apt to
associate the idea of age with it, just as we look {824} toward the
present as youthful and new. But we must remember that antiquity
really belongs to the present as the result of time, and that the past
was the youth. So when we go back into these past ages of the church
we must regard them as her youth, and instead of quarrelling with the
follies and wantonness inseparable from immaturity, endeavour to do
our best to help on the great consummation of her mission in the
world, knowing well that although the hey-day of her youth is past,
she has not yet attained her full maturity; and in times of despair,
when schism is rife, when the sons of her bosom desert her, when men
harden themselves against her love and forsake her, ever bear in mind
the promise of her great head and founder, "Upon this rock I build my
church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

--------

Translated from the French.

ROBERT; OR, THE INFLUENCE OF A GOOD MOTHER.

CHAPTER IV.

"O Paris! gulf of evils, on each of thy stones we could drop a tear,
red with blood, if the sorrows, which thy walls enclose, could appear
before us."--J.J. ROUSSEAU.


The city of innumerable wonders, of shining domes, and colossal
towers, with its enchanting gardens, palaces, and gigantic monuments,
which one sees in the distance--the first glimpse he gets of Paris
through the blue haze--now appeared to the astonished gaze of the
little mountaineer, and was like a dream of the Arabian Nights. "O
Paris! Paris!" shouted he joyously, clapping his hands, and looking
eagerly through the misty veil that still enveloped the city. And, as
he approached nearer, his emotions redoubled; for it was there that
his mother predicted he would one day be happy. Oh! sweet security,
blissful trust of childhood, why must it pass away with advancing
years? Why is it that devouring inquietude and mental restlessness
then comes to our souls, and tortures them without ceasing? It is a
sad condition of our probation here, that we must see all the bright
delusions of early life disappear one by one; and submit unmurmuringly
to the different phases of life and the different ideas and feelings
to which time leads us all. And so it may perhaps be for little
Robert, who now trusts so confidently in the future, and in his
mother's prediction being fulfilled. Have confidence, like him, dear
readers--like him hope, without trying to draw aside the veil which
hides your destiny--but follow him, step by step, in all the changing
events of his life, and perhaps we shall see him fill an enviable
position, as the fruit of his good conduct and perseverance. And since
he is now radiant with hope, let us not efface, by our indiscreet
words, this vision which sustains and comforts all.

As the travellers neared Paris, the old man's forehead wrinkled, his
brows contracted each moment, and flashes of rage burst from his eyes.
The sight of the hordes of the enemy's soldiers who had established
their bivouacs before the capital, put him in a transport of fury.

The detested uniforms of the English, Austrians, Russians, and
Prussians which he saw before him, made him think he was the victim of
some dreadful hallucination, but the insolent air of the conquerors
awakened him to the frightful reality that the emperor could no longer
expel them. In his terrible rage he beat his breast with his fists,
swore, and uttered words that sounded like distant thunder, gnashing
his teeth at the same time most {825} convulsively. Then he walked on
with a resolute and hasty step, so that Robert was obliged to run,
rather than walk, at his side to keep up with him. He was very
taciturn, but the boy at once comprehended the reason of his stubborn
silence, and he respected the holy indignation of the old warrior,
wounded, in his national pride and his deepest feelings, when he saw
all his dreams of glory vanish with the shadow of the great man who
had made the fame and splendor of all France. To the ex-soldier of the
guard there was nothing left but cruel discontent. In Paris there was
militia of all ranks and grades and countries; but there were no brave
leaders, the old soldiers thought, and most of them were young men who
had yet to see the field of battle. The white stripes had replaced the
three colors, which disappeared with the glorious exile, Napoleon. The
despair of poor Cyprien was as great as his love for his emperor, and
nothing could soften his rage, so violent was the hatred he felt for
the new order of things.

Robert was much excited by the strange and picturesque spectacles
which presented themselves to his view on every side--by the gay
costumes of' the people, and the movements of this ocean of of human
beings, but he did not address many questions to his sad companion,
for he loved him already, and saw the deep sorrow that filled his
soul, and it made him timid and reserved.

It was now time to think of getting lodgings, and Cyprien wanted to go
into the most modest quarter of the city, where he was born, and for
which naturally he had the strongest affection. But in the twenty-five
years that he had been a wanderer, vast changes had taken place, and
most of his family had gone to rest. He found himself alone, separated
for ever from his old comrades of glory; but of this he thought
little, so completely was his heart filled with the adored image of
his emperor. The most extraordinary thing was that amidst his grave
thoughts he had found a place for the little orphan, whom chance had
thrown in his way, and for whom he evinced the strongest attachment,
which grew day by day, for Cyprien did nothing by halves; and when he
could for a moment forget his emperor, it was to bestow almost
paternal care upon his young _protégé_. One day, when they had been
having a long talk, and he had said things which charmed the sensible
and loving boy, he asked him to take him to the Church of St. Germain
l'Auxerrois, for it was there that he was to find the curé to whom his
letter was addressed. "Willingly," replied Cyprien, "I will take you
there; but I cannot go in, it has been so long since I have made a
visit of that kind, that I don't care to go, but I will wait for you."
Robert presented himself alone at the door of the curé's house, and
was received by him with grace and a touching cordiality. He was a man
of fine address, with eyes that seemed to penetrate the depths of
one's soul, but his scrutiny was accomplished by a smile so
beneficent, that it drew you irresistibly toward the minister of' God.
The virtues he had practised appeared in his person, his language was
full of purity and goodness, and he appeared ever ready to pardon and
bless. Such, in general terms, was the man to whom Robert was
recommended. When he had read his friend's letter, he made the child
sit down and tell him all about his journey and the manner in which he
acquitted himself charmed the good curé, and his lively and
intelligent face set him to reflecting. The purity of his eyes showed
a generous and noble soul, and the good man knew that he was one of
those natures that always remain pure, in the midst of corruption.
These exiled angels have often sorrowful lives, before they reach the
glorious end. Deprived of pecuniary means, they see the paths to fame
closed for them, while it is open for the rich, and made wide and easy
of access.

{826}

The good curé, after making these observations mentally, recalled the
illustrious men who have illumined the earth from time to time with
the rays of their genius, and the traces of whose lives are still
visible; but the road to fame has, alas! been sown for centuries with
bitter tears, unknown sufferings, and cries of the despair of
unrecognized genius. He recalled faces radiant with sublime thoughts,
crowned with thorns, the only recompense of their work, and he said
with agony, "O God! if this child should ever be one of the victims,
if he should ever weep over lost hopes, would it not be better to
leave him as he is, simple and natural, ignorant of the delights of a
studious life; ignorant of knowledge, than to be initiated into the
cruel deceptions of hope long deferred, and which may be finally lost?
How often, like a beautiful dream, youth, glory, and mind fade away in
the awful struggle. But no," said he, fixing his eyes on the
expressive face of Robert, "his future will not be so sad. Too much
intelligence burns in his eyes, too much fire is lighted there, to be
extinguished by the wearying labors of mind, or by hunger and
frightful misery. If this diamond in the rough shows so much
brilliancy, what will it not be when it is polished? Then will all its
marvellous lustre appear, and I will have the holy joy of aiding to
perfect this work." These were his reflections, and so had it always
been with him; from the moment he was ordained to his saintly
ministry, he was always looking for the means of doing good to others;
and was a beautiful religious type of charity and goodness. It was so
great a happiness to him to make others happy, that he looked upon his
days as badly spent if he had not dried a tear, or given another joy;
and his doing good was so sweet a duty, that he passed his days and
nights in consoling the unfortunate. But for children especially was
he most tenderly solicitous, He said with one who was all love and
charity when among men, "Let little children come unto me." Like his
divine Master, he drew them to him and pressed them to his heart, his
hands rested on their young heads, and he called down upon them
celestial benedictions. But he did not stop here. He gave them not
only his prayers, but aid and protection. When his purse was
exhausted, and his personal resources no longer sufficed, he had
recourse to that of others. He was eloquent and persuasive when he
pleaded the cause of children, and happy in receiving the offerings
which were always deposited in his charitable hands. Thus he was the
father of a large family, the benefactor of many children, who,
becoming men, repaid his care by unlimited gratitude and
irreproachable conduct, and by the constant practice of the virtues of
which he had given them so noble an example. Robert found in him a
tender and devoted protector, who was interested for him, and in whose
future friendship he might trust. The day when this action was
registered in heaven, the good man felt a happiness he had never known
before in adopting before God the orphan that his friend, the curé of
the village of Bains, had recommended to him in such warm terms. The
vow which he made himself to protect him, was not like those men
usually make, and forget as soon as made.

During the interview between the child and the curé, the old soldier
was walking up and down outside, absorbed in reflections of quite an
opposite nature. Sometimes hope colored his thoughts; oftener they
were sombre and cold, like the clouds of the region to which memory
transported him, to the fatal soil of Russia, where victory had
abandoned the French flag. An hour was passed by him in recalling
these days of sorrow, but at last he grew tired of waiting, and jerked
at the bell string, which hung so modestly at the curé's door, most
violently. In an instant a servant appeared with harsh words on the
end of her tongue, but the severe face and long moustache of Cyprien
induced her to withhold from speaking them. Scarcely was the door
opened, when a voice, almost of thunder, {827} inquired for Robert.
Hearing it, the curé opened the parlor door, and advancing toward the
soldier, with an affable air, invited him in, saying, "I will be very
glad to talk with you. You were, I suppose, uneasy about your little
friend, whom I have detained a long time, I know, but it is not time
lost; we have become acquainted and are now old friends, and you have
a share of the affection I have avowed for this interesting child. You
have a noble heart, and the Lord will bless you, my friend, you may be
sure of that, for in the midst of your own sufferings you have had
compassion on those of others, and above all you have protected an
orphan!" The soldier was stunned by this benevolent speech; he, raised
his hand mechanically to his forehead, following the curé and
muttering the words "Pardon--excuse--do not pay any attention to me."
Robert had not dared to move, but when Cyprien came near him, he threw
himself into his arms. "There--that will do," said he to him--"pay
attention, the curé speaks." "Why did you not come in with Robert? You
have denied me the pleasure I should have had in talking with I a
brave soldier. Our _protégé_ has spoken of you in most affectionate
terms, but he did not tell me you were waiting for him, or I should
not have suffered you to remain outside the door." "Thank you, M.
Curé, but I cannot talk to you, I have so few words, and have not been
accustomed to much, and all I know is how to use 'Arms.'" "Each of us
has his profession, my friend," replied the curé, "and you have made
yours glorious. Nevertheless you must allow me to think you know a
great deal besides." "If that is your idea, kind father, I will not
oppose it, but, with respect to you, I must tell you I have not seen a
book since I knew, the 'Little Corporal,' and we are old
acquaintances. Twenty-five years;" said he, "impossible to forget
that"--wiping away a tear.

"Yes, my friend, you have reason to regret your emperor, and even to
weep for him, for he was a great man, and loved you all as children."

"But, oh! how was he repaid?" and then he wept again.

"The love you bear your emperor honors you. Respect and devotion to
misfortune fills noble souls, and I understand very well how your
attachment is augmented in proportion to the sufferings which weigh
down your chief; and it is not for me, a minister of peace and
charity, to make a crime of your regrets and affection, or to denounce
them. But let us leave this sad subject, until you know me better and
have more confidence in me. For today we will talk about Robert and my
plans for him. I am thankful to you for taking a father's place to
him; without you he would have been lost in this great city, or might
perhaps have met persons who would have placed him in contact with
vice and wickedness. I rejoice that a kind Providence permitted this
child to awaken an interest in you, and that he found you so
affectionate a guide. You must continue your friendship, and I hope to
gain his, by the care I will take of him."

"Oh! my dear father," said Robert, kissing respectfully the hand of
his new protector, "you are too good to me, but I will try to repay
your kindness by a full and entire submission to your least wishes."

"Well spoken, little one!" exclaimed the soldier, "this is the first
duty of a conscript."

"I will try to find the mean s of aiding him to fill a high position
some day," said the curé. "I have acquaintances and friends who will
give me of their wealth, for," said he, in a tone of regret, "I am far
from being rich. But no matter, God will help us; I have this sweet
certainty, so you may take courage, my little friend, and whatever
taste you may have for study, I promise you I will do all that I can
to advance you. You are in such good hands that I shall have no cause
for uneasiness as to how you pass your time; and I will leave you for
a while, {828} and perhaps I may bring back some good news for you."

After calling at several houses without success, he chanced to see a
wealthy widow who had but one child, a son. This boy was of a most
vicious nature, and although young in years, he had every defect of
character, without a single good quality. He made his poor mother
despair, and she often reproached herself bitterly for her weakness
toward him, but she knew no means that would reform his bad habits,
which assumed the form of fatal and violent passion. When the curé
spoke of Robert, she said: "O God! since he is possessed of so many
amiable and virtuous qualities, entrust him to me. He will be treated
as my own child, will share the studies of Gustave, and have the same
masters; and perhaps God may pity a mother's sorrows, and that this
child may have so good an influence over him, that Gustave may feel a
desire to be good also. I pray you do not refuse me," said the mother
in a supplicating tone; "I cling to this last hope, as a ship-wrecked
man would cling to the plank he hopes will save him from perishing."

After long consideration of the chances of happiness and success in
the future if Robert accepted it--of the great dissimilarity of the
two persons who would thus be thrown together, and the disagreements
and sufferings for Robert; and still worse, if the pure, rich nature
of the orphan should be corrupted in the society of the wicked child,
whom he knew only too well--he was still undecided. But an
irresistible, though secret, argument spoke in favor of the mother of
Gustave; so that at last her pressing solicitations were acceded to.
He reserved for himself the right to watch closely over the precious
trust that Providence had confided to him, and after this it was
agreed that Robert should be presented to Madame de Vernanges (this
was the name of Gustave's mother) as soon as he could be informed of
it, and if he was willing to accept it.


CHAPTER V.

  "The heart of a wicked man sighs for evil, and no
  one can find pardon before him . . . . ."


Robert was willing to accede to any wish of the good man who had so
generously charged himself with his destiny. We have said before, that
he was gifted with noble qualities; he had a lively perception, his
intellectual faculties were strong, and he seemed to have power to do
all that was required of him. He had no knowledge of what was not
good, and possessed one of those happy organizations which can only be
a gift from God. He felt it his duty to obey all that his protector
wished; and when he told him that his interest required that he should
go to the house of' Madame de Vernanges, and share in the liberal
education this lady gave her son, Robert replied: "If' it is your
wish, I am ready to go."

