The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Catholic World, Vol. 10, by The Paulist Fathers.

We notice in this review the article on the Spirit of Romanism for a single point only, which it makes, for as a whole it is not worth considering. Father Hecker asserts in his Aspirations of Nature, that, "Endowed with reason, man has no right to surrender his judgment; endowed with free-will, man has no right to yield up his liberty. Reason and free-will constitute man a responsible being, and he has no right to abdicate his independence." To this and several other extracts from the same work to the same effect, the Christian Quarterly opposes what is conceded by Father Hecker and held by every Catholic, that every one is bound to believe whatever the church believes and teaches. But bound as a Catholic to submit his reason and will to the authority of the church, how can one assert that he is free to exercise his own reason, and has no right to surrender it, or to abdicate his own independence? Father Hecker says, "Religion is a question between the soul and God; no human authority has, therefore, any right to enter its sacred sphere." Yet he maintains that he is bound to obey the authority of the church, and has no right to believe or think contrary to her teachings and definitions. How can he maintain both propositions?

What Father Hecker asserts is that man has reason and free-will, and that he has no right to forego the exercise of these faculties, or to surrender them to any human authority whatever. Between this proposition and that of the plenary authority of the church in all matters of faith or pertaining to faith and sound doctrine, as asserted by the Council of Trent and Pius IX. in the Syllabus, the Christian Quarterly thinks it sees a glaring contradiction. Father Hecker, it is to be presumed, sees none, and we certainly see none. Father Hecker maintains that no human authority has any right to enter the sacred sphere of religion, that man is accountable to no man or body of men for his religion or his faith; but he does not say that he is not responsible to God for the use he makes of his faculties, whether of reason or free-will, or that God has no right to enter the sacred sphere of religion, and tell him even authoritatively[2] what is truth and what he is bound to believe and do. When I believe and obey a human authority in matters of religion, I abdicate my own reason; but when I believe and obey God, I preserve it, follow it, do precisely what reason itself tells me I ought to do. There is no contradiction, then, between believing and obeying God, and the free and full exercise of reason and free-will. Our Cincinnati contemporary seems to have overlooked this very obvious fact, and has therefore imagined a contradiction where there is none at all, but perfect logical consistency. Our contemporary is no doubt very able, a great logician, but he is here grappling with a subject which he has not studied, and of which he knows less than nothing.

It is a very general impression with rationalists and rationalizing Protestants, that whoso asserts the free exercise of reason denies the authority of the church, and that whoso recognizes the authority of the church necessarily denies reason and abdicates his own manhood, which is as much as to say that whoso asserts man denies God, and whoso asserts God denies man. These people forget that the best of all possible reasons for believing any thing is the word, that is, the authority of God, and that the highest possible exercise of one's manhood is in humble and willing obedience to the law or will of God. All belief, as distinguished from knowledge, is on authority of some sort, and the only question to be asked in any case is, Is the authority sufficient? I believe there were such persons as Alexander the Great, Julius Cæsar, Charlemagne, Louis XIV., Robespierre, and George Washington, on the authority of history, the last two, also, on the testimony of eye-witnesses, or persons who have assured me that they had seen and known them personally; yet in the case of them all, my belief is belief on authority. On authority, I believe the great events recorded in sacred and profane history, the building of the Temple of Jerusalem in the reign of Solomon, the captivity of the Jews, their return to Judea under the kings of Persia, the building of the second temple, the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus and the Roman army, the invasion of the Roman empire by the northern barbarians, who finally overthrew it, the event called the reformation, the thirty years' war, etc. Nothing is more unreasonable or more insane than to believe any thing on no authority; that is, with no reason for believing it. To believe without authority for believing is to believe without reason, and practically a denial of reason itself.

Catholics, in fact, are the only people in the world who do, can, or dare reason in matters of religion. Indeed, they are the only people who have a reasonable faith, and who believe only what they have adequate reasons for believing. They are also the only people who recognize no human authority, not even one's own, in matters of Christian faith and conscience. Sectarians and rationalists claim to be free, and to reason freely, because, as they pretend, they are bound by no human authority, and recognize no authority in faith but their own reason. Yet why should my reason be for me or any one else better authority for believing than yours? My authority is as human as yours, and if yours is not a sufficient reason for my faith, how can my own suffice, which is no better, perhaps not so good? As a fact, no man is less free than he who has for his faith no authority but his own reason; for he is, if he thinks at all, necessarily always in doubt as to[3] what he ought or ought not to believe; and no man who is in doubt, who is unable to determine what he is or is not required to believe in order to believe the truth, is or can be mentally free. From this doubt only the Catholic is free; for he only has the authority of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, for his faith.

It is a great mistake to suppose that the Catholic believes what the church believes and teaches on any human authority. To assume it begs the whole question. The act of faith the Catholic makes is, "O my God! I believe all the sacred truths the Holy Catholic Church believes and teaches, because thou hast revealed them, who canst neither deceive nor be deceived." The church can declare to be of faith only what God has revealed, and her authority in faith is the authority not of the law-maker, but of the witness and interpreter of the law. In faith we believe the word of God, we believe God on his word; in the last analysis, that God is true, Deus est verax. Better authority than the word of God there is not and cannot be, and nothing is or can be more reasonable than to believe that God is true, or to believe God on his word, without a voucher.

That the church is a competent and credible witness in the case, or an adequate authority for believing that God has revealed what she believes and teaches as his word, can be as conclusively proved as the competency and credibility of a witness in any case in court whatever. She was an eye and ear-witness of the life, works, death, and resurrection of our Lord, who is at once perfect God and perfect man; she received the divine word directly from him, and is the contemporary and living witness of what he taught and commanded. The church has never for a moment ceased to exist, but has continued from Christ to us as one identical living body that suffers no decay and knows no succession of years; with her nothing has been forgotten, for nothing has fallen into the past. The whole revelation of God is continually present to her mind and heart. She is, then, a competent witness; for she knows all the facts to which she is required to testify. She is a credible witness; for God himself has appointed, commissioned, authorized her to bear witness for him to all nations and ages, even unto the consummation of the world, and has promised to be with her, and to send to her assistance the Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth, who should recall to her mind whatsoever he had taught her, and lead her into all truth. The divine commission or authorization to teach carries with it the pledge of infallibility in teaching; for God cannot be the accomplice of a false teacher, or one who is even liable to err. What surrender is there of one's reason, judgment, free-will, manhood, in believing the testimony of a competent and credible witness?

In point of fact, the case is even stronger than we put it. The church is the body of Christ, and in her dwelleth the Holy Ghost. She is human in her members, no doubt; but she is divine as well as human in her head. The human and divine natures, though for ever distinct, are united in one divine person by the hypostatic union. This one divine Person, the Word that was made flesh, or assumed flesh, for our redemption and glorification, is the person of the church, who through him lives a divine as well as a human life. It is God who speaks in her voice as it was God who spoke in the voice of the Son of Mary, that died on the cross, that rose from the dead, and[4] ascended into heaven, whence he shall come again to judge the quick and the dead. Hence, we have not only the word of God as the authority for believing his revelation, but his authority in the witness to the fact that it is his revelation or his word that we believe. We may even go further still, and state that the Holy Ghost beareth witness within us with our spirits in concurrence with the external witness to the same fact, so that it may be strengthened by the mouth of two witnesses. More ample means of attesting the truth and leaving the unbeliever without excuse are not possible in the nature of things.

It is not, then, the Catholic who contradicts himself; for between the free exercise of reason and complete submission to the authority of the church, as both are understood by Catholics, there is no contradiction, no contrariety even. Faith, by the fact that it is faith, differs necessarily from science. It is not intuitive or discursive knowledge, but simply analogical knowledge. But reason in itself cannot go beyond what is intuitively apprehended, or discursively obtained, that is, obtained from intuitive data either by way of deduction or induction. In either case, what is apprehended or obtained is knowledge, not belief or faith. To believe and to know are not one and the same thing; and whatever reason by itself can judge of comes under the head of science, not faith; whence it follows that reason can never judge of the intrinsic truth or falsehood of the matter of faith; for if it could, faith would be sight, and in no sense faith. If we recognize such a thing as faith at all, we must recognize something which transcends or does not fall under the direct cognizance of reason; and therefore that which reason does not know, and can affirm only as accredited by some authority distinct from reason. The Catholic asserts faith on authority, certainly, but on an authority which reason herself holds to be sufficient. True, he does not submit the question of its truth or falsehood to the judgment of reason; for that would imply a contradiction—that faith is not faith, but sight or knowledge. This is the mistake of sectarians and rationalists, who deny authority in matters of faith. They practically deny reason, by demanding of it what exceeds its powers; and faith, by insisting on submitting it to the judgment of reason, and denying that we have or can have any reason for believing what transcends reason. It ill becomes them, therefore, to accuse Catholics of contradicting themselves, when they assert the rights of reason in its own order, and the necessity of authority in matters of faith, or matters that transcend reason. They themselves, according to their own principles, have, and can have no authority for believing; and therefore, if they believe at all, they do and must believe without reason; and belief without reason is simple fancy, caprice, whim, prejudice, opinion, not faith.

But the Christian Quarterly is not alone in imagining a contradiction between reason and authority. The whole modern mind assumes it, and imagines a contradiction wherever it finds two extremes, or two opposites. It has lost the middle term that brings them together and unites them in a logical synthesis. To it, natural and supernatural, nature and grace, reason and faith, science and revelation, liberty and authority, church and state, heaven and earth, God and man—are irreconciliable extremes; and not two extremes only, but downright contradictions, which necessarily exclude each other. It does not, even if it accepts both terms, accept[5] them as reconciled, or united as two parts of one whole; but each as exclusive, and warring against the other, and each doing its best to destroy the other.

Hence the modern mind is, so to speak, bisected by a painful dualism, which weakens its power, lowers its character, and destroys the unity and efficiency of intellectual life. We meet every day men who, on one side, assert supernatural faith, revelation, grace, authority, and, on the other, pure naturalism, which excludes every thing supernatural or divine. On the one side of their intelligence, nothing but God and grace, and on the other, nothing but man and nature. Indeed, the contradiction runs through nearly the whole modern intellectual world, and is not encountered among the heterodox only. We find even men who mean to be orthodox, think they are orthodox, and are sincerely devoted to the interests of religion, who yet see no real or logical connection between their faith as Catholics and their principles as statesmen, or their theories as scientists.

The two terms, or series of terms, of course, must be accepted, and neither can be denied without equally denying the other. The objection is not that both are asserted, but that they are asserted as contradictories; for no contradiction in the real world, which is the world of truth, is admissible. The Creator of the world is the Logos, is logic in itself, and therefore, as the Scripture saith, makes all things by number, weight, and measure. All his works are dialectic, and form a self-consistent whole; for, as St. Thomas says, he is the type of all things—Deus est similitudo rerum omnium. There must then be, somewhere, the mediator, or middle term which unites the two extremes, and in which their apparent contradiction is lost, and they are opposed only as two parts of one uniform whole. The defect of the modern mind is that it has lost this middle term, and men retain in their life the dualism we have pointed out, because they do not see that the conflicting elements are not harmonizable in their intelligence; or, because they have lost the conception of reality, and are false to the true principle of things.

In the early ages of the church, the fathers had no occasion to take care that reason and nature should be preserved, for no one dreamed of denying them. All their efforts were needed to bring out and vindicate the other series of terms, God, the supernatural, revelation, grace, faith, which was denied or perverted by the world they had to war against. The ascetic writers, again, having for their object the right disciplining of human nature through grace, which includes revelation and faith, as well as the elevation and assistance of nature and reason, had just as little occasion to assert reason and nature, for they assumed them, and their very labors implied them. Grace, or the supernatural, was rarely exaggerated or set forth as exclusive. The danger came chiefly from the opposite quarter, from Pelagianism, or the assertion of the sufficiency of nature without grace.

When, however, the reformers appeared, the danger shifted sides. The doctrines of the reformation, the doctrines of grace, as they are called by evangelicals, were an exaggerated and exclusive supernaturalism. The reformers did not merely assert the insufficiency of reason and nature, but went further, and asserted their total depravity, and utter worthlessness in the Christian life. They made man not merely passive under grace, but actively and necessarily[6] opposed to it, resisting it always with all his might, and to be overcome only by sovereign grace, the gratia victrix of the Jansenists. The church met this and its kindred errors in the holy Council of Trent, and while affirming the supernatural element, and defining the sphere and office of grace, rescued nature and reaffirmed its part in the work of life. But error has no principle and is bound to no consistency, and the Catholic has ever since had to defend nature against the exclusive supernaturalists, and grace against the exclusive naturalists; reason, for instance, against the traditionalists, and revelation and authority against the rationalists. To do this, it has been and still is necessary to distinguish between the two orders, nature and grace, natural and supernatural, reason and faith.

But we find a very considerable number of men who are not exclusively supernaturalists, nor exclusively rationalists, but who are syncretists, or both at once. They accept both orders in their mutual exclusiveness, and alternately, rather, simultaneously, assert exclusive supernaturalism, and exclusive rationalism. This is the case with the great mass of Protestants, who retain any reminiscences of grace, and even with some Catholics in countries where Jansenism once had its stronghold, and where traces of its influence may still be detected with people who deny its formally heretical propositions, and accept the papal constitutions condemning them. The two extremes are seen, and both are accepted; but the mediator between them, or the truth which conciliates or harmonizes them, seems to be overlooked or not understood. Of course, Catholic theology asserts it, and is in reality based on it; but, some how or other, the age does not seize it, and the prevailing philosophy does not recognize it.

The problem for our age, it seems to us, is to revive it, and show the conciliation of the two extremes. The labor of theologians and philosophers is not, indeed, to find a new and unknown truth or medium of reconciliation, as so many pretend, but to bring out to the dull and enfeebled understanding of our times the great truth, always asserted by Catholic theology, which conciliates all extremes by presenting the real and living synthesis of things. This Father Hewit has attempted and in great part achieved in his Problems of the Age.

There can be no question that the dominant philosophy, especially with the heterodox, does not present the conditions of solving this problem, and the scholastic philosophy, as taught in Catholic schools, needs to be somewhat differently developed and expressed before the age can see in it the solution demanded. According to the philosophy generally received since Des Cartes, the natural and supernatural are not only distinct, but separate orders, and reason without any aid from revelation is competent to construct from her own materials a complete science of the rational order. It supposes the two orders to be independent each of the other, and each complete in itself. Reason has nothing to do with faith, and faith has nothing to do with reason. The church has no jurisdiction in philosophy, the sciences, politics, or natural society; philosophers, physicists, statesmen, seculars, so long as they keep in the rational order, are independent of the spiritual authority, are under no obligation to consult revelation, or to conform to the teachings of faith. Hence the dual life men live, and the absurdity of maintaining in one order what they contradict in another.

This, we need not say, is all wrong. The two orders are distinct, not separate and mutually independent orders, nor parallel orders with no real or logical relation between them. They are, in reality, only two parts of one and the same whole. We do not undertake to say what God could or could not have done had he chosen. If he could have created man and left him in a state of pure nature, as he has the animals, we know he has not done so. He has created man for a supernatural destiny, and placed him under a supernatural or gracious providence, so that, as a fact, man is never in a state of pure nature. He aspires to a supernatural reward, and is liable to a supernatural punishment. His life is always above pure nature, or below it. The highest natural virtue is imperfect, and no sin is simply a sin against the natural law. The natural is not the supernatural, but was never intended to subsist without it. The supernatural is not an interpolation in the divine plan of creation, nor something superinduced upon it, but is a necessary complement of the natural, which never is or can be completed in the natural alone. In the divine plan, the two orders are coeval, always coexist, and operate simultaneously to one and the same end, as integral parts of one whole. The natural, endowed with reason and free-will, may resist the supernatural, or refuse to co-operate with it; but if it does so, it must remain inchoate, incomplete, an existence commenced yet remaining for ever unfulfilled, which is the condition of the reprobate. A true and adequate philosophy explains man's origin, medium, and end; and no such philosophy can be constructed by reason alone; for these are supernatural, and are fully known only through a supernatural revelation.

The natural demands the supernatural; so also does the supernatural demand the natural. If there were no nature, there could be nothing above nature; there would be nothing for grace to operate on, to assist, or complete. If man had no reason, he could receive no revelation; if he had no free-will, he could have no virtue, no sanctity; if not generated, he could not be regenerated; and if not regenerated, he could not be glorified, or attain to the end for which he is intended. To deny nature is to deny the creative act of God, and to fall into pantheism—a sophism, for pantheism is denied in its very assertion. Its assertion implies the assertor, and therefore something capable of acting, and therefore a substantive existence, distinguishable from God. The denial of God, as creator, is the denial alike of man, the natural, and the supernatural. To solve the problem, and remove the dualism which bisects the modern mind, it is necessary to study the Creator's works in the light of the Creator's plan, and as a whole, in the whole course or itinerary of their existence, or in their procession from him as first cause, to their return to him as final cause, and not piecemeal, as isolated or unrelated facts. If we know not this plan, which no study of the works themselves can reveal to us, we can never get at the meaning of a single the smallest part, far less attain to any thing like the science of the universe; for the meaning of each part is in its relation to the whole. What is the meaning of this grain of sand on the sea-shore, or this mosquito, this gnat, these animalculæ invisible to the naked eye? Have they no meaning, no purpose in the Creator's plan? What can you, by reason, know of that purpose or meaning, if you know not that plan? Your physical sciences, without a knowledge of that plan, are[8] no sciences at all, and give you no more conception of the universe than a specimen brick from its walls can give you of the city of Babylon.

Though that plan is and can be known only as revealed by God himself, yet when once known we may see analogies and proofs of it in all the Creator's works, and study with profit the several parts of the universe, and attain to real science of them; for then we can study them in their synthesis, or their relation to the whole. We may then have rational science, not built on revelation, but constructed by reason in the light of revelation. We do not make revelation the basis of the natural sciences. They are all constructed by reason, acting with its own power, but under the supervision, so to speak, of faith, which reveals to it the plan or purpose of creation, to which it must conform in its deductions and inductions, if they are to have any scientific value. If it operates in disregard of revelation, without the light radiating from the Creator's plan, reason can know objects only in their isolation, as separate and unrelated facts or phenomena, and therefore never know them, as they really are, or in their real significance; because nothing in the universe exists in a state of isolation, or by and for itself alone; but every thing that exists, exists and is significant only in its relation to the whole. It is a mistake, then, to assume that the church, the witness, guardian, and interpreter of the faith or revelation, has nothing to say to philosophy, or to the physical sciences, cosmogony, geology, physiology, history, or even political science. None of them are or can be true sciences, any further than they present the several classes of facts and phenomena of which they treat in their respective relations and subordination to the divine plan of creation, known only by the revelation committed to the church.

The principle of the solution of the problem, or the middle term that unites the two extremes, or the natural and the supernatural, in a real and living synthesis, or reconciles all opposites, is the creative act of God. The supernatural is God himself, and what he does immediately without using any natural agencies; the natural is what God creates with the power to act as second cause, and what he does only through second causes, or so-called natural laws. Nothing is natural that is not explicable by natural laws, and nothing so explicable is properly supernatural, though it may be superhuman. A miracle is an effect of which God is the immediate cause, and which can be referred to no natural or second cause; a natural event is one of which God is not the direct and immediate cause, but only first cause—Causa eminens, or cause of its direct and immediate cause. The copula or nexus that unites the natural and supernatural in one dialectic whole, is the creative act of the supernatural, or God, which produces the natural and holds it joined to its cause. Creatures are not separable from their Creator; for in him they live and move and are, or have their being; and were he to separate himself from them, or suspend his creative act, they would instantly drop into the nothing they were before he produced them. The relation between them and him is their relation of entire dependence on him for all they are, all they have, and all they can do. There is, then, no ground of antagonism between him and them. If man aspires to act independently of God, he simply aspires to be himself God, and becomes—nothing.

But we have not exhausted the creative act. God creates all things[9] for an end, and this end is himself; not that he may gain something for himself, or increase his own beatitude, which is eternally complete, and can be neither augmented nor diminished, but that he may communicate of his beatitude to creatures which he has called into existence. Hence God is first cause and final cause. We proceed from him as first cause, and return to him as final cause, as we have shown again and again in the magazine with all the necessary proofs.

Between God as final cause, and his creatures, the mediator is the Incarnate Word, or the man Christ Jesus, the only mediator between God and men. In Christ Jesus is hypostatically united in one divine person the divine nature and the human, which, however, remain for ever distinct, without intermixture or confusion. This union is effected by the creative act, which in it is carried to its summit. The hypostatic union completes the first cycle or procession of existences from God as first cause, and initiates their return to him as final cause, as we have said in our remarks on Primeval Man. It completes generation and initiates the regeneration, or palingenesiac order, which has its completion or fulfilment in glorification, the intuitive vision of God by the light of glory, or, as say the schoolmen, ens supernaturale.

Theologians understand usually, by the supernatural order, the order founded by the Incarnation or hypostatic union, the regeneration propagated by the election of grace, instead of natural generation. But between the natural and the supernatural, in this sense, the nexus or middle term is the creative act effecting the hypostatic union, or God himself mediating in his human nature. The Incarnation unites God and man, without intermixture or confusion, in one and the same divine Person, and also the order of generation with the order of regeneration, of which glorification is the crown. But as the two natures remain for ever distinct but inseparable in one person, so, in the order of regeneration, the natural and the supernatural are each preserved in its distinctive though inseparable activity.

These three terms, generation, regeneration, glorification, one in the creative act of God, cover the entire life of man, and in each the natural and supernatural, distinct but inseparable, remain and co-operate and act. There is no dualism in the world of reality, and none is apparent—except the distinction between God and creature—when the Creator's works are seen as a whole, in their real relation and synthesis. The dualism results in the mind from studying the Creator's works in their analytic divisions, instead of their synthetic relations; especially from taking the first cycle or order of generation as an independent order, complete in itself, demanding nothing beyond itself, and constituting the whole life of man, instead of taking it, as it really is, only as the beginning, the initial, or the inchoate stage of life, subordinated to the second cycle, the teleological order, or regeneration and glorification, in which alone is its complement, perfection, ultimate end, for which it has been created, and exists. Our age falls into its heresies, unbeliefs, and intellectual anarchy and confusion, because it undertakes to separate what God has joined together—philosophy from theology, reason from faith, science from revelation, nature from grace—and refuses to study the works and providence of God in their synthetic relations, in which alone is their true meaning.

The Positivists understand very well the anarchy that reigns in the[10] modern intellectual world, and the need of a doctrine which can unite in one all the scattered and broken rays of intelligence and command the adhesion of all minds. The church, they say, once had such a doctrine, and for a thousand years led the progress of science and society. Protestants, they assert, have never had, and never, as Protestants, can have any doctrine of the sort, and the church has it no longer. It is nowhere set forth except in the writings of Auguste Comte, who obtains it not from revelation, theology, or metaphysics, but from the sciences, or the positive facts of nature studied in their synthetic relations. But unhappily, though right in asserting the necessity of a grand synthetic doctrine which shall embrace all the knowable and all the real, they forget that facts cannot be studied in their synthetic relations unless the mind is previously in possession of the grand synthetic doctrine which embraces and explains them, while the doctrine itself cannot be had till they are so studied. They must take the end as the means of gaining the end! This is a hard case, for till they get the synthetic formula they can only have unrelated facts, hypotheses, and conjectures, with no means of verifying them. They are not likely to succeed. Starting from anarchy, they can only arrive at anarchy. Only God can move by his Spirit over chaos, and bring order out of confusion and light out of darkness.

Moreover, the Positivists do not reconcile the conflicting elements; for they suppress one of the two series of terms, and relegate God, the supernatural, principles, causes, and supersensible relations into the region of the unknowable, and include in their grand synthesis only positive sensible facts or phenomena and their physical laws. They thus restrict man's existence to the first cycle, and exclude the second or palingenesiac order, in which alone reigns the moral law. The first or initial cycle does not contain the word of the ænigma. It does not exist for itself, and therefore is not and cannot be intelligible in or by itself. If they could succeed in removing the anarchy complained of, they would do so by ignorance, not science, and harmonize all intelligences only by annihilating them.

Nor is it true that the church has lost or abandoned her grand synthetic doctrine, or that her synthesis has ceased to be complete, or sufficiently comprehensive. Her doctrine is Christianity; and Christianity leaves out no ancient or modern science; has not been and cannot be outgrown by any actual or possible progress of intelligence; for it embraces at once all the real and all the knowable, reale omne et scibile. If the church fails to command the adhesion of all minds, it is not because any minds have advanced in science beyond her, or have attained to any truth or virtue she has not; but because they have fallen below her, have become too contracted and grovelling in their views to grasp the elevation and universality of her doctrine. She still leads the civilized world, and commands the faith and love of the really enlightened portion of mankind. The reason why so many in our age refuse her their adhesion is not because her doctrine or mode or manner of presenting it are defective, but because they are engrossed with the development and application of the physical or natural laws, or with the first or initial cycle, and exhaust themselves in the production, exchange, and accumulation of physical goods, which, however attractive to the inchoate or physical man, are of no moral or religious value. The cause is not in[11] the church but in them; in the fact that their minds and hearts are set on those things only after which the heathen seek; and they have no relish for any truth that pertains to the teleological or moral order.

The church does not object to the study of the natural or physical sciences, nor to the accumulation of material wealth; but she does object to making the initial order the teleological, and to the cultivation of the sciences or study of the physical laws for their own sake; for, with her, not knowledge but wisdom is the principal thing. She requires the physical and psychological sciences to be cultivated for the sake of the ultimate end of man, and in subordination to the Christian law which that end prescribes. So of material wealth; she does not censure its production, its exchange, or its accumulation, if honestly done, and in subordination to the end for which man is created. What she demands of us is that we conform to the Creator's plan, and esteem things according to their true order and place in that plan. She tolerates no falsehood in thought, word, or deed.

The natural is not suppressed or injured by being subordinated to the supernatural, for it can be fulfilled only in the supernatural. We find the indications of this in nature herself. There are, indeed, theologians who talk of a natural beatitude; but whether possible or not, God has not so made us that we can find our beatitude in nature; that is, in the creature or a created good. He has made us for himself, and the soul can be satisfied with nothing less. This is the great fact elaborated by Father Hecker in his Questions of the Soul, and his Aspirations of Nature. In the first work, he shows that the soul asks questions which nature cannot answer, but which are answered in the supernatural; in the second, he shows that nature desires, craves, aspires to, and has a capacity for, the supernatural; that the soul is conscious of wants which only the supernatural can fill. Man has, as St. Thomas teaches, a natural desire to see God in the beatific vision; that is, to see him as he is in himself; to be like him, to partake of his divine nature, to possess him, and be filled with him. This alone can satisfy the soul, and hence holy Job says, "I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness."

There can be no real antagonism between the natural and the supernatural; for there can be none between nature and its Creator, and equally none between it and its fulfilment, or supreme good. There is none, we have shown, between reason and faith, any more than there is between the eye and the telescope, which extends its range of vision, and enables it to see what it could not see without it. There can be none between science and revelation; when the science is real science and is cultivated not for itself alone, but as a means to the true end of man; and there can be none between earth and heaven, when the earth is regarded solely as a medium and not confounded with the end. There can be none between liberty and authority; for man can be man, possess himself, be himself, and free only by living in conformity to the law of his existence, or according to the plan of the Creator; and finally there can be none between church and state, if the state remembers that it is in the teleological order, and under the moral law, therefore subordinated to the spiritual order.

We have passed over a great number of important questions, several of which, on starting, we intended to consider, and some of which we may[12] take up hereafter; but we have given, we think, the principle that solves the problem of the age, and shows that the dualism which runs through and disturbs so many minds has no foundation either in the teaching of the church or in the real order. The Creator's works all hang together, are all parts of one uniform plan, and the realization ad extra of one divine thought, of which the archetype is in his own infinite, eternal, and ineffable essence. The trouble with men is, that many of them do not see that the church is catholic, even when professing to believe it; because their own minds are not catholic. They often suppose they are broader than the church, because they are too narrow to see her breadth. They also fancy that there are fields of science which they may cultivate which lie beyond her catholicity, and concerning which they are under no obligation to consult her. This shows that they understand neither her catholicity nor the nature, conditions, and end of science. They contract the church to their own narrow dimensions.

We conclude by saying that the men who undertake to criticise the church, and to unchurch her, are men who want breadth, depth, and elevation. They are mole-eyed, and have slender claims to be regarded as really enlightened, large-minded, large-hearted men.

SACRED AMBITION.

PAGANINA.

XVIII.

We must not conclude that Master Swibert gave only a musical education to his child. His instruction was solid, and intended, beyond every thing, to develop in her a religious sentiment.

For metaphysics he had a love that years had not lessened. His philosophy was very simple; a few lines could comprise it—only what he took a liking to; and he never pretended to have invented it.

His soul exercised itself in applying every creature as a connection with the Infinite. He said summarily that if a thinker could not so comprehend things, he retarded his progress and lost his end.

Paganina could not always understand her father, but this did not distress him. Like the good laborer, he sowed thickly the land he had prepared, knowing well that much would be lost; but knowing, too, that he would come, some day, and find the luxuriant verdure that would repay his pains.

The young girl adopted with eagerness all that could elevate character and ennoble life. Happy to repose in the artistic emotions that shook her so deeply, she relaxed into the serene contemplation of the truth toward which her father conducted her.

XIX.

Such, in its principal characteristics, is the life Paganina led until she was twenty-two years of age. Her beauty had developed radiantly. She held her head aloft, as one who looks on high; and her eyes so sought the distance that she won the name of proud from the good women who met her in their daily walks.

She never was without her father, and the contrast between the two was painful. He was an old man—more from the effect of sickness than old age; and although he appeared active, it was easy to see that, undermined by an inward malady, he would soon be completely wrecked.

He felt it himself, and employed all his strength to instruct and enlighten his daughter.

Without saddening her in advance, by announcing his approaching malady, he endeavored to accustom her to a future separation, but she could not comprehend it. The last thing in which youth can believe is the rupture of holy affections. It never learns that such love can be interrupted.

One day, Master Swibert and his daughter were seated at the turn of the road, where they generally rested in their daily walk. The organist returned to the subject with which his mind was always preoccupied—that future in which he had no part—and finished by saying, "My daughter, your cousin loves you. What he felt for you here he has not lost by separation; his heart is devotedly yours. You are all in all to him, and I have long understood his affection for you. I should feel happy to know you returned his love."

Paganina, surprised, replied, "I love but you, my father; must you[14] leave me?" The organist replied by this verse of St. Paul, "Insipiens: tu quod seminas, non vivificatur, nisi prius moriatur", and Paganina, who did not know Latin, began to weep.

From this day, Master Swibert declined rapidly. He made what he called his will; his last instructions, only to arm his daughter for the struggles of life. He urged her to see, through him, the immortality of the soul; so especially visible in the early Christians, in the mournful hour when, their bodies, falling to ruin, betrayed the interior flame that disengaged them from earth, to shine for ever among the stars in unfading lustre.

It was morning. He had talked a long time with his daughter, and the peace he enjoyed announced the end of the struggle. His large, troubled eyes looked once more toward the mountain, on her, and on his crucifix, then closed for ever.

XX.

The world—even the best of it—don't like to be entertained with the sufferings of others; so I will not stop to relate those of Paganina. I will pause longer on the chapter of her consolations. She drew these from two sources, her memories and her labors.

Her memories were realities. She felt that her father had never left her; and lived in his presence, meditating on and practising his lessons. Her ardor for the study of her art redoubled. Often in the silence of the night, at a late hour, her voice was heard by an admiring crowd beneath her window. The young artist, without knowing or desiring it, became popular.

She had other joys, too, which helped her to live her isolated life. It is not of those of love I speak. Paganina did not know the passion. She lived apart from the world, and her character became half legendary. Fancy held play where love was excluded; and in the regions of the ideal grew her immortal works, and their imperishable beauty, to be shed on humanity.

Perhaps the memory of such things should only be intruded on the very few; for it is said that often a ray from on high illuminated the chamber where the young girl sat, and in that moment she felt a new world tremble in her heart.

XXI.

Happiness is not the guest of earth. The miserable and deceptive pleasure that pretends to this glorious name is a bait rather than a food, and never nourishes any body. Therefore such moments as we have spoken of are fugitive, and are mostly followed by exhaustion and bitter disgust, which would be a good price for them, could such moments be paid for. Paganina experienced the common law. She could not live on ecstasy. Her days, therefore, were mingled and diverse.

I must relate the crisis of her life; but I turn with regret to the chamber that sheltered her genius and her innocence. I see in spirit—shut in this place—a treasure that no one was permitted to contemplate; for Paganina bloomed in the shade, and reserved for her solitude her beauty and the perfume of her loveliness.

Sometimes, only when debauch slept and idleness prolonged its useless repose, the beautiful young girl appeared before her opened window. Robed with the reflection of the aurora, she saluted the growing day;[15] and, as the antique statue, she exhaled divine harmony by contact with its earliest rays.

XXII.

Having, not without success, terminated his musical studies, André quitted Naples. His affection for his cousin had greatly increased. Love sang in his heart; for, if we may borrow such an expression from the poetical vocabulary, it assuredly belongs to a musician.

From the day he was free, he had but one desire—to see Paganina. He set out with this intention, and restless regarding his reception. Indeed, his future depended upon it.

During the journey, his thoughts went ahead, and heaped up every imaginable supposition on the manner in which his cousin would receive him; but she did not receive him at all. He entered a deserted mansion.

He wandered among the deserted places, where every thing recalled the days of his childhood. Death had passed by, and left, perhaps, some unknown scourge. In his poignant distress, he imagined the worst.

Perhaps he did not deceive himself. Paganina was to appear the next day at the theatre of Milan.

I must add that she was always worthy of her father, in the strictest sense of the word; though for three months, it is true, in order to prepare herself for the stage, she had mixed in the world of the theatres, and, what is far worse, in the world of parasites, insinuating themselves by every means and with every end. She breathed a poisoned air in the incense of impure flatteries. Her bitter contempt prevented its injuring her; but as soon as she was free, she ran to conceal her wounds in a retreat where no one could discover her.

XXIII.

XXIV.

The Italians are quickly roused, and never sell the evidences of their admiration. To show more than ordinary emotion, they invent unheard-of and extravagant expressions.

When Paganina could withdraw from these ovations, the night was far advanced; she took refuge in solitude.

Let us follow her. It will be curious to observe in her the intoxication of applause, and see how she bore her first triumph—she who had elicited such flattering testimony of love and admiration.

"My father," she cried, "my father, you are already revenged. To punish me, you have fulfilled my desires. I wished for the clatter of applause, for the tumult of bravos. I am satisfied already. Is it for this, great God, that I have deserted thy ways? Is it for such fugitive pleasure, whose bitterness I have known before even I have tasted it? O happiness of solitude! ineffable family joys! where have you fled?

"Those who have just applauded me little know the inexpressible sadness that overcame me. For a moment despair drew tears to my eyes. They thought it the triumph of my art—but I wept for thee, my father; for thee, my childhood—and the peace of the old, happy hours."

XXV.

He watched her in silence—he on the threshold, and she half turning toward him proudly in her surprise.

"Paganina," said he, "I come from the home that you have left. I found the house deserted, and I went to seek you at the tomb of your father."

"Yes," she replied with bitterness, "and you find me here in the garb of a comedian. What do you wish with me?"

"I wish to snatch you from this cursed place; to fly with you so far that you may forget this fatal evening, and again become obedient to the voice of your father. Come, I will be your protector, your guardian, your slave—until the day," he added in a lower voice, "when I dare breathe to you my secret, and tell you that I love you."

"André, listen to me. I will speak to you sincerely. I wish to love you. I swear to you I wish it. To quit this country, fly with you, go into Germany and inhabit the house of my father, and there raise a family, would be my happiness; but it can never be."

"The love I bear you, Paganina, has taken deep root. Near you alone am I happy; but if it must be so, speak! If you have given your heart to a man worthy of you, tell me, and destroy in me all hope for ever. For you I can bear any thing. But if it is not so, do not answer me yet. Wait; my humility may disarm you, and some day my patience may end in moving your heart."

"No! my heart is but ashes; no affection blooms nor will bloom within it. It is too late."

"Do not speak so, I beg of you. You do not know what the future has in store for you, nor see the Providence that watches over you. It has sent me to you, and with me the remembrance of happy years and the presence of your father."

"The angel itself is not yet arrested in its fall. Go! let me hang suspended between the heaven that is shut against me, and the abyss whose depths I seek."

"Paganina," said he, "do not weep. Come; see! the dawn already whitens the fields. Let the God of the morning comfort you. The wind rises forerunner of a new day. Bathe[17] your forehead in its breath, and respire with its penetrating odors the forgetfulness of your sufferings. To-day, perhaps, will bring us back peace and happiness."

"No, to-day will be fatal. The beauty of the morning moves me no longer; for me the evening fires, the flames of the foot-lights, the éclat of triumph. I will go from fête to fête, from ovation to ovation. I want the whirlpool of the world to seize and carry me until I lose my health—and forget every thing. Immediately I set out for the Château Sarrasin."

"Ah! this, then," cried André with a sudden explosion of passion, "this, then, is the secret of your resistance and the avowal of your shame. The public cry that brought me here had already warned me. I refused to listen to it. Well, go; but fear every thing. You have roused in me a monster that I knew not of."

XXVI.

Paganina was calumniated by her cousin; she was pure, though it is true she slid on a fatal declivity. Already appearances were against her reputation. André was deceived; but he was not the only one; and from thence the reports to which he had made allusion, and the pretext of which will be explained.

The Count Ludovic, proprietor of the Château Sarrasin and actual head of the house of the Ligonieri, inscribed in the golden book of European aristocracy, was a man of proud appearances, endowed with masculine beauty quite in accordance with his character; for he was superior to his race, and possessed many noble qualities.

His life was not without stain; but even his faults bore that chivalrous character that renders them honorable in the eyes of the world. We well know that the code of the world is not that of the saints.

And the Count Ludovic, who willingly mingled with the people of the theatre, had known Paganina while she was preparing for her début. At the first glance he had rightly judged the soul of the young artist, and saw her superior to her companions.

His heart was touched. Penetrated with sincere sentiments, he preserved in her presence an attitude of reserve and respect, and his influence was secretly employed to isolate and protect her. His manner toward her was observed; for it was not his usual way of adding to the conquests for which he was famous. It might have been believed a mutual admiration; but it is not well to credit the judgments of one's neighbors.

The Count Ludovic wished to celebrate the début of Paganina by one of those fêtes that an ostentatious tradition had preserved in his family. He made important preparations at the Château Sarrasin and sent out his invitations.

The delicate point was to gain for his project her who was the soul of it; so he proposed it to her at the moment when she received her first applause, trusting, no doubt, to her excitement and wish for future conquests. He knew his auditory would be of the first distinction; he knew his motive—but no matter.

The young girl, warned as if by instinct, feeling herself at the fatal point of her destiny, made him no reply. The next day, under the influence of her bad angel, she consented.

XXVII.

They set out alone in an open chariot. The Count Ludovic had proposed for himself a gallant tête-à-tête, without, however, the desired[18] success; for all day long Paganina spoke not a word. Her wandering looks were on the horizon, perhaps there to discover the mysterious and avenging power with which she believed herself menaced.

Toward evening they arrived at Arèse. The young cantatrice was recognized and applauded; but she appeared totally unconscious of sight or sound, and maintained her obstinate silence. The count had long since renounced all effort at conversation. He rather liked the oddity of the adventure, and dreamed of the legend where the paladin carried away his bride and wondered she was pale—so pale that she was dead.

Meanwhile, the carriage labored on the declivity of the road to Germany. The heat was excessive, not a breath stirred the air; but a dull and heavy murmuring announced that the midday wind was pent up in the higher mountain regions. The setting sun was red as blood. At a turn of the road, Paganina shuddered, for she saw André on a rock above them; she could never explain by what energy of passion he had reached this point.

When the carriage neared him he seized the branch of a tree, and, throwing it before the horses' feet, cried out, "Paganina, stop! or, by the soul of thy father, be cursed for ever!" The Count Ludovic had some difficulty in managing his frightened horses; he did not observe that his companion was as pale as the bride of the paladin.

A little further on, in returning, he saw the same man in the same place, illuminated by the burning sky, and pointing with the laugh of a madman to the black mass of the Château Sarrasin.

The adventure was becoming more and more singular. The count wondered what part this man took in this unheard-of drama.

He was too much the gentleman to betray any surprise; but he profited by the incident to renew his efforts at conversation. "Do you know," he said to Paganina, "that these slight accidents might have had a tragical ending? The horses we drive have already caused the death of a man, and, like those of the fable, may be said to feed their ferocity on human blood. The whip has never touched them. If it had not been my pride to place at your disposal the most beautiful equipage in the world, I should have hesitated to trust you to them."

Still she did not reply. But the moment was approaching when she would speak, and in terrible words reveal her anguish.

The carriage entered the road that ended at the Château Sarrasin. As we said before, this road descends by a steep and dangerous declivity, and on the very edge of the precipice. The horses walked quietly. Seizing the whip, Paganina struck them violently, crying out,

"To death, indeed!" cried the count, surprised and alarmed. "In this road, and at this hour, a miracle only can save us."

The horses, breathing fire, made frightful bounds, leaving starry tracks behind them. The stones rolled heavily into the abyss. The few inhabitants of these solitudes, stopping on the borders of the road, looked on pale and as in a dream, to see this fantastic chariot drawn by such furious horses, while a young girl, standing, and her hair flying in the wind, lashed them on to desperation.

If it needed a miracle to save them, this miracle took place. The team stopped; upset the carriage on the[19] steps of the château. One of the horses was killed, the carriage broken to pieces. The count sprang up safe and sound, his first inquiry for Paganina.

XXVIII.

Paganina, leaning on the arm of the count, promenades with him the highest terrace. The guests, in groups at a distance, regard them with hungry eyes.

A hot and violent wind agitates the half-stripped trees. The clouds traverse the sky hurriedly and quickly, and their moving shadows rest on the mountains. The moon, disengaging itself here and there, throws its pure light on the white form of the young girl. She seems to grow in the estimation of the admirers who seek her.

The Count Ludovic is strangely moved. His sincere sentiments are rekindled by the newness of the situation, and the strangeness of the adventure. He thanks his companion for having, at one stroke, played with their two lives. Exalted and nervous, enervated with the perfume of the life that she had so nearly lost only a few moments before, Paganina replies to him. The observers of the scene listen attentively. Detached from the murmur of the distant storm, their words are heard for a moment, but the tempest again arises and carries them away in its roar. Yes, ardent and mysterious breath, bear away these words of irony, of revolt, and of despair—bear afar the bitter laugh that accompanies them.

For a long time, O powerful voice! have men listened to your painful harmony. Long have you roamed the earth, picking up the notes of grief, the cries of the new-born, the sobs of mothers, the sighs of the dying, and the groaning of the crowds who groan and groan on. But never, never have you borne away any thing more sad or desolate than the laugh of this unhappy child.

XXIX.

The night advances. Already the moon has commenced to decline. Some of the invited ones have retired; others, grouped here and there, seated or half-extended, are sleeping in the hot breath of the storm. There are two powers that watch—Paganina and the tempest, and the thunder rolls and shakes the mountains.

Silent and isolated, Paganina looks at the shadow of the Château Sarrasin. She sees it advance and recede. She thinks of the legend of this cursed place—so fatal to the honor of women. And yet fate has led her there—the gulf is yawning for her. She advances; she will enter never there.

A cry is heard; the sleepers, wakened suddenly, run to and fro, pale and frightened. They find Paganina fainting and covered with blood. A deep wound is found in her throat. The count sustains her, and in a voice thundering above the tempest orders his people to seize the assassin.

When they wished to carry the wounded one into the Château Sarrasin, she could not speak, but betrayed, in signs of such mortal terror, her repugnance to enter, that they were obliged to relinquish the idea.

She said since, at the moment that the doors opened to make way for her, she again saw the scene which, several years before, had so forcibly struck her. Nothing was wanting; the brightness of the light, or the luxury[20] of the dress. All the actors were there, all—but they were hideous skeletons; they still made gestures of applause, while above them, the woman with the green diamond showed a livid face, the eyes extinct, and an open mouth, from which no sound proceeded.

André followed her, chained, and guarded from sight. They arrived next morning.

It is said the infuriated crowd rushed upon the assassin and his guard, and obliged them to fly for their lives. Paganina had him brought to her, took him by the hand, and so passed through the moved and disarmed assemblage.

XXX.

For a long time her life was despaired of. A burning fever consumed her. Her sufferings were such as belonged to her thirsty nature. She experienced the most terrible of earthly tortures; and prayed in her delirium for a stream of water to flow into her parched lips.

Her moral sufferings were still greater. Every evening she became the prey to a terrible hallucination, that she regarded as the punishment of her wish for popularity; she saw herself raised far above an immense crowd, and this crowd becoming by turns insulting and mocking. Its waves of fury flowed and reflowed at the feet of their victim, and covered her with their froth. Paganina, in despair, would have thrown herself into this shoreless tide; but in vain; she felt herself enchained to her height, and obliged to wait for the rays of morning to dissipate her phantoms.

These two features suffice to characterize her malady, which was moral as well as physical. Its intensity lasted during the winter months. In the spring only she appeared to be restored to health, but the blow had been a severe one, and the rest of her life was merely a prolonged convalescence.

XXXI.

But suffering in silence accomplished its work. Her long confinement had curbed if not wholly subdued her ardent nature, and those who thought to find the revived Paganina on the declivity where they had left her, were greatly mistaken.

Their surprise was greater, too, as no indication had prepared them for the change. The work in her soul was well and firmly done, and she remained calmly impenetrable to her friends, until there escaped from her, in spite of herself, a jet of revealing flame.

The Count Ludovic had never ceased his attentions during her illness. His passion, far from weakening, had grown stronger during his separation. When he could be admitted to her presence, he expressed his sentiments, perhaps, too tenderly; he who knew her, knew of what sudden movements and prompt returns she was capable, strove with all his energy, but remained confounded. Not without reason, for so Paganina answered him:

"Since the day when I first heard all you have just repeated to me, I have stood on the borders of eternity. New lights have been shed on all things since then; do not be surprised that my language is no longer the same.

"It must be true that you place yourself in very high and me in very low esteem! Do you consider my honor a worthy prey for your vanity? Do you not think that a few days of pleasure might be too well paid for by my past and my future?[21] What, then, do you wish? You ask that I abjure the past, that I sacrifice to you my whole future, and even more! My immortal soul is what you would wish to debase. And in a few days you would give me, in exchange, your contempt, to run, freer and more honored than ever, into new pleasures. This is what you wish, and yet you say you love me.

"Good God! what might I have been to-day, if heaven had not arrested me—and what am I now?

"Ah! forgive me; I have lost the right to be severe. Words of blame or bitterness should not come from my lips. No, it is myself I despise; and this contempt, to which I am consecrated, plunges into my heart a poisoned iron. It oppresses, it stifles me, and leaves for my punishment the life I hate.

"Count Ludovic, you are the son of chevaliers. I know at the bottom of your heart is the nobility of your ancestors. Adieu; we have met for the last time."

And the count, retiring on this command, lost his reputation for a man of gallantry.

XXXII.

It was Easter-Sunday, the feast of eternal life. The sun shed through the clouds its humid rays, the trees—clothed in new verdure and brightly agitated—sent forth their sweet and subtle perfumes.

Paganina, still weak, was placed by the open window; she turned toward the church her eyes, grown larger in suffering, and listened to the notes of the feast, weakened by the distance. When Faust heard such songs the poisoned cup fell from his hands. In his desperation he believed no longer in God. The earth had reclaimed him. Heaven was going to reconquer Paganina.

The angels, approaching her, brought back a world of innocent and gentle memories; she wept.

At this moment the bells, pealing their joyous notes, announced the end of the ceremony.

The virgins, clothed in white, quitted the church in silent swarms. Paganina saw them pass before her in a vision, for they appeared in groups of such supernatural beauty that she was thrown into an ecstasy.

She saw them leave the second banquet—some retiring sweetly within themselves, as slender stalks bending under the weight of the heavenly dew; others, pale, with foreheads high and open, and eyes pure and ardent. They crossed their arms on their breasts, the better to guard their treasure. All wore the trace of that fire which for eighteen hundred years has marked the victory of the virgins and the martyrs. The ray of divine beauty which fell on these figures was reflected back on Paganina; her soul was transfixed and vanquished for ever.

"Thou seekest me again, my God; behold! I come. To thee I return, and with the frightful experience of the darkness of oblivion, and penetrated with the horror of those places where thou art not.

"Thou art witness that, before I abandoned the heights where thou residest, I sustained an infernal struggle. That day my vision was lowered, the dragon of the abyss mounted toward me, to drag me to its depths.... Thy angels have fallen, my God! But while they are lost for ever, why, why am I reclaimed?

"I come trembling in thy light. Do not reject thy victim; acknowledge the blood-stain with which thou hast marked me to save me, I hope;[22] let me again contemplate thy eternal beauty. Thy beauty, my Lord, I must see. I thirst for it; one of its bright rays has shone before me, and the world has nothing more to offer.

"My last hour will be the hour of my deliverance; I wait for it. Accept the offering of a broken life, whose failing forces will be employed to repair the evil I have done. And thou, my father, I bless thee, because I may yet sleep again in thy bosom."

XXXIII.

The day fixed for the trial of André having arrived, a great mass of people pressed around the court of justice. In the memory of man, no celebrated cause had ever attracted so great a multitude. At every hour, the waves of the crowd mounted higher and higher against the walls of the palace. When it was known that Paganina would appear to give her testimony, such tumult and agitation arose that the judges were obliged to suspend proceedings. Calm being somewhat reëstablished, the president called Paganina to testify against the assassin. Then, without raising her eyes, in a low and trembling voice, which ran shuddering through the crowd, she answered, "He saved my honor!" Twice she said it, and when the president, renewing his interrogation, menaced her with the penalties of the law if she refused her testimony, she fixed upon him a steady gaze and repeated in a strong voice,

At these words there was a shout of enthusiasm. Men threw their caps into the air, and cried, "Hurrah!" Women wept and were agitated; and André, sobbing aloud, held out to her his trembling hands.

XXXIV.

Soon after, a strange, unheard-of rumor was afloat. They said the Count Ludovic asked Paganina in marriage. The Count Ludovic! This flower of nobility, this last of an antique chivalry, condescend to propose to an actress, and tarnish his escutcheon! It was not to be believed. But the evidence was excellent. He said so himself, and even rudely, to the unlucky flatterers who thought to make capital out of the enormity of the story.

Things stood so, when two other pieces of news, following closely on this, caused it to be forgotten.

And these were, first, that the demand of the Count Ludovic was not acceded to; the second, that his preferred rival was André, an obscure musician with a weak brain; and, even worse than that, that all his merit rested in his attempt at the assassination of the object of his passion.

I give the facts in their entire simplicity. Truth is worth more than its resemblance; so any extenuation, any covering of phrases, would be useless, and neither make them accepted nor understood by practical people—those who judge every thing from their own stand-point, and name it so well "common sense."

Paganina wished to repair the evil of which she was the cause. She found "at her hand" the sacrifice she desired.

From the terrible night passed at the Château Sarrasin, André had never resumed the complete use of his reason. To have the right to devote herself to him, his cousin married him; surrounded him with every care, and watched over the flame of his vacillating intelligence with a love[23] more maternal than conjugal. In our existence, many things are strange. She never seemed the wife of André. She lived with him as a sister. And can you imagine what was her life, tête-à-tête with an idiot? Calculate the energy to sustain, and the patience to calm him.

When the spectres of madness approached the poor invalid, warned by his cries of terror, Paganina ran to him. Her presence, and the sound of her voice, dispelled the phantoms. Delivered from his terrors, he threw himself at her feet, covered her hands with kisses and tears, and invoked her as his angel, swearing to her inviolable obedience.

Since King David's time, we all know the power of music to dispel the spirits of darkness. Paganina made use of it, and found consolation in the mingled studies that brought her cousin such relief. So even they had hours of happiness.

The genius, too, of Paganina was not entirely lost to her contemporaries. She was heard once in Milan, in a religious ceremony; and once again in Germany, where she had gone, nearly two years after her marriage, to make, with André, a pilgrimage to the house of her father. For her it was the song of the swan, for her exhausted and uncertain life went out soon afterward.

XXXV.

In one of those festivals which are the noble pleasure and the glory of Germany, an oratorio was to be given for the first time, the expectation of which excited a passionate impatience.

This composition, called The Angels' Fall, is due to a musician whose name will descend to the latest posterity, carried onward by the tempests his genius has evoked.

The part of the archangel Lucifer was awarded to Paganina. These phlegmatic Germans, when they give themselves to enthusiasm, lose all bounds; and Paganina might have been satisfied could she have known her success; but her soul was elsewhere.

This oratorio was divided into three parts. The first expressed heaven. If there is any thing in this world that can make man see what his eyes cannot, and understand what his ears have never heard, it is music; for the true musician knows that such harmony, quitting earth, mounts to the vaults of paradise, where it wakens the echoes that have nothing of earth, and falls again on us—the messenger of hope and consolation.

Paganina's rôle, in this part, was less important than in that which followed. Her voice was rarely detached from the whole; but now and then two or three dazzling notes rose through the harmony, and the transported auditors believed they saw the fluttering wings of the archangel already hovering on the eternal heights.

I will say nothing of the second part, although several found it superior to the two others, on account of the sombre energy, the terrible power with which is rendered the insurrection of the rebel angels.

Paganina should have been perfectly at her ease, to display here the richness of her voice—this voice which, in other parts, rang as a trumpet of gold and brass. But these accents of revolt choked her, and here she was unequal. She would soon surpass herself in the last air.

The composer, by one of those happy mistakes from which the best works grow, forgot the tradition. His angels were not thunder-struck in[24] their pride, and shrieking in blasphemy; but vanquished. They were condemned, and wept. They weep for the heaven they have lost. Admiration believed there was nothing more to expect; but here the master recalls his power, reanimates his genius, and finds an inspiration supreme to chant the farewell to infinite happiness of the guilty phalanx.

The sobs of the orchestra and chorus are heard alternately, and the voice of the archangel rises once again. At this moment, Paganina sang her last air on earth with an intensity of love and grief that cannot be described.

Those who saw her then will never forget her. In this high-vaulted room, lofty as a church, she stood above the others, in a long black robe covered with stars. Her beauty was that of an archangel.

As she finished, a ray of sunlight, streaming through the red glass, and sparkling as the flaming sword that forbade the entrance into Eden, rested a moment at her feet and expired.

THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.

Now that the attention of the Catholic world is directed to the coming Ecumenical Council, and various questions are asked about the nature and the probable effects of such a meeting, one's eyes naturally turn to the latest general synod of the church. The history of the Council of Trent is, indeed, of great interest. "Than it," says its accomplished historian, Pallavicini, "no preceding council was more distinguished for length of duration, for the definition of important dogmas, for the efficient reformation of manners and laws; none hindered by greater obstacles, none more patient and accurate in discussion, none more highly praised by friends, or more bitterly censured by opponents."[2] A review of the history of this great council, its work, and its results, will not be out of place, at this time and in these pages.

The so-called Reformation was different from any other heresy that had attacked the church of God in this, that it impugned the vital principle of church authority. Other heresiarchs had denied one or another dogma; Luther and his followers denied the existence of any authority to define dogmas. Other schismatists had rebelled against the governing power, but, even in their rebellion, had admitted its existence, though they might wish to curtail its powers, or to dispute its legitimate possession; the reformers declared that there was no external authority appointed of God to govern the spiritual affairs of men. "The combat," says D'Aubigné, "was to be to the death. It was not the abuses of the pontiff's authority Luther had attacked. At his bidding, the pope was required to descend meekly from his throne, and become again a simple pastor or bishop on the banks of the Tiber." And his pastoral or episcopal charge was not to be recognized as delegated from God, but given to him by the consent of the faithful. Real church authority was utterly denied; [25] it was not its exercise, but its very existence that was brought into question. As Dr. Ewer puts it, "This was the meanest mode of attack" to Christianity. "Protestantism made an ally of the Bible, and with it flew at the church to destroy her. Satan ... picked his men.... Protestantism, making an ally of the Bible, succeeded not in reforming the church, but in attacking and destroying her in many lands."[3] Against such a rebellion the church had to put on her strongest armor. No mere outworks were attacked; the strongest citadel, the key to the whole position, was the object of deadly assault. The lines of attack were twofold. It was said that the church, under the guidance of the pontiffs of Rome, had fallen away from the true faith, and proposed superstitious errors and mere human inventions to the belief of her children. It was furthermore charged that she had become horribly deformed in morals, a very sink of iniquity, instead of that spotless and stainless bride whom Christ had laved in his blood. The intricate and difficult questions of original sin, its nature, its effects, its remedy—the justification of the sinner—were again opened and discussed with force and acrimony, if not with discretion and candor. The whole sacramental system was practically denied; the altar and the priesthood removed; and the church, as it is seen by the eyes of men, reduced to a mere voluntary association of believers, for which indefectibility, infallibility, or authority could not by any means be claimed. The Bible was appealed to in support of these novel statements, and to each one's private judgment was generously granted the privilege of securely interpreting the sacred page. The new doctrine flattered the vanity of the human intellect; and there were found many not unwilling to sit as judges where they had before stood as hearers; to leave the humble bench of the scholar for the magisterial chair of the religious teacher. The constant attacks on real or pretended abuses added greatly to the temporary success of the reformers. Against these (to borrow an expression from Hallam) "Luther bellowed in bad Latin." That there was much to be reformed, the numerous decrees of the Council of Trent leave us no room to doubt. It is also clear that it would have been well for the church had prompter remedies taken away in advance the specious pretext of the turbulent Augustinian. But it pleased her Divine Head to permit that the wrong should continue to thrive, and, when the time of trial came, many gave as an excuse for their falling off, the scandals which they alleged could no longer be endured. A glance at the history of the times will, however, show how flimsy was such a pretext. The scandals of the lives of the seceders and their immediate followers contrast darkly with the honest reforms of Trent, and the dissoluteness which was the immediate result of the revolution, taken in connection with the acknowledged improvement inside of the church, would lead one to suppose that the authors and abettors of the real abuses had abandoned the ancient fold, and betaken themselves to freer and more congenial pastures. Of his own party, Luther, as quoted by Döllinger, said:

Luther, anticipating his condemnation by Pope Leo X., appealed in 1518 to a general council, a course, we may remark, frequently taken by heretics, if for nothing else, at least to gain time to enroll followers, and thus increase in importance, before the final condemnation. The diet of Nuremberg, in 1522, in answer to the conciliatory and truly apostolic communication of Pope Adrian VI., through his nuncio, Cheregat, requested his holiness to call a council in some city of Germany, with the double object of a thorough reformation, and of devising means of resistance to the menacing advances of the Turkish power. Adrian died before he could take any action on the subject, and the new pontiff, Clement VII., did not receive the proposal with favor. According to Pallavicini, he feared that under the actual circumstances the council would only aggravate the evil, especially if the fathers should revive the pretensions of their predecessors of Constance and Basle, an apprehension very prevalent at that time at Rome, and, it must be admitted, not altogether groundless; besides, the war then raging between Charles V. and Francis I., from whose dominions most of the bishops were to come, rendered the possibility of a successful convocation almost hopeless; and, lastly, the demand was for a council which would satisfy Luther and his party; namely, one in which any one that might choose, even laymen, should be allowed to take part, and the pontiff should lay aside his high prerogatives, and sit as a simple bishop. He consequently instructed his legate, Campeggi, that it was impossible to call a council until the conclusion of peace between the two great princes of Europe, offering, at the same time, to carry out the measures of reform decreed by the council of Lateran, held not long before by Leo X., and to provide by his own authority proper remedies on other points. The unfortunate war in which Clement became afterward involved with Charles V. delayed for some time all question of holding a council; but, with the return of peace, the negotiations were resumed, and at a consultation held in Bologna, in 1533, between the pontiff and the emperor, the former agreed to convoke the council within six months from the acceptation of certain very equitable conditions by all interested. But the Protestant princes of Germany, in a meeting at Smalcald, (1533,) refused to accept the two first conditions, "that the council should be free, and be held after the manner of the ancient general councils; and that those who wished to take part in it should promise beforehand to obey its decrees;" a refusal which justified, in part at least, the fears of the pontiff. He did not, however, desist, and was engaged in negotiations on the subject until his death, (September 25th, 1534.) His successor, Paul III., had never shared[27] his fears, and, soon after his elevation, sent nuncios to the various princes to promote the speedy convocation of the council. In point of fact, he did convoke it, appointing Mantua, which had been agreed on by the emperor and the Catholic princes of Germany, as the place, and the 23d day of May, 1537, as the time, of the meeting. It is useless minutely to detail the obstacles placed in the way of the great event by the Duke of Mantua and others, the selection of Vicenza, the suspension of the council, and the bootless legation of Contarini to the diet of Ratisbon. At last, as the pontiff himself says, in his bull of convocation:

To satisfy the Germans, he selected Trent as the place of meeting, though he himself would have preferred some city of Italy nearer Rome. But new obstacles arose, and the council, though convoked for the feast of All Saints, (November 1st, 1542,) was not opened until December 13th, 1545. Even then, it was necessary to commence with a very small attendance of prelates. At the first session there were present, besides the legates of the apostolic see and the Cardinal Bishop of Trent, only four archbishops, twenty bishops, and five general superiors of religious orders.[5] But it was thought better to make a beginning, even though the number of fathers was lamentably small, especially since, according to ancient ecclesiastical usage, a council, legitimately convoked by the apostolic see, legitimately celebrated under its presidency, and approved by its authority, is ecumenical, even though many of the bishops called to it were either unable or unwilling to take part in its deliberations.

Bishops in greater number gradually found their way to the assembly, and seven sessions were held in succession, the last on March 3d, 1547, so that the deliberations of this period of the council lasted over fourteen months. The work of reformation was commenced, together with the dogmatical definitions, and the same plan was followed throughout. On March 11th, the eighth session was held; but the only business transacted was the passing of a decree transferring the council to Bologna, the reason assigned being an epidemic, the existence of which in Trent was declared to be a matter of notoriety, and which had already caused some prelates to leave that city, others to protest against a further sojourn. Many fathers obeyed the decree, and the congregations were held regularly in Bologna. The Emperor Charles V. did not, however, relish this transfer from a city of his dominions to one under the temporal jurisdiction of the pope, and he detained at Trent the prelates from his states. The result was that, after two formal sessions, the synod was prorogued, "at the pleasure of the Sacred Council," on September 14th, 1547, and the remainder of the pontificate of Paul III. was spent in fruitless negotiations for its resumption. Paul died on November 10th, 1549, of whom Pallavicini says: "By his inordinate affection for his family, he showed himself to be only a man; for the rest, he has deserved in the[28] church the name of hero."[6] His successor was Julius III., who as Cardinal del Monte had presided over the council in the quality of first legate apostolic. His first care was to reopen the sacred synod, and he immediately sent nuncios to the emperor and the French king, to bring about this desired result. The stand taken by Charles for Trent made it advisable again to select that city, and Julius was enabled, on December 1st, 1550, to publish a bull appointing the first day of May of the ensuing year for the reassembling of the council. The first session (eleventh of the whole series) was accordingly held on that day, but, to give time to the Germans to arrive, no business was transacted, September 1st being appointed for the next session. Meanwhile, the preparatory work went on, and on the appointed day, the archbishop, electors of Mayence and Treves, and many other prelates being present, another session was held, in which it was determined to wait until October 11th, for other bishops of Germany and other nations, who were known to be on their way. The thirteenth session was celebrated on this day, and it was followed by three others, in all of which important canons and decrees were passed. But civil war had broken out in Germany, and Maurice of Saxony, at the head of a Protestant army, in league with the French king, had occupied Augsburg and menaced Innspruch, where Charles held his court, and whence he soon afterward retired. It was not to be wondered at that the fathers in the neighboring city of Trent should wish to shun a danger before which even the great emperor was obliged to retreat, and, in the sixteenth session, held on April 28th, 1552, a decree was passed suspending the celebration of the council for two years, providing, however, that in case of a speedy return of peace it might be resumed sooner. Pressed by his enemies, Charles agreed to the pacification of Passau, which promulgated a kind of toleration of both the old and the new religion. It also provided for a diet of the empire, in which the question was to be discussed whether an ecumenical council, or a national synod, or a conference, or an imperial diet, afforded the surest method of settling the existing religious differences. This, of course, put off the council again. Meanwhile, Julius III. died on March 23d, 1555. His former colleague in the apostolic legation to the council under Paul III., Cardinal Cervini, succeeded him in the pontificate; but death summoned him on the twenty-second day of his reign. The austere, zealous, but by no means prudent Cardinal Caraffa was the next choice of the Sacred College. The career of Paul IV. affords a singular example of the fallacy of human expectations. Before his election, he was a subject of the emperor, (he was a Neapolitan by birth;) in the pontificate, he waged war against Charles, son and successor; himself pure and above all suspicion, his reign was disgraced by the worst form of nepotism, so that, under his successor, his nephews, one of them a cardinal, died the death of malefactors; a great and really zealous promoter of reform, he took no steps to reassemble the council. Nor indeed could he. He was for the greater part of his reign at war with Philip II., successor of Charles V., in the latter's hereditary dominions, and he would never recognize Ferdinand as Charles's legitimate successor in the empire, on account of the part taken by that prince in the pacification of Passau. Yet so opposed was he to heresy, that he had recalled from England[29] the gentle and prudent Cardinal Pole, and was about to summon him to Rome to purge himself of the suspicion of heresy, and he actually imprisoned, on a similar suspicion, Cardinal Morone, who was destined to be the moving spirit, as he was the actual president of the last sessions of the great council. Paul died on August 18th, 1559. He was an excellent ecclesiastic, conspicuous for learning and virtue, and in less troubled times would have been a successful, as he was a holy pontiff. But, to quote Pallavicini, "he was braver in punishing crime, no matter how high the criminal, than prudent in preventing it. He took the amplitude of his sacred power as the proper measure of its exercise."[7] He waged war, however, on abuses, and was a severe ecclesiastical disciplinarian. His whole pontificate is a proof of the uselessness, not to say positive evil, in persons in high position, of determination, zeal, vigor, unless tempered by discretion, prudence, and meekness. His successor, Cardinal Medici, who took the name of Pius IV., a learned and virtuous prelate, though not so remarkable for natural parts or austere asceticism, accomplished much more for the glory of God and the good of Holy Church.