'The curé was surprised and touched at this eagerness to fulfil his
wishes, this entire self-abnegation in one who could not but prize the
sweet liberty of acting for himself, which he had so long enjoyed on
his native mountain; and a still further proof of his remarkable
disposition was, that he knew, young as he was, the art of sacrificing
his tastes to duty, and the necessity of making himself agreeable to
those who interested themselves for him. The kind priest did not wish
to spend Robert's money for things which could be dispensed with, but
his clothes were unsuitable to his new position, so he had him a
complete wardrobe prepared, and a woman could not have been more
careful about the minutest details.

'When all was in readiness he conducted him to the house of Madame de
Vernanges. As soon as she saw him, she felt as if he was a
regenerating angel to be placed near her son. She embraced him
affectionately, and asked him if he "would love her like a mother?"
"Oh!" said he, at once becoming serious at such a question, "I cannot
promise you that, dear {829} madame, for it would be impossible for me
to feel for any other woman the same degree of affection that I feel
for my mother;" but, he added, smiling sweetly, "I think I can assure
you that I will love you much."

Some author says that a child only loves his mother for the services
she renders him. Can this be true? No--it is blasphemy against filial
love; and were it so, alas for the happiness of mothers! Far sweeter
is the idea that one loves the other for the other's sake alone; one
is the consequence of the other, it is a love eternal like the soul,
like its divine author, like God himself: There may be some selfish
children who measure their love for their parents by the services they
render them, but they are monsters--sad and rare exceptions--and
deserve all our pity. The proof of what we affirm is found in the love
that Robert always preserved in his heart for the dear and sacred
remembrance of his mother. It is the strongest, most lively and
unalterable of feelings, and has no rival in the other loves God has
given to man in his short life. Who can hear the name of mother spoken
without feeling a delicious sensation, and having a tear-drop moisten
the eye?

Madame de Vernanges was so pleased with Robert's frankness, that she
felt for him from that moment the most tender sympathy. After a few
moments' conversation Gustave was sent for, but the reception he gave
his future companion of play and study, was not very encouraging to
the latter. At first, from the height of his grandeur he looked down
upon him with disdain, and received with a very bad grace the amiable
advances of Robert, who wished to conquer at once the friendship of
his young comrade. He was astonished and sad at the coldness showed
him, but little by little Gustave softened, and laid aside his
insolent air. The acquaintances of this period of life are easily
made. Robert gave himself up with perfect abandon to the new pleasure
of playing and talking with a child of his own age. He was not
distrustful, for he had no experience; and as his own thoughts were so
good and pure, he never suspected others. The mother and the curé,
though seemingly occupied in conversation, followed with observing and
restless eyes the movements of the children. The latter feared, and
not without reason, to see some awkward blunder made by a child raised
so far from the world, and in the simple habits of a happy mediocrity.
But to his inexpressible satisfaction he saw Robert as easy in his
manners as in his language, and he acted as if he had been bred in a
parlor. His rare intelligence displayed itself in his answers to
Gustave, and he could not have been more sparkling in his repartees.
His candor and good nature did not permit him to comprehend the
perfidious intentions of his saucy interrogator, and it was a cruel
mortification for the wicked Gustave, not to be able, in spite of his
_ruses_, to find any fault with Robert. He had counted on a triumph,
and received a complete humiliation; he thought to show his
superiority to the child who was given him as a model, and his
disappointment was that he felt before him his great defects.

During this time the good priest inwardly rejoiced at the success of
the little orphan, while the poor mother sighed in making a sad
comparison between the children of the same age, but so different in
character; and in spite of her wish to the contrary, she could not but
see the low and envious sentiments which ruled the conduct of Gustave,
and the goodness contained in each word Robert uttered. Her heart was
well-nigh broken, and in bitterness she exclaimed: "Wicked! always
wicked! he has not one good thought, one blameless moment. I am
cruelly punished for my guilty weakness toward him. O God! is it too
late to reclaim him? Is there no remedy for his wickedness? and must I
bear all the ills of such a child?"

{830}

Assured by the way in which Robert had taken the first and most
difficult steps in his new abode, the good priest prepared to leave.
It was in warm and pressing terms that he recommended his _protégé_;
and embracing him, gave him his paternal benediction. "I will see you
soon," he said to him, and this promise consoled him, for he felt sure
he would always be a generous defender, a tender and devoted. friend.
The child flattered himself for some time that he had gained the
confidence and friendship of Gustave, but he had soon to renounce that
belief, for, in spite of his profound dissimulation, the latter could
not always keep up appearances, and Robert suddenly discovered the
truth. This made Gustave hate him bitterly, and nothing could diminish
it; but Robert spoke of it to no one but the priest. Encouraged by his
silence, which Gustave mistook for the silence of fear, he was always
making war with him when they were alone. Before his mother, or any
other person, he did not dare to do so, but changes of manner were no
trouble to the young hypocrite, for he could put on a bold air, and
give himself the calm serenity of innocence. This premature
corruption, this innate science of' evil, he carefully hid, and was
deceitful above everything to those before whom he wished to appear
good. In the first days of their acquaintance he had conceived a
violent hatred to Robert, but he felt the necessity of dissimulating,
so as not to awaken the suspicions of his mother; so that he did not
openly declare war with his rival, for he knew that would be an
irreparable fault. He trusted to chance, which sometimes helps the
wicked, and waited for an occasion to present itself.

Robert all this while studied with care the lessons of his different
masters, which the goodness of his benefactress gave him the means of
sharing with Gustave. It was no trouble to him to learn, and his
progress was so rapid and so wonderful, that his masters were
enchanted, and were prodigal of their praises and marks of affection.
Gustave, the lazy, indolent boy, suffered all the torments of envy.
For the first time he felt pride, pushing toward emulation, enter his
heart, and that which neither the prayers nor the tears of his mother
could obtain, the odious sentiment of jealousy brought, and he worked
with ardor, Rage sustained him in his desperate resolution; his duties
were no longer neglected, and his hours for work were so laboriously
employed, that even his mother believed for a time in the complete
reformation of her son, under the happy influence of Robert. This joy
was of short duration, and the error soon dispelled, for, if his mind
profited on the one hand, his heart remained the same, and in it every
bad passion was kindled. Sad fruits of a neglected education, of an
infancy and childhood abandoned to itself, without care and without
culture.

Nearly a year had passed since Robert entered the house of Madame de
Vernanges, and the time had been most profitable to him in every way.
Study opened to his eyes the treasures that are concealed from the
vulgar, and he was already opening for himself a career sown with the
seeds of art and science, the flowers of which he longed to gather;
and in spite of all the cruelty and sarcasm of Gustave, he was very
happy, for he felt the love of his benefactress and the good curé, and
the remembrance of his cherished mother, and under these affections he
rejoiced, as one rejoices in the sunlight of heaven. From the night
she appeared to him in a dream, he was filled with the desire to be
good, and worked nobly for this end. Often his thoughts would fly to
his mountain home, and to the grave which contained her ashes. Neither
had he forgotten the venerable priest of the Baths of Mount Dore, and
had often written to him, and from time to time sent him small sums of
money to be employed in charities.

Among Robert's happiest hours now were those he passed with the curé
here; but even these he could not long enjoy alone, for the wicked
Gustave discovered that his sadness vanished {831} whenever he reached
the curé's door, and he took a cruel pleasure in always going with him
under various pretexts, and thus snatching these few moments of
happiness from his victim. But a smile, a kind word from his
benefactor, paid Robert doubly for this painful sacrifice, and Madame
de Vernanges noticed the hatred her son bore him. She was not to be
duped by the friendship he feigned for one he detested from his soul.
More than once the feeble mother had been a witness to the odious
wickedness of the one, and the admirable patience of the other. She
had seen, but had not corrected the guilty, for his strength
discouraged her; she was too heart-stricken to combat with the bad
genius that possessed him. It was easier for her to close her eyes to
it, though she had the justice to seek by delicate attentions and
tender caresses to repay Robert for some of his sufferings.

We have lost the old soldier for a time, but have not forgotten him.
At the time of their separation, both he and Robert shed bitter tears,
and the latter tried to make him promise that he would come sometimes
to see him in his new abode: "Not there," said the grenadier, "but I
will come sometimes and have a talk with you at the house of the curé,
for I love him, by the faith of Cyprien Hardy." And he kept his
promise, and many were the talks they had there together. On the 20th
of March of that year the exile of Elba made an appeal to all faithful
soldiers, and it was not made in vain. Cyprien responded at once to
the call of his emperor, and when he had buckled on his warlike
habits, he forgot for a while the orphan and the priest.

Madame de Vernanges counted her days only by her sorrows. She had no
repose--her health was failing so rapidly that the physicians said she
must pass the winter in a warmer climate and under a purer sky. This
was a sudden blow for Robert, for he had become much attached to his
benefactress, and she said he was to go to college with Gustave, who
saw with revolting indifference the sufferings of his mother at the
thought of a separation; but all her friends thought it was best,
hoping some change in his character might take place from the strict
and severe discipline of college life. This new arrangement was
submitted to the curé, who in all things pertaining to him, was guided
by the interest of his _protégé_, and it met with his approbation.
Madame de Vernanges' was to be absent six months or a year, and Robert
felt that he should indeed be isolated from her protective affection,
and left alone to the wicked designs of Gustave; who, when they were
thrown together at college, used all his time and his power to turn
the students against Robert, and get them to league with him against
him, for he was longing for an occasion to avenge the marks of
tenderness and preference which his mother had shown Robert. Never was
a child's patience put to a more severe test--neither the goodness nor
generosity of the orphan could soften the hatred Gustave felt for him.
But though Robert was of so even and calm a temperament, he could not
be injured nor oppressed without defending himself, and there was but
one consideration that curbed his indignation, and that was the
certainty he felt that Gustave was the author of the persecutions
which each wicked boy inflicted upon him. Had he not been convinced of
this, he would have used the same means to punish them which they
employed to torture him; but, according to his pure sentiments, this
would not have been right, and he would not have the least reproach
from his benefactress for any unkindness toward her son. He did not
oppose his oppressors in any way, but they saw that he felt the
outrages perfectly, and disdained, and not without reason, to let them
know it. In this combat of all against one, the voice of conscience
was not always heard, and in spite of his efforts to keep silent,
there came a time when it was insupportable. The epithets of  "lazy
and coward" {832} resounding in his ears, filled him with indignation,
and those who spoke them did not dare repeat them a second time, for
he dealt with them in a way that convinced them he could not bear
everything. Two or three corrections soon put an end to this state of
things, and placed Robert high in the esteem of the older collegians.
In vain did Gustave try to reawaken the ardor of his partisans.
Frightened by the vigorous attack of Robert, they refused to unite in
any new vexations against one they respected and loved, and they all
vowed they would never take up a prejudice again. Thus Gustave saw, in
spite of all his odious efforts to the contrary, Robert loved by his
masters, respected and esteemed by his companions, who protected him
and despised his persecutor. Things had reached this point when, one
morning, an uncle of Gustave's came and took him hurriedly away,
leaving Robert at college. This strange conduct affected him very
much, and he wondered what it could mean. Could it be that his
benefactress had returned and withdrawn her affection, or was she more
ill? He was lost in sad conjectures for several days, which appeared
ages to him, as he waited in patience to hear. A visit from the curé,
with a sad countenance, revealed to Robert the misfortune which was to
oppress him. "Madame de Vernanges suffers no more," said he, with a
visible effort, drawing to his bosom the weeping child, whose sorrow
was certainly more profound and true than that of' Gustave. "Alas! my
child, you have lost your benefactress; before she died she asked to
see you, but this wish of a heart devoted to you was denied--God
willed it otherwise. But she did not need any further proof of your
love, your conduct has spoken it so often; and God will never abandon
you. Courage then, your recompense will come sooner or later. I will
assume from to-day my entire right of father, and my most tender
solicitude will be for you. Redouble your ardor at work, triple your
strength, and finally the end which I propose for your happiness will
come. Your studies, conscientiously finished, will be the magic keys
which will unlock the door to an honorable career. From this time
Gustave will not torment you, for he will not return to college."

Robert was too much moved to speak--too many sorrowful remembrances
pressed themselves into his heart, but he had not lost a single word
that was spoken to him. Six months after this he stood before the
abbot of Verneuil, to receive from his hands the crown he so justly
deserved. Oh! how his heart beat with joy when he heard his name
spoken in the sanctuary of science; it seemed then that the sweet
voice of his mother spoke to him. Each time he was named, his eyes
turned towards the curé, as if asking him: "Are you satisfied?" How
light and easy to wear are the laurels won by the victors in every
good work! Is it not a bright day in your lives, my dear children,
when you are proclaimed conquerors? What a sweet remembrance it leaves
in your hearts, that no after thoughts can ever crush out! Our young
laureate passed his vacation--that time of repose so dear to
students--with the curé. To Robert work was so much more a pleasure
than a fatigue, that he was obliged to allow him to study a great
deal; but he did not wish him to spend all his time at his books, but
to take some hours of respite each day. This excellent man, of such
simple habits and manners, and of such contentment, really suffered at
times that he could not from his limited means give Robert as many
pleasures as his heart dictated. He knew he needed air and liberty,
and wished he could send him into the country, where he would be free
from all restraints. "Poor child!" he would say to himself, "how he
must long for his native mountain." So, before he left, to return to
his studies, he thought he would give him an agreeable surprise. The
weather was lovely, and all nature seemed to rejoice. The curé and his
charge started in a _diligence_ for Versailles, the {833} wonderful
and magnificent palace once used as a royal residence. Robert had
never seen this place, once such a gay city, but whose gilded glory
has all departed. No more _fêtes_, no more balls, in Louis XIV.'s
beautiful city. The grand palace is still there, but where are the
kings and courtiers? Oh! where?

The gardens charmed Robert, and he bounded about like a young fawn in
his native wood, to the great delight of the curé, who rejoiced in his
liveliness and happiness, and allowed this little bird that he had
freed to follow his capricious fancies, wherever they led him; for he
believed that all who loved children favored their pleasures; and it
is one of the sweetest joys God has given to man, that he should try
to leave no regrets to this age of life. As night was drawing on,
Robert left off his sports, and they made ready for their departure.
Robert's mind was filled with beautiful pictures of this visit, of
which the result was so sad. As they were entering Paris, the
benediction that the good curé gave the child each evening was
pronounced with much fervor, and it proved the last. They slept in the
same room, and Robert had gone happy and trustful to bed, little
dreaming of the new and terrible misfortune that awaited him, and in
the morning wakes to weep over the inanimate body of his loved
benefactor, whose calm and serene face is radiant with immortal joy.
The angel of death had come softly near the couch on which reposed the
servant of the Lord; and took him from life, to rest on the bosom of
his God, leaving a bright example of a virtuous and godly life.


CHAPTER VI.

  "O virtue! gift of God! grace divine! it is thou
  that givest the saintly and sublime inspirations of
  devotion, that trample down vice, that elevate above all
  feebleness and all obstacles."
    ANONYMOUS.


When Robert realized that he had no longer a protector or friend he
was plunged into the depths of despair, but it was not for the
miserable consideration of interest, which too often possesses
humanity, that he was so full of regret; it was for the wise and
virtuous man that he mourned, for the loss of his sweet and persuasive
language, and his tender and eloquent words, and his indescribable air
of goodness, united to his pure life, which won all hearts, as a
tender and delicate flower attracts and ravishes by its perfume.
Stranger to all that was passing around him, shut up in his sorrows,
made an orphan once more, Robert had still the happy consciousness of
having fulfilled all his duties to his benefactor. He awakened from
his lethargy at the sound of the first shovel of earth that fell on
the coffin of his, beloved curé. The awakening was frightful. The
tears and sobs he heard around him from the crowd of poor children and
unfortunate ones, of every degree, whom he had benefited during his
too short career, recalled with violence to his heart the sad reality.
Another sincere mourner for the curé was his faithful old housekeeper,
who, when she went in to take her last look of the venerable man, saw
Robert standing there in silence and sorrow, and she felt that she,
like him, was alone in the world, and suffered the same sorrow he did.
But his grief and his loss, bitter as it was, was not as fatal for his
advancement as might be supposed. His soul was too strongly fortified
with the blessing of religion to allow him to be long discouraged. And
when he could for a moment forget his losses, he would look to the
future, and dare to hope, that although deprived one by one of his
protectors, the path to success was still open to him. Madame Gaudin
had most bitter thoughts. She was now getting along in years, being
near fifty, and her age would be a barrier to her finding a home where
the work would be light, so that she could live without spending her
hard earned money. From her own personal thoughts she passed to
another subject of solicitude--the future of Robert. If she had not
felt any very strong interest in the fate of her master's _protégé_,
{834} she was too compassionate a woman not to pity this child, who
had been the object of his tender care. She thought of how the saintly
man had praised the intelligence and amiable qualities of Robert, and
repeated his favorite words: "This child will be something one day."
Moved by these remembrances, she thought she heard him tell her to
watch over the orphan. Submission and respect for all the orders she
received was a habit with her, and she had been accustomed to obey
with such exactitude, that she took for reality the illusion of her
heart, and resolved to obey the inspired voice, and replace, if
possible, the charitable man who had adopted Robert. This resolution
once made, she thought of nothing but executing it. Going to Robert,
she said, "I know, my young friend, you are thinking of some way of
gaining a living for yourself. We can live together, and it will be
better for us both, and we shall each have some one to take care of
us. I will try to get lodgings and work, and you can be with me when
not at your work, and God will assist us. Unfortunately you will be
obliged to give up your studies for the present, which is my greatest
grief; but we will not lose courage, for I feel sure that, sooner or
later, God will give you another proof of his goodness. Your
penmanship, which is so beautiful, you can make useful and by it earn
money. I will go at once and find us a lodging, and will be entirely
the gainer by the arrangement, for I shall have for company a good
child, who will be like a son; won't he?" Madame Gaudin half smiled at
her project, half cried when she repeated the name of the curé, then
said, "Yes! yes! I am sure he inspires me to do this, he inspires me
with an interest for this child, whom he loved above everything else."
Some days after they were fixed in a small lodging in the rue des
Fosses, St. Germain. She bought a bed for Robert, and he obtained a
situation at twenty-five francs a month. A year passed in this way,
without anything at all remarkable happening. Madame Gaudin worked,
took care of things, and sang Robert's praises to all. After he had
conscientiously finished the day to the profit of his employer, he
returned to his lodgings, took his supper, and attended in the
evenings a gratuitous course of drawing lessons. This art, for which
he felt each day a more and more decided taste, made him forget for a
time his past delightful life of study, which had opened to his
dazzled eyes the book with golden leaves, which had as suddenly closed
to his inexpressible regret. As time wore on, Madame Gaudin's
attachment for Robert increased so much, that she almost believed he
was her son; and well did he merit it all, for he respected her
sincerely, and was most grateful for all she did for him. Whenever he
was out at night, she would await his return with the greatest
impatience, and was perfectly happy when she could be near him while
he was reading, writing, or drawing; which latter employed most of his
leisure hours. He imitated with great care the models given him, and
would have passed the entire night working at them, but that Madame
Gaudin sweetly forced him to lay them aside and go to bed.

Robert had now reached his sixteenth year, and his salary was
increased to forty francs a month, which gave him great joy, as well
as Madame Gaudin, though she thought that his merit was not yet
remunerated enough, notwithstanding it was a good opening for him to
another career. Some days after he had received this mark of the
satisfaction his good conduct had given, his employer handed him a
letter, with an express recommendation to a celebrated painter, and
asked him to take it to his studio, and wait for an answer.

Arriving there, he introduced himself into the studio where the artist
sat at his work. He laid down his palette, and when he had finished
reading the letter that was handed him, he saw to his great surprise
the young messenger absorbed before the picture that was on his easel.
After considering {835} him far a few moments in silence, he asked him
several questions, to which Robert replied with an emotion and an
accent that revealed to the painter the inspiration of his soul. The
most striking features of his face were his large and spiritual eyes,
and his broad open forehead, on which thought sat enthroned. The
artist was so charmed with his agreeable exterior, his frank and
expressive language, that he inquired with interest what he was doing,
who were his family, and what were his projects for the future. Robert
satisfied all these questions, which were asked in a benevolent tone,
by the recital of his childhood, of the loss of his mother, of his
studies, interrupted by the death of his benefactors, and finished by
telling his actual position, his love for drawing, and his ardent
desire to come to him to study painting. "Well, you can came, my boy,"
said the painter; "but if you should succeed one day, can you hide
from yourself the bitter deceptions which are the sad shadow of glory
and renown? Yet why should I frighten you and inspire you with fear,
when you trust so implicitly in the future? You can only hope. This
word is all-powerful, and with your ideas and wishes you can crush
under your feet every obstacle you wish to surmount. From this day
consider yourself my pupil, and I doubt not you will do me credit. I
will write the answer to the letter you brought me, and tell your
employer at the same time that you belong to me now." Robert really
thought he was dreaming, and was afraid to stir for fear his castle
would fall, until the painter put the letter he was to take into his
hand, and said, "Came back to-morrow."

He ran all the way, and stopped almost breathless before the door of
Madame Gaudin, opened it hastily, and threw himself into her arms in
an ecstacy of delight. "What is it?" she exclaimed, "what has happened
you? I know it is something good" Her eyes were so eloquent with
curiosity that he at once commenced to tell her, and related, without
omitting a single word, the recent conversation which he had with the
celebrated painter, and his promise to take him as a scholar. This
unexpected event had filled him with such delight, that he entirely
forgot the letter that was entrusted to him, but immediately set out
to deliver it. Contentment gave him wings, and he was delirious with
joy when he pressed against his breast the letter which was the bond
of his liberty and his deliverance; and without regret he bade an
eternal farewell to his former insipid labor, though his heart beat as
he gave it to his employer, and as he stood waiting for him to read
it, the minutes were like years. At last he raised his eyes, and said,
"So you are to leave me, Robert; I am sorry, for I like you, much, and
I shall not soon fill your place; still I cannot stand in the way of
your promotion." Robert's happiness knew no bounds, and he returned
and dreamed the sweetest dreams that ever came to childhood's pillow.
From this time his life of struggle and of real work commenced. Until
now he had lived almost alone, far from the world and its attractions,
and ignorant of all wickedness. When he finds himself face to face
with life's realities, he is like one shipwrecked. He was taken by his
new master into the studio, and presented to the other scholars.
Thrown like a timid lamb into this flock, he found they had no respect
for sacred things, and his innocence and candor were cruelly railed
at, his virtue rudely spoken of, and his religion turned into
ridicule; and then sometimes, under the pretext of friendship, they
would try to make him take part in their noisy revels. But he always
refused, never forgetting that his mother had told him to seek the old
and wise for advice, and to avoid the company of wicked young men.
This enabled him to resist courageously the deceitful pleasures
produced by licentiousness and debaucheries. To his pure mind nothing
was so delightful as the home friendship, the kindness and the sweet
counsels he had with Madame Gaudin. {836} Then he made excursions in
the neighborhood of Paris, where he found nature in all her beautiful
simplicity; he breathed the pure country air, and made sketches of the
surrounding scenery. In a word, he was entirely occupied with his art,
and it was his true enjoyment. The amusement and excesses of gayety,
which ordinarily delight the young, had for him no charm; and he
repulsed with horror the poisoned cup to which so many open eager
lips. My dear young friends, if you only knew what this bitter cup
contained, you would all dash it, far from you, for in drinking it to
the dregs, you will sometimes find crime, always remorse, a weariness
of all things, and a premature old age.

Robert was spared from falling into the snares which are set to allure
youth, which blessing can only be attributed to the pious education he
had received. First impressions are never effaced, they take deep root
in a child's heart, and if good, become the fruitful germs of many
virtues; if they are bad, they are the source from which vice and
passion flow. In his tender years Robert had loved God and his works;
later, when the good curé had revealed to him the sublimity of
religion, the orphan was penetrated with a great love for that God who
is goodness itself; and when reason and experience confirmed all which
his mother and his protector had taught him, he believed more firmly
still, and found in all nature visible proofs of the grandeur and
power manifested by the Sovereign Ruler of the universe. When his
companions were convinced that they could not make him one of their
band of idlers, they let him alone, and treated him with the most
contemptuous indifference, which was a great happiness to him, for he
was no longer disturbed in his studies, and applied himself with such
ardor and perseverance that his master was enchanted with his
progress, and prodigal of his praises and encouragement, his counsels
and lessons; and aided to the utmost of his ability this rare talent,
which only demanded for its perfection aid and good direction. Not a
day passed without his looking over Robert's studies, correcting them,
and stimulating the generous emulation of the young artist. Robert
proved his gratitude by his devotion to his studies, and if on the one
hand the master was proud of his pupil, on the other so sincere,
exalted, and just was his respect for him, that he would have
considered it but a small sacrifice to have given his life for a man
who was so liberal of his time and knowledge to him. This tribute
which his warm heart gave so willingly, was not the only one Robert
received. Madame Gaudin made a duty of continuing the charitable work
of the Abbé Verneuil, who had shown so sublime and disinterested an
affection for Robert. She spent without regret the sayings of twenty
years, and, although an old woman, she worked like a young girl,
inventing the most ingenious means for hiding the sacrifices she was
obliged to make. She exhausted herself by her labor; but she loved
Robert, and said, with a just pride, "He will be a great painter, and
will repay me a thousand times for all I do for him now. What is a
little trouble? Fatigue soon passes over. I am only an old woman, and
have no need of anything, but he is so young, so good and easily
contented, that if he only has air and sunshine he is happy. He never
spends a cent improperly, and is economical, charitable, and polite. I
could not love him more if I were his mother; and all I ask of God is,
that he will spare me yet a while, that I may work for him." Robert
had not the least idea of the expedients she employed for
dissimulating the privations she each day imposed upon herself, but he
worked with devouring energy night and day, and nothing is a trouble
to him, nothing a fatigue, which brings him nearer to that glorious
end, an artist! a true, soul-inspired artist! But material life and
its necessities must be provided for; yet he thinks not of privations,
so {837} completely is he fascinated with art and dreams of fame. It
soon became difficult for Madame Gaudin to hide from Robert her almost
penniless position, which was all the harder because of her excessive
tenderness and love for him. She seemed to have but one thought, and
that was to spare him all trouble. The courage of women has its source
in the heart, and if they have love as an incentive, they can
accomplish ends that place them far above men. So she kept from Robert
the knowledge of the obligation he was under to her, and for three
years struggled with energy and constancy to give the young painter,
not only the necessaries, but also an appearance of luxuries, which
deceived him to the last degree. Up to this time her heroic courage
was the same, but her health failed suddenly, and religion alone
sustained her, with a firm and consoling hand, when misfortunes came.
Robert also needed it to keep up his spirits, for he felt a keen
anguish when he saw her extended on a bed of pain; but his faith gave
him supernatural strength, and he struggled victoriously with poverty,
abandoning for a time his loved art to attend to the smallest details
of material life, dividing his time between the sick friend whom he
surrounded with delicacies, and upon whom he lavished his tenderest
care, and work; monotonous, but productive work; and with his money he
procured remedies which he hoped would bring back her health who had
done so much for him. In this hour of trial he never despaired, and
spent sixteen hours out of the twenty-four often in copying miserable
and ill-drawn pictures, and all for a salary. But he would exclaim, "I
will be an artist." He returned sacrifice for sacrifice, and while
Madame Gaudin was in danger, he had not a moment of repose, and only
found calmness and tranquillity when convalescence came. The _rôles_
were changed. The protector became the protected; the kind guardian of
the orphan became the object of his earnest solicitude. He became a
man during her sickness; rendering her the attentions of a devoted
son, and providing for the expenses of the household. Brought down
from his fairy land of dreams by the realities of life, he is neither
less amiable nor less good, but stronger, braver, more faithful than
ever. The wings of the child have been folded; he is only a man, that
is all.

------

From All the Year Round.

  "INCONSOLABILE."


  I am waiting on the margin
    Of the dark, cold, rushing tide;
  All I love have passed before me,
    And have reached the other side:
  Only unto me a passage
    Through the waters is denied.

  Mist and gloom o'erhang the river,
    Gloom and mist the landscape veil.
  Straining for the shores of promise,
    Sight and hope and feeling fail.
  Not a sigh, a breath, a motion,
    Answers to my feeble wail.