The new pontiff immediately turned his attention to the council. He had three princes of first class to deal with—the Emperor Ferdinand, and the kings of France and Spain. This last and the emperor desired the council to be reassembled at Trent; but the French sovereign objected to this place on account of its want of accommodations and unhealthy air, but especially because the Protestants had already commenced to hate the name, and proposed Constance. But at last the pontiff obtained the unanimous consent of all the Catholic princes of Europe for Trent, and on November 29th, 1560, issued a bull appointing Easter Sunday of the coming year for the reopening of the council. He sent his legates to Trent, and many prelates soon arrived; the congregations and other preparatory meetings were held; but the troubles in France, on the succession of Charles IX., prevented the arrival of the French bishops. At last, on January 18th, 1562, was held, with unusual solemnity, the first session under Pius IV., (seventeenth of the whole series,) at which there were present, besides the apostolic legates and the Cardinal of Trent, one hundred and six bishops, four mitred abbots, and four generals of religious orders. From this happy day, the council went on with its appointed work without any interference. There were grave discussions, sometimes warm and prolonged, but always ending in peace and harmony. The French bishops arrived, before the end of the year, under the leadership of the illustrious Charles of Guise, Cardinal of Lorraine. At last, to use the words of Jerome Ragazzoni, Bishop of Nazianzen, and coadjutor of Famagosta, orator at the last session, "the day arrived which Paul III. and Julius III. had yearned for, but which it was not given to them to see—a gladness reserved to Pius IV.—on which the Council of Trent, commenced long before, often interrupted, and sometimes transferred, was at last, thanks to God's great mercy, happily ended, to the great and unspeakable joy of all classes of men." The twenty-fifth and last session was held on December 3d and 4th, 1563. There were present at it four cardinal legates of the apostolic see, two other cardinals, those of Trent and Lorraine, three patriarchs, twenty-five archbishops,[30] one hundred and sixty-eight bishops, thirty-nine procurators of prelates legitimately absent, seven abbots, and seven generals of religious orders—making, in all, two hundred and fifty-five prelates, whose signatures are attached to the decrees. Amid the festive acclamations, composed and intoned by the Cardinal of Lorraine, tears of joy testified the gladness of all hearts; opponents embraced one another, no longer rivals, but brethren; the Te Deum was sung with feelings of the deepest gratitude; and as the first legate, Morone, having given his solemn blessing to the fathers, bade them, in the name of the supreme pontiff, go in peace, the last solemn act of the great council was performed. The whole time, from the first session under Paul III. to the last under Pius IV., was within a few days of eighteen years; but that actually occupied by the council was four years and about eight months. The canons and decrees, both in faith and discipline, were solemnly approved, at the request of the fathers, by "the most blessed Roman pontiff," Pius IV., as the council styled him, on January 25th, 1564; and, by a subsequent bull, they were declared obligatory on the whole church, from the first day of May of the same year.

This historical sketch will serve to give some idea of the difficulties the work of the council had to encounter. Whatever may be said in the abstract of the union of church and state, their relations in the sixteenth century were very unsatisfactory. Popes Paul III., Julius, and Pius wanted a general council; but it was very difficult so to arrange matters as to obtain the necessary consent of all the Catholic powers, and this difficulty always afforded an excuse for delay when delay was really desired. Then there were courtiers at Rome "to whose ears the word reform sounded harsh," as Pallavicini says; and who were suddenly animated by the most ardent zeal in defence of the prerogatives of the holy see, which, they alleged, would be unduly curtailed by the council. But the firmness of the pontiffs, under the grace of God, which never abandons his church, brought these machinations to nought. They refused to interfere to save their dependents from a thorough reform; and Pius IV., especially, declared that he left full liberty to the fathers in the matter. And in a discourse in the Consistory of Cardinals, on December 30th, 1563, he expressly thanked the fathers "for the religious zeal and resolute freedom with which they had spared no labor, no care, to remove all heresies and corruptions." "We are also," he continued, "not a little indebted to them for having been so moderate and indulgent in the work of reformation, in regard to our own affairs, (that is, the papal court,) that, had we preferred to take this duty on ourselves, and not commit it to their discretion, we should certainly have been more severe. Wherefore, as salutary measures have been adopted, it is our firm determination forthwith to carry the reform into effect by the observance of the decrees of the sacred synod. We shall rather, when necessary, make up by our own diligence for the moderation and leniency of the fathers; so far are we from wishing to neglect or diminish one iota."[8] And he appointed Cardinals Morone and Simonetta, both legates to the council, to see that nothing was done by any of the papal officials in contravention of the so lately approved decrees. The courtiers had to submit, and the court of Rome since that day has given little or no occasion [31] for serious complaint, and certainly no pretext for a schism under the name of reform. Another difficulty arose from the multitude of counsellors, and the liberty left in discussion. Now that the council has passed into history, it is pleasant to see that such ample freedom was allowed; but it must have been sometimes a sore task for the legates to keep order. They well deserved the encomium of Ragazzoni, "You have been our excellent leaders and directors in action. You have used incredible patience and diligence in guarding against any violation of our liberty, either in speaking or in legislating. You have spared no bodily labor, no mental exertion, to bring the undertaking to its desired end." But the principal difficulty arose from the Protestants themselves. They had asked for the council, but when it was assembled they would have nothing to do with it. Three different safe conducts were issued for them—one under Paul III., another under Julius III., and the last under Pius IV.—all of them as ample as could be desired; but to no purpose. They did not really want a council, but an ecclesiastical mob without a head; in other words, they wanted the main question of church authority to be decided in advance in their favor. Their course was substantially that of all former heretics; first, to appeal to the council, to gain time and cause trouble; then, after their condemnation, to abuse the council as much as they had formerly abused the pope. It would be difficult to determine which is to-day the greater bugbear of the average Protestant, the Council of Trent or the holy see.

Few, if any, assemblages have received such praise for learning, moderation, and zeal—not only from friends, but from candid opponents—as that of Trent. We will give as a sample the judgment of Hallam, himself not at all well disposed toward Catholic dogma. His testimony is the more valuable that he acknowledges to have taken his facts from the disingenuous account of the more than half Protestant, Fra Paolo Sarpi,[9] and never to have read the able and exhaustive history of Pallavicini:

To the praise of ability, industry, and fairness, all of the highest order from a natural point of view, Hallam unconsciously adds a still greater, in the eyes of any true Catholic, namely, that the council, on controverted dogmatic points, adhered to the tradition of the Catholic Church. And this on the authority of the carping Sarpi! What more could the greatest admirer say? Right in its view of dogma from the traditional—the true Catholic—stand-point, honest and unswerving in reforming abuses, patient in discussion, diligent in research, calm in decision—such is the substantial verdict of a Protestant writer, in the nineteenth century, on the great council of the sixteenth.

If we consider the variety of matters treated of in the council, its work will appear immense. The following accurate synopsis is taken from the oration of Ragazzoni, at the last session, which we have quoted before. In matters of faith, after the adoption of the venerable creed sanctioned by antiquity, the council drew up a catalogue of the inspired books of the Old and New Testament, and approved the old received Latin version of the Hebrew and Greek originals. It then passed to decide the questions that had been raised concerning the fall of man. Next, with admirable wisdom and order, it laid down the true Catholic doctrine on justification. The sacraments then claimed attention, and their number, their life-giving power through grace, and the nature of each one were accurately defined. The great dogma of the blessed eucharist was fully laid down; the real dignity of the Christian altar and sacrifice was vindicated; and the moot question of communion under one or two kinds settled both in theory and practice. Lastly, the false accusations of opponents were dispelled, and Catholic consciences gladdened by the enunciations on indulgences, purgatory, the invocation and veneration of saints, and the respect to be paid to their relics and images. The decision on so many important and difficult questions was no light task, and of the utmost importance. A "hard and fast line" was drawn between heresy and truth; and if the wayward were not all converted, the little ones of Christ were saved from the danger of being led astray. In her greatest trial, the church gave no uncertain sound. Nations might rage, and the rulers of the earth meditate rash things; but the truth of God did not abandon her, and she fearlessly proclaimed it in her council. In regard to some abuses in practical matters,[33] dependent on dogma, from which the innovators had seized a pretext to impugn the true faith, a thorough reform was decreed. Measures were taken to prevent any impropriety or irreverence in the celebration of the divine sacrifice, whether from superstitious observances, greed of filthy lucre, unworthy celebrants, profane places, or worldly concomitants. The different orders of ecclesiastics were accurately distinguished, and the exclusive rights and duties of each one clearly defined; some impediments of matrimony, which had been productive of evil rather than good, were removed, and most stringent regulations adopted to prevent the crying wrongs to which confiding innocence and virtue had been subjected under the pretext of clandestine marriages. All the abuses connected with indulgences, the veneration of the saints, and intercession for the souls of purgatory, were fully and finally extirpated. Nor was less care taken in regard to purely disciplinary matters. Measures were taken to insure, as far at least as human frailty would permit, the elevation of only worthy persons to ecclesiastical dignities; and stated times were appointed for the frequent and efficient preaching of the word of God, too much hitherto neglected, the necessity of which was insisted on with earnestness and practical force. The sacred duty of residence among their flocks was impressed on bishops and all inferiors having the care of souls; proper provision was made for the support of needy clergymen, and all privileges which might protect heresy or crime were swept away. To prevent all suspicion of avarice in the house of God, the gratuitous administration of the sacraments was made compulsory; and measures were taken to put an effectual stop to the career of the questor, by abolishing the office. Young men destined for the priesthood were to be trained in ecclesiastical seminaries; provincial synods were restored, and regular diocesan visitations ordered; many new and extended faculties were granted to the local authorities, for the sake of better order and prompter decision; the sacred duty of hospitality was inculcated in all clerics; wise regulations were passed to secure proper promotions to ecclesiastical benefices; all hereditary possession of God's sanctuary prohibited; moderation prescribed in the use of the power of excommunication; luxury, cupidity, and license, as far as possible, exiled from the sanctuary; most holy and wise provisions adopted for the better regulation of the religious of both sexes, who were judiciously shorn of many of their privileges, to the proper development of episcopal authority; the great ones of the world were warned of their duties and responsibilities. These, and many other similar measures, were the salutary, efficient, and lasting reforms with which God, at last taking mercy on his people, inspired the fathers of Trent, legitimately congregated under the presidency and guidance of the apostolic see. Such was the great work done by the council—so great that even this summary review makes our wonder at the length of its duration cease. One remark seems worthy of special notice. The usual complaint of Protestants against the council was, and is, that it was too much under papal influence. Now, one of the most notable features of its legislation is the great increase of the power of bishops. Not only was their ordinary authority confirmed and extended, but they were made in many cases, some of them of no little importance, perpetual delegates of the apostolic see, so that Philip II. of Spain is reported to have said of his bishops, that "they went to Trent[34] as parish priests, and returned like so many popes."[12] So groundless is the statement that the papal jealousy of episcopal power prevented any really salutary reforms.

Such was the great work of the Council of Trent. But a tree is best judged by its fruits, and this test will give us even a better idea of its importance and magnitude. Perhaps the best encomium of the council is that the Catholic of to-day reads with astonishment of abuses and measures of reform in the sixteenth century. The prophecy of Ragazzoni, in his often-quoted oration, has been literally fulfilled—the names of many of the evils of that period have been forgotten. Thank God! to understand the work of Trent, we have to study the internal troubles of the church of those days in the pages of history, for we do not find them in our own time. They have utterly disappeared. We have already quoted Hallam on the revival of faith and piety in the church that was the immediate effect of the council. All historians agree that the triumphs of Protestantism closed with the first fifty years of its existence. After that it gradually declined. "We see," says Macaulay in his famous Edinburgh Review article on the papacy, "that during two hundred and fifty years Protestantism has made no conquests worth speaking of. Nay, we believe that as far as there has been a change, that change has been in favor of the Church of Rome." Hallam has noticed the same fact, and assigned its real causes; we shall give his words, as, with a few obvious exceptions, they might have been written by a Catholic: "The prodigious increase of the Protestant party in Europe, after the middle of the (sixteenth) century, did not continue more than a few years. It was checked and fell back, not quite so rapidly or completely as it came on, but so as to leave the antagonist church in perfect security." He goes on to give the causes of the reaction. The influence of the Council of Trent in its reform of the clergy, both secular and regular, (we have already given his words,) is mentioned as the principal cause; and, "far above all the rest," he says, "the Jesuits were the instruments of regaining France and Germany to the church they served." "They conquered us," says Ranke, "on our own ground, in our own homes, and stripped us of a part of our country." The following passages will give some idea of the extent and causes of the change:

In the Council of Trent were again fulfilled the words of the prophet concerning the Messiah: "Behold, he cometh ... like a refining fire, and like the fuller's herb; and he shall sit refining and cleansing the silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and shall refine them as gold, and as silver; and they shall offer sacrifices to the Lord in justice; and the sacrifice shall please the Lord, as in the days of old, and in the ancient years."[15]

The zeal of the fathers did not, it is true, succeed in bringing back all the Protestants; but neither did the Council of Nice succeed with the Arians, or that of Ephesus with the Nestorians, or that of Chalcedon with the followers of Eutyches. But they kept the Catholic faith pure; they sternly applied the pruning-hook to the numerous excrescences which had been allowed to accumulate. God blessed their work; and the tree of life, planted by running waters, again produced new flowers and fruits of holiness.

Though from the moment the decrees were solemnly approved by the holy see, with the exception of that on clandestine marriages, for which special provision had been made, they commenced to be obligatory on the whole church; yet it was thought [36] well to obtain a special promulgation in the different Catholic countries of Europe. The republic of Venice and the king of Portugal first gave the example; Philip II. of Spain followed, and was imitated, after some little delay in the hope of reconciling the Protestants, by the German emperor. France, then governed by Catharine of Medici, alone, of Catholic countries, refused. The excuse given was, principally, the turbulence of the Huguenots; the real reason, the desire to preserve certain royal prerogatives in church matters,[16] with which the reforms of the council interfered. So, in the name of Gallican liberties and royal privileges, the disciplinary portion was not published in France. Most of the measures were actually adopted by the bishops in provincial councils; but the seed of great evils was sown. These same liberties, so called, rendered possible the chicanery by which the Jansenists subsequently sought to elude the solemn condemnations of the holy see; and at the revolution gave the idea of the civil constitution of the clergy, rather than accept which so many noble bishops and priests gladly met death. But the French Church has tired of them; a terrible experience has taught her that the only true safeguard of her liberty is, in a close union with the see of him to whom Christ confided the duty of strengthening his brethren. In regard to the decrees on faith, there was never any hesitancy in France; and we owe some of our very best apologetic or controversial works against Protestantism to zealous and learned writers of that nation.

One remarkable consequence of the council was a great outpouring of the spirit of sanctity. St. Charles Borromeo, as prime minister of his uncle, Pius IV., contributed greatly to its successful termination. Afterward, as archbishop of Milan, he set an example of enforcing its decrees which has ever since served as a rule for zealous bishops. He changed the face of affairs in Lombardy, and may be said to have led the way in practically carrying the reforms into effect. Numbers of holy bishops aided him, or imitated his example; and before he died the new discipline was well established. At Rome, St. Philip Neri excited in a wonderful way the spirit of zeal in the clergy, and of piety in the laity; and his work and example remain to this day. It is impossible not to be struck with the new spirit that had seized the papal court. The popes themselves were men not only of blameless lives, but zealous and active for the good of religion. A glance at Ranke's history—especially the notes at the end—will satisfy the reader of this; while Catholic works abound in edifying accounts. Such men as Baronius and Bellarmine were ornaments of the Sacred College, not only for their learning, but for their solid, extraordinary piety, which has barely failed of obtaining the honors of the altar. The Society of Jesus, and other religious orders, were seminaries of virtues, of zeal, of missionary spirit; and the heralds of the cross went to the very ends of the earth to bring the glad tidings of salvation to those sitting in darkness. Every state and condition of life has its saints of this period. St. Mary Magdalen di Pazzi, the nun; St. Francis Borgia, the rich[37] man who gave up all for Christ; St. Felix of Cantalice, the unlettered lay brother; St. Aloysius, the pattern of youth; St. Francis Xavier, the apostle; St. Charles, the model bishop; St. Philip Neri, the perfect secular priest; St. Pius V., the pope who added to his triple crown the fourth, and greatest, of sanctity; and many others, whose names are not so well known to the world. It was emphatically the age of saints: war always produces heroes.

There have been shortcomings since Trent, because the church has her human as well as her divine element, and heresies and scandals, it was foretold by her divine Founder, must come; but, by far, not so many as before it. The contrast between the ease with which Pius IX. convokes a general council and the difficulties with which his predecessors had to contend in the sixteenth century, is so plain as to require no comment, and, at the same time, affords striking evidence of the efficacy of the work done at Trent. It was a great work, in every sense of the word. It met from the beginning with great difficulties, which were overcome by equal constancy; it was devised and executed by men great in learning, prudence, and zeal; it effected a reaction in favor of Catholicity than which there never occurred "one on a larger scale in the annals of mankind;"[17] it thoroughly purified the church from wretched and inveterate abuses; it revived a spirit of sanctity that emulated the palmiest days of the church; and it has handed down to us the boon of pure faith and strict observance which our unfortunate opponents cannot but admire, even though they attempt to decry it. While Protestantism was pulling down, the council built up on a sure foundation; and its work has been lasting.

Through the lapse of three centuries the grateful church has ever re-echoed, as she re-echoes at this day, the acclamation of the Cardinal of Lorraine, "The sacred ecumenical Council of Trent—let us profess its faith; let us always observe its decrees. Semper confiteamur, semper servemus."

MATTHEW XXVII.

ANGELA.

CHAPTER IV.
THE BUREAUCRAT AND THE SWALLOWS.

Herr Frank returned to the city. Before he went he took advantage of the absence of Richard, who had gone out about nine o'clock, to converse with Klingenberg about matters of importance. They sat in the doctor's studio, the window of which was open. Frank closed it before he began the conversation.

"Dear friend, I must speak to you about a very distressing peculiarity of my son. I do so because I know your influence over him, and I hope much from it."

Klingenberg listened with surprise, for Herr Frank had begun in great earnestness and seemed greatly depressed.

"On our journey from the city, I discovered in Richard, to my great surprise, a deep-seated antipathy, almost an abhorrence of women. He is determined never to marry. He considers marriage a misfortune, inasmuch as it binds a man to the whims and caprices of a wife. If I had many sons, Richard's idiosyncrasy would be of little consequence; but as he is my only son and very stubborn in his preconceived opinions, you will see how very distressing it must be to me."

Herr Frank related Richard's account of his meeting with Isabella and his knowledge of the unhappy marriage of his friend Emil.

"Do you not think that experiences of this kind must repel a noble-minded young man?" said the doctor.

"Admitted! But Isabella and Laura are exceptions, and exceptions by no means justify my son's perverted judgment of women. I told him this. But he still declared that Isabella and Laura were the rule and not the exception; that the women of the present day follow a perverted taste; and that the wearing of crinoline, a costume he detests, proves this."

"I know," said the doctor, "that Richard abominates crinoline. Last year he expressed his opinion about it, and I had to agree with him."

"My God!" said the father, astonished, "you certainly would not encourage my son in his perverted opinion?"

"No," returned the doctor quietly; "but you must not expect me to condemn sound opinions. His judgment of woman is prejudiced—granted. But observe well, my dear Frank. This judgment is at the same time a protest of a noble nature against the age of crinoline. Your son expects much of women. Superficiality, vanity, passion for dress, fickleness, and so forth, do not satisfy his sense of propriety. Marriage, to him, is an earnest, holy union. He would unite himself to a well-disposed woman, to a noble soul who would love her husband and her duties, but not to a degenerate specimen of womankind. Such I conceive to have been the reasons which have produced in your son this antipathy."

"I believe you judge rightly," answered Frank. "But it must appear clear to Richard that his views are[39] unjust, and that there are always women who would realize his expectations."

The doctor thought for a moment, and a significant smile played over his features.

"This must become clear to him—yes, and it will become clear to him sooner, perhaps, than you expect," said the doctor.

"Yesterday we met Angela," said Klingenberg. "This Angela is an extraordinary being of dazzling beauty; almost the incarnation of Richard's ideal. I told him of her fine qualities, which he was inclined to question. But happily I was able to establish these qualities by facts. Now, as Angela lives but a mile from here and as the simple customs of the country render access to the family easy, I have not understood the character of your son if he does not take advantage of this opportunity to become more intimately acquainted with Angela, even if his object were only to confirm his former opinions of women. If he knew Angela more intimately, it is my firm conviction that his aversion would soon change into the most ardent affection."

"Siegwart's daughter!" he gasped. "No, I will never consent to such a connection."

"That is no reason. Siegwart is an excellent man, rich, upright, and respected by the whole neighborhood. Why does he happen to appear so unfavorably in your eyes?"

"An explanation is not possible," said Frank. "But my son will rather die a bachelor than marry Siegwart's daughter."

"I will try to meet your wishes," returned Klingenberg. "Perhaps this daughter of Siegwart will afford efficient aid."

"My son's liberty will not be restricted. He may visit the Siegwart family when he wishes. But in matters where the mature mind of the father has to decide, I shall always act according to my better judgment."

The doctor again shrugged his shoulders. They shook hands, and in ten minutes after Herr Frank was off for the train. Richard had left Frankenhöhe two hours before. He passed quickly through the vineyard. A secret power seemed to impel the young man. He glanced often at Siegwart's handsome dwelling, and hopeful suspense agitated his countenance. When he reached the lawn, he slackened his pace. He would reflect, and understand clearly the object of his visit. He came to observe Angela, whose character had made such a strong impression on him and who threatened to compel him to throw his present opinions of women to the winds. He would at the same time reflect on the consequences of this possible change to his peace and liberty.

"Angela is beautiful, very beautiful, far more so than a hundred[40] others who are beautiful but wear crinoline." He had written in his diary:

Frank reviewed these resolutions as he passed slowly over the lawn, where some servants were employed, who greeted him respectfully as he passed. In the hall he heard a man's voice that came from the same room he had entered on his first visit. The door was open, and the voice spoke briskly and warmly.

These words vibrated disagreeably in Richard's soul, and urged him to know the man from whom they came.

Herr Siegwart went to meet the visitor and offered him his hand. The other gentleman remained sitting, and looked at Frank with stately indifference.

"Herr Frank, my esteemed neighbor of Frankenhöhe," said Siegwart, introducing Frank.

While Siegwart rang the bell, Richard cast a searching glance at the assessor who had said, "Angela is as lovely as ever."

The assessor had a pale, studious color, regular features in which there was an expression of official importance. Frank, who was a fine observer, thought he had never seen such a perfect and sharply defined specimen of the bureaucratic type. Every wrinkle in the assessor's forehead told of arrogance and absolutism. The red ribbon in the button-hole of Herr von Hamm excited Frank's astonishment. He thought it remarkable that a young man of four or five and twenty could have merited the ribbon of an order. He might infer from this that decorations and merit do not necessarily go together.

"How glad I am that you have kept your word!" said Siegwart to Frank complacently. "How is your father?"

"I have often admired your father's attentions to Dr. Klingenberg," said Siegwart after a short pause. "He has for years had Frankenhöhe prepared for the accommodation of the doctor. You are Klingenberg's constant companion, and I do not doubt but such is the wish of your father. And your father tears himself from his business and comes frequently from the city to see that the doctor's least wish is realized. I have observed this these last eight years, and I have often thought that the doctor is to be envied, on account of this noble friendship."

"You know, I suppose, that the doctor saved my father when his life was despaired of?"

"I know; but there are many physicians who have saved lives and who do not find such a noble return."

These words of acknowledgment had something in them very offensive to the assessor. He opened and shut his eyes and mouth, and cast a grudging, envious look at Richard.

They touched glasses. Hamm put his glass to his lips, without drinking; Frank tasted the noble liquor with the air of a connoisseur; while Siegwart's smiling gaze rested on him.

"They have not degenerated yet. Besides, proper care and attention make up for the unsuitableness of our soil and climate."

"You would oblige me, Herr Siegwart, if you would preserve me some shoots when you next trim them."

"With pleasure. I had them set last year; they shot forth fine roots, and I can let you have any number of shoots."

"Just the right time. Our vine-growers generally set them too early. It should be done in May, and not in April. Shall I send them over?"

"You are too kind, Herr Siegwart. My request must certainly destroy your plan in regard to those shoots."

"Not at all; I have all I can use. It gives me great pleasure to be able to accommodate a neighbor. It's settled; I'll send over the Burgundies this evening."

It was clear to Hamm that Siegwart desired to be agreeable to the wealthy Frank. The assessor opened and shut his eyes and mouth, and fidgeted about in his chair. While he inwardly boiled and fretted, he very properly concluded that he must consider himself offended. From the moment of Frank's arrival, the proprietor had entirely forgotten him. He was about to leave, in order not to expose his nerves to further excitement, when chance afforded him an opportunity to give vent to his ill-humor.

Two boys came running into the room. They directed their bright eyes to Siegwart, and their childish, joyful faces, seemed to say,

One of them carried a tin box in his hand; there was a lock on the box, and a small opening in the top—evidently a money-box.

"Gelobt sei Jesus Christus," said the children, and remained standing near the door.

"In Ewigkeit," returned Siegwart. "Are you there again, my little ones? That's right; come here, Edward." And Siegwart took out his purse and dropped a few pennies into the box.

"A savings-box? Who gave the permission?" said the assessor in a tone that frightened the children, astonished Richard, and caused Siegwart to look with embarrassment at the questioner.

"The ordinances make no exceptions," retorted Hamm. "The ordinances forbid all collections that are not officially permitted." And he eyed the box as if he had a notion to confiscate it.

Perhaps the lads noticed this, for they moved backward to the door and suddenly disappeared from the room.

"I beg pardon, Herr Assessor," said Siegwart. "The Peter-pence is collected in the whole Catholic world, and the Catholics of Salingen thought they ought to assist the head of their church, who is so sorely pressed, and[42] who has been robbed of his possessions."

"I answer—the ordinances make no exceptions; the Peter-pence comes under the ordinances. I find myself compelled to interpose against this trespass."

"But the Peter-pence is collected in the whole country, Herr von Hamm! Why, even in the public journals we read the results of this collection, and I have never heard that the government forbade the Peter-pence."

"Leave the government out of the question. I stand on my instructions. The government forbids all collections unless permission is granted. You must not expect an official to connive at an open breach of the ordinances. I will do my duty and remind the burgomaster of Salingen that he has not done his."

The occurrence was very annoying to Siegwart; this could be seen in his troubled countenance. He thought of the reproof of the timid burgomaster, and feared that the collection might in future be stopped.

"The request must be made in written official form," said Hamm. "You know, Herr Siegwart, that I am disposed to comply with your wishes, but I regret I cannot do so in the present case; and I must openly confess I oppose the Peter-pence on principle. The temporal power of the pope has become unnecessary. Why support an untenable dominion?"

"I consider the temporal power of the pope to be a necessity," said Siegwart emphatically. "If the pope were not an independent prince, but the subject of another ruler, he would in many things have to govern the church according to the mind and at the command of his superior. Sound common sense tells us that the pope must be free."

"Certainly, as far as I am concerned," returned Hamm. "But why drain the money out of the country for an object that cannot be accomplished? I tell you that the political standing of the bankrupt papal government will not be saved by the Peter-pence."

"Permit me to observe, Herr Assessor, that I differ with you entirely. The papal government is by no means bankrupt—quite the contrary. Until the breaking out of the Franco-Sardinian revolution, its finances were as well managed and flourishing as those of any state in Europe. I will convince you of this in a moment." He went to the bookcase and handed the assessor a newspaper. "These statistics will convince you of the correctness of my assertion."

"As the documents to prove these statements are wanting, I have great reason to doubt their correctness," said Hamm. "Paper will not refuse ink, and in the present case the pen was evidently driven by a friendly hand."

"From the contradictions between this account of the papal finances and that given by all independent editors."

"Permit me to call that editor not 'an independent,' but a 'friend of the church.' The enemies of the church will not praise a church which they hate. The papal government is the most calumniated government on earth; and calumny and falsehood perform wonders in our times. The Italian situation furnishes at present a most striking illustration. The king of Piedmont has been raised to the rulership of Italy by the unanimous voice of the people—so say the papers. But the revolution in the greater part of Italy at the present time proves that the unanimous voice[43] of the people was a sham, and that the Piedmontese government is hated and despised by the majority of the Italians. It is the same in many other things. If falsehood and calumny were not the order of the day, falsehood and calumny would not sit crowned on the throne."

"Right!" said Richard. "It is indisputable. It is nothing but the depravity of the times that enables the emperor to domineer over the world."

Siegwart heard Frank's observation with pleasure. Hamm read this in the open countenance of the proprietor, and he made a movement as though he would like to tramp on Frank's toes.

"I admit the flourishing condition of the former Papal States," said Hamm, with a mock smile. "I will also admit that the former subjects of the pope, who have been impoverished by the hungry Piedmontese, desire the milder papal government. 'There is good living under the crozier,' says an old proverb. But what does all this amount to? Does the beautiful past overthrow the accomplished facts of the present? The powers have determined to put an end to papal dominion. The powers have partly accomplished this. Can the Peter-pence change the programme of the powers? Certainly not. The papal government must go the way of all flesh, and if the Catholics are taxed for an unattainable object, it is, in my opinion, unjust, to say the least."

The proprietor shook his head thoughtfully. "We consider the question from very different stand-points," said he. "Pius IX. is the head of the church—the spiritual father of all Catholics. The revolution has robbed him of his revenues. Why should not Catholics give their father assistance?"

"And I ask," said Hamm, "why give the pope alms when the powers are ready to give him millions?"

"Well—on the very natural condition that he will acknowledge accomplished facts."

"You find this condition so natural!" said Siegwart, somewhat excited. "Do you forget the position of the pope? Remember that on those very principles of which the pope is the highest representative, was built the civilization of the present. The pope condemns robbery, injustice, violence, and all the principles of modern revolution. How can the pope acknowledge as accomplished facts, results which have sprung from injustice, robbery, and violence? The moment the pope does that, he ceases to be the first teacher of the people and the vicar of Christ on earth."

"You take a strong religious position, my dear friend," said Hamm, smiling compassionately.

"I do, most assuredly," said the proprietor with emphasis. "And I am convinced that my position is the right one."

Hamm smiled more complacently still. Frank observed this smile; and the contemptuous manner of the official toward the open, kind-hearted proprietor annoyed him.

"Pius IX. is at any rate a noble man," said he, looking sharply at the assessor. "There exists a critical state of uncertainty in all governments. All the courts and principalities look to Paris, and the greatest want of principle seems to be in the state taxation. The pope alone does not shrink; he fears neither the anger nor the threats of the powers. While thrones are tumbling, and Pius IX. is not master in his own house, that remarkable man does not make the least[44] concession to the man in power. The powers have broken treaties, trampled on justice, and there is no longer any right but the right of revolution—of force. There is nothing any longer certain; all is confusion. The pope alone holds aloft the banner of right and justice. In his manifestoes to the world, he condemns error, falsehood, and injustice. The pope alone is the shield of those moral forces which have for centuries given stability and safety to governments. This firmness, this confidence in the genius of Christianity, this unsurpassed struggle of Pius, deserves the highest admiration even of those who look upon the contest with indifference."

Siegwart listened and nodded assent. Hamm ate sardines, without paying the least attention to the speaker.

"The Roman love of power is well known, and Rome has at all times made the greatest sacrifices for it," said he.

The proprietor drummed with his fingers on the table. Frank thought he observed him suppressing his anger, before he answered,

"Rome does not contend for love of dominion. She contends for the authority of religion, for the maintenance of those eternal principles without which there is no civilization. This even Herder, who is far from being a friend of Rome, admits when he says, 'Without the church, Europe would, perhaps, be a prey to despots, a scene of eternal discord, and a Mogul wilderness.' Rome's battle is, therefore, very important, and honorable. Had it not been for her, you would not have escaped the bloody terrorisms of the power-seeking revolution. Think of French liberty at present, think of the large population of Cayenne, of the Neapolitan prisons, where thousands of innocent men hopelessly languish."

"You have not understood me, my dear Siegwart. Take an example for illustration. The press informs us almost daily of difficulties between the government and the clergy. The cause of this trouble is that the latter are separated from and wish to oppose the former. To speak plainly, the Catholic clergy are non-conforming. They will not give up that abnormal position which the moral force of past times conceded to them. But in organized states, the clergy, the bishops, and the pastors should be nothing more than state officials, whose rule of conduct is the command of the sovereign."

"That is to make the church the servant of the state," said Siegwart. "Religion, stripped of her divine title, would be nothing more than the tool of the minister to restrain the people."

"Well, yes," said the official very coolly. "Religion is always a strong curb on the rough, uneducated masses; and if religion restrains the ignorant, supports the moral order and the government, she has fulfilled her mission."

"Religion, according to my belief, educates men not for the state but for their eternal destiny."

"Perfectly right, Herr Siegwart, according to your view of the question. I admire the elevation of your religious convictions, which all men cannot rise up to."

A mock smile played on the assessor's pale countenance as he said this. Siegwart did not observe it; but Frank did.

"If I understand you rightly, Herr Assessor, the clergy are only state officials in clerical dress."

The assessor nodded his head condescendingly, and continued to soak a sardine in olive-oil and take it between[45] his knife and fork as Frank began to speak. The fine-feeling Frank felt nettled at this contempt, and immediately chastised Hamm for his want of politeness.

"I take your nod for an affirmative answer to my question," said he. "You will allow me to observe that your view of the position and purpose of the clergy must lead to the most absurd consequences."

The assessor turned an ashy color. He threw himself back on the sofa and looked at the speaker with scornful severity.

"My view is that of every enlightened statesman of the nineteenth century," said he proudly. "How can you, a mere novice in state matters, come to such a conclusion."

"I come to it by sound thinking," said Frank haughtily. "If the clergy are only the servants of the state, they are bound in the exercise of their functions to follow the instructions of the state."

"If the government think a change in the church necessary, say the separation of the school from the church, the abolition of festivals, the appointing of infidel professors to theological chairs, the compiling of an enlightened catechism—and all these relate to the spirit of the times or the supposed welfare of the state—then the clergy must obey."

"You see I comprehend your idea of the supreme power of the state," continued Frank. "The state is supreme. The church must be deprived of all independence. She must not constitute a state within a state. If it seems good to a minister to abolish marriage as a sacrament, or the confessional, or to subject the teaching of the clergy to a revision by the civil authority, because a majority of the chambers wish it, or because the spirit of the age demands it, then the opposition of the clergy would be illegal and their resistance disobedience."

"Naturally—naturally," said the official impatiently. "Come, now, let us have the proof of your assertion."

"Draw the conclusions from what I have said, Herr Assessor, and you have the most striking proof of the absurdity and ridiculousness of your gagged state church," said Frank haughtily.

"Simply thus: If the priest must preach according to the august instructions of the state and not according to the principles of religious dogma, he would then preach Badish in Baden, Hessish in Hesse, Bavarian in Bavaria, Mecklenburgish in Mecklenburg; in short, there would be as many sects as there are states and principalities. And these sects would be constantly changing, as the chambers or ministerial instructions would command or allow. All religion would cease; for it would be no longer the expression of the divine will and revelation, but the work of the chambers and the princes. Such a religion would be contemptible in the eyes of every thinking man. I would not give a brass button for such a religion."

"You go too far, Herr Frank," said Hamm. "Religion has a divine title, and this glory must be retained."

"Certainly, that is clear," said the assessor as he arose, and, with a smiling face, bowed lowly. Angela had entered the hall, and in consequence of Hamm's greeting was obliged to come into the room. She might have returned from a walk, for she wore a straw hat and a light shawl was thrown over her shoulders.[46] She led by the hand her little sister Eliza, a charming child of four years.

The sisters remained standing near the door. Eliza looked with wondering eyes at the stranger, whose movements were very wonderful to the mind of the little one, and whose pale face excited her interest.

Angela's glance seemed to have blown away all the official dust that remained in the soul of Hamm. The assessor was unusually agreeable. His face lost its obstinate expression, and became light and animated. Even its color changed to one of life and nature.

To Richard, who liked to take notes, and whose visit to Siegwart's had no other object, the change that could be produced in a bureaucrat by such rare womanly beauty was very amusing. He had arisen and stepped back a little. He observed the assessor carefully till a smile between astonishment and pity lit up his countenance. He then looked at Angela, who stood motionless on the same spot. It seemed to require great resignation on her part to notice the flattering speech and obsequious attentions of the assessor. Richard observed that her countenance was tranquil, but her manner more grave than usual. She still held the little one by the hand, who pressed yet closer to her the nearer the wonderful man came. Hamm's voice rose to a tone of enthusiasm, and he took a step or two toward the object of his reverence, when a strange enemy confronted him. Some swallows had come in with Angela. Till now they were quiet and seemed to be observing the assessor; but when he approached Angela, briskly gesticulating, the swallows raised their well-known shrill cry of anxiety, left their perches and fluttered around the official. Interrupted in the full flow of his eloquence, he struck about with his hands to frighten them. The swallows only became the noisier, and their fluttering about Hamm assumed a decidedly warlike character. They seemed to consider him as a dangerous enemy of Angela whom they wished to keep off. Richard looked on in wonder, Siegwart shook his head and stroked his beard, and Angela smiled at the swallows.

"These are abominable creatures," cried Hamm warding them off. "Why, such a thing never happened to me before. Off with you! you troublesome wretches."

The birds flew out of the room, still screaming; and their shrill cries could be heard high up in the air.

"The swallows have a grudge against you," said Siegwart. "They generally treat only the cats and hawks in this way."

"Perhaps they have been frightened at this red ribbon," returned Hamm. "I regret, my dear young lady, to have frightened your little pets. When I come again, I will leave the object of their terror at home."

"You should not deprive yourself of an ornament which has an honorable significance on account of the swallows, particularly as we do not know whether it was really the red color that displeased them," said she.

"You think, then, Miss Angela, that there is something else about me they dislike?"

"Oh! if I only knew the cause of their displeasure," said Hamm enthusiastically. "You have an affection for the swallows, and I would not displease any thing that you love."

"Angela," said her father, "here is Herr Frank, to whom you are under obligations."

"Sir," said she gently, "you returned some things that were valuable to me; were it not for your kindness, they would probably have been lost. I thank you."

A formal bow was Frank's answer. Hamm stood smiling, his searching glance alternating between the stately young man and Angela. But in the manner of both he observed nothing more than reserve and cold formality.

Angela left the room. The assessor sat down on the sofa and poured out a glass of wine.

Eliza sat on her father's knee. Richard observed the beautiful child with her fine features and golden silken locks that hung about her tender face. The winning expression of innocence and gentleness in her mild, childish eyes particularly struck him.

"A beautiful, lovely child," said he involuntarily, and as he looked in Siegwart's face he read there a deep love and a quiet, fatherly fondness for the child.

"Eliza is not always as lovely and good as she is now," he returned. "She has still some little faults which she must get rid of."

"Yes, that's what Angela said," chattered the little one. "Angela said I must be very good; I must love to pray; I must obey my father and mother; then the angels who are in heaven will love me."

"Yes, I can say the 'Our Father' and the 'Hail Mary.' Angela is teaching me many nice prayers."

"Certainly, my child," answered Frank, smiling; "but I doubt whether my prayers are as pleasing to God as yours."

"Angela also said we should not lie," continued Eliza. "The good God does not love children who lie."

Here the young man was affected by a peculiar emotion. He thought of Angela as the first instructor of the child; placed near this little innocent, she appeared like its guardian angel. He saw clearly at this moment the great importance of first impressions on the young, and thought that in after life they would not be obliterated. He expressed his thoughts, and Siegwart confirmed them.

"I am of your opinion, Herr Frank. The most enduring impressions are made in early childhood. The germ of good must be implanted in the tender and susceptible heart of the child and there developed. Many, indeed most parents overlook this important principle of education. This is a great and pernicious error. Man is born with bad propensities; they grow with his growth and increase with his strength. In early childhood, they manifest themselves in obstinacy, wilfulness, excessive love of play, disobedience, and a disposition to lie. If these outgrowths are plucked up and removed in childhood by careful, religious training, it will be much easier to form the heart to habits of virtue than in after years. Many parents begin to instruct their children after they have spoiled them. Is this not your opinion, Herr Assessor?"

Hamm was aroused by this sudden question. He had not paid any attention to the conversation, but had been uninterruptedly stroking his moustache and gazing abstractedly into vacancy.

"What did you ask, my dear Siegwart?[48] Whether I am of your opinion? Certainly, certainly, entirely of your opinion. Your views are always sound, practical, and matured by great experience, as in this case."

"Well, I can't say you were always of my opinion," said Siegwart smiling; "have we not just been sharply disputing about the Peter-pence?"

"O my dear friend! as a private individual I agree with you entirely on these questions; but an official must frequently defend in a system of government that which he privately condemns."

Frank perceived Hamm's object. He wished to do away with the unfavorable impressions his former expressions might have made on the proprietor. The reason of this was clear to him since he had discovered the assessor's passion for Angela.

"I am rejoiced," said Siegwart, "that we agree at least in that most important matter, religion."

Frank remembered his father's remark, "The Siegwart family is intensely clerical and ultramontane." It was new and striking to him to see the question of religion considered the most important. He concluded from this, and was confirmed in his conclusions by the leading spirit of the Siegwart family, that, in direct contradiction to modern ideas, religion is the highest good.

"Nevertheless," said Siegwart, "I object to a system of government that is inimical to the church."

Richard took his departure. At home, he wrote a few hasty lines in his diary and then went into the most retired part of the garden. Here he sat in deep thought till the servant called him to dinner.

Frank smiled. He guessed the meaning of this walk, and as they both entered the dining-room together his conjecture was confirmed.

The doctor entered somewhat abruptly and did not seem to observe Richard's presence. His eyes had a penetrating, almost fierce expression and his brows were knit. He sat down to the table mechanically, and ate what was placed before him. It is questionable whether he knew what he was eating, or even that he was eating. He did not speak a word, and Frank, who knew his peculiarities, did not disturb him by a single syllable. This was not difficult, as he was busily occupied with his own thoughts.

After the meal was over, Klingenberg came to himself. "My dear Richard, I beg your pardon," said he in a tone of voice which was almost tender. "Excuse my weakness. I have read this morning a scientific article that upsets all my previous theories on the subject treated of. In the whole field of human investigation there is nothing whatever certain, nothing firmly established. What one to-day proves by strict logic to be true, to-morrow another by still stronger logic proves to be false. From the time of Aristotle to the present, philosophers have disagreed, and the infallible philosopher will certainly never be born. It is the same in all branches. I would not be the least astonished if Galileo's system would be proved to be false. If the instruments, the means of acquiring astronomical knowledge, continue to improve, we may live to learn that the earth stands still and that the sun goes waltzing around our little planet. This uncertainty is very discouraging[49] to the human mind. We might say with Faust,

"In my humble opinion," said Frank, "every investigator moves in a limited circle. The most profound thinker does not go beyond these set limits; and if he would boldly over-step them, he would be thrown back by evident contradiction into that circle which Omnipotence has drawn around the human intellect."

"Very reasonable, Richard; very reasonable. But the desire of knowledge must sometimes be satiated," continued the doctor after a short pause. "If the human mind were free from the narrow limits of the deceptive world of sense, and could see and know with pure spiritual eyes, the barriers of which you speak would fall. Even the Bible assures us of this. St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says, 'We see now through a glass in an obscure manner, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know as I am known.' I would admire St. Paul on account of this passage alone if he never had written another. How awful is the moral quality of the human soul taken in connection with its future capacity for knowledge. And how natural, how evident, is the connection. The human mind will receive knowledge from the source of all knowledge—God, in proportion as it has been just and good. For this reason our Redeemer calls the world of the damned 'outer darkness,' and the world of the blessed, the 'kingdom of light.'"

"We sometimes see in that way even now," said Frank after a pause. "The wicked have ideas very different from those of the good. A frivolous spirit mocks at and derides that which fills the good with happiness and contentment. We might, then, say that even in this life man knows as he is known."

The doctor cast an admiring glance at the young man. "We entirely agree, my young friend; wickedness is to the sciences what a poisonous miasma and the burning rays of the sun are to the young plants. Yes, vice begets atheism, materialism, and every other abortion of thought."

Richard took from his room Vogt's Physiological Letters, went into the garden, and buried himself in its contents.

MORALITY OF THE CITY OF ROME.[18]

We promised in our last number to pay our respects to an infamous calumny about Rome, the capital of the Christian Church, and seat of the Sovereign Pontiffs, Vicars of our Lord Jesus Christ upon earth.

This calumny has been extensively circulated. We have found it in each one of the works at the head of this article, and we suppose it has been repeated in many others which have not fallen under our observation; for our "evangelical" journals, as they style themselves, and a large portion of the secular press, seem to have very loose notions of morality where the Catholic Church is concerned. Every story to her disadvantage will be sure to please their public, or to supply the want of argument, and therefore it is seized upon with eagerness and repeated over the length and breadth of the land. It matters little to them whether it be true or not, so long as it answers the purpose. It is enough for them that somebody or other has started it, without inquiring who it was, or whether he had any right to make such a statement. It is also quite immaterial how improbable the story may be, or what contradictions it may involve, or out of what ingenious inferences, by putting this and that together, it may be constructed; it suffices that it be something injurious to the Catholic religion, and at once the end sanctifies the means; and God, they seem to think, will easily wink at any breach of the commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor," when that neighbor is only a papist. Besides, the appetite of the public for this sort of thing seems to be so insatiable that they are deemed ready to swallow any thing, however it may outrage common sense or probability; and therefore they do not fear any loss of reputation if they are detected in the circulation of the falsehood. Corporations are said to have no souls, and the reverend editor of a religious periodical easily seems to absolve himself from any obligation which Christian charity or even decency would seem to impose upon him, in regard to the papist, whom he readily classes with the infidel or the pagan.

The calumny we are about to refute furnishes us with an apt illustration of these remarks. It wears on its face an air of extreme improbability. It is to this effect: that in Rome nearly three fourths of all the children born are illegitimate.

This is simply incredible. When we read of half the children in Stockholm, in Protestant Sweden, or in Vienna, in Catholic Austria, being illegitimate, we can scarcely believe the naked statement. Without disputing the official figures, we look to see if there is no way of explaining this anomalous state of things—if the reality corresponds with the appearance. The large excess in the number of births in proportion to the[51] population, and the existence of a large foundling hospital, as in Vienna, used by the poorer inhabitants of the country around even to a considerable distance, would lead us to a sounder conclusion in regard to its social state than the bare inspection of the figures. But the supposition that three fourths of all the children born in Rome or any other city, Protestant or Catholic, are illegitimate, is too exaggerated to be entertained for a moment. It seems to find ready credence, however; probably through some such mental process as this: "Catholics are corrupt and vicious. Rome is the chief of all Catholic cities, and therefore the most corrupt and vicious of all, and no story of its corruption is too big for belief. The more incredible for any other place, the more worthy of belief for Rome."

But let us come more to details about this statement in regard to Rome. We quote from Mr. Seymour's book:

He goes on to say that according to Bowring, an agent of the British government, the population of Rome was 153,678, and the total number of births was 4373. Hence we have,

And we are left to infer that there were only 1213 lawful children born in Rome in that year.

To make a still closer deduction from his premises, we should take his remark that the population of Rome should be taken at the mean of 130,000, instead of 153,678. The mean number of births corresponding to this would be 3700; hence, in strictness, we should have,

This is indeed a state of things described by Mr. Seymour as indicating "a frightful number of illegitimate births, and a number without parallel of cruel and unnatural mothers." And we may add, it indicates an unparalleled amount of gullibility in any one who will entertain for a moment such an absurd statement. It would be more creditable to Rev. Mr. Seymour and his friend Rev. L. W. Bacon and The New Englander, before circulating the story, to inquire who Mittermaier is; whether he has said exactly what he is quoted to say; whether he was misled about his statements; whether some one else has not altered what he said; whether some word has not been used in a double sense, to carry a wrong impression, or some word slipped into the general statement to put the reader on the wrong track; in short, to pay great attention and be extremely cautious in a matter which wears so great an improbability on its face.

The story is an absurd fabrication, and very clumsily put together at that. "The number of exposed infants in Il S. Spirito, Il Conservatorio, and other establishments of this class, according to Mittermaier, amounts to 31,689 in ten years." Mittermaier, or whoever else wrote this, proves conclusively that he knew very little of what he was writing about. There is no such establishment as Il Conservatorio in Rome. This is not the name of a particular place, but a general term signifying about what we mean by the term "asylum." There are more than a dozen asylums for children in Rome, but only one is a foundling[52] hospital, that of Il S. Spirito. The conservatorios or asylums are not "of this class," but of a different class altogether. There may have been 3160 children provided for, annually, in Il S. Spirito and all the different establishments for children, for what we know, and we see no reason to dispute the statement; but this is the aggregate of children of all ages and all sorts, of the sick and destitute, and by no means the number of foundlings received, or even the number of orphans received within a single year.

There are over 400 children in one orphan asylum in Fiftieth street in this city, and the aggregate for ten years would be over 4000, but to say that over 4000 children were received there in ten years would be an outrageous statement. To obtain the real number, we should also ascertain the average number of years each child remains in the institution.

The hospital of Il S. Spirito is the only "foundling hospital" in Rome. It receives all the infants brought there, and if the person who brings them is unwilling to answer, he can refuse to do so. It is amply sufficient to accommodate all left there; has revenue enough, and, in short, renders the existence of "any other establishment of the sort" entirely superfluous. There are branches of this institution to which "foundlings" are transferred as they grow older. The institution looks out for them until they can look out for themselves; but there is only one place where they are received.

The total number of foundlings received in Rome is about 900 annually.[19] Maguire says:

This number of foundlings does not represent the amount of illegitimacy, for very many of the foundlings are lawful children. Maguire says:

This estimate of Maguire's is confirmed by a statement taken from the records of the hospital for May, June, and July, 1868, and transmitted to us by an American clergyman residing in Rome. Of the total number, some were of legitimate births, as shown by authentic parish certificates;[53] others of doubtful or uncertain birth; as follows:

This would give us an aggregate of 952 for the year, of which 584 would be of uncertain birth. A large proportion came from the provinces around Rome, and there is no reason to suppose all the uncertain births to be illegitimate; therefore we shall make a liberal allowance if we take the total number of foundlings of illegitimate birth, belonging to Rome itself, at 400. The real number is quite as likely to be below as above it.

When Mittermaier, whoever he was, stated the annual number of foundlings in Rome to be 3160, the mean population of that city was stated to be 130,000. It is now 215,573. By Mittermaier's proportion the annual number of foundlings should now be 5226. Are we called on to believe this, and to hang our heads in shame at this enormous number of 5226 illegitimates each year in the capital of the Catholic world? And this, when we know that the actual number of foundlings from Rome is not over 900, and the actual number of illegitimate children is about 400.

A small discrepancy, no doubt; a little peccadillo in the figures! We hope we have not shown any undue warmth in exposing it; for who knows, our "evangelic" friends may feel themselves insulted, and entirely absolved from any obligation of refuting us; our unchristian warmth of temper and vituperative manner being enough—to use the expression of Rev. L. W. Bacon, in The New Englander—"to discredit without any particular refutation" whatever we assert in this article.

But whence come the three thousand one hundred and sixty foundlings of "Mittermaier" annually received in Rome? Without doubt, from adding up all the inmates of the different asylums for children in Rome, and the foundlings of S. Spirito, and representing the total as an aggregate of foundlings received.

"Il Conservatorio and other establishments of this class" in Rome are as follows:

These are institutions of which Dr. Neligan, who visited them, gives an account in his Rome, published by Messrs. Sadlier; and to these must be added the department of S. Spirito, where female foundlings, after being nursed, are received back—if not otherwise provided for—and taken care of for life, or until they marry or get a situation; this numbers about six hundred, according to Maguire. If we add all the numbers together, and also the children under the care of the foundling hospital out at nurse, or being brought up in private families; in short, all the recipients of charity of the different institutions of Rome, we might approach a number corresponding to the three thousand one hundred and sixty of Mittermaier.

We can see by this "how the noble and Christian charity of Rome, excelling that of any other city of its size on the earth, is," by a base and[54] groundless falsehood, sought to be turned into a means of holding her up to the scorn and indignation of the whole world.

We can show, also, in an entirely different way, by the official census of Rome, the absurdity of the statement of Seymour, and that in the most conclusive manner. In the Civilta Cattolica of 21st of December, 1867, we have the census of the population and the number of births for the year 1866; also a tabular statement of those for a period of ten years, ending 21st of April, 1867.

From these we find the present population to be 215,573; the number of the legitimate births for the year from Easter, 1866, to Easter, 1867, was 5739, and adding thereto the still-born, 6120. The average annual number of births in an average population of 197,737, excluding the still-born, was 5657 legitimate, for the decennial period. Adding the still-born, we have an annual average of over 6000 legitimate births.

Now, if we consider that in Rome there is a large class of the population who belong to the clergy, who do not marry; a large body of military; the Jews, whose children of course do not appear in any baptismal register, from which the number of annual births is made out; we may set down the average productive part of the population, corresponding to the population of any other city, at an average of not more than 175,000. From this number, according to the general vital statistics of the civilized world, we must look for from 6300 to 6400 annual births. Take from this the number of annual legitimate births stated above, and there remains no margin for any large number of illegitimate births. Any one can see that it is a moral impossibility that they should exceed three or four hundred.

The same thing can be made out by means of the number of the married, which is accurately taken every year. In April, 1867, there were 30,471 married women in Rome. Now, how many children could be expected to be born annually from that number? We can approximate very nearly to this by considering the census of the kingdom of Italy, as given in the Civilta Cattolica of 20th of June, 1868. From this we find that for about 4,297,346 married women there were about 900,000 births, which gives us one yearly for every five married women, very nearly. Applying this proportion to Rome, we should have of 30,471 married women, 6094 births. The actual number, including still-born, was, as we have seen, 6120.

The Civilta Cattolica says, "This proportion of 28.3 of legitimate births for every one thousand of the population speaks very well for a capital city." And so it does; it shows, what we have always understood them to be, that the Romans are as virtuous and moral as any people of the world.

In passing, we commend to the Rev. Mr. Bacon the figures of the official census of the kingdom of Italy, from which we find the percentage of illegitimacy for 1863 to have been 4.8; for 1864, 5. It is to be observed that there is somewhat of a deterioration in this last year, perhaps owing to the success of the efforts of the Bible and tract societies to throw the pure light of "gospel truth" on this hitherto benighted land. The rate of illegitimacy in Scotland, which Mr. Laing, in his Notes of a Traveller, calls the most religious Protestant country in Europe, is double that of Italy, the country most thoroughly Catholic.

And we ask, moreover, of Mr. Bacon, the direct question, What is the[55] honesty of representing the relative chastity of England and Italy as 5 to 21, when the real proportions are 6.4 to 5? It may do very well to charge Brother Hatfield and Brother Prime, when you have your own good name to vindicate against their charges, with gross unfairness in controversy; but we consider your adroit shirking of all the statements of The Catholic World, on the plea of an error found in a quotation from The Church and World, as quite as dishonorable as any thing you have charged against them. Your persistence in repeating calumnious statements, and spreading them out as you do among readers who will not see the refutation, will give you and your friend, Mr. M. Hobart Seymour, an unenviable notoriety among the worst calumniators of the Catholic religion who have as yet appeared. You have repeated, some time ago, that most infamous calumny of the Tax-book of the Roman Chancery, so amply refuted by Bishop England; but although it has been called to your notice, you have never had the grace to apologize. The old maxim seems to have been, "Lie as hard as you can, and lay it on thick, for it will all be believed," and hence we had our Maria Monks and our Brownlees. Now the tactics are to be changed, and the maxim seems to be, "Let there be some semblance of truth mixed with the lie, so that it may sink deeper; let the calumny be sugared over with professions of 'fair play,' and it will work with better effect;" and hence come such things as the Moral Results of Romanism, by Messrs. Seymour and Bacon, the "model controversialists."

To come back to Rome. The Civilta Cattolica tells us that the census has been taken in the same way since the sixteenth century. The total number of births, 4373, of Bowring, were then the total of legitimate births, not the absolute total. The number of 3160 foundlings received turns out to be the number of orphans—some of them 80 years old, for all we know; for some are cared for as long as they live—and other destitute or abandoned children. And thus this beautiful piece of "mosaic work," intended to exhibit the horrible vice of Rome to the gaze of an admiring and astonished public, falls to pieces. Instead of the anomalous state of things in which each married couple in Rome would have on an average one child in the space of 25 years, they are found to be quite as prolific as other people, and quite as virtuous. Rome, in respect to offences against chastity, is probably the most orderly and decent city of its size in the world. Maguire says:[20]

It is the fashion to decry Rome—to represent her population as cowed down and discontented with their government; to this the reception which Garibaldi with his war-cry of "Rome or death"—though he lived to [56] see another day, after all—met with from the Roman people, is a sufficient reply: or to say that they are miserably poor or degraded; to this, Count de Reyneval, in his report to the French minister for foreign affairs, says:

Rome, then, with a garrison of over 7000 soldiers, and with an immense influx of visitors from all parts of the world, and particularly of wealthy pleasure-seekers from England and America; with a stern suppression of prostitution and public vice, still shows a rate of illegitimacy less than six per cent; a rate lower than that of England, or any Protestant country which has published statistics on the subject.

We have thus given this matter as thorough and complete an investigation as has been possible under the circumstances. We have given the reasons for all we have stated, and the reader can see for himself the force of our arguments. We neither desire to misrepresent nor to be misrepresented; and we would not make one misstatement to the disadvantage of any one, be he Protestant or any thing else; or conceal any thing which has a bearing on the question, even if it should put our side of it in an unfavorable light. If we have done any of these things, it is unconsciously to ourselves; and therefore we feel, perhaps too warmly and indignantly, this trickery, when it is attempted to make us the victims of it.

From our previous experience, we look for a more active circulation of this calumny, from our refutation of it; but we console ourselves with the reflection that there is a God in heaven who watches over all, and who will make the truth apparent in due time. At any rate, no such consideration shall hinder us a moment from exposing error and deception, so far as our occupations and duties shall afford us the leisure to do so.

ST. OREN'S PRIORY;
OR, EXTRACTS FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN AMERICAN IN A FRENCH MONASTERY.

PART II.

I entered the novitiate on the 22d. The Veni sponsa Christi, accipe coronam quam tibi Dominus præparavit in æternum has been sounding in my heart ever since like a war-cry, animating me to the interior combat. For the cloister is that oasis in the great desert of the world where is carried on a vital combat between nature and grace, more furious than that between Christian and Paynim in the Diamond of the desert. I have been much happier since I entered upon my new life, and am glad I can go out no more. I love the solitude [57] and calmness of the cloister, which at last extends to the heart; I love the shrines "where their vigils pale-eyed virgins keep;" I love the companionship of those who seem unsullied by earthly passions; and I love this release from all earthly care, with no thought for what we shall eat, or what we shall drink, or wherewithal we shall be clothed. Is it not better than the bustle and vanity of the world, which almost efface the thought of God?

And then, you know, I have always believed that there are some who are called to perpetuate the glorious fellowship of Christ's sufferings; to share, as members of his body, the pains and sorrows of the great Head of the church; and to make reparation to heaven for the constant outrages against the Divine Majesty. As Faber says, "Nuns are the turtle-doves of the church, who have to mourn in a spirit of loving sorrow and sweet reparation over the wrongs of their heavenly Spouse."

The heart of St. Augustine was so full of the love of God and the sense of what is his due, that he is always represented holding it all aflame in his hands. Old legends tell us how an angel bore it away to a sanctuary, where it will still tremble in its crystal case if an unbeliever enters the church where it is exposed. So tremulously alive to the honor and glory of God should be the hearts that are gathered together in the cloister. How many souls fly thither to make up, as it were, to God what is wanting on the part of their sinful brethren! Apropos, I must tell you about one of our nuns, who is full of holy fervor. In the late retreat, the director asked her the subject of her particular examen. "Self-abnegation," was the reply. "Do you find many occasions for practising it?" inquired the père. "Not as many as I could wish." "What is the virtue which you particularly ask of our Lord in your devotions, and by the actions of each day?" "I ask for no virtue, mon père." "With what intention, then, do you offer them?" "For the conversion of sinners, and the greater glory of God."

Is not this admirable? I am sure many Protestants could hardly comprehend a piety so disinterested as to lose sight, in a measure, of one's own profit in zeal for God's cause.

The facilities are also great in the cloister for the frequent reception of the sacraments, which quicken the moral circulation. The pulsations of the soul are more healthful after the infusion of divine grace through them. I went to holy communion this morning. The Divine Host seemed to me a burning coal from off the altar of God, and the priest, the angel who placed it on my lips. "Our God is a consuming fire." I prayed that he might consume every affection in my heart that was not centred in him; and, as I felt the torrent of divine flame circulating in my veins, every earthly desire, every human passion, seemed to die away within me. For a moment, at least, I felt the signification of the words of the great apostle of the Gentiles, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who liveth in me." Might such moments be perpetuated! But it is of faith that those who have partaken of Christ's body and blood remain in him, and he in them, as long as they are in a state of grace. It is this interior presence of the divinity which animated the saints to the sacrifice, and made even this world, amid all their privations and austerities, a very foretaste of heaven. What sweet solemnity and thoughtfulness reign in the heart sensible of this divine presence! In its light the soul,

As you say, a great deal does depend upon the influences that surround us, especially with weak souls like me. I envy those men who are as gods, in spite of temperament, or clime, or any outward influence; who go on unchecked from one degree of glory to another, to the very heights of sanctity. I am always drifting along, awaiting the impulse of the sacraments, or the helping hand of some stronger friend, too glad if I do not recede. Ah! solitude brings us face to face with ourselves, and reveals to us our moral littleness. Nothing is more humbling than this revelation. Nothing makes us more distrustful of ourselves, and more willing to accept the appointed means of perfection. The life our director thinks the safest is a common life, lived in an uncommon manner; that is, while we do the same things as those around us, it is with motives so holy that each action is rendered in a degree supernatural. This is the great secret of the hidden and interior life, which the saints of all ages have loved and of which St. Joseph is the type.

I have been reading Fioretti; or, the Little Flowers of St. Francis d'Assisi—a collection of the sayings of the first Franciscans, with a rare bloom on them. These mediæval flowers, so long shut up in a foreign tongue, have a delicious fragrance, and while I inhaled their odor I forgot that I belonged to an incredulous age. There is a simplicity truly poetical in this collection, which is admirable. One little remark of Friar Egide struck me: "La voie la plus directe pour nous sauver, c'est de nous perdre." This loss, this annihilation of self, on the ruins of which must be built up the great edifice of our perfection, is what I daily sigh after, and what I ask for you. The Père Milley, a Jesuit, speaks much of "le pays des âmes perdues"—a country to which all my desires tend. It is a promised land which I see afar off; another Canaan, which I hardly dare hope to enter, though I look wistfully on those who are lost in God—that ocean without limit, where our littleness is swallowed up in immensity, and we almost forget our fears and our frailties; we know not whether we suffer or are consoled; conscious only of the divine atmosphere—conscious only that we love!...

Our novitiate is a large apartment with five immense windows in it. (When you are taxed for windows, you may as well have large ones, and the French love the air and live in it.) No matter how cold it is, the windows are always open—and when I say open, I mean the whole window; for, as I have already remarked, they swing open like folding doors. On cold days a few mottes are burning in the fireplace, around which a folding screen is drawn. These mottes are mostly of tan, pressed into flat round cakes like a small cheese. They give out strong heat. Wood is very scarce here, and consequently dear, and I have never seen coal. As for lights, we burn linseed-oil, which gives a clear yellow light, and the odor is not offensive like whale-oil. Each sister has a little coil of yellow wax-taper to light when she wishes to go about the monastery in the evening.