{838}

  Surely they have all forgot me
    'Mid the wonders they have found
  In the far enchanted mansions;
    Out of heart and sight and sound,
  Here I sit, like Judah's daughters,
    Desolate upon the ground.

  Strangers' feet the stream are stemming,
    Stranger faces pass me by,
  Willing some, and some reluctant,
    All have leave to cross but I--
  I, the hopeless, all bereaved,
    Loathing life, that long to die!

  Be the river ne'er so turbid,
    Chill and angry, deep and drear,
  All my loved ones are gone over,
    Daunted not by doubt or fear;
  And my spirit reaches after,
    While I sit lamenting here.

  Happy waters that embraced them,
    Happier regions hid from sight,
  Where my keen, far-stretching vision,
    Dazed and baffled, lost them quite.
  Dread, immeasurable distance
    'Twixt the darkness and the light!

  And I know that never, never,
    Till this weak, repining breast
  Still its murmurs into patience,
    Yonder from the region blest
  Shall there break a streak of radiance,
    And upon the river rest.

  I shall hail the mystic token
    Bright'ning all the waters o'er,
  Struggle through the threat'ning torrent
    Till I reach the further shore;
  Wonder then, my blind eyes opened,
    That I had not trusted more.

------

{839}

ORIGINAL.

CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.   [Footnote 241]

  [Footnote 241: _Poems_, by Christina G. Rossetti. Boston: Roberts,
  Brothers. 1866.]


We had heard some little of Miss Rossetti, in a superficial way,
before reading this her book. Various verses of hers had met our eye
in print, and if they themselves left no very decided mark upon the
memory, yet we had the firm impression, somehow, that she was one more
of the rising school of poets. Accordingly we thought it well to take
a retrospect of a few post-Tennysonians--Mrs. Browning, Owen Meredith,
Robert Buchanan, Jean Ingelow, and so on--supposed fellow
disciples--so as to be tolerably sure of ranking the new-comer
rightly. On reading this volume, we find our labor lost through an
entirely unforeseen circumstance. Unfortunately, it does not appear
that Miss Rossetti is a poetess at all. That there are people who
think her one, we infer from the fact that this is in some sort a
third edition; why they think so, we are at a loss to see. The book
will not answer a single test of poetry. The authoress's best claim to
consideration is, that she sincerely, persistently, fervently _means_
to be a poetess. Only the most Demosthenian resolve could have kept
her writing in face of her many inherent unfitnesses. For imagination,
she offers fantasy; for sentiment, sentimentality; for aspiration,
ambition; for originality and thought, little or nothing; for melody,
fantastic janglings of words; and these, with all tenderness for the
ill-starred intensity of purpose that could fetch them so far, are no
more poetry than the industrious Virginian colonists' shiploads of
mica were gold.

The first cursory impression of this book would be, we think, that its
cardinal axiom was "Poetry is versified plaintiveness." The amount of
melancholy is simply overwhelming. There is a forty-twilight power of
sombreness everywhere. Now, criticism has taken principles, not
statistics, to be its province; but we could not resist the temptation
to take a little measurement of all this mournfulness. Limiting our
census strictly to the utterly irretrievable and totally wrecked
poems, with not a glimmering of reassurance, we found no less than
forty-nine sadnesses, all the way from shadow to unutterable
blackness--"_nfernam Iumbram noctemque perennem_." There is the
sadness decadent, the sadness senescent, the sadness bereft, the
sadness despondent, the sadness weary, the sadness despairing, the
sadness simply sad, the grand sadness ineffable, and above and
pervading all, the sadness rhapsodical. They are all there. Old Burton
will rise from his grave, if there be any virtue in Pythagoreanism, to
anatomize these poems. What it is all about is strictly a secret, and
laudably well kept; which gives to the various sorrows that touching
effect peculiar to the wailings of unseen babies from unascertained
ailments. So sustained is the grief, indeed, that after protracted
poring, we hang in abeyance between two conclusions. One is that Miss
Rossetti, outside of print, is the merriest mortal in the United
Kingdom; the other, that her health is worse than precarious. That one
or the other must be right, we know. There is no other horn to the
dilemma, no _tertiary quiddity_, no choice, no middle ground between
hilarity and dyspepsia.

Perhaps the reader can judge for himself from these lines, which are a
not unfair sample:

{840}

  "MAY.

  I cannot tell you how it was;
  But this I know: it came to pass
  Upon a bright and breezy day,
  When May was young; ah, pleasant May!
  As yet the poppies were not born,
  Between the blades of tender corn;
  The last eggs had not hatched as yet,
  Nor any bird foregone its mate.
  I cannot tell you what it was;
  But this I know: it did put pass.
  It passed away with sunny May,
  With all sweet things it passed away,
  And left me old and cold and gray."

We may be very unappreciative, and probably are sinfully suspicious,
but the above sounded at the first and sounds at the present reading,
exactly like a riddle. We certainly don't know how it was nor what it
was. There is a shadowy clue in its passing away with sunny May, but
we are far too cautious to hazard a guess. If there be any conundrum
intended, all we have to say is, we give it up.

We do but justice, however, in saying that amid much mere
lugubriousness there is some real and respectable sadness. The
following, in spite of' the queer English in its first lines, sounds
genuine, and is moreover, for a rarity of rarities, in well-chosen and
not ill-managed metre:

  "I have a room whereinto no one enters
  Save I myself alone:
  There sits a blessed memory on a throne,
  There my life centres.

  While winter comes and goes-Oh! tedious comer!
    And while its nip-wind blows;
  While bloom the bloodless lily and warm rose
    Of lavish summer;

  If any should force entrance he might see there
    One buried, yet not dead,
  Before whose face I no more bow my head
    Or (_sic_) bend my knee there;

  But often in my worn life's autumn weather
    I watch there with clear eyes,
  And think how it will be in Paradise
    When we're together."

Here is one of a trite topic--nearly all the good things in this book
are on themes as old as moonlight--but with a certain mournful
richness, like autumn woods:

  "Life is not sweet. One day it will be sweet
    To shut our eyes and die:
  Nor feel the wild flowers blow, nor birds dart by
    With flitting butterfly;
  Nor grass grow long above our head and feet,
  Nor hear the happy lark that soars sky high,
  Nor sigh that spring is fleet, and summer fleet,
    Nor mark the waxing wheat,
  Nor know who sits in our accustomed seat.

  Life is not good. One day it will be good
    To die, then live again;
  To sleep meanwhile: so not to feel the wane
  Of shrunk leaves dropping in the wood,
  Nor hear the foamy lashing of the main,
  Nor mark the blackened bean-fields, nor where stood
    Rich ranks of golden grain,
  Only dead refuse stubble clothe the plain:
  Asleep from risk, asleep from pain."

This is one of her best poems in point of style. The "waxing wheat" we
are just a shade doubtful about; but the mellowness of the diction is
much to our liking, and it is unmarred by any of the breaks of strange
ill taste that flaw nearly all these poems. If not poetry nor novelty,
at least we find it sadly agreeable verse.

Our professor of rhetoric once astonished his class by a heterodoxy,
which we have since thought sound as well as neat. "Walter Scott,"
said he, "writes verse as well as a man can write and not be a poet."
We are sorry we cannot say as much for Miss Rossetti; she has
considerable faults as a writer. The chief of these has elsewhere been
carped at--her laborious style of' being simple. The true simplicity
of poets is not a masterly artifice, but a natural and invariable
product where high poetic and expressive powers combine. The best
thought is always simple, because, it deals only with the essences of
things: the best expression--the machinery of thought--is simple,
just as the best of any other machinery is. But the grand, obvious
fact to the many is that the best poetry is admired for being simple.
Writing for this market, Miss Rossetti and unnumbered others have more
or less successfully attempted to achieve this crowning beauty of
style by various processes that are to the inspiration of' real
simplicity as patent medicines to vigorous vitality. Almost all hold
the immutable conviction that Saxon words are an infallible recipe for
the indispensable brevity. Accordingly the usual process is by an
elaborate application of' Saxon--if rather recondite or even verging
on the obsolete, so much the more efficacious--to a few random ideas.
Of course, with such painful workmanship, one must not expect the best
material. Original, or even well {841} defined thought seldom thrives
in the same hot-house with this super-smoothness. But without pursuing
the process into results at large, we have only to take Matthew
Arnold's distinction as to Miss Rossetti:--she tries hard for
_simplicité_, and achieves _simplesse_. But there is no such thing as
hard work without its fruits. This straining after effect crops
painfully out in a peculiar baldness and childishness of phrase that
is almost original. The woman who can claim The Lambs of Grasmere as
her own has not lived in vain. This production, with its pathetic
episode of the maternal

  "Teapots for the bleating mouths,
  Instead of nature's nourishment,"

has already been noticed in print, and duly expanded many visages. We
pause rapt in admiration of the deep intuition that could select for
song the incident of feeding a sheep with a teapot. It carries us
back, in spirit, to the subtle humor and delicate irony of Peter Bell,
and We are Seven. What a burst of tenderness ought we to expect, if
Miss Rossetti should ever chance to see stable-boys give a horse a
bolus! . . . . . We shall not cite examples of this _simplesse_; those
who like it will find it purer and more concentrated in the bard of
Rydal; or if they must have it, they are safe in opening this book
almost anywhere.

Of the individual poems, the two longest, The Goblin Market and The
Prince's Progress, are rivals for the distinction of being the worst.
All the best poems are short, excepting one, Under the Rose. The story
is of an illegitimate daughter, whose noble mother takes her to live
with herself at the inevitable Hall, without acknowledging her. There
are able touches of nature in the portrayal of the lonely, loving,
outlawed, noble heart, that, knowing her mother's secret, resolves
never to betray it, even to her. In the following passage, the girl,
alone at the castle, as her mother's favorite maid, describes her
inner life:

  "Now sometimes in a dream,
  My heart goes out of me
  To build and scheme,
  Till I sob after things that seem
  So pleasant in a dream:
  A home such as I see,
  My blessed neighbors live in;
  With father and with mother,
  _All proud of one another,
  Named by one common name;
  From baby in the bud
  To full-blown workman father;_
  It's little short of Heaven.
   . . . . .
  Of course the servants sneer
  Behind my back at me;
  Of course the village girls,
  Who envy me my curls
  And gowns and idleness,
  Take comfort in a jeer;
  Of course the ladies guess
  Just so much of my history
  As points the emphatic stress
  With which they laud my Lady;

  The gentlemen who catch
  A casual glimpse of me,
  And turn again to see
  Their valets, on the watch
  To speak a word with me;--
  All know, and sting me wild;
  Till I am almost ready
  To wish that I were dead,--
  No faces more to see,
  No more words to be said;
  My mother safe at last.
  Disburdened of her child
  And the past past."

The Convent Threshold--the last words of a contrite novice to her
lover--has touches of power. There is an unusual force about some
parts, as for example here:

  "You linger, yet the time is short;
  Flee for your life; gird up your strength
  To flee; the shadows stretched at length
  Show that day wanes, that night draws nigh;
  Flee to the mountain, tarry not.
  Is this a time for smile and sigh;
  For songs among the secret trees
  Where sudden blue-birds nest and sport?
  The time is short, and yet you stay;
  To-day, while it is called to-day,
  Kneel, wrestle, knock, do violence, pray;
  To-day is short, to-morrow nigh:
  Why will you die? why will you die!
    . . . . .
  How should I rest in Paradise,
  Or sit on steps of Heaven alone?
  If saints and angels spoke of love,
  Should I not answer from my throne,
  'Have pity upon me, ye, my friends,
  For I have heard the sound thereof?'
  Should I not turn with yearning eyes,
  Turn earthward with a pitiful pang?
  Oh! save me from a pang in heaven!
  By all the gifts we took and gave,
  Repent, repent, and be forgiven!"

The lines called Sound Sleep, p. 65, we like very well for very slight
cause. It says nearly nothing with a pleasant flow of cadence that has
the {842} charm of an oasis for the reader. Much better is No, Thank
You, John! which strikes into a strain of plain sound sense that we
could wish to see much more of. The style, as well as the sense, seems
to shuffle off its affectations, and the last two stanzas especially
are easy, natural, and neat.

A strange compound of good and bad is the singular one called


  "TWICE.

  I took my heart in my hand,
    O my love, O my love!
  I said, "Let me fall or stand,
    Let me live or die;
  But this once hear me speak,
    O my love, O my love!
  Yet a woman's words are weak;
    You should speak, not I."

  You took my heart in your hand,
    With a friendly smile,
  With a critical eye you scanned,
    Then set it down
  And said: "It is still unripe--
    Better wait a while;
  Wait while the skylarks pipe,
    Till the corn grows brown."

  As you set it down it broke--
    Broke, but I did not wince;
  I smiled at the speech you spoke,
    At your judgment that I heard:
  But I have not often smiled
    Since then, nor questioned since,
  Nor cared for corn-flowers wild,
    Nor sung with the singing-bird.

  I take my heart in hand,
    O my God, O my God!
  My broken heart in my hand:
    Thou hast seen, judge thou.
  My hope was written on sand,
    O my God, O my God!
  Now let thy judgment stand--
    Yea, judge me now.

  This, contemned of a man,
    This, marred one heedless day,
  This heart take thou to scan
    Both within and without:
  Refine with fire its gold,
    Purge thou its dross away;
  Yea, hold it in thy hold,
    Whence none can pluck it out.

  I take my heart in my hand--
    I shall not die, but live--
  Before thy face I stand,
    I, for thou callest such;
  All that I have I bring,
    All that I am I give,
  Smile thou, and I shall sing,
    But shall not question much."

This poem, we confess, puzzles us a little to decide upon it. The
imitation is palpable at a glance, but it is a very clever one: the
first three stanzas above all catch the mannerism of their model to
admiration. But the whole, is a copy, at best, of one of the
archetype's inferior styles; and yet we fancy we can see, under all
the false bedizening, something of poetry in the conception, though it
is ill said, and only dimly translucent. There is art, too, in the
parallelism of the first and last three verses. But we do not like the
refrain in the fourth verse--somehow it jars. Perhaps the best we can
say of it is, that Browning, in his mistier moments of convulsiveness,
could write worse.

There is another imitation of Browning in this book, that is the most
supremely absurd string of rugged platitudes imaginable--Wife to
Husband, p. 61. The last verse is sample enough:

  "Not a word for you,
    Not a look or kiss
      Good-by.
  We, one, must part in two;
    Verily death is this,
      I must die."