The floor is paved with square red tiles, as in all the houses here, but we have little mats to protect our feet from the chill. Each novice has her table and writing-desk, at which she studies or sews. At one end of the room is an altar, and the walls are adorned with engravings of a religious character. Leading from the novitiate is the chambrette of the[59] mistress of novices, in which is the novices' library. It is always open to us, and we like an excuse for entering it.

Our manner of spending the day is nearly unvaried. We rise at half-past four, and, after completing our toilettes, (for even nuns have toilettes; one's garments must be put together somehow,) we descend to the chapel. The choir is impenetrably dark most of the year at this early hour. Only the little lamp is twinkling near the tabernacle! One by one the nuns come noiselessly in, like so many shadows. This hour of morning meditation is delicious. The perfect stillness, in which you can hear your own heart beat, disposes you to reflection. The soul becomes steeped in the spirit of the place and the hour passes too quickly away. Then we say the hours. The morning sacrifice follows with its awful mysteries, which are ever fresh and wonderful.

When we issue from the chapel, after our exercises of more than two hours, we go one by one, when we choose, to the refectory, for there is no breakfast, properly speaking. The nuns take a piece of dry bread, with perchance some fruit, and eat it, as the children of Israel ate the passover, standing and ready girded for the labors of the day, for which we are all ready at eight. That would be called a fast in America. But when a sister is delicate, she can have some coffee or chocolate. The world used to cry out against the good living of monastic orders; now it says their austerities are fatal to the health. It is always the way with the world—now, as in the days when John the Baptist came "neither eating nor drinking."

The French know nothing of the cup that cheers but does not inebriate. They only take tea medicinally, and seem to have no idea of how it should be prepared. It is a prevalent belief here that every Englishman in his travels carries his tea-kettle with him, and they suppose the whole race partial to the beverage. So, by way of a fête, they proposed regaling me with some the other day. I accepted what was no luxury to me. A good sister brought me what she styled soupe au thé, consisting of an abundance of milk and water, with a dash of tea. (I rely on the veracity of the cuisinière for this last item.) Into this, bread was sliced, and the whole served up in a soup-plate! Confucius himself would have laughed. I am sure I did till I cried, to the great scandal of all the nuns, who were gravely listening to some holy legend as they ate. Shall I tell you what I did with my soupe au thé? I hope I am not vain of the heroic act, but I—ate it!

Fifteen minutes before dinner we have examination of conscience. We go to the table saying, "De profundis clamavi" and leave it reciting, "Miserere Domine!" We eat in silence, listening to the gospel of the day, the lives of the saints, or some other religious book, read by one of the sisters from a high pulpit. After dinner is a reunion, when we come together with our sewing or other handiwork, and have the privilege of talking, and sometimes we make la cour du roi Pétaud, I assure you. At one o'clock the lay sisters come in, while we read aloud for half an hour, if no chapter has been convoked. They too bring their work. One old sister always brings her spindle and distaff, and twirls away, sitting bolt upright, and looking so grim that she always seems to me one of the Fates lengthening out the thread of life. At three we have vespers, and then make half an hour's meditation. From compline we go to supper at[60] six, after which we walk in the garden or assemble together within doors. At eight o'clock is read the subject for the next morning's meditation, and we go to the choir to say the office, and for night prayers. Thus closes the day with prayer, as it began. We all light our little tapers and go silently to our cells for the night. Such is the outline of our life, which is so well filled up that we have few leisure moments. We hear of lazy monks and nuns, but there are no drones in our busy hive, with our boarding-school, day and free schools, with their hundreds of pupils, and this vast building to keep in order. Night comes before we know it, and another day is gone. There is one day less in which to struggle with self, and, alas! one day less in which to sacrifice something for God! You ask for the shadow in the picture of my life. There is ever one dark spot in our existence, the shadow of ourselves, which follows us wherever we go.

But we have one grievance just now. Finisterre is the name of the portal that separates us from the world, but it cannot wholly exclude its sounds. I will explain. The city rises so abruptly behind our monastery that the garden of the Count de T——, on the opposite side of the street, is on a level with our second story. And the street that separates us is one of those dim, narrow streets found only in old cities of the south, where it is desirable to exclude the heat. For several nights past when we have come from our dear quiet chapel, with our hearts all subdued and thoughtful, and pondering on the subject for the next morning's meditation, a "toot, tooting," is heard from the garden opposite that is enough to distract a saint. It is a French horn, or some other wind instrument, surely meant for some vast campagna. But, essayed in a small garden, with a hill in the rear to aid the reverberation, the whole volume of sound comes pouring across the corridor into our cells, the very embodiment of worldly discord and tumult. "Pazienza!" we say to ourselves, and try to turn a deaf ear. I dare say the performer has some idea of enlivening the poor recluses, who have no other wish but to be left to their own reveries, save that the time of the vintage may soon come when he can awaken the echoes of the vineyard.

It is the festival of the Assumption. While I write, all the bells of the city are ringing, statues and banners of Mary are borne through the streets by the clergy, followed by a long procession of people. The deep-toned "ora pro nobis" breaks in upon the stilly air. Each invocation seems like a cry of agony, which goes heavenward from hearts weary of the world and the things of the world. These processions are made throughout France in memory of the celebrated vow of Louis XIII., who consecrated France to the Virgin. It is also a national holiday in honor of Napoleon I., being his birthday. "St. Napoleon's Day," say the people with a smile!

I saw a pretty picture last evening—Sister Rose standing on a stool near the fountain of the court, surrounded by a group of gay young ladies, to whom she was preaching. She looked like a statue of St. Angèle. Sister Rose is a lay sister, wholly uneducated, but with a certain piety of a mystical nature which has given her quite a reputation for sanctity. She has an oval face of pale olive hue, jet black eyes with an indrawn look as if conscious of some interior Presence, and regular features, with a delicacy and refinement quite remarkable considering[61] her laborious life. She never meets you without a smile and a "word for Jesus," as she says. The young ladies of the boarding-school love and revere her so much that they often lay violent hands upon her and force her to preach to them, which she does with a smile and the same inward look, and with a grace of gesture peculiar to her country. As her discourse was in patois, (one of the langues d'Oc, and the tongue of Jasmin, who lives at Agen,) which all understand here, I was not benefited thereby; but her appearance and her saintly face, with its gentle, serious smile, were impressive. The exuberance of her audience was soon subdued.

There are a good many Spaniards in this city who are exiled on account of their political opinions, being Carlists. They had a solemn mass of requiem chanted in our chapel, the other day, for the repose of the soul of Don Carlos. Nearly thirty Spanish gentlemen and some ladies were present. A bier was placed in the centre of the chapel and surrounded by lights, as if the body were there, and on the pall was placed a wreath of laurel. The officiating priest, too, was a Spaniard. I looked with interest on these exiles from their native land, and my heart grew warm toward them; they were extremely devout during mass, and I saw many of them wipe away their fast-falling tears. I could not repress my own; for separation from the fatherland seemed a bond of sympathy I could not resist. Thus, when I am gone, and my remains lie in a foreign land, may some kind souls gather together in the sanctuary of God to chant the Requiem æternam for my tried soul!

Once a month we meditate particularly on death, and offer all our devotions as a preparation for our last end. When mass is over, and the thanksgiving for our communion is ended—no, not ended, for it can never end; but while it is still ascending from our hearts, our dear mère, who is as pale as the wife of Seneca, goes forward and kneels before the grate that separates the choir from the chancel, and says in earnest tones the litany for a happy death. Her voice trembles as she repeats the awful petition: "When my eyes, obscured at the approach of death, cast their dying looks toward thee, O merciful Jesus! and when my lips, cold and trembling, pronounce for the last time on earth thy adorable name—" "Merciful Jesus, have pity on me!" sighs every heart in response. The impression of these prayers pursues the mind all day. "Lord, in that strait, the Judge! remember me!"

On St. Andrew's day we buried one of the nuns, who was about ninety years of age and quite superannuated. This death did not affect me so much as that of Sister Sophie. The transition from old age to the grave seems so natural that it excites less horror than when one dies in the full vigor of life. Mère Ste. Ursule was of a noble family of La Vendée. At the age of sixteen she entered a community of Poor Clares, one of the most rigid orders of the church; but, during her novitiate, the great French Revolution swept away nearly every vestige of religion, and the nuns of St. Clare were driven out from their quiet cells into the world. When the gendarmes forced them to leave the convent, these emissaries desecrated every thing and broke and threw out the sacred emblems. As Sister Ursule, who had a most tender devotion to her whom Châteaubriand styles "the divinity of the frail and the desolate," was leaving the cloister she had loved so much, she turned to give it a last look, and saw a[62] small statue of Notre Dame de Grâce standing on the convent wall. She said to one of her sister nuns, "It seems as if the Blessed Virgin reproaches me for leaving," and she turned back to save the statue from insult. The gendarmes did not oppose the design of the young novice, and this bonne Vierge was for more than sixty years the ornament and tutelary genius of the cell of Mère Ste. Ursule, after her re-entrance into religion. With all the fervor of southern devotion toward Mary, she used to prostrate herself daily before this statuette, and when fallen into second childhood she would pour out her heart in effusions of child-like simplicity at once charming and poetic. She often said to her novices: "When I am dying, place my bonne Vierge on my bed beside me."

After the Revolution, the more rigid orders were not restored, and Mère Ste. Ursule, despairing of the re-establishment of the Poor Clares, joined the Ursulines, and was for a long time mistress of novices at the priory. In her last days she did nothing but pray and adorn the altar in her cell. She knew the office by heart, and always recited it at the canonical hours. Her beads were told many times a day, and she never failed to use the discipline with severity. I often went to see her and her bonne Vierge. She died suddenly of old age. Being somewhat more feeble than usual, one of the sisters remained with her during the night. Mère Ste. Ursule said her office and rosary, but did not sleep. Toward day the sister perceived the approach of death; she took down the statue of Notre Dame de Grâce and laid it in the arms of the aged nun, whose spirit instantly fled to the presence of Mary in heaven. It was at the hour of dawn. The first beam of the dayspring from on high carried her soul away from earth.

Again those solemn funeral services! I cannot tell you the effect they have on me.

A friend sent me a curious pear to-day, said to be peculiar to this city. It is called the Bon Chrétien, but very different from the one we called so at home. It is a large, coarse-grained pear, but juicy and toothsome, and has no seeds; that is, as every one says, those that grow within the limits of the city have none, while those that are found in the country are seedy enough. Old legends connect this peculiarity with St. Oren's miraculous powers.

December 8.—This is the festival of the Immaculate Conception, the patronal feast of the chapel of the priory. For nine days past the convent bell has rung out a joyful peal at the hour of the novena to Maria Immaculata, when her litany was chanted to a beautiful Spanish air which completely melts the heart. Unusual pomp has been given to this fête on account of the expected decision respecting the dogma of the Immaculate Conception at Rome. This morning we had more than a dozen masses, for the clergy love to come to this antique chapel on the feasts of Mary. At ten o'clock, about twenty priests came to sing high mass, and again this afternoon for vespers. The chapel was crowded with people from the city. Thus for centuries have the faithful congregated on this same day. The Blessed Sacrament was exposed all day. I passed hours in its presence, bearing in my heart all my innumerable wants, and those of my friends afar off. How like heaven is our dear chapel when the Lamb of God is[63] thus exposed to our adoration! In a niche over the altar gleams the holy image of Mary. The Divinity is enshrined in light beneath her maternal eye, the air filled with incense, as if fanned by adoring angels. The arches are full of harmony. Every power of body and mind is captivated, and one abandons one's self to the impressions of the moment. It gives one a peculiar emotion to hear men chant the praises of Mary. What a reverence they must have for womanhood! Their Miserere nobis in the litany was the very cry of a contrite heart. I should have thought myself in paradise had not the supplicatory tones of the clergy announced a felicity still imperfect.

All this is infinitely beautiful and poetic, apart from every sentiment of religion. Every day of my life would seem to you a chapter full of poetry; but I have become so accustomed to what I once thought belonged to a bygone age of mystery and romance, that it all seems the natural order of events. And one soon learns to rise above the mere ceremonials of religion, which are so full of enjoyment to some natures, to that which they typify. Such is the design of Holy Church—to lead the heart up to God, its true centre. Perhaps, too, she wishes that every power of our being should be enlisted in his service; the imagination as well as reason.

After vespers we had a fine sermon from the Abbé Lassale upon the invocation: Regina sine labe concepta, ora pro nobis! It is the custom here now, as, from the sermons of Bossuet, we see it was in the time of Louis XIV., for the preacher, after invoking the Holy Spirit, to present a plan of his discourse, make some introductory remarks, and then stop. Both preacher and audience kneel in silence for the space of an Ave Maria, then all rise and the sermon is continued. The custom is quite impressive.

December 15.—Owing to the antiquity of our chapel, long since dedicated to the mystery of the Immaculate Conception, the archbishop permitted us, as a particular favor, to celebrate the octave of this great festival of Mary with a sermon and benediction every evening. The whole chapel was daily illuminated, and the effect was magical when it was lighted up. Imagine arches of light, pillars wreathed in flame, altar covered with flowers and brilliant with immense wax candles; while in the midst gleamed the Virgin in a perfect bower of pure white lilies. And, just as the imagination is fired with so much brilliancy and taste, Kyrie eleison! floats up with the incense in the most plaintive, heart-rending tones—a very tear of the heart dropped at the feet of Mary! It is the commencement of the litany of Maria Immaculata, chanted by the nuns in choir, and responded to by the crowds that fill the chapel without. Light and music are the two ideas of which Dante's Paradise is composed; and I felt with what true poetic instinct, when kneeling before that shrine of light, my ears listened to harmonies approaching those that swell for ever before the throne of God! This struck me from the first; and I have since found my thoughts expressed by another far better than I could express them. Leigh Hunt says: "It is impossible to see this profusion of lights, especially when one knows their symbolical meaning, without being struck with the source from which Dante took his idea of the beatified spirits. His heaven, filled with lights, and lights, too, arranged in figures, which glow with lustre in proportion to the beatitude of the souls within them, is the sublimation[64] of a Catholic church. And so far it is heavenly indeed; for nothing escapes the look of materiality like fire. It is so airy, joyous, and divine a thing, when separated from the idea of pain and an ill purpose, that the language of happiness naturally adopts its terms, and can tell of nothing more rapturous than burning bosoms and sparkling eyes. The seraph of the Hebrew theology was a fire."

Christmas.—Yesterday was spent in retreat, by way of preparing our hearts for the solemnities of the nativity; and I have kept a real old-fashioned vigil—a vigil of the middle ages. I wish you could have heard the joyful ring of all the bells of the city as midnight approached. At the cathedral, the clear tones of the smaller bells, like the voices of nuns in choir, and the great Bourdon among them, "like the chanting of a friar," as Longfellow says; the carillon, too, from St. Pierre; and then all the convent bells sounding from Carmel, the Oratory, the Filles de Marie, and La Miséricorde, and those of the Hospital, Le Grand Séminaire, etc., etc., are infinitely impressive in the stillness of the night—the prelude of a great joy, breaking in upon our meditation on the birth of Christ. When the bells were all hushed, the priest stood at the foot of the blazing altar; all the rest of the chapel was in darkness—not a taper in the choir. There was not a sound but the night wind. The saints on the walls, half revealed in their dim recesses, looked like the spirits of the old monks come forth at this mystic hour to guard the chapel their hands once raised.

It was the second time I ever communicated at midnight mass, and I imagined my heart the manger in which the Infant Jesus came to repose. I thought, as I returned from the holy table to my prie-dieu, of the first tears of the Divine Babe, and that he bewailed my continued imperfections. "Ah! why should not thy tears," I exclaimed, "wash away my sins, that thou be not forced to shed also thy most precious blood! I, too, weep. I, who deserve to weep, join my tears to thine. O Virgin Mother! take back thy child! His presence makes me an object of horror to myself. His tears scald my very heart. His caresses are like arrows that pierce my soul. Thou alone canst console him; only clean hands and a pure heart should embrace spotless innocence. My spiritual vision is too weak to bear the Orient from on high. Yes, Mary, thou alone canst console him; for thou art immaculate. Embrace him for me—those hands and feet which will be pierced for me; and wipe away the tears that have commenced to flow but too soon."

After hearing three masses, we went to visit the manger. A kind of tent had been erected in the upper choir. In it was a statue of St. Joseph, the Blessed Virgin, an ox, an ass, and in the centre on the straw lay the new-born Infant with its little arms outstretched. Above hovered the angels. Though rudely cast, their effect was good in the dim light. We knelt around, and the novices sang out joyfully a Christmas carol, the chorus of which was "Jésus est né!"—Christ is born! All this gave a certain vividness to the festival which it never had before; and I enjoyed it much. True, our manger is too homely to bear the criticisms of the scoffer. St. Joseph, for a carpenter, is rather gaudily dressed out in a[65] scarlet robe, purple mantle, ruffle-bosomed shirt, with a breast-pin; and the Virgin hardly does credit to her reputation for beauty and grace; but the eye of faith looks beyond and reads only the lesson of child-like simplicity and humility—nowhere so well learned as at Bethlehem.

The manger remains till Epiphany. It is gotten up by the scholars, who delight in it, especially the younger ones, who go to present the Infant Jesus with fruit, nuts, bonbons, money, and whatever their childish hearts suggest. These things are for the Holy Infant in the person of poor children among whom they are distributed, that they too may have some pleasure at Christmas-tide. I find it a pretty custom, as well as beneficial; for piety should not all evaporate in sentiment, but, even in children, ought to be embodied in some good deed, or prompt to some act of self-denial. The children of France take much pleasure in making little sacrifices of pocket-money (not in the spirit of Mrs. Pardiggle's unfortunate children!) for the association of the Sainte Enfance, the funds of which are destined to rescue hundreds of little children, who are exposed to death in China by their parents, and even to buy those who are exposed for sale, that they may be reared as Christians. Last year, four hundred thousand children were thus baptized—an angelic work, worthy of young and pure hearts. Our scholars embroider collars and do a variety of fancy work for a fair among themselves, by which they amass quite a sum in the course of the year. The French children are exceedingly volatile, but there is a great deal of piety among them. During Passion-time a little girl of nine or ten, belonging to the poor scholars, undertook to meditate fifteen minutes a day, for a certain number of days, on the sufferings of Christ. One of the nuns asked her how she employed the time, so long for a child. She replied, naïvement, "I thought each thorn that pierced the head of Christ was one of my sins!"

After our nocturnal devotions, we novices returned to the novitiate, where the Yule log was blazing. By way of a rarity, we all had coffee to refresh us after our vigil, and we sat around the fire chatting in a home-like manner, and repeating Christmas carols.

In the country, on Christmas eve, the young peasants go about from house to house, singing Christmas carols, expecting some treat in return.

I saw to-day a little picture of the Child Jesus making crosses in the work-shop of his foster-father. Perhaps[66] it was one of these that the poets tell us the little St. John contended for:

At four o'clock in the morning we returned to the choir. I stationed myself before the manger to make my meditation on the mystery of the day. Of course Christmas is not very merry after such a vigil, but who can tell the holy joy of such a night—worth all the gayeties of the world!

I read in the refectory for the first time to-day. When I returned to the novitiate after my dinner the good mother said, "You have read so well, you merit a recompense." I glanced at the mantel and saw the American stamps with the benign faces of Washington and Franklin, so welcome in this far-off land....

I hope you will never speak of burdening me with an account of your infirmities, whether bodily or spiritual. I love that loving command of the apostle, to bear one another's burdens; for we are never more Christ-like than when we forget our own trials to bind up the wounds of a fellow-sufferer. Be assured I pray for you without ceasing. I never enter the presence of the Blessed Sacrament without invoking a blessing on you and on my dear country. I never communicate or perform an act of penance without desiring that you may participate in the grace I receive. Oh! that by my fidelity to God I might draw down the blessings I daily implore for you and for all who are dear to me! O my God! spare me not. Let me suffer mental and bodily trials, let me be the victim of thy justice; but spare my loved ones! If I cannot labor directly for thee, I can at least suffer for thee, for them, and for the whole world. Thy victim, O God! thy victim. The name befits me better than that of thy spouse.

I have read somewhere that the ropes in the English navy are so twisted that a red thread runs through them all, in such a way that the smallest pieces may be recognized as belonging to the crown. So through our lives should run a thread, coloring its whole woof—a love for God interwoven with the very thread of existence, and inspiring every act of our lives. St. Francis de Sales said if he knew that the least fibre of his heart did not beat with love for God he would pluck it out. O love that transcends all others! how did we once exist without thee? O days without a sun! O nights rayless and dark! how happy are we who have escaped from your gloom! How different is the divine friend from our earthly one. When once we have studied a person and penetrated his individuality, the charm of his presence is gone. We have squeezed him dry. But the friend that sticketh closer than a brother, he is unfathomable and ever new. The heart is never weary of divine companionship. On the contrary, the more completely we give ourselves up to it, to the exclusion of every other, the more we feel that God alone can satisfy the cravings of our hearts.

Dieu seul was the device a holy American bishop gave me on the day of my confirmation. The signification of these words has been growing upon me ever since. They have expanded till they have filled the whole heavens, and lit up my life[67] with wondrous splendor. There is no spot on my horizon where they do not shine out. Every object unmarked by them seems to fade out of view. All knowledge, all science grows pale before their significance, and every wound of the heart finds a balm in their healing ray. "Paix! paix! Dieu seul est la paix!" says Fénélon.

February.—The day on which Pius IX. added the crowning star of immaculate purity to the coronet of Mary was the cause of great rejoicing throughout France. All the principal cities have been illuminated. At Toulouse, the sides and roof of St. Saturnin's cathedral were covered with lights, and another church had fifteen thousand lamps upon it. Ours was not least among the cities in her joy, and it did the soul good to witness such a display of Catholic piety and enthusiasm, worthy of the ages of faith. As soon as the bull of promulgation arrived from Rome, Monseigneur ordered the Te Deum to be chanted with the utmost pomp in all the churches of the diocese. The same evening the whole city was illuminated. Nothing had been seen like it since the visit of Napoleon I. to this city. At the grand portal of the priory were several hundred lamps, forming a monogram of Mary, over a beautiful transparency of the Vierge Immaculée. The belfry, tower, and all the windows of this immense establishment were lighted up, and many windows were like chapels of the Virgin all aflame. The top of the convent walls was one long line of light, so closely were the lamps placed upon it. Pennons with the colors of the Virgin were placed at uniform distances among these lights, and one floated from the stone cross on the chapel. The whole scene was magical. From the tower we could see much of the city, which was so universally illuminated and adorned that it looked like that city of jewels

All was so still that no one would have suspected the intense enthusiasm that reigned in every heart. Only from before a little statue of the Madonna, in the convent garden, rose a sweet song to the Virgin, Ave Sanctissima! which floated up through the damp night air from the lips of the spouses of Christ with a sound as plaintive as the voice of past times.

Even the poorest people in the city—and you know not how poor are the poorest in this old country—had their candles and a picture of the Virgin at the window. One poor woman begged enough to buy a wax candle, which she cut in three pieces to light up her wretched abode. The towers of the cathedral looked like the jewelled turrets of Irim. All the public buildings were also lighted up. I wonder when the civil authorities of the United States will order a general illumination in honor of the Virgin Mary! On the top of the hospital was a Vierge en feu. Even one window of the prison tower, which looms up behind the cathedral—a huge quadrangular monument, dark and forbidding as a donjon keep of ages past—was brilliant with lights, while far up in the very highest window gleamed one bright solitary lamp, like the last ray of hope in the heart of the captive. That light pierced me to the heart.

And all this in honor of a once obscure virgin of Judea. One can well sing "Exaltavit humiles." In the streets were arches of triumph, and at most of the windows were Madonnas, crosses, monograms, flags, etc., etc. The streets were crowded with people as on Holy Thursday, for every[68] body went to visit the different churches and monasteries, and thousands came in from the country. But all were so quiet and thoughtful that one felt it was a religious festival. The Rue du Prieuré was crammed, but so subdued were the voices that we should hardly have been aware of it, had we not seen the people from the grated windows above. Such thoughtfulness was truly edifying.

Holy Week has just passed again with its touching ceremonies, which recall so many overwhelming mysteries of faith. What a feast for the soul on Maunday Thursday, when the Divine Host remained all day and night on the altar amid a blaze of lights, and the perfume of flowers and incense, exposed to the eyes of his adorers! Who could tear himself away from that altar? Who could hunger after earthly aliment when that Living Bread was replenishing the hungry soul? Ah! what are the pleasures of the world compared with those found in thy presence, O Incarnate Word! I read the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, those tender words of our Saviour before his crucifixion, and meditated on them for hours.

Many of the nuns remained all night before the Blessed Sacrament. We novices made the holy hour together—that midnight hour of union with the Saviour's agony in the garden. "Couldst thou not watch one hour with me," he seemed to say. Such an hour is an eternity for the heart that loves.

"O God!" I say constantly, "the Catholic Church alone knows how to honor thee with due worship." I wish I could define all the emotions of the past few days, when the sufferings of Christ were renewed in our hearts. I thought my very heart would break on Holy Thursday during the Stabat Mater. The words and the music are the very embodiment of sorrow, and I felt myself with Mary at the foot of the cross, sharing the pain from that sword of grief.

The ceremonies of this holy time are, of course, far more simple in our chapel than at the cathedral, but perhaps not less touching. Nothing could be more so than, at the veneration of the cross on Good Friday, to see the long train of nuns reverently lay off their shoes, and, all enveloped in their long black veils, and bowed down by sorrow of heart, approach the crucifix, prostrating themselves to kiss the sacred wounds; and then the three hours agony, when the heart is full of anguish on Calvary.... Several of us remained a part of Good Friday night to grieve with Marie désolée over the traces of her crucified Son. There is a whole existence in such days and nights, and when we come back to ordinary life we are oppressed by the heaviness of the atmosphere.

Our whole Lent was uncommonly solemn. I never entered so fully into the spirit of the church, never meditated so much on the sufferings of Christ. They so occupied my mind during the hours of meditation, the via crucis, which we make so often, and even during the ordinary duties of our life, that I felt bowed down by a weight of inexpressible sorrow, which the alleluias of Easter and the joyful "Regina Cœli lætare" have hardly dissipated. Oh! why are you not sharing all these impressions? But then you have what perhaps is better—the cross, which is our portion everywhere. "Souffrir et mourir, c'est toute la vie."

I was struck with a little picture I[69] saw to-day: the picture of a cross with cords extending from one of the arms to the foot, like a harp. A person stands leaning on it, his hands touching the strings; and our Saviour was near him; his holy hands uplifted to bless. Every cross would thus be to us a divine lyre with a capability of wonderful harmony, had we the courage to learn to draw it forth. May my hand yet acquire the skill of producing this heavenly music, my ears quick to catch the vibrations of this wonderful instrument, and my soul attuned to its harmony! O wonderful science of the cross! how varied are the lessons the loving heart may learn therefrom. When St. Thomas of Aquin was asked whence he drew the inspiration that fed his wonderful genius, he pointed to his crucifix as its only source. Ah! could we only learn to know "Jesus Christ and him crucified!" May you have the grace to bear your cross with patience, and learn therefrom its wonderful lore. The cross imposed by Almighty God is far more meritorious, far more beneficial to our souls, than any of our own choice; for he alone knows how to crucify. I constantly feel this more and more, that he alone knows how to crucify.

May 11.—This is one of the Rogation days. Curé and flock go in procession around the country chanting the Litany of the Saints to implore the blessing of God on the fruits of the earth. At these times the propriétaires erect huge crosses on their land by the highway, adorn them with garlands, and place at the foot an offering for the curé, perhaps of provisions. The procession passes from one cross to another. All kneel around the emblem of our salvation to beg the divine blessing on the basket and store of him who erected it. It is a beautiful ceremony, at which the peasantry assist with great faith and devotion. It is an expression of dependence on the Giver of all good for every blessing.

Thursday will be the feast of the Ascension. The paschal candle, in whose sacred light we have loved to linger since Easter, is again to be extinguished, and the ten succeeding days we are to pass in retreat and prayer, like the disciples in the upper chamber awaiting the feast of Pentecost.

June.—Yesterday I had been writing for some time in my cell, when I heard an unusual bustle of nuns going to and fro in the long corridors, as if something had happened. Going to the window, I saw the river had risen to an alarming height. An inundation was expected, owing to the sudden melting of snow in the Pyrenees. We all went to clear the chapel. A priest came to transport the blessed sacrament to the upper choir. The quais were crowded with spectators, and the gendarmes were among them keeping order. Masseube is said to be under water. Several of the nuns watched all night. This morning less danger is apprehended, though the river is very high, and the water is coming into the chapel. "Le bon Dieu est irrité contre nous," say the nuns, as they tell their beads to deprecate the wrath of Heaven. Every thing is depressing to-day. Dark clouds hang over us heavy with rain. The cathedral bell is tolling for some funeral. The trees seem to shiver in the winds that come cold from the snowy Pyrenees. And the dying-away tones of some chant afar off is the very voice of sorrow, and only adds to the impressive gloom.

On Trinity Sunday, the whole country was inundated in the valleys of the Garonne, the Adour, and the Gers, causing an immense loss of[70] property. Such a flood has not been known for a hundred years. Some villages are nearly destroyed, many lives lost, the produce of the farms all washed away, and the meadows nearly ruined. The whole country was in consternation. As we are on the banks of the river, we are sufferers of course. It was fortunate we had the precaution to have the blessed sacrament transported to the upper choir, as the next morning there were six or eight feet of water in the chapel, lower choir, and sacristy. It was pitiful to look down from the upper choir on the sanctuary. Notre Dame de Bon Secours was washed down from her niche into the middle of the church, and lay floating on the water flat on her back. The garden was overflowed and nearly ruined; the kitchen, refectory, etc., were invaded. Most of the nuns were up all night carrying things into the second story. All was confusion for some days. We ate what we could and where we could in primitive style—a complete subversion of monastic regularity. The weather had been gloomy for days, but Sunday was one of the brightest, clearest days of June. I went to the tower to see the whole valley covered with water. The effect was fine. The vast expanse of water was sparkling in the sun. The trees and groves were like islets in the midst of a glittering lake. The rapid current swept oceanward, carrying down houses, furniture, bridges—every thing that offered resistance. Crowds of people were out, giving animation to the scene. All this brilliancy was in striking contrast with the wretchedness produced by such a flood! The air was so clear that the Pyrenees seemed very near us, and they gleamed in their snow-clad summits above the verdure and desolation and activity of the world, like the Bride of Heaven in her veil of purity; but they looked cold and cheerless even in the morning sun—and so near heaven!

At Condom, (a village not far off, and remarkable for nothing but that Bossuet was its bishop before he was transferred to Meaux, though he never saw the place,) at Condom more than thirty houses were destroyed—a great number, considering that all the houses here are of stone and very solidly built. Had not our monastery been on a strong foundation, we should now be uncloistered. The chapel is not yet dry, so we have mass still in the upper choir. We are thus brought close to the feet of our Lord. During the office I stand or kneel not two steps from the altar on which is the tabernacle. What bliss! We seem more closely united to Him who is our life, our consolation, our all, and for whom we have left all!

Having mass in the choir obliges the priest to enter the cloister every morning, which seems strange, as ordinarily he never enters except to administer the consolations of religion to the sick. The cloister is very strict here. Our parlors have the blackest of grates, beyond which no visitor comes, and through which we talk to our friends. I love this barricade against the world, which says, "Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther." There is also a grating in the sacristy through which the sacristaine can attend to the wants of the chaplain. Even the choir is separated from the chapel by a grate; the body of the church being for the world.

Having a private opportunity of sending a package to America, I shall despatch my note-book to you, all full of odds and ends as it is. Caught up in my few spare moments, it only contains fragments of what[71] was in my heart. The young missionary who is to take it is only twenty-five years old, and has just been ordained. He is full of enthusiasm for the missionary life. He belongs to a noble family in Auvergne, and is a relative of our dear Sr. St. A——'s. He is the youngest of a patriarchal family of eighteen, six of whom are in heaven. Of the remaining twelve, nine are consecrated to God—two are Jesuits, two Visitandines, one a lady of the Sacred Heart, two devote themselves to the care of the insane, and the ninth is in some other order of charity. This young père has been thirteen years with the Jesuits, six as a pupil, and since as a member of the order. His first mass was at Christmas, and was served by one of the children of La Salette, to whom the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared. The next day his mission to America was assigned him. He seems full of zeal and piety.[23]

I must close my long journal. It is a piece of my heart which I send across the waters, while I remain here. Good-night, my friend. I extend my arms across the wide ocean to embrace you. I never retire to rest without throwing open my casement to look at "the cloistered stars that walk the holy aisles of heaven." They alone are familiar to me in this strange land. I have loved them from my infancy, and I fancy they look down tenderly and tearfully upon me. The thought brings tears to my eyes. Oh! shine as gently on those I love. Let each bright beam be a holy inspiration in their hearts—each tearful ray carry consolation to the soul troubled and in sorrow. A passage from the German says, "I know but two beautiful things in the universe—the starry sky above our heads and the sense of duty within our hearts." I leave the one and return to the other.

APPEAL TO YOUNG CHRISTIAN WOMEN.

In these days when the peril of souls is continually growing greater, we have always directed our efforts particularly to the extirpation of the roots of evil, among which not the least pernicious is female extravagance. Hence, last October, when we spoke of the respect due to the holiness of our churches and of certain disorders which had begun to appear among the people of Rome, we took occasion to speak likewise of this destructive pestilence which is spreading in every direction, and of its remedies.

We were much pleased, therefore, to see, beloved daughter in Christ, [72] that you have not only followed our advice yourself; but, being deeply impressed with its force and importance, have written a book in which you depict the sad consequences of extravagance, and call upon the women of the present day, and particularly those who belong to the societies of the Christian Mothers and the Daughters of Mary, to unite against this pernicious evil, which is so destructive to morals and to the welfare of the family.

Female extravagance wastes, in superfluous adornment of the body, and in frequent attention to the toilette, time which should be given to works of piety and mercy, and to the care of the household; it calls its votaries from home to brilliant assemblages, to public places, and to theatres; it causes them, under pretext of complying with the requirements of society, to pay numerous visits, and thus to waste hours in news-seeking and in scandalous conversation; it attracts sinful desire; it wastes the patrimony of children and deprives poverty of needful assistance; frequently it separates those who are married; more frequently, it prevents marriages, for there are but few men who are willing to incur such heavy expenses. As Tertullian wrote, "In a little casket of jewels women display an immense fortune; they place on a single string of pearls ten millions of sesterces; a slender neck upbears forests and islands; beautiful ears expend the income of a month; and every finger of the left hand plays with the contents of a bag of gold. Such is the strength of vanity; for it is vanity that enables the delicate body of woman thus to walk beneath the weight of enormous wealth." Experience shows that this aversion to marriage fosters and increases immorality. In the family, it is almost impossible in the midst of so many distracting vanities to cultivate domestic love by means of domestic intercourse, or to give to religion even what ordinary custom requires.

The education of children is neglected, household affairs do not receive proper attention and fall into disorder, and the words of the apostle become applicable, "If any one have not care of his own, and especially of those of his household, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel."

As a city is composed of families, and a province of cities, and a country of provinces, the family thus vitiated disorders the whole of society, and step by step brings upon us those calamities which to-day we behold on every side.

We trust, therefore, that many will unite with you to remove from themselves, their families, and their fatherland the cause of so many evils. We trust, also, that their example will induce others to lay aside whatever goes beyond the just limits of neatness. Oh! that women would believe that the esteem and love of their husbands is to be won, not by magnificent dress or costly adornments, but by cultivation of the mind and of the heart and of every virtue. For the glory of woman is from within, and she that is holy and modest is grace added unto grace, and she alone shall receive praise who feareth the Lord.

We trust and believe, therefore, that your undertaking will meet with the happiest success. As a presage of which, and a pledge of our paternal good will, with the tenderest affection, we impart to you our apostolic benediction.

Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on the eighth day of July, 1868, in the twenty-third year of our pontificate.

On occasions rendered doubly solemn by their infrequency, the common father of the faithful raises his voice to warn the entire world either against abuses which threaten society, or against those perverse doctrines which would attempt the annihilation of the kingdom of truth. These sacred words, coming from the lips of him to whom Jesus Christ has entrusted the care of his church, are always received by the whole of the immense Catholic family with that respect and submission which are due to a father.

A few months ago, Pius IX. suggested the establishment of a society of ladies who by their example and influence might succeed in moderating that extravagance which is the ruin of families, and one of the principal causes of immorality. "In order to accomplish this most difficult undertaking," adds his Holiness, "we must remind women that if in every place it is unbecoming modesty to endeavor to attract attention by extravagance and strangeness of dress, in the sacred church where God dwells and sits upon a throne of mercy to receive the prayers and adorations of the faithful, it is a true insult to him in whose eyes pride, pomp, and the desire of pleasing men are hateful."

These words of the Holy See, we may rest assured, are more applicable to us women of France than to the ladies of the Roman nobility, who are more grave, more pious, and more reserved, whatever may be said to the contrary, than the women of our land.

When travelling through England, Germany, or Russia, have we not sometimes felt a foolish pride on seeing that everywhere the most elegant robes and head-dresses were styled "modes de Paris." It is true that whatever in dress is new or elegant is imported from the capital of France, or is made after our Paris fashions. But we have no reason to be proud of this frivolous and dangerous supremacy; for if it is universally said that the French woman is truly elegant in matters of dress, we should, for that reason, feel under obligation to undertake the reform of an abuse which we aid if we do not originate.

Already, for several years, not only has the Catholic pulpit spoken with serious severity against the extravagance of our sex, but even the government has been aroused by these abuses which are every day producing the most evil results; and we have not forgotten the severe words of President Dupin to the Senate in June, 1865. To-day, things have assumed a still graver aspect, for the Holy Father has called our attention to this deplorable abuse.

The time, then, has come to undertake a crusade, as it were, against an enemy whom we shall not have to cross the seas to seek, because he has cunningly penetrated to our firesides, there to sit beside us and to disturb and destroy the peace of the family.

This necessary reform must be inaugurated by the young women of France; those of a mature age will encourage and aid our efforts; but it will be for us who cannot be accused of envy or of jealousy to raise aloft the standard of the holy league, to put limits to extravagance, and to say, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther."

Extravagance in dress, and the point it has at present attained, is simply ridiculous folly, and at the same time, what is more to be lamented, it is in direct opposition to the spirit of Christianity.

We are thinking creatures, rational and intelligent. It is evident, and there are those of our sex who have proved that we are capable of feeling the noble joy which is found in the[74] study of literature and the sciences, and in the cultivation of the arts. How comes it, then, that we are content with those frivolous occupations in which most of us squander our time?

To rise as late as possible, to make some calls, to drive to the Bois de Boulogne, to visit some fashion emporiums, to consult for whole hours on the arrangement of a lace flounce or the trimming of a gauze dress; to return home, dress for dinner; dress again for a soirée, a concert, or a ball; to pass a number of hours in exhibiting our own toilettes and in finding fault with those of others, and, finally, to retire to rest when the sun is on the point of rising—frankly, is not this the history of day after day? When do we take a book into our hands, unless perhaps it be some new romance, of which the style is as frivolous as the matter is pernicious. But a book, a true book, can one be seen on the table of our boudoirs? Some journals of fashion may be there; a review perhaps, cut only where some romantic story is found. What care we for the rest? As to standard literary works, and historical studies, how can we think of them?

We never have a moment to ourselves, and we often say with an affected sigh, "Alas! the world is a cruel tyrant; it takes up all my time, my days, my nights." And we might add, "My life and my intelligence;" for are not many among us what Tertullian would style "gilded nullities"?

While I was still a child, I happened to meet with a charming young woman, twenty-two years of age, who, on recovering from an illness which had nearly proved fatal, was seized with a singular mania. She used to play with dolls.... Isabel had remained very gentle. Her friends at first endeavored to drive away this unaccountable mania; but as soon as they took her dolls from her, she seated herself in a corner of the apartment, wept, refused all nourishment, and would not speak.

In accordance with the advice of physicians, her family had then yielded to her childish tastes, and she passed her whole time in dressing and undressing her daughters, as she called the dolls. Nothing could be more pitiful than to see this tall, beautiful girl, surrounded by her toys, and amusing herself like a child of six years.

Well! do we not resemble poor Isabel somewhat, and, like her, would we not be capable of weeping and giving ourselves up to despair if our playthings were taken from us?

Oh! yes, insanity, real insanity, is that foolish extravagance which consists in a constant changing of the shape, material, and pattern of our clothing. And is not insanity a stranger to wisdom?

To be wise is to give to each object in life that place which reasonably belongs to it. It is to have for all our actions a special and determined end. If we see a man devoting his whole time, his fortune, his researches, to the formation of some strange and perhaps eccentric collection—of shoes, for instance, from every country—we smile and say to one another, "He is out of his senses!" Out of his senses! and why? Is it because he has but one thought, but one ambition—to augment, to increase his collection at any price? We are more foolish than this collector of old shoes, for many of us have but one fixed thought, one only desire, dare I acknowledge it, one sole aim in life—to adorn ourselves! And no collection will remain after us.

We might attempt to acquire an honorable position in society by our[75] virtues, or by the superiority of our minds; but we merely desire to attract attention by the extravagance of our dress, to cause ourselves to be remarked and admired, and if possible, to humble our rivals. Do not think I exaggerate, because such is really the case, with an infinite variety of shades; for in every woman whose exclusive occupation is the toilette, there inevitably exist a desire to please and jealousy. You enter a parlor in the evening wearing a new robe, (and when you go into company your toilettes are always new, since you never appear twice in the same dress;) well! you are not satisfied until you observe some admiring glances directed toward you, until you perceive some expressions of annoyance and envy on the countenances of the young women who surround you. Having returned to your homes, what occupation precedes your sleep? What interrupts, what destroys it? You think over in your mind all the ladies you met at the ball; and if one of them had a dress more beautiful than yours, flowers more gracefully arranged, or diamonds more sparkling, you are discontented. You are jealous. Then what plans you make not to be eclipsed another time, but to be the most beautiful. It is not enough that we are admired; our happiness is in reigning alone.

We often shelter ourselves behind this singular excuse, "I do not wish that my husband should be ashamed of me. I endeavor to present a fine appearance, but it is entirely for his sake."

If we would occasionally condescend to ask the advice of our masters, if we would do so particularly with our dry-goods or millinery bills in our hands, I think they would be more likely to advise simplicity in our toilettes than to express themselves satisfied with their extravagant elegance. Now frankly, do you believe these gentlemen so simple as to desire that every glance may be directed to the dress of their young wife, or to the garland of flowers which adorns her hair?

I was present one day, in the house of a friend, at an amusing contradiction given to assertions of this sort.

Madame de G——, assisted by her maid, was trying on a rose-colored satin dress which had just been sent home from the dressmaker's, and which she was to wear at a grand official ball the same evening. She turned round and round before the mirror of the room, and her immense trail appeared to her much too short. What distressed her particularly was that the corsage was not low enough. I asked in astonishment how low she wanted it.

"Mariette," said she to her maid, "this must be cut several inches lower all round."

And turning to me, "My husband does not like such high-necked dresses," she said.

While the lady was occupied with some other detail of her charming toilette, the door opened and the husband to whom she so generously sacrificed the requirements of modesty entered. He examined his wife's toilette. He had the right to do so, since he would have to pay for it. He thought the rose color a little too lively, the trail a little too long, and, above all, the corsage much, very much too low.

"My dear child," said he, "your dressmaker is incorrigible; she has not the least judgment; you must procure another. You cannot appear in company so uncovered. Arrange matters as best you can, but this dress must be altered."

"Why! every one dresses this[76] way. Is it my fault if you do not understand these things, Adrian? However, I shall not contradict you. I will have a puff of tulle put around the corsage. It is going to make the dress horribly high, and all its style will be lost."

Such is the opinion of a husband, heard by chance; it is what is sometimes said and what is always thought.

Undoubtedly, to clothe one's self is a necessity; to make her garments becoming is, I might almost say, woman's marriage portion; and I would not dare to assert that our ancestors, the Gauls, did not seek and discover the means of wearing in a graceful manner the skins of wild animals which protected them from the inclemencies of the seasons, just as the women of the present day have learned to clothe themselves with elegance in the rich fabrics of India or in clouds of exquisite lace.

There is something peculiar to the toilettes of the present century; a desire for unceasing change which exceeds the bounds of eccentricity and even of extravagance. The Greek wife or Roman matron desired but one thing—garments which would enhance their beauty. Undoubtedly they admired rich and costly goods; but I do not believe that the day after they had imported, at a great expense, robes of the finest linen or silken tunics of brilliant colors, they would declare that fashion would not permit a garment so cut or a head dress arranged in such a manner.

And without going back so far, what would our ancestors of two centuries ago say, if they saw the decided repugnance we feel to appearing twice in society with the same toilette?

Their dresses, so rich, so graceful, so sparingly adorned, were handed down almost from generation to generation; and surely those celebrated women of the eighteenth century were not less beautiful than we, as their admirable portraits which adorn our parlors clearly show. I lately saw three pictures of the same marchioness, taken at different periods of life—as a very young woman, at thirty-five or forty years of age, and at a more advanced period of life; and I found her in the three portraits wearing the same robe of brocade, only the rose-colored ribbon which adorned her hair and her corsage in the first two pictures had been replaced in the third by a bow of a more sombre color.

How astonished would those ladies of the court of Louis XIV. have been, if it had been predicted that their great-grand-daughters would change the style of their apparel or the dimensions of their head-dresses every year, and that a hundred different publications would carry every week from one end of France to the other the inventions, more or less happy, more or less singular, of some fashion-maker of the capital. For let us remark, and it is a sufficiently striking fact, that in the continual changes of fashion we who at times find it so difficult to yield our wishes to those of a husband whom we have sworn before the altar to obey, are always ready to yield obedience to a milliner or a mantua-maker, whose only desire is to sell their goods. And in truth they succeed in doing this very well. Have you never remarked a very curious circumstance, and one which deserves to be related in the history of the costumes of the nineteenth century?[77] To-day, fashion passes from one extreme to another, so that what was worn last year is not permitted this year. And now do you understand this apparently strange custom? A robe is graceful in style and trimming; it is very becoming to you; the color harmonizes well with your complexion and your hair; your mirror has told you so. The fashion changes; your face, your style of beauty, if beauty you possess, remain the same; yet you do not hesitate to discard your becoming attire for something so ridiculous, so extravagant, so frightful perhaps, as to make you appear ungraceful or even ugly; but you have obeyed the mandates of fashion. Certainly the extravagances and caprices of the present day amply prove the truth of what I have said.

Even if past forty, we will wear short dresses, round hats, curls, and high-heeled boots. Even if tall and slender, no one will wear narrower skirts. Even if possessed of a full rounded form which we vainly deplore, we will pick out white corsages, light dresses, and the smallest of hats, because our greatest, or rather our only, fear is lest people should say that we wear things which are out of fashion.

Fashion! Let us throw off its shameful yoke. Instead of accepting, let us make its laws. This is reasonable ambition. Why not form a committee, and every year, or at the beginning of every season, pass judgment on the important question of the transformation of our toilettes? Why not submit the laws made by this female assembly to a committee composed of our husbands; and finally, promulgate and introduce them to the notice of all whom they concern by a special and duly authorized publication?

I commend this project to the serious consideration of our young women. All will admit that it would be less humiliating for us to submit to the dictates of fashion under such, than under present circumstances.

Clothing has a twofold end: to cover us and protect us from the inclemencies of the seasons, to supply the place of the beautiful fur or the brilliant plumage which forms the natural covering of beasts and birds. I will return later to the question of woman's clothing considered in a religious and moral point of view. At present, I shall treat of it only as it regards health. Do our dresses cover us? By a strange reversion of common sense, it is during the severity of winter we most willingly expose our arms and necks. You smile? The parlors are warm. But are our carriages, are the streets of our large cities? You would shudder if I should present to you the frightful statistics of the young women who have fallen victims to such imprudences. Every religion has its martyrs. Do you wish to be martyrs to fashion?

The second end of our apparel is to indicate the respective positions of persons in society. Thus, the Roman senators had the privilege of wearing the white tunic ornamented with purple. So also, in our own time, the uniform of the army reveals at a glance the rank of the wearer. Alas! in this respect, of how much use is it to us at the present day? The sumptuary laws, the edicts of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., are entirely forgotten.

There was a time when each class of society had its special dress. Furs, silk, gold, and silver could be worn only by persons of a certain rank in society. What a frightful revolution would break forth among the women of France if to-day the ruling sovereign should attempt to regulate the[78] width of our laces or the number of our jewels! In the present age extravagance tends, on the contrary, to confound all ranks of society. From the servant girl to the fine lady there is but one desire, one ambition—to appear what one is not. Yes, to appear what one is not; let us acknowledge it to our shame. Is not the fashion of our garments imitated, often invented by women to whom we would not speak? And around the lake of the Bois de Boulogne have we not sometimes mistaken the Marchioness de —— for Mlle. X——, or Mlle. Z—— for the Countess de ——?

I feel rather ashamed to mention such things; but addressing my own sex, it is allowable; the truth is often severe; but it is always useful. I saw a lovely young woman in a saloon one evening covered with confusion at these few words addressed to her by the Ambassador de ——.

"I admired exceedingly, madame, that elegant yellow dress you wore this afternoon in the park."

"I!" she exclaimed in astonishment. "My dear count, you are mistaken. I was in blue, and the yellow dress was worn by ——."

"You are right. But pardon my mistake; both ladies wore the same kind of head-dress."

What folly to keep ourselves continually in a false position by our extravagant outlays; to be reduced to have recourse to a thousand petty means of freeing ourselves from the embarrassments in which our love of dress has involved us.

"How much did this dress cost you?" asks a husband, a little uneasy at the prodigality of his young wife.

"Two hundred francs," she replies without hesitation, while she is fully aware that double or triple that amount would scarcely suffice to pay for it.

And when the time arrives for paying these formidable bills, how difficult to procure the thousands of francs represented by a few yards of lace or faded silk. How we stoop from the rightful dignity of our position when we condescend to beg for time and favor of a tradesman, or dressmaker, or milliner, after confessing that we have not the necessary sum at our disposal.

In a certain city that I could name a linen-draper had sold goods on credit to a young woman to the amount of forty thousand francs. Fearing that she would never pay him, he sacrificed the interest and accepted this singular promissory note: "To receive from my estate forty thousand francs." The lady's heirs will find her elegant dresses and fine laces rather costly.

O folly, folly! Our lives pass away amidst such trifles. We are seeking happiness; it is here at our hands. We could not only be happy in the bosom of our families by fulfilling our duties, but we could, moreover, render those around us happy. We foolishly prefer to cast aside these true enjoyments and fill up our lives with empty appearances of pleasure.

We forget how swiftly time flies. To-day we are young, and the world welcomes us; but our bloom, our beauty, which to us is every thing, will soon fade; it will vanish, and what is more melancholy than old age for many women? To know how to grow old,... it is knowledge which the wise alone possess.

The Holy Scripture, in addressing the daughters of Sion, pictures with striking truth the kind of punishment which God reserves for them. The Holy Spirit adopts, in some measure, the language of the worldly woman[79] herself, and it seems to me that these words might be addressed to each one of us:

In these words we are threatened with old age; with that old age which is daily drawing nearer; which awaits but the moment to seize upon its prey; which makes the woman who leads a life of gayety that which you well know.

Oh! those women who remain beautiful in spite of old age, with their white hair, their wrinkles undisguised, their cultivated minds, and their winning kindness. These are not the women who in earlier life placed all their happiness in following, even to the most minute details, the frivolities of fashion. I am, moreover, convinced that if the woman of the world of twenty or thirty years ago was fond of dress, she was far from devoting her whole time to it. Fashion was not then so variable. The outlay for clothing was evidently a much smaller item in the family expenses. In a word, if this folly was sometimes seen, it was an isolated case.

So much for the human side of the question. Permit me now to enter into a more elevated circle of ideas, and to remark that hitherto I have appealed neither to conscience nor to religion. I have addressed myself to women of the world; I now turn to young Christian women; to those whose tender years were watched over by pious mothers, whose youth was formed by a truly religious education; to those whose lives have not been blighted by any of those errors which banish a woman from her position in society, but who, on the contrary, have remained unsullied in the eyes of the world and have no cause to blush beneath its gaze. Here I feel at my ease, since it is permitted me to make use of the language of faith. This faith we still possess, but it slumbers in the depths of our souls; undoubtedly it will awaken in the hour of trial; the death of a darling child, a sudden change of fortune; less than that even—a single deception may suffice, and we shall feel that God is our father; and we shall see things in their true light; that poisonous cloud which surrounds the woman of the world will be instantly dispelled, and the mysteries of life and death will be unfolded to our astonished gaze. But until that time shall come, our life is consumed in a strange and dangerous illusion. A few religious practices of which we have retained the habit, perhaps because they were fashionable, make us believe, and therefore cause others to believe, that we are still real Christians. Meanwhile, carried away by the round of pleasure which we call legitimate enjoyment, we live on, without troubling ourselves to inquire[80] whither we are hastening. Days follow days, years succeed years; from time to time one among us is missing. God has called her away; but we did not hear her last words; we did not see the despair of that poor young woman when she found herself in the presence of her Judge with her hands empty. And hence we continue in our mode of life. Hours and days of weariness, of sadness occasionally steal in upon our worldly lives. Some new pleasure claims us, and in its presence past bitterness is soon forgotten. Thus are spent the best years of our lives, lost—religiously speaking—lost for ever. Our actions are useless, our thoughts frivolous, our existence devoid of all merit. And yet ought not our constant aim be to secure the happiness of our husband, and the salvation of his soul as well as of our own? to bring up our children in a Christian manner, and to edify the world by our example?

This point presents a fit subject for religious moralizing, which, however, comes neither within my aim nor my ability. It is for voices possessing greater authority than mine to treat of such grave matters in a becoming manner. The ministers of the church, both by preaching and the pen, have shown us our duties with a clearness and a correctness before which we humbly bow. But as to a question of detail, especially when, as at present, it concerns extravagance of dress, I believe I am right in thinking that one of yourselves can, better than any one else, treat a subject so distinctively pertaining to woman.

Let me remark in the beginning that I wish to condemn in our toilette nothing save what is contrary to propriety or modesty. I am not opposed to crinoline, to trails, to diamonds, nor to rubies. Rose color, blue, white, and black are alike to me. Whether linen, silk, or wool serve by turn to cover us, is a matter of indifference. Moreover, it is evident that woman, whatever her age or condition, should endeavor to render her attire suitable and becoming. St. Francis of Sales desires that a wife should adorn herself to please her husband; and a maiden, with a view to a holy marriage.

The woman who betrays an absolute negligence in her toilette, who would willingly appear in a torn dress or a faded bonnet, when her position in society requires something better, is almost as much to blame as those who spend their whole time in dressing and undressing.

That which we ought to possess, that which should regulate our dress, as well as all our actions, is a clear comprehension of our duties. We should appeal to our conscience, scrutinize our intentions and our desires, and then regulate and reform wherever there is need.

We do not deny that this world is a place of pilgrimage, and life a season of trials; that they are foolish indeed who think only of culling flowers from the road-side while time flies and eternity approaches. We often experience within ourselves a certain opposition between our convictions and our conduct. Our life is not regulated as it ought to be. It is not tending to its end, which is our eternal salvation. We have acknowledged these truths when, on leaving the church where we had listened to some celebrated preacher, we confessed to ourselves that our mode of life was not sufficiently serious, and that it ought to be reformed.

Strange to say, I feel, I see, many women in like manner feel and see, that the love of dress, the importance we attach to every thing connected with fashion, is the principal cause of the frivolity and inutility of our lives.[81] But there we stop. What! you will say, has a ribbon, a flower, a piece of velvet or satin so great an influence with us? Try, then, to maintain the contrary with your hand upon your conscience, and you will see that I have not gone too far.

Much is said about woman's mission! It is constantly repeated that the future of society depends on us. If we occasionally forget this, we should certainly not suffer others to doubt it. We wish—and we are right in doing so—we wish to occupy an important position in the family and in society; we struggle vigorously against those who would assign to us a secondary position; we boast that we exercise a great influence over men. This idea flatters our self-love.

But let us not forget that this circumstance becomes for us a source of strict obligations. Man is nurtured in our arms, and grows up at our side. He is, we may say, whatever we make him. That primary instruction which it is our duty to impart to him, exercises the greatest influence on his after life. His mother! He will always remember her, and her example, good or evil, will leave an indelible impression on his soul. And our husbands, our fathers and brothers! We know our power over them, and we sometimes use it in matters which are not really worth all the diplomacy we employ. That mission of mother, of wife! Have we forgotten that it is the end of our life, the reason of our creation? God, who has established laws for the material world, laws from which even a slight derogation would produce a great catastrophe, has likewise marked out for each one of us her place here below. He has not placed us in this world without a definite end in view. Woman has serious duties to perform, of which she must one day render a strict account to her Creator.

Have these duties, these obligations which our Lord has imposed upon us, been hitherto our principal concern? Has our worldly life, with its numerous preoccupations, left us time to be true wives and true mothers? Alas! the world and its requirements take up all our time. And yet the duties to which we are bound by this twofold title, although differing with our different positions in the world, oblige equally the wife of the mechanic, the merchant, the officer, and the prince, before both God and society. Here, then, is the pith of this question; it may be summed up in a single word: are we wives and mothers, or are we merely women of the world?

Those children whom God has confided to our care, and of whom we shall have to render an account, do we suppose that we have done our duty toward them when we have procured tutors for them, or when we have placed them in an academy?

How many among us, alas! find it difficult to see our children for even a few minutes during the course of the day. We have not the time to attend to them, we say. We have not the time! To whom does our time belong, if not to these little ones who call upon us by the sweet name of mother? Let us not plead our position. I know women who mingle a great deal in society, who have a great number of servants to be looked after, who yet manage their time so well that they are enabled to spend the greater part of the day with their children. They have hours set apart for conversing with them, for informing themselves of their progress—in a word, for attending to their education. These mothers are happy. The gratitude of their young families, the affection[82] which surrounds them, the sense of duty performed—shall we dare compare these true and noble enjoyments with the empty pleasures which the exhibition of a new dress or even an eulogium passed on our beauty procures us? And, candidly, is it not more worthy, more sensible, to say, "I have not time to go to the park," than to allege that we have not time to love and to care for our children?

Ah! you will perhaps reply, my husband has very little need of my society; he lives for himself; I live for myself. If I have my toilettes, my drives, and my friends, he has his horses, his friends, and his club.

There is the misfortune; and the question is, are we not, to a considerable extent, responsible for this deplorable habit of, so to speak, separate existences? Do you not think, then, that the majority of husbands would prefer a different kind of life? That it would be more agreeable to them to enjoy oftener the pleasures of home, in your company, surrounded by their children?

You do not believe it? Be it so; but have you ever tried the experiment? Have you not yourselves created a necessity for this life of continual agitation and excitement? Have you ever reserved time to be devoted to your husband? And is it not your desire that things should remain just as they are—you with your liberty and your husband with his? Do you not prefer to squander (for that is the word) your hours and your days, rather than face the ennui that your own worldly tastes would cause you to experience in the retirement of a serious, and, in comparison, solitary home?

But it is not our time alone that we thus waste. We waste likewise a fortune which in reality is not ours.

We are born rich, while all around us the poor—children of the same God—are without bread to eat, and ready to die of hunger, perhaps under the same roof.

We forget that, according to the designs of Providence, we have a duty to discharge toward the suffering and the needy! It is not for ourselves alone that God has given us riches. He wishes us to be his almoners, and the practice of charity is a strict duty.

The bestowing of alms is not only an evangelical counsel; it is often a precept. If the divine Ruler employs the most tender images in describing the merit of charity and the clearest and strongest promises when speaking of its reward, he has for the one who refuses to assist a brother, and leaves him in want, the severest of condemnations. Consider the parable of Lazarus and the rich sinner, but especially those terrible words: "I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat.... Depart into everlasting fire."[25]

Will a few gold pieces ostentatiously dropped each year into the collection boxes, a few contributions to other charities, which we are ashamed to refuse, suffice to save us from a similar sentence? What has become of that pious custom of tithes for the poor formerly found in rich families?

If, before entering the establishment of the fashionable jeweller, we would ascend to the garret of the indigent—we should often purchase fewer bracelets. It is not heart that is wanting in us, but reflection.

A young woman of whom some one was asking assistance for a family which had fallen into misery, and whose sufferings they were picturing [83]to her, exclaimed with a simplicity which was her only excuse:

We know that there are poor people, but we too often forget it. Love of dress and the voice of vanity smother in us the love of the suffering members of Jesus Christ and render us deaf to the appeal of our unhappy brethren.

If we would only consider that by sacrificing a few yards of lace, or by consenting to appear twice during a season in the same dress, we might with the money thus saved assist several families each winter, we would more frequently be kind and charitable.

And that we may not forget the necessities of our brethren, let us assist them directly. Does not history tell us of more than one queen fashioning with her own hands garments for the poor, and laying aside the grandeur of her position to distribute them herself?

Ball-rooms, theatres, and the public drives are, unfortunately, not the only places in which we make a display. Fashionable dressing has become such a habit, such a necessity with us, that, as the Sovereign Pontiff remarked with sorrow, our holy temples often present the sad spectacle of women who call themselves Christians, and believe themselves such, coming to these holy places rather to rival one another in extravagance of attire than to excite to piety. Alas! what influence will our supplications have, if humility, that essential condition of prayer, be wanting. Ah! let us rather remain at home than go to the foot of the altar with the guilty desire of being admired.

I have yet another part of this important subject to treat: the impropriety, the indecency, why not say the word, of certain fashions?

I turn in shame from the thought of them. Let each one of us descend to the very depths of our conscience, let us scrutinize our hearts, bearing in mind this terrible utterance: "He that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."[26]

How, then, are we to remedy so great an evil? How oppose a barrier to this ever-increasing tide of luxury and of prodigality? The Holy Father points out the way in a few plain and simple words. To form among ourselves an association—a holy league, if I may thus express myself—to have our laws and regulations, and, with the zeal and determination which characterize us when we wish to attain any end, to pursue this one without truce or mercy.

But what promises could and should be made by the members of this sacred league? They will have to be determined by the brave champion who shall bear the standard in this war against extravagance. I do not think, however, any difficulty will be found in their determination. We should begin by promising to examine seriously before God what are the motives which actuate us in the adornment and embellishment of our persons; to purify our intentions, and to entertain none that would cause a blush if revealed.

To please our husbands, to support our position in society, to remain within the bounds of a just elegance, these are motives which we can without shame avow. But to seek in the toilette a means of being remarked, or admired, or loved, outside of our home circle; a means of humiliating other women, of surpassing them, of [84] reigning without a rival; in a word, of eclipsing all others—all this would be entirely contrary to the spirit of the association.

As to the engagements, in some sort material, to be entered into by the members, I think they might be limited to three.

We should first determine in advance, and in the most positive manner, the amount to be expended each year on our toilette; which amount we should never exceed. From this sum we should deduct a portion for the poor, and increase the amount as much as possible by accustoming ourselves to sacrifice from time to time our wish for some novelty, in order that we may relieve our unfortunate brethren, upon whom we should bestow our charities in person.

Finally, and here is a very essential point, we should never purchase any thing without paying for it immediately; or if, in some circumstances, this is impossible, we should lay aside the price of the dress, the bonnet, or the cashmere we have selected.

Oh! if we could well understand how much there is of order and of good sense in those two words so little known to most women—cash payments! Try this plan, if only for a year, or even six months, and you will see the truth of my assertion.

I have finished; pardon me for having dared to raise my voice, not to give you advice, I have neither the right nor the intention to do so, but only to communicate to you ideas which have been suggested to my mind by the admonitions of the highest of authorities, and by the resolutions which I have taken, and which I trust I shall have the courage to keep.

My object is, to ask of you in this matter that union in which is found strength, and to remind you that God is in the midst of those who fight for a holy cause. May my voice be heard! May the young women of our beloved France arouse themselves at the thought of a danger which threatens the dignity of our sex! May this new and holy war be soon inaugurated in which we shall be both combatants and conquerors!

LOST AND FOUND. A WAYSIDE REMINISCENCE.

What woman, travelling alone, has not encountered the embarrassment of entering a car already nearly filled with passengers? Perhaps the awkwardness of the situation may not be as keenly felt by those who frequently meet it, and who are accustomed to the manifold jostlings of this busy world, as by a recluse like myself. However this may be, I can testify from experience that the ordeal is a painful one to a sensitive and shrinking nature. So it chanced that, upon discovering this condition of affairs as I entered a car at Prescott, on a fine morning in June, 1867, I dropped into the first vacant place my eye detected, by the side of an elderly lady dressed in deep mourning. The first glimpse of her face and manner satisfied me that she also was from the "States," and I felt quite at home with her at once.

We soon fell into conversation, and[85] I found my companion most agreeable, quiet, and intelligent. We beguiled the monotony of a railway journey by pleasant chat upon the scenery through which we were passing, and such other topics as came uppermost. I noticed, as we stopped a few minutes at Brockville, that she seemed to scan all that could be seen from the car with deep interest; and again, as we pursued our course up the river in sight of the Thousand Islands, she was quite absorbed in her observation of the scenery.

"Beautiful islands," I remarked; "I would like nothing better than to occupy some days in exploring their fairy haunts."

"You would find many of them beautiful indeed!" she replied. "They are very dear to me; for my early life was passed in their neighborhood, and I retain for them much of the affection that clings to the memory of dear friends, though I have not seen them before for many years. What frequent merry-makings and picnic festivals did the young people from the American shore and those of Brockville enjoy together among the windings of their picturesque labyrinth, long ago!" she added with a sigh.

She then informed me that she was now on her way to Illinois, to visit her children there, and had chosen this route, that she might catch a passing glimpse of scenes most interesting to her, from their connection with memories of the past.

Time and space passed almost imperceptibly to us, as we were engaged in discussing one subject after another of general interest, until some time in the afternoon, when, clatter! clatter! thump! thump! a jolt and a bounce, brought every man in the car to his feet, and caused every woman instinctively to settle herself more firmly in her place, while a volley of exclamations, "What can it be?" "There's something wrong!" "Cars off the track!" "We shall be down the embankment!" burst from every quarter, the swaying, irregular movement preventing the possibility of reaching the door, to discover the cause of all this disturbance. The time seemed long, but in reality occupied only a few seconds, before the motion ceased suddenly, with a hitch, a backward jerk, and a concussion, which had well-nigh thrown us all upon our faces; and the conductor appeared for a moment in the door, uttering with hasty tremor, "Don't be alarmed, ladies and gentlemen—no danger! axle broke—cars off the track. We shall be detained here some time." And away he went.

This announcement was met, I am sorry to say, with more murmurs at the detention than thanks for our providential escape from imminent peril. "How unfortunate!" cried one. "And in this lonely, disagreeable place too!" added another. A third wondered where we were, when one of the company familiar with the route volunteered the information that we were not many miles from Toronto.

Now, from the moment I sat down by my new acquaintance, I had divined—by that sort of mysterious sympathy, impossible to define, but which will be understood by all converts to the Catholic faith—that she was, like myself, of this class; and she had formed the same conjecture in relation to me; which was, perhaps, the cause of our having formed a sudden intimacy not quite in keeping with the native reserve, not to say shyness, of both. Our first and simultaneous act, upon the occurrence of the incident recorded—in fortifying ourselves with the blessed sign of benediction and protection so precious to all Catholics—had confirmed the mutual conjecture, and[86] established a strong bond of sympathy between us.

As we left the cars together, I observed that she still scanned the surrounding localities with an earnestness that did not seem warranted by any claims they possessed to notice; for a more tame and uninteresting region can scarcely be imagined than that in which we so reluctantly lingered.

"What wonderful changes forty years will make in the face of a new country!" she at length exclaimed. "I passed this way, going and returning, in 1827, at an age when the deepest impressions are received, and upon an errand so peculiar in its nature as to make those impressions indelible. I have always carried the picture of the route, slowly traversed at that time, in my memory; but the transformation is so complete that I look in vain for one familiar feature."

After walking for some time in silence, she resumed: "It is strange how vividly the most minute details of that journey and the incidents connected with it return to me, now that we are so singularly detained in the vicinity of the scenes I then sought, though there is nothing in the aspect of the country to bring them back!"

By this time we had loitered into a shady nook, at no great distance from the disabled car; and its coolness inviting us to remain after we had seated ourselves upon a rock overgrown with moss, I begged that she would while away the time of our detention by giving me a history of those incidents.

"The narrative may not prove very interesting to you," she replied. "The recollection of events that took place around us in youth has more power to move ourselves than others. But of this you shall judge for yourself.

"In 1826, I was visiting a dear friend who lived on St. Paul street, in Montreal. It was a pleasant evening in June, the close of one of those very warm days so common in the early part of a Canadian summer, where the interval between the snows and frost of winter and the fervid heat, the verdure and bloom, of summer, is often so marvellously short as to astonish a stranger.

"I was sitting in my room, at an open window that looked out on a narrow back-court, the opposite side of which was bounded by a row of low-roofed tenant-houses parallel with the bank of the river, and over these, upon a magnificent view of the St. Lawrence rolling grandly down past the city, at which I was never tired of gazing. I had been contemplating the mighty flood for some time, my thoughts wandering sorrowfully far up its waters and the stream of time to tranquil scenes now closed to me for ever, when the words, 'Ah, Donald! that I should live to see this day! Do not ask me to sing the hymn we love this night, when my heart is sae sair that it is like to break! I canna, canna sing the sangs o' Zion i' this strange place, and in our sharp, sharp griefs!' came floating to my ear on the evening breeze, from an open balcony along the rear of the tenements mentioned.

"There was a depth of anguish in the tones that touched the tenderest chord of sympathy in my heart, which was then writhing under the pangs of a recent sore bereavement.

"My childhood had been passed near settlements of the Lowland Scotch in St. Lawrence County, New York, and I was therefore familiar with their dialect, the use of which added to my interest in the speaker, and I listened eagerly for further sounds. For some time I heard only[87] a suppressed sobbing, and the low tones of a manly voice that seemed to be soothing an outburst of grief which was overwhelming his companion. At length I heard him say, with an accent that betokened a tongue accustomed to the use of the Gaelic dialect,

"'It would drown the sorrows of my gentle Maggie, if she would only strive to sing. Let us not forget the dolors of our Blessed Mother in the agonies of our ain grief. I will sing, and mayhap she will join me.'

"Presently a singularly wild and plaintive air was borne to my ear upon the flowing cadences of a man's voice, as soft and musical as any to which I had ever listened. The words were in Gaelic, but the refrain at the close of each verse 'Ora, Mater, ora'—revealed their religion, and that it was a hymn of the Blessed Virgin to which I was listening. Before the close of the first verse, he was joined by a voice, low and clear as the tones of a flute, bearing upon every strain the fervent outpourings of tender piety, though tremulous with emotion.

"Soon after it ceased, they retired within the open door of their room, and I heard them reciting alternately, in a low voice, that treasured devotion of the Catholic heart—of which I was then entirely ignorant, but which has since (thank God!) become inestimably precious to me—the beads of the Holy Rosary.

"Their evening prayers being over, they walked for some time on the balcony in silence, when she said in a trembling voice,

"'It is a month to-morrow, Donald, a month to-morrow, sin' God took awa' our darlings; and och! wha wad hae thought I could bide sae lang i' this cauld warld without a sight o' their bonnie faces! I dinna ken why I live, when my sweet bairnies are buried far awa' i' their watery grave!'

"'Ah Maggie! why wad ye not live for your poor Donald? He mourns for the bonnie bairnies too; but he does not wish to leave his Maggie because God has ta'en them from her. Cast awa' these repining thoughts, my own love, and let us go to the church thegither to-morrow morning, and lay all our griefs before the altar of our God.'

"I heard no more; but resolving to accompany them to church, I arose very early the next morning, and preparing myself, watched an opportunity to join them, as they passed from the street where they were stopping into St. Paul street.

"We walked on in silence after I joined them, and I saw that he was a tall, athletic young Highlander, of dark complexion, and with soft black eyes; whose remarkably fine face glowed with intelligence and mildness. Her beauty was more conformed to the Lowland type; her eyes being of a deep clear blue, her hair 'flaxen,' and her complexion exceedingly fair, while her teeth of snowy whiteness had a little prominence that caused them to be slightly revealed between her rose-bud lips, even when her countenance was in repose. Her form was very slender, and her beautiful face so youthful as to seem child-like. I never saw such a perfect expression of soul-absorbing yet patient and subdued sorrow as lingered upon every line of those youthful features.

"We entered the old Recollet church, and I remained near them during the service. It was my first visit to a Catholic church, and I had never before been present at the offering of the holy sacrifice.

"Soon after our entry, I noticed that first one of them and then the[88] other passed for a brief space of time into a little curtained box at the side of the aisle; but being ignorant of Catholic usages, I did not know for what purpose, though I was deeply impressed by their solemn, reverent manner, and the peaceful expression of their faces. During the progress of the service, which commenced soon after, I saw them approach the rail before the altar, and knew it was to receive holy communion. The sweetly serene and pensive light that rested upon their features after that solemn act is still vividly before me, notwithstanding the lapse of years.

"When they left the church, I followed closely, determined to learn something, if possible, of their history. At the church door the man parted from her, and went away in an opposite direction from that by which we had come, leaving her to walk back alone. As I walked by her side, I addressed some casual remark to her, and then, confessing the interest I felt in them on account of what I had accidentally overheard the evening before, begged her to tell me, as her sister in affliction, of the griefs which were oppressing her.

"We sauntered slowly down the narrow streets from the Recollet church to our places of abode, and our young hearts being drawn together by the bonds of sorrow, I mingled my tears in sympathy with hers while she related her artless story.

"She was the only child of a minister of the Scottish Kirk, whose name was Lauder, and who died when she was quite young. Her mother, being left in feeble health, and destitute of any means of support, gladly accepted the home offered by her sister, who was married some years before to a Highland gentleman by the name of Kenneth McGregor, and who became a Catholic soon after her marriage.

"They were welcomed to the home of her aunt with true Scottish hospitality; and the most devoted and delicate attentions which affection could devise were lavished upon her heart-broken mother, to soothe and comfort her, while the little Maggie became at once the pet of a large household of cousins older than herself, who regarded her ever after as a dear sister. So kind were the whole family to her, that she was not permitted to feel the loss of her father in the sense most chilling and painful to the heart of the orphan, that of being an object of indifference and neglect. They went frequently to visit their Lowland friends, and kept up an intercourse with them during the life of her mother.

"When she had reached her twelfth year, the minister of the kirk which they had attended since their removal to the Highlands, with several of his small congregation, among whom were her mother and herself, made their profession of the Catholic faith; soon after which event her mother died.

"When Maggie was in her fourteenth year, she became acquainted with Donald Macpherson, whose father was a warm friend of her uncle Kenneth. A strong attachment soon grew up between the young people, and when she was sixteen she was married to Donald. When they had been married about six years, and had three children—the oldest of them a daughter five years old and named for herself, and the others boys—Donald thought best to join a colony (among whom were two of her cousins and their families) who were preparing to depart for one of the new and remote districts of Upper Canada. Donald, as the one best fitted by education for that purpose, was appointed surveyor[89] of the wild lands, and to lay out roads in the wilderness.

"They suffered much in parting with home and friends, but alas! subsequent floods of affliction obliterated all traces of those lighter griefs.

"Their voyage was long and stormy, and when they were at length in sight of Newfoundland, and hoped they were about to reach the end of it in safety, a storm in the Gulf of St. Lawrence drove their vessel upon the rocks in the darkness of evening, and it was wrecked. The poor young parents lashed their little Maggie firmly to a plank, and committed her to the waves; then taking each a child, and imploring the aid of heaven for themselves and their little ones, they plunged into the water. The mother was soon exhausted with the buffeting of the waves; her child was borne from her arms, just before she was thrown within the reach of friendly hands, and taken up unconscious. Donald was dashed against the rocks, and caught from the receding waters of an immense wave, shortly after, by those who were on the shore watching to render aid to the sufferers, insensible and apparently lifeless. The child he had was also lost.

"They were taken to a fisherman's hut, and by the persevering efforts of those in attendance animation was restored, though it was some days before they recovered their consciousness, only to find that their children and their relations had perished. But a small number of their companions on the voyage survived. Their goods and clothing, with the exception of what they wore, were all lost; but this was too trifling to be thought of in comparison with their other misfortunes.

"As soon as they were able, they proceeded to Montreal, in company with the survivors of the wreck, and Donald showed the certificate of his appointment as surveyor—which he fortunately carried in his vest-pocket—to the mayor of the city, who provided comfortable quarters for them, and advised him to remain there until he should receive remittances from Scotland, for which they sent immediately after their arrival in Montreal.

"They had not yet decided whether they would return when these funds should arrive, or go on to the place for which they had started, as their companions were anxious to have them do.

"She expressed entire indifference as to going on or returning; her children being gone, she did not care where she was. The terrified, imploring look of her darling Maggie, as she was dashed from them on her frail support, amid the merciless buffetings and boiling surges of the furious waves—her eyes straining to catch a glimpse of them, and her dear little arms extended so pitifully to them for protection—haunted the imagination of the broken-hearted mother, and, she assured me, had not been absent from her thoughts one moment since, sleeping or waking.

"My sincere and fervent sympathy seemed to afford her some comfort, and it was freely and heartily offered; for I was myself, as I have hinted, at that time a mourner over the recent loss of the kindest and best of fathers, whose only daughter and cherished pet I had ever been. His death, when I was yet but a child in years, was followed by severe pecuniary reverses, which had driven us from our home and involved our hitherto affluent and most happy family in difficulties and poverty. In my ignorance of sorrow and of the religion which alone can sustain the afflicted, I had thought there could be none so unhappy and unfortunate as ourselves. I could not then believe the[90] truth of the assurance, which was the solace of my invalid mother, that 'The Lord loveth whom he chasteneth.' I could not see the tender mercy and love that had inflicted this cruel bereavement and surrounded our helpless family with such calamities, in the clear light with which his grace afterward made it manifest to me.

"But here was an instance far more inscrutable and heart-rending. Strangers in a strange land; the broad Atlantic rolling between them and every heart upon which they had any special claim for sympathy; their children relentlessly torn from them; and all their worldly substance buried in the consuming deep! Why had they thus been singled out as marks for such a shower of fatal arrows? I pondered much upon it, and my eyes were opened to see the mercies that had been mingled with the chastisements of a loving Father in our own case. We had numerous and kind friends, whose sympathy had poured balm upon our wounded spirits, and whose generous hands had been opened to aid us in our necessities. Of these, the dear friends with whom I was then staying had been among the first, and their assistance and advice at that dark period of my life have ever been remembered with gratitude.

"While my new acquaintances remained in Montreal, I passed much time with poor Maggie, to the entire satisfaction of my friends, to whom I communicated the sorrowful story on the day I heard it, and whose active sympathy contributed much toward the relief and comfort of the youthful mourners.

"When they at length received the expected funds from Scotland, they decided to comply with the wishes of their surviving fellow-sufferers in exile and affliction, by accompanying them, according to their original intention, to Upper Canada. Our parting was very affecting. They had learned to look upon my friends as kind benefactors, while they regarded me as a sister. I felt very lonely after they were gone; but the lesson I had learned from my intercourse with them was never forgotten. Their united and unquestioning acquiescence with the will of God, and the persistent patience with which every action of their daily lives expressed, 'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him,' made a permanent impression on my mind.

"At the invitation and by the advice of my friends, I remained much longer in Montreal than I at first intended, in order to learn the French language, and to acquire the knowledge of some other branches, for which superior facilities were presented by the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, and which were necessary to advance my education sufficiently to fit me for teaching, the object I then had in view.

"Nearly a year had passed since our parting with the Macphersons, when some friends from Vermont arrived on a visit to those with whom I was staying. I was requested, in consequence of the indisposition of the lady of the house, to accompany them to several places of interest in the city, which they wished to see. Among these was the house of the 'Gray Nuns,' a sisterhood devoted to the care of a great number of foundlings. In passing through the rooms appropriated to the children, I was particularly attracted by the face and attitude of a delicate-looking little girl of surprising beauty, who was sitting on the floor and devoting herself to the care and amusement of a little boy about two years old, whose beauty equalled her own, though entirely different in character. She was[91] fair as a lily; her large blue eyes were shaded by drooping lids and long silken lashes, which imparted a touching pensiveness to their expression, while her golden hair floated in shining curls to her shoulders. The little boy's complexion was dark and clear, his black eyes soft and brilliant. The startled timidity combined with searching earnestness in their expression as he raised them to mine and encountered my admiring gaze, (for I was always passionately fond of children,) thrilled my very soul, and, turning to the good sister who was conducting us, I exclaimed with enthusiasm, pointing to them,

"'Yes,' she said with fond pride, and evidently flattered by our notice of her pets, 'they are indeed beautiful; and alas! their misfortunes are as striking as their beauty. They belonged to a Scotch family on board a vessel that was wrecked off Newfoundland, and their parents perished. Mr. Ferguson, a Scotch gentleman in very infirm health, from our city, was visiting some friends in that vicinity, and happened to be passing in a carriage with one of them on the evening of the storm and the shipwreck, when, noticing the torches and bustle on the shore, they stopped to inquire the cause and to render assistance, if possible, to those who were washed ashore. This little girl had been lashed to a plank, and, by a wonderful providence, when the baby was borne away from his mother, the same wave carried him within reach of his little sister, who seized and clung to him as with a dying grasp, until she was snatched insensible by Mr. Ferguson from the top of a wave which rolled far up on the shore, and would have hurried them back in its receding surf but for a powerful effort on his part, which had nearly cost him his life; for he received injuries in the attempt, by severe sprains and otherwise, that rendered him almost helpless for some weeks. His friend took the children and himself in the carriage to his residence, over two miles distant—it being the nearest house on that unfrequented part of the coast, with the exception of some fishermen's huts at some distance in the opposite direction. Mr. Ferguson was unable to leave his bed for some weeks. Unfortunately, the physician of that neighborhood was absent on a visit to a distant city.

"'It was long before they succeeded in restoring any sign of life to either of the children, and when their efforts were at length rewarded by faint evidences of returning animation, they had to exert themselves to the utmost for many days to keep alive the vital spark, which had been so nearly extinguished. When they began to revive and recover strength, another difficulty met the devoted friends of the little unfortunates. The nerves of the little girl had sustained so severe a shock that she could not be aroused to a sense of any thing around her. She was constantly struggling fearfully with imaginary billows, or settled in a kind of idiotic vacancy. When the physician returned, he gave but little hopes of her recovery, as he feared her brain was so far affected as to unsettle reason permanently.

"'As soon as the gentleman who had taken them to his house dared to leave them and Mr. Ferguson so long, he went to inquire after the survivors of the wreck, and found they had departed in a vessel bound for Montreal. Mr. Ferguson was confined, as I have said, for many weeks at the house of this friend, and before he could return to Montreal he had become so much attached to the little treasures he had snatched[92] from a watery grave, that he could not be persuaded to leave them, (although he was a bachelor,) but brought them to us, that they might be where he could sometimes see them.

"'The little girl recovered but slowly. After some time she began to have lucid intervals, from which she would sink into mental apathy. Her sleep was for a long time broken by dreams of agonizing struggles, from which she would awake screaming, and so terrified that it required our most anxious and tender efforts to soothe and quiet her. She has, however, recovered almost entirely from these, and her mind is quite clear, though physically she is still a very delicate child, and we fear her constitution has encountered a shock from which it will never recover. During the first of her lucid intervals, she told us her name, and what she could of her parents.'

"While the good sister was reciting this little history, I stood like one in a maze, half unconscious of the bewildering conviction which was stealing over me that these were two of the children whose loss my poor friends, the Macphersons, were bemoaning; and when at length she closed the narrative, by saying that the child had revealed her name, I seized her arm with such a sudden and convulsive grasp as called attention for the first time to the fact that I had become pale as death, and whispered huskily,

"'Maggie Lauder Macpherson,' replied the sister, as I tottered to the nearest seat, almost fainting under the intense excitement. She hastened to bring me some cold water and other restoratives; after taking which I explained to her, and to my astonished companions, the cause of my agitation in few words, and that the parents still lived. When I sank into the chair, little Maggie had risen, and, approaching timidly, stood watching me with great anxiety. As soon as the momentary faintness passed, I drew her closely to my heart, and—still trembling with agitation—whispered fondly and gently,

"'My dear little lassie, I knew and loved your mother!' Looking up most wistfully in my face, she asked,

"'That canna be!' she murmured with plaintive softness, and as if half-musing, while the very expression of her mother's own serene resignation, mingled with a shade of disappointment, passed over her lovely features.

"'That canna be, gentle leddy, for my mither (and she shuddered as she uttered it) was buried in the cauld waves!'

"'No! my child,' I said softly; 'your father and mother both escaped, and are living, though a great ways from here.'

"It would be useless for me to attempt a description of what followed, as the truth of my assurance took possession of her mind; but the excitement of the sudden and joyful surprise—which we feared might injure her—seemed to restore the elasticity of her youthful spirit; a result that all other appliances had failed to secure. It was then discovered that the depressing consciousness of their orphan and destitute condition had so weighed upon her sensitive young heart, as to affect her delicate frame and prevent her restoration to health.

"I immediately sought my friends, and told them of the discovery; after which we went together to see Mr. Ferguson. It was agreed between them, at once, that I should accompany the children to Upper[93] Canada and deliver them to their parents, as a privilege to which I was especially entitled on account of the interest I had taken in the family. They furnished all necessary means for defraying the expenses of the journey.

"I set out with my little treasures the next morning, under charge of an old gentleman who was going to that vicinity on business. Our course lay up the St. Lawrence, and through a considerable portion of Lake Ontario. When we landed and left its shores, our journey continued through a rugged wilderness country of great extent, to regions, then wilder still, in the interior of Upper Canada, where settlements of Scotch had been located. We stopped at a rude log cabin that aspired to the dignity of an inn, at the settlement where the route of our stage-wagon terminated, and which was only a few miles distant from the place we were in search of.

"While the gentleman who had the care of us was out looking for a carriage to take us on, I thought I heard a familiar voice outside, and, stepping to the window, looked from it just in time to see Donald Macpherson himself, in the very act of driving away from the door, at which he had stopped a moment to speak to a man there. I tapped loudly on the window, he turned his head, and, throwing the reins to the hostler, in another moment rushed into the room, just as I had succeeded in hiding the children in an adjoining bedroom, and closing the door.

"'Is it possible, then,' said he, 'that it is indeed yoursel' I saw! What in the name of gudeness could hae brought you (the last one I should have thought of seeing) to this awfu' wild region! But I am that glad, any how, to see your dear face that I could cry, as Maggie will, I'm sure; but they will be right joyful tears she'll shed, for you will go with me this very hour to our home in the woods. But what could have brought you to face the fatigue of this rough journey?'

"'I came,' I replied as calmly as I could, 'on business that nearly concerns you and Maggie, and I am so glad to meet you here! I am sure Providence must have sent you; for I have been trying all the way to think how I could manage the business on which I came, without being able to settle upon any plan. Breathe a prayer to Heaven, Donald Macpherson, as fervently for strength to bear your joy, as I have heard you utter under the pressure of crushing griefs, while I tell you,' I said slowly, and fixing my eyes upon his face, 'that Almighty God has sent two of your lost children back to you by my hands—your little Maggie and your baby boy!'

"Never can I forget the expression that stole over his features—now white as the sculptured marble—when I succeeded in finishing what I had to say! He lifted his hands and eyes reverently to heaven, and murmured a prayer in his native dialect. Then looking at me as if awe-struck, he exclaimed,

"'Can it be that heaven has again employed you, the former messenger of its mercies to us, to bring this crowning one to our stricken hearts and desolated hearth? It is not possible! It must be some wild dream!' and he passed his hand over his head as if bewildered. As he said it, I drew him gently to the door of the bedroom, opened it, and rushed out of the room. I could not stay to witness that meeting, and I knew that the father would wish to be alone with his recovered treasures.

"After some time I went back to the happy group, but it was long[94] before we could speak. Such joy seemed too sacred for the interruption of words.

"When we had sufficiently recovered from the blissful agitation of the scene, we set about concerting measures for breaking the joyful news to Maggie.

"He decided that he would go home and bring her with him in a double wagon—the one he had being single—to accompany me to their home; pleading my fatigue after my journey as the reason why I did not go with him at once. On the way he was to prepare her for the glad meeting, as well as he could.

"I will not dwell upon the raptures of the young mother when she received her children who had 'been dead, but were alive again—had been lost, but were found!'—only to remark that she who had borne grief so calmly and patiently met the elevation also of this sudden transport in the same edifying spirit, and with many soft and tender ejaculations of the gratitude with which her heart was overflowing.

"The possibility of their children's escape had never for one moment occurred to the minds of the parents, and in the confusion and darkness of the shipwreck scene on the coast their recovery was unnoticed. Their condition, and that of Mr. Ferguson, their being consequently hurried away so suddenly from the vicinity, and remaining so long unconscious, together with the absence of the physician, had prevented any communications of a kind which might have led to the disclosure of their escape.

"The glad tidings soon spread through all the settlements, and the house was thronged early and late, with people of high and low degree. Rich and poor, Canadians, emigrants, and 'Americans,' came from all parts of the country to offer their congratulations—where their sympathies had before been freely bestowed—over the Lost and Found.

"I formed many agreeable acquaintances during the few weeks to which I was persuaded to prolong my visit in that part of the country.

"The vicissitudes of a changeful life—the lapse of forty years, during which I have stood by many graves of my nearest and dearest—have not been able to obliterate my fond recollections of the Macphersons, and have served only to engrave more and more deeply in my heart the lessons I learned from them, and my conviction that those upon whom God designs to bestow his richest spiritual gifts must go up, as did Moses of old, to 'meet him in the cloud!'"

And groups of loungers, starting from every direction, hastened gladly to take their places and resume their broken journey.

When we were again seated in the car, I repeated my question, "Did you ever see or hear from them again?"

"I never saw them again," she replied, "but we kept up a correspondence for a long time. The example of their lovely and pious lives exerted a wide-spread influence in Canada. Some years after the events I have related, a large estate in Scotland was left to them, from a distant relative, and they returned to that country. Their departure was deeply deplored by all their neighbors in the land of their adoption, and I have heard that since their increased means they have been active in advancing[95] every good work, both in their Canadian home and in that to which they have returned."

I parted with sincere regret from my new friend at Toronto, which was the limit of my excursion.

Her wayside story had so impressed my memory that I indulged my pen in transcribing it. If it yields half the interest to others, at second hand, with which I received it from the actual participant, my labor will be amply rewarded.

THE CHURCH IN PARIS AND FRANCE.

Though France is a Catholic country, the humiliating fact that a considerable portion of its male population manifests a certain religious apathy, cannot well be disguised. This estrangement from the church is due to various causes, but mainly to the training received by the youth educated at those public institutions which monopolize the government patronage. The University of Paris largely influences all the public schools, and its authority extended at one time even over the establishments for bringing up infants. The female schools have, for various reasons, formed, to a limited extent, an exception, chiefly for the want of lay instructresses, which rendered it absolutely necessary to grant to the numerous orders of nuns more extensive privileges. The university, originally half Christian and half deistic, has lately sunk into the lowest materialism. Even among the teachers of the elementary schools there are many who have discarded, more or less openly, the Christian faith, and thereby set the pupils a most pernicious example. The secret and avowed foes of religion preponderate in the educational domain, and it is only with the utmost difficulty that Christians, or even deists, can be found for the different scientific faculties. In other respects, a marked improvement has, however, taken place since 1850, when the church was first allowed to exercise a more direct influence over the public schools, and some of the most obnoxious opponents of Christianity were removed from their educational trusts. Still more beneficial has been the concession of greater school facilities. The public institutions superintended by religious have doubled in numbers and extent, being at present attended by over 1,200,000 girls and 250,000 boys. In 1854, there were in France 825 private institutions, with 42,462 pupils, presided over by laymen; and 256 institutions, with 21,195 pupils, under the charge of religious. In 1865, the number of lay institutions amounted to only 657, with 43,007 pupils, while the religious had increased to 278, with 34,897 pupils. While the former gained, therefore, within eleven years only 545 pupils, the latter gained 13,702. Nor is this all. The schools conducted by laymen have advanced equally in a religious and a scientific point of view, and are now no longer so inferior as formerly to those conducted by religious. The decided progress which the church has made in France during the last ten or twelve years is principally owing to the growth of religious instruction[96] Unfortunately, the university still remains unchanged, and many a pious youth is lost when he enters one of the faculties. It is otherwise with reference to the lyceums and colleges, where the religious have secured a greater influence over the pupils, though rationalists and sceptics still continue to fill some of the chairs. Three years ago, 29,852 pupils attended the lyceums, and 32,495 the colleges—a total of 62,347, which shows a gain of 19,228 pupils since 1854. This increase is accounted for by the support which these institutions receive from the state. In 1854, the number of lyceums was 53; in 1865, it was 86.

In about the same period of time, the Brothers of the Christian Schools (Frères de la Doctrine Chretiènne) had founded 864 educational establishments in France, 16 in the States of the Church, 13 in Italy, 42 in Belgium, 2 in Switzerland, 2 in Austria, 3 in Prussia, 2 in England, 2 in Egypt, 4 in Turkey, 19 in Canada, 29 in the United States, 8 in India, and 2 in Ecuador—making a total of 1043 establishments with 8822 brothers. This number has multiplied since. In France alone, there are now over 900 establishments and 6000 brothers. In more recent days, many similar orders have been organized, like that founded by Lammenais, the brother of the apostate priest, which is exclusively intended for the agricultural education of boys, and counts already thirty-odd schools in Brittany. France has 18,000 male ecclesiastics, and of these the greater half are engaged in training the rising generation. Of the 90,000 female members belonging to the various religious orders, one third are employed in the same way. Out of the whole number of religious, no less than 72,000 are computed to devote themselves to education, to the care of the orphans, the sick, and the aged. The pupils, the orphans, the invalids, the incurables, the helpless, the poor under the charge of the different religious societies and orders number over two millions. These are startling figures for a land where the church had been blotted out of existence eighty years ago, and where religion has ever since had to contend against special legislation, unfriendly government, and a whole host of powerful foes, never very scrupulous in the choice of their weapons.

Another cause of the religious apathy is to be found in the desecration of Sunday, which has become very general in France, especially in the larger cities. The revolution suppressed Sunday by brute force, and the law has ever since afforded the greatest possible latitude to all who were inclined to disregard its obligations. Sunday labor came thus to be gradually sanctioned by custom and countenanced by law. Under Louis Philippe, the bourgeoisie managed to turn this laxity to account, and even to this day the work on the public improvements proceeds without reference to the festivals of Holy Church or Sundays. At first the laborer, tempted by the offer of higher wages, consented to work on Sundays for the sake of gain. Now stern necessity compels the majority of laborers to do this, and yet they barely manage to support life. Once men desecrated the Sunday out of avarice; now they desecrate it to satisfy their hunger. Such is the condition to which irreligion has reduced the French working-man. The capitalist who introduced this desecration can, however, afford better than ever to rest each day of the week.

The amount of evil which the desecration of Sunday has sown can hardly be conceived. Hundreds and thousands of those honest laborers who flock to Paris and to the[97] great manufacturing centres from the provinces have been morally and physically destroyed by it. Not only has the discharge of all religious obligations become impracticable, but there being no longer a day on which the family finds itself united, every thing like the love of home has been destroyed. The tenderest and most holy ties have been broken, the unity of family interests has ceased, and each member of the household has been left to pursue his own course. But as the human body requires some rest, the mind some relaxation, so men by way of compensation drink and dissipate, which speedily destroys their love for the fireside. On Sunday afternoons and evenings, the working-men exchange the shop only for the tavern, and they soon learn to find their relaxation and amusement there even on week-days. The consequence is, that the working-men have become demoralized; they think of nothing but work, or rather of the means by which they may procure that which will enable them to minister to their depraved appetites.

In this manner the wants of these men multiply in an inordinate degree, their minds and tastes are debased, and all their earnings soon cease to suffice for even the most indispensable articles of food and raiment. Those who break the Lord's day, though they seem to earn better wages, look wretched, and have rarely a decent coat to their backs. If the weather, or some other unforeseen cause, prevents them from working, they resort to the tavern and spend there their Sunday gains. It is notorious that exactly in those work-shops where the Sunday is habitually ignored, the hands are the most dissipated and shiftless. Even from a purely material stand-point the non-observance of Sunday is therefore a fearful social evil which has unhappily made serious progress, even in the rural districts, and especially in those immediately surrounding Paris.

This pagan system of civil legislation interferes very materially with the religious life. The French code robs the father of nearly all authority over his grown children; for instance, a son eighteen years of age may legally mortgage half the property which he is to inherit, even though it may have been earned by the parent's personal industry. Husband and wife hold their property separately, neither being liable for the debts of the other. In this way the members of the same family are invested with such widely diverging rights that they can have no interests in common. The effect of this arrangement upon the domestic relations, upon the harmony, unity, and morals of the family will be readily conceived. It is therefore to be regarded at once as a wonder and a proof of the power of the Catholic Church that there should still exist so many exemplary households in France.

Wretchedness in all its forms naturally goes hand in hand with these false principles of legislation. Thanks to the boasted progress of modern days, there is more suffering and misery in Paris than in any other city on the continent of Europe. Those who speak from personal observation of the social condition in Berlin, Vienna, and Paris, acknowledge that pauperism is most gigantic in the latter capital. In the year 1866, Paris contained 1,791,980 inhabitants, of whom 105,119 were paupers, or 40,644 families who received aid from the municipal authorities. This gives one pauper to every seventeen inhabitants; but the number of destitute who stand in need of help is at least as large again. The Conferences of St. Vincent[98] de Paul, the many other charitable societies, and the pastors, support and succor quite as many more families, the greater portion of whom are also dependent on the public. And with all this, most societies are compelled to turn away nearly as many destitute as they can relieve. It is therefore not too much to assume that one tenth of the Parisians are reduced to the verge of absolute poverty. And how inadequate, at the best, is the relief doled out by the municipality to the poor! A couple of pounds of bread each week, a few cast-off garments, occasionally some bedding, is about all which a family can usually expect to receive from this source. In 1866, the city disbursed, by way of relief, four millions of francs among 40,644 families, which gives forty-eight francs and sixty-five centimes per year for each family, or eighteen francs and sixty-five centimes per head. But it should be borne in mind that bread sells at one fourth of a franc per pound, which shows how insignificant the relief is which the otherwise so extravagant Paris municipality bestows on its destitute. And it should be further remembered that a family has to pay an average annual rental of one hundred and forty-one francs and twenty-five centimes—which average was only one hundred and thirteen francs and forty-five centimes prior to the year 1860. These statistics sufficiently demonstrate the grave importance which the solution of the social problem threatens to assume in France.

But there is at least an equally large number of families who, though they may not be regular applicants for municipal and other charity, are yet unable to get on without undergoing greater or less privations and self-denials. It can hardly be believed how much this wide-spread distress tends to the demoralization of the poor. Without education, without intellectual incentive, without religious consolation, and even without a day of rest; constantly fighting for bare existence; weighed down by bodily suffering, the better feelings of these unfortunates have become so blunted that they think only of gratifying their unceasing, never quite satisfied material wants. The disuse of the Sunday solemnities has weaned them even from bestowing a proper care on their persons. They rarely possess any other dress than the one worn in the work-shop. Still worse, if possible, is the state of the quarters, or holes, in which they are domiciled. Besides a wretched couch, an old table, some broken chairs and crockery, one meets there nothing but filth and offensive odors. Parents and children sleep in one close room; the children run wild in the streets, and thus deteriorate morally and mentally before they perish physically.

Such an element of the population can only be redeemed morally and religiously by relief of their material misery. No amelioration of their condition is otherwise possible. Wherever the church desires to interfere, she must be prepared with material aid—must send the Sister of Mercy as well as the priest. A sort of brutishness has been engrafted on this pauperism, and until it is eliminated no improvement can be seriously attempted. When modern science, therefore, represents man as a purely animal organism, the conclusion is perhaps not so very illogical after all. By systematically degrading the disinherited working classes into a race of human beings inferior in many essential features to the savage, modern political economy has to a certain extent furnished this theory with an illustration. The savage[99] still experiences the necessity of prayer, a want which the modern proletarian has long ceased to feel; the religious necessity is either dulled or destroyed in him, because the religious sentiment has been torn from his heart. For this reason also the reconciliation of the proletarian with Christianity is frequently surrounded by far greater difficulties than the conversion of the downright heathen. The Christian, corrupted by our so-called progress, stands perhaps lowest in the scale of humanity.

On the other hand, the craving for sensual indulgences seems to have become so general among the higher class of working-men that there are few who lead a well-regulated, frugal, quiet life. It is, no doubt, difficult to resist the manifold temptations which Paris presents, and which are intensified by the frequent financial and industrial revulsions. All the more remunerative trades are subject to periods of stagnation, during which numbers of operatives are thrown out of employment, or work only half-time. The self-denial which they have then to practise leads them afterward to make up for it by dissipation, and they thus contract habits which end in ruin. Here we see again, and most distinctly in Paris, what immense influence a nation's political economy exerts on its religious and moral character. Nowhere are the fruits of the mischief committed by the politico-economical theories now ascendant in France to be observed more plainly than in the metropolis, a city in which at least one half of the population, if not permanently in want, are certainly always in danger of it.

Under these circumstances, it is all the more cheering that so large a number of working-men's families should have preserved their Christian faith and still attend to their religious duties. A more than ordinary amount of virtue and self-denial is required for it, and those who practise them amidst the vicissitudes of life are truly noble souls. Yet there exist many such even among the poorest and lowliest. Another guarantee of a brighter future is that nearly all working-men appear fully convinced of the necessity of an education, and that they therefore rarely object to having their children instructed. Even the most irreligious among them manifest an implicit confidence in the clergy, and prefer to have their children attend the schools controlled by the religious. Though pretending to care nothing for the church themselves, they deem religion an excellent thing for their families. With the steady improvement in the system of popular education, and with the diffusion of schools superintended by the church, a corresponding advance in the religious and moral condition of the masses may be expected, and is indeed already apparent. There are in Paris 53 schools for boys attended by 17,360 pupils, which are managed by the different religious orders, and 63 schools for boys attended by 16,750 pupils, conducted by laymen. Of the schools for girls 68, with 19,720 pupils, are controlled by the sisters, and 57, with 12,630, by lay instructresses. The elementary Protestant establishments are included in the above figures. A similar ratio exists between the intermediate and the higher schools.

To form an adequate idea of the superior advantages which the different religious orders possess as educators, it should be known that, while the city of Paris pays its elementary lay teachers yearly from 2000 fr. to 3000 fr. salary, besides giving them lodgings and a retiring pension, the brothers have only 950 fr., lodgings,[100] but no pension. The female lay teachers, mostly single, receive from 1800 fr. to 2400 fr. per annum, while the sisters have only 800 fr. In this comparison we made no mention of the difference in the expense of the lodgings, which is much larger in the case of laymen, most of whom have families. The city of Paris could therefore well afford, without incurring the reproach of any especial extravagance, to present the church with a large piece of ground and a sum of money for a building where the superannuated brothers could pass the rest of their days. The evening classes for adults, which have been opened under the auspices of the church, are quite a success.

The chair rent exacted in the French churches is no doubt a disadvantage to religion; for it always thins the audience more or less. Though the sum collected is a trifle, and especially when we consider the recklessness with which the Parisians spend their money, many good and thoughtful men object to the practice on principle. Indeed, the tide of popular opinion seems set against the tax, and it certainly suggests to the sceptic an unpleasant parallel between the theatre and the sanctuary. Those who cannot afford the expense of hiring a chair during the service must stand up, or kneel, or occupy one of the benches fastened to the walls. The poor man goes, however, to church to forget the outside world. And yet it is there, in the very place where all should be equal, where rich and poor, high and low, should be esteemed alike, that his poverty is thrust into his face, that he is again reminded of the difference between him and his more fortunate fellows. There are many so extremely poor in Paris that even a few sous are an object to them. This explains why the few mission churches, in which no charge is made for chairs, attract such large crowds, principally composed of working-men, who are otherwise rarely, if ever, seen at worship. On this account, several of the parish churches in Paris have lately been so arranged that no rent is exacted. To do away with the system entirely is, however, not feasible at once. Some provision will first have to be made to replace the considerable revenue which accrues from this source not only to the parishes, but also to the dioceses. If the obstacles in the way to the acquisition of property by the church, the acceptance of legacies, and the accumulation of means from similar sources, were less formidable, this reform might perhaps be introduced in a comparatively brief period. But owing to legislative restrictions, bequests and other love-gifts can only be accepted by the church after long-protracted and expensive proceedings ingeniously invented for the benefit of the bureaucratic hierarchy. Had Napoleon III., instead of spending many hundreds of millions on the metamorphosis of his capital, devoted only one hundred millions to the erection of a dozen large parish churches and the endowment of the rest, he might have obtained a more substantial guarantee for the preservation of his throne and dynasty than the strategic streets which now traverse Paris. At any rate, this much is certain: with the abolition of chair-rent in the churches the attendance at divine service, and consequently the religious sentiment, might be greatly stimulated. It is also to be hoped that juster views in relation to the restoration of the sanctity of Sunday may obtain the ascendency in due time. As regards the latter subject, the example set by the government in suspending hereafter all public works on holidays and Sundays[101] would of itself have a very happy influence on the national morality.

Inasmuch as the church chairs are rented to families and paid for yearly or half-yearly, this evil is less glaring in the provinces. The wealthier parishioners there usually try to secure places in front, often at high rents, which renders it possible to let the remainder more cheaply, sometimes at mere nominal prices, to the poorer classes.

What we have stated above applies, in many respects, equally to the larger provincial cities, among which Lyons, Marseilles, Nantes, and Toulouse deserve special mention for their religious zeal. Nor are Rouen, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Lille, and Metz indifferent to the success of the church. The other large and small cities may be judged according to the state of their respective provinces. One thing may, however, be safely depended upon, namely, that every city contains a circle of laymen which sets a praiseworthy example in religious conduct and social Christian deportment. The women cling, nearly everywhere, with deeper devotion to the church than the men, and in the provinces even more than in Paris. The most devout of spirit are the German provinces, Alsace, Lothringen, and Flanders, as well as Brittany, Auvergne, Limouisin, Dauphiné, and the provinces south and west, where most if not all the adults fulfil the precept of Easter communion. Least devout are perhaps the provinces in the vicinity of Paris, Normandy, Champagne, Picardie, Orleans, down into the very heart of France, as far as Tours and Bourges. Within a radius of about sixty miles from Paris, the condition of the villages is truly deplorable, and in the towns, the religious sentiment is only very slowly awakened. There are localities where Sunday is even more habitually disregarded than at the capital; and if the men go occasionally to church, they rarely partake of the Holy Sacrament. This state of things is, however, an exceptional one, and especially in the villages near Paris which send their vegetables, flowers, fruits, and other produce to market. The daily contact of the peasantry with metropolitan life has had a bad effect on their morals. At these points the church is chiefly attended by Parisians who spend a portion of the year at their villas.

But while we feel constrained to admit that there is a great deal of religious indifference among the male population, it is pleasant to feel justified in saying that France is able to boast of a large body of ecclesiastics whose zeal and piety must command the genuine admiration of the Catholic world. In the year 1865, there were only 837 vacancies in the 31,388 parishes into which France is divided. The budget for 1869 appropriates salaries for the incumbents of 106 new parishes, and 50 new vicarages. The ecclesiastics in France number 45,000—a very high percentage in a population of thirty-eight millions, of whom about a million are non-Catholics. At the same time, the pay is very small. Not half the parish priests have an income exceeding 1500 francs per annum, while several thousands have no more than 1200, (two hundred and forty dollars in gold.) Only the incumbents of the comparatively few parishes of the first and second classes—numbering little above 3000 all told—have an addition of from 1200 to 1500 francs yearly from the state. The income of the canons varies from 1600 to 1800 francs, rarely reaching 2400, and this leaves them partly dependent on mass stipends and casuals. Many bishops are obliged to make[102] extra allowances out of their own pockets to the canons of their cathedrals. The archbishops, who are also senators and cardinals with extra pay attached to these dignities, enjoy large revenues, ranging from 120,000 to 150,000 francs, all of which they sorely need. Mons. Morlot, the late Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, imperial land almonier and peer of France, had an annual income of 230,000 francs. Of this sum he had, however, set aside from the beginning 30,000 francs for distribution among the Paris poor. Although this estimable prince of the church enjoyed his income for several years, he left not enough at his death to bury him, and the expenses of his funeral had to be paid by the emperor. The demands on the purses of these high ecclesiastics are so heavy that they are constrained to practise the most rigid economy, unless they possess independent fortunes. The household of a French bishop or archbishop usually consists of a private secretary, a coachman, a man-servant, and a cook, who is generally the wife of the coachman or servant. His house, furniture, carriage, are all of the plainest description. A bishop does not entertain what is called company. On special occasions he may invite some clergymen to his table, but nothing more. If business calls him to Paris, or some other place outside of his diocese, he takes his secretary with him, and puts up at one of those quiet hotels patronized by religious. When away from home, he always appears in public either on foot or in some hired conveyance. Now and then he accepts an invitation from some Christian family, and calls on Catholic laymen who have attested their zeal by word or deed. The most distinguished prelates often love to surprise the offices of the Parisian journals, such as the Monde and the Univers, by a visit, when they request the different writers to be presented to them, throw out valuable suggestions, and converse with the greatest freedom and bonhomie. This cordial intercourse between bishops, priests, and laymen has contributed no little toward the glory of the church and the efficiency of the Catholic press. Except in the sanctuary itself, the Catholic Church in France is utterly devoid of pomp and splendor, and by far the largest part of her resources is set aside for the maintenance of numerous educational, charitable, and other benevolent establishments, at which it may be interesting in this connection to cast here a brief glance.

First in importance and influence are the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul, founded at Paris in the beginning of the third decade of the present century. In the metropolis alone are eighty odd conferences, one for each parish, besides some national and special ones connected with various other religious institutions and associations. Among the national conferences may be instanced a Polish, a Flemish, an Italian, an English, and two German. The most prominent of the special conferences are the Cercle du Luxembourg, formed by the Catholic students, and the Cercle de la Jeunesse, formed by the youth of the higher schools. The total number of members is probably over 4000. In addition to this, many other religious associations have been directly and indirectly promoted by the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul: for instance, the patronages for promoting the physical and spiritual welfare of apprentices; the work-shops for young girls belonging to the working classes, who are not only furnished with employment, but instructed in their religious duties; the society for the relief of the Faubourgs,[103] managed by women whose object is the education of the children of laboring people who reside in the wretched hovels of the remoter suburbs. The Société Maternelle, established in 1788, which has in every quarter of the city its female agent to relieve working-women who cannot afford to remain at home to nurse their infants. This society expends over 60,000 francs a year, and relieves nearly a thousand mothers. A similar society is that of the Crèches, where infants under three years of age are taken care of while their mothers earn their daily bread. One of the greatest evils of our modern system of economy is the compulsory labor of females. There are in Paris 106,300 working-women who earn on an average only 1 franc and 10 centimes per day, (twenty-two cents in gold,) and have to support a family on this pittance. Very excellent institutions are the Salles d'Asiles, play-schools for children aged from two to six years, which already number over 4000 in France, and are attended by hundreds and thousands of children. The Child's Friend Society is designed to save those children who are in danger of being demoralized by the evil example of their parents. The Société de St. François Regis aims to counteract the illicit relations but too frequently entered into between the opposite sexes. It labors to supply the poor who flock to the capital from every part of the provinces with the documents which the law requires for the solemnization of a legal marriage. The advocates of the civil marriage contract may learn from this the beauties of the system which they praise so highly. Nothing can be more expensive, troublesome, or attended with greater loss of time, than the legalization of the different papers required to be produced before a marriage can be ratified by the civil authorities. On the other hand, the church exacts only a few and simple formalities to unite a pair in the bonds of holy wedlock. This society was founded in 1826, and in 1866 it brought about the marriages of no less than 43,256 couples, who had previously lived together without being married.

Paris contains fifty-eight nunneries, the greater part of which make the education of the young and the care of the infirm and the aged their main occupation. The nuns also tend the sick in twenty-four out of the thirty-six public hospitals in Paris. An order of more modern origin, but one that has already accomplished much good, is that of the Sisters of St. Paul, for the blind of their own sex. Most of its members are blind themselves; but their proficiency in all domestic employments is such that their pupils are taught to excel in them. The founder of this order, a Parisian widow, has done for this class of the afflicted what the famous Abbé de l'Grée has done for the deaf and dumb. The sisters are principally taken from the ranks of the pupils who cannot be otherwise provided for. This institution is already self-supporting. The Little Sisters of the Poor, founded in 1840, at St. Servan, near St. Malo, in Brittany, have in Paris alone five large establishments with 1700 sisters, where they support in comfort 11,006 aged poor. Its members solicit broken victuals in the kitchens of the rich, and unsold vegetables from the market-hucksters, which they take home in small carts drawn by donkeys. They also take up collections on stated days at the doors of the churches. Not content with constituting themselves the guardians of the helpless, they also relieve them of the trouble and humiliation of soliciting alms. Is not[104] this conduct worthy of the best days of Christianity? Though not yet quite thirty years old, the Little Sisters of the Poor are already widely known and honored. Recruited at first from the lowest classes of society, many women of the higher have latterly joined the order, though the majority of the sisters are still working-women and servant-girls. We would here incidentally remark that the French servant-girls rank far above those of the other continental countries in a moral and religious point of view. This is mainly due to the strictness with which good behavior and chastity are enforced in all French households, where no promiscuous intercourse between the sexes is countenanced. However indifferent master and mistress may themselves be to religion, they nevertheless invariably insist that their servants should be regular communicants and church-goers. The status of the female domestics is therefore higher than that of the average working-woman, whose independence of control but too often proves her ruin. This also explains why servant-girls should be so much more eagerly sought in marriage than working-girls. In France, the domestic, and especially the female one, is treated almost as a member of the family. The difference between master and servant is not so marked, and the result is that the latter has more self-respect and pride. Indeed, the manner in which servants are treated by their employers in France is a highly creditable feature in the national character.

But to return to the religious and other societies. A very useful association is a woman's society founded by a dozen ladies, "Invalid Working-Woman's Aid Society," which numbers in 27 parishes 600 members, and cordially co-operates with the sisters of St. Vincent de Paul in visiting and tending the sick in their own habitations. In 1865, its members had paid 158,368 sick calls to 52,748 sufferers. Another female society attends the sick poor in the public hospitals, and seeks to assist feeble convalescent girls and boys in procuring employment. "The Church Aid Society" furnishes churches destitute of means with vestments worked by the hands of its members. Still another society of women keeps on hand stocks of clothing for the needy, its members sewing for this purpose several hours each day. One society has set itself the laudable task of returning to their relatives and friends the destitute and forsaken orphans who have come with their families to the city from the provinces. Several orphan schools have been opened for the same purpose by laymen and the rural clergy in different parts of France. Many of the orders labor to a similar end, especially that of the Trappists, who own now twenty-two extensive agricultural settlements, mostly in France, some of them with a hundred brothers. Some of the most barren and unhealthy districts were taken in hand by the Trappists, and the results which they there achieved are really marvellous. At the abbey of Staoueli, in Algeria, they fed during the last famine 600 Arabs a day for several months, without materially lessening the provisions sent for sale to the markets. Though the brothers work from ten to twelve hours daily, besides devoting several hours at night to their religious duties, they eat nothing but bread, (1½ lbs. per diem,) vegetables seasoned with salt, and drink only water. The Bernhardines also follow agriculture; but their rules are less severe, for they are permitted to use milk, fish, and a little wine. Four flourishing settlements have been established by[105] this order in the most sterile districts of Southern France. The Brothers of the Holy Ghost (Frères du Saint Esprit) make foreign missionary enterprises and the amelioration of the condition of the convicts their specialty. The Brothers of St. Joseph educate the deaf and dumb, and the Brothers of St. Gabriel vagrant boys. The Œuvre des Campagnes is a society which strives to provide for the spiritual and material wants of the poorer rural parishes. Its main object is to awaken the dormant religious feelings by popular missions, devotional works, etc. Several societies have been organized in Paris and the provinces for the better observance of Sunday. The societies called "Reunion of the Holy Family" consist of the poor who meet on Sundays in chapels and halls for mutual instruction and prayers. A special society under the patronage of St. Michael has charged itself with the distribution of pious publications, tracts, etc. The colossal missionary enterprise of France is well known. No nation furnishes so many missionaries, gives such large contributions as the French, a people among whom a century ago the Catholic religion was, during several years, formally abolished. Of the 8000 missionaries distributed over the globe more than one third are Frenchmen. The Lyons-Paris Society for the Propagation of the Faith extends all over the earth, and possessed in 1867 an income of 5,149,918 fr., of which sum 3,582,659 fr. had been collected in French dioceses. During the preceding year the Society of the Holy Infancy could afford to disburse 1,603,200 fr. for 59 missions supported by it alone. It has baptized 383,206 children, and educated 41,226 more.

A separate mission exists for the Holy Land and the Orient, (Œuvre des Ecoles d'Orient.) The society mainly applies itself to supplying the missions established in these regions by the Franciscans and Lazarists with money and other aid. The return of the Nestorians, Armenians, and other eastern schismatics to the bosom of the mother church is one of its principal objects, and has already made considerable progress.

It must seem almost incredible that the greater number of these benevolent and religious societies should enjoy no fixed or only very inadequate revenues. Yet such is actually the fact. Except their buildings, many of which are heavily mortgaged, very few of the societies have any property or capital. Under these circumstances it naturally requires the most untiring exertions and the closest economy to sustain themselves. Aside from the regular collections in the churches, these organizations are mainly dependent on the charity sermons, by which funds are raised, as well as on the lotteries and bazaars gotten up for religious and charitable purposes. We see therefore that they have had a severe struggle for existence. The church is the only institution in France which can never be centralized, and the future belongs for this reason all the more surely to her.

These results show the great and many-sided activity of the French Catholics. There is no known ailing or misery, no human evil, caused by our short-sighted legislation or social policy, which is not met and alleviated by the church and her servants. These efforts may not be crowned with the desired success in all instances; but when we consider the opposition which every religious project encounters in France, it must be confessed that the church has accomplished more in that country than in any other. Nor should it be forgotten that this is largely owing to a fact[106] which neither the sophistries of modern scepticism nor the equality of all denominations under the constitution of the empire can do away with, namely, that the Catholic Church still remains the national one. For the same reason we venture to predict that the occurrence of any extraordinary events, of any great public calamity, would rather tend to promote than retard the growth of the religious sentiment among the masses. It is a remarkable circumstance that in times of national distress and suffering, the attachment to the church is strengthened. Never were the sanctuaries so crowded as during the disturbances of 1848 and 1849. How many of those who had until then worked for the overthrow of church and state were not converted when they saw whither their principles led them? Will this not again be the case at the next revolution? It often requires such violent shocks to check the baneful passions and to open the eyes of the people.

THE TOTAL ECLIPSE OF AUGUST SEVENTH.

The recent solar discoveries, of which mention has been made in past numbers of this magazine, have on the whole increased the interest attached to the observation of eclipses, though in some respects the importance of these phenomena as opportunities of extending our knowledge of the constitution of the sun has been diminished. It will be remembered that immediately after the total eclipse of last year in India, it was found that the great prominences on the rim of the sun which are never seen with any ordinary appliances, except on these occasions, could be observed at any time with the spectroscope, and that by means of this admirable instrument their shape as well as the spectral lines indicating their chemical composition could be determined; and since that time many observations of them have been made, and interesting conclusions arrived at on both these points, as stated in the article translated in the last number. The principal ones as yet established with certainty are, that they are gaseous, and mainly composed of hydrogen, and that they change their shape with astonishing rapidity, some of their particles perhaps moving with the inconceivable velocity of one hundred miles a second. At any rate, immensely energetic forces and rapid movements must be required to change essentially the shape and position of these masses—which often have ten times the diameter, or a thousand times the volume of the earth—in a quarter of an hour.

So we are not now obliged to wait a year or more and travel several thousand miles to observe for a few minutes these peculiar and still somewhat mysterious bodies; still, it does not follow that they cannot be better examined at the time of an eclipse, or that new appearances may not be noticed on such occasions, now that we are accustomed to these, from which the other more startling phenomena for a long time diverted attention. Success has excited hope of yet greater successes; and eclipses,[107] though affording but a short time for actual observation, are undoubtedly the best occasions for the observer to learn in what direction his labors should be turned. There are also other things, such as the corona, Baily's beads, possible new planets inside of the orbit of Mercury, etc., which can only be seen at these times.

The eclipse of this year, therefore, was by no means neglected by the scientific men of the United States; in fact, it was felt that the reputation of the country depended upon the skill shown in preparing for and in observing it, and a large number of parties were formed, to be stationed at various points of the path of the moon's shadow or line of totality, so that if clouds should prevent success at one place, it might be obtained at another.

The first point touched by the shadow proper, and at which consequently a total eclipse occurred, was in longitude 165° west from Washington, latitude 53° north, being in Siberia; the last, in longitude 10° east, latitude 31° north, being off the coast of North Carolina. At the former the sun rose totally obscured at half-past four, at the latter it set in that condition, at a quarter to seven; and at the intermediate points the eclipse took place at all the intermediate hours of the day. It is rather singular that, owing to the necessary skip of a day in going round the world, it was Sunday morning in Siberia, but Saturday afternoon in the United States; so that the eclipse may be said to have been one of the longest on record. Its actual duration was, however quite short, half-past four A.M. in Siberia, and a quarter to seven P.M. at the ending point, being about four and half-past six P.M. respectively in New York; giving an interval of two and a half hours in which the shadow passed over the long line connecting these points, which it will be perceived are nearly opposite in longitude.

If it had travelled by the shortest route, it would have passed within three degrees of the north pole, and the eclipse would have been invisible in this country; but, fortunately, it lengthened its course, reaching its highest latitude near Behring's Straits, which it crossed, and then swept to the south-east, crossing the territories of Montana and Dakota, and the States of Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina. It could hardly have taken a better route for us.

The length of the line was over seven thousand miles, and the consequent average velocity in passing over it about fifty miles a minute, though in the United States it exceeded that amount considerably. The breadth of the belt traversed was somewhat variable; in this country it was about one hundred and fifty miles. Of course, the sun was partially hidden by the moon over a very large portion of the globe; but the region from which its light was at any time completely excluded was comparatively quite small.

Observers stationed themselves at numerous points, even as far west as Alaska and Siberia; but of course most chose positions within the United States. The writer was connected with a party which was established at Shelbyville, Kentucky.

The general diffusion of intelligence, both subjective and objective, as we may say, had of course excited great interest in the eclipse among the people, especially in that part of the country actually within or bordering upon the limits of totality; and though, of course, the nature of[108] the expected event was fully understood by all the educated portion of the community, and by many of the uneducated, still there were some, especially in the rural districts, who vaguely apprehended some great event, to be probably of a disastrous nature, (a hailstorm was the most popular;) and perhaps were as much terrified in anticipation as any entirely ignorant people have ever been at the actual occurrence of this most impressive and sublime spectacle.

Of course, excursions were planned by railroad companies and others to points on the line of the shadow, the usual directions for observing were extensively circulated, and the eclipse was made the catch-word for many advertisements whose substance had no connection with it. We are afraid that many persons may have lost the most beautiful features of the scene by a too persistent use of smoked glass, which of course was not necessary during or even near the time of the total obscuration.

The weather for some days previous was not very promising—not on account of too much rain, but owing to the absence of it; and every evening the sun set in a bank of haze, which each day seemed to increase, and no storm occurred to clear the air of the burden accumulated by the drought. This was particularly unpromising for the photographers, who needed really clear air for good work; the times of beginning and ending, to which, formerly, great importance was attached, could probably have been observed nearly or quite as well through haze, or even thin cloud.

We have just implied that less consequence is now attached to the time observations than was formerly the case; this is due to the great perfection which the lunar and solar theories have now attained, which is such that the prediction of the positions of the sun and moon, and even of the beginning and ending of an eclipse, can be made with greater accuracy, perhaps, than almost any one observer could note them. Still, by combination of all the results, some slight corrections to the tables now used may perhaps be deduced, and on the present occasion this portion of the work was not disregarded, but provided for with all the appliances of modern science.

The recording of time is now usually made by the electric method, which may be here described briefly, though many are probably familiar with it. The principle is the following, subject to various modifications in the particular form of apparatus: A line is described by a pen made to move uniformly over the paper by means of clock-work. That this line may be indefinitely prolonged without retracing, it is usual to make it a spiral round a horizontal cylinder, which revolves, say, once a minute, while the marking-pen (otherwise stationary) moves slowly from one end of the cylinder to the other, perhaps requiring several hours for the complete passage.

The pen making this line is held in its place by the action of an electro-magnet pulling against a spring; the circuit through this magnet is broken every second by the escapement of a clock or chronometer; the magnet then for an instant ceases to act, and the spring pulls the pen aside, making a break in the line at regular intervals corresponding to every second of time. The same interruption of the circuit can also be made by an observer provided with a key like those used by telegraph operators, and the time of his observation thus registered on the chronograph, as the instrument is called. For identification of the clock-mark preceding his observation, mechanical arrangements can easily[109] be devised, by which the first second in each minute shall be omitted, the circuit not being broken; so that it will be known what second of every minute each mark corresponds to; and the fraction of the second elapsed from this clock-mark to his own can easily be estimated by the eye, or measured more carefully. The reading of the record is, of course, facilitated by having the cylinder revolve once a minute, so that all the clock-marks answering to any particular second (as the twenty-third, for example, of each minute) will come in the same horizontal row; and the marks are not made on the cylinder itself, but on a sheet of paper fastened round it, which can be detached when filled.

Instruments of this character were used at Shelbyville, and also at the border stations near the edge of the path of the shadow, but inside of it, one of which was at Falmouth, about thirty miles south of Cincinnati, the other at Oakland, near the Mammoth Cave. The observations of time were especially important at these places, since, as will readily be seen, the length of time required for a circular or elliptical shadow to pass a point near its edge will vary very rapidly for a slight change in the size of the shadow, or a slight shifting of its path toward or from the point selected. Even rough observations, merely of the duration of the eclipse, made at two such stations on opposite sides of the central line, suffice to determine with great accuracy the dimensions and precise track of the shadow, and thus give the elements of the moon's motion.

We have just spoken of the shadow as being elliptical; this was of course the case, the sun being quite low at the time, so that the round cone of darkness, technically known as the umbra, was cut very obliquely at the earth's surface. To realize the amount of this ellipticity or distortion, one would only need to hold some spherical body so as to cast a shadow on the ground about an hour and a half before sunset. The elongation was also continually increasing as the sun sunk toward the horizon, and its direction changed as the sun at the same time changed its direction or bearing, the longer axis of the ellipse always pointing toward the sun. This axis was, in Kentucky, about three hundred miles long; the shorter ninety; and this elliptical patch of darkness was moving in a course some thirty degrees south of east, or about twenty-three degrees south of its own longer diameter; its speed was about seventy-five miles a minute, or more than the average on the whole track, as before stated, and it required rather less than three minutes to pass any given point on the central line; this was consequently the duration of the totality; and short enough it certainly was, for the amount of work which was to be done by the observers.

For the stations on or near the central line, it was important to obtain the absolute times of the contacts, and for this purpose transits were observed, to get the error and rate of the chronometer, for some time before and after the eclipse. The border observations locate the path on which the shadow travels, and determine its breadth; but to obtain the position of the shadow on this path at any fixed time, the true times of its arrival and departure at fixed points must be observed. But on the border no such preparations were necessary, only the interval being required; and a simple pendulum, without clock-work, was set up for this purpose, which broke the circuit at each second, and thus left its record, serving to count the number[110] of seconds and the fraction between the beginning and end of the totality, which were observed and similarly recorded by means of a break-circuit key. This pendulum was so arranged as to break the circuit on the main telegraph line, and thus to be heard, and record its beats at a number of stations in different towns; but the main circuit did not itself mark upon the registers used by the observers, but mechanically (by means of what is called a relay magnet) broke short circuits set up at their stations, which could also be broken in another place by their own keys, without, of course, interfering with the main circuit itself; so that every observer could receive the pendulum beats upon his own record, without receiving those made by observers at other stations.

On Thursday afternoon, the 5th of August, some showers occurred, but not sufficient, according to ordinary experience, to have much effect in clearing the atmosphere; and on Friday morning the sky became overcast with mackerel clouds of a most unpromising character. All the preparations were, however, hopefully continued, and the photographer, Mr. Whipple, of Boston, took on that day some very successful views of Shelbyville, of the college buildings, and of the party of observers. The principal station had been established in the grounds of the college, the instruments being protected by a large tent; close by was the Coast Survey station, where the chronographs just described for recording time, as well as a transit instrument for observing it, had been placed.

Friday evening was cloudy at Shelbyville, but without rain, and the chance seemed to be gradually diminishing of any thing like a good observation of the eclipse.

The plans for photographing the successive phases were most perfect. The movement of the sun from east to west of course made it necessary that the plate should also move correspondingly, but this was readily accomplished by connecting it with a telescope mounted on an axis parallel to the earth's equator, which axis is itself fixed to another at right angles to it, or parallel to that of the earth; this second axis being turned by clock-work once in twenty-four hours in a direction opposite to that of the earth's rotation, all the parts of the instrument evidently follow the movement of the heavens or of any celestial object to which the telescope may be directed. The axis around which the telescope turns can be rotated by hand or clamped in position, and in connection with the other, which can be disengaged from the clock-work, enables the instrument to be pointed in any direction at pleasure. This style of mounting is known as the equatorial, and is almost always used for astronomical telescopes. It is similar to the ordinary tripod used for small instruments, except in the addition of clock-work, and in having the principal axis inclined toward the pole-star instead of being vertical.

But it was necessary not only to take photographs, but to know the time at which they were taken, that they might accurately measure the movement of the lunar disc over that of the sun. This might have been secured by simply noting them from the face of the chronometer; but the object was more neatly and certainly attained by having the slide itself, as it dropped at the end of the exposure, break the electric circuit, and record its own time on the chronograph.