The metre generally throughout this book is in fact simply execrable.
Miss Rossetti cannot write contentedly in any known or human measure.
We do not think there are ten poems that are not in some new-fangled
shape or shapelessness. With an overweening ambition, she has not the
slightest faculty of rhythm. All she has done is to originate some of
the most hideous metres that "shake the racked axle of art's rattling
car." Attempting not only Browning's metrical dervish-dancings, but
Tennyson's exquisite ramblings, she fails in both from an utter want
of that fine ear that always guides the latter, and so often strikes
out bold beauties in the former. Most of Miss Rossetti's new styles of
word-mixture are much like the ingenious individual's invention for
enabling right-handed people to write with the left hand--more or less
clever ways of doing what she don't wish to do. What possible harmony,
for instance, can any one find in this jumble, which, as per the
printer, is meant for a "song:"

      "There goes the swallow--
         Could we but follow!
           Hasty swallow, stay,
           Point us out the way;
  Look back, swallow, turn back, swallow, stop, swallow.

{843}

      There went the swallow--
        Too late to follow,
          Lost our note of way,
            Lost our chance to-day.
  Good-by, swallow, sunny swallow, wise swallow.

      After the swallow--
        All sweet things follow;
          All things go their way,
          Only we must stay,
  Must not follow; good-by, swallow, good swallow."

Where on earth is sound or sense in this? Not a suggestion of melody,
not a fraction of a coherent idea. People must read such trash as they
eat _meringues à la crême_: we never could comprehend either process.

Truth to tell, we have in this book some of the very choicest
balderdash that ever was perpetrated; worthy to stand beside even the
immortal Owl and Goose of Tennyson. There is a piece at p. 41 which we
would give the world to see translated into some foreign language, we
have such an intense eagerness to understand it. Its subject, so far
as we have got, seems to be the significance of the crocodile,
symbolically considered. We glanced over, or rather at it once, and
put it by for after reading, thinking the style probably too deep for
love at first sight. On the second perusal we fell in with some
extraordinary young crocodiles that we must have missed before. They
had just been indulged in the luxury of being born, but Miss
Rossetti's creative soul, not content with bestowing upon them the
bliss of amphibious existence, made perfect their young beauty by
showing them "fresh-hatched perhaps, and--_daubed with birthday
dew_."

We are strong of head--we recovered from even this--we became of the
very select few who can say they have read this thing through. There
was a crocodile hero; he had a golden girdle and crown; he wore
polished stones; crowns, orbs and sceptres starred his breast (why
shouldn't they if they could); "special burnishment adorned his mail;"
his punier brethren trembled, whereupon he immediately ate them till
"the luscious fat distilled upon his chin," and "exuded from his
nostrils and his eyes." He then fell into an anaconda nap, and grew
very much smaller in his sleep, till at the approach of a very queer
winged vessel (probably a vessel of wrath), "the prudent crocodile
rose on his feet and shed appropriate tears (obviously it is the
handsome thing for all well-bred crocodiles to cry when a Winged ship
comes along) and wrung his hands." As a finale, Miss Rossetti, too
nimble for the unwary reader, anticipates his question of "What does
it all mean?" and triumphantly replying that she doesn't know herself,
but that it was all just so, marches on to the next _monumentum aere
perennius_. In the name of the nine muses, we call upon Martin
Farquhar Tupper to read this and then die.

There are one or two other things like this _longa intervallo_, but it
is reserved for the Devotional Pieces to furnish the only poem that
can compete with it in its peculiar line. This antagonist poem is not
so sublime an example of sustained effort, but it has the advantage
that the rhyme is fully equal to the context. Permit us then to
introduce the neat little charade entitled

  "AMEN.

  It is over. What is over?
    Nay, how much is over truly!--
  Harvest days we toiled to sow for;
    Now the sheaves are gathered newly,
    Now the wheat is garnered duly.

  It is finished. What is finished?
    _Much is finished known or unknown;_
  Lives are finished, time diminished;
    Was the fallow field left unsown?
    Will these buds be always unblown?

  It suffices. What suffices?
    All suffices reckoned rightly;
  Spring shall bloom where now the ice is,
    Roses make the bramble sightly,
    And the quickening suns shine brightly,
    And the latter winds blow lightly,
  And my garden teems with spices."

Let now the critic first observe how consummately the mysticism of the
charade form is intensified by the sphinx-like answers appended. Next
note the novelties in rhyme, The rhythmic chain that links "over" and
and "sow for" is the first discovery in the piece, closely rivalled by
"ice is" and "spices" in the last verse. But {844} far above all rises
the subtle originality of the three rhymes in the second. A thousand
literati would have used the rhyming words under the unpoetical rules
of ordinary English. Miss Rossetti alone has the courage to inquire
"Was the fallow field left _un_sown? Will these buds be always
_un_blown?" We really do not think Shakespeare would have been bold
enough to do this thus.

But despite this, the religious poems are perhaps the best. They seem
at least the most unaffected and sincere, and the healthiest in tone.
There are several notably good ones: one, just before the remarkable
Amen, in excruciating metre, but well said; one, The Love of Christ
which Passeth Knowledge, a strong and imaginative picture of the
crucifixion; and Good Friday, a good embodiment of the fervor of
attrite repentance. The best written of all is, we think, this one (p.
248):

  "WEARY IN WELL-DOING.

  I would have gone; God bade me stay;
    I would have worked; God bade me rest.
  He broke my will from day to day,
    He read my yearnings unexpressed
      And said them nay.

  Now I would stay; God bids me go;
    Now I would rest; God bids me work.
  He breaks my heart, tossed to and fro,
    My soul is wrung with doubts that lurk
      And vex it so.

  I go, Lord, where thou sendest me;
    Day after day, plod and moil:
  But Christ my God, when will it be
    That I may let alone my toil,
      And rest with thee?"

This is good style (no _simplesse_ here) and real pathos--in short;
poetry. We do not see a word to wish changed, and the conclusion in
particular is excellent: there is a weariness in the very sound of the
last lines.

It is remarkable how seldom _thought_ furnishes the motive for these
poems. With no lack at all of intelligence, they stand almost devoid
of intellect. It is always a sentiment of extraneous suggestion, never
a novelty in thought, that inspires our authoress. She seems busier
depicting inner life than evolving new truths or beauties. Nor does
she abound in suggestive turns of phrase or verbal felicities. In
fact, as we have seen, she will go out of her way to achieve the want
of ornament. But there is one subject which she has thought out
thoroughly, and that subject is death. Whether in respect to the
severance of earthly ties, the future state, or the psychical
relations subtly linking the living to the dead, she shows on this
topic a vigor and vividness, sometimes misdirected, but never wanting.
Some of her queer ideas have a charm and a repulsion at once, like
ghosts of dead beauty: _e.g._ this strange sonnet:

  "AFTER DEATH.

  The curtains were half-drawn, the floor was swept
    And strewn with rushes; rosemary and may
    Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,
  Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept.
  He leaned above me, thinking that I slept
    And could not hear him; but I heard him say,
  "Poor child, poor child!" and as he turned away
  Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept;
      He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold
    That hid my face, or take my hand in his,
  Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head;
  He did not love me living, but once dead
    He pitied me, and very sweet it is
      To know he still is warm though I am cold."

There is some _chiaro-oscuro_ about this. Under all the ghastliness of
the conception, we detect here a deep, genuine, unhoping, intensely
human yearning, that is all the better drawn for being thrown into the
shadow. We do not know of a more graphic realization of death. Miss
Rossetti seems to be lucky with her sonnets. We give the companion
piece to this last--not so striking as the other, but full of heart's
love, and ending with one of the few passages we recall which enter
without profaning the penetralia of that highest love, which
passionately prefers the welfare of the beloved one to its own natural
cravings for fruition and fulfilment:

  "REMEMBER.

  Remember me when I am gone away,
    Gone far away into the silent land;
    When you no more can hold me by the hand
  Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
  Remember me when no more, day by day,
    You tell me of our future that you planned;
    Only remember me; you understand
  It will be late to counsel then or pray,
  Yet if you should forget me for a while
    And afterwards remember, do not grieve;
    For if the darkness and corruption leave
  A vestige of the thoughts that once I had.
    Better by far you should forget and smile
    Than that you should remember and be sad.

{845}

Another marked peculiarity often shadowed forth is our authoress's
sharply defined idea that the dead lie simply quiescent, neither in
joy nor sorrow. There are several miserable failures to express this
state, and one success, so simple, so natural, and so pleasant in
measure, that we quote it, though we have seen it cited before:

  "When I am dead, my dearest,
    Sing no sad songs for me;
  Plant thou no roses at my head,
    Nor shady cypress-tree:
  Be the green grass above me
    With showers and dew-drops wet;
  And if thou wilt, remember,
    And if thou wilt, forget.

  I shall not see the shadows;
    I shall not feel the rain;
  I shall not hear the nightingale
    Sing on as if in pain;
  And dreaming through that twilight
    That doth not rise not set,
  Haply I may remember,
    And haply may forget."

Such bold insight into so profound a subject says more for the soul of
an author than a whole miss's paradise of prettinesses.

In singular contrast with this religious fervency and earnestness, the
sincerity of which we see no reason to impeach, comes our gravest
point of reprehension of this volume. We think it fairly chargeable
with utterances--and reticences--of morally dangerous tendency; and
this, too, mainly on a strange point for a poetess to be cavilled
at--the rather delicate subject of our erring sisters. Now, we are of
those who think the world, as to this matter, in a state little better
than barbarism; that far from feeling the first instincts of Christian
charity, we are shamefully like the cattle that gore the sick ox from
the herd. The only utterly pitiless power in human life is our virtue,
when brought face to face with this particular vice. We hunt the
fallen down; hunt them to den and lair; hunt them to darkness,
desperation, and death; hunt their bodies from earth, and their souls
(if we can) from heaven, with the cold sword in one hand, and in the
other the cross of him who came into the world to save, not saints,
but sinners, and who said to one of these: "Neither do I condemn thee.
Go, and now sin no more."

But there is also such a thing as misdirected mercifulness; a
dangerous lenity, all the more to be guarded against for its wearing
the garb of charity; and we think Miss Rossetti has leaned culpably
far in this direction. Two poems are especially prominent
examples--Cousin Kate, and Sister Maude. In each the heroine has
sinned, and suffered the penalties of discovery, and in each she is
given the upper hand, and made a candidate for sympathy, for very bad
reasons. There is no word to intimate that there is anything so very
dreadful about dishonor; that it may not be some one else's fault, or
nobody's fault at all--a mere social accident. A few faint hinting
touches there may be of conventional condemnation, but somehow Miss
Rossetti's sinners, _as sinners_, invariably have the best of the
argument and of the situation, while virtue is, put systematically in
the wrong, and snubbed generally. The Goblin Market too, if we read it
aright, is open to the same criticism. We understand it, namely, to
symbolize the conflict of the better nature in us, with the prompting
of the passions and senses. If so, what is the story translated from
its emblematic form? One sister yields; the other by seeming to yield,
saves her. Again there is not a syllable to show that the yielding was
at all wrong in itself. A cautious human regard for consequences is
the grand motive appealed to for withstanding temptation. Lizzie tells
Laura, not that the goblin's bargain is an evil deed in the sight of
God, but that Jennie waned and died of their toothsome poisons. She
saves her by going just so far as she safely can. What, if anything,
is the moral of all this? Not "resist the devil and he will flee from
you," but "cheat the devil, and he won't catch you." Now, all these
sayings and silences are gravely wrong and false to a writer's true
functions. With all deference then, and fully feeling that we may
mistake, or misconstrue, we sincerely submit that some of these poems
go inexcusably beyond the bounds of that strict moral {846} right,
which every writer who hopes ever to wield influence ought to keep
steadily, and sacredly in view. We are emboldened to speak thus
plainly, because we have some reason to believe that these things have
grated on other sensibilities than our own, and that our stricture
embodies a considerable portion of cultivated public opinion.

In conclusion, we repeat our first expressed opinion, that Miss
Rossetti is not yet entitled to take a place among today's poets. The
question remains, whether she ever will. We do not think this book of
hers settles this question. [Greek text], she has done nothing in
poetry yet of any consequence. These verses may be as well as she can
do. They contain poetical passages of merit and promise, but they show
also a defectiveness of versification, a falseness of ear, and
occasionally a degree of affectation and triviality that, we can only
hope, are not characteristic. To borrow a little of the style and
technology of a sister branch of thought, the case, as now presented,
can be accounted for as in essence a simple attack of the old and
well-known endemic, _cacaethes scribendi_. Probably it befell her at
the usual early age. Only instead of the run of gushing girls, we have
Dante Gabriel Rossetti's sister, Jean lngelow's intimate friend, and a
young lady of intelligence and education, constantly in contact with
real literary society, and--what is thoroughly evident in this
book--read in our best poets. Add all these complicating symptoms, and
is there not something plausible about the diagnosis? We do not say,
observe, and do not mean to say, that this is Miss Rossetti's case;
only all she has done so far seems explicable on this hypothesis. For
ourselves, we lean to the view that she will do more. We judge hers a
strong, sensuous, impulsive, earnest, inconsiderate nature, that
sympathizes well, feels finely, keeps true to itself at bottom, but
does not pause to make sure that others must, as well as may, enter
into the spirit that underlies her utterances, and so buries her
meaning sometimes beyond Champollion's own powers of deciphering. But
her next book must determine how much is to be ascribed to talent, and
how much to practice and good models; and show us whether genius or
gilt edges separate her from the [Greek text].

--------

ORIGINAL.

THE TEST.

  She stands with head demurely bent,
    A village maiden, young and comely,
  And he beside her, talking low
    And earnestly, is Lord of Bromleigh.

  "Now raise thine eyes, and look at me,
    And place thy little hand in mine,
  And tell me thou my bride will be,
    And I and Bromleigh shall be thine;
  In richest silks thou shalt be drest--
    Have diamonds flashing on each hand,
  And in all splendor shalt outshine
    The proudest lady in the land.

{847}

  On softest carpets thou shalt tread,
    On velvet cushions shalt recline;
  Whatever is most rich and rare
    That thou mayst wish for shall be thine."