The spectroscopic work was the most difficult and important of all. Professor Winlock, the director of[111] Harvard College Observatory and chief of the party, had charge of this. Though, as above stated, it has been found that the prominences can be seen with the spectroscope at any time, still the probability that they could be better observed at the time of the eclipse than at other times made it a duty to try the experiment, and the result has, as will soon be seen, proved that such is the case. Another observation was obtained with a spectroscope at Bardstown.

A large number of persons had come in, some from considerable distances, to observe the expected phenomenon. Among them was Mr. Frankenstein, of Springfield, Ohio, an artist, who hoped to paint the appearance of the eclipse and its effect on the landscape. This seemed an admirable idea, and it is quite remarkable that attempts of this kind have not been previously made; as they have not, at least to our knowledge. The circumstances of the present one made it eminently suitable for pictorial effect, owing to the small altitude of the sun; and the landscape, seen from the point selected, (some high hills east of the town,) is certainly one of great beauty.

The clouds broke away at about midnight and the thermometer fell considerably, reading about 59 at sunrise. The observing party improved the opportunity for final adjustments of instruments and preparatory observations, and hope revived in the hearts of all.

The sun rose unobscured on the morning of the 7th, and the day was cloudless till about ten o'clock, when some small cumuli drifted for about an hour across the sky, which then resumed its unbroken blue. The weather was also delightfully cool with a light breeze, which increased in the afternoon, and at four was blowing quite freshly. There were no signs of the predicted hailstorm, and strong faith would certainly have been needed for one to retain a belief of its arrival.

As the prospect of fine weather improved, and in fact seemed almost certain, the people, citizens and strangers, assembled on the observatory hill, and a rope was drawn round the tent where the instruments were mounted, to prevent a natural but dangerous curiosity on the part of those not immediately engaged in the special observations.

Every one now felt that they would be fully repaid for the time and labor devoted to the journey.

At about half-past four the edge of the sun was visibly indented; some persons maintained that they could see the moon some time previous to the contact; but this must probably be ascribed to a lively imagination. Smoked glass now came into demand, and all eyes were anxiously watching the rapidly decreasing orb. I had secured, through the kindness of an influential friend, an excellent position on the court-house, itself a high building and situated on the highest point in the town, commanding a fine view in all directions, particularly toward the north-west, from which quarter the shadow was sweeping toward us at the rate of more than a mile every second.

Some five or six gentlemen had followed me to the roof of the building, after which the ladder leading to the cupola was drawn up, to prevent a general ascent by the crowd below. At a quarter or twenty minutes past five, the wind began to abate, and the darkness was quite noticeable, and of course from that time continually increased, the general effect being like that of moonlight some time before the totality. The darkness was much more striking than at any time during the annular eclipse of[112] 1854; this was probably owing to the total absence of any cloud, which would have reflected and multiplied the light of the unobscured portion of the sun, as on that occasion.

A minute or so before the totality, the complete circle of the moon was easily visible, with faint brushes of light streaming from it in all directions, which were soon to assume much larger dimensions, and, apparently, though not really, a greater brilliancy.

I cast now my eyes to the north-western horizon, and saw a brick-red tinge on the sky evidently caused by the rapidly approaching umbra. The long-expected moment had come; the last direct beam from the sun vanished, and a magnificent corona of rays, faint, of course, compared with the solar light, but bright in the prevailing gloom, shot out round the disc of the moon. These rays were prolonged in four directions at right angles to each other much more than elsewhere; having in these directions a length about equal to the sun's diameter, making the corona or aureola obviously cruciform in its shape.

Venus and Mercury appeared conspicuously on opposite sides of the moon, and Regulus could be seen, though with some difficulty. Several other first magnitude stars appeared in other parts of the sky, Arcturus, Vega, and Saturn being specially noticed by the observers at my side; and undoubtedly fainter ones could have been easily discerned, could one have been willing to divert his eyes from the beautiful sight placed before them, which seemed to surpass the expectations of every beholder. To all our party, I think, it conveyed little or no idea of horror or dread, but only of inexpressible beauty. The moon was at about one sixth of the distance to the zenith above the horizon, so that no straining of necks was necessary to look at it, as it hung over the darkened landscape. Certainly, as it so hung or floated, surrounded by the irrepressible splendor of the great source of light which lay behind it, and attended by its two bright planetary companions, one on each side, it was no unfit type of the glorious mystery which the church had just commemorated on the preceding day. The darkness was not so great as that of moonlight, but of course of a somewhat different character, the light not coming from one definite direction. I think it probable that no shadows were cast, but was too much occupied in other observations to be sure of this point. The birds around the building flew about wildly; and it was said that the fowls went to roost, and the cows started for home, and that the cocks crowed on the reappearance of the sun.

The eclipse had not lasted many seconds when I saw, without specially looking for it, a bright light red or orange drop on the lower edge of the moon, which of course was one of the famous protuberances. It was easily seen with the naked eye, though probably many who had not heard of these appearances did not notice it. Before the end of the obscuration, another appeared on the right where the sun was about to emerge. A third was also visible to the telescope above. Possibly they may have had some connection with the long rays of the corona.

Before we had fairly begun to satisfy our curiosity, a well-marked boundary between the general darkness and a bright portion of sky to the north-west gave warning of the end of the eclipse, and immediately afterward the sun flashed out on the right.

The separation of the discs of the sun and moon during the following hour was probably carefully observed[113] by few except the astronomers and photographers; the moment of interest had passed, and few cared to do more than exchange congratulations on the success of the display. I forgot to notice whether the corona and prominences were visible after the totality; the latter were still seen, according to accounts received from elsewhere, and I met with one gentleman some days afterward who had seen the great protuberance on the lower edge of the sun at Shelbyville, Indiana, a point some fifteen miles from the outside line of totality; he had, of course, no previous suspicion of its existence.

The eclipse was naturally the principal topic of conversation during the evening, and every one was anxious to report his own observations and learn those of others. I found that eleven spectral lines had been seen by Professor Winlock in the great prominence, some of them characteristic of the metal magnesium. He saw only three before and after totality; thus confirming the idea previously entertained, that solar eclipses, though not the only occasions on which these interesting objects may be seen, are, with our present apparatus, far the best. The photographers had taken some eighty pictures, several during the totality, and the times of beginning and ending had been accurately observed both at Shelbyville and, as we afterward learned, also at the stations on the border line, Falmouth and Oakland; which border observations give the position and breadth of the path of the shadow within some eight or ten rods; the southern edge can even be determined with much greater accuracy, owing to a fortunate selection of the station, which proved to be extremely near it. The precise amounts by which these results differ from the previous computations have yet to be determined; but it is probable that the corrections to the tables now used will be very small.

An ingenious method of observing the time of the external contacts, or beginning and end of the whole eclipse, was, as I heard, devised by a gentleman at another station. These phenomena, especially the first, are very difficult to observe accurately, owing to the invisibility of the moon when off of the sun's disc, and the waviness of the sun's limb, making it doubtful that an indentation has been made in it till it has become quite deep, which is, of course, some time after the actual meeting of the two bodies. He observed it with the spectroscope by noting the time of disappearance of one of the lines only visible on the extreme edge of the sun's disc.

Every one not engrossed in some special work had, of course, seen the planets Venus and Mercury; and many had seen others of the first magnitude. The darkness was not so great as was hoped for by those who were searching for intra-Mercurial planets; no candle was necessary for examining the charts which had been prepared. One observer at Shelbyville reported having seen a star of the third magnitude with the naked eye, and as he had no previous knowledge of the existence of such a star in the place in which he was looking, the fact seems indubitable. Dr. B. A. Gould, of Cambridge, who observed at Burlington, Iowa, has since informed me that he saw a star of the fifth magnitude, with a telescope of five inches aperture, near the sun; the star is a well-known one, and the observation shows that, had any planets of that brilliancy (about one fiftieth of that of Mercury) been within three degrees of the sun, within which limits he was restricted in his search by the shortness of time,[114] he would not have failed to detect them.

"Baily's beads" do not appear to have been considered as extraordinary by any of the observers. The limb of the sun just before the totality was of course more or less broken up by the irregularities of that of the moon; but the fragments had no remarkable appearance; and this phenomenon, which has been the subject of so much discussion, seems probably due to irradiation and the difficulty of determining the precise shape of small and brilliant objects.

An able astronomer, who was the chief of the party at Oakland, and who owing to his station being very near the southern edge of the shadow, saw them for fifteen or twenty seconds, says that they presented most clearly the phenomena which he should expect to be caused by the irregular contour of the moon, when its indentations were exaggerated by irradiation.

No discoveries of equal importance with M. Janssen's last year have yet been reported; but as no eclipse has ever been so thoroughly observed, the results cannot fail, when thoroughly collected and compared, to be of great scientific value.

RELIGION IN PRISONS.[27]

For the last quarter of a century, a society has existed in this city entitled the "Prison Association of New York." It counts among its members a large number of the wealthy and influential men of the State. Its object is to improve our prison systems and to effect as far as possible the permanent reformation of our criminals. With so humane and Christian an object we most heartily sympathize.

Its Twenty-fourth Annual Report, which we recently received, is a very interesting and comprehensive document. Accompanying it is a circular in which we are told that the association desires "that the public attention may be directed to this question, and the public sentiment in relation to it enlightened and invigorated, so that our prison systems and our administration of criminal justice may everywhere be improved and brought into harmony with the advancing civilization of the age."

A criminal is a man morally diseased. As such he should be considered—as such be treated. In a right prison system, the punishment of past offences should be but the secondary object; the prevention of future offences, the main one. No permanent outward change can be effected till an inward reformation has been wrought; and that reformation must come through mental but especially through moral development.

We learn from this report, with much pleasure, that, in the prisons of the chief States, libraries have been established; and that, in many of them, instruction is regularly imparted to the inmates, through classes and lectures. Ignorance is a fruitful source of vice. The Catholic Church,[115] which alone raised the world from the intellectual darkness into which, at the fall of the Roman empire, the inpouring of northern barbarians had plunged her, stands to-day the foremost champion of enlightened Christian education. She regards knowledge as an aid to virtue. She courts the light of science, that in its beams the truth of her dogmas may appear with brighter resplendence.

But experience has clearly shown that virtue is not a necessary consequence of education—that moral does not always follow mental development. To prove this, we need not go outside of this report, in which, page 373, we read the following words of Amos Pilsbury, "the Nestor of jailers on this continent; an officer whose name is almost as well known in Europe as it is in America":

"Experience has, unhappily, demonstrated that the possession of education is not incompatible with the commission of crimes of every kind; and we have seen many melancholy examples of very highly educated men falling victims to drunkenness and other degrading vices." Daniel Webster therefore truthfully said: "Man is not only an intellectual, but he is also a moral being; and his religious feelings and habits require cultivation. Let the religious element in man's nature be neglected; let him be influenced by no higher motive than low self-interest, and subjected to no stronger restraints than the limits of civil authority, and he becomes the creature of selfish passions and blind fanaticism. The cultivation of the religious sentiment represses licentiousness, incites to general benevolence and the practical acknowledgment of the brotherhood of men; inspires respect for law and order, and gives strength to the whole social fabric; at the same time it conducts the human soul upward to the Author of its being."

After quoting these words, Rev. David Dyer, chaplain of the Albany Penitentiary, adds, page 348: "Of all the attributes of man, the moral and religious are the most important and influential. They, by divine arrangement, have this precedency. They are designed to be the mainspring of thought and action, the director of the whole man. Let them be neglected, debased, or treated as of secondary importance, and the whole system will be deranged. Readjustment and reformation will be impossible. There may, indeed, be induced, under the power of seclusion or physical force, a servile fear; perverse passions may, for a time, be checked, and the developments of a depraved will may be staid; but let these appliances be removed, and it will soon become apparent that instead of promoting reformation they have induced spiritual hardness, recklessness, and hate, and made the man a more inveterate slave to his passions and a greater injury to the state. The moral and religious improvement of convicts should, therefore, be the first and constant aim of all to whose care they are committed. Their chief efforts should be directed to the sanctification of the springs of thought and action; and this secured, through the benediction of God, those objects of Christian solicitude will go forth to exemplify in virtuous lives the wisdom and utility of these efforts."

It being plain, therefore, that upon religious and moral influences chiefly we must rely for the reformation of criminals, the question next arises, What should be the nature of those influences? Should they be in accordance with the conscience of the criminal or not? Should the clergyman who is to minister to his spiritual wants, possess his confidence, and[116] lead him to good, be a clergyman of his own church, or of a church from which the prisoner was, is, and will be throughout life, fundamentally separated, in thought and feeling? Should the books which are placed in his hands, with a view to his moral improvement, be such as will attract, because written in accordance with the principles of his church, and recommended by its teachers, or such as will raise suspicion, if they do not actually repel, because coming from a doubtful source, and full, perhaps, of expressions and statements at variance with his religious sentiments?

The proper answer to these questions is, we think, self-evident. No man who has to build a house on a foundation already laid begins by attempting to weaken that foundation.

Last year, in the city of New York, 46,476 were committed to prison. Of this number, 28,667, nearly two thirds, were of foreign birth. A statistical view of all the prisoners of the United States, page 149, shows that twenty-seven per cent of the inmates belong to the same class. A large share of these are undoubtedly Catholics. So, likewise, are many who are put down as of native birth.

Now, we ask, how much is done to bring to bear on these unfortunates the salutary influences of their own religion?

How many prisons in the United States have Catholic chaplains? In how many is a priest invited to minister at stated times to the spiritual wants of this great number of inmates? In how many cases, not so much in this as in other parts of the country, is the priest not only not invited, but with difficulty allowed, if allowed at all, to say mass and administer the sacraments of penance and the eucharist to the prisoners who are of his own faith?

We read in this report, with much pleasure, that libraries have been established in our chief prisons; that "the aggregate number of volumes is 15,250;" that "in some States, a fixed annual sum is appropriated of the increase of the prison libraries; in others, additions are made by special grants. New York appropriates for her three prisons, $950; Pennsylvania, for her two, $450; Michigan, $300; Massachusetts, $200; Connecticut, $200." Of this large and annually increasing supply of books, intended as an aid in the moral reformation of criminals, of whom probably one third are Catholics, what portion is written by Catholics? What portion is Catholic, either in its tone or in its teaching? How many of these books are not more or less anti-Catholic, and hence repulsive to the religious feelings of those for whose benefit they are intended?

We have no desire to make proselytes in our prisons. We do not wish to interfere with the religious convictions of prisoners who do not belong to our faith; but we claim as a right, and maintain in the name of justice and of philanthropy and of true statesmanship, that our Catholic criminals should, as far as possible, be attended by Catholic clergymen and be supplied with Catholic books. As the Russian Count Sollohub says, page 572, in his paper on "The Prison System of Russia," "Religion is, beyond contradiction, the first principle of all human perfection. It is this alone which consoles, this alone which replaces the passions by humility, and a disordered life by a life without reproach. But every religion has its forms. Let Catholicism pursue its propagandism (?) in the prisons—nothing better; for this it has its orators. Let Puritanism shut up its criminals and cause them to enter into themselves by the reading of the[117] Bible; it has for that the education which it gives." And again, page 573, "Missionaries, special brotherhoods, the enthusiastic propagandists of Bible societies, and prison visitors are certainly worthy of the most respectful sympathy; but they belong to a different order of ideas."

In reading the article on "Religion in Prisons," by the Corresponding Secretary of the Association, Mr. E. C. Wines, we were much struck by the following words, page 390: "The benefit to convicts is obvious and incalculable of frequent conversation with an earnest, kind, godly, sympathizing, and judicious chaplain, when the prisoner can express his feelings and the pastor can give his counsels and admonitions, with no one by to check the free outpourings of the heart on either side. One special reason for such visits and conversations is, that the chaplain is thereby enabled the better to direct his inquiries and instructions to each prisoner's particular case."

Here the gentleman has, perhaps without knowing it, clearly depicted a Catholic confession. Catholic prisoners will thus open their hearts to a Catholic priest and to a Catholic priest only; and from his lips words of counsel and of kindness will have vastly more weight than when they come from any other source whatsoever.

Of Mettray, in France,[28] a Catholic institution, and the model reformatory of the world, we read, page 258, that "the church doors stand always open, and whoever seeks an opportunity for private prayer is free to enter," and, page 259, "the founders of the institution have laid great stress on the influence of religion as affording the only solid foundation for the reformation of criminals; and the words, 'Maison de Dieu,' are inscribed in front of the church as an acknowledgment that, unless the Lord build the house, their labor is but lost that build it. The proportion of communicants is considerable, and it is noticeable that on the approach of the great festivals, there is always a marked diminution in the number of infractions."

The necessity of bringing Catholic religious influences to bear on Catholic prisoners has been acknowledged in the Irish prison system, which is considered of all prison systems the most perfect; for we are told, page 336, that, besides the Protestant, there are Catholic chaplains who "say mass daily, and hold religious services twice on Sunday."

In the most friendly spirit, we respectfully recommend the consideration of these facts and suggestions to the Prison Association of New York, and to all, throughout the country, who take an interest in our prison system and desire the reformation and welfare of our unfortunate criminals. They are generally the victims of ignorance and wretchedness. Had they been willing to exchange faith for falsehood, and to barter their birthright for a mess of pottage, they might now be prosperous in their native land. Thus is a certain glory found even in their shame. For the sake of principle they have embraced poverty and exile. They are poor; and the poor sin publicly and are punished. Surrounded by countless temptations, when they fall they are more to be pitied than blamed. We could not disown them if we would, and we would not if we could. The church never disowned them. On the contrary, she has performed miracles of mercy in their favor. The Saviour never disowned them, for we read that he ate with publicans and sinners.

Much has been done toward reforming this unfortunate class. Much more may yet be done. Their souls are not dead but sleeping! Let the Prison Association of New York see that the influences of their own religion are brought to bear upon them. Wherever there is a considerable number of Catholics confined in any prison, penitentiary, reform-school, or school-ship, let a Catholic priest be invited to administer to their spiritual wants and to perform the religious service of their church. Let the association see that in the selection of books for prison libraries, a fair share are Catholic books; not dry theological treatises, nor dull books of piety, but books such as are calculated to divert, to instruct, to elevate; to make better men, better citizens, and better members of society; to strengthen conscience and loyalty to the great principles of divine religion and eternal right.

We entirely agree with the association as to the end to be attained, and we have endeavored, in a few words, to point out the means best calculated for the attainment of that end with a very large part of our criminals. We trust that our ideas will receive a trial, and that narrow-minded and bigoted intolerance will not be allowed to put obstacles in the way.

Catholic criminals can be permanently reformed only by Catholic religious influences.

CATHOLICITY AND PANTHEISM.
NUMBER EIGHT.

UNION BETWEEN THE INFINITE AND THE FINITE, OR FIRST MOMENT OF GOD'S EXTERNAL ACTION

The result of our preceding article was a supreme duality—the infinite and the finite. The one absolutely distinct in nature from the other. The first self-existing, necessary, eternal, immutable, infinitely perfect, and absolutely complete and blessed in his interior life; the other, created, contingent, mutable, imperfect, and on the way to development. How can this duality, so marked and so distinct, the terms of which are so infinitely apart, be harmonized and brought together into unity?

Such is the fifth problem which pantheism raises, and which it undertakes to solve.

We do not now inquire whether there be any kind of union between the infinite and the finite, because they are already united by means of the creative act.

The infinite creates the finite, sustains and directs it, three moments which constitute the finite and cause it to act. This is the first and fundamental union between the infinite and the finite. After what union, then, do we seek when the problem is raised, Is there a union between the infinite and the finite already perfect as to being, or, in other words, between the infinite and the finite already united by the creative act?

We inquire after a union which may mark and express the highest possible[119] elevation of perfection which the cosmos, or the assemblage of all finite beings, may attain; and as the finite, as we shall see, cannot acquire its highest possible perfection except by a union with infinite perfection, it follows that the problem inquires after the highest possible union between the infinite and the finite.

We shall, according to our wont, give the pantheistic solution of the problem, and then subjoin the answer of Catholicity. The pantheistic solution is as follows: The infinite is the highest possible indetermination and indefiniteness in the way to development. It becomes definite and concrete in the finite, and this by a gradual process.

First, it assumes the lowest possible form of existence in the mineral kingdom. Then it begins to show life in the vegetable kingdom. It acquires sensation and perception in the animal, and shoots up into intelligence and consciousness in humanity. Yet is this intelligence and consciousness essentially progressive, and begins from the minimum degree to rise to the highest. This principle explains all the stages of more or less civilization of which history makes mention. At first the infinite acquires those faculties in humanity which border on and are more akin to the senses, such as the imagination and the fancy; hence the primitive state of nations is marked with very imperfect development of the reasoning faculties, and with a superabundance of imagination; consequently, this primitive state abounds in national bards, who discharge all those offices which, in nations more civilized, are fulfilled by others, such as historians, orators, etc. It is also the age of myths, when people with young and robust fancy are apt to give flesh and blood and personality to any striking legend in vogue, until the legend, so dressed up and personified, is misunderstood for a historical fact and real person. Then, in proportion as the development advances, the infinite acquires a better explication of the reasoning faculties, and hence the ages of philosophy. Of course the development is gradual and slow, and is perfected by time and continued development, until the infinite arrives not only to the fullest explication of the reasoning faculties, but also to the full consciousness of its infinity, and of its eternal duration.

The infinite, arrived at the fullest explication of its intelligence, and to the full consciousness of its infinity, is humanity, or the cosmos arrived to the highest possible perfection. This humanity, dressed up by the imagination of the people, with individuality and personal traits, is the Christ, or the myth which Christians adore.

"The subject of the attributes," says Strauss, "which the church predicates of Christ, is not an individual, but a certain idea, though real, and not void of reality, like the Kantian ideas. The properties and perfections attributed to Christ by the church, if considered as united in one individual, the God-man, contradict each other, but may be reconciled in the idea of the species. Humanity is the collection of two natures, or God made man; that is, the infinite spirit transformed into a finite nature who is conscious of his eternal duration. This humanity is begotten from a visible mother and an invisible father, that is, spirit and nature. It is that which performs miracles, enjoys impeccability, dies, and rises again, and goes up to heaven. Man, believing in this Christ, and especially in his death and resurrection, may acquire justification before God."[29]

According to pantheism, then, the [120] infinite, acquiring the full consciousness of his infinite perfections in humanity, is the highest possible perfection of the cosmos, and the union, therefore, between the two is the union of identity.

We are dispensed from attempting any refutation of this theory, seeing that it rests on premises which we have already demonstrated to be false and absurd. We only beg the reader to observe how utterly futile and useless is this theory for the solution of the problem which has called it forth. The problem is, how to raise the cosmos to the highest possible perfection, or, in other words, how to establish the highest possible union of the finite and the infinite, from which the highest possible perfection of the finite may result.

Pantheism answers by proclaiming the absolute identity of the infinite and the finite, by marking the highest possible perfection on the cosmos, when the infinite in its finite form of development acquires a consciousness of its infinity. Now, it is evident in this answer that one term of the problem is swept away, that no real cosmos exists, that it is but a phenomenon of the infinite, and that, consequently, in the pantheistic solution the problem of the highest possible union of the infinite and the finite cannot exist, because the second term of the union does not really exist.

In the preceding article we raised the question, Is there a means by which to raise the cosmos to the highest possible perfection, a perfection almost absolute and beyond which we cannot go? And we answered that the problem cannot be solved by human reason, being altogether super-intelligible, and that the solution of it must be left to the Catholic Church, the repository of divine revelation.

Now, the church answers the problem by laying down the first moment of the external action of God, the hypostatic moment. By it the human nature, and through it the cosmos, is elevated to the highest possible perfection—a perfection beyond which we could not go; and thus the problem is resolved, and the aspiration of the finite to the highest possible union with the infinite is satisfied. That the reader may fully understand the doctrine of Catholicity in answer to the problem, we shall beg leave to recall a few principles which will pave the way to the very heart of the answer.

1st. Every work of God, before it exists in itself, has an objective existence in God's Word.

We remarked, in the sixth article, that every contingent being must have a twofold state of existence, one objective, the other subjective. The objective is the ideal and intelligible state of every being residing eternally in the mind of God. Now, all God's ideality or intelligibility is centred in the Word, whose constituent is to be the very ideality or intelligibility of God. Consequently, the cosmos, before it exists in itself, has an objective and intelligible state of existence in the Word. In other terms, the Word is the subsisting and eternal intelligible expression of every thing that God is, and every thing that resides within God. He is, therefore, essentially the expression of all divine ideas. Now, all the works of God are a divine idea. Therefore, the Word by his personal constituent is the representation, the type of the general system of God's external works.

2d. All the works of God, inasmuch as they reside in the Word in a typical state, are infinite.

For whatever is within God is identified with his essence, which is absolute simplicity. Therefore, the cosmos, in its typical state residing in the Word, resides in God, and is thus identified with the essence of God,[121] and is consequently infinite. St. John, with the sublimest expression ever uttered by man, renders this idea when he says, "All that was made in him (the Word) was life,"[30] indicating that the Word, consisting of all the intelligibility of God and that which was made belonging to the ideality and intelligibility of God, was the very life of the Word, and consequently infinite.

3d. The Word is not only the type but the efficient cause of the cosmos. The truth of this follows from the essential relation of the Word to the Father.

The Father, knowing himself, knows also whatever is possible. But whatever he knows he utters and expresses by his Word. Therefore, the Father, through his only Word, utters himself and things outside himself. But his utterance of creatures is also the cause of their subjective existence, since God is pure and undivided act. Consequently, through his single Word he affirms himself and his exterior works, and consequently he is also their efficient cause.

4th. The external action of God tends to express, exteriorly, the divine idea of the cosmos, as perfectly as it is uttered interiorly.

We have shown in the preceding article that, although it was not necessary that God should effect the best possible cosmos, for the reasons which we have therein given, yet it was most agreeable to the end of creation that God should effect the best possible cosmos. Now, the best possible cosmos is evidently that which draws as near as possible to its intelligible and typical state. Consequently, the external action of God has a tendency to express, exteriorly, the divine ideas as perfectly as he utters them interiorly. St. Thomas proves the same truth with a somewhat similar argument. Every agent, he says, intends to express his own similitude (the interior idea) on the effect he produces, and the more perfect is the agent, the better and stronger will be the similitude between him and his effect. Now, God is most perfect agent. It was, therefore, most agreeable to him to stamp his own similitude on his external works as perfectly as possible; that is, it was most agreeable to him to render his external works as like their typical state as possible.

5th. This supreme or best possible expression of the typical state of God's external works could not be substantial or ontological.

We have seen that the typical state of the cosmos, residing eternally in the Word of God, is identified with him, and is therefore infinite. It follows, therefore, that if we suppose a supreme, substantial, and ontological expression of this typical state, we must suppose a supreme, substantial, and ontological expression of the infinite. Now, this is absurd; because a supreme and ontological expression of the infinite would be the very substance of God. On the other hand, the expression, requiring necessarily to be created, would be essentially finite. Consequently, on the supposition, we should have a finite infinite substantial expression of God, which is a contradiction in terms.

6th. The supreme expression cannot be effected except by an incorporation of the infinite into the finite.

Having excluded the identity between the finite and infinite natures, an identity which would be a necessary consequence if the expression were substantial and ontological, if a supreme expression of the infinite is to be effected, if the cosmos, in its subjective state, is to be elevated and made as like as possible to its typical[122] state, there are no other means of effecting this than by an incorporation of the infinite into the finite. For let it be remembered that the finite, in force of its nature, is indefinitely progressive. You can add perfection to perfection, but unless you transform it into the infinite, it will never change its nature, and will continue to be finite. Thus, the only possible way of elevating it to the highest possible perfection, is to raise it to a union with the infinite greater than which you cannot conceive.

Because, first, the Word is the natural organ between the Father and his exterior work, since, with the same utterance, the Father speaks himself and his external works. Secondly, this union is required in order that the external works may draw as near to their typical state as possible. Now, the Word is the living and personal typical state of the cosmos, the intelligible life of the external works; it is necessary, therefore, that he should enter into the finite, and bring into harmony the interior infinite type of the cosmos, with its finite external expression; unite together the ideal intelligible state with the real subjective state of the cosmos.

From all we have said, it follows that all the external works reside in the Word; that inasmuch as they reside in the Word in their typical state, they are his very life, and consequently infinite; that the Word is not only the typical but efficient cause of the cosmos; that the external act tends to express exteriorly the typical state of the cosmos as perfectly as it is uttered interiorly; that this supreme expression could not be substantial and ontological; and that, consequently, the only means of effecting it was an incorporation of the infinite into the finite, to be executed by the Word as the natural organ between God and his external works.

Now, this is the answer which Catholicity affords to the problem, What is the union by which the finite attains its highest possible perfection?

It answers in the sublime expressions of the Eagle among the Evangelists, and which resume, in a few words, all we have hitherto said.

"And the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was made nothing.

The Word of God, the subsisting ideality of the Father, the living type of his external works, united himself to human nature, the micro-cosmos, or abridgment of the cosmos, in such a close and intimate union as to be himself the subsistence of human nature, and thus exalted the cosmos to its highest possible perfection. This union of the Word with human nature is called hypostatic or personal union.

We must now study its nature and properties, draw the consequences which flow from it, and point out how well it answers all the requisites and conditions of the problem.

And in the first place, we remark that the subsistence of finite beings is also contingent and variable. We have before given an idea of subsistence and personality; but we beg leave to recall a few ideas about these most important notions of ideology, that the reader may better perceive in what the nature of the hypostatic union really consists. We shall explain [123] the following notions: possibility, actuality, nature, substance, subsistence, and personality.

Possibility is the non-repugnance of a being. It is intrinsic or exterior. When the essential elements which constitute the idea of a being do not clash together or contradict each other, the being is intrinsically possible. When, besides the intrinsic possibility, there exists a principle which may give the being actual existence, the possibility is external.

The intrinsic possibility of a being in the mind of the cause or principle of this being is called intelligible actuality. Actuality or existence, properly speaking—that is, subjective actuality—is the existence of the being outside of the intelligent cause which perceives it; or, in other words, the external expression of the intelligible actuality.

Substance is the existing of the being in itself, or the permanence and duration of a being in itself. Now, a being which is a substance may be united with another substance, and the union may be so close that one of them may become the natural, inseparable, intrinsic organ of the other. In this case the being which is thus united with the other and has become the organ of the other, although not ceasing to be a substance, possesses no subsistence of its own. What, then, is the subsistence of a being? It is not merely the existing in itself; it is the exclusive possession of the existing in itself and whatever flows from this exclusive possession. A being is possessed of existence in itself and of its operations, when the union of which we have spoken does not exist. But whenever such union exists, though the being continues to be substance or to exist in itself, it has yet no exclusive possession of itself.

Hence, subsistence is defined the last complement of a substance which makes it an independent whole, separate or distinct from all others; makes it own and possess itself, and renders it responsible for its operations. Personality adds to this the element of intelligence; so that a person is that supreme and intelligent principle in a being which knows itself to be a whole, independent of all others; which enjoys the possession of itself, and is responsible for its actions. Consequently, every substance which is complete—that is, detached from and independent of all other substances in such a manner as to constitute a whole by itself, and alone to bear the attribution of its properties, modifications, and functions—is a subsistence.

The subsistence or personality of a contingent being is also contingent, and may be separable from it so as to give rise to a twofold supposition, either that the contingent being never had a subsistence of its own, or, if it had, it may be deprived of it, and its own subsistence may be substituted by another.

In the first place, we remark, in vindication of this statement, that it is impossible that any substance could really exist without a subsistence. Because, as we have said, subsistence is the last complement of substance, and consequently without it the substance could not be actual, but would be a mere abstraction. That for which we contend in the proposition just laid down is, that it is not necessary that a substance should have a subsistence of its own, but that it may subsist of the subsistence of another.

For it is evident that every being comprised within the sphere of the contingent and the finite may cease[124] to be a whole by itself, and may contract with a nature foreign to itself a union so intimate and so strong as to depend on this foreign nature in all its functions and its states, and no longer to bear the attribution and solidarity of its actions and modifications. If, for instance, a hand detached from the whole body were to trace characters, this action would be attributed to it exclusively; it would be a subsistence, a whole by itself, and we should say, That hand writes. But if it should become a part of, and we should consider is as dependent on, a human nature and will, it would then lose the solidary attribution of the function of which it is the organ; and then we could no longer say, That hand writes; but, That man writes.

A contingent substance may be deprived of the possession of its subsistence by a union with a substance even inferior in nature to itself. Because its superiority over this nature would not prevent its being dependent on it in its functions and in its states, as is the case with the human soul, which presides over the body, which produces in it continual changes, and which, in spite of the excellence which distinguishes it from the mass of matter which it animates, yet depends on the body in its most intimate situations, and finds itself bowed down by the continual evil which it suffers thereby.

Hence is it that in man the possession of subsistence belongs neither to the soul nor to the body, and there is no other subsistence in him but the sum of the two natures of which he is composed, but the whole of the two extremes united together, and which is at the same time spirit and body, incorruptible and corruptible, the intelligent and the brute.

Hence, neither the soul nor the body are denominated separately by their respective functions; but it is the whole man who receives the attribution and the different appellations of the actions and states of either nature, and we say, man thinks, man walks, man wills, man grows. Consequently that axiom, Actiones et denominationes sunt suppositorum, Actions are to be attributed to the subsistence. We remark, in the second place, that in the infinite alone the subsistence and personality is necessary, and consequently can never be separated from him or be dependent on any other. Because in this order personality affects a nature essentially complete, total, and of its own intrinsic nature absolutely independent in its action and in its eternal and immutable state, of all external substance.

It follows, therefore, that if a divine personality enters into a finite nature, it must necessarily preserve its own subsistence, since it is evident that, if a divine person is united to a created nature in a manner so close and intimate as to form one single individuality, the created nature, in force of the principles above stated, would have no individuality of its own, and the divine personality would, in such case, necessarily be the supreme and independent principle constituting the new individual, the infinite term and completion of the two natures. Now, such is the hypostatic union. The infinite person of the Word united to himself human nature in a manner so close and intimate as to form one single individuality, Christ Jesus, the Theanthropos; so that the human nature of Christ had no subsistence of its own, but subsisted of the personality of the Word. Hence, in Christ the Word of God was the only supreme and independent principle, who knew himself to be a whole apart, composed of the human and divine natures, who bore alone[125] the attribution and solidarity of the actions springing from either nature, and who was, consequently, the only person in Christ.

But to make the nature of the hypostatic union more intelligible to the reader, we shall dwell upon it a little longer.

We may reduce all the unions between the infinite and the finite to three. The first is the action of God creating finite substances, maintaining them in existence and directing all their movements, permitting, however, their defects and shortcomings.

This is the first and fundamental union between the infinite and the finite. It begins the moment the finite is created, and continues in existence by preservation and concurrence. All this in the natural order. In the supernatural order there is also a first and fundamental union, as we shall see, by which the action of God effects, as it were, a new and superior term, preserves and directs it in its development. Thus, the first union between the finite and the infinite is the action of God effecting a finite term, maintaining it in existence and directing it in its development, both in the substantial and in the sublimative moments. However, this union not only leaves whole and entire the individuality and subsistence of the two terms united, but is not even so close and intimate as to prevent the finite term of the union from occasionally failing in its action, and of falling short of the aim to which it naturally tends. Hence a second and more excellent species of union. By it the infinite is so closely united with the finite as not only to preserve it, and to direct it in all its actions, but also to prevent it from falling into defects and errors.

This second kind of union, though, as it is evident, far exceeding the former in intimacy and perfection, since it implies an extraordinary employment of activity on the part of the infinite, and a special elevation of the finite, is yet not so close as to deprive the finite term of its own subsistence and individuality.[32] We may, therefore, conceive a third kind of union, whereby an infinite personality may be united to a finite nature so closely and so intimately as not only to move and direct it in all its actions, as not only to prevent it from falling into failings and imperfections, but as to make it the intrinsic instrument, the intimate organ of his own infinite action in such a manner as to form of the finite nature and of the infinite personality a new and single individuality.

This supposition is eminently possible. For, on the one hand, the infinite personality being possessed of infinite energy, and, on the other, the finite nature being endowed with an indefinite capacity of sublimation, nothing can detain the first from communicating itself to the second with such energy, power, and intensity of communication as to render it its own most intimate and dependent organ of action. In fact, let the communication of an infinite person to a finite nature be carried to its highest possible degree of union short of absorbing and destroying the real existence of the finite, its substantiality, so to speak; let this finite nature be, accordingly, raised to the highest possible intimacy with the infinite person; let the latter take such intense possession of the former as to make it its own intrinsic organ, the immediate and sole instrument of his own infinite operation, and what will the result be? Why, that the finite nature will no longer possess [126] itself, no longer form a whole by itself separated from and independent of any other; no longer bear the attribution of the actions springing from its nature; in short, it will no longer be a subsistence and an individuality by itself, but will form one single individuality with the divine person, or rather the infinite person will be the only single subsistence of the two natures united, the infinite and the finite. The finite nature in this supposition would stand, with regard to the infinite person, in the same relation in which our body stands with regard to our soul. For the union of body and soul, which constitutes the individual called man, takes place according to this kind of union. The soul is united to the body in a manner so close and so intimate as to render the body its own most intrinsic, dependent instrument, the organ of its operations in such a manner that, in force of this operation, the body does not possess itself, does not form a whole apart, nor is it accountable for the actions which immediately flow from its nature. In other words, it has no subsistence of its own, but subsists of the subsistence of the soul and the whole individual man. The result of this union is possessed of the subsistence and forms one person.

The Incarnation of the Word is like to this union, hence called hypostatic or personal union. The second person of the Trinity united himself to the entire human nature, constituted of body and soul, in a manner so close and intimate as to be himself the subsistence of the human nature; the latter never enjoying a subsistence of its own, because, contemporaneously to the very first instant of its existence, it became the internal, the immediate, and the most intimate organ of the Word of God, and subsisted of the subsistence of the Word, so that it never bore the attribution and solidarity of those actions which have an immediate origin in human nature, but the attribution and solidarity, and, consequently, the moral worth, of those actions belonged to the personality of the Word, according to the axiom that Actiones sunt suppositorum.

Hence the union between the Word of God and his human nature was not a moral union, which always implies the distinct individuality and personality of the two terms united, as Nestorius thought, and many would-be Christians of the present day seem to hold.

Nestorius was ready to grant that the union between the Word and human nature was as high and intimate as possible, so far as moral union can permit; but never would he concede that it was any higher than simple moral union, which kept whole and entire the two individualities united. Consequently, he admitted two persons and two individualities in Christ—the Word of God, and the man called Christ. From which theory it follows that our Lord was a mere man—a saint, if you will, the highest of all saints, yet simply a man.

Catholic doctrine, on the contrary, teaching that the union of the Word and the human nature was personal, inasmuch as the divine person of the Word was the subsistence in which his human nature subsisted, teaches consequently, at the same time, that in Christ there is one person, one individuality—the divine personality of the Word; that therefore Christ, the new individual, is God, being the second divine person, in which both his divine and human nature subsist. Nor was the human nature of this new individual so absorbed by the divine personality as to cease to be a substance, as Eutyches affirmed, who upheld, it would seem, a fusion and a[127] mixture of the two natures altogether inconceivable and absurd.

From all we have said we may form quite an accurate idea of what the hypostatic union really means. It is the union, or the meeting, so to speak, of the human and divine natures in the one single point of contact, the infinite personality of the Word of God; the human nature having no personality of its own, but subsisting of the identical personality of the Word.

The new individual possessed of the divine and human nature in the unity of the single personality of the Word is Jesus Christ.

To complete now the idea of the hypostatic union, we shall point out some consequences which evidently flow from that union:

1. We should consider that nature being transmitted through generation, and Christ being possessed of two natures, the human and the divine, it is necessary to admit in him a twofold generation: one eternal, according to which he received the divine nature from the Father; the second temporal, by which he received his human nature from the Virgin Mother.

2. As nature is the radical principle and source of operation in every being, it follows that, as Christ is possessed of two natures, we must predicate of him a double operation—one human, the other divine.

3. In force of the same principle, we must predicate of him whatever necessarily belongs to the two distinct natures. Hence, as intelligence and will, together with their respective perfections, belong both to the human and to the divine nature, it is clear that we must attribute to Christ, first, a divine intelligence and a divine will with their perfections, such as infinite wisdom and knowledge, infinite holiness, goodness, justice, etc.; second, a human intelligence and a human will, together with the perfections of these faculties, as knowledge, wisdom, holiness, etc.

4. As actions, though immediately proceeding from nature, are to be attributed to the subsistence and personality, because nature could not act without being possessed of subsistence, and as the subsistence and personality of both natures of Christ is one—the personality of the Word of God; and as this personality is infinite, it follows that the actions of Christ, whether immediately springing from his human nature, or proceeding from his divine nature, have all an infinite worth and excellence, on the ground of the infinite worth of the person to whom they must be attributed. This principle, so evident, and grounded on the axiom of ideology to which we have alluded—Actiones sunt suppositorum—has been denied by some, especially Unitarians. But happily the most abstract principles of ideology have such a bearing upon human dignity that it is easy to refute such would-be philosophers on the strong ground of the dignity of the human species. Let us give an instance. How are the actions immediately proceeding from the corporal nature of man, such, for instance, as those of locomotion, distinguished from the actions of locomotion in the brutes? And why is it that the actions of locomotion of the first may attain the highest and most heroic moral worth, while the same actions in the brute may never have a moral dignity? Ontologically they are the same. An animal may move its foot; I may do the same; both movements may save the life of a man. In me, the stirring of my foot may have the dignity of a moral and heroic action. In the brute, it can never have it. What causes the difference? The difference lies in[128] the fact that I am a person, the brute is not. I, being a person, the supreme, first, and independent principle of action of both my natures, corporal and spiritual, it follows that all actions radically flowing from either of my natures are to be attributed to me as person, as the supreme and independent principle of them; and as I, as a person, am capable of moral dignity, all the actions, whether proceeding from my corporal or my spiritual nature, become capable of moral worth and dignity.

In Christ, the personality or the supreme and independent principle of action of both his natures, human and divine, being one, it is evident that whether his actions radically proceed from his human nature, or spring from his divine nature, they must all be attributed to his one and single person; and as the person is infinite, the worth and dignity of all his actions is simply infinite. As in man the personality of both corporal and spiritual natures being capable of morality, the action springing from either nature may have a moral dignity and worth. We shall conclude this article by answering a few objections raised by Unitarians against the hypostatic union. We shall take them verbatim from Dr. Channing's lecture on Unitarian Christianity:

We are not, of course, aware from what source or teachers Dr. Channing learned the doctrine of the hypostatic union. Of one thing we are fully assured, that the Catholic Church never taught, first, that in Christ there are two souls. He is endowed with a human soul, belonging to the human nature of which he is possessed. The infinite and divine nature of the Word, of which Christ is also preserved, has never, in theological language, been called a soul, nor can we denominate it by that name except in loose and metaphorical language, unworthy of a philosopher and theologian who is stating points of doctrine.

Again, the Catholic Church never taught that the human soul of Christ was ignorant. This may have been the opinion of those from whom Dr. Channing may have drawn the theory of the hypostatic union; but in stating a doctrine in which all Christendom concurs, Protestant as well as Catholic, we should have thought it more honest if Dr. Channing, not satisfied with his own teachers, would have taken the pains to ascertain what two hundred and fifty millions of Christians hold about it.

The same looseness and want of accuracy of philosophical language. What does Dr. Channing mean by being? If by being is meant nature, of course we do all attribute to Christ two natures, the human and the divine.

If by being is meant person, we deny flatly that to attribute to Christ two natures is to make him two persons.

Let the reverend doctor prove the intrinsic impossibility of two distinct natures being united in one single subsistence and person, and then we shall grant him that Christ, being possessed of two natures, is two persons also. But such impossibility can never be demonstrated; for the fact of the union between soul and body in man, in the unity of one single personality, is a contradiction to all such pretended impossibility. We have, moreover, shown in the course of this article the intrinsic possibility of such supposition.

If our reverend opponent chooses to look with contempt and slight on all distinct and accurate notions of ideology, which he calls, in another place, vain philosophy; if he prefers to form crude and undigested ideas; if he will not sound to the very depth the nature, the faculties of intelligent beings, their acts, the genesis of their acts, their distinctions from other faculties and their acts; but loves rather to argue from ideas common to men who have never thought and thought deeply on these subjects, and distinguished them carefully, and classified them, is it any fault of ours if, when we propound the true philosophical doctrines about these subjects, Dr. Channing's ideas should become confused, and that darkness should spread over that which was never clear?

If by being the doctor meant natures, we cannot conceive any thing in the universe more distinct, for which reason Catholicity teaches that there are two distinct natures in Christ.

If by being the doctor means that those two natures must make two persons, we cannot grant the assertion, and ask again for proofs.

This is the only show of reason we can find in the whole passage we have been refuting; and we have no hesitation in affirming that, if our opponent thought that one person is constituted by one consciousness, in the sense that when an intelligent nature is endowed with consciousness it must necessarily possess a personality of its own, so that consciousness and personality may be said to be identical, as the doctor supposes, he was wrong in thinking so, and should study more deeply into the distinctive essence of consciousness and personality. We may make the following suppositions, according to true ideology:

1st. An intelligent nature, having consciousness of itself, may have a personality of its own, as is the common case in human nature.

2d. An intelligent nature, having the consciousness of itself, may be deprived of its own personality and subsist of the personality of another, simply because consciousness and[130] personality are two distinct things, and may either go together or be separated, without one being affected by the other.

Personality is the last complement of an intelligent nature, by which it forms a whole apart from all others, possessing itself, and being solidary of its actions.

Consciousness, or the me, is nothing more than the notion of an intelligent activity which perceives the identity of itself, thinking and reasoning with the act which perceives such identity. It rises in man in that first moment on which he becomes aware that the act which perceives the reasoning activity is not something different from itself, but something identical with the reasoning activity. In that first instant in which he perceives himself, man may pronounce, I.

He that says I, in uttering that monosyllable testifies of being conscious that there is an activity, that this activity is the same which reflects, speaks, and announces itself, perceiving this activity.

Now, it is evident that the two notions of personality and consciousness are absolutely distinct, and as such they may be separated; and that the one can exist without the other in the sense already explained. Consequently, supposing an individual composed of two natures, one divine, the other human, both brought together in the unity of one divine person, it follows that the divine nature has consciousness of itself; in other words, is conscious that there is an infinite activity which perceives itself, and is conscious of the identity between the activity and the perception of that activity. It follows, in the second place, that the human mind of the human nature has also a consciousness of itself; that is, that in itself there is a finite activity, and that activity perceives itself, and is conscious of the identity between the activity and the act of perception.

The divine nature in this one divine person would be conscious of being that supreme and independent principle of action of the natures; whereas the human nature would not be conscious of being such a supreme and independent principle of action, but dependent and subject.

THE SEVEN BISHOPS.

We found, in a leading daily paper of New York the other day, an editorial remark which illustrates so well the propensity of Protestant journalists toward inconsistency whenever they deal with the relations between civil government and the Catholic Church, that we here cite it in full:

Now, The Tribune has always been a foremost advocate for complete[131] separation of church and state. When the new government of Spain decreed freedom of religious worship, The Tribune, in common with other American journals, hailed the measure with delight, as a great step toward the mutual independence of the two orders. But here, in this Spanish affair, there is a more absolute and oppressive assertion of their union than even Henry VIII. ever ventured upon in the creation of the Anglican establishment. Only, since the union is effected by a tyrannical assertion of the supremacy of the secular over ecclesiastical authority, Protestant writers see in it an evidence of progress and liberality. It makes so much difference whether it is my bull that is gored, or your ox.

The parallel, however, between the seven bishops under James II., and the seven bishops under Serrano, (their number has been increased to ten since that paragraph was written, and before our readers see these pages may be raised still higher,) is such a fortunate one that we purpose looking at it a little more closely. It will be found, we think, to tell strongly for our side, and to teach some lessons which the Spanish regency can ill afford to disregard.

In 1687, King James II. published his celebrated Declaration of Indulgence, by which, after expressing his conviction that consciences could not be forced, and religious persecution always failed of its object, he proceeded to suspend the execution of all penal laws against the Catholics and Dissenters alike, to authorize all religious bodies to hold public worship after their own fashion, and to dispense with all religious tests as qualifications for any civil or military office. Whatever may be said of the constitutionality of this declaration, it was unquestionably in accordance with the principles of freedom and justice which have since been recognized completely in this country, and are gradually becoming established in Great Britain and all other constitutional states. The Declaration of Indulgence might to-day be accepted in every particular as the platform of the English liberals or The New York Tribune. The Protestant party in James's day, however, was any thing but the party of religious freedom or liberal ideas. Church and state, in their minds, must be one—and that one the Protestant church. The declaration was violently resisted. A year later (April 27th, 1688,) James issued a second declaration, repeating the points of the former one, and proclaiming his unalterable resolution to carry it into effect. By an order in council he subsequently commanded that this paper should be read on two successive Sundays at the time of divine service by the officiating ministers of all the churches and chapels of the kingdom. "The clergy of the Established Church," says Macaulay, "with scarcely an exception, regarded the indulgence as a violation of the laws of the realm, as a breach of the plighted faith of the king, and as a fatal blow levelled at the interest and dignity of their own profession." The order was generally disobeyed. The Archbishop of Canterbury and six of his suffragans presented a petition to the king, recounting their objections to the declaration and their reasons for refusing to order its publication in church. For this they were committed to the tower, and tried before the court of king's bench on a charge of seditious libel. In the midst of the most intense popular excitement they were acquitted, and that day, the 30th of June, 1688, is often referred to as the crisis of the English revolution. So far as it was a political movement, this affair of the bishops[132] represents a victory of the people over the arbitrary authority of the crown. So far as it was a religious movement, it represents a triumph of the secular power over what are called the great Protestant principles of liberty of conscience and freedom of worship. Though the bishops may have been political martyrs, they stand nevertheless as the representatives of religious intolerance, proscription, and persecution.

And what is the case of the bishops in Spain? Since the overthrow of Isabella, the country has been in a state little better than anarchy. The regency of Serrano, though it probably commands the adhesion of a majority of the people, has never been generally acquiesced in. Republicans, Carlists, Isabellistas are strong enough to cause the regency grave apprehension, and are only kept down by military power. The Carlists especially display a vitality which proves them to possess a strong hold of some kind upon the country, and to be much more than the little band of miserable conspirators which Madrid despatches represent them. It is difficult to know the truth about them; for we get little news from Spain, except such as filters through the offices of the regency at Madrid. It is said, however, that the clergy in general are favorable to the Carlists, which, considering the manner in which the churches and convents have been plundered by the existing authorities at the capital, is not at all unlikely. To put the clergy entirely at the mercy of the civil power, the regent issued, on the 5th of August, the following extraordinary decree:

It is difficult to imagine a bolder usurpation of authority. If priests are found guilty of political offences, the regent has the power (we do not speak of the right) to proceed against them just as he would against lay citizens. Not satisfied with that, he wishes[133] to impose ecclesiastical penalties also for political heterodoxy, to constitute himself the hierarchical superior of all the bishops and archbishops in Spain, to dictate the terms of their pastoral addresses, and to make the church a mere instrument of oppression in the hands of the civil power. He orders the prelates to turn informers. He instructs them to lay punishments upon the parochial clergy in plain violation of canon law. Worse than all, in the 4th article of his decree, he commands the bishops to take away the faculties of hearing confessions and preaching from all priests who are even "displeased with the constitutional regimen." Comment upon such an order is entirely superfluous. If it were obeyed, probably three fourths of the parishes in Spain would be without pastors. As a matter of course, the bishops have tacitly refused to comply with this decree, and Serrano threatens to proceed against the most obnoxious of them for disobedience.

Now, let any impartial person compare the cases of the English and the Spanish bishops, and tell us which represents the more perfectly the cause of just government and enlightened principles. Both refused obedience to an order of the chief civil authority of the realm because they held it to be an unwarrantable intrusion upon the dignity and independence of their order, and a violation of the laws. Herein the cases are parallel. The difference between them is just this, that the order of James, though it was unconstitutional, was a good and liberal measure in itself, while the order of Serrano is not only illegal but tyrannous. How can The Tribune say that "in the Spanish case, the cause of freedom will be represented rather by the government who prosecutes seven bishops for resistance of the secular authority, than by the prelates who are to be placed on their defence"? To our view, Serrano appears as the champion of civil and ecclesiastical despotism, and the bishops are martyrs in the cause of political freedom and religious independence.

James II. calculated that the power of the throne would be sufficient in any case to insure the conviction of his seven bishops; but the prosecution failed; the dissenting sects, which would have benefited from his indulgence equally with the Catholics, united with the Anglican Church to withstand him; the people fell on their knees before the bishops in the streets; and in six months the king was a fugitive. Will Spain pursue the parallel to this point? No government can afford to be unjust. No government, especially which bases its authority upon the consent of the people can last long after it has become arbitrary and oppressive. Men love equity instinctively, and the decree of the Spanish regent will be worth more to the Carlists than an army of soldiers.

LINES ON THE PONTIFICAL HAT PRESERVED IN MADAME UZIELLI'S PRIVATE ORATORY.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

In his latest historical work, (Isabelle de Castille. Grandeur et Décadence de l'Espagne,) the distinguished historian, M. Capefigue, says that, besides other debts to Isabella of Castile, Spaniards also owe an association that saved Spain from disorder and anarchy—La Santa Hermandad, the holy brotherhood, whose law was that of absolute solidarity. Cervantes, in Don Quixote, never lets an occasion pass of praising the brotherhood, with which Isabella also introduced the holy office—the Inquisition. It is our habit, says M. Capefigue, in matters historical, to avoid the adoption of ready-made opinions, and more especially declamations. We must examine with judgment the customs, the institutions, of a period—the necessities of an epoch. Then, frequently, every thing is justified and explained. Power is not inflexible through pleasure or caprice, but through necessity. Ogres only exist in fairy tales. In political history there are no men who from mere caprice eat human flesh. There are two periods in the history of the Inquisition. In the first, it rendered immense services. Ferdinand and Isabella had just delivered Spain. But the Moors still covered the land, and had to be watched. In constant communication with the Arabs in Africa, they ceased not to invoke the aid of their brethren across the strait. Together they conspired to reconquer Andalusia, the promised land of the Arabs, who never ceased longing for the lovely countries watered by the Guadalquivir. Theirs it was to hope and to plot. Spain's it was to detect and punish them. In times of peril for a state, exceptional powers are given, extraordinary tribunals created. At a period exclusively religious, the sign of Spanish nationality was Catholicity. Christian was the synonym of citizen, and the holy office was charged with the police of the state against those who accepted not the law of the land. Not only France but other countries have had their committees of public safety and their revolutionary tribunals. In the second period, the Inquisition—no longer useful to the state—became a tribunal of theology. It pursued heresy, which in societies based on religious principles is always a danger. Most remarkable is it that even in its decline the Inquisition preserved its popularity so largely among the great men of Spain. Lope de Vega was the chief of familiars of the holy office. Calderon was one of its most ardent members, bearing its banners at autos da fe. Velasquez gloried in the title. Murillo paints the flowers—the saints that ornament the san benito—and Zurbaran takes his grandest heads from the Dominican fathers of the santa fide. Without the guard and protection of the Inquisition, Spain would not have effected the great things in her history. Torn by interior dissensions, she would not have had the Americas; the reign of Charles V. would not have been so glorious, nor would she have gained the battle of Lepanto and saved Christian Europe.

The French publisher, V. Palmé, announces as in press the celebrated work of Cardinal Jacobatius, De Concilio, forming the introduction to the grand collection of councils.

The 14th, 15th, and 16th volumes of the Bullarum, diplomatum et privilegiorum sanctorum Romanorum pontificum Taurinensi editio have just been published at Turin. The 14th volume includes the years from the sixth to the sixteenth of the pontificate of Urban VIII. (1628-39;) the 15th terminates that pontificate and contains that of Innocent X. (1639-54;) and the 16th embraces the first seven years of Alexander VII. (1655-62.) The bulls and constitutions are published in chronological order. Some idea of their number may be formed from the fact that of Urban VIII. there are 829, of Innocent X. 199, of Alexander VII. 385.[136] Each volume has index nominum et rerum præcipuarum, index initialis, index rubricarum.

Late French papers announce the death of the Baron de Croze, formerly deputy from the department of Charente Inférieure, father-in-law of Count Anatole Lemercier, and for some years Cameriere of his holiness Pius IX. The holy father was much attached to Baron de Croze, and frequently held with him long and familiar conversations on politics and history. Some ten years ago, the Baron addressed a memorial to Pius IX., strongly urging his holiness to restore the Coliseum and to appeal to the entire world for the immense sums necessary for so great a work as the restoration of the noblest monument of the antique grandeur of the Romans. "My dear son," replied Pius IX., "I have seen your memorial, and thank you for it; but do you not know that there are two kinds of vandalism, the one of destruction, the other of restoration? Never has the Coliseum been more beautiful than in the moving contrast of the splendor of its past and the magnificence of its ruins. To restore them would, it seems to me, be an artistic sacrilege, and would annihilate the work of ages only to produce a poor and colorless counterfeit. Think no more of it, caro mio." And the baron thought no more of it.

The Parisian publishing circulars announce in press and soon to appear the celebrated Theology of Salamanca, Collegii Salamanticensis Cursus Theologicus.

In a late German bibliographical catalogue we remark the name of a saint we now see for the first time, and concerning whom we acknowledge ourselves utterly ignorant. It occurs in the title of a work thus announced: Sainct Velociped. Eine Moderne Reiselegende—Saint Velocipede. A Legend of Modern Travel.

Saint Agobard, Archevêque de Lyon, sa Vie et ses Ecrits, par M. l'Abbé P. Chevallard, is the title of a handsome octavo volume just published at Lyons. Saint Agobard's life covered the period from 779 to 840, and, with his writings, forms an important page of the history of the church in France during the ninth century. His episcopal career was active, and his influence on the religious questions and discipline of his time considerable. The history of this holy man is necessarily attached to that of the reign of Louis le Débonnaire. St. Agobard's reputation for talent and learning has never been contested, and historians and critics unite in the opinion that he was the first mind of his period in France. It is not exclusively within the church, nor by Catholics alone, that St. Agobard is thus highly appreciated. MM. Guizot and Ampère have spoken with great admiration of him; Ampère particularly mentions his intelligent efforts in combating a widely spread and deeply rooted belief that a disastrous epidemic which carried off thousands of cattle was caused by the emissaries of the Duke of Benevento, who—said popular report—scattered powders over the fields and in the fountains, thus producing sudden death of the animals. Something similar is recounted by Manzoni in his Promessi Sposi, where he describes the Untori and the pretended cholera poisoners. Besides the essays of St. Agobard on theology, liturgy, and ecclesiastical discipline, his writings on the superstitions of his period, and on the pernicious influence of the Jews in Lyons, are remarkable and of high value in an historical point of view.

Much indignation has been expressed in several European and English papers concerning an imaginary prohibition of the pope to the physicians of Rome from attending any person who, after three days' medical attendance, should refuse the sacraments. The paragraphs containing the indignation have been widely copied in the United States, and we therefore notice the silly statement. The existence and validity of an old brief of Sixtus V. is probably the origin of the singular blunder. The brief in question orders doctors, under pain of excommunication, to warn the[137] parish priest of the patient's danger, if, after three days, he appears in peril of life; but beyond that the doctor cannot act, and continues his attendance to the last, irrespective of the patient's religious state or dispositions. And the provision is evidently wise and humane. In very many cases it is dangerous for the patient to know that his physician considers him in peril of death. To advise his family is much the same as to tell the patient; and the obvious prudence of the matter is to notify the parish priest, who can act according to the necessities of the case. So much for one of the many falsehoods of the day. Like many others, it has travelled fast and far. Will this refutation overtake it? Doubtful.

A new history of Pope Pius IX. is announced as almost ready for publication: Histoire de Pie IX. et de son Pontificat, par M. Alexandre de Saint Albin.

The distinguished Father Theiner, of Rome, has lately given his friends occasion to regret that he had not remained known to the literary world by his Monumenta alone. No words but those of praise and admiration could then have been found for him. Our occasion for this remark is his late controversy—or series of controversies—with M. Crétineau-Joly, concerning the Cardinals Consalvi and Caprara, and Bishop Bernier, touching their connection with the concordat of 1801. The matter has culminated in an octavo volume lately out, Bonaparte, le Concordat de 1801 et le Cardinal Consalvi, suivi des deux Lettres au Père Theiner sur le Pape Clement XIV., par J. Crétineau-Joly; and of which we made mention in our August number. M. Crétineau-Joly is a terrible adversary, and wields a trenchant blade. Such a rapid shower of cut, thrust, back, forward, and circular strokes is rarely seen. It is to be regretted, however, that M. Joly, in the abundance of his power of replication and retort, should not have been content with telling Father Theiner, as he does, "You have been given a bad cause to sustain, and you defend it with bad arguments." But blood becomes as hot in literary quarrels as in physical combats, and M. Joly goes entirely too far when he talks about surprising his adversary, "Vingt fois, trente fois, en flagrant débit de mensonge." Those who know Father Theiner are satisfied that he is in this case the victim of his imagination and of his simplicity, and that, moreover, he has been badly advised.

Dr. F. W. Kampschulte, Professor of History at the University of Bonn, has hitherto been known as an author only by a few works of secondary importance, such as his History of the Ancient University of Erfurt. He has, however, just taken rank quite suddenly among the best historians of Germany by his lately published Johann Calvin, seine Kirche und sein Staat in Genf, (John Calvin, his Church and his State at Geneva.) The first volume alone is as yet published. But this one is quite enough to display remarkable erudition, and an amount of literary labor nothing less than enormous. Dr. Kampschulte asserts on good grounds that, without the assistance of Berne, Genevan Protestantism would never have succeeded as it did, and he has, accordingly, thoroughly and successfully searched the archives of Berne for new and valuable documents. Finally, the author has not, like too many of his predecessors in the same field, been content to take for Calvin's correspondence Beza's edition of the Epistolæ et Responsa Calvini, which really contains but a small portion of Calvin's correspondence, but has with wonderful labor and perseverance collected a large amount of Calvin's letters hitherto unknown, and which were dispersed throughout Europe.

A second edition of the Bibliotheque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus, par le P. Augustin de Backer, is announced as soon to be published. It will be in three volumes in folio, each volume to contain about three thousand columns, and will be placed at the very low price of forty-five francs. It will not be for sale in the usual manner[138] by booksellers, and we therefore make special mention of it. Persons desiring to obtain it may address the author, (College Saint Servais, Liège, Belgique,) or the publisher of the Etudes Religieuses, Historiques et Littéraires, (No. 18 Rue Lhomond, à Paris.) The first edition, commenced by Fathers Augustin and Alois de Backer, appeared in 1855, in seven vols. 8vo. The new edition, besides being in a single alphabetical series, will contain numerous corrections and additions. It also contains articles on controversies of special interest, such as the publication of the Acta Sanctorum, the origin of the order of Carmel, etc.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Lectures and Essays on Irish and other Subjects. By Henry Giles. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

Besides biographical lectures on O'Connell, Curran, Dr. Doyle, Oliver Goldsmith, and Gerald Griffin, this volume contains other lectures on the spirit of Irish history, Irish social character, etc., which many of our readers have, doubtless, heard delivered by the author in his pleasant and effective style.

Mr. Giles is of Irish birth, and for many years officiated and preached as a Unitarian minister. There can be no doubt that his Irish patriotism is sincere and enthusiastic, and yet, as we read, we feel as though something were wanting. For reasons that can be perfectly well understood without detailed explanation, Irish patriotic character always appears incomplete without Catholicity. Oliver Goldsmith and the Duke of Wellington are as much of Irish birth as Dr. Doyle and Daniel O'Connell; but how much more essentially Irish to every one are the two latter than the two former. The Catholic reader of these lectures sadly misses what he feels to be most essential. Take, for instance, the lectures on O'Connell, Gerald Griffin, and Dr. Doyle, which are among the best, and he perceives the absence of an element of appreciation that nothing but Catholic sympathy could supply. These papers have high merit as oral lectures, and precisely because of this merit they fall short of their reputation when read. The effective lecture is not necessarily an effective essay. There are certain elements nowadays almost indispensable to the success of a lecture, and they happen to be precisely those which detract from its literary merit. The redundancy of anecdote is one of these elements, and Mr. Giles was strongly given to it.

The book is, nevertheless, pleasant reading, although such essays as "The Christian Idea in Catholic Art and in Protestant Culture" afford additional proof—if any were needed—of the barrenness of Protestantism in art.

Order and Chaos: A Lecture, delivered at Loyola College, Baltimore, in July, 1869. By T. W. M. Marshall, Esq. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1869.

Mr. Marshall, who is both one of the most solid and altogether the wittiest of English writers, delivered this lecture in Baltimore before a select audience, on the eve of his return to England. It is a well-reasoned argument, clothed in the author's usual choice and happy style, and spiced with a seasonable amount of his humor. Its topic is the order prevailing in the Catholic Church contrasted with the disorder which rules among the sects, as a proof[139] that the former is of God, while the latter are of man. We quote the following extract, which contains a well-delivered blow at the disunionists:

In Heaven we know Our Own; or, Solace for the Suffering. From the French of the Rev. Father Blot, S.J. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1869.