  "I do not covet silk attire,
    Nor glittering gold, nor flashing gem;
  There is no longing in my heart
    To change my simple dress for them.
  A village maiden I was born--
    A Village maiden I was bred--
  A happy life for eighteen years
     In that low station I have led.
  How do I know if I should change
    My state for one so high, but then
  The world might change, and never be
    The thing it is to me again;
  But from the field, and from the sky,
    The glory and the joy would go;
  The greenness from the meadow grass,
    The beauty from all flowers that blow;
  The sweetness from the breath of spring,
    The music from the skylark's song:
  Content, and all sweet thoughts that bring
    A gladness to me all day long?"

  "Thy fears are idle fears," he said;
    "Love, loyal heart, and generous mind,
  Can happiness in lordly halls
    As well as in a cottage find.
  For this is of the soul, and bound
    To no degrees of wealth or state:
  Then put thy little hand in mine
    And speak the word that seals my fate!
  I love thee, Marian, more than life--
    Have loved thee, ah! thou dost not guess
  How long, unknown to thee, my soul
    Hath shrined in thee its happiness.
  More precious than the light of day,
    Thy beauty is unto mine eyes;
  More sweet than all earth's music else
    Thy voice that now to me replies.
  Oh! would it speak the words I long
    More than all other words to hear,
  I were the happiest man this day
    That breathes the breath of earthly air."

  She raised her head, and in her eyes
    A tender look his glances met,
  But 'twas not love--though kin to it--
    A look of pity and regret.

  "It pains me more than I can tell
    To speak the words I ought; but yet
  They must be said; and for your sake
    I would that we had never met

{848}

  For if you love me as you say,
    I can conceive how great the pain
  I give when I declare the troth,
    I cannot love you, sir, again.
  And I should sin a grievous sin,
    Should do a grievous wrong to you,
  If I should put my hand in yours
    Unless my heart went with it too.
  Not joy and pride, but grief and shame,
    Go with the bridegroom and the bride
  Into the house where they shall dwell,
    Unless love enter side by side.
  And I, because my heart is given
    To one I love beyond my life.
  Could find no joy in Bromleigh Hall
    Am all unfit for Bromleigh's wife:
  But did I love you, then, indeed,
    Although my state be poor and mean,
  I were as worthy Bromleigh Hall,
    As were I daughter of a queen.
  For love hath such divinity
    That it ennobles every one
  That owns its mast'ry, and can make
    A beggar worthy of a throne.
  This I have learned--love taught me this;
    The love that is my breath of life:
  That will not leave me till I die,
    That will not let me be your wife.
  Forbear to urge me more, my lord;
    It gives me pain to give such pain;
  Here let us part, and for the sake
    Of both, to never meet again."

  "Stay yet a little, Marian, stay!
    My heart was wholly thine before.
  Or what thou sayst would make me swear
    That now I love thee more and more.
  A beauty brighter than a queen's,
    A mind with noble thoughts so graced.
  Among the highest in the land,
    Were best esteemed, and fittest placed.
  Yes, there thy rightful station is.
    Amongst the noble of the earth:
  And 'twere a sin unto a clown
    To mate such beauty and such worth.
  Thou could'st not live thy truest life;
    Thy fullest joy thou could'st not find.
  Chained to a poor cot's drudgery.
    Wed to a dull, unlettered hind."

  Then flushed her face with maiden scorn.
    And thrilled her voice with proud disdain;
  And proudly looked her eyes at him
    Who dared not look at her again.

{849}

  "For shame! my lord; for shame! my lord;
    You shame your rank to slander so
  A man, I doubt if you have seen;
    A man I'm sure you do not know.
  The man I love is no base churl,
    No poor unlettered village hind;
  But in my soul he lives and reigns,
    The wisest, noblest of mankind.
  I grant him poor; I know he works
    With head and hands for daily bread;
  And nobler so in my esteem
    Than if a useless life he led.
  'Tis not the accident of birth
    Though with the flood the line began,
  Nor having lands and countless wealth,
    That makes and marks the gentleman.
  For these are earthly, of the earth,
    And by the vilest oft possessed;
  But 'tis the spirit makes the man,
    The soul that rules in brain and breast:
  The generous heart, the noble mind,
    The soul aspiring still to climb
  To higher heights, to truer truths,
    To faith more heavenly and sublime.
  These make the noble of the earth;
    And he I love is one of these:--
  And shall I for a title fall
    From such a soul and love as his?
  Believe me, no! Ten thousand times,
    A cot with him I'd rather share
  Than yonder hall with you, my lord,"
    And then she turned and left him there.
  Off fell the curls and thick moustache
    That hid the true look of his face.
  A step--and ere she was aware
    She struggled in a strong embrace;
  Whilst kisses rained on cheek and lips,
    She would have cried for help; but, lo!
  The voice was one she knew so well,
    Not that which spoke awhile ago.

  "Forgive me, oh! my dear, true love,
    If I have seemed thy love to test;
  I knew 'twas good, and pure, and true,
    As ever filled a maiden's breast:
  But I had something to reveal,
    And so I put on this deceit.
  Deceit! not so--for now I'm true,
    The past it is that was a cheat;
  For I this happy twelvemonth past,
    This year that gave thy love to me,
  Have lived a life not truly mine,
    Have lived it for the sake of thee.

{850}

  And though I Harry Nugent am,
    The master of the village school,
  So am I Harry Nugent Vane,
    Lord of a higher rank and rule,
  The which I left to win thy love;
    And now I know that it is mine,
  I take it back, my own true wife.
    And Bromleigh Hall is mine and thine.

------

ORIGINAL.

WHAT I HEARD ABOUT RITUALISM IN A CITY CAR.


"It ought to be stopped, and it's all nonsense."

"It is all very well to say 'it ought to be stopped,' and that 'it is
all nonsense,' but, my dear sir, we cannot stop it, for the people
will have it; and I beg leave to differ with you, for I think it is
very far from being nonsense."

It was in a Seventh Avenue railway car, and as I sat next to the last
speaker, a clerical-looking person, I could not help overhearing the
conversation. The other appeared to be one of those old gentlemen who
are positive about everything--who, even in the tie of their cravat,
say as plain as can be, "This is the way I intend to have it, and I
_will_ have it."

"I perfectly agree with the Bishop of Oxford," said he. "See here"--
and he opened a newspaper and read as follows: "'I have no great fear
that as to the majority of the people there is any tendency toward
Rome; and, on the contrary, I believe that in many cases this
development of English ritualism tends to keep our people from Rome.
It may, however, happen that the tendency of these things is to what I
consider to be at this moment the worst corruption of the church of
Rome--its terrible system of Mariolatry.' There, you see what it tends
to, and it is plain enough, although the bishop did not like to say
so, of course, that ritualism in our churches will educate our people
to become Catholics; and so he adds, very properly: 'I regard it with
deep distress. My own belief is that to stop these practices it will
only be necessary for the bishop to issue an injunction to the
clergymen to surcease from them--to surcease from incensing the holy
table--to surcease from prostration after the consecration of the
holy elements--to surcease from incensing at the _magnificat_.' My
opinion precisely."

"Have you ever considered the true sense of these things?" inquired
his clerical friend.

"Can't see any sense in it at all," tartly responded the old
gentleman.

"No?" returned the other; "surely there must be some good reason for
this wide-spread desire of both clergy and laity for a more elaborate
ritual in divine service."

"Fashionable, fashionable--nothing else."

"It gives dignity and solemnity to public worship."

"Mere show."

"It adds to the apparent reality of the sacred functions of religion,
in the administration of the sacraments particularly."

"Ha! ha! yes, it would be an apparent reality for us. I read about
that 'apparent reality' lately in the report of the ordination of one
of our bishops, and I thought it a very appropriate remark."

{851}

"But you must admit that it tends to edify the worshippers, and afford
them more ample means of lifting up the heart to God."

"It don't edify me."

"Then it is, besides, so full of instruction, for every ceremony fixes
the mind upon the religious truth to which the ceremony points, as,
for instance, making the sign of the cross must keep the truth of
redemption forcibly before the mind."

"Make the sign of the cross!" ejaculated the old gentleman, almost
jumping out of his seat, at which movement half a dozen ladies,
standing up and holding on the leathern straps, made a simultaneous
rush for the place.

"Why not?" said the other. "I am ready to do anything that will remind
me that my Saviour died for me. Then it is only fulfilling the
prophecy of St. Paul to bow or bend the knee at the mention of his
holy name, and to genuflect before the altar is very proper and right,
if we believe in the presence of Jesus Christ in the sacred elements."

"But we Protestants don't believe it."

"You must not be too sure of that; I know many who do. You know the
Scripture is very strong in its favor: 'This is my body--this is my
blood;' and I, as a good Protestant, who take my belief from the
Bible, may have the right to believe it, may I not?"

"H'm, h'm, but our church don't teach any thing of the kind."

"Not as a church, I grant you, but she has no right to trammel private
judgment; and if I choose to believe it, and act upon my belief, what
is to hinder me."

"It seems to me that as a minister of the church you ought to
_minister_ just what the church teaches and no more."

"If you follow that out, my friend, you will become a Romanist. A
Protestant cannot stand on that ground."

"Oh dear!" exclaimed the old gentleman drawing a deep breath, and
scratching his head. "I don't know what we are coming to. A man don't
want to be a papist, and yet he goes to his own Protestant church and
must put up with all the bowings and scrapings and genuflections and
candies and flowers, and all the rest of the popish fiddle·de·dees."

"Now you mention candles and flowers," said the clerical gentleman,
"what can be more appropriate symbols of joy and festivity? And when
the Christian is rejoicing on those solemn and joyful festivals of the
church, as, for instance, the birth of our Saviour at Christmas, and
his resurrection at Easter, how very natural it is that the sanctuary
of religion should be adorned with lights and flowers, than which
nothing could express more fitly the joy and thankfulness of the
heart. If you crush out all expression of these sentiments in the
service of the church you will render it a dull, cold formality; and
in this matter the church of Rome has been much wiser than we in
retaining all those things which, after all, are of apostolic origin,
and used by the earliest Christians."

"Incense, too, I suppose," added the old gentleman with a snarl.

"Incense too," repeated the other, "not the least doubt of it, as is
plain from the discoveries in the catacombs, and a beautiful emblem it
is of prayer. You know the scripture, 'My prayer shall ascend as
incense in thy sight.'"

The old gentleman here looked around the car with an air that seemed
to say, Will somebody have the kindness to tell me if I am asleep or
awake? Turning to his friend, he said: "Then I suppose that all our
protestations on this score against the Roman church have no
foundation either in reason or in holy Scripture?"

"That is not only my own opinion," replied the clerical gentleman,
"but I have every reason to believe it is the conviction of a very
large number of enlightened Protestants of our day."

"A conviction I sincerely deplore," said the old gentleman. "Good
morning," and he abruptly rose and left the car.

{852}

"Excuse me, sir," said I, "if I, as a Catholic, have been deeply
interested in your conversation just now; but may I ask on what
principle those ritualistic forms and ceremonies are being adopted by
Protestants, and being introduced into their services?"

"The principle is this, that they are all deeply significant of the
different truths of the Christian religion, a visible expression of
the faith of the worshipper."

"We understand that perfectly as Catholics," said I, "but as your
congregations differ so widely in their individual belief, these forms
and ceremonies would possess no significance to the half of anyone
congregation of Protestant worshippers. Now, with us Catholics, the
ceremonies have a universal significance, as all our people are united
in one faith."

"We will educate our people to it," said he.

"That is, you would make the faith of your worshippers an expression
of the ceremonies you perform, and not the ceremonies an expression of
their faith. In the Catholic church the faith is all one to start on,
and the appropriate ceremonies follow as a matter of course."

"I acknowledge," returned he, "that we have not paid sufficient
attention to the vital necessity of a ritual which would embody and
show forth the faith of our church."

"But when you have gotten a ritual which supposes, as it must, certain
doctrines, and which, as you said to your friend, instructs the people
in these doctrines, are you not trammelling the private judgment of
those worshippers who do not believe these doctrines and wish to have
a ritual which is consistent with their belief? What right have you to
impose a ritual upon them inconsistent with their belief?"

"We do not impose any particular ritual," he replied; "if they do not
like it they can go elsewhere."

"But then you would have, or ought to have, as many different rituals
as your people have individual differences of belief, and that would
end in endless division and dissension."

"It is excessively warm, don't you think so?" said the minister.

"It is," said I, "but I think we are going to have a storm soon; I see
it is getting quite cloudy."

------

ORIGINAL.

THE BARREN FIG-TREE AND THE CROSS.

  O hapless tree! which doth refuse
    Thy fruit to him who thee hath made:
  Cursed and withered none may use
    Thy barren limbs for fruit or shade.

  O Cross of death! which man did make,
    Barren and fruitless though thou be,
  Thy sapless branches life shall take
    From that sweet fruit he gave to thee.

  O happy tree! divinely blest!
    True, thou hast neither leaves nor root;
  Yet 'neath thy shade a world shall rest,
    And feast upon thy heavenly fruit!

--------

{853}

MISCELLANY.


_A Peculiar Conglomerate_.--Mr. John Keily, of the Irish Geological
Society, has addressed a letter to the editor of the _Geological
Magazine_, describing a peculiar conglomerate bed which is on the
shore at Cushendeen, in the county of Antrim. The mass is about fifty
feet above the sea, and some thirty yards long and wide. It is
composed of round pebbles of quartz rock, from two to four inches in
diameter; and they occur so closely packed that everyone is in contact
with another, and no room left, except for the sand which cements
them, and which fills the openings between the pebbles, when
originally heaped together. These pebbles, as just stated, are of
quartz rock, and therefore all of one kind. There is no actual rock of
the same kind, on the shore, nearer than--(1) Malin Head, or Culdaff,
in Donegal; (2) Belderg, east of Belmullet in Mayo, where it occupies
the shore for fourteen miles; and (3) in the twelve bins, near
Clifden, in Connemara, where it forms bands interstratified with mica
slate. This mass is backed by a hill of brown Devonian grits and
shales interstratified, which extends from Cushendeen to Cushendal. In
both those rocks are a few round pebbles of quartz rock, similar to
those in the mass on the shore, but in the rocks of the hill they are
thinly disseminated, perhaps six or ten of them to a cubic yard. Mr.
Kelly desires to know how the quartz pebbles came together unmixed
with any other species of rock. The answer which the editor of the
_Geological Magazine_ gives in a foot-note seems very like the correct
one. It is to the effect that, in the grinding of the several elements
which were being rubbed together to form the conglomerate, the softer
ones became reduced to powder.--_Popular Science Review_.