We would call special attention to this delightful little book. The lady translator has conferred a very great service on English-speaking Catholics; nor on Catholics alone, but also on all professing Christians "of good-will," who,

in order to satisfy one of their deepest and holiest cravings, and not having known the Catholic Church, nor therefore "the communion of saints," have turned—and most naturally—into paths which only lead to deception and despair.

The book before us supplies to "the afflicted" who mourn the loss of friends a consolation as solid as it is abundant: a proof on unshakable grounds of truths which seem to be forgotten even by some among Catholics; that human ties do survive the grave; that

and that the knowledge and love of creatures must necessarily form an integral part of the happiness of heaven. The reader will be astonished to see what Catholic saints and doctors have said on this subject; and what a stress they have laid on it as a part of their own hopes and anticipations. To those, too, in particular, who are tempted to despair of the departed, an antidote is here offered for this poison of their rest; an antidote which, we are sure, has long been needed by many an anxious heart.

In commending this book, then, to Catholics, we would urge them to put it as much as possible in the hands of non-Catholic friends. The success of a recent work, entitled The Gates Ajar, is evidence enough of the hunger that exists in all souls for food of this kind. And why should any be left to pick up crumbs, when a full table invites them? A perusal of In Heaven We Know Our Own may open the eyes of many to the glorious fact it is our privilege to know—that the Catholic religion embraces all truth, and alone can satisfy all the soul's cravings:

Mopsa the Fairy. By Jean Ingelow. With illustrations. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1869.

If the children wish to visit fairy-land, they could have no better guide than Jean Ingelow; yet even she fails to make the fairy-world half so fair or interesting as our own every-day world. However, Jack learns some good lessons in his visit to fairy-land; for he found a whole nation of fairies turned into stone for being unkind and selfish. Let the little ones take care lest the fate of the fairies befall them. The book is beautifully illustrated, and is altogether a very pleasant book for children.

Two Years before the Mast. A Personal Narrative by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. New edition. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co. 1869.

Twelve years ago we determined upon a voyage similar to that the author describes, and from a similar motive.

This recital of his two years' experience before the mast was put into our hands to deter us from going. We recollect reading it with the greatest interest, and being afterward more anxious to go than ever. After three years' experience, during which we shared all the sailor's toils and pleasures "fore and aft," we returned to a student's life. It was therefore with some curiosity we reopened this book to see what our judgment would be of this sailor's yarn as compared with our own experience.

Before, it had the charm of adventure untried; now it gave the pleasure of again, in imagination, riding the topsail yard-arm amid the wild storm, hauling out the "weather earing," and "sending her" off the Cape with all hands lashed to the rigging. We have never read so vivid yet truthful a description of a sailor's life. It is refreshing to see for once nautical terms correctly and naturally used. We suspect that the author's estimate of the character and religion of the people he visited has changed since he wrote. The condition of the Mexicans now, as compared with their peace and prosperity under the paternal care of the Catholic missionaries, would surely warrant it.

We heartily sympathize with the author in his desire to better the condition of seamen. They are a noble, large-hearted class of men. We never expect[141] to meet more courageous, generous, faithful men than our comrades at sea. Yet their life, which must be full of toil and danger, is made unnecessarily hard and laborious by unjust treatment. They are over-worked and half-fed at sea, and swindled on shore. If among the various protective societies, one were organized to protect seamen from shipping masters, brutal officers, and "boarding-house runners," it would be a praiseworthy act.

The author's account of his later visit to the Pacific coast is very acceptably added to this new edition, and shows the great change that has taken place in the condition of our commerce and of our country.

Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson. Selected and edited by Thomas Sadler, Ph.D. 2 vols. 12mo. Pp. 496, 555. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co.

In the United States, it is only the readers of the literary biography of the last generation that know Henry Crabb Robinson even by name; for although he was intimately acquainted with some scores of distinguished men, and moved in the best literary society of England, he left little or nothing to recall his memory after he was dead, except the immense piles of manuscript from which these two volumes have been selected. These, we venture to predict, will enjoy a permanent place in literature, not much below the Diary of Pepys and Boswell's Life of Johnson. Mr. Robinson, however, had nothing of the Pepys or the Boswell in his character. He was a man of sharp natural faculties, excellent scholarship, abundant wit, eminent social accomplishments, and strong character. In his youth he was a foreign correspondent and sub-editor of The Times. Afterward he practised at the bar. But for the most important part of his life, covering a period of some thirty years before his death, he had no profession, and passed his time in the society of literary and other celebrities, with whom, for his extraordinary conversational powers and more sterling qualities, he was always a welcome guest. It is to his anecdotes and recollections of such men—Lamb, Wordsworth, Southey, Byron, Coleridge, Moore, Rogers, Goethe, Lady Morgan, Lady Blessington, Landor, and others—told with spirit and discretion, that the Diary and Reminiscences owe their value. The work of selection and arrangement has been performed with excellent judgment, and no one who takes up the volumes will readily lay them aside.

The Elements of Theoretical and Descriptive Astronomy; for the use of Colleges and Academies. By Charles J. White, A.M., Assistant Professor of Astronomy and Navigation in the United States Naval Academy. 16mo, 272 pp. Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, 819 and 821 Market street. 1869.

Most writers of text-books, probably, are impelled to their task by an impression that a void exists which only can be filled by a work answering to a conception which they have formed in the course of their studies. This arises from the fact that few subjects of study can be thoroughly mastered by merely imbibing the ideas of another person, and that consequently every one who spends much time in acquiring, or particularly in teaching, any science, is obliged to think a good deal upon the subject, and hence to arrange it almost necessarily in his own mind in a different shape, and probably one better adapted to himself, than that in which it was presented to him. Finding nothing just like this among existing text-books, he naturally concludes that the really systematic arrangement has yet to be given, and by himself.

This every teacher perhaps is tempted to do; but unfortunately, the best teachers, who perceive what difficulties are met with by the mass of students, sometimes deny themselves the pleasure, or are perhaps unable to indulge[142] in it, while others supply books suited only to a few. Sometimes, also, no void remains, having been already filled. But in this subject of astronomy there certainly was a need of a new work sufficiently precise and condensed to present salient points to the mind of the student, and form matter for a recitation, without being unnecessarily technical and uninteresting. Herschel's Outlines, though an interesting and thoroughly scientific work, and clear in its explanations, is rather fit to be read than to be studied or recited from; yet this was undoubtedly the best book for those not wishing to pursue astronomy professionally, but merely to acquire a sufficient knowledge of it for a liberal education, or to understand navigation and other branches of knowledge in which it is involved.

Mr. White's book is exactly what was wanted for this purpose, supplying all Herschel's defects for the student, being nearly or quite as clear, and much more concise. It also contains other matters which would not usually be found except in works on what is called practical astronomy, but which are necessary for any one who desires to make use of his knowledge; which end is also secured throughout by the precise and definite form in which every thing is treated. One often fancies he understands a subject, but finds that his knowledge is unavailable from not being sufficiently in detail.

The author has a thorough acquaintance with his science, and remarkable natural ability as a teacher, developed by long experience. It will be a decided waste of time for any one to undertake a similar book till the progress of science renders large additions to this absolutely necessary; and this is brought up to the actual date of publication, containing the latest results of the spectroscope, and the most recent determinations of the astronomical constants.

Diomede. From the Iliad of Homer. By William R. Smith. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

This version of the Fifth Book of the Iliad is as successful, perhaps, as any similar attempt yet made. If not as smooth and polished as Pope's, it is at least more accurate. But we venture to think that the author has mistaken the true metre for translating Homer. We believe the blank-verse of Tennyson the only one capable of rendering it adequately. Much as we appreciate the version before us, we have not yet seen any thing to equal Tennyson's "specimen translation" of the celebrated moonlight scene, (Iliad, Book viii.)

Patty Gray's Journey from Boston to Baltimore. By Caroline H. Dall. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1869.

A pleasant and interesting story of Patty's journey to and stay in Baltimore. Though Patty was a little girl, she was nevertheless a true Yankee, and thought "that people must talk and act as they did in Boston, or they could not possibly talk and act right." She thought, too, "she could never love a 'Secesh;'" still, like a dear little girl as she was, she soon learned to love her uncle Tom and other relatives dearly. If the preface had been left out, the book might be a good one for children; it certainly cannot be good for them to have all the abuses of slavery served up again and again. That evil has been done away with, and, at least as far as the children are concerned, "let us have peace."

Ecclesiastical Map of the United States of America. Arranged by Rev. E. H. Reiter, S.J., of Boston, Mass. For sale by Fr. Pustet, Bookseller and Publisher, 52 Barclay St., New York; 204 Vine St., Cincinnati, Ohio.

On this large and excellent map of the United States the seven Ecclesiastical Provinces into which the country is divided are distinguished by different ground colors, and the boundaries of the several dioceses in each province and of the vicariates apostolic are indicated[143] by red lines. All the episcopal sees are marked by a line, either red or blue; while the archiepiscopal sees are shown by a combination of these two colors. We regard this map as a very useful publication.

Autobiography of a Shaker, and Revelation of the Apocalypse. With an Appendix. F. W. Evans, Mount Lebanon, Columbia County, N. Y. June, 1869.

No man in our day should attempt to solve the religious question without a competent knowledge of the basis of the claims of the Catholic Church to being the church of God and her faith the true Christian faith. Her claim is prior to all others as an historical fact, and must be fairly set aside before another can be allowed to come into court. The author of the above autobiography is, as is usual with the opponents of the Catholic Church, sadly lacking in this knowledge. Among other absurdities, he tells us gravely that "the Roman Catholic Church was founded by Leo the Great"! Well, after all, that is an improvement on Rev. Justin D. Fulton, of Boston, who affirms, "Romanism is the masterpiece of Satan."

The author appears to possess a smattering knowledge of several things, and an exact and thorough knowledge of none. His book is a jumble of materialism and spiritualism, of infidelity, Protestantism, and credulity.

The language attributed, on page 80, to the late Archbishop Hughes, we venture to say was drawn from the writer's imagination.

Hospital Sketches, and Camp and Fireside Stories. By Louisa M. Alcott. With illustrations. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1869. Pp. 379.

Hospital Sketches originally appeared in the columns of the Boston Commonwealth, over the signature of Tribulation Periwinkle, and are "simply a brief record of one person's experience," as an army hospital nurse. They are written in a pleasant, gossipy, natural style; the incidents, a judicious admixture of the "grave and gay," the humorous and the pathetic, being alike removed from the extremes of levity and gloom.

Camp and Fireside Stories, though more pretentious in style and elaborate in plot, are not, in our opinion, of equal merit.

Bible History; containing the most remarkable events of the Old and New Testament. Prepared for the use of Catholic Schools in the United States. By Rev. Richard Gilmour. With the approbation of the Most Reverend J. B. Purcell, D.D., Archbishop of Cincinnati. Cincinnati and New York: Benziger Bros. 1869. Pp. 336.

We can heartily recommend this as an excellent "intermediate" text-book in sacred history. Nor must we omit a special commendation of the publishers, who, as far as the paper and typography are concerned, are deserving of all praise. The illustrations are numerous, always pertinent to the text, and, generally speaking, satisfactory. An appendix contains "Maxims from the Sacred Scriptures," "The Christian Doctrine as seen in the Narrations of the Bible," and "A Bird's-Eye View of the Holy Land," the key to which last, strange to say, omits the city of Jerusalem.

The Letters of Placidus on Education. London: Richardson & Son. For sale by The Catholic Publication Society, New York.

We commend these Letters of Placidus to the careful consideration of educators. They are from the pen of a sound Catholic, an accomplished scholar, and one who evidently speaks from a thorough experience. Some, indeed, may think them bold in places; but all[144] will find them to contain suggestions worthy of their deepest attention.

The Emerald. An Illustrated Literary Journal. Vol. III. New York: The Emerald Publishing Company. 1869. Pp. 412.

This volume, in many respects superior to its predecessors, comprises an immense amount of interesting and entertaining reading matter, and is profusely illustrated.

The Office of Vespers; Containing the Order of the Vesper Service, the Gregorian Psalm Tones harmonized, with the Psalms for all Vespers during the year pointed for chanting. By Rev. Alfred Young. New York: The Catholic Publication House. 1869.

Father Young has given us, we are glad to see, strictly Gregorian melodies, both in the ritual of the vesper service and in the psalm tones, such as are to be found in authorized editions of the Antiphonale Romanum. This is something we commend with all our heart. The melodies commonly found in our "choir books," "vesperals," and "services," are for the most part so garbled, both in the inflections and arrangements, as to leave very little of the original Gregorian tone standing. The chief merit of the book, however, consists in a new division of the tones, and of the psalms, by which but one pointing of the psalms is needed for chanting any one of the tones with their varied concluding cadences. Father Maugin attempted something of this kind in his Roman Vesperal, but succeeded only in reducing the different pointings to four. The simplicity of Father Young's arrangement cannot fail to be appreciated by organists as well as by the singers. With his book in our choirs we need not be condemned to hear the tiresome repetition of the same five psalms sung to the same five tones on every Sunday and festival in the year. We hope the author will find sufficient success with the present publication to give us, as he proposes, the Hymnal and Antiphonal. With these we can have our vespers chanted as they should be, in their truly effective style and religious spirit, in comparison to which our so-called "musical vespers" are tame, unmeaning, and, spiritually, unprofitable.

This somewhat curious effusion gave us much pleasure as we read it. The smoothness and grace of the verse, and sometimes the diction, too, remind us strongly of Tennyson.

The Life of Henry Dorie, Martyr. By the Abbé Ferdinand Baudry. Translated by Lady Herbert. London: Burns, Oates & Co. For sale by The Catholic Publication Society, New York.

This neat little book is full of interest, as giving not only an admirable sketch of its noble hero, but also a view of the Corea and its inhabitants, for which the reader will be grateful who is eager to know more of that strange region, and the wondrous work that is doing there.

The Catholic Publication Society has just published a new and complete classified catalogue of all the American and English Catholic books now in print. To be had free on application at 126 Nassau Street.

The Catholic Publication Society has in press and will publish in a few weeks: The Writings of Madame Swetchine, 1 vol. 12mo, $1.50, uniform with Life of Madame Swetchine. Hymns and Songs for Catholic Children, containing the most popular Catholic hymns for every season of the Christian year, together with May songs, Christmas and Easter carols, and for the use of Sunday-schools, sodalities, etc.

THE LIFE OF FATHER FABER.[34]

In the life of Father Faber there was no sudden and violent change from the excitement of worldly affairs to the quiet of the cloister, no striking intervention of divine Providence, such as that which in a single day converted Ignatius from a courtier to a saint. He suffered, it is true, from spiritual conflicts and that rupture of natural ties which for so many converts to the faith is little short of a species of martyrdom; but the tender piety which beams from all his maturer devotional works seems to have filled his heart from boyhood, and his progress from heresy to faith was like the gradual development of a seed planted in his breast in early youth. Yet it is hardly in the Faber family that we should have looked for a phenomenon like this. They were of Huguenot origin, and proud of their religious ancestry; and their exiled forefathers, who settled in England after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, we may fairly presume were honored in the family as confessors of the faith. The grandfather of the subject of these pages was the Reverend Thomas Faber, vicar of Calverley, in Yorkshire. Frederick William was born at the vicarage, on the 28th of June, 1814. His father, Mr. Thomas Henry Faber, was soon afterward appointed secretary to the Bishop of Durham, and removed with his family to the episcopal domain of Bishop Auckland. Durham had not yet lost its dignity as a County Palatine, and in the glories of the ancient city, where the bishop held his court with all the pomp and something of the power of royalty, there was much to impress a warm poetical imagination, like that of young Faber. The poetical faculty was afterward fostered by the beautiful scenery of the Lake country, when he was sent to school at Kirkby Stephen, in Westmoreland. There it was his chief delight to ramble alone among the hills and meres, and fancy the chases filled again with deer, the forests resounding with the hunter's horn, the ruined halls and castles resonant with feast and song, and the deserted abbeys vocal with prayer and chant. He shows his familiarity with this region in some of his published verses. Subsequently, he studied at Harrow, under Doctor Longley, afterward Archbishop of Canterbury, by whose kindness and influence[146] he was reclaimed at a time when he had adopted infidel views. He gave himself with all his heart to the study of English literature; but the classics got rather less attention from him than they deserved, and his career at Oxford, where he was matriculated at Baliol College, in 1832, cannot be called a brilliant one. He was a man of scholarly tastes and of scholarly attainments as well, yet in certain of the highest requirements of the university he seems to have fallen short; for we hear of his failing once or twice, not indeed in his examinations, but in competition for a distinguished place. The fact probably was, that he applied himself with undue partiality to favorite studies, such as poetry and divinity. He was remarkable even at this time for graces of person and manner, fine conversational powers, and a rare faculty of attracting friends, notwithstanding a certain dangerous keenness in his perceptions of the ludicrous, coupled with great frankness in the expression of his feelings. "I cannot tell why it is," said one of his schoolmates at Harrow, "but that Faber fascinates every body." This remark was repeated to him afterward, and filled him with a sense of obligation to use the gift in promoting God's glory.

The temporary eclipse of faith to which we have alluded was of very short duration; and when he came to Oxford, he was keenly alive to religious impressions, with a strong Calvinistic tendency. The tractarian movement, however, was just beginning, and Faber became an enthusiastic admirer—"an acolyth," as he expressed it—of John Henry Newman, who was then preaching at St. Mary's, Oxford. He did not make Mr. Newman's acquaintance till several years later; but under his influence he forgot his evangelicalism, and threw himself eagerly into the great movement for the revival of church principles as expounded in the Tracts for the Times. "Transubstantiation has been bothering me," he wrote to a friend; "not that I lean to it, but I have seen no refutation of it. How can it be absurd and contradictory to the evidence of our senses, when they cannot by any means take cognizance of the unknown being, substance, which alone is held up as the subject of this conversion?"

This tendency toward Catholic truth was but slight, however, and evanescent. There came a reaction in the course of a little while, and Mr. Faber wrote to one of his friends:

How thoroughly his mind and heart were taken up with religious problems we can see in almost every letter. One of the correspondents to whom he seems to have expressed himself with the fullest freedom was Mr. John Brande Morris, and to him he writes, in 1834:

He read a great deal of religious biography, and when he saw "the maturity of faith and the religious perfection to which many good men[147] arrive so early," he felt disheartened at his own condition. "It is true," he said, "I have often had hours of ecstatic, enthusiastic devotion; but the fever has soon subsided, and my feelings have flowed on calmly and soberly in their accustomed channels." He looked for the fruits of his faith and found none. Yet in his ignorance of what constitutes the true spiritual life, Faber, in his earnest search after perfection, was doubtless much nearer to God than the evangelical saints whose condition he so envied. He was soon surrounded at Oxford by a little circle of admirers, who made him, in some sort, the exemplar and guide of their religious life. He was about twenty or twenty-one years of age when he began a systematic effort to improve the opportunities for doing good which he believed had thus been providentially opened to him. "I proceeded," he wrote soon afterward, "to dictate, to organize, so to speak, a system of aggressive efforts in favor of religion; and under my guidance a number of prayer-meetings was speedily established; and by God's grace I was enabled to do it with little noise or ostentation." In another letter he describes the perplexity which he suffered during a vacation visit to one of his disciples, who had "declined from his Christian profession," and manifested an unregenerate fondness for the pleasures of life, balls, theatres, etc., which are generally so attractive to the young. Mr. Faber had little difficulty in reasserting his influence; but his friend's father had "a violent prejudice against what he called 'the humbug of evangelicals,'" and strongly disapproved of the enthusiastic views of the little Oxford coterie. Mr. Faber could not hold his tongue and let the son alone; he trembled at the thought of breeding domestic dissension; and he could not break off his visit without giving offence. It would be interesting to know how he got out of the difficulty, but he does not tell us.

There soon came a time when he discovered that, however Calvinism might answer for seasons of religious excitement and spiritual exaltation, it was not fit for the daily food of the soul. He could not always be at a prayer-meeting or an exhortation. Secular studies exacted most of his time, and he felt then that there was nothing for him to lean upon. Another change in his religious views was the inevitable consequence. He had been for some time an admiring student of the works of George Herbert; Herbert led him on to Bishop Andrewes; the necessity of sacraments, the prerogatives of the church, the "penitential system of the primitive church," and "the girdle of celibacy and the lamp of watching" became subjects of frequent recurrence in his letters; he confessed that "the evangelical system feeds the heart at the expense of the head," and "makes religion a series of frames of feeling;" and before long we find him quoting with approbation the writings of Dr. Wiseman. He was indeed steadily advancing toward the Catholic Church, though he was far enough from suspecting it. In June, 1836, he writes:

It was well that he was getting even by these slow degrees to a more comfortable faith; for in his university career he was destined to suffer, just at this time, several severe trials. He had carried off, in 1836, the[148] prize for a poem on The Knights of St. John; but in the examination for his degree he made a comparative failure, his name appearing only in the second class, and, as a consequence of this misfortune, he was also defeated in a contest for a fellowship in his own college. To divert his mind from this double mortification and recruit his exhausted strength, he made a short visit to Germany with his brother, the Reverend Francis A. Faber. Soon after his return, he secured a fellowship at University College, and also carried off the Johnson divinity scholarship, for which there was a strong competition. His position being now secure, he began to prepare himself zealously for orders. He made the acquaintance of Doctor Newman, and joined in his scheme for compiling the Library of the Fathers, undertaking, as his share of the work, to translate the Books of St. Optatus against the Donatists. He obtained a few pupils, and during the vacation accompanied a small reading party to Ambleside, near the head of Windermere. There he was fortunate enough to form a friendship with Wordsworth, and used to spend long days rambling with the poet over the neighboring mountains—Wordsworth muttering verses in the intervals of conversation. His correspondence is full of admiring allusions to Wordsworth's poetry, "Well or sick," he says, "cheerful or sad, I can almost always get happiness and quiet and good resolves out of the old poet—God bless him! One may hang on one sonnet of his by the hour, like a bee in a fox-glove, and still get sweetness." His opinions of some other famous poets would be declared unquestionably heterodox. He wrote to his brother from Italy in 1843:

For Byron, "the beast who thrust Christ into company with Jove and Mohammed"—Byron, "trampling under foot his duties to his country, and scorning the natural pieties," his antipathy amounted to loathing. "I must say that I cannot comprehend the anomaly which strikes me both in guide-books and conversation of quoting and praising men like Milton and Byron, when a man professes to love Christ and to put all his hopes of salvation in him."

Mr. Faber's old master at Harrow, Doctor Longley, now Bishop of Ripon, ordained him deacon in 1837, and Bishop Bagot promoted him to the priesthood at Oxford in 1839. Meanwhile, he had spent the long vacations at Ambleside, assisting there in parochial work, and preaching twice a week, and the rest of the year he had passed among his books at Oxford. A devoted Anglican at this time, and full of hope that the movement guided by Pusey, Newman, and their associates would revolutionize the whole English establishment, he had gone so far toward Catholicism that when, just after his ordination as priest, he made a second visit to the continent, he wrote to the Rev. J. B. Morris the following curious letter from Cologne:

The idea that Anglicans were excommunicate from Western Christendom was a terrible distress to him. "Would you not like," he writes to the same friend, "to spend six months among the Munich disciples of Möhler, Döllinger, etc., etc.? Of course I shall know more of all this when I have travelled. I shall strive to realize all such little ways of impeded communion as are unstopped. It will surely do me good, if no one else."

He soon had the coveted opportunity for more extended travel; for in 1841, he went abroad as tutor to a young gentleman from Ambleside, and spent six months journeying through the countries bordering on the Mediterranean and the Danube, Styria, the Tyrol, and Northern Germany. Memorials of this interesting tour are found in some of his published poems and in a volume called Sights and Thoughts in Foreign Churches and among Foreign Peoples, which appeared in 1842, dedicated to Wordsworth. Into this book the author introduced many reflections upon religious matters, chiefly in the form of conversations with an imaginary representative of mediæval Christianity, as well as of Mr. Faber's own Catholic feelings, whom he calls "the Stranger." The volume closes with a dream, in which the author conducts the stranger through English cathedrals, with their bare altars and empty niches. "The stranger regarded them with indignation, but did not speak. When we came out of the church, he turned to me, and said in a solemn voice, somewhat tremulous from deep emotion, 'You have led me through a land of closed churches and hushed bells, of unlighted altars and unstoled priests. Is England beneath an interdict?'"

The private journal of Mr. Faber's journey abounds with evidences of the deep impressions which Catholic customs made upon him, and his secret dissatisfaction with his own cold church—a dissatisfaction of which probably he was still himself unconscious. He is at Genoa on the Feast of the Annunciation, "and not to be utterly without sympathy with the Genoese around us, we decorated our room with a bunch of crimson tulips, apparently the favorite flower, that we might not be without somewhat to remind us of her

In Constantinople he is impressed with the folly of patching up the Anglican succession by an alliance with the Greek Church. "Depend upon it," he writes, "cast about as we will, if we want foreign Catholic sympathies, we must find them as they will let us in our Latin mother." He witnesses a procession of pilgrims from Vienna to the shrine of the Blessed Virgin at Mariazell. "It was a bewildering sight. I thought how faith ran in my own country in thin and scattered rivulets, and I looked[150] with envious surprise at this huge wave which the Austrian capital had flung upon this green platform of Styrian highland—a wave of pure, hearty, earnest faith." He is indignant at the desecration of Sunday by the Lutheran population of Dresden, and exclaims, "Yet year after year are we assured in England of the connection between popery and whatever is disagreeable in the foreign way of keeping Sunday. No person who has not been abroad, and heard and seen and investigated for himself, would credit the extensive system of lying pursued by English travel-writers, religious-tract compilers, and Exeter Hall speech-makers, respecting the Roman Church abroad; and whether the lies be those of wilfulness or of prejudice, ignorance, and indolence, I do not see much to distinguish in the guilt. These dirt-seekers scrape the sewers of Europe to rough-cast the Church of Rome with the plentiful defilements."

Soon after his return home, he was offered the college living of Elton, in Huntingdonshire, and at first declined it, but afterward, for a reason which curiously illustrates his conscientiousness, he determined to accept. "My chief rock of offence," said he, "is the subduing the poet to the priest." He would have given up poetry altogether, but Keble convinced him that he had no right to bury his chief talent in a napkin. To cultivate it in moderation was more difficult, and here he thought the uncongenial duties of the pastoral office would be a great help in correcting his inordinate love of literature, and keeping him within the bounds of usefulness. "I do not say you are wrong," was Wordsworth's remark on hearing his determination; "but England loses a poet."

If his reason for accepting the rectory was a strange one, his first step on taking possession was still stranger and still wiser. He determined to visit Rome and study the method pursued by the church in dealing with the souls committed to her care. "I want to go to Italy," said he, "not as a poet, or a tourist, or a pleased dreamer, but as a pilgrim who regards it as a second Palestine, the Holy Land of the West." Dr. Wiseman, then coadjutor bishop of the central district of England, gave him letters of introduction to Cardinal Acton and Dr. Grant at Rome, so that he was enabled to see much more of the charitable and religious institutions of the Christian capital than falls to the lot of the ordinary visitor. He studied Italian, in order that he might understand the numerous lives of saints in that language, and singularly enough, or providentially we should rather say, he conceived a particular devotion to St. Philip Neri, his future father. Of his visit to the room in which the saint used to say Mass he writes, "How little did I, a Protestant stranger in that room years ago, dream that I should ever be of the saint's family, or that the Oratorian father who showed it me should in a few years be appointed by the pope the novice-master of the English Oratorians. I remember how, when he kissed the glass of the case in which St. Philip's little bed is kept as a relic, he apologized to me as a Protestant, lest I should be scandalized, and told me with a smile how tenderly St. Philip's children loved their father. I was not scandalized with their relic-worship then, but I can understand better now what he said about the love, the child-like love, wherewith St. Philip inspired his sons. If any one had told me that in seven short years I should wear the same habit, and the same white collar in the streets of London, and be preaching[151] a triduo in honor of Rome's apostle, I should have wondered how any one could dream so wild a dream."

Sensibly as he was affected by the pious practices and associations of Rome, his attachment to the Church of England was as yet unshaken. He still cherished the delusion that some way could be found of connecting the Anglican establishment with this venerable apostolic church. Controversy on such points of doctrine as indulgences, etc., he put aside. "The one thing necessary to prove," said he, "is that adherence to the holy see is essential to the being of a church: to the well-being of all churches I admit it essential." He visited the church of the Lateran on St. John's day, and knelt bare-headed in the piazza to receive the holy father's blessing. "I do not think," he writes, "I ever returned from any service so thoroughly christianized in every joint and limb, or so right of heart, as I did from the Lateran on Thursday." Afterward Cardinal Acton obtained for him the favor of a private audience with Pope Gregory XVI., the story of which he tells in the following words:

That he did not immediately embrace the truth seems to have been not the effect of cowardice, but of a genuine scruple such as he expressed to Pope Gregory. The Anglican party at this time were sanguine of their ability to bring their members, as a body, into communion with the Roman see, and Mr. Faber was doubtless conscientious in his delay, though he suffered terribly from distress of mind. "I grow more Roman every day," he writes. "I hardly dare read the Articles; their weight grows heavier on me daily. I hope our Blessed Lady's intercession may not cease for any of us because we do not seek it, since we desist for obedience' sake." He prayed at the shrine of St. Aloysius on the feast of that saint, and left the church as if speechless and not knowing where he was going. After he became a Catholic, he told Dr. Grant that on the 21st of June St. Aloysius "had always knocked very hard at his heart." Twice he took his hat to go to the English College and make his abjuration, but on each occasion some trifling circumstance interfered to prevent[152] the execution of his purpose. He wore a miraculous medal, and he obtained some rosaries blessed by the pope. At last he went home to Elton, having suffered during his visit a degree of mental anguish which actually resulted in physical injuries that affected him all the rest of his life.

Dr. Newman's state of mind was very much like Mr. Faber's at this time. The two friends wrote to each other, and agreed to delay their final decision for a little while longer; and in the mean time Mr. Faber threw all his energy into his parochial duties, endeavoring to copy the methods of pastoral labor which he had gone to Rome to study. His parish was disorderly in consequence of long neglect, and what religious vitality there was in the place was found principally at the dissenting chapel. Mr. Faber relied for reformation upon preaching, and what he considered the sacraments. He cared very little for ceremonies and vestments, and compared those who would now be called ritualists to "grown-up children playing at mass, putting ornament before truth, suffocating the inward by the outward." "This is not the way to become Catholic again; it is only a profaner kind of Protestantism than any we have seen hitherto." When the surplice controversy was agitating the Established Church, he told his congregation that he usually preached in a surplice because he preferred it, but he "would preach in his shirt-sleeves if it would be any satisfaction to them." He tried to establish the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus; he published three tracts on examination of conscience; he introduced confessions, and out of the most promising of his young male penitents he formed a confraternity which used to meet at the rectory every night about twelve o'clock and spend an hour in prayer. On the vigils of great festivals, their devotions lasted two or three hours. On these nights, and also on Fridays and every night in Lent, the whole party used the discipline, each in turn receiving it from the others.

These devotional practices seem to have excited the powers of darkness; for it is related that many times while the brotherhood were assembled, mysterious disturbances were heard, often apparently just outside the door of the oratory. The house was searched with lights, but nothing was ever discovered which could account for the noises.

On Sunday afternoons, the rectory grounds were thrown open to the parish, and the clergyman mingled freely with his flock, while games of foot-ball and cricket were introduced to make the gatherings more attractive. Of course the Sabbatarians were frightfully scandalized at such proceedings; but no one could deny that a great moral improvement was soon perceptible in the parish, and the dissenters began to forsake their chapel to crowd around Mr. Faber's pulpit. His own austerities were fearful. He fasted rigorously, often eating for his dinner nothing more than a few potatoes and a herring, and in fact never taking a genuine meal except on Sunday. He wore a thick horsehair cord tied in knots about his waist. Want of food often brought upon him severe attacks of sickness, and sometimes he fainted in the church while reading prayers. In such matters as these he seems to have been his own director; but in other religious practices he governed himself a great deal by the advice of Dr. Newman. "I have a request to make," he writes to Newman in November, 1844, "which I cannot any longer refrain from making; but I shall submit at once to a[153] No, if you will say it. I want you to revoke your prohibition, laid on me last October year, of invoking our Blessed Lady, the saints and angels. I do feel somehow weakened for the want of it, and fancy I should get strength if I did it."

It was some relief, perhaps, in this suffering of mind to give utterance to his Catholic yearnings with his pen, since he durst not pour out his whole soul in prayer. He had entered into a scheme for publishing a series of lives of the English saints, and written for it a Life of St. Wilfrid. All the volumes had caused more or less irritation; but in the Life of St. Wilfrid the Catholic tendencies of the tractarian school were developed with the utmost freedom—with so much freedom that we can hardly understand how they could have come from the pen of any man who was even nominally an Anglican. His difficulties, however, were now almost over. In the autumn of 1845, many of his friends were received into the church. Among them was Dr. Newman; and then Mr. Faber hesitated no longer. He put himself at once into communication with Dr. Wareing, the vicar apostolic of the eastern district, not to be instructed in Catholic doctrine, for that he knew and believed already; but to inquire about various minor points connected with a formal reception into the church. To abandon his work at Elton he knew would involve spiritual injury to many; and about that he felt at first some scruples. He asked advice of one whose counsel he had always followed in times of perplexity—we presume Dr. Newman. "Your own soul," he was told, "is the only consideration, and you must save that, because—"

"No," interrupted he, "I have obeyed you as a Protestant and without the 'because,' and I don't want to hear it now."

Another obstacle in his way was the state of his pecuniary affairs. He had borrowed a large sum of money for charitable and other works in his parish; and if he gave up his living, he could pay neither principal nor interest. Was it not his duty to remain rector of Elton until the debt was paid? He consulted an Anglican dignitary of his own party. "Depend upon it," was the answer, "if God means you to be a Catholic, he will not let that stand in the way." Confident, therefore, that God would provide, he wrote to acquaint his friends of his purpose, and had no sooner dispatched the letters than he received from a generous anti-Catholic gentleman, who had heard of his perplexity, a check for the full amount of the debt.

He officiated at Elton for the last time on the 16th of November. At the evening service he told his people that the doctrines he had preached to them, though true, were not those of the Church of England; he could not, therefore, remain in her communion, but must go where truth was to be found. Then he hastily descended the pulpit stairs, threw off his surplice, which he left upon the ground, and made his way as quickly as possible through the vestry to the house. For a few minutes the congregation remained in blank astonishment. The church-wardens and some others followed him to the rectory, and begged him to remain; he might preach what he pleased, and they would never question it. It was a sorrowful interview, for he loved his flock with all his heart; but he was firm in his resolve. The next morning he started early for Northampton, hoping to escape observation; but the people were on the watch at their windows;[154] and as he passed through, they waved their handkerchiefs and cried, "God bless you, wherever you go." Mr. Faber was accompanied by Mr. T. F. Knox, a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, and seven of his parishioners. They were all admitted into the church the same evening by Bishop Wareing, and the next day received their first communion and the sacrament of confirmation. "A new light," wrote Mr. Faber next day, "seems to be shed on every thing, and more especially on my past position—a light so clear as to surprise me; and though I am homeless and unsettled, and as to worldly prospects considerably bewildered, yet there is such a repose of conscience as more than compensates for the intense and fiery struggle which began on the Tuesday and only ended on the Monday morning following."

Owing to various circumstances, a good many recent converts had settled at Birmingham, where the church of St. Chad, under the charge of the Rev. Mr. Moore, had become a great centre of Catholic life. Mr. Faber and his companions went there, Faber accepting the hospitality of Mr. Moore, and the others disposing of themselves in various ways. They continued, however, to look up to their former pastor for direction, and he soon conceived the idea of forming them into a sort of community. With the approval of Mr. Moore and Dr. Wiseman, they took possession of a small house in Caroline street, Mr. Faber of course joining them. No definite rule was drawn up at first, but their general purpose was to assist the parochial clergy in visiting the sick, giving instruction, and similar duties. Mr. Hutchinson, who afterward became a member of the little band, has given an amusing account of a visit he paid them a few days after their establishment. Mr. Faber, terribly scorched, was standing over the fire stirring a kettle of pea-soup. There was hardly any furniture except a long deal table, a chair, knife, fork, and mug for each man, some pewter spoons with the temperance pledge stamped on them, and a three-legged table, split across the middle, at which, when he could be spared from the pea-soup, Mr. Faber was engaged writing a pamphlet on the reasons for his conversion. Up-stairs there were four small rooms, one used as a chapel, the others as dormitories. There were no bed-steads; they all slept on the floor. Such was the beginning of the Wilfridian Community, or Brothers of the Will of God, though they took no distinguishing name until some time later. At the commencement of the new year, the generosity of a friend enabled Mr. Faber to visit Italy, where he had reason to think he could obtain money for the support of the new community. During his absence, the brethren found employment with some of the Catholic tradesmen in the town, returning to Caroline street every night. The distinguished convert was of course received in Rome with great affection, especially by the ecclesiastics who had known him on his former visit. Cardinal Acton fell upon his neck and kissed him. The pope gave him a gracious interview. The English College offered him a home. The superior of the Camaldolese at Florence expressed a great desire to see him. "He was ill in bed," says Mr. Faber, "and his bed full of snuff; he seized my head, buried it in the snuffy clothes, and kissed me most unmercifully." There is, in fact, a good deal of fun now and then in Mr. Faber's letters. He tells, for instance, how "the dear old pope" refused to be angry with the Anglican Bishop of Gibraltar, who came to[155] Rome to give confirmation, his holiness saying with a chuckle that "he really had not been aware hitherto that Rome was in the diocese of Gibraltar;" and how, in "a fit of unholy mirth," the holy father mimicked the way the English Protestants did homage, "a familiar nod with their chin, as if they had swallowed pokers." He was disappointed in the pecuniary aid which he had come abroad to seek, but the journey was productive of much spiritual comfort and improvement; and as money was soon forthcoming from another quarter, he was enabled to go back to Birmingham with a light heart, and to set about the more complete organization of the community according to a rule which he had devised during his absence. Meanwhile, arrangements had been completed for removal to more commodious quarters in Birmingham; and in the course of the year 1846 the brethren moved a second time to a fine estate at Cheadle, generously given them by Lord Shrewsbury. They named it St. Wilfrid's. Their first work here was to open a school for boys. Pupils came in rapidly; but the bigotry of the neighborhood was aroused, and the most amazing reports were circulated about the new institution. A relative of Mr. Hutchinson (who had joined the community under the name of Brother Anthony, Mr. Faber being styled Brother Wilfrid of the Humanity of Jesus) sent a Scotch physician to examine the establishment, and we suppose to report upon the sanity of the inmates. The same relative described Mr. Faber as "an ambitious villain and a hellish ruler," and declared that wherever he went in London "the finger of scorn was pointed at him." "I am said to have strangled one of my monks," wrote the "hellish ruler;" "the story is all over the land, and is believed. Mrs. R—— came to see me at St. Wilfrid's, 'to see the man;' and glaring at me in silence like a tigress, she told Lady Shrewsbury and Lady Arundel that I was quite capable of all she heard, and that her faith in it was established."

Humility had led Mr. Faber to defer ordination to the priesthood, and up to this time he had received only minor orders; but in the Advent season of 1846 he was raised to the subdeaconship, and at the end of the following Lent he was ordained deacon and priest by Dr. Wiseman at Oscott. The brothers could now engage much more effectively in missionary work; and as, besides having a priest among them, they received several valuable converts from time to time, they were enabled to map out a wide extent of neglected country into districts, and devote their days to a systematic visitation of every house within their limits. The crowds who came on Sundays to St. Wilfrid's soon overflowed the little chapel, and Father Faber used to preach to them in a yard near the house, or under the beech-trees in the garden. It was not unusual for him also to preach in the streets, wearing his habit or cassock and holding a crucifix in his hand.

In a few months there remained but one Protestant family in the parish, and the Protestant church was almost entirely abandoned! Brother Anthony Hutchinson wrote, "We have converted the pew-opener, leaving the parson only his clerk and two drunken men." The poor people became extravagantly fond of "Father Fable," as they used to call him; but he was not held in particular affection by the Protestant clergy, and sometimes was unwillingly involved in what he used to call "fighting and squabbling with parsons." On one occasion he was followed into the[156] room of a sick man by a minister of the Primitive Methodists, who insisted on remaining there to hear what was said in confession, and was with great difficulty persuaded by the invalid to leave the house.

It was not only from Protestants, however, that Father Faber had to suffer annoyance; his worst troubles came from those of his own faith. About the time of his ordination he had made arrangements for the publication of a series of lives of the saints, translated from the Italian and other foreign languages, and afterward so widely known as the Oratorian Lives. A part of the literary work he did himself, but the most of it he committed to other hands, having at one time between sixty and seventy translators at work under his direction. The series began with a Life of St. Philip Neri. It reached a large sale; but so little familiar were English readers with the supernatural manifestations which abound in biographies of the chosen servants of God that exception was taken to the work in various quarters, and when the Life of St. Rose of Lima appeared, the opposition became extremely violent. It was objected that the lives of foreign saints, however edifying in their respective countries, were unsuited to England and unfit for Protestant eyes. Under the advice of Dr. Newman, who nevertheless approved of the work very cordially, the series was finally suspended. But then a reaction set in; it was discovered how much practical good the publications had done; some of those who had criticised them most severely retracted and apologized; and the translations were resumed under the auspices of the Oratorians, with whom Father Faber's community had meanwhile been consolidated.

Mr. Faber and Mr. Hutchinson, the only priests in the community at St. Wilfrid's, were on the eve of taking their vows when news arrived that Dr. Newman was coming over from Rome to establish in England the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. Father Faber was at prayer when he felt suddenly an interior call to join the new congregation. His final decision was reached only after a long interior struggle and a free conference with Bishop Wiseman. Humanly speaking, it was a great sacrifice—perhaps the greatest Father Faber ever made. Besides giving up the infant community to which he had devoted so much care, and descending at one step from the position of superior to that of novice, he had to tear himself away from a congregation which was quite as warmly attached to him as his old flock had been at Elton, to give up St. Wilfrid's, and to face the vehement opposition of his brethren in the community and the generous friends to whom he had been indebted for his foundation at Cheadle. "Giving St. Wilfrid's up," he wrote, "seems to unroot one altogether from the earth, and the future is such a complete blank that one feels as if one was going to die." "It is Elton over again," only, "in my first spoliation I kept my books and my Elton children; now I lose these two." To his surprise, however, when once his mind had been made up, the opposition of the community of St. Wilfrid's suddenly ceased. They all professed their willingness to follow him; and the result was, that the Oratorians took possession of the whole establishment. Dr. Newman came to St. Wilfrid's in February, 1848, and admitted the entire community to his congregation. "Father Superior has now left us," wrote Faber, "all in our Philippine habits with turndown collars, like so many good boys brought in after dinner. Since my admission[157] I seem to have lost all attachment to every thing but obedience; I could dance and sing all day because I am so joyous; I hardly know what to do with myself for very happiness."

It was not thought necessary to exact from him the full period of three years' noviceship, so at the end of six months he was dispensed from the remainder and appointed master of novices. In October of the same year, the whole congregation removed from Birmingham to St. Wilfrid's; but Father Faber was not allowed to remain long in this favorite home; for in the spring he was sent with five other fathers, namely Dalgairns, Stanton, Hutchinson, Knox, and Wells, and two novices, Messrs. Gordon and Bowden, to found a new house in London. At the head of this he remained until his death, and he never saw St. Wilfrid's again but once.

The introduction of a new order or a new congregation is so common an event now that we can hardly understand how bitter was the ill-feeling aroused by the opening of the London Oratory in a hired house in King William street in May, 1849. It was the first public church which had been served by a religious community in that diocese since the old faith was put under the feet of the English schism. Bishop Wiseman was a warm supporter of the Oratorians, but many of the secular clergy looked upon them with suspicion, doubted the discretion of a community composed entirely of converts, disapproved of the public wearing of their habit, and complained that their peculiar services, with new prayers, hymns in the vernacular, and a new style of preaching, were Methodistical, and ought to be suppressed. Experience, however, in time showed the doubters their mistake, and the diocesan clergy became not only friends but imitators of the Oratorians. A great deal of popular animosity continued to be manifested, especially during the excitement which followed the reëstablishment of the English hierarchy. The walls of London were placarded, "Down with the Oratorians," "Don't go to the Oratory," "Banishment to the Oratorians," etc.; the fathers were cursed in the streets, and even gentlemen used to shout at them from their carriage-windows. The government finally issued a proclamation reviving an old statute which forbade Roman Catholic ecclesiastics to wear the habit of their order, and thenceforth the Oratorians always appeared in the streets in secular garb.

Father Faber was doing an immense amount of labor at this time, preaching, visiting the sick, giving retreats and missions, and conducting special devotions, besides employing some time in literary occupations; yet he was almost constantly a sufferer from disease, and was often obliged to cease for a while from all work whatsoever. He had long been subject to very severe and prostrating headaches, connected with which is the following remarkable incident which we shall give in his own words, written to the Countess of Arundel and Surrey on the 2d of December, 1850:

God had not given him, however, the favor of a permanent restoration to health. He was never well in London. "I have two vocations," he wrote to Father Bowden, "one for my body and one for my soul; and they happen to be incompatible, so the body must do the best it can, and the soul must rough-ride it for another sixty years, which is supposed to be the term of incessant headache still left me. When you and I sit toothless together, shaking our palsied heads at recreation, we shall look down upon the junior fathers who have been only thirty or forty years in the congregation with an ineffable contempt; and when my dotage comes on, I shall fancy myself still novice-master and you a refractory novice, and I shall trip you up on your crutches for mortification." For the sake of his health he was persuaded to start on a journey to Palestine; but he fell very sick on the way, and went no further than Italy. He reached Naples on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, (1851,) and entered the Oratorian church just as benediction was about to be given, "which," he says, "was jolly." In the same letter (to Father Hutchinson) he writes, "If I can get one, I will bring one of the rum things they put on the altar in Advent and Lent, when flowers are forbidden; they take my fancy hugely." He came home far from well enough to resume his work; but there was a great deal to be done, and he never had any mercy on himself. There was a country house for the congregation to be built at Sydenham Hill, and the fine new Oratory at Brompton to be erected in place of the little establishment in King William street, which the community had long ago outgrown. They took possession of the Brompton house in March, 1854. The vast cost of this great institution had been defrayed principally from the private means of the individual members, but there[159] had been several donations—£10,000 toward the purchase of the site from a lady who wished her gift to be anonymous; £4000 from the Earl of Arundel and Surrey; and £700 collected by a committee for the erection of the church. The current expenses of the house were also defrayed from the pockets of the fathers, it being a rule of the congregation that the receipts from their churches should not contribute in any way to the support of the house, and indeed at Brompton the income of the church did not equal its expenditure.

It was while the Brompton building was under way that Father Faber began with his All for Jesus, or the Easy Ways of Divine Love, that remarkable series of spiritual works which made his name so widely known and loved throughout Europe and America. All for Jesus appeared in 1853; Bethlehem, the eighth and last of the series, was published in 1860. In the mean time, he had collected a volume of his earlier and later poems; completed his poem of Prince Amadis; published a collection of his hymns, many of which have become exceedingly popular, and finished a great deal of minor literary work. He made preparations for other books, on Calvary, The Holy Ghost, The Fear of God, and The Immaculate Heart of Mary, fragments of which appeared after his death under the title, Notes on Doctrinal and Spiritual Subjects. These various writings are too well known and too fondly esteemed, especially in the United States, for any criticism to be called for here, and we can do nothing better than copy the just eulogy which Father Bowden cites from The Dublin Review:

All these exquisite works were written in the midst of the most awful physical suffering. "It is plain," he writes in 1858, "that life can't be lived at this rate. But my mind is now like a locomotive that has started with neither driver nor stoker. I can think of nothing but being seized, put on board one of her majesty's ships of war as compulsory chaplain, and carried round the world for two years. If I was on land, I should jib and come home." Bright's disease of the kidneys, gout, neuralgia—a complication, in fact, of numerous disorders, left him hardly an hour of ease, hardly a night of rest. Soon after Easter, in the year 1863, the hope of checking his disease or even notably relieving his sufferings was finally given up. He seems to have been conscious of his condition even before the physicians had pronounced their opinion. During the month of April he made one or two short journeys, but without experiencing any relief. By the middle of June he was so much worse that the last sacraments were administered. On the 28th—his forty-ninth birthday—he saw all the members of the community, one by one, recommending himself to their prayers, and leaving with each some parting gift. He rallied a little after this, and was even well enough to take one or two short drives, and to enjoy farewell visits from Cardinal Wiseman, and Dr. Newman, and many of his other friends. His mind continued perfectly clear and calm until some time in September, when attacks of delirium became frequent, and the sedatives which had been used to produce[160] sleep lost their soothing effect. He received holy communion daily up to and including the 24th of that month. The next day his attendants were able to put him into bed, which had not been done since June; he had passed day and night in his chair, propped up with pillows. He now lay quite still, gazing at a large crucifix, and moving his eyes from one to another of the five wounds. When told that his death was near, he only repeated his favorite exclamation, "God be praised!" On the morning of the 26th, Father Rowe told him that he was going to say Mass for him. He showed by his face that he understood what was said; and just as the Mass must have ended, he turned his head a little and opened his eyes with a touching expression, half of sweetness and half of surprise. So his spirit passed away, as if in the act of realizing the picture which he had drawn in All for Jesus: "Only serve Jesus out of love, and while your eyes are yet unclosed what an unspeakable surprise will you have had at the judgment-seat of your dearest Love, while the songs of heaven are breaking on your ears and the glory of God is dawning on your eyes, to fade away no more for ever!"

We have already alluded in the first part of this article to Father Faber's elegance of appearance and manner, and from a portrait prefixed to the biography it seems that he retained his advantages of person to a late period of his life. He was remarkable for his habits of order and neatness, and once, when a father remarked upon the tidiness of his room, he replied, "The napkin in the sepulchre was found folded at the resurrection." As might be imagined from the narrative of his life, he was always distinguished for gentleness; and Father Bowden remarks that he never was severe in the manner of correcting the faults of his spiritual subjects, except possibly in matters connected with the ceremonial of divine worship. Any defect of demeanor during service, or inattention to the requirements of the rubric, he rebuked with marked severity. In the church he would have every thing of the best, whether it could be seen by the congregation or not. When the new high altar of marble was put up in the Oratory, he was much dissatisfied because the back was not finished like the front, and he found fault with the altar rails for the same reason, complaining that "the side next our Lord" was not ornamented. He was very fond of children, and his correspondence contains some striking evidences of his tenderness to them. We have already spoken of his love of humor—a sense which seems naturally to accompany the poetic instinct. His room was at all hours the frequent resort of his brethren who looked upon it as a renewal of St. Philip's "School of Christian Mirth." Father Bowden quotes the language of an old friend, who wrote at the time of Father Faber's death of "the indescribable charm of his private intercourse, of that wonderful brilliancy of conversation in which he excelled all those whose social powers have made them the idols of London society as far as they have excelled ordinary men, of the magic play of his countenance and of his voice, of the unprecedented combination of tenderness in affection, unearthliness of aim, and worldly wisdom, which characterized his private intercourse, and of his power of attracting little children and learned men, one as much as the other."

Father Bowden has told the story of this beautiful life with appreciation and affection, and with no mean literary ability. His style is direct and[161] unaffected, and he is not given to the superfluity of pious reflection with which the biographers of religious men are so apt to retard their narratives. The volume contains a very copious selection from Father Faber's private correspondence, so that it may be considered in many portions virtually an autobiography.

ANGELA.

CHAPTER V.
THE PROGRESSIVE PROFESSOR.

The visitor was an elegantly-dressed young man with a free, self-important air about him.

He spoke fluently, and his words sounded as decisive as though they came from the lips of infallibility. At times this self-importance was of such a boastful and arrogant character as to affect the observer disagreeably.

"It is now vacation, and I do not know how to enjoy it better than by a visit to you," said he.

"Very flattering to me," answered Frank. "I hope you will be pleased with Frankenhöhe."

"Pleased?" returned the visitor as he looked through the open window at the beautiful landscape. "I would like to dream away here the whole of May and June. How charming it is! An empire of flowers and vernal delights."

"I am surprised, Carl, that you have preserved such a love for nature. I thought you considered the professor's chair the culminating point of attraction."

Carl bowed his head proudly and stood with folded arms before the smiling Frank.

"That is evidently intended for flattery," said he. "The professor's chair is my vocation. He who does not hold his vocation as the acme of all attraction is indeed a perfect man. Besides, it will appear to you, who consider every thing in the world—not excepting even the fair sex—with blank stoicism; it will appear even to you that the rostrum is destined to accomplish great things. Ripe knowledge in mighty pulsations goes forth from the rostrum and permeates society. The rostrum governs and educates the rising young men who are destined to assume leading positions in the state. The rostrum overthrows antiquated forms of religious delusion, ennobles rational thought, exact science, and deep investigation. The rostrum governs even the throne; for we have princes in Germany who esteem liberty of thought and progress of knowledge more than the art of governing their people in a spirit of stupidity."

"The glory of the rostrum I leave undisputed," said he. "But I beg[162] of you to conceal from the doctor your scientific rule of faith. You may get into trouble with the doctor."

"I am very desirous of becoming acquainted with this paragon of learning—you have told me so much about him; and I confess it was partly to see him that I made this visit. Get into trouble? I do not fear the old syllogism-chopper in the least. A good disputation with him is even desirable."

"Well, you are forewarned. If you go home with a lacerated back, it will not be my fault."

"A lacerated back?" said the professor quietly. "Does the doctor like to use striking arguments?"

"Oh! no. But his sarcasm is as cutting as the slash of a sword, and his logical vehemence is like the stroke of a club."

"We will fight him with the same weapons," answered Carl, throwing back his head. "Shall I pay him my respects immediately?"

"The doctor admits no one. In his studio he is as inaccessible as a Turkish sultan in his harem. I will introduce you in the dining-room, as it is now just dinner-time."

They betook themselves to the dining-room, and soon after they heard the sound of a bell.

"He is just now called to table," said Richard. "He does not allow the servant to enter his room, and for that reason a bell has been hung there."

A door of the ante-room was opened, quick steps were heard, and Klingenberg hastily entered and placed himself at the table, as at a work that must be done quickly, and then observed the stranger.

"Doctor Lutz, professor of history in our university," said Frank, introducing him.

"Doctor Lutz—professor of history," said Klingenberg musingly. "Your name is familiar to me, if I am not mistaken; are you not a collaborator on Sybel's historical publication?"

"We must not remain entirely ignorant of literary productions, particularly the more excellent."

"Sybel's periodical is an unavoidable necessity at present," said the professor. "Historical research was in a bad way; it threatened to succumb entirely to the ultramontane cause and the clerical party."

"Now Sybel and his co-laborers will avert that danger," said the doctor. "These men will do honor to historical research. The ultramontanists have a great respect for Sybel. When he taught in Munich, they did not rest till he turned his back on Isar-Athen. In my opinion, Sybel should not have gone to Munich. The stupid Bavarians will not allow themselves to be enlightened. So let them sit in darkness, the stupid barbarians who have no appreciation for the progress of science."

The professor looked astonished. He could not understand how an admirer of Sybel's could be so prejudiced. Frank was alarmed lest the professor might perceive the doctor's keen sarcasm—which he delivered with a serious countenance—and feel offended. He changed the conversation to another subject, in which Klingenberg did not take part.

"You have represented the doctor[163] incorrectly," said the professor, after the meal. "He understands Sybel and praises his efforts—the best sign of a clear mind."

On the following afternoon, Lutz joined in the accustomed walk. As they were passing through the chestnut grove, a servant of Siegwart's came up breathless, with a letter in his hand, which he gave to Frank.

"Gentlemen," said Frank after reading the letter, "I am urgently requested to visit Herr Siegwart immediately. With your permission I will go."

"Of course, go," said Klingenberg. "I know," he added with a roguish expression, "that you would as lief visit that excellent man as walk with us."

Richard went off in such haste that the question occurred to him why he fulfilled with such zeal the wishes of a man with whom he had been so short a time acquainted; but with the question Angela came before his mind as an answer. He rejected this answer, even against his feelings, and declared to himself that Siegwart's honorable character and neighborly feeling made his haste natural and even obligatory. The proprietor may have been waiting his arrival, for he came out to meet him. Frank observed a dark cloud over the countenance of the man and great anxiety in his features.

"I beg your forgiveness a thousand times, Herr Frank. I know you go walking with Herr Klingenberg at this hour, and I have deprived you of that pleasure."

"No excuse, neighbor. It is a question which would give me greater pleasure, to serve you or to walk with Klingenberg."

Richard smiled while saying these words; but the smile died away, for he saw how pale and suddenly anxious Siegwart had become. They had entered a room, and he desired to know the cause of Siegwart's changed manner.

"A great and afflicting misfortune threatens us," began the proprietor. "My Eliza has been suddenly taken ill, and I have great fears for her young life. Oh! if you knew how that child has grown into my heart." He paused for a moment and suppressed his grief, but he could not hide from Frank the tears that filled his eyes. Richard saw these tears, and this paternal grief increased his respect for Siegwart.

"The delicate life of a young child does not allow of protracted medical treatment, of consultation or investigation into the disease or the best remedies. The disease must be known immediately and efficient remedies applied. There are physicians at my command, but I do not dare to trust Eliza to them."

"Yes—and through your mediation. You know that he only treats the sick poor; but resolutely refuses his services to the wealthy."

"Do not be uneasy about that. I hope to be able to induce Klingenberg to correspond with your wishes. But is Eliza really so sick, or does your apprehension increase your anxiety?"

"I will show you the child, and then you can judge for yourself." They went up-stairs and quietly entered the sick-room. Angela sat on the little bed of the child, reading. The child was asleep, but the noise of their entrance awoke her. She reached out her little round arms to her father, and said in a scarcely audible whisper,

This whispered "papa" seemed to[164] pierce the soul of Siegwart like a knife. He drew near and leant over the child.

"You will be well to-morrow, my sweet pet. Do you see, Herr Frank has come to see you?"

"Your mother will come to-morrow, my Eliza. She will bring you something pretty. My wife has been for the last two weeks at her sister's, who lives a few miles from here," said Siegwart, turning to Frank. "I sent a messenger for her early this morning."

While the father sat on the bed and held Eliza's hand in his, Frank observed Angela, who scarcely turned her eyes from the sick child. Her whole soul seemed taken up with her suffering sister. Only once had she looked inquiringly at Frank, to read in his face his opinion of the condition of Eliza. She stood immovable at the foot of the bed, as mild, as pure, and as beautiful as the guardian angel of the child.

"That is unnecessary," returned Frank. "And even if your servant should find the doctor, he would probably not be inclined to shorten his walk. Our gardener, who works in the chestnut grove, will show me the way the doctor took. In an hour and a half at furthest I will be back."

In the mean time the doctor and the professor had reached a narrow, wooded ravine, on both sides of which the rocks rose almost perpendicularly. The path on which they walked passed near a little brook, that flowed rippling over the pebbles in its bed. The branches of the young beeches formed a green roof over the path, and only here and there were a few openings through which the sun shot its sloping beams across the cool, dusky way, and in the sunbeams floated and danced dust-colored insects and buzzing flies.

The learned saunterers continued their amusement without altercation until the professor's presumption offended the doctor and led to a vehement dispute.

Klingenberg did not appear on the stage of publicity. He left boasting and self-praise to others, far inferior to him in knowledge. He despised that tendency which pursues knowledge only to command, which cries down any inquiry that clashes with their theories. The doctor published no learned work, nor did he write for the periodicals, to defend his views. But if he happened to meet a scientific opponent, he fought him with sharp, cutting weapons.

"I do not doubt of the final victory of true science over the falsifying party spirit of the ultramontanes," said the professor. "Sybel's periodical destroys, year by year, more and more the crumbling edifice which the clerical zealots build on the untenable foundation of falsified facts."

Klingenberg tore his cap from his head and swung it about vehemently, and made such long strides that the other with difficulty kept up with him. Suddenly he stopped, turned about, and looked the professor sharply in the eyes.

"You praise Sybel's publication unjustly," said he excitedly. "It is true Sybel has founded a historical school, and has won many imitators; but his is a school destructive of morality and of history—a school of scientific radicalism, a school of[165] falsehood and deceitfulness. Sybel and his followers undertake to mould and distort history to their purposes. They slur over every thing that contradicts their theories. To them the ultramontanes are partial, prejudiced men—or perhaps asses and dunces; you are unfortunately right when you say Sybel's school wins ground; for Sybel and his fellows have brought lying and falsification to perfection. They have in Germany perplexed minds, and have brought their historical falsifications to market as true ware."

"I have given you freely and openly my judgment, which need not offend you, as it refers to principles, not persons."

"Not in the least," answered Lutz derisively. "I admit with pleasure that Sybel's school is anti-church, and even anti-Christian, if you will. There is no honor in denying this. The denial would be of no use; for this spirit speaks too loudly and clearly in that school. Sybel and his associates keep up with the enlightenment and liberalism of our times. But I must contradict you when you say this free tendency is injurious to society; the seed of free inquiry and human enlightenment can bring forth only good fruits."

"Oh! we know this fruit of the new heathenism," cried the doctor. "There is no deed so dark, no crime so great, that it may not be defended according to the anti-Christian principles of vicious enlightenment and corrupt civilization. Sybel's school proves this with striking clearness. Tyrants are praised and honored. Noble men are defamed and covered with dirt."

"Impossible! Not at all. Sybel's periodical exalts to the seventh heaven the tyrant Henry VIII. of England. You extol him as a conscientious man who was compelled by scruples of conscience to separate from his wife. You commend him for having but one mistress. You say that the sensualities of princes are only of 'anecdotal interest.' Naturally," added the doctor contemptuously, "a school that cuts loose from Christian principles cannot consistently condemn adultery. Fie! fie! Debauchees and men of gross sensuality might sit in Sybel's enlightened school. Progress overthrows the cross, and erects the crescent. We may yet live to see every wealthy man of the new enlightenment have his harem. Whether society can withstand the detestable consequences of this teaching of licentiousness and contempt for Christian morality, is a consideration on which these progressive gentlemen do not reflect."

"I admit, doctor," said Lutz, "that the clear light of free, impartial science must needs hurt the eyes of a pious believer. According to the opinions of the ultramontanes, Henry VIII. was a terrible tyrant and blood-hound. Sybel's periodical deserves the credit of having done justice to that great king."

"Do you say so?" cried the doctor, with flaming eyes. "You, a professor of history in the university! You, who are appointed to teach our young men the truth! Shame on you! What you say is nothing but stark hypocrisy. I appeal to the heathen. You may consider religion from the stand-point of an ape, for what I care; your cynicism, which is not ashamed to equalize itself with the brute, may also pass. But this hypocrisy, this fallacious representation of historical facts and persons, this hypocrisy before[166] my eyes—this I cannot stand; this must be corrected."

The doctor actually doubled up his fists. Lutz saw it and saw also the wild fire in the eyes of his opponent, and was filled with apprehension and anxiety.

Erect and silent, fiery indignation in his flushed countenance, stood Klingenberg before the frightened professor. As Lutz still held his tongue, the doctor continued,

"You call Henry VIII. a 'great king,' you extol and defend this 'great king' in Sybel's periodical. I say Henry VIII. was a great scoundrel, a blackguard without a conscience, and a bloodthirsty tyrant. I prove my assertion. Henry VIII. caused to be executed two queens who were his wives—two cardinals, twelve dukes and marquises, eighteen barons and knights, seventy-seven abbots and priors, and over sixty thousand Catholics. Why did he have them executed? Because they were criminals? No; because they remained true to their consciences and to the religion of their fathers. All these fell victims to the cruelty of Henry VIII., whom you style a 'great king.' You glorify a man who for blood-thirstiness and cruelty can be placed by the side of Nero and Diocletian. That is my retort to your hypocrisy and historical mendacity."

The stern doctor having emptied his vials of wrath, now walked on quietly; Lutz with drooping head followed in silence.

"Sybel does not even stop with Henry VIII.," again began the doctor. "These enlightened gentlemen undertake to glorify even Tiberius, that inhuman monster. They might as well have the impudence to glorify cruelty itself. On the other hand, truly great men, such as Tilly, are abandoned to the hatred of the ignorant."

"This is unjust," said the professor hastily. "Sybel's periodical in the second volume says that Tilly was often calumniated by party spirit; that the destruction of Magdeburg belongs to the class of unproved and improbable events. The periodical proves that Tilly's conduct in North Germany was mild and humane, that he signalized himself by his simplicity, unselfishness, and conscientiousness."

"Word for word, and much more in praise of that magnanimous man," said Lutz. "From this you may know that science is just even to pious heroes."

Klingenberg smiled characteristically, and in his smile was an expression of ineffable contempt.