_Old Roman Mines in Spain_.--In the mines of San Domingo, in Spain,
some discoveries of Roman mining implements and galleries have been
made, which show us the colossal character of the labors undertaken by
that ancient nation. In some instances, draining galleries nearly
three miles in length were discovered, and in others the remains of
wheels used to raise water were found in abundance. The wood, owing,
it is thought, to penetration by copper, is in a perfect state of
preservation, and there appears to be evidence that the wheels were
worked by a number of men stepping on the flanges somewhat after the
manner of prisoners on a tread-mill. There were eight of these
water-wheels, the water being raised by the first into the first
basin, by the second into the second basin, and so on, till it was
conveyed out of the mine. The age of these relics has been set down at
1500 years.--_Ibid_.



_Blood Relationship in Marriage_.--At a late meeting of the London
Anthropological Society, a paper was read by Dr. Mitchell on the above
subject. The conclusions arrived at are: 1. That consanguinity in
parentage tends to injure the offspring. That this injury assumes
various forms: "as, diminished viability; feeble constitution; bodily
defects; impairment of the senses; disturbance of the nervous system;
sterility.", 2. That the injury may show itself in the grand-children:
"so that there may be given to the offspring by the kinship of the
parents a _potential defect_ which may become _actual_ in their
children, and thenceforth perhaps appear as an hereditary disease." 3.
That idiocy and imbecility are more common than insanity in such
cases.


_Gigantic Birds'-Nests_.--Mr. Gould describes the Wattled Talegalla,
or Bush Turkey, of Australia, as adopting a most extraordinary process
of nidification. The bird collects together an immense heap of
decaying vegetable matter as a depository for the eggs, and trusts to
the heat engendered by decomposition for the development of the young.
The heap employed for this purpose is collected by the birds during
several weeks previous to the period of laying. It varies in size from
two to four cartloads, and is of a perfectly pyramidal form. Several
birds work at its construction, not by using their bills, but by
grasping {854} the materials with their feet and throwing them back to
one common centre. In this heap the birds bury the eggs perfectly
upright, with the large end upward; they are covered up as they are
laid, and allowed to remain until hatched, when the young birds are
clothed with feathers, not with down, as is usually the case. It is
not unusual for the natives to obtain nearly a bushel of eggs at one
time from a single heap; and as they are delicious eating, they are as
eagerly sought after as the flesh. The birds are very stupid, and
easily fall a victim to the sportsman, and will sit aloft and allow a
succession of shots to be fired at them until they are brought
down.--_Lamp_.



_The Muscular Fibres of the Heart of Vertebrates_.--We have received
from Dr. J. B. Pettigrew, the accomplished sub-curator of the Royal
College of Surgeons' Museum, a copy of his excellent monograph on the
above subject. The memoir is certainly the finest which has yet been
produced; for it is comprehensive, clear, and accurate, and is
accompanied by a great number of beautiful lithographs, which have
been taken from photographs of actual dissections. The arrangement of
the muscular fibres, as demonstrated by the author, sheds much light
upon the peculiar movements of the heart. For this reason the essay
has a great physiological importance, and, from the circumstance that
the anatomy of the heart in the four vertebrate classes is fully
explored by Dr. Pettigrew, it is of equal import and interest to the
comparative anatomist. We have also received Dr. Pettigrew's paper on
the valvular apparatus of the circulatory system, and we commend it
likewise to our readers' favorable notice.--_Science Review_.

----

ORIGINAL.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.


LIFE OF CATHERINE McAULEY.
Foundress of the institute of Religious Sisters of Mercy. By a member
of the order (belonging to the Convent of Mercy, at St. Louis), etc. 1
vol. 12mo, pp. 500. New York. D. & J. Sadlier & Co., 1866.

This biography introduces a new, and hitherto generally unknown,
character to the acquaintance, and, we are sure, to the admiration of
the English-speaking Catholic public. The anonymous religious
authoress has shown herself well qualified for her filial task, and
has conferred a great benefit both on her order and on the cause of
religion in general. The nearness of the period in which her venerable
subject lived, the testimony of a number of the best informed and most
trustworthy witnesses who were personally acquainted with her, and the
materials furnished by other memoirs and letters, have given the
writer of this biography an abundance of the most authentic data from
which to produce a truthful and complete sketch of the Foundress of
the Sisters of Mercy.

We have had the pleasure of learning something of the history of
Catherine McAuley, and of the foundation of her institute, from one of
her own earliest and most trusted pupils, who has planted the same
institute, and brought it to a flourishing condition in four of the
New England States. The portrait of her drawn by her biographer,
corresponds with, and completes the preconceived idea of her character
we had received from this authentic source.

It is eighty-one years since Catherine McAuley was born, forty years
since she made the first beginning of her institute, and twenty-five
years since her death. Her period of active life embraced only
fourteen years. Yet there are now more than two hundred convents, and
three thousand sisters, belonging to the congregation of Our Lady of
Mercy, scattered over Ireland, England, the United States, British
America, South America, and Australia; although the mortality among
the sisters is at the high rate of ten per cent a year.

These facts prove better than any eloquence the value of the life and
works of the foundress of the institute. Her personal history is
uncommonly interesting and highly romantic. She was the daughter of
highly respectable Catholic parents residing in Dublin. Losing her
parents at an early age, she came under the guardianship of relatives
who were strict Protestants and intensely hostile {855} to the
Catholic religion. Consequently, she was not able to receive any
instruction, to go to mass, or much less to receive the sacraments,
before she became a young lady. Her brothers and sisters were easily
induced to give up their minds to the influence of Protestant teaching
and example. Catherine, however, steadily refused to attend the
Protestant church; and, as soon as she was capable of doing so, made a
studious and thorough examination of the grounds of the two religions,
which resulted in establishing her forever in a faith which was not
only firm but intelligent. She eventually succeeded in bringing back
her sister and her nephew and niece to the Catholic church. While
still a child, Catherine McAuley was adopted by an elderly couple
named Callahan, who were very kind-hearted, very wealthy, and,
childless. They allowed her to practise her religion, although quite
indifferent to religion themselves, and gave her the means of
practising many of those acts of charity to which she was always
inclined.

This part of her history is strikingly interesting, as throwing light
on the state of the Catholic religion among the higher classes in
Ireland, during the latter part of the last century and the former
part of the present one. It contains some scenes of tragic pathos
taken from domestic life. Few are aware of the hatred, the contempt,
the cruelty, the bitter, unrelenting persecution, with which the
Catholic religion has had to contend in Ireland. Miss McAuley was once
obliged to fly from the house of her brother-in-law, at night, through
the streets of Dublin, to save herself from death at his hands.
Nevertheless, she conquered, as the holy faith has always conquered,
by undaunted courage joined with angelic meekness. The same
brother-in-law who had pursued her with a drawn dagger, declared to
her on his death-bed, that if he had time he would candidly examine
into the Catholic religion, and died repeating acts of contrition,
faith, hope and charity, which she suggested to him, leaving his
children to her guardianship.

At the age of thirty-five Miss McAuley was left, by the death of her
adopted parents, both of whom had become Catholics during their last
illness, mistress of a fortune, the exact amount of which is not
stated, but which appears to have at east equalled the sum of fifty
thousand pounds sterling. The whole of this fortune was devoted by her
to the foundation of her institute, which was opened about five years
afterward, that is, in the year 1827. She does not seem to have
cherished any aspirations after the religious state for herself,
during her youth, much less to have dreamed of becoming the foundress
of an order. In founding her institute in Dublin, she had in view the
plan of combining the efforts of charitable ladies for the benefit of
the poor, the sick, the ignorant, and particularly servant-girls who
were out of place. The community-life, and the whole religious
routine, grew up naturally and of itself. After a time, the judgment
of prelates, clergymen, and other persons of weight, induced Miss
McAuley and her associates to adopt a rule, and take perpetual vows.
The scope of the institute embraces choir duties to a moderate extent,
almost every kind of charitable work for the poor, a particular care
for respectable servant-girls out of place, poor-schools, and
high-schools or academies for girls of the middling classes.

The noble woman who planned all this vast scheme of good works, and
lavished her fortune with princely generosity to set it in motion,
died in the year 1841, at the age of fifty~four, ten years after
making her vows as a Sister of Mercy. It is an interesting
circumstance that the great and good Daniel O'Connell was one of her
warmest friends during her life, and one of her staunchest supporters
in her undertakings. These two magnanimous souls who loved their
country, their country's faith, and the patient, oppressed, but
unconquerable poor of their country, better than all earthly things,
could appreciate and honor each other. Our readers will thank us for
quoting the following description of the scenes which usually occurred
at the great Liberator's visits to the convents of the Sisters of'
Mercy:

  "In his journeys through Ireland, O'Connell nearly always visited
  the convents in his route. On these occasions his reception was a
  kind of ovation. The Te Deum was sung, the reception-room hung with
  green, the national emblems--harp, shamrock, and
  sun-burst--displayed, addresses were read by the pupils, and any
  request he asked implicitly granted. His manner at such scenes was
  particularly happy. To a young girl who had delivered q flattering
  address to the 'Conquering Hero,' he said, very {856} graciously,
  that he 'regretted her sex precluded her from that distinguished
  place in the imperial senate to which her elocutionary abilities
  entitled her.' Then glancing at the girls who surrounded the
  oratress, he continued with emotion: 'Often have I listened with
  nerve unstrung and heart unmoved to the calumny and invectives of
  our national enemies; but to-day, as I look on the beautiful young
  virgins of Erin, my herculean frame quivers with emotion, and the
  unbidden tear moistens my eye. Can such a race continue in ignoble
  bondage? Are you born for no better lot than slavery? No,' he
  continued, with increasing vehemence, 'you shall be free; your
  country shall yet be a nation; you shall not become the mothers of
  slaves.'" (pp. 146-47.)

What a contrast between such genuine heroic characters as these, the
true glory of their people, and the mock-heroic charlatans, whose
genius show itself only in gathering in money from laboring men and
servant-girls, and organizing raids which end only in the death and
imprisonment of their most unlucky dupes, and bitter mutual
accusations of treachery and cowardice among the leaders. The worst
enemies of the Irish people are those who seek to alienate them from
their clergy, and to lead them astray from the true mission given them
by divine providence, which is identified with their traditions of
faith and loyalty to the church. They are like Achaz and the false
prophets of Judah, who contaminated the people of God with the false
maxims of the nations around them. Men and women like Daniel O'Connell
and Catherine McAuley are the Macchabees and Judiths of their nation.
Through such as these, the faith of Ireland may yet conquer England,
as the trampled faith of Judaea conquered Rome; and her long martyrdom
obtain the due meed of glory from the children of her old oppressors.

We recommend this book to all those who claim kindred either in
nationality or in faith with its subject, and who wish to rekindle
their devotion or renew the memories of their ancestral home. We
recommend it especially to our wealthy Catholics, that they may
meditate on the example of princely charity given them by this young
heiress, who gave away a fortune more readily than most others would
give one twentieth of a year's income. We request our fair young
readers also, to lay aside their novels for a while, and read the life
of one who was beautiful, gifted, highly educated, beloved of all,
rich in worldly goods, and with all earthly happiness courting her
acceptance; and who, amid these allurements and the severest
temptations to her faith, shone forth a bright model of all high
Christian virtues to her sex. We wish that all those who are
prejudiced against the Catholic faith, and who nevertheless have the
candor which pays tribute to virtue, conscientiousness, and
self-sacrifice, wherever seen, might also read it. The history of
Catherine McAuley and her institute adds another to the many
practical, living proofs, more powerful than any speculative
arguments, of the truth and power of the Catholic religion. Such a
history never has been or will be possible outside the fold of the
Catholic church. Its occurrence in our own times shows that the church
is now, as of old, the fruitful mother of saints, and that the old
Catholic ideas which once made martyrs of young maidens, and raised up
Claras and Teresas, retain all their power over the souls of those who
have inherited the same faith. We have no fear of incurring the
displeasure of Urban VIII. or of his successor, in giving our judgment
that Catherine McAuley was a true Christian heroine, a woman of the
same high stamp of character with St. Teresa, whom she resembles in
many striking respects.

It is superfluous to say that this biography will be a most useful
book in religious houses. Example is more powerful than precept, and a
recent example is more powerful than a remote one. It were to be
wished that similar biographies were more numerous. There are
materials in the recent history of other orders, as well as in that of
the institute of Mercy, which might be used to great advantage. The
history of the American foundress of the Order of the Visitation would
be worthy of a place, even in the annals of that ancient order. Books
of this kind are not only instructive, but, when well written,
superior in that charm which captivate's the feelings and imagination
of the young, to the romantic tales over which their time and
sensibilities are too often wasted. The present volume is written in
that lively and piquant style, with a dash of humor to flavor it,
which makes a biography most readable and entertaining. Religion wears
its most cheerful and attractive countenance in {857} these pages, and
even the couch of the dying sisters are lit up with gayety. Mother
Catherine's life was a perpetual _Laetare_ Sunday in Lent, spiritual
joy ever decking with flowers the altar of sacrifice, and changing the
violet of penance and self-denial to rose-color. Her tranquil and
benignant countenance, as represented in the portrait which graces her
biography, expresses this type of spirituality which she communicated
to her order. The mirthful laugh of the common-room resounds through
the pages which relate of the unremitting labors and continual prayer,
whose effect decimates the ranks of the Sisters of Mercy every year.
We are not treated to any prosy disquisitions or abstracts of ascetic
treatises, which make some of the lives of saints such tiresome
reading, especially to young people. But we have something better; a
picture of virtue, of piety, of devotion to Jesus Christ, in their
most heroic form, blended with a joyousness to which, the boudoir and
the drawing-room are strangers, and which may well attract pure and
generous hearts to imitate such an engaging model of sanctity.

There are numerous episodes and sketches of the many persons with whom
Mother Catherine was associated, such as that of her little niece
Mary; of the good Welsh sister from Bridgenorth; of the English earl's
daughter, who entered the convent with her two waiting-maids; of the
accomplished but somewhat eccentric authoress of Geraldine; and the
inimitable Dr. Fitzgerald. Some of these are pathetic, and others
comic in the extreme. We have but one criticism to make, which is,
that a little more restraint and forbearance toward some who are
deemed to have erred in their duty to the order, would have added
another grace to the narrative. There are also some faults of
typography and slight clerical oversights, which will doubtless be
corrected in a second edition.