"You have just quoted what impartial historical research informs us of Tilly, in the second and third volumes. It is so. I remember perfectly having read that favorable account. Now let me quote what the same periodical says of the same Tilly in the seventeenth volume. There we read that Tilly was a hypocrite and a blood-hound, whose name cannot be mentioned without a shudder; furthermore, we are told that Tilly burned Magdeburg, that he waged a ravaging war against men, women, children, and property. You see, then, in the second and third volumes that Tilly was a conscientious, mild man and pious hero; in the seventeenth volume, that he was a tyrant and blood-hound. It appears from this with striking clearness that the enlightened progressionists do not stick at contradiction, mendacity, and defamation."

"I leave you, 'Herr Professor,' to give a name to such a procedure. Besides, I must also observe that the strictly scientific method, as it labels itself at present, does not stop at personal defamation. As every holy delusion and religious superstition must be destroyed in the hearts of the students, this lying and defamation extends to the historical truths of faith. It is taught from the professors' chairs, and confirmed by the scientific journals, that confession is an invention of the middle ages; while you must know from thorough research that confession has existed up to the time of the apostles. You teach and write that Innocent III. introduced the doctrine of transubstantiation in the thirteenth century; while every one having the least knowledge of history knows that at the council of 1215 it was only made a duty to receive the holy communion at Easter, that the fathers of the first ages speak of transubstantiation—that it has its foundation in Scripture. You know as well as I do that indulgences were imparted even in the first century: but this does not prevent you from teaching that the popes of the middle ages invented indulgences from love of money, and sold them from avarice. Thus the progressive science lies and defames, yet is not ashamed to raise high the banner of enlightenment; thus you lead people into error, and destroy youth. Fie! fie!"

The doctor turned and was about to proceed when he heard his name called. Frank hastened to him, the perspiration running from his forehead, and his breast heaving from rapid breathing. In a few words he made known Eliza's illness, and Siegwart's request.

"You know," said Klingenberg, "that I treat only the poor, who cannot easily get a physician."

"Make an exception in this case, doctor, I beg of you most earnestly! You respect Siegwart yourself for his integrity, and I also of late have learned to esteem the excellent man, whose heart at present is rent with anxiety and distress. Save this child, doctor; I beg of you save it."

Klingenberg saw the young man's anxiety and goodness, and benevolence beamed on his still angry face.

"I see," said he, "that no refusal is to be thought of. Well, we will go." And he immediately set off with long strides on his way back. Richard cast a glance at the professor, who followed, gloomy and spiteful. He saw the angry look he now and then turned on the hastening doctor, and knew that a sharp contest must have taken place. But his solicitude for Siegwart's child excluded all other sympathy. On the way he exchanged only a few words with Lutz, who moved on morosely, and was glad when Klingenberg and Richard separated from him in the vicinity of Frankenhöhe.

Ten minutes later they entered the house of Siegwart. The doctor stood for a moment observing the child without touching it. The little one opened her eyes, and appeared to be frightened at the strange man with the sharp features. Siegwart and Angela read anxiously in the doctor's immovable countenance. As Eliza said "Papa," in a peculiar, feverish tone, Klingenberg moved away from the bed. He cast a quick glance at the father, went to the window and drummed with his fingers on the glass. Frank read in that quick glance that Eliza must die. Angela must also have guessed the doctor's opinion, for she was very much affected; her head sank on her breast and tears burst from her eyes.

Klingenberg took out his note-book, wrote something on a small slip of paper, and ordered the recipe to be taken immediately to the apothecary. He then took his departure.

Frank and the doctor went some distance in silence. The young man thought of the misery the death of Eliza would bring on that happy family, and the pale, suffering Angela in particular stood before him.

"No. The child will surely die to-night. I prescribed only a soothing remedy. I am sorry for Siegwart; he is one of the few fathers who hang with boundless love on their children—particularly when they are young. The man must call forth all his strength to bear up against it."

"You have judged that old bear much too leniently," began the professor. "The man is a model of coarseness and intolerable bigotry."

"I thought so," said Frank. "I know you and I know the doctor; and I knew two such rugged antitheses must affect each other unpleasantly. What occasioned your dispute?"

"What! A thousand things," answered his friend ill-humoredly. "The old rhinoceros has not the least appreciation of true knowledge. He carries haughtily the long wig of antiquated stupidity, and does not see the shallowness of the swamp in which he wallows. The genius of Christianity is to him the sublime. Where this stops, pernicious enlightenment—which corrupts the people, turns churches into ball-rooms, and the Bible into a book of fables—begins."

"The doctor is not wrong there," said Frank earnestly. "Are they not endeavoring with all their strength to deprive the Bible of its divine character? Does not one Schenkel in Heidelberg deny the divinity of Christ? Is not this Schenkel the director of a theological faculty? Do not some Catholic professors even begin to dogmatize and dispute the authority of the holy see?"

"We rejoice at the consoling fact that Catholic savants themselves break the fetters with which Rome's infallibility has bound in adamantine chains the human mind!" cried Lutz with enthusiasm.

"It appears strange to me when young men—scarcely escaped from the school, and boasting of all modern knowledge—cast aside as old, worthless rubbish what great minds of past ages have deeply pondered. The see of Rome and its dogmas have ruled the world for eighteen hundred years. Rome's dogmas overthrew the old world and created a new one. They have withstood and survived storms that have engulfed all else besides. Such strength excites wonder and admiration, but not contempt."

"I let your eulogy on Rome pass," said the professor. "But as Rome and her dogmas have overthrown heathenism, so will the irresistible progress of science overthrow Christianity. Coming generations will smile as complacently at the God of Christendom as we consider with astonishment the great and small gods of the heathen."

"I do not desire the realization of your prophecy," said Frank gloomily; "for it must be accompanied by convulsions that will transform the whole world, and therefore[169] I do not like to see an anti-Christian tendency pervading science."

"Tendency, tendency!" said Lutz, hesitating. "In science there is no tendency; there is but truth."

"Easy, friend, easy! Be candid and just. You will not deny that the tendency of Sybel's school is to war against the church?"

"Certainly, in so far as the church contends against truth and thorough investigation."

"Good; and the friends of the church will contend against you in so far as you are inimical to the spirit of the church. And so, tendency on one side, tendency on the other. But it is you who make the more noise. As soon as a book opposed to you appears,—'Partial!' you say with contemptuous mien; 'Odious!' 'Ecclesiastical!' 'Unreadable!' and it is forthwith condemned. But it appears to me natural that a man should labor and write in a cause which is to him the noblest cause."

"I am astonished, Richard! You did not think formerly as you now do. But I should not be surprised if your intercourse with the doctor is not without its effects." This the professor said in a cutting tone. Frank turned about and walked the room. The observation of his friend annoyed him, and he reflected whether his views had actually undergone any change.

"You deceive yourself. I am still the same," said he. "You cannot mistrust me because I do not take part with you against the doctor."

"Is my presence at the table necessary?" said he. "I do not wish to meet the doctor again."

"That would be little in you. You must not avoid the doctor. You must convince yourself that he does not bear any ill-will on account of that scientific dispute. With all his rough bluntness, Klingenberg is a noble man. Your non-appearance at table must offend him, and at the same time betray your annoyance."

"I obey," answered Lutz. "To-morrow I will go for a few days to the mountains. On my return I will remain another day with you."

Frank's assurance was confirmed. The doctor met the guest as if nothing unpleasant had happened. In the cool of the evening he went with the young men into the garden, and spoke with such familiarity of Tacitus, Livy, and other historians of antiquity that the professor admired his erudition.

THE COUNCIL AND THE ROMAN CONGREGATIONS.[35]

The Council of Trent was the eighteenth general council, and terminated its sessions in the year 1562. None had preceded it for upward of a century, and during the three hundred years which have since elapsed the church has failed to witness one of these august assemblies.

Hence it has been objected that, since the sixteenth century, the safeguards of truth and liberty have been diminished, and that the absence, in modern times, of those councils, which were so frequent during the first ages, manifests an intention on the part of the popes to exercise their authority with the utmost rigor, and to govern alone, without the assistance of those lights to which their predecessors did not deem it humiliating to appeal.

This imputation is, however, contrary to the truth. During the first three centuries there was no general council. Since then, as all admit, the sovereign pontiffs have had the sole right to summon these assemblies, and have been the sole judges as to when this should be done. This power was conferred upon them with the especial design that they might use it without incurring any blame from those who never were made their judges. In the exercise of it they are influenced by reasons which we cannot estimate. They know better than any one else the wants of the church, the condition of the world, the inconveniences, the obstacles, and the dangers which oppose such an assemblage. Possibly, also, they perceive in history certain reasons[171] which modify their action. In modern times the secular power loves to meddle with the affairs of the church. It desires to make religion a handmaid of politics, and, thoroughly enamored of its own independence, it would sink to the lowest limit the freedom of the church. Its manifest impiety, its sceptical principles, which, under the names of toleration and liberty of conscience, have penetrated its governments, have rendered its interference far more disastrous in modern times than at any former period in history. The kings of the middle ages did indeed wish to make the church serve their own ends, but they, at least, were in their turn faithful to her. They held fast to her dogmas, and submitted humbly to her discipline. Their combination was to rule, not to overthrow and destroy. But such is not the temper of these modern governments, all or nearly all of which seek to hold religion itself in subjection. For this purpose they establish national churches, which are attached to the universal church by a tie which may easily at any time be broken. They exalt the authority of bishops, that thereby they may diminish that of popes. They exhibit a desire to lodge the government of the church in councils, and to use these assemblies for the introduction of extensive modifications into ecclesiastical law. The councils of Basle and Constance showed indications of these projects, and it was through no fault of the secular power that the Council of Trent did not realize them.

Thus also is explained the laudable design of the sovereign pontiffs in contending against these disastrous tendencies, and in showing to the world, by long experience, that the fundamental power in the church rests with them. They have wished to remove from princes the means upon which they had so often relied for the overthrow of ecclesiastical authority. This is the reason why the popes, during the last three centuries, have convoked no council, but have sought from different institutions such assistance as they have required.

It is for the purpose of affording this assistance that the Roman congregations have been established. Their origin may be found in those consistories of cardinals which, from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries, constituted the permanent senate of the pontiff, and assembled twice or thrice a week in his palace, to consider measures for the reformation of both clergy and people, to receive the complaints of all classes of the faithful, and to decide the controversies and disputes of the entire world. These consistories were themselves the offspring of those Roman councils which were so frequent during the first ten ages of the church; for it may be well remarked that the church, though based upon the supreme authority of the popes, has never neglected those human institutions which could increase its influence or lighten the labors of its head. Its principles have always been the same, but it has suited the method of their application to the necessities of each succeeding age.

Like the councils, the consistories were composed of men renowned for their faith, their learning, and their sanctity. The sovereign pontiffs continually added to the college of cardinals the most illustrious of the clergy, and called to Rome, from all quarters of the globe, those religious, those ecclesiastics, and those prelates whose assistance they deemed most useful in the government of the church. These men were absolutely independent of the secular power, and totally secluded from its influence. Living in constant intercourse with[172] the pontiff himself, they enjoyed all necessary liberty; they exercised for life the powers confided to them; they had no worldly care or fear, and they enjoyed a rank from which they could not be deposed. They spent their time in prayer, in charitable works, in the study of sacred literature, and in the discharge of their duties. Where could be found more intelligence, greater learning, or more ample guarantees for the preservation of truth?

The principle of the church, that her power, though essentially resident in the person of one, should be disseminated through the instrumentality of many, is applicable to all degrees of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

Thus, the bishop and his chapter are considered as forming but one body, while yet the decretal novit of Alexander III. secures to bishops the management of their own churches without the consent or co-operation of their brethren. Thus, also, the popes have near them a body of cardinals, an illustrious senate, composed of the most learned and holy men of the whole world, who assist them in the direction of the church. This senate, collected in one assemblage under the presidency of the pontiff, forms the consistory, at whose sessions the most important causes are frequently determined.

The extension of the faith, the multiplicity of appeals to the holy see, the more complicated developments of modern life, and the increased entanglements of the church with the world have, however, rendered necessary a more frequent intervention of authority, and added vastly to the number of those causes on which the holy see has been obliged to pronounce judgment.

The government of the church is by far the most extensive of the governments of the earth. It is not bounded by the limits of any particular kingdom, but reaches throughout the globe, as well to those countries whose heathen populations demand its constant care, as to those Catholic states which are directly subject to the jurisdiction of the apostolic see. From all these places innumerable cases constantly arrive at Rome, each of which demands, for its proper determination, a profound examination. These are not like cases which are submitted to the civil tribunals, in which material interests only are at stake, and for which a temporary solution is sufficient. They are questions of doctrine, which demand an answer rigorously exact, since these answers determine faith. They are questions of administration, which interest secular institutions, great personages, often entire provinces and kingdoms. They are questions of conscience, upon which depend the peace and salvation of souls. These decisions, whatever they may be, will always be received with an unqualified respect and a perfect docility, which impose upon their authors an obligation to exercise the utmost care. And yet it is also necessary to judge quickly, for the affairs are often of a vital importance which will not brook delay.

It would be, of course, impossible for the sovereign pontiff to examine personally all these various matters, and to decide upon them in a single assembly. Hence the college of cardinals has been divided into a certain number of sections, to each of which pertains the examination of some particular class of cases. This division did not take place all at once. It grew into existence by the successive erection of different congregations instituted as fast and in such proportions as necessity seemed to require.

That which is especially remarkable about these institutions is the protection which they give to private interests, since the submission of each affair to the scrutiny of many persons is a security for knowledge, independence, and impartiality in its decision. Moreover, these institutions preserve the customs and the character of an ecclesiastical government. We have mentioned the relationship of bishops and their chapters. Every chapter was subdivided into commissions, to each of which a separate part in the administration of the diocese was assigned. One had the spiritual and scholastic direction of the episcopal seminaries; another, that of the temporalities; and still another, the examination and reception of the candidates for the priesthood. These commissions bear a certain resemblance to the Roman congregations. The latter were established by the voluntary action of the sovereign pontiffs. The Council of Trent was not occupied with them. It regulated diocesan administration as it believed useful, but it left the administration of the universal church to the wisdom of the popes; so that precisely at the time when its enemies think they can detect tendencies on the part of the holy see to absolutism, the pontiffs without constraint, but of their own accord, organize those institutions which are the best safeguards against the dangers of absolute power.

In reckoning up the number of those who, under different titles, take part in these labors, we discover that the Roman congregations form an entire assemblage of five hundred persons, all illustrious for their piety and learning. Many councils have been less numerous. These constitute a sort of permanent council, which is in daily communication with all the churches of the world, and which, not being limited in duration, can bring to the questions which are submitted to it all desirable deliberation. Perfect order presides over its labors. Like the councils, it is divided into sections, to which the members are assigned according to their peculiar aptitudes. These sections, which are the congregations properly so called, are permanent also, and consequently are enabled to devote themselves to the study of all the branches of ecclesiastical administration for the purpose of determining its principles. Finally, like the councils themselves, they draw their authority from the sovereign pontiff, and their decisions are subject to his approval.

The attributes of these congregations are manifold and various. They may be arranged under three principal heads: administrative, deliberative, and judicial.

The Roman congregations are the supreme directors of ecclesiastical administration. The sovereign pontiff adopts no measures which affect the government of dioceses, the communities of religious, the missions, or the ceremonies of the ritual; he grants no faculties or dispensations; he fills no important position in the church, until the congregation to whose sphere the case belongs has been summoned to consider it. Often, indeed, the congregation itself first perceives the necessity to be provided for. If it be a matter of small moment, the president or secretary of the congregation, either by virtue of his office or by special concession, will render a decision. If the matter is of higher consequence, it is previously submitted to the pope, and a decision rendered, as it is called, ex audentia summi pontificis. If it is of the highest character, it will receive special care and be considered in a full congregation. In every[174] case these acts derive their administrative power from the authority given to the sovereign pontiff over the church. They use this power, manifesting itself in council, with the assistance of renowned and holy men and in a manner worthy of him who made the world with number, weight, and measure.

These congregations have also to resolve the doubts which arise upon different points of canon law. Sometimes propositions in the abstract are submitted to them for the determination of discipline or ceremonies; sometimes they consult upon the application of a general law to some particular case which does not seem to come entirely within its provisions. They occupy in the church the place of a central light to which every one, prelate or layman, king or simple citizen, may come for illumination. They are not only the adviser of the sovereign, but of all his subjects. No institution of the secular power can be compared to them. He who has doubts upon the interpretation of civil law is able to consult its doctors and professors only in detail. The council of state has no power to respond to individuals who interrogate it; its advice is given only when the government demands it. The courts can render only concrete, particular decisions upon stated cases. More liberal than the state, the church holds its wisdom at the disposal of every conscience. It responds to all, and, without regard to the dignity of persons, it investigates with the same care the questions they propound; for it always acts for the salvation of souls, and considers every soul redeemed by the blood of Christ as of infinite price.

The method of procedure in these deliberations shows the care which the church exercises over every matter of this nature. The question is first examined and discussed in a "consultation;" which document is referred to all or a portion of the members, according to the nature of the affair and the usages of the congregation. The consultors are advised with. The question is submitted to the judgment of eminent cardinals united in full congregation. The decision is laid before the pope, whose approval must be obtained before its promulgation. Then this decision becomes an authentic interpretation of law, not merely on account of the official authority of the congregation, but on account of the approbation of the sovereign pontiff. It possesses legislative authority and has the force of law. Further on we shall see that although these congregations, being officially invested by the holy see with the right of interpreting law, render definitive decisions which are indisputable and cannot be raised by any other authority, yet they are not thereby to be considered as infallible. Their judgments are obligatory because supreme, not because they are infallible.

Finally, these congregations are the final tribunals for the determination of ecclesiastical causes. Sometimes these causes are brought by way of appeal from the decrees and sentences of the ordinaries of different places. Sometimes the parties submit directly to their decision questions never before raised at an inferior tribunal. All these congregations possess judicial powers, and are able to resolve contested cases. The chief of those to which appeals are taken are, however, the Congregation of the Council and the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars. The causes thus submitted are both civil and criminal. The Congregation of the Holy Office is the supreme tribunal for the crimes and misdemeanors[175] which concern faith, such as heresy, polygamy, detention of prohibited books, infraction of fasts, the celebration of mass, and the administration of the sacraments by men who are not priests, the public veneration of unbeatified dead, and the superstitions of astrology and false revelations. The Congregation of Bishops and Regulars is the ordinary judge of appeals in those criminal causes which do not come under the jurisdiction of the Holy Office. The Congregation of the Council determines those cases which are specified by the Council of Trent.

The first of these congregations, as well in the order of their importance as of their origin, is that of the Holy Office. The principle upon which it is based, although violently attacked in our day, is certainly incontestable. Man has no right to propagate error; for error is an evil which causes public disturbance and disorder, and is especially dangerous to the ignorant and feeble, of whom the greater part of mankind is composed. Civil tribunals and temporal governments never hesitate to use this right as one necessary to their self-preservation. It is not, therefore, surprising that the church claims it, since it is a perfect society, and owes to itself the duty of self-protection. Rather should it exercise this right with the most unquestioned authority, being itself infallible, and able to discriminate with absolute exactness between truth and error.

Twenty years before the conclusion of the Council of Trent, by a bull dated July 2d, 1542, Pope Paul III. established the Congregation of the Holy Office, composed of six cardinals, for the increase and defence of the Catholic faith. The successors of Paul III. confirmed this congregation and increased the number of its members. Sixtus V. solemnly recognized its existence in 1588, in his bull Immensa Æterni. This congregation is usually presided over by the pope himself.

The Congregation of the Council was established by Pius IV., in order to carry into effect the decrees of the Council of Trent, and received from Sixtus V. the faculty of interpreting, with apostolic authority, all the disciplinary canons of that august assembly. The Council of Trent was bound by no precedents in regulating particular points of discipline. It reviewed the whole body of canons, confirming whatever in the former law ought to be preserved, completing what was lacking, and publishing a full code of ecclesiastical discipline. In spite of the care with which all these new dispositions had been made, difficulties soon began to arise as to their interpretation and application.[176] The council had foreseen this, and left it to the sovereign pontiff to provide for the necessity. On this account, the pope instituted a permanent tribunal, composed, at the outset, of those cardinals who had assisted at the council, who understood its spirit, and knew how best to preserve and transmit its traditions. This was the Congregation of the Council. The religious orders already possessed an analogous institution. That of Citeaux had always had some one power charged with the duty of interpreting the rule. A similar tribunal is indispensable in every well-ordered state. It guards the law from the deviations of custom, and the abuse of private interpretation. It affords to it unity and fixedness. Every modern government has its supreme court of appeals, which exists almost solely for this object. But the institution of these latter is comparatively recent, while the church has possessed hers for many ages, and, in fact, gave to those of the state the first impulse and example.

The Congregation of the Index was established by St. Pius V. Its powers were afterward extended and confirmed by Gregory XIII. in 1572, by Sixtus V. in 1588, by Clement VIII. in 1595, and by other sovereign pontiffs. The principle upon which its authority reposes is indisputable. In every age the church has restrained the propagation of false doctrines and prohibited the perusal of such books as were dangerous to faith and morals. The invention of printing, in 1450, constrained it to watch with increased solicitude for the accomplishment of this duty. In 1513, the fifth Council of Lateran forbade the publication of any book without its previous examination by the ordinary of the place. The efforts put forth for the spread of Protestantism called for efforts still more vigorous in defence of the church. The Council of Trent reënacted the laws concerning the Index. It published the ten rules which are now regarded as the germ of all modern legislation concerning the press. The establishment of this congregation was but the organization and practical realization of those principles which the church has always recognized, and of which all states to-day admit the necessity.

The Congregation of the Index examines books and forbids those which are false and immoral. Christians have need of some learned and impartial authority to designate for them such books as they ought not to read, and all sincere men admit the usefulness of this warning; for many books are certainly unprofitable and injurious to every one. Even though civil governments have criticised the rules of the Index, they have not hesitated to adopt and use them as the nucleus of their legislation concerning the press. The oath imposed upon printers and booksellers, the deposit of a copy of each work before it is offered for sale, the obligation of placing upon the title-page the name of the printer, and of the signature of the writers to articles in newspapers, are all embodied in the rules of Clement VII. The prescriptions of the Index forbid the distribution of manuscript and printed books which have not been duly approved, in the same manner as the state prohibits those which have not been duly stamped; except that the church has not invented stamps, nor does a revenue result from its prescriptions. Moreover, the state demands an approbation, or, in other words, exercises a censorship, which, though now very greatly decried, is still enforced in regard to plays, and, when occasion demands, to other[177] publications also. There is merely this difference, that the church causes its books to be examined by bishops, by cardinals, by men who are at once learned and impartial, while civil governments confide this responsibility to men who are often more ignorant and less careful of morality than the authors whom they control. The state has indeed adopted the institution of the church, but it has greatly perverted it.

The decisions of this congregation are binding in all places; not because the tribunal is infallible, but because it is supreme, and because the popes have extended its authority over the whole church. Some, like the Gallicans, have claimed the validity of their contrary usages; but no custom can avail against law, especially when it is universally acknowledged that the power of the lawgiver extends over the whole world, and that no person, whatever his rank, or titles, or privileges, is exempt from its decrees.

The Congregation of Bishops was established by Gregory XIII. The Congregation of Regulars, which was afterward established by Sixtus V., was, at a still later day, united to that of Bishops. This congregation, which is one of the most busy of them all, occupies in the church a sphere analogous to that of a council of state. It possesses administrative faculties. It deputes visitors apostolic to different provinces, appoints vicars in dioceses whose bishops become incapacitated, and sends forth religious to visit the houses of their several orders. It is the natural protectress of charitable institutions. It approves of the sales, exchanges, and pledges of the property pertaining to churches and monasteries. It has also deliberative attributes, and decides upon questions submitted to it by bishops, religious houses, and institutions; except such as may involve the interpretation of the canons of the Council of Trent. It has prepared the greater part of the bulls which have been issued during the past three hundred years. In short, it exercises an administrative jurisdiction over, and decides disputes which arise between, different churches, bishops, chapters, orders, and religious, and whatever other matters of controversy directly concern the clergy. Its prompt method of procedure causes even lay people, who voluntarily submit their cases to Rome, to prefer its jurisdiction. It does not adjudge according to the vigorous strictness of the law, but endeavors, as far as possible, to appease the parties and reconcile their disagreements. Appeals in criminal cases, except where the offence is within the peculiar cognizance of the Holy Office, are also brought before this congregation.

We are not able to examine each of these congregations in detail. All possess the same characteristics of wisdom and prudence which distinguish every institution established by the popes. The Congregation of Rites was organized for the preservation of traditional vestments, liturgies, and worship, and to prevent that incessant change which degrades state ceremonial, and often rashly increases its expenses. The Congregation of Schools corresponds to our boards of public education; though the latter are of extremely recent origin, while the former has subsisted since the age of Sixtus V. The Congregation for the Examination of Bishops receives testimonials concerning the doctrine and habits of candidates for the episcopate. It fills the place of a court of inquiry, from which proceed nominations of public officers, even of the highest rank; where influences of every kind antagonize each other; where titles are forgotten; and where the aptitude of[178] every candidate, intellectual and moral, is carefully scrutinized.

These various congregations become, however, safeguards of truth and freedom, not only by the variety of their faculties, but also by their internal structure and their methods of procedure. Each of them is composed of a cardinal-prefect, of a certain number of cardinals, and a secretary. To this the Congregation of the Holy Office, which is presided over by the pope himself, forms an exception.

The prefect is charged with the arrangement of the business of the congregation. He manages the preparation of causes prior to their discussion. He submits them to the examination of his colleagues, and presides at their deliberations. After the debate has terminated, he receives their suffrages and announces their decision. He also examines into those matters which are settled at a private audience with the pope, without being brought before the whole congregation, and his words give publicity to the decisions which he receives from the living voice of the pontiff himself. Finally, he determines alone certain matters of minor importance, which, on that account, are neither brought before the congregation nor the pope. He receives his appointment from the sovereign pontiff, and holds his office during life. When he is absent, his place is supplied by the oldest cardinal of the congregation, and, at his death, the cardinal-secretary of state places his signature to the nomination of the new prefect.

The secretary assists at the meetings of the congregations, and is charged with the duty of recording its resolutions and acts, of transcribing its registers, and of delivering its processes. He also summons the cardinals, presents to them at each session a brief of the causes they are to treat, and gives them, for each of these, a succinct statement of the principal arguments of the parties, with a summary of the documents pertaining to them. This statement is printed upon loose sheets and distributed to the cardinals several days in advance, in order that each may have time to fully investigate the affair. Sometimes this statement is prepared by the cardinal-reporter, hence called the cardinal ponent. The secretary also submits to the pope the sentences of which he is to approve; and, for this purpose, those of the different congregations have a day of special audience before the pontiff. The faculty of giving licenses for various purposes, such as reading prohibited books, etc., etc., is confided to the secretary; also the power to distribute copies of the decrees of the congregation, authenticated by the signatures of the prefect and the secretary, and sealed with the seal of the congregation, which thus become of valid force before all tribunals, and even elsewhere, if they treat of extra-judicial matters.

The secretaries are appointed by the pope himself. They must be bishops, with the title of a church in partibus infidelium, or, at least, prelates of the Roman court. In the Congregation of the Holy Office the secretary is a cardinal.

The secretary has under him a number of inferior officials—a vice-secretary, who supplies his place when vacant; a protocol, who takes care of those records in which are registered current matters of business, with the state of their examination; a master of rolls, who preserves the various documents; and copyists, who prepare duplicates and exemplifications. All these are under his control, and for them all he is responsible. They are chosen at a[179] general session and hold office for life. They rank in the order of their seniority. Their remuneration is moderate, but they enjoy it during life, even when sickness or old age prevents the fulfilment of their duties.

To these congregations, moreover, are attached a number of theologians and canonists, who act as counsellors in the investigation of different questions, and assist with their advice those cardinals whose place it is to determine causes. These also are appointed for life by the pope, and, as they are generally taken from the religious orders, they are never absent or obliged to leave Rome without the permission of the congregation.

These counsellors prefer their opinions in various forms, according to the character of the congregation. Sometimes one of them is requested to present a written solution of some especial question; sometimes they are all summoned to hold a united deliberation and give their collective vote before the cardinals.

The parties who appear before these congregations are represented in their presence by proctors and advocates. The proctors act in the same capacity as our attorneys. They are the true defenders of their cause by law and in fact. They compose the petitions, digest the informations, and direct the whole proceedings. Their profession is very honorable, but not open to every one.

Advocates are employed only in matters of higher importance, and seldom except in those of abstract law. They disengage, as far as possible, every question from the circumstances of fact which surround it, and examine it doctrinally from the most elevated point of view. Their profession is free; but in order to exercise it one must be a doctor of civil and canon law, and consequently must have spent four years in study at the Sapienza, or three years at the Apollinaria. They are not limited in number, and are permitted to appear before any of the congregations. There are also special advocates belonging to the consistory, who deal only with the process of canonization. All of these are men well versed in theological learning, canons, councils, ecclesiastical history, civil and canon law, and by their own erudition contribute vastly to the advancement of jurisprudence.

Besides proctors and advocates, there are also solicitors who take charge of various transactions and proceedings, hasten on investigations, and are employed in extra-judicial affairs.

The method of procedure before these congregations differs according to the congregation, the nature of the business, and even the will of the parties themselves. It may likewise be distinguished into the ordinary, the summary, the inquisitorial, etc., etc., and is regulated by positive rules or by custom. They are well known to all, and, in practice, never give rise to any confusion.

We do not desire here to enter into details concerning these different modes of procedure. We can only go so far as to make known their general character, and to compare it with our own civil proceedings, which are sometimes, we think groundlessly, supposed to be a model for all others.

We select, as a type of the whole, the usages of the Congregation of the Council. This congregation receives appeals from the sentences of ordinaries, and also causes submitted to it by the consent of the parties; the latter being equally proper with the former, provided the rules are equally observed. These causes are usually commenced by the sending of a summons to the opposite party through a[180] public official, in the same manner as in civil processes. At the outset, however, a particular formality, called the settlement of the question, is observed. The object of this is to determine the precise point upon which the decision of the congregation is desired. For this purpose it is necessary that an issue be joined between the adverse parties, upon some definite proposition.... This is done either by the parties themselves or their proctors, in presence of the secretary of the congregation, and, in their default, the secretary himself explains it in writing, or, when requisite, the congregation is called to determine it.

This summons for the settlement of the question is served fifteen days before the date of the proceeding itself. At the same time, the original and authenticated writings which the parties have employed, as well as a statement of the facts, signed by the proctor, must be deposited at the office of the secretary. If judicial inquests and the deposition of witnesses are necessary, they are taken by the ordinary in the capacity of judge-delegate, the congregation not being able to act at a distance. The procès-verbal authenticated and duly legalized, are transmitted to it; but as the causes generally come before it by appeal, all these investigations of fact are previously concluded, and the ordinary sends forward the entire papers of the case.

The defences of parties are presented in written memorials in the Latin tongue, signed by an advocate or by a proctor approved by the Roman court. These memorials are deposited with the secretary and communicated to the complainants, as are also copies of all documents that are produced, in nearly the same manner as in the highest civil tribunals. These memorials are in turn succeeded by written replications, signed and filed in the same way. Unless by special permission, the memorials are limited to five printed sheets, and the replications to two. In case of negligence, the proctor is liable to a penalty. No supplementary writings are admissible.

From these papers the secretary makes memoranda, briefly setting forth the whole affair and the principal arguments, the facts and the law, as claimed by the parties, all of which, together with the defences and replications, are printed and distributed in duplicate to the cardinals. These, then, receive separately the parties with their advocates and listen to their explanations, if they judge any to be useful to their cause. These interviews are not, however, secret. Both adversaries have their audiences, and they contribute very much to elucidate doubtful matters.

The day of decision is fixed by the secretary. There is never any delay except for the greatest reasons. The production of the defences must take place at least thirty days before that of final judgment. The printed memoranda are distributed at least six days before it. The circulation of the papers and supplemental documents is finished in the same interval. The audiences to parties are granted within the last four or five days which precede. The distribution of replications is made at latest the day before the session. After this, no notice is taken of any testimony or document produced by one of the parties, unless with the consent of the other.

There are no contradictory pleadings, no public audiences. Every thing is done in writing. The cardinals, well instructed in the cause from the defences, replications, documents, memoranda of the secretaries, and the previous verbal explanations of the advocates, assemble on the appointed[181] day and deliberate out of the hearing of the parties. This deliberation is secret, and sometimes takes place between two audiences.

After judgment is rendered, the losing party has ten days in which to petition for a new trial for the revision of the sentence by the same congregation. The prefect grants this petition; the new hearing takes place at the end of three months; and the party who demands it, if defeated, defrays the expenses.

When sentence has been rendered, and has become of full force as a judgment, an exemplification of it is transmitted to the winning party, who presents it at the executive office of letters-apostolic and of decrees of congregations, in order that it may be couched in the requisite formularies.

The proceedings before the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars closely resemble those before the Congregation of the Council. The delays are somewhat shorter, but the ordinary procedure is the same. Before both of them there is also a species of process more swift and summary, to be employed when the parties desire it, or the nature of the business demands it. Moreover, in the latter congregation it is the secretary who renders its decision.

We have seen that appeals in criminal cases are taken from the diocesan courts to the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, except when the nature of the offence brings it within the cognizance of the Congregation of the Holy Office. This appeal must be entered within ten days after the promulgation of the judgment. After the appeal is perfected, the diocesan court transmits to the congregation a budget which includes: 1, the process which was instituted in the first instance; 2, the brief of this process and the note of that which followed; 3, the defence of the accused; 4, the sentence. At the same time the court signifies to the accused and his advocate that they are now to prosecute their appeal.

If the appellant does not pursue the matter, a reasonable delay, ordinarily of twenty days, is accorded, after which he is judged to have renounced his appeal and the sentence is executed. If he does pursue it, he makes choice of an advocate at Rome. The budget is then sent to a judge-reporter, from whose hands the advocate receives a memorandum of the case, and upon that bases his defence. This defence is communicated to the first judge, that he may sustain his sentence. All the papers are printed and distributed to the cardinals. The cause is examined on an appointed day in presence of the assembled congregation. The judge-reporter states the case. The proctor-general defends the sentence of the court below. The cardinals render their decision, which affirms, vacates, or revises the sentence of the diocesan tribunal, and is immediately transmitted thereto for execution. This decision is final; and, after it is rendered, the pope alone can grant a review of the proceedings, and that only before the same congregation, and for the gravest reasons.

It will be remarked that there is no public hearing of witnesses; but if this should seem objectionable to any, it will be sufficient to remind them that civil courts, which revise the judgments of courts of correction, decide upon the papers of the case and not upon the testimony of living witnesses at their bar; while, as for criminal proceedings, it is well known that from the courts which try issues of fact there is usually no appeal.

When, instead of an ordinary offence,[182] the crime alleged is one against the faith, the rules of procedure are inquisitorial in their character, and differ somewhat from the preceding; but on account of the weight of the penalty, they offer still greater safeguards to the accused.

Moreover, it is not requisite that all the witnesses should have been present during the whole transaction in question; the deposition of a single one is admissible, though it is necessary that there be more than two, and even three form but a sort of half-proof. All interrogatories, skilfully directed to extort the truth from the defendant or the witnesses by surprise, are strictly forbidden, as are also any suggestions of the answer desired, and every effort is made that the truth may flow naturally from the lips of the witness and without the influence of fear. In order to avoid hatred and terrorism, the names of the witnesses are not made known to the accused, but their motives of hostility to him are examined with the greatest care. False witnesses are punished with the utmost severity, and, when it becomes necessary, the accused and accusers are confronted with each other.

If from poverty, or any other reason, the accused is found without an advocate or proctor, one is furnished for him.

Finally, the appeal is a matter of right. It is taken directly to Rome, before the Congregation of the Holy Office, without passing through any intermediate metropolitan tribunal, and, during its pendency there, execution is usually stayed. Judgment is never rendered against any one upon mere presumptions; but only after full and unmistakable proof.

We come now to notice the written regulations which may be called the skeleton of procedure. Save some variations in detail, they differ little from those of all contested cases before the different congregations. But in order fully to understand their advantages and disadvantages, the reader should understand not only the text of the law but the usages of its practices. For everywhere, at Rome as at Paris, unwritten traditions and judicial customs modify and temper the law, complete its deficiencies, and cause the inconveniences which, at first sight, it would seem to occasion, wholly to disappear. It is also impossible to base a serious comparison between the procedure of two countries upon a mere reading of their rules. Not only ought the two methods to vary according to the manners of the parties, the character of the tribunals, and the nature of their causes, but even two modes which are identical will often, under different circumstances, produce entirely different results. They accommodate themselves to the hand that wields them, and their value can be really appreciated only after long usage of them; so that the skilled practitioner alone is able to speak authoritatively of their value, of their endurance, and of the guarantees which they offer for the discovery of truth.

By these remarks we desire to show that the procedure of the Roman congregations, without sacrificing any of the essential safeguards of justice, is generally simple, brief, economical, informal to a degree beyond that of any civil procedure; and, far from needing to learn any thing from them, it is able in many points to become their instructor.

There is, however, one great difference upon which we especially insist, because it has formed the pretext for unjust attacks from narrow minds, who are unable to comprehend that any thing can be well done that is[183] done in a way different from their own, or that any difference between their customs and those of others is not a signal mark of the inferiority of the latter. The Roman congregations admit of no oral pleadings.[36] All discussion is in writing, though it is necessarily completed by the verbal explanations which the advocates give to the judges; but there is no public and passionate debate, such as is common in all civil jurisdictions. We do not believe that the absence of this is any evil. The Roman legislative body has always endeavored to shun surprises in its hearings. Pleading, as it is practised among us, is nothing but the conflict of two opposing debaters, often unequally matched, and of whom the more powerful is seldom on the side of the oppressed. We believe, indeed, that the doors of the influential advocate, whose name and authority are themselves a powerful argument, are rarely closed against the poor who seek to enter them; but the poor do not always dare to stop and knock, and so content themselves with men of more ordinary abilities. If, then, one of these contesting advocates is more skilful than the other; if he knows how to win favor for his client by an insinuating speech and to cast ridicule upon his adversary; if he has the faculty of grouping figures, of coloring facts, of flattering his auditors during the progress of the controversy; if he is passionate and violent, his emotion will affect the judge, whose heart beats under his robe and is not, perhaps, to any extraordinary degree unimpressible; all these circumstances, extrinsic to the real merits of the cause, will exercise great influence upon its determination, and may be able to wring from the tribunal a decision which, in moments of reflection and coolness, it would never render.

Oral pleading resembles, to some extent, those ancient judicial combats upon which the issue of causes was sometimes made to depend. It is a duel of words, in which justice does not always have the advantage. Our imagination represents an advocate as one whose work it is to wrest the innocent from the clutches of powerful and cruel persecutors; who summons eloquence to aid him in resisting the fierce passions which menace the welfare of his client. This was well enough for those primitive ages when a legal process was the outburst of violent wrath, which dragged the alleged offender before a single judge, or perhaps before a mob erected into a tribunal and swayed by passion. But this conception is not correct for our day, even in criminal matters, where the public prosecutor, as far as possible, excludes mere feeling and makes his appeal to calm and solid reason alone; and it is especially false in civil causes, in which the advocate interprets the text of the law, discusses contracts, examines and compares evidence, all of which labors are difficult, and demand, above all things, reflection, good sense, and coolness.

For attaining, therefore, the ends of justice, a mode of written procedure is particularly adapted. It assures to the contending parties all the time necessary for a careful reply to the reasonings on either side, and establishes an equality between the talents of their respective advocates; it also removes the decision of the cause from the bias of personal influences, and leaves it to be determined by argument only. Moreover, the judge[184] is able to reflect at his ease upon the merits of the case, and is secure against the seductions of artful declamation. Even before those supreme civil tribunals where written and oral pleadings are both permitted, the latter are usually regarded in the solution of the question, and this is what gives to the advocates of those illustrious courts their influence and renown. The Roman congregations are also supreme tribunals; but there passion has no echo and needs no interpreter; there causes stand upon their own merits, stripped of all attendant circumstances; there the gravest questions of dogma, of morals, and of right are decided by reason alone, but by reason illuminated both by science and by faith.

The procedure of the Roman congregations is much less expensive than that before ordinary civil jurisdictions. Originally it was entirely gratuitous, and many of the congregations—as, for instance, those of the Propaganda, the Index, and the Holy Office—still retain this rule in reference to all the causes which are submitted to them. But the great increase of expense, consequent upon the increase of causes, has necessitated the establishment, by other congregations, of certain light taxes, although even these bear small proportion to the actual disbursements. Thus, all the proceedings are upon ordinary paper, which, not being liable to stamp-duty, makes one important saving in expense. Again, while civil proceedings are registered upon payment of a certain fee, which is another notable method of taxation, those at Rome are registered without charge; and, while masters of rolls elsewhere enjoy incomes sometimes reaching the sum of many thousands, those at Rome are paid by the treasurer, and are forbidden to receive any emolument, although perfectly gratuitous, from any party, even for the most extraordinary labors—an obligation imposed on them by oath upon their admission to office.

They are also obliged to exhibit, without charge, to any person the various documents of their several bureaus, and are allowed but a moderate recompense for the copies and exemplifications which they may prepare. Even the expense of printing is borne, at least in part, by the congregation. The congregations do not sell justice; they give it. The pontifical treasury does not look to them as a source of revenue. On the contrary, the taxes they collect are far less than their expenses, and, in fact, so much so that their services may be considered as gratuitous. For example, a matrimonial cause submitted to the Congregation of the Council, and requiring minute examinations, consultations, researches, and a large collection of documents, will cost the winning party several crowns, the precise amount depending upon the number of questions to be resolved. The same case tried in civil courts would cost two or three thousand francs.

The fees of advocates and attorneys correspond to the expenses. Among us they continue constantly to increase. At Rome they are very meagre. They are legally fixed at a uniform rate, according to the importance of the cause and the result of the investigation. Even these the advocates cannot demand as a right, and receive them only as a spontaneous gift.

The French magistracy with good reason congratulates itself on the establishment of an association designed to secure to the poor the gratuitous defence of their just rights. Rome has long since possessed a similar institution. This is the Society of Advocates, which assembles on fête days[185] to receive and reply to the inquiries of the indigent. Among the obligations of the consistorial advocates is that of defending the causes of the poor before their respective tribunals. In criminal cases there are especial advocates for the poor. Among the proctors there are certain ones appointed for the poor, one by the pope, the others by the different societies. Finally, the Society of St. Ives is particularly charged with the protection of the indigent; and such are the customs among the members of the Roman bar that none ever refuses his services to the unfortunate who seeks them.

The Roman congregations are not mere tribunals instituted by the holy see with a delegation of powers, which leaves the supreme authority still in the hands of the sovereign pontiff, and allows a right of appeal from their judgment to his. They are the holy see itself, rendering its decisions by the mouths of its cardinals. Canon law recognizes their jurisdiction as ordinary and not delegated. Delegated jurisdiction is a mandate which confers upon the mandatary certain special favors distinct from and inferior to the powers of the mandator. Ordinary jurisdiction is an actual communication, which unites the mandator and mandatary in one single tribunal, and makes the one the simple organ of the other. Numerous passages of canon law justify this conception of these congregations and render it incontestable as a legal conclusion.

The nature of the decisions which they render makes the point still more certain. They issue general decrees promulgated by order of the sovereign pontiff, which consequently obtain the force of law in all places in the same manner as the pontifical constitutions, from which they do not essentially differ. Such are the decrees of the Holy Office, of the Index, and certain of those of the Congregation of Rites, of that of the Council, and of that of Bishops and Regulars. They also render interpretations of existing laws, and these enjoy a supreme and universal authority, as if they emanated directly from the sovereign pontiff, since they are both submitted to and approved by him. In fine, the sentences which they render in private controversies are, equally with the rest, submitted to the pope; though without this sanction, and from the ordinary powers of the congregations, they would be obligatory upon all, and would become the rule of other tribunals, since for this purpose especially were these congregations instituted as courts of final judicature.

The decisions rendered by these different congregations, and preserved in their archives from the very day of their institution to the present, form the most magnificent body of jurisprudence which has ever existed. One canonist of eminence reckons that upward of sixty thousand decisions have been delivered by the Congregation of the Council alone; a living, practical commentary on the Council of Trent. The Congregation of Bishops and Regulars publishes nearly three volumes of decrees every year, and the volumes which contain its judgments are over eight hundred in number. When we remember that nearly all these decisions are upon questions of law, disengaged from mere accessories of fact, we are amazed at the treasures of science, erudition, and reasoning which are thus accumulating from age to age in these archives, and forming an inexhaustible reservoir, in which tradition stores itself and whence justice and truth flow out upon the world.

AN OCTOBER REVERIE.

This most golden of all the bright October days, why are we not, as we fain would be, on a brown hill-side, yielding care to whispered persuasions of the wind, or afloat on waters that reflected our sky, when—if it was not always without clouds—its clouds were tinged with glory, or lying upon a shore where we built sand castles in play—alas! for castles we built in earnest, to hold treasures of hope—and laughed to see them dissolve in the laughing waves.

We have no wish to pluck the hill-side flowers; we shall never build castles again, never chase back the encroaching waves, which, while they seemed to recede, rose till they buried our castles and swept away our treasures.

But it will be something to share the repose of nature; to lie on her lap lulled by the requiem of the past, chanted by the voice that sang the anthem of the future. For we—her deluded children—are weary, and only ask of her a foretaste of the rest we hope to find by and by in her bosom.

How weary we are! Of strivings from which we have no power to cease! Of reachings, from which we cannot withhold our hands, toward objects that elude us or turn worthless in our grasp! Weary of our own and others' weakness and meanness! Of lying lives; of suspicions, envyings, and covetings! How tired of homely work; oppressed by narrow rooms, vexed by noises of neighbors separated from us only by the legal number of inches in brick and mortar—a loud-talking, stamping family on one side, and on the other the household of Widow Smith, who keeps boarders and a piano!

By sounds that come up through the open window, I know that the widow is in her kitchen helping to get the dinner. I seem to see her, hot and worried. She is always worried. Her face would be a sad one if she had time to let it settle into its proper expression. As she never has time, it is anxious and fretful, and older than her years. In the parlor, so near that the jangling of untuned wires sets my whole being on edge, her daughter is playing the piano as she sings, I dreamt that I dwelt in Marble Halls. Poor child! Yet dream on. Who could undeceive thee, knowing that there is woven into thy dream the pious resolve to win out of that discordant instrument money wherewith to buy thy mother ease? Heaven help thee and bring to naught the spite of the bachelor boarder in the room above, who, instead of employing his grizzly brain with the plan gossips have devised, by which he might brighten her life and thine, and his own most of all, paces up and down, cursing the noise, and consigning "that old tin pan" to a place his imagination keeps in a blaze with fuel of whatsoever offends him. He hates "that eternal thrumming," hates "genteel daughters of working mothers. Teach music! Better dismiss Nora and make Miss Julia help in the kitchen!"

Moreover, the mother has her dream. In it she sees her daughter less hard-worked than she has been,[187] and higher in the social scale than she ever hopes to rise; except, perhaps, when that daughter shall have exchanged Smith for Smythe.

But of all the vexations of our life here, the most persistent is the row of houses across the way. Beset by so many things that offend the other senses, we think it hard that our sight should be so meanly thwarted. I grow angry whenever I look out, and wish that I could push those houses down. I pine to see beyond them the curve of a bay bounded by hills, a stretch of river with steamboats and sails, and of shore with a village and farms on its slope, distant mountains blending with sky, or outlined against piled thunder-caps. Or a harbor with ships; some at anchor, some bound outward, and some coming in from strange countries.

I keep fancying that the houses hide these sights, though I know there is nothing behind them but row on row, more brown, stony, and dull. These are low, and shut out less of the sky. The veneering, which is of plaster instead of stone, is falling off, here and there, to save it from monotony. The uniform dwellings, with their line of connecting porches, remind one of the inside of a fort, and of careless, gossiping, uncertain sojourn in quarters.

Widow Smith does not mind the wall that offends us. She told me her story the other day; all she had gone through. What grieves her most, as nearly as I could make it out, is living in a house that is not high. "For," said she, as with a little tearful burst of eloquence she ended her tale, "I hev lived in a three-story and basement, all to ourselves, and always kept a girl, and the folks next door didn't let out ther floors. Though," (wiping her eyes,) "I've nothin' aginst them Browns. They behave themselves as well as some" (Mrs. Green, over the way, who keeps two servants, and does not visit Mrs. Smith and me) "thet's hed more advantages."

I answered, "These houses might do while rents are so high, if the partitions were thicker, and if that row opposite did not hide the view;" meaning the view in my mind. Mrs. Smith could not have seen it; for she replied that "We mustn't be notional; real troubles come fast enough without borrowin'. Since Smith died," she had "hed her share, the Lord knew." If she "let sech things" make her "mis'rable," she should think that she was "goin' contrary to Scripter, wich speaks aginst the sight of the eyes." Then, "of all things, a place not built up was the forlornist." Besides, she liked "neighbors." Good soul! so she does; loves them, too. I have known her to do "them Browns" more than one kind turn; and to us, when we came, poor, discouraged, and unused to city ways, she was guide, philosopher, and guardian angel, in the guise of a lugubrious little woman in a rusty mourning gown and yarn hood. She taught us to market, urged upon us the importance of asking the price before buying, and of counting our change afterward; encouraged us to resist the aggressions of "the girl," enlightening us at the same time as to the amount of service we might require of that personage; stood up for us with the milk-man, ice-man, and man that peddles every thing, and made them give us weight and measure.

But notwithstanding that Mrs. Smith is so sympathizing, it would not have been worth while to return her confidence by telling her of our former affairs—pleasant places where our lot was cast; the old house beautiful we were born in; the hills, and and the river that bathes their feet;[188] purple ridges that lie eastward, blue mountains that hide the west—scenes so changeless in form that memory does not err in always showing them the same; so changeful in aspect that they never wearied even our accustomed eyes.

We cannot talk of these things to one whose world is the city. Yet there are in that world many who will understand us—living in high houses and low ones; on floors, in garrets and dens; walking in rich attire, shrinking in garments worn and unseemly; mingling with others in the mart, lying on sick-beds, shut up in prisons—men for whom fame blows glorious bubbles, but hollow and frail, as none know better than themselves.

Devotees of science whose Eurekas sound more faintly at every step as they mount her endless ladders; not because they fall from such altitudes, but because they become discouraged as the conviction dawns on them that all they have gained amounts to little.

The trader whose vessels dot the seas, who is not so elate with fortune that he never sends a sigh after earlier ventures—ships of bark with freight of sand, on waters the width of a boy's stride.

The gambler in the bread of the poor, not so callous that he never feels a twinge of the old wound, the stab conscience gave the first time he played "pitch and toss" on the blind side of the school-house and won foolish Richard's penny. He remembers that Richard went crying to his father for redress, and his mother came and told the master, who would not believe foolish Richard's story against "the smartest boy and the best at cypherin' in his school." He escaped, but Richard was whipped by his father for losing his money and telling a lie. He distrusts conscience. Why smite so then, why touch so lightly now, if she can find the difference between that childish sin and this wringing hard-earned pence from thousands of simple ones?

And the Father to whom the wretches clamor so does not seem to be a credulous father to them. Perhaps, after all, he does not hear; or is, like the master, on the side of those who can help themselves. At any rate, his mills grind so slowly that it would hardly pay to compute the time one's turn would take to come. It may be that the wheels stand still, waiting for all his floods to gather.

The politician, not so lost in tortuous ways that the man depicted in his first piece to speak, (it was chosen by his good mother, and often said over to her for fear of "missing" on the momentous Friday,)

Absent-eyed women, automatic figures in collections of cabinet-work, upholstery, pictures, and marbles, to which no memories of theirs have grown, lending attention to formal visitors while their thoughts stray to the play-house under a tree, where they used to receive little friends in calico sun-bonnets. The house of which they themselves laid the moss carpet and chose and placed the ornaments, deserted bird's-nests filled with speckled Solomon's Seal, curiosities from the wood, and pretty stones from the brook. For paintings, they had green vistas and glimpses of village, water, and sky. The service, of acorn cups and bits of colored glass and "chaney," was daily polished and set out by their own hands on the flat rock they "made believe" was a table.

Women shawled with fabric of[189] Cashmere, borne above the envious street, but heeding neither its shifting crowd nor its shows. They are thinking of chances enjoyed the more for their unexpectedness, and paid in "kerchies" and "thank'ee, sirs" they used to "catch," when they went to the district school wrapped in homespun shoulder blankets that took caressing softness from fingers—cold alas! now—that pinned them on. Of balmy, luxurious rides on the heaped hay-rigging. Slow, never to be forgotten cart rides in back-woods, where wintergreen and princess-pine send up aromatic odors from beneath the oxen's feet; with wheels now sinking in moss, now craunching the pebbles of the stream, now swept by ferns, and anon pressing down saplings that, released, spring back with a jerk and an impatient protest of leaves. Onward, through sun-glorified arcades, listening to comments of birds that are all about, though each one seems solitary, startled by the beat of a partridge, or catching a sight of her nest. Bending low to escape unbending arms of patriarchs of the wood that fend the way. Peering anxiously into the gathering night; coming out upon the clearing, where skeletons of forest trees, martyrs to progress, that perished by her axe or her flames, lie dimly outlined amid shadows, or stand gaunt against the sky, with charred arms outstretched in motionless appeal.

Or of rides in the lumber-wagon, when grandfather—whom we cannot describe from lack of words sufficiently expressive of venerableness and benignity—held the "lines," and "Tom and Jerry," in sympathy with childish impatience and delight, sped up hill and down, till, amid clatter and rattle, and excited barkings, and joyful exclamations, and a peremptory "whoa!" and "stand there, you Jerry!" (Jerry never would stand there, nor anywhere, he was such a horse to go,) followed by a volley of juvenile "whoas!" and "stand, Jerrys," the wagon drew up before the house, and a young aunt ran to lift the children out, while grandmother stood in the door beaming on them a smile whereof the warmth has passed down through the folds of years, and glows still on hearts from which time has shut out the light of ardent fires.

Did I say that crowd and shows were unheeded? That elegant leader and lawgiver of society, Mrs. Augustus Jonesnob, who glides along in an emblazed carriage, behind those splendid ponies, would not pass, if she knew that she and her "turnout" elicited only a vague, half pitying recollection of a "they say" that gives her the keeper of a junk-shop for grandfather, making it likely that she has no heirloom of tapestry, in fadeless azure, and green, and gold, wherewith to hang the halls she always dreamed of, without dreaming how bare she would find them.

Young Augustus—"Point-Lace Jonesnob," the girls call him—rides beside his mother's carriage, well-dressed, well-mounted, smiling complacently, for he knows that he looks about the thing; and the day being neither too cold nor too warm, nor muddy, dusty, windy, nor too early in the season, he thinks it will do to show himself. Does any one suppose his smile to be the emanation from some reminiscence of "taking the horses to water" in boyhood? The riding-master's hand, and not the proud father's, held him on the first time he was mounted. He has no breezy remembrances of free gallops whither he would; no pensive memories of solemn rides across lonesome barrens,[190] where heavenward-pointing pines worship God with ceaseless harmonies and unfailing incense.

Men whose life, sold for a salary, is the property of others; who spend the hours they ought to have for recreation in street-cars, while ill-used brutes drag them from and to homes in comfortless suburbs, where faded wives, worn with housework that never ends, busy over piles of mending that never diminish, wait, uncheerfully ruminating devices and economies by which they are for ever trying to make ends approach that are fated never to meet.

Broken-spirited gentlemen in threadbare black, worn and brushed till the seams, notwithstanding the times they have been inked, are gray, walking, walking, in search of employment; asking it deprecatingly, for they are honorable, and are beginning to realize—others have long seen it—their incapacity. Returning faint—the bite at the baker's counter is beyond their means—to pale wives, who meet them with smiles that are more sad than tears, and talk, while their hearts belie their tongues, of better luck to-morrow. Perhaps children, too, with eyes that ask—they are too well trained by their mother to demand with their lips.

Women that have seen better days, paying their last dollar—it will bring no return—for the ambiguous announcement that makes known their willingness to accept any position not menial.

Elderly women, delicately bred, once sheltered and inclosed by refined prejudices and conventionalisms, obliged, who knows by what stress, to step out of the sacred (to them; they are old-fashioned ladies) retirement of home. If we must refuse to buy the petty stationery, print, or book they so courteously proffer, let it be seen that we do it with pain; let us not shut the door against these timid sparrows till they have flitted from the steps. They are not of those to whom compassionate hesitation suggests importunity.

Women narrow-chested and grim-visaged, in whom there is no beauty or charm left—pupils of virtue, to whom she gives neither holiday nor reward—toiling up steep flights with bundles of shop-work.

Bedraggled women, that lug heavy baskets down wet area steps into sunless abodes, where they wash all day, while the babes they have not time to fondle want care and comforting, and must want these or bread.

Sinful women, at whom, since Christ is dead in the souls of men, all may cast stones. For them there is but little help or hope in a righteous world.

Those who, though fallen and fouled, still guard, fair and apart, pictures that fill their eyes with tears and their hearts with yearnings—visions of morning stepping down the cliffs into valleys where they dwelt; of sunsets in mountain countries; tropical lands planted with palms that incline exile-ward; snowy regions where blazing hearths and true hearts keep the place of the wanderer warm.

Home dwells pictured in their soul. It is an unpainted road-side house. Sweet-pinks, marigolds, and holly-hocks grow in the front-yard; morning-glories creep up the clap-boards, festoon the windows, and peep into the wren's nest under the eve-trough. In the maple by the doorstep a pair of robins have made their habitation, and amid the green of the elm that roofs the spring and wash-block—the stump of a former mighty tree—is seen the glint of a fire-bird's wing.

Or a farm-house, with gardens and rows of hives, and barns with their swallows, fields of corn and stubble, and upland pasture where cattle are feeding. In "the new piece," between the pasture and higher woodland, buckwheat blossoms for the bees, as it climbs perseveringly up the ridge to overtake the poke, that, bending to its weight of berries, mingles dawning crimson with changing hues of blackberry-vines which hide the rocks. Along stone fences, golden-rod and wild-aster still mingle their blooms untouched, though autumn has reached stained fingers forth to trifle with the leaves of his favorite sumach. In the swamp below, the scarlet lobelia burns amid clumps of green and brown sedge. Beyond the swamp and meadow, and wind-whitened willows by the creek, hills rise and bound the view.

Or it is a homestead, with venerable trees shading a lawn that slopes to a lake in which house and trees lie mirrored. They are playing with their brothers on the lawn, while their mother watches them from her window; or gliding on the lake with companions and loves of youth, steering their boat for a distant headland.

These are living pictures. Their woods sing Eolian measures; their brooks talk of childhood and innocence; their clouds and seasons are always changing; their swallows ever flying homeward, whither the trees beckon. Miraculous pictures! their sun always shines on our brides; their skies rain constant tears on our dead. Yea, in them the dead are risen, and eyes long sealed look down on us with love.

But beyond the headland the lake has its outlet into a stream that winds and tarries, all the while widening, till it empties into the harbor, where ships, laden with costly merchandise, are spreading sails for havens of uncertain promise. They fade along the fading coast; glide across the dim belt that separates land's end from sky; like phantoms disappear. And watchers turn, with a foreboding chill, from windy piers, to confront dirty waterside stores, and pick their way amid trucks and bales that obstruct broken side-walks, between tall warehouses that glower at each other across lanes, to meet odors of fish and oils, and spices and drugs, and countless other fœtid smells; to enter dull, ledger-lined offices, or seek, through jostling ways, ticketed dwellings that are as alike as prison-cells.

Along the track that divides the farm, and cuts the hill in two, shrieks a train, grudging its passengers the glimpse of beautiful places of the rich; slackening its pace to prolong the dreariness of the ugly outskirts, and, lo! dead rows of houses; long thoroughfares; mean streets, with vile shops and squalid swarms; the clash of vehicles; confusion of cries; rush of multitudes—the city.

From the small house the by-road leads to a turnpike that speeds dustily on to a cobble-paved town by the river. The river flows down to the city; where all night long, hungrily lapping slimy piers, with dark hints of oblivion, with winks and gleams that the wretched interpret, with noiseless, snaky undulations, and the fascinating glitter of its thousand eyes, it charms the lost to loathsome death.

Would we, if cares did not bind us, go back to the scenes of those pictures? If our mother's face had not gone from the window? If the farm had not been sold? If alien hands had not cut down the maple and the elm, and strange faces and the burr of unknown voices had not scared the wrens from their nest? If we had money or time for the journey?[192] If we did not feel too much ashamed or disgraced—we have been so unsuccessful, or false to early promises—to meet the pitying or contemptuous looks of our acquaintance? For did they not know how it would be? Did not they too, in youth, scent from afar the battle they knew better than to enter without the certainty of winning?

If we have, or seem to have won it, is there not something in ourselves that holds us back? We have now no desire for sports of childhood. We are not sorry that our mother faded from her window before we got hurts that her kisses could not make well. The halo that surrounds venerated figures would pale in the broad light of mid-life. We are not so forbearing with the old who are with us that we could trust ourselves to have the departed back.

Do we recognize the boys and girls who lived in the small house by the road, who used to get up early and run laughing to the spring to take turns washing in the tin basin that hung against the elm? And the faces mirrors now show us—are they the same that rose radiant from that bath? Could we sleep soundly in a garret, and wake delighted to see snow sifting through the roof? Or relish the food we thought it neither shame nor labor to carry when, bare-footed in summer and shod in calf-skin in winter, we walked a mile to the red school-house down by the 'pike? Would we feel honored if the madam were now to visit us in the modest dress that we once thought the perfection of taste?

When it was our week to conduct her home, we neither hunted bird's-nests, nor swung upon low branches of the "mill-pines," nor dipped our feet in mud-puddles to get "wedding-shoes" on, nor sought berries along the fences, unless it was to string them on timothy-rods and present them shyly for her acceptance.

Have we strength or inclination for harvest work? Then to leaden hearts and sluggish blood what pleasure in moonlight sail, or midnight sleigh-ride, or mad gallop over lift and level!

Let us guard our sacred pictures. To their scenes we will not return. For if, instead of patches of sky, the circle of the firmament were ours, with changing glory of dawn, and noon, and sundown, and deeps gleaming with stars, yet our spirits would not soar with their swallows. Their mountains would not draw our feet as they did when we believed that every summit reached was a height gained, knew not that the peaks which pierced the clouds hid higher ranges, yet no nearer the heaven of hope than those which limited our sight.

Behold a worn foot-path in which we may walk and gather immortelles! It leads to a city whereof the houses are low and hide none of the sky; narrower than these, but straitness does not inconvenience dwellers who have no call to go to and fro; not uniform—the occupants' names are cut into fronts of marble and granite and mossy red sand-stone. Some are marked by columns, others by crosses. Around many plants are set. But here are others. The tenants were poor or friendless folk, or strangers; they have only clay walls and roofs of sod, upon which every blade, green or sere, all day long and all night, bending lightly to airs of summer or swept low by winter winds, keeps sighing, "May he rest in peace."

Old neighbors are here; but no[193] looks of theirs question us as to what we have done in the world, or in what failed.

Did the sight of these at last turn inward? and did lips that were so ready with the Pharisee's prayer close with the cry of the publican?

Old friends! But their hands are cold and will never clasp ours again. Enemies! Between them and us may judgment be the offspring of Christian kindness!

And here, hedged with arbor-vitæ, is the place of our kin. Those of them who passed hither before our time we could never realize. Others are dim remembrances; like the baby sister that came one wild winter night, to our great wonder, and, to our equal sorrow, left us in spring for this small habitation.

These were not long separated. Dear old folks! one roof and one tablet for two who had but one mind and one heart. Here lies the little cousin we quarrelled with at evening, to shed over her in the morning our first remorseful tears. Look through the break in the hedge, on that square slab—

Our first school-mistress. We hated her with the impotent bitterness of childish hearts outraged. For did she not show partiality to the dullest scholar she had?—because his father was rich, the big boys said; and thus we repeated it to our fond if not judicious friend, old Diana, when we complained to her of Miss Evelyn's injustice in sending Alf Whitfield up head every Monday.

"He is the oldest," she would say. "As if oldness is any reason why a great fellow like that should have a better chance than the rest," we would think. If we had understood how much of Miss Evelyn's support depended upon the favor of rich Squire Whitfield, we might have felt differently. They say that Alf's mother used to beg of the mistress to encourage and make much of the bashful half-wit, who often wept because he could not learn like the others.

We will pull the old weeds from her grave. They shall not choke flowers planted by the orphan nephews she worked so hard to bring up respectably—worked without a complaint long after the cough we mocked behind our primers had hacked into her vitals.

Let us follow this road, beyond the pines—a little higher—here. The spot we have thought and dreamed about but never before seen.

If any one should ask why we came, hardly pausing, by so many mounds of soldiers who died in the same cause, as may be read on their tablets, we would answer that, with the soul of this one, all glory for us passed out of our marvellous sunsets, warmth from the color of our autumns, charm from our ice-bound winters, sweetness from the breath of our springs.

Down there, bordering this field consecrated to Catholic dead, is the "colored folks' ground."

How tidy it looks. Formerly it was a huddle of neglected hillocks; many of them sunken as if they who, deprecating scorn, had crept through the world in the shadow of the wall, shrank even here from obtruding.