We hope we have piqued the curiosity of our readers enough to make
every reader buy the book, or tease papa to buy it. And if the desire
to read it is not enough to wake up our somewhat apathetic Catholic
public, let them remember that by buying the book they are
contributing to that unfailing spring of mercy which flows from the
convents of Catherine McAuley's daughters to relieve the poor.


ROBERT SEVERNE, His Friends and his Enemies. A Novel, by William A.
Hammond. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 369.

This novel has the merit of being written by a scholar and a man of
science. The first part of it is well done, and excites no little
interest; but as we progress, it is plain that the author has
permitted his facile pen to have pretty much its own way. The general
impression, therefore, left on the mind is that as a novel it has been
hastily written. The characters are too perfect both in virtue and in
vice; and although the author is at great pains to describe his
characters, we are obliged to differ with him in our opinion of them.
The hero is brought before us as a hard student, yet we have quite
another idea of him from his words and actions. He is in effect a
wealthy gentleman, who moves easily in polite society, and has a fancy
for purchasing rare old books at ruinous prices: finds a Cabaña or
Partaga cigar equally at hand in Europe and in his elegantly furnished
study at home (where it is true he consumes a great deal of brain and
time over his books), but we do not find the student in him when he
comes to play his part before us. He has been unfortunate in a first
marriage, and becomes violently misanthropical and suspicious. His
first act, however, is marked by surpassing benevolence and verdant
innocence. He is swindled in the street out of a ten-dollar gold piece
by a prostitute, who feigns poverty, and instantly conceives a violent
affection for this totally unknown person, and most unmisanthropically
determines to catch her, reform and educate her. We may remark, by the
way, that when our hero does "tip" anybody he does it in true Monte
Cristo style: it always is a ten-dollar gold piece, or a
hundred-dollar bill. Of course he falls violently in love with the
heroine at first sight, and loses his misanthropy with his heart. Sal
Tompkins, who is to be his _protégée_, turns out to have some
unusually good points, and having come to warn the heroine of a
premeditated attack upon her grandfather's house by a gang of
burglars, of one of whom she is the mistress, the utmost cordiality
and intimacy springs up between herself and the heroine; and, in fact,
we are led to believe, from a remark made by the grandfather, {858}
that these two ladies occupied the same room that night, if not the
same couch. The heroine's father was a bad man, and Sal Tompkins is
also a daughter of his, which may satisfy the reader, but should not
the parties concerned, seeing they knew nothing of the fact. Sal
becomes a very lady-like person in an incredibly short space of time,
and the discovery of her left-hand relationship is received without
the slightest remonstrance or disgust. The villain of the story is the
hero's lawyer and factotum; a pretty good villain, as far as his
language and intentions go; but he is represented as so violently
villainous that we are led to believe the author is prejudiced against
him. He makes use of a written confession of murder penned by the hero
while laboring under hallucination of mind (a real tit·bit of science,
which the distinguished author could illustrate much better in another
department of literature than he has done here), and on the strength
of it arrests him in England, whither Severne arrives after a
telegraphic journey around the world. The way in which our author here
dispatches messengers to Suez and Constantinople from England, quite
takes our breath away. The imprisonment, trial, acquittal, and
subsequent disgrace of the perjured lawyer quickly follow, to the
utmost satisfaction of the reader, who being behind the scenes (as he
is always kindly permitted to be), suffers no pangs of anxiety for the
results. The author says the heroine showed no emotion whatever of
surprise or annoyance when the self-accusation of murder written by
her affianced husband was shown to her, undoubtedly genuine as it was.
Here again we are sorry to differ with him. Of the other characters
little need be said. There is a portrait of "a lady" in Grace Langley;
an attempt at an imitation of Chadband, the renowned apostle of
"trewth," in Brother Jenkins; and a Mr. Goodall, who is introduced, as
it would seem, to play a part which he does not find. The story of
Ulrich de Hutten with his wonderful unique copy of an old book, and
his magic pentagramme, is made to link in with the principal events of
the story, but from its peculiarly romantic character, has no unity
with it: the best proof of which is that the whole of it could be
erased from the book, and the reader would not miss it. What moral we
are to draw from it we are also at a loss to divine.

That the author can write well is evident enough, both from this book
and from others of a high order of merit which he has contributed to
the department of science; but that he has accomplished as a novelist
all that he is competent to do, Robert Severne does not, in our humble
judgment, bear worthy testimony.


THE SCHOOL OF JESUS CRUCIFIED.
From the Italian of F. Ignatius of the Side of Jesus. Passionist. New
York. D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

To meet with a book like this among so much that is cold, speculative,
and heartless in the publications of our day, is like meeting with a
blushing red rose in a cotton bale. Its beauty and its sweetness
possess a double charm. Its every page glows with that tender piety
and warm devotion which is the expression of a devout Christian head,
and it cannot fail of kindling a like holy fire in the soul of him who
loves to learn the lessons taught from the summit of the Cross. The
worthy translator speaks thus in the preface: "The school of Jesus
Crucified! What Christian would not wish to study therein? to learn
wisdom and patience and resignation to the divine will, from the
example of a God-man, who came on earth and assumed our frail
mortality to be to us a model, as well as a Redeemer?" A question
which, we think, will serve to interest very many, and induce them to
procure and use this sweet little book. The very appropriate style of
its publication is quite a noticeable feature about it, and commends
itself to all lovers of well-printed and well-clothed books.


THE FRENCH MANUAL.
A new, simple, concise, and easy method of acquiring a conversational
knowledge of the French Language, including a Dictionary of over Ten
Thousand Words. By M. Alfred Havet. Entirely revised and corrected
from the last English Edition, with a new system of pronunciation. D.
Appleton & Co., New York.

{859}

This is certainly an advance on the old progressive system of
Ollendorff. It fully realizes all its title proposes, and is evidently
the work of one who is a successful teacher of the French language. We
commend it to the notice of all professors of French in our colleges
and schools, by whom, if we do not mistake, its merits will be duly
appreciated. We observe an error among the rules of pronunciation,
however, that should not pass unnoticed. The Parisian would not take
our sound of _wa_ in _waft_, _wag_, and _wax_, to express the sound of
_oi_ in _fois, soif_, etc. We presume the author has been accustomed
to hear those words pronounced wóft, wóg, and wóx, as he dates his
preface from Edinburgh.


THE PHYSIOLOGY OF MAN.
Designed to represent the existing State of Physiological Science, as
applied to the Functions of the Human Body. By Austin Flint, Jr.,
Professor of Physiology and Microscopy in the Bellevue Hospital
Medical College, etc., etc. Vol. i., 8vo, pp. 495. D. Appleton & Co.,
New York. 1866.

This work has lain on our table for some time. The delay in writing
the notice has been from no lack of admiration or appreciation of the
book or its author, but from a desire to write more than an ordinary
book notice.

This we will defer till the work is completed, and in the mean time we
hasten to express our hearty approval of a literary and scientific
enterprise, which reflects the highest honor on the profession of
medicine and on the literature of the country.

Prof. Flint, the young author, has devoted his life to the study and
teaching of physiology. He steadily refuses the allurements and
emoluments of practice, and steadily and successfully pursues the
object of his ambition. His present work, if completed in accordance
with the first volume, will reward him for his past toil, and ensure
him an honorable and most enviable future among the leading minds of
his profession in this country and the scientific world.

It will be out of place to enter into any scientific discussion in the
pages of a journal devoted to general literature. It is sufficient to
say that Dr. Flint has presented, in elegant language and graphic
style, a correct view of the science of physiology to the time of
writing. He displays great erudition, a thorough grasp of the subject,
and a sincere desire to appreciate and communicate the exact truth. It
is the best book on the subject for college libraries, and is an
almost indispensable necessity to the physician.

We hope the publication of such works will renew the habit of studying
the philosophy of medicine as part of a liberal education, draw closer
the bond between the intellectual classes and the profession of
medicine, and in this way advance the interests of science, humanity,
and civilization.

This work is issued in an elegant form, worthy of its eminent
publishers.


KING RENÉ'S DAUGHTER.
A Danish lyrical drama. By Henrik Hertz. Translated by Theodore
Martin. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 1867.

This is indeed a poetic gem of the first water, and we venture to
assert that few critics will contest our judgment. The author of the
introductory sketches repeats twice that it is lovely, and we think we
might repeat it twice more and it not be too often. He who will
commence reading it, and not finish it at one sitting, we pronounce
one of those beings so detested of Shakespeare, who has no music in
his soul.

It forms but one act in seven scenes, but is replete with events,
"stirring, surprising, yet harmonious." A bit of philosophy peeps out
here and there to interest and charm the most unimaginative thinker;
for instance, when Martha, the guardian of Iolanthe, the king's'
daughter, reasons upon her unconscious blindness:

  "May it not be, sir, while we darkly muse
  Upon our life's mysterious destinies,
  That we in blindness walk, like Iolanthe,
  Unconscious that true vision is not ours?
  Yet is that faith our hope's abiding star."

The innocent confession of the hitherto inexperienced passion of love
which springs up in the heart of Iolanthe, at the presence and sound
of the voice of her unknown betrothed, is a passage of rare beauty and
originality. He asks her to place her hand upon his head to mark his
height, that when he returns she may remember him. She answers:

          "What need of that?
  I know that few resemble thee in height;
  Thy utterance comes to me as from above,
  Like all that's high and inconceivable;
  And know I not thy tone? Like as thou' speakest
  None speak beside. No voice, no melody
  I've known in nature, or in instrument,
  Doth own a resonance so lovely, sweet,
  So winning, full, and gracious as thy voice.
  Trust me, I'll know thee well amidst them all!"

{860}

The final tableau, in which Iolanthe, with restored sight, recognizes
her father, and she and Count Tristan, her betrothed, each other, is
full of dramatic power. We promise the reader a pleasure in the
perusal of this poem such as he seldom enjoys.


OUT OF TOWN.
1 vol. 12mo, pp. 311. New York: Hurd & Houghton.

This is a sprightly book wrought out of a common and everyday subject:
a change from a city to a country life. The story is told in an easy,
off-hand, and peculiarly attractive way, and engages the attention of
its readers, particularly those of the rising generation. The writer
contrives to invest the most ordinary topics with a zest which keeps
alive the interest of his reader to the close. It is a perfect _pot
pourri_ of fun and humor, dished to suit all palates and all ages. But
it has a fatal blemish in our judgment:--a perpetual parade of
decanters and pipes. The writer seems to think that there can be no
such thing as conviviality or good cheer without intoxicating
libations. Why cannot those who write books for the young avoid this
rock of offence? Surely there is small need, in these days, of such
temptation. Everyday life reeks with the disgusting and pernicious
habit of tippling. Why does it become necessary that every new book
for our children should be redolent of the fumes of the bar-room? Are
our book-makers aware what an impetus they are imparting to that wave
of desolation which is swelling over the fair face of our beloved
country, and which threatens, more than any other one thing, to
submerge and sweep away all those barriers of virtue and morality on
which rely our hopes for the protection of religion and a healthy
morality?


SADLIER'S CATHOLIC DIRECTORY, ALMANAC, AND ORDO,
for the year of our Lord 1867. New-York: D. and J. Sadlier & Co.

This volume consists of about 647 pages of matter of which 290 pages
are devoted to the Church of the United States, 100 to the Church of
British North America and Ireland, and 257 to advertisements. As a
popular Catholic Directory for the United States it may be said that
at least one half of it is but of partial interest.

The portion devoted to the United States is apparently very full, and
as accurate, no doubt, as the publishers have been able to make it. We
observe however, that the Church statistics of Ireland and British
America possess a valuable little summary at the end of each while no
such summary is given for the Church of the United States.

If one would look anywhere for it we think it would be in just such a
publication as the one before us, and we must confess to being
disappointed in not finding it here.


MR. P. O'SHEA, New-York, has in
press a new edition of The Gentle Skeptic.
By Rev. C. Walworth.


BOOKS RECEIVED.

From D. APPLETON, & Co., New-York. Joseph II. and his Court. By Mrs.
L. Mühlbach. With Illustrations. 1 vol. 8vo. Cloth, $2 00.


From LEYPOLDT & HOLT, New-York. King René's Daughter, a Danish Lyrical
Drama. By Henrik Hertz. Translated by Theodore Martin. 1 vol. 12mo,
pp. 100. Price $125.



From M'GILL & NOLAN, Georgetown, D.C. The Messenger of the Sacred
Heart of Jesus, a monthly bulletin of the Apostleship of Prayer. Price
$2 per annum.


From BENZlGER BROS. Alte Neue Welt, an Illustrated German Catholic
Magazine. Price $3 00 per annum.



From HURD & HOUGHTON, New-York. Essays on Art By Francis Turner
Palgrave. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 330. Price $1 75.


From D. APPLETON & Co. The French Manual: n. new, simple, concise, and
easy method of acquiring a conversational knowledge of the French
language, including a Dictionary of over ten thousand words. By M.
Alfred Harve. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 188 and 112.


From D. & J. SADLIER & Co., New-York. Life of Catherine McAuley,
Foundress and first Superior of the Institute of Religious Sisters of
Mercy. By a member of the Order of Mercy. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 500. Price
$2 50. Sermons by the REV. THOS. S. PRESTON. Revised and enlarged
edition. 1 vol. pp. 581. Price $2 50. The School of Jesus Crucified.
From the Italian of Father IGNATIUS, of the Side of Jesus, Passionist.
1 vol. pp. 334. Price 75 cents. The Christian armed against, the World
and the Illusions of his own Heart. By FATHER IGNATIUS of the Side of
Jesus, Passionist. 1 vol: 32mo, pp. 320. Price 50c.



From J. D. LIPPINCOTT & Co., Philadelphia. Robert Severne, His Friends
and his Enemies. A Novel. By William A. Hammond. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 369.
Price $1 75.


MUSIC RECEIVED.

From J. L. PETERS & BRO., St. Louis &. Cincinnati. Shamus O'Brien, an
answer to Norah O'Neill. By William S. Hayes. Let the Dead and the
Beautiful Rest. Little Beauty. Pink of Perfection. Mary's Waiting at
the Window.

------