How many of us Catholics, of the thousands that crowd that church of which we see the cross above the hill-top, or lie here with hands crossed to God, ever offered a prayer for those neglected souls, living or dead?

Before that church was built there came from the West Indies, following the fortunes of an exiled family, a gray-haired negro. He did not persevere in hearing Mass because the[194] children insulted him on the street—waited for him with stones in their hands at the corners of the church. He died, and, to fulfil his last wish, some of his people planted a cross upon his unsodded grave.

to the cheerful nook where the nurseryman's children sleep under their coverlet of flowers. From the hero's pillar by the highway, with the record,

to the monument of the beloved woman whose husband and daughters came every year from distant homes to add a tribute of plants and garlands to the granite offering they had raised to her memory.

Here, broken and half buried, is the old slab with death's-head and bones, and the verse exhorting all Christians to pray for the soul of Peter Curran.

Under this willow—she that planted it, in the belief that it would shade her rest, lies far away—our patriarch is buried: a father to orphans; to the poor a brother. That memorial in the stranger's ground—the only one—he caused to be placed above the remains of the decayed gentleman he entertained so many years and laid to rest at his own cost. Another, to whom he gave shelter, lies beside "the chevalier." The droll Swede, the whaleman, is buried behind them both. In our village foreigners were not looked upon with favor in those ante-emigration times; and this one was so blundering that no one would give him work after his honesty was proved. They were going to send him to jail as a vagrant, when Uncle Allan made up his mind that he needed just such a man for odd jobs. Bastian never learned enough English to thank him, but the tears that wet his parchment cheeks the day they brought his benefactor here were expressive.

Some fell asleep in hope; others drew back in doubt, or struggled with doom. Some, having done their best, lay down, offering it and that wherein they had failed to God, beside others who had nothing to offer but remorse.

All these yet speak to us, with more significance on this October afternoon in the October of our life than they did in past autumns; while to every one, according to his need, they teach a lesson.

They say to the covetous, "Not one of your things shall pass through the gate of this city."

To the envious, "Behold the state of him you wished to change places with yesterday."

They speak of rest to the world-weary; to the good, of beatitude; to the bad, of judgment; to all, of the end that is hastening on swift wings.

FREE RELIGION.[37]

This Free Religious Association appears to be composed of men and women who, some thirty years ago, were, or would have been, called come-outers in Boston and its vicinity, but who are now generally called radicals, a name which they seem quite willing to accept. They are universal agitators, and see or imagine grievances everywhere, and make it a point wherever they see or can invent a grievance, to hit it; at least, to strike at it. They were conspicuous in the late abolition movement, are strenuous advocates for negro equality—or, rather, negro superiority—stanch women's rights men, in a word, reformers in general. They claim to have a pure and universal religion; and though some of them are downright atheists, they profess to be more Christian than Christianity itself, and their aim would seem to be to get rid of all special religion, so as to have only religion in general. They say, in the first article of their constitution:

Nothing can be fairer or broader, so far as words go. Ordinary mortals, however, may be puzzled to make out what this religion in general, and no religion in particular, really is; and also to understand how there can be pure religion and scientific theology without God. Our radical friends are not puzzled at all. They have only to call man God, and the scientific study of the physiological and psychological laws of human nature the scientific study of theology, and every difficulty vanishes. Whoever believes in himself believes in God, and whoever can stand poised on himself has in himself the very essence of religion. According to them, the great error of the past has been in supposing that religion consists in the recognition, the love, and the service of a superior power; but the merit of free religion is, that it emancipates mankind from this mother error, discards the notion that they owe obedience to any power above humanity, and teaches that man is subject only to himself. Hence the Emersonian maxim, Obey thyself, which, translated into plain English, is, Live as thou listest.

The aim of the association, the president—whom we remember as a handsome, fair-complexioned, bright-eyed school-boy—tells us in his opening address is Unity. He says:

The rhetoric is not bad; but in what does the unity aimed at consist, and how is it to be obtained? Religion, by the speakers who addressed the association, is assumed to be a sentiment, and faith and hope and charity are, we are told, indestructible elements of human nature; then since human nature is one, what unity can the free religionists aspire to that they and all men have not already, or have not always had? Pass over this; whence and by what means is the unity, whatever it consists in, to be obtained? The answer to this question is not very definite, but it would seem the association expect it from below, not from above; for the president says, we are to obtain it only by "going down below[197] all sects—going down to faith." A Catholic would have said, We attain to unity only by rising above all sects, to a faith which is one and universal, and which the sects rend and divide among themselves. But the radicals have outgrown Catholicity, outgrown Christianity, and very properly look for faith and unity from below. But when they get down, down to the lowest deep, will they find them? What faith or unity will they find in the lowest depths of humanity in addition to what all men have always had? If, notwithstanding the unity of nature, sects and divisions prevail, and always have prevailed, how, with nothing above nature or in addition to it, do you expect to get rid of them, and establish practical unity, or to obtain the charity that springs from unity?

The radicals deny that they are destructives, that they have only negations, or that they make war on any existing church, religion, sect, or denomination; they will pardon us, then, if we are unable to conceive what they mean by unity, or what unity, except the physical unity of nature, there is or can be among those who divide on every subject in which they feel any interest. Does the association propose to get rid of diversity by indifference, and of divisions simply by bringing all men to agree to differ? We certainly find only unity in denying among the individuals associated, who agree in nothing except that each one holds himself or herself alone responsible for his or her own personal views and utterances. Some of them would retain the Christian name, and others would reject it. Mr. Francis Ellingwood Abbott argues that it is not honest to hold on to the name after having rejected the thing. By professing to be a Christian a man binds himself to accept Christianity; and whoso accepts Christianity, binds himself to accept the Catholic Church, which embodies and expresses it. We make an extract from his address:

Mr. Abbott is not quite exact in his phraseology, and does not state the Catholic principle correctly. The principle on which the church rests, and out of which grow all her doctrines and precepts, is not authority, but the mystery of the Incarnation, or the assumption of human nature by the Word. Nor is he himself quite honest according to his own test of honesty. To be consistent with himself, he must reject not only the term Christian, but also the term religion, and put the alternative, Either Catholicity or no religion. The word religion—from religare—means either intensively to bind more firmly, or iteratively, to bind again, to bind man morally to God as his last end, in addition to his being physically bound to God as his first cause. Free religion is a contradiction in terms, as much so as free bondage. Religion is always a bond, a law that binds.

Ralph Waldo Emerson differs from Mr. Abbott, and would retain the name Christian, though without the reality. We quote a long passage from his not very remarkable speech, out of deference to his rank as one of the originators of the movement:

Mr. Emerson cannot be very deeply read in patristic literature, if he[199] is obliged to go to Max Müller for a quotation from St. Augustine, and he proves by his deductions from the language of this great doctor and father that he knows little of the Catholic Church. St. Augustine was a Catholic, and taught that, though times vary, faith does not vary, and that as believed the patriarchs so believe we, only they believed in the Christ who was to come, and we in the Christ who has come; and the church teaches through her doctors that there has been only one revelation, that this was made, in substance, to our first parents in the garden. She teaches us that Christianity is not only as old, but even older than creation; for creation with all it contains was created in reference to Christ the Incarnate Word, and consequently Christianity, founded in the Incarnation, is really the supreme law according to which the universe was created and exists. It precedes all other religions, and the various heathen or pagan religions and mythologies are only traditions, corruptions, perversions, or travesties of it. To the question, "How is the church catholic?" the very child's catechism answers, "Because she subsists in all ages, teaches all nations, and maintains all truth." How otherwise could she be Catholic?

That "every sentiment [doctrine?] and precept of Christianity can be paralleled in other religious writings" (religions, for Christianity is not a writing) may be true in part, if taken separately and in an unchristian sense; but certainly not as a connected and self-consistent system, in its unity and integrity. But suppose it, what then? It would only prove that all religions have retained more or less of the primitive revelation, which all men held in common before the Gentile apostasy and the dispersion of the race consequent on the attempt to build the Tower of Babel; not that all religions have had a common origin in human nature. What we actually find in pagan religions and mythologies that is like Christianity, is no more than we should expect on the supposition of a primitive revelation held out of unity, and interpreted by pride, folly, and ignorance, the characteristics of every pagan people. But Mr. Emerson is true to the old doctrine which he chanted years ago in The Dial:

Nothing can roll out of the heart of nature but nature itself; and hence, in order to derive Christianity from within, Mr. Emerson eliminates whatever is supernatural and external and reduces it to simple nature, which every man from the beginning to the end of the world carries within him, and of which he cannot divest himself. He unchristianizes Christianity, makes it an element of human nature, confounds it with the natural laws of the physicists, and then tells us it is as old as creation, which is about as much as telling us man is as old as—man, or nature is as old as—nature. Well may Mr. Emerson be called the Sage of Concord, and be listened to as an oracle.

All the speakers, with three exceptions, seemed anxious to have it understood that the Free Religious Association has some great affirmative truth which is destined to redeem and save the world. Colonel Higginson, the successor of Theodore Parker, tells us with great earnestness:

But the reverend colonel here affirms nothing not affirmed by Christianity, nor any thing more than belongs to all men. Natural religion is simply the natural law, the moral law, prescribed to every man through his reason by the end for which he is created, and is included in the Christian religion as essential to the Christian character. What the free religionist does is not to affirm any thing not universally insisted on by the Catholic Church, but to deny all religion but universal natural religion; that is, he simply denies supernatural revelation, and the supernatural order, or that there is any reality broader than nature or above it. Free religion, as such, is, then, not affirmative, but purely negative; the negation of all religions in so far as they assert the supernatural. The real thought and design of the men and women composing the association is to get rid of every thing in every religion that transcends or professes to transcend nature. They make no direct war on the church or even on the sects, we concede; for they take it for granted that when people are once fully persuaded that nature is all, and that only natural religion is or can be true, all else will gradually die out of itself.

Mrs. Lucy Stone agrees in this with the others, and does not disguise her thought. She says:

If Mr. Abbott is the logician of the association, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe is decidedly the wit. In the essay she read to the meeting she, with her keen woman's wit and her hard[201] common sense, shows up in admirable style the ridiculousness and absurdity of the whole movement. She is not herself indeed free from all taint of radicalism, and much she says may be due to her facility in detecting and satirizing the follies and absurdities of her friends rather than those of her foes; but her essay proves that she has a soul, and knows that it has aspirations that go beyond nature, and wants which only a supernatural religion can satisfy. She evidently has glimpses of a truth higher, deeper, broader, than any recognized by any other radical who spoke. She disposes of free religion in a single sentence, "He is not religious who does not recognize the obligations of religion." We have space only for the concluding paragraph of her not very logical, self-consistent, but witty, shrewd, and satirical essay on Freedom and Restraint in Religion:

A stranger, who gave his name as Gustave Watson, made a brief, modest, sensible speech, which fully refuted the radical pretensions. He told them that he had listened in vain to hear pronounced the great affirmative truth the speakers professed to have. An evangelical minister, a Rev. Jesse H. Jones, took up the defence of Christianity, but was too ignorant of the Christian faith, and too far gone himself in radicalism, to be able to effect much. He took up the weakest line of defence possible, and labored chiefly to show the novelty of Christianity against St. Augustine, and its identity, under one of its aspects, with carnal Judaism or modern socialism. An orthodox Jew sent an essay and a liberal Jew spoke. A professor of spiritism made a speech, and several radicals spoke whose speeches we are obliged to pass over, though as good as those we have noticed.

We have refrained as far as possible from ridiculing the proceedings of the association, which is no association at all, since it is founded on the principle of free individualism; for we wish to treat all men and women with the respect due to ourselves, if not to themselves. The chief actors in the movement we have formerly known, and some of them intimately. We have no doubt of their sincerity and earnestness; but we must be permitted to say that we have found nothing new or striking in their speeches, and we cannot remember the time when we were not perfectly familiar with all their doctrines and pretensions. Their views and aims were set forth in the New England metropolis nearly forty years ago, if with less mental refinement and polish, with an originality and freshness, a force and energy, which they can hardly hope to rival. They were embodied in 1836, and attempted to be realized in the Society for Christian Union and Progress, which its founder abandoned because he would not suffer it to grow into a sect, because he saw his movement was leading no whither, and could accomplish nothing for the glory of God or the good of mankind here or hereafter, and because, through the grace and mercy of God, he became convinced of the truth and sanctity of the Catholic Church against which the Protestant reformers in the sixteenth century rebelled. He may not now be very proud of these radicals, but they are, to a great extent, the product of a movement of which he and Ralph Waldo Emerson were the earliest and principal leaders in Boston.

We readily acknowledge that the pretensions of these radical men and women are very great, but they show no great intellectual ability, and are painfully narrow and superficial. The ministers and ex-ministers who figured on the occasion exhibited neither depth nor breadth of view, neither strength nor energy of mind. They proved themselves passable rhetoricians, but deplorably ignorant of the past and the present, of the religions they believed themselves to have outgrown, and especially of human nature and the wants of the human soul. They appeared to know only their own theories projected[203] from themselves, and which are as frail and as attenuated as any spider's web ever rendered visible by the morning dew. They pretend to have studied, mastered, and exhausted all the past systems, religions, and mythologies; they pride themselves on the universality of their knowledge, and their having lost all bigotry, intolerance, or severity toward any sect or denomination. They speak even patronizingly of the church, and are quite ready to concede that she was good and useful to humanity in her day, in barbarous times, and in the infancy of the race; but humanity, having attained its majority, has outgrown her, and demands now a more manly and robust, a purer and broader and a more living and life-giving religion—a religion, in a word, more Christian than Christianity, more Catholic than Catholicity. Ignorant or worse than ignorant of the lowest elements of Catholic teaching, they fancy they have outgrown it, as the adult man has outgrown the garments of his childhood. Their self-conceit is sublime. Why, they are not large enough to wear the fig-leaf aprons fabricated by the reformers of the sixteenth century with which to cover their nakedness. The tallest and stoutest among them is a dwarf by the side of a Luther or a Calvin, or even of the stern old Puritan founders of New England; nay, they cannot bear an intellectual comparison even with the originators of New England Unitarianism.

Take the Reverend Colonel Higginson, a man of good blood and rich natural gifts, one who, if he had been trained in a Christian school, and had had his mind elevated and expanded by the study of Christian dogmata, could hardly have failed to be one of the great men, if not the greatest man of his age. He has naturally true nobility of soul, rare intellectual power, and genius of a high order; yet he is so blinded, and so dwarfed in mind by his radicalism, that he can seriously say, "There is no affirmation except the belief in universal natural religion; all else is narrowness and sectarianism." He has, then, no views broader than nature, no aspirations that rise higher than nature, and labors under the delusion that men, reduced to nature alone, would really be elevated and ennobled. He has never learned that nature is not self-sufficing—is dependent; that it has both its origin and end as well as its medium in the supernatural, and could not act or subsist a moment without it—a truth which the Catholic child has learned before a dozen years old, and which is a simple commonplace with the Christian; so much so, that he rarely thinks it necessary to assert it, far less to prove it.

This utterance of the reverend colonel is accepted by all the radicals. None of them get above second causes; for them all God and nature appear to be identical and indistinguishable; and this appears to be their grand and all-reconciling doctrine. Hence the religion which they propose has no higher origin than man, and no higher end than the natural development and well-being of man, individual and social, in this earthly life. It is the religion of humanity, not the religion of God, and man, not God, is obeyed and worshipped in it; yet it seems never to occur to these wise men and women that nature either separated from or identified with God vanishes into nothing, and their religion with it. But is a religion that is simply evolved from humanity, that has no element above the human, and is necessarily restricted to man in this life, and that contemplates neither fore nor after, higher, deeper, and more universal than[204] Christianity which asserts for us the nature and essence of God, teaches us the origin and end of all things, the real relations of man to his Maker and to universal nature through all the degrees and stages of his existence? No; it is your naturism that is "narrowness and sectarianism."

Radicalism has heard of the mystery of the Incarnation, and interprets it to mean not the union of two for ever distinct natures, the divine and human, in one divine person, but one divine nature in all human persons. Hence, while the person is human, circumscribed, and transitory, nature in all men is divine, is God himself, permanent, universal, infinite, immortal. This is what the Christian mystery, according to them, really means, though the ignorant, narrow-minded, and blundering apostles never knew it, never understood its profound significance. The church took the narrow and shallow view of the apostles; and hence our radicals have outgrown the church, and instead of looking back or without, above or beyond themselves, they look only within, down into their own divine nature, whence emanates the universe, and in which is all virtue, all good, all truth, all force, all reality. The aim of all moral and religious discipline must be to get rid of all personal distinction, all circumscription, and to sink all individuality in the divine nature, which is the real man, the "one man," the "over-soul" of which Mr. Emerson in his silvery tones formerly discoursed so eloquently and captivated so many charming Boston girls, who understood him by sympathy with their hearts, not their heads, though what he said seemed little better than transcendental nonsense to the elder, graver, and less susceptible of both sexes. Impersonal nature is divine; hence the less of persons we are the more divine we are, and the more we act from the promptings of impersonal nature the more god-like our acts. Hence instinct, which is impersonal, is a safer guide than reason, which is personal; the logic of the heart is preferable to the logic of the head, and fools and madmen superior to the wise and the sane. Hence, are fools and madmen profoundly reverenced by Turks and Arabs.

But impersonal nature is one and identical in all men, and identical, too, with the divine nature. There are no distinct, specific, or individual natures; there is only one nature in all men and things; for all individuality, all difference or distinction, is in the personality. Hence when you get rid of personality, which, after all, has no real subsistence, and sink back into impersonal nature, you attain at once to absolute unity, always and ever present under all the diversity of beliefs, views, or persons. Men and women are mere bubbles floating on the face of the ocean, and nothing distinguishes them from the ocean underlying them but their bubbleosity. Destroy that, and they are the ocean itself. Get rid of personality, sink back into impersonal nature, and all men and women become one, and identical in the one universal nature. Vulgar radicals and reformers seek to reform society by laboring to ameliorate the condition of men and women as persons, and are less profitably employed than the boy blowing soap-bubbles; for the reality is in the ocean on the face of which the bubble floats, not in the bubbleosity. The true radicals, who radicalize in satin slippers and kid gloves, seek not to ameliorate the bubbleosity which is unreal, an unveracity, a mere apparition, a sense-show, but to ameliorate man and society by sinking it, and all differences with it, in universal impersonal nature.

Yet what amelioration is possible except personal? If you get rid of men and women as persons, you annihilate them in every sense in which they are distinguishable from the one universal nature; and suppose you to succeed in doing it, your reform, your amelioration would be the annihilation of man and society; for you can have neither without men and women as individuals—that is, as persons. To reform or ameliorate them in their impersonal nature is both impossible and unnecessary; for in their impersonal nature they are identical with universal nature, and universal nature is God, infinite, immutable, immortal, incapable of being augmented or diminished. Nothing can be done for or against impersonal nature. We see, then, nothing that these refined and accomplished radicals can propose as the object of their labors but the making of all men and women, as far as possible, talk and act like fools and madmen. This would seem to be their grand discovery, and the proof of their having outgrown the church.

But we should be ourselves the fool and madman if we attempted to reason with them. They discard logic, reject reason, and count the understanding as one of the poorest of our faculties; as mean, narrow, personal. Reason and understanding are personal; and all truth, all knowledge, all wisdom, all that is real is impersonal. Is not the impersonality of God, that is, of nature, a primary article of their creed? How, then, reason with them or expect them to listen to the voice of reason? Reason is too strait for them, and they have outgrown it, as they have outgrown the church! They do not even pretend to be logically consistent with themselves. No one holds himself bound by his own utterances, any more than he does by the utterances of another. They are free religionists, and scorn to be bound even by the truth.

But suppose they wish to retain men and women—or women and men, for with them woman is the superior—as persons, how do they expect by restricting, as they do, their knowledge to this life, and making their happiness consist in the goods of this world alone, to effect their individual amelioration? Socialism secures always its own defeat. The happiness of this life is attainable only by living for another. Restricted to this life and this world, man has play for only his animal instincts, propensities, and powers. There is no object on which his higher or peculiarly human affections and faculties can be exerted, and his moral, religious, rational nature must stagnate and rot, or render him unspeakably miserable by his hungering and thirsting after a spiritual good which he has not, and which is nowhere to be had. The happiness of this life comes from living for a supernatural end, the true end of man, in obedience to the law it prescribes. When we make this life or this world our end, or assume, with Mr. Emerson, that we have it within, in our own impersonal nature, we deny the very condition of either individual or social happiness, take falsehood for truth; and no good ever does or can come from falsehood.

It will be observed by our readers, from the extracts we have made, that the radicals not only confine their views to humanity and to this life, but proceed on the assumption of the sufficiency of man's nature for itself. They appear to have, with the exception of Mrs. Howe, no sense of the need of any supernatural help. They have no sense of the incompleteness and insufficiency of nature, as they have no compassion for its weakness. They never stumble, never fall, never[206] sin, are never baffled, are never in need of assistance. It is not so with ordinary mortals. We find nature insufficient for us, our own strength inadequate; and, voyaging over the stormy ocean of life, we are often wrecked, and compelled to cry out in agony of soul, "Lord, save or we perish." Whosoever has received any religious instruction knows that it is not in ourselves but in God that we live and move and have our being, and that not without supernatural assistance can we attain true beatitude.

In conclusion, we may say, these radical men and women set forth nothing not familiar to us before the late Theodore Parker was an unfledged student of the Divinity School, Cambridge, and even before most of them were born. We know their views and aims better than they themselves know them, and we have lived long enough to learn that they are narrow and superficial, false and vain. We have in the church the freedom we sighed for but found not, and which is not to be found, in radicalism. God is more than man, more than nature, and never faileth; Christ the God-man, at once perfect God and perfect man, two distinct natures in one divine person, is the way, the truth, and the life; and out of him there is no salvation, no true life, no beatitude. We do not expect these radicals to believe us; they are worshippers of man and nature, and joined to their idols. Esteeming themselves wise, they become fools; ever learning, they are never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, any more than the child is able to grasp the rainbow.

MEMENTO MORI.

We read that the celebrated Montaigne wished to make a compilation of remarkable death-bed scenes; for, as he said, "he who should teach men how to die would teach them how to live." It may not be unprofitable for us to recall the last moments of some who have died in the Catholic Church. It may give us some new idea of the power of faith to sustain the soul in that supreme moment, and show us in what a super-eminent degree the spirit of the church fits one for the last great change, and fortifies him to meet it hopefully if not triumphantly. Let us, then, in this month, consecrated by so many pious Catholic hearts to the memory of the dead, draw around the death-beds of some who are remarkable in various ways, and see if we would not have our last end like theirs. There is a horrid curiosity, if no higher feeling, which attracts us to the side of the dying, "to observe their words, their actions, and what sort of countenance they put upon it." It is as if we would read the final conflict of the soul, obtain some new insight into the great mystery of death, and perhaps catch some glimpse of what awaits us beyond its shadows. Even the unbeliever at such a moment, forced to reflect on the destiny of the soul, exclaims, "Soul, what art thou? Flame that[207] devourest me, wilt thou live after me? Must thou suffer still? Mysterious guest, what wilt thou become? Seekest thou to reunite thyself to the great flame of day? Perhaps from this fire thou art only a spark, only a wandering ray which that star recalls. Perhaps, ceasing to exist when man dies, thou art only a moisture more pure than the animated dust the earth has produced." The mind thus excited to doubt and question is already on the road to conviction. To see how a good man meets his fate, is a lesson of heavenly love which fastens itself in the memory; the words that consoled him and that he uttered sink into the heart, perhaps to diffuse light when our own time comes.

If Addison found nothing more imposing, nothing more affecting, than accounts of the last moments of the dying; if the great Montaigne loved the most minute details respecting them, we need not turn with repugnance from what we have a vital interest in, and what may give us some new idea of the blessing of dying in the arms of our Holy Mother the Church, fortified by her sacraments and sustained by her spirit. The French historian Anquetil, in giving an account of the death of Montmorenci, says, "It is instructive for persons of all conditions in life to witness the death of a great man who unites noble sentiments with Christian humility." It is true Dr. Johnson says, "It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives;" but a holy death is generally the crown of a good life, though "there are dark, dark deaths which even the saints have died, the aspect of whose brightness was all turned heavenward, so we could not see it."[38]

I do not believe that "there is more or less of affectation in every death-bed scene." Young, rather, is right:

How many have died like St. Oswald, Archbishop of York, and the Venerable Bede, repeating the Gloria Patri—that act of praise which St. Jerome found in constant use among the oriental monks, and was the means of introducing it into the western church, where it is now daily repeated by countless tongues.

St. Ignatius Loyola died with the holy name of Jesus on his lips, that watchword of his glorious order so full of sweetness to the heart. So did that angelic youth, St. Aloysius. St. Hubert died repeating the Lord's Prayer; St. Stephen of Grandmont while saying, "Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit." So did St. John of the Cross, St. Catharine of Genoa, and hundreds of others.

St. Arsenius, after more than fifty years spent in the desert, regarded death with fear. His brethren, seeing him weep in his agony, asked him if, like other men, he feared to die. "I am seized with great fear," he answered, "nor has this dread ever left me since I first came into the desert." Nevertheless, he expired, in peace and humble confidence, in his ninety-fifth year.

St. John Chrysostom, when dying, had all his clothes changed, even to his shoes, putting on his best garments, which were white, as for his heavenly nuptials; for "to one who loves," says Novalis, "death is a mystery of sweet mysteries—it is a bridal night." He then received the blessed sacrament and prayed, ending according to his custom, with, "Glory be to God for all things." Then making the sign of the cross, he gave up his soul.[39]

We read of the poet-monk Cædmon, "That tongue, which had composed so many holy words in praise of the Creator, uttered its last words while he was in the act of signing himself with the cross, and thus he fell into a slumber to awaken in paradise and join in the hymns of the holy angels whom he had imitated in this world, both in his life and in his songs."[40]

The account of the death of the Venerable Bede is well known, but it is one that can always be read again and again with renewed profit, and never without emotion.

We read that St. Dunstan had Mass celebrated in his room on the day of his death; and after communicating, he broke forth into the following prayer, "Glory be to thee, Almighty Father, who hast given the bread of life from heaven to those that fear thee, that we may be mindful of thy wonderful mercy to man in the incarnation of thine only-begotten Son, born of the Virgin. To thee, Holy Father, for that when we were not, thou didst give to us a being, and when we were sinners, didst grant to us a Redeemer, we give due thanks through the same thy Son, our Lord and God, who with thee and the Holy Ghost maketh all things, governeth all things, and liveth through ages and ages without end." Shortly afterward he died in the sixty-fourth year of his age.

The Cistercian abbot Aelred of Yorkshire died in wonderful peace after eight years of monastic life, repeating with his last breath, "I will [210] sing eternally, O Lord, thy mercy, thy mercy, thy mercy!"

While St. Wilfrid of York lay dying in the fair town of Oundle, the monks did not cease chanting night and day around his bed, though with much ado, so bitterly they wept. When they came to the one hundred and third psalm, and were sweetly and solemnly singing the words, "Emittes spiritum tuum, et creabuntur, et renovabis faciem terræ," "Thou shalt send forth thy spirit, and they shall be created; and thou shalt renew the face of the earth," the words stirred the soul of the careworn abbot, by whose pillow lay the Lord's body and blood; he turned his head gently, and without a sigh gave back his soul to God.[42]

St. Gilbert, when he was more than a century old, used to exclaim, "How long, O Lord, wilt thou forget me for ever? Woe is me, for the time of my sojourning is prolonged!" His soul was at last released one morning at the hour of dawn, while the monks were repeating the verse of the office, "The night is far spent, the day is at hand."

Twenty abbots assembled to witness the death of St. Stephen Harding at Citeaux. Hearing them whisper that he had nothing to fear after so holy and austere a life, he said to them trembling, "I assure you I go to God in fear and trembling. If my baseness should be found to have ever done any good, even in this I fear lest I should not have preserved that grace with the humility and care I ought."

St. Francis of Assisi, when he found he was dying, wished to be laid on the bare ground. When this was done, he crossed his arms and said, "Farewell, my children. I leave you in the fear of God. Abide therein. The time of trial and tribulation cometh. Happy are they who persevere in well-doing. For me, I go to God joyfully, recommending you all to his grace." He had the passion according to the Gospel of St. John read to him, and then repeated in a feeble voice the one hundred and forty-first psalm. Having said the final verse, "Bring my soul out of prison," he breathed his last.

St. Thomas Aquinas died lying on ashes sprinkled on the floor. When he saw the holy viaticum in the priest's hands, he said, "I firmly believe that Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is present in this august sacrament. I adore thee, my God and my Redeemer. I receive thee, the price of my redemption, the viaticum of my pilgrimage, for whose honor I have studied, labored, preached, and taught. I hope I have never advanced any tenet as thy word which I had not learned from thee. If through ignorance I have done otherwise, I revoke it all and submit my writings to the judgment of the holy Roman Church." Thus lying in peace and joy, he received the last sacraments, and was heard to murmur, "Soon, soon will the God of all consolation crown his mercy to me and satisfy all my desires. I shall shortly be satiated in him, and drink of the torrent of my delights; be inebriated from the abundance of his house; and in him, the source of life, I shall behold the true light."

When the viaticum was brought to St. Theresa, she rose up in her bed and exclaimed, "My Lord and my Spouse! the desired hour has at length come. It is time for me to depart hence." Her confessor asked her if she wished to be buried in her own convent at Avila. She replied, "Have I any thing of my own in this world? Will they not give me a little earth here?" She died with the crucifix in her hands, repeating, as[211] long as she could speak, the verse of the Miserere, "A contrite and humble heart, O God, thou wilt not despise!"

There is a touching account of a renowned and pious knight who, in the ages of faith, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Following lovingly the traces of our Saviour's steps, his heart became so broken with sorrow and love that his life flowed out through the wound. He visited with tender devotion Nazareth, whose hills leaped for joy when the Divine Word became incarnate in the womb of a Virgin; Mount Tabor, whose summit was lit up by God glorifying his only Son; the river Jordan, consecrated by the baptism our Lord received at the hands of St. John the Baptist; Bethlehem, where in a poor manger were heard the first cries of the Infant Word; the Garden of Gethsemane, which Jesus bedewed with a bloody sweat; Golgotha, where by his blood the Redeemer reconciled earth with heaven; and the glorious tomb whence the God-man issued triumphant over death. Finally, he came to the Mount of Olives. Here contemplating the sacred foot-prints left on the rock by the ascending Saviour, he pressed his lips upon them with loving gratitude; then gathering together all the strength of his love, raising his eyes and hands toward heaven, and longing to ascend by the way taken by our Saviour, "O Lord Jesus!" he cried in all the ardor of his love, "I can no longer find thee or follow thee in this land of exile; grant that my heart may ascend to thee on high!" And, as he uttered these ardent words, his soul fled to God like an arrow direct to its aim.

I find in an old book the following affecting account of the death of Friar Benedict, who died at La Trappe on the twentieth of August, 1674:

When William the Conqueror was on his death-bed, he confessed all the sins of his life, from his youth up, aloud and before a large number of priests and nobles from England and Normandy. We read that, after a long agony, on Thursday, the ninth of September, as the sun rose in glorious splendor, William awoke, and presently heard the great bell of the metropolitan church. He asked why it was ringing. "Seigneur," replied his servants, "it is ringing for prime at the church of our Lady St. Mary." Then the king raised his eyes to heaven and, lifting up his hands, said, "I recommend myself to holy Mary, Mother of God, that by her holy prayers she may reconcile me to her dear and beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ." With these words he expired.[43]

Peter, King of Aragon, at the approach of death, devoutly confessed all his sins and received the sacraments. After bidding his family farewell, he took a cross in his hands, lifted his streaming eyes to heaven, crossed himself three times, kissed the cross, and then said, "O Lord our Father, Jesus Christ our true God! into thy hands I commend my spirit. Deign by thy holy passion to receive my soul into paradise with the blessed St. Martin, whose festival Christians this day celebrate." And with his eyes still raised heavenward, he departed.[44]

When James, an unlearned lay brother of the order of St. Francis, came to die, he begged pardon of all his brethren, took a wooden cross from the head of his bed, kissed it, put it to his eyes, and then said, with tenderness, "Dulce lignum, dulces clavos, dulcia ferens pondera, quæ [214] sola fuisti digna sustinere Regem cœlorum et Dominum," "O sweet wood, sweet nails, supporting a sweet burden! Thou alone wast worthy to sustain the King and Lord of the heavens." All around him were greatly astonished, for he was unlearned, and they had never heard him speak in Latin.[45]

We read in the life of St. Gertrude of the death of a young person, who from her infancy upward had always shown a real spirit of detachment from the world. When she found herself in the agony of death, she bade farewell to all who were present, promising to be mindful of them before God. Then turning in her sufferings toward the Heavenly Bridegroom, she earnestly said, "O Lord, who knowest the most secret thoughts of my heart, thou hast known how eagerly I have longed to spend all the powers of my being, even unto old age, in thy service; now that I feel thou desirest to recall me to thyself, all my desire of serving thee in this world is changed to such an ardent longing to behold thee, and be united to thee, that death, however bitter it may be to others, only seems sweet to me." She wished the sisters to read to her the account of the sufferings of our Saviour in the Gospel of St. John, and when they came to the words, "He bowed his head and gave up the ghost," she asked for a crucifix. She lovingly kissed the feet of the image of our Saviour, thanked him for his graces, commended her soul to his care, and then slept peacefully in our Lord.

Our own Mother Seton, though she saw the intense grief of all the community, and heard the sobs of her daughter, who fainted at her side, died with the most profound composure. Her whole appearance indicated peace and resignation. Lifting her hands and eyes to heaven, she said, "May the most just, the most high, and the most amiable will of God be accomplished for ever." Her last words were the sacred names of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

The poet Tasso, when informed that his last hour was at hand, not only received the warning without alarm, but, embracing the physician, thanked him for tidings so agreeable, and, raising his eyes to heaven, returned tender and devout thanks to his Creator that, after so tempestuous a life, he now brought him to a calm haven. From this time he did not speak willingly on terrestrial subjects, not even of that fame after death of which through life he had been most solicitous; but resigned himself wholly and with the liveliest devotion to the last solemn offices prescribed by his religion. After confessing with great contrition, and receiving twice the sacrament with a reverence and humility that affected all the beholders, he received the papal benediction humbly and gratefully, saying this was the chariot upon which he hoped to go crowned, not with laurel as a poet into the capital, but with glory as a saint to heaven. When he had arranged all his earthly affairs, he begged to be left alone with his crucifix and one or two spiritual advisers, who by turns sung psalms, in which he sometimes joined. When his voice failed, his eyes still remained fixed upon the image of the crucified Redeemer. His last act was to embrace it closely. His last words, "Into thy hands, O Lord."

I quote the following account of the death of the great Raphael, in the form of a letter from Cardinal Bibbiena:

Besides these holy and edifying deaths, which might be continued indefinitely, we all have treasured up in our heart of hearts the sacred memory of some dear ones whose last words will go on vibrating in our hearts for ever.

REPLY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN ASSEMBLIES TO THE POPE'S LETTER.

We will preface our remarks upon the foregoing document by a few words of explanation to our European readers respecting the bodies whose joint manifesto it is.

The Presbyterians of the United States are quite distinct from the Congregationalists of New England, the descendants of the English Puritans, although the two fraternize together to a great extent. The Presbyterian Church is the daughter of the Kirk of Scotland, having its home in the Middle States, whence it has spread through the country, especially toward the West. Its government is more vigorous than that of any other church except the Methodist, and its doctrinal strictness surpasses that of all other large societies. Its clergy number about five thousand, having, we believe, somewhere near a half a million of communicants, and three or four times as many members in a looser sense. It is, on the whole, the first denomination as regards respectability, taking the country generally, and in all its periods of history; and, if we reckon its allies, the Dutch Reformed and Congregationalist societies, with it, as representing the Calvinistic phase of Protestantism, this is the system which has possessed the same vantage-ground in the British colonies of the United States that the Episcopal Church has taken in England.[46] Some thirty years ago, the Presbyterian body split into two great divisions by means of a dispute about rigid and moderate Calvinism, and rigid or lax enforcement of the Presbyterian polity. The two General Assemblies which recently met in this city adopted a plan of reunion which will probably receive general acceptance, and fuse the Old and New School Presbyterians together again in one body. The letter to the pope proceeds from the two assemblies, acting through their respective moderators in virtue of a resolution which passed both houses, which explains the fact that it is signed by two distinct presiding officers. With these few prefatory remarks, we pass to the consideration of the document itself.

We are very glad that the Presbyterian [219] Assemblies have replied to the pontifical letter. We are sure that all calmly-reflecting persons will agree that in doing so they have fulfilled an obligation of bienséance required by a sense both of the dignity of the Roman see and of their own respectability. They have shown, therefore, more courtesy and more self-respect than either the Eastern patriarchs or the Protestant Episcopal bishops, and, so to speak, have taken the water of their haughty rival, the General Convention. The tone of the document is remarkably dignified and courteous, and it will undoubtedly be so considered by the prelates of the council and the Holy Father. We would suggest to the gentlemen whose signatures are appended the propriety of making an authentic translation of the document into the Latin language, and of sending this, with the original, in an official manner, properly certified, to Rome. The editor of the Evangelist seems to apprehend that the addressing of this letter to the pope might be deemed officious or impertinent. We can assure him, however, and all other persons concerned, that this is by no means the case. The address of the pope to all Christians not in his communion was no mere formality, but perfectly sincere and in earnest. The Nestorian and Eutychian, as well as the Greek bishops, were invited to present themselves at the council, although these are far less orthodox on the fundamental doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation than the Presbyterian Assemblies have proved themselves to be, by their full confession of agreement with the faith of the Roman Church on these articles. It is true that the above-mentioned bishops were invited on a different footing—not merely as Christians, but as bishops. The reason of this is, that their episcopal character is recognized and does not need to be proved. Therefore, all they have to do is to purge themselves of heresy and schism in order to be entitled, ipso facto, to take their places as constituent members of the council, with the right of voting, which will most certainly not be otherwise conceded to them. The Protestant bishops could not be invited as bishops, because their episcopal character is not recognized. If some of them should appear to put in their claim, we have no doubt, from the tenor of letters published in the English Catholic papers, that they would be received with great respect and consideration, and be allowed to argue their cause either before the council or a special congregation. It is not yet too late for some of them, who have sufficient courage and confidence in their cause, to do it, and we hope they will. Presbyterian Protestants make no claim to episcopal succession or ordination. Consequently they, by their own admission, must be regarded by the council, and by all who adhere to the hierarchical principle on which the first six councils were constituted, as destitute of any right to a position above that of laymen. Nevertheless, they are the heads and teachers of large and respectable societies, equal in point of fact, in our judgment, to those who call themselves bishops or presbyters in episcopally-governed Protestant societies, and therefore entitled to respect and consideration. No doubt they would receive all this were they to present themselves at the council as representatives of their religious societies. Of course, a council cannot consent to treat as open questions any matters already defined by previous councils, or enter into a controversial discussion of doctrines with men who, like Dr. Cumming, would wish to go there as champions of Protestantism.[220] The only attitude in which it would be proper to appear at a council would be that of persons asking for an explanation of the Catholic doctrines, and of the motives on which they are based, which implies a disposition to reconsider anew the grounds of the original separation. That this disposition does not exist at present very extensively we are well aware, and cannot, therefore, expect that there will be at the approaching council any thing like a conference of the heads of Protestantism with the Catholic prelates. There may be other councils, however, at no very distant period, where this may take place with very great advantage, and with the happiest results in reuniting all Christians within the one fold of Christ's church. It is something, however, to get from a great religious society like the Presbyterian body of the United States a formal statement of the reasons why they remain separated from the Catholic Church, in the shape of a letter to the pope. Such a statement has very great interest and great weight, and the document before us is certainly far superior to the encyclical of the Pan-Anglican Synod, or the other manifestoes of a similar kind which have been issued from various Protestant assemblies. The amiable editor of the Evangelist compares it to "a hand of iron under a velvet glove." We will venture, however, until some stronger and more authoritative hand shall be stretched out to measure strength with it, to submit our own, though a small one, to its grasp, wearing a glove of the same material. We do this without fear and without ill-will, though our remarks are only those of a private individual, having no force beyond the reason that is in them. We do it the more readily, and with greater interest, as the writer of this article is the son of a former moderator of one of these assemblies, and is indebted to that respectable body for some special prayers which it charitably offered for his spiritual welfare.

The first and most striking feature noticeable in the letter is the exculpation from heresy and schism which it puts forward. Nothing could show more clearly that the compilers feel that there is a prima-facie case against them. They are in the attitude of men who have broken off from the body of Christendom, separated from the communion which once included all Christians, and put forth a doctrine special to themselves, thus "condemned by their own judgment,"[47] as St. Paul says is characteristic of those who turn aside from sound doctrine. We do not judge any one individual among the Presbyterians to be a formal heretic or schismatic. The authors of the separation lived centuries ago, and men of this generation have been placed in their state of separation by the act of their ancestors. We speak, therefore, only of material heresy and schism, not in an offensive sense, but from the necessity of being distinct and adhering to the phraseology which the document before us itself uses. We are obliged to say, therefore, that the very exculpation it presents is a proof of the existence of that state of heresy and schism which is denied. The fact of having departed from the doctrine and communion in which the authors of Presbyterianism were educated, and which is that of the great body of Christians descending in unbroken continuity from the past, is acknowledged. The excuse given is, that the church had erred, added to the faith, changed the law, and was therefore herself responsible. The very justification which is made establishes the truth of the charge. It establishes the fact [221] that particular members of the church set up a private doctrine and a private organization against the Catholic doctrine and communion, which is precisely what is meant by heresy and schism.

It is thus that a person who refuses to submit to the judgment of the church judges himself. So long as he professes to submit to the church, and disputes not the binding authority of her doctrines, but their proper sense and meaning, his case is one for adjudication, like that of Pelagius; but as soon as he rejects the acknowledged doctrine of the church, defined by a competent tribunal, as erroneous, he at once pronounces himself an alien from the commonwealth, and by his own sentence forfeits all the rights of his citizenship in it. The Presbyterian judicatories act on this principle. The test of heresy with them is denial of the doctrines defined in their confession of faith. The individual, or even the congregation, is not the final authority. The presbytery, the synod, the general assembly, are all legislative and judicial courts, deciding questions of doctrine and discipline with authority, and exacting submission from each individual clergyman and layman as a condition of church fellowship. They avow, therefore, and act on the principle, that the revolt of the individual against church discipline is, ipso facto, schism, and his revolt against church doctrine, ipso facto heresy; so that by his very declaration, that he is in the right and the church in the wrong, he judges himself as a schismatic or heretic. Yet they themselves in judging their own refractory members have given a far more signal example of that self-judgment which St. Paul speaks of. For they have acted in the same manner toward the church universal as their own condemned members have acted toward them, and have thus sentenced themselves in pronouncing upon these their ecclesiastical censure.

This principle is capable of a more amplified statement and application. Heresy consists essentially in the denial of a part of the Catholic faith, coupled with the profession of the remaining parts. It is an affirmation and negation, in the same breath, of the same principles. It is, therefore, self-judged, because the affirmation which it makes in general terms of the truth of the Catholic faith, and of a greater or lesser number of the distinct dogmas of the faith, condemns and contradicts the denial which it makes of some one or more particular doctrines of the same faith. Moreover, every sect condemns all the other errors condemned by the church, except its own; so that, taking all heresies in the aggregate, they condemn and destroy each other; according to the declaration of holy Scripture, mentita est iniquitas sibi—unrighteousness has proved false to itself.

We find, therefore, that the spokesmen of the Presbyterian assemblies admit the obligation of Catholic unity, profess their belief in the Catholic church and the Catholic faith, and yet do not venture to assert that the Presbyterian family is the Catholic Church, its doctrine the Catholic faith; that it possesses unity in itself, and that all those Christians who are separated from it are bound to seek admission into its fold. They take what they implicitly admit to be an exceptional, abnormal position; they profess themselves to be only a fragmentary portion of Christendom, and excuse themselves for their isolation on the plea that there is a chasm separating them from the great mass of Christians which they cannot pass. When we examine the special points made in this plea more closely, we[222] find that all the positive affirmations of doctrine are affirmations of truths held in common with the Catholic Church, and that all the statements peculiar to the authors of the document are protests or negations. The Trinity, Incarnation, Redemption, etc., are palpably Catholic doctrines. The Augustinian doctrines of sin, grace, and predestination, so far as they are the statements or definitions of Catholic faith in opposition to the heresy of Pelagius, are dogmas, and so far as they are the opinions of a school, are sound opinions, though open to discussion. No Catholic writer ever dreamed of censuring them as heretical. The inspiration and infallibility of the holy Scriptures, the priesthood of all Christians, the right and duty of private judgment, the illumination and inward guidance of individual believers by the Holy Spirit, are all sound Catholic doctrines, when properly explained and harmonized with other doctrines. These are the principal positive statements of the document, and they add nothing whatever in the shape of new, living, constructive principle of belief or organization to that sum of truth which the Presbyterians have received from the old tradition. Although some of the negations of Catholic doctrine are put in a positive form, yet it is only the mode of expression which is positive, while the substance of the proposition is a negation. For instance, the proposition that Scripture is the sole authority, so far as it enunciates a truth which is positive, declares the inspiration and infallibility of the Scripture; but so far as it goes beyond that declaration, is really a negation of the authority of the unwritten word, expressed in the form of an affirmation that the Scripture is the sole authority. So, also, the whole of what is peculiar to the Presbyterian doctrine as distinguished from the Catholic, in the affirmation of the universal priesthood, the rights of individual reason, the inward light of the Holy Spirit, is derived from a negation of the hierarchical and sacerdotal orders, the authority of the church, and her infallibility. Then follows a long list of Catholic doctrines which are denied, and which the Roman Church is accused of having added to the ancient creed. We cannot be expected to go into the details of these doctrines singly, for the purpose of proving that the church has defined and proposed them on sufficient motives.

There are plenty of books in which the reverend gentlemen of the Presbyterian Church, and the intelligent laymen who adhere to that communion, can find the full and complete statement, with the proofs, of every portion of Catholic doctrine and discipline. For certain portions of it, they need not look beyond the bounds of Protestantism. The divines of the Church of England, and the controversial writers of the High-Church party in the United States, have proved the hierarchical principle, the episcopal succession, the grace of the sacraments, the real presence, and other doctrines akin to these, with solid arguments from Scripture and history which the advocates of Presbyterianism have never been able to refute. A section of the clergy of another Presbyterian communion, to wit, the German Reformed, have been led by their study of Scripture and the ancient authors to adopt and advocate similar principles totally contrary to those of the reverend moderators. They certainly cannot put forth their statements, therefore, as certain and evident facts or truths, admitted by all who have studied the Scriptures and ancient authors, even among Protestants. Their reiteration of them consequently establishes[223] nothing, proves nothing; in no wise can be alleged as a justification of their position. It is a mere defining of their position, which gives no new information whatever to any person, and therefore the discussion may justly be relegated to the arena of regular polemics.

So far as the reverend doctors have made use of arguments, however, it is proper that we should pay some attention to these, and this they have done in regard to a few points, although with the brevity to which the nature of their document restricted them.

(1.) Their first argument is against the authority of tradition. It is that, by receiving the teachings of tradition as of equal authority with the teachings of Scripture, we incur the condemnation pronounced by our Lord against the Pharisees when he said, "Ye make void the word of God by your traditions." The answer to this is obvious. The traditions of the Pharisees were private, human, recent traditions, not derived from the oral teaching of Moses or other inspired prophets, but from the unauthorized glosses or interpretations of the text of the law, made by the rabbis and scribes exercising their own private judgment. They were contrary to the true sense of the law, subversive of it, and maintained in opposition to the authority of Jesus Christ, the divinely commissioned interpreter and judge of doctrine. What has this to do with a tradition descending from the oral teaching of Jesus Christ and the apostles, agreeing with, explaining, and supplementing the teaching of the Scripture? The canon of the New Testament is such a tradition, and the Presbyterians have, consequently, if their opinion is a true one, incurred the condemnation of the Lord by receiving it. That traditions which are derived from the pure, original source of revelation are to be received, is proved by the commandment of St. Paul to the Thessalonians to "Stand firm: and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word or our epistle."[48] This is precisely what Catholics do. We hold all that has been delivered to us by the apostles, whether transmitted through the Scriptures or through tradition. Presbyterians reject apostolic and Catholic tradition, but make void the word of God; that is, they pervert or deny a great portion of the doctrine revealed by Jesus Christ through the apostles, by their own human, unauthorized traditions. Thus, they reject a number of the books of the Old Testament declared canonical by the same apostolic tradition which fixes the canon of the New Testament, by following the tradition of the Jews. They follow, in respect to divers other essential points of doctrine as well as discipline, the traditions of Luther and Calvin. Practically, they are entirely under the control of this human, modern tradition, which is designated by the reverend moderators as "the principles which prompted our 'ancestors,' in the name of primitive Christianity, and in defence of the 'true faith,' bravely to protest against the errors and abuses which had been foisted upon the church;" that is to say, against Catholic and apostolic tradition.

(2.) Their second argument is in favor of the right of private judgment—that is, according to their way of understanding this right—against the authority of the teaching church as the final, supreme judge of doctrine. The argument in brief is, that the Scriptures address the individual mind and conscience of every reader in an authoritative manner, commanding him to search their pages, promising [224] him the divine illumination to understand their meaning, holding him responsible to God for the belief and practice of their teachings, and forbidding him to listen to any teacher who shall present to him any doctrine differing from that which they contain. Suppose we grant all this. What then? Presbyterianism gains nothing. It cannot defend itself against other forms of Protestantism. It cannot establish its system either of doctrine or discipline. Moreover, an able, profound, biblical scholar, such as is Dr. Pusey, for example, will be able to prove from the Scripture the greater number of all those Catholic doctrines against which these divines protest as errors of the Roman Church. Among these doctrines thus contained in Scripture, and ascertainable even by one who begins his search properly qualified and disposed, but without any other authority except private judgment to direct him, are the authority of tradition and of the church. What now is the individual to do? The Scripture, as he supposed when he began to search it, teaches the right and duty of private judgment upon its own contents, as the exclusive method of learning the truths revealed from heaven to men. He has followed this method conscientiously, relying on the promise of divine illumination made to all sincere seekers after truth, and he now finds himself referred to another authority, that of the church. What is he to do now? Reject the Scriptures and the whole system of positive Christianity as inconsistent and self-contradictory? The Presbyterian divines cannot sanction this conclusion. Then he must conclude that he had imperfectly apprehended what the Scriptures teach respecting the right and duty of the individual to judge of their true sense and meaning, and must harmonize in some way their teaching on this point with their teaching on the other point, namely, the authority of the church. This is the way in which many have reached the church by the road of private judgment. They have opened and searched the Scriptures, assuming at the outset that they are the inspired word of God, addressed to them as individuals and intelligible to their own private reason, assisted by grace, without any extrinsic aid or interpreter. The fact that they have been able to reach the same knowledge of their true sense which the Catholic Church imparts to her children in a shorter way, is no proof, however, that this is the ordinary way in which the Lord intended that men should gain this knowledge. We deny totally that it is. It is very easy to assume the Scriptures in arguing with Catholics who affirm their authority. We deny, however, that the assumption is justifiable on Protestant principles. When the reverend doctors quietly say, "We open the Scriptures," we meet them at once with a denial of their logical right to assert that there are any Scriptures to be opened. If the word of God is manifested to each individual directly through a book, without human media, that book must be a miraculous work of God created by him immediately, and authenticated by some manifest sign from heaven. The Bible is not such a book. It is not a book at all, in the strict sense of the word. It is a collection of writings made by the church, authenticated as divine by her authority, and therefore always presupposing her existence and the existence of that faith and those laws by which she is constituted the church. To say that the exhortations of the sacred books of Scripture are addressed to each individual singly, without reference to the church[225] of which he is a member or of the doctrine which she teaches, is about as sensible as to say that St. Paul's direction to "salute Andronicus and Junias" was directed to the moderators of the two assemblies.

If all explicit teaching of the revealed truths were contained in the Scripture, exclusively, and sufficiently for the immediate instruction of all the faithful, the Scripture would clearly and distinctly affirm this, and furnish us with a description of itself or canon specifying the books which are inspired, duly authenticated by St. John, the last of the apostles. It does nothing of the kind, and the moderators are forced to allude to certain indirect references which are made to the authority of the Scripture in some of the sacred books. These indirect statements are not without their value as proofs of the Catholic doctrine of inspiration, but they by no means support the position of the moderators. Our Lord directs the unbelieving Jews to search the Scriptures of the Old Testament, because they testify of him, the living teacher, as the Vicar of Christ now points to the pages of the New Testament, where Protestants may find the proofs of his divine commission and authority. St. Timothy is commended as having studied the same Scriptures of the old law, which made him "wise unto salvation" by preparing him to receive the oral teaching of St. Paul. St. Peter incidentally informs us that the epistles of St. Paul are a portion of the inspired Scripture, when he gives the caution to all who read them that in them "are some things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as also the other Scriptures, to their own perdition."[49] All this is in perfect harmony with the teachings of the Catholic Church, as any one may see without our taking the trouble to develop the matter any further.

The promise of the Holy Spirit to the faithful generally is not in the least contrary to the doctrine of the infallibility of the teaching church, and the duty of obeying its decisions. It is a necessary condition to the participation in this light of the Holy Spirit that an individual should be a member of the body of Christ—the church—in which the Spirit resides. He must be instructed and baptized in the faith, the true doctrine must be given to him, the key to the sense of the sacred writings must be furnished him, the criterion of discernment between true and false interpretations of the revelation of Christ must exist in his mind, in order that he may exercise his judgment rightly. Under these conditions, the private Christian can possess the faith in himself in such a way that he needs no man to tell him what the true doctrine of Christ is, and detects at once the heresy of any false teacher, even though he be a priest or bishop, who attempts to preach his own new and private opinions contrary to the Catholic faith. This is that supernatural, Catholic instinct pervading the church and keeping the faithful loyal to their religion, under the longest and bloodiest persecutions, like those which the Irish and the Poles have endured with such martyr-like constancy. This "unction from the Holy One" was in the fathers of the first six councils, by the confession of the reverend doctors themselves, and in the universal church which adhered to the true faith attacked by the Arian, Nestorian, and Monophysite heretics. And if so, this same unction must have enabled them to understand the true doctrine of the apostles on all other points of the Christian faith, as well as on the Trinity and Incarnation. If this unction is in all[226] true Christians, then they must all believe alike, in all ages and all places. Why, then, do the Presbyterian divines reject the doctrines of the fathers of the first six centuries, and the doctrines of all Christendom during these and subsequent centuries, until the revolution of the sixteenth century, concerning the sacraments, the priesthood, and other matters of the most essential character?

(3.) The third argument is, that the doctrine of a human priesthood implies a denial of the priesthood of Jesus Christ, or of its sufficiency. We are surprised to see such manifestly inconsequent reasoning in a document coming from a body of such high repute for ability and learning as the Presbyterian clergy. The affirmation that the Bible is the word of God implies, then, a rejection of Jesus Christ as the Word of God, or a denial of his sufficiency. The recognition of human teachers and pastors implies, then, the rejection of Jesus Christ as the teacher and pastor, or the denial of his sufficiency. What, then, are the five thousand Presbyterian pastors but so many usurpers of the titles and offices of Jesus Christ? Christ and the Holy Spirit are sufficient for each man without any human intervention. Away, then, with your church, your sacraments, your assemblies, your ministers, your confession of faith, your bibles. Every man is enlightened by the Holy Spirit, and has unrestricted access to God through Jesus Christ, as the fanatics said in the time of Luther, who had no argument by which he could refute them, and was forced to call on the princes to use the more efficacious weapon of the sword, and to sweep away the too consequent but most unfortunate imitators of his own example by a deluge of blood.

(4.) The fourth argument is, that there can be no apostolic succession in the church, because bishops do not possess the gifts and perform the miracles of the apostles. This argument merely proves that the apostles can have no successors in that which was peculiar to themselves as founders of the church, or fathers in the spiritual order of the line of succession. They alone received immediately from Jesus Christ the revelation of Christian faith and Christian law. Their successors received this deposit from their hands without any power to add to it or take from it. There is no necessity that the successors of the apostles should receive by a new revelation that which they have received from the apostles themselves by tradition. They need not the gifts necessary to originate, but only those necessary to preserve and continue the work of Christ, committed to the apostles. It is, therefore, no argument against the infallibility of the episcopate in preserving, proclaiming, explaining, or protecting against contrary errors the deposit of faith received from the apostles, to say that it lacks the immediate inspiration necessary to an infallible proclamation of revealed truths at first hand. The miracles wrought by the apostles as signs of their apostleship authenticate this revelation as taught by their successors to the end of time, and seal the credentials of the episcopal line which they founded throughout its entire length without any new miracles. As to the fact of the establishment of the hierarchy containing the three distinct grades of bishop, priest, and deacon, deriving its power through episcopal ordination from the apostles, it is enough to refer to the learned works of Protestant authors who have fully proved it. Catholic authors do not teach that bishops succeed to the extraordinary apostolic office of the apostles, but only to their episcopal office. We hold that St. Peter alone[227] has successors to the plenitude of his apostolic power, with the reservation of so much as only the founder of the line could or need exercise. To this supremacy of the successor of St. Peter the divines object still more strongly than to the power of the episcopate, that it substitutes the pope in the place of Jesus Christ. It is very hard to find by what logical process this conclusion is reached. The divines admit that St. Peter and the apostles were the infallible teachers and rulers of the church. If their argument is sound, they cannot admit this without substituting the apostles in the place of Jesus Christ. If the church could be governed by a human, infallible authority for half a century, without prejudice to the supreme authority of Jesus Christ, it could be governed for an indefinite number of centuries in the same way, without any such prejudice. It is quite irrelevant to this side of the question whether this authority is exercised by one or by several, over local churches or over the church of the whole world, Christ is the head of all particular churches as well as of the church universal. If it is compatible with this headship of Christ that a man should be the pastor of a single congregation, it is quite as much so that he should be a pastor over a diocese, over a province, over a nation, over a collection of nations, or over the whole world. The reverend doctors have therefore confused the issue. It is simply a question of fact as to what constitution Jesus Christ actually gave the church, and what powers he delegated to his ministers. The Presbyterians, on their own principles, are bound to prove from the New Testament alone that our Lord did not give the church an episcopal and papal constitution, but did give it a Presbyterian polity. When they made their case out against the Episcopalian divines on the one side, and against such Catholic authors as Archbishop Kenrick, Mr. Allies, F. Bottalla, and F. Weninger, on the other, it will be time to listen to them, but not sooner.

We have done with the arguments of the reverend doctors, but we cannot withhold an expression of surprise at the signs of the divine sanction to their principles which they appeal to, apparently in lieu of the miracles which are wanting, or of the four marks by which the church used to be known in the old times. That men believing in total depravity and election should appeal to the temporal prosperity of nations—the mass of whom, on their principles, are hopelessly doomed to everlasting fire, there to be tormented for ever, even for those actions which the world calls virtuous and brilliant—as a proof of the divine favor, is somewhat strange. We wonder they did not add, "Behold we are rich and increased in goods; in this great capital where we are assembled, our churches are principally in the upper portion of the city, handsomely carpeted, richly cushioned, and principally frequented by the wealthier classes. Indeed, we are the church both of the élite and of the elect."

We have done with the arguments by which the reverend doctors sustain their protest against the Roman Church, and will devote the rest of our space to a consideration of those by which they sustain their claim to be recognized as orthodox, Catholic Christians. Their line of argument is certainly remarkable, and must strike many of their readers with surprise. It is an attempt to take the position held by the Catholic Church during the first five or six centuries, to identify their cause with that of the early fathers and councils, to shelter themselves under the ægis of a Catholic creed, to use Catholic language,[228] appropriate the Catholic name, and make profession of adhering to Catholic unity and the communion of the Catholic Church. There must be a wonderful charm and power about this word when even Presbyterians are compelled to bow before its majesty, and to acknowledge that their cause is lost if they cannot indicate their right to inherit and blazon on their escutcheon this glorious, world-subduing title. "The name itself of Catholic keeps me," says St. Augustine, the favorite doctor of the Presbyterians. The divines of the assemblies are, therefore, compelled by the very attitude they have taken, in justifying themselves as orthodox believers before the holy see, to claim that appellation which was the distinctive mark and sign of that ancient body whose faith is acknowledged by both sides as the standard and criterion of orthodoxy. This language is, however, evidently only adopted for the occasion. It is not the natural, ordinary phraseology of Presbyterians, who are not accustomed to teach and preach to their own adherents the necessity of Catholic unity, communion in the Catholic Church, agreement with the first six councils, or to call their doctrine the Catholic faith. These words must have a definite meaning. They are not mere phrases or pure synonyms of other words equally significant of the same ideas. Catholic is not merely another name for true, or scriptural, or apostolic. It will not do for one to give out a system of doctrine which he has constructed by his own private judgment upon the Scripture, or learned by a private illumination, or taken from the writings of a particular set of religious teachers, and call it Catholic because he thinks it is proved to be true, and ought to be universally received. The term Catholic includes in its signification completeness and integrity of truth; but its specific sense is concrete, visible universality of outward profession, the quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, of Vincent of Lerins. This universality in time and space is the mark and outward manifestation of the integral, divine truth, and those who accept it and proclaim it as such must necessarily hold that the indefectibility of the visible church is guaranteed by Almighty God. It is unmeaning for those who hold that the body of the visible church, as organized under its legitimate pastors, can apostatize from the pure faith of the gospel, and the line of true believers be continued invisibly, or in a small, separated section of professed Christians, to make use of the word Catholic, or pretend to agree with the fathers of the first six centuries in their profession of Catholicity as opposed to heresy. The marks of the church, unity, sanctity, catholicity, and apostolicity, if they are really marks, as declared by all who profess to be Catholics in the genuine, natural, commonly accepted sense of the word, must be so burnt into the object they are intended to mark that they are ineffaceable and easily read and known by all men. The young Mohican hero Uncas was recognized by the aged Indian chief and prophet Tamenund as the legitimate heir of the noblest and most royal line of the northern sachems, by the figure of its sacred emblem, the tortoise, tattooed upon his breast. The name Catholic is, as it were, the totem which marks a peculiar ecclesiastical race, descended from the ancient fathers, indelibly stamped upon its breast as the sure sign of its legitimacy. It is in vain, therefore, that the Presbyterian doctors vaunt their acceptance of the Catholic symbol, the Apostles' Creed, including as one of its essential articles, "I believe the holy, Catholic Church." They do not believe this[229] article in the Catholic sense, as understood by the whole ancient church, namely, as designating a well-known, specific, visible body, and implying a full belief of all the doctrines authoritatively proclaimed by that body. Among a thousand others we take one text of St. Augustine, which we have hit upon at random, expressing this sense: "Catholica fides est autem hæc—constitutam ab illo matrem ecclesiam, quæ Catholica dicitur, ex eo quia universaliter perfecta est, et in nullo claudicat, et per totum orbem diffusa est." "The Catholic faith is this—that the mother church was constituted by him, which is called Catholic, because it is universally perfect, and is diffused through the whole world."[50] Moreover, the profession in general terms of holding the Catholic faith, or the avowal even of a creed completely orthodox, avails nothing to those who are outside the Catholic communion, and make their orthodox profession a pretext for keeping up a separate organization in opposition to the legitimate pastors. All the ancient separatists made a loud outcry that they were true, genuine Catholics. The modern ones, from the Greeks to the Presbyterians, imitate their example. There is a power residing in that name which all acknowledge. They feel that their claim to be truly apostolic, orthodox churches, holding the pure doctrine and order established by the apostles and apostolic men, will be utterly demolished if they yield the title to Catholicity. Hence they have tried to arrogate it to themselves, and to affix nicknames to the Catholic Church. But their efforts have always been in vain. When they are divested of the disguises and borrowed raiment which they throw around their own proper form, the sign on their breast is wanting, and none of the black paint with which they strive to smear it over can mar or cancel the indelible imprint which the numberless lancets of persecution have cut and graven into the very flesh of the majestic figure of the true body of the Son of God. Hear once more St. Augustine: "The Christian religion must be held by us, and the communion of that church which is Catholic, and is called Catholic, not only by its own members, but also by all its enemies. For, whether they will or no, the very heretics themselves and the offspring of schisms, when they talk not with their own friends, but with people outside, call the Catholic Church nothing else but Catholic. For they cannot be understood unless they designate her by that name by which she is denominated by the whole world."[51]

The profession of agreement with the first six councils is equally fallacious. Why the first six and not the last twelve? The Catholic Church receives all the eighteen councils with equal veneration, and is now preparing herself to celebrate the nineteenth, which will have equal authority with the first, because the fathers will be equally congregated together in the Holy Ghost, with the presence of Christ in the midst of them, and the inexhaustible virtue of his promise, Lo! I am with you always, even to the consummation of the world. The separated bodies of Christians are ranged in an ascending series of protesters against these councils, who reject a greater or lesser number according to the date or reason of the judgment pronounced in them against their several errors. The Greeks reject all but the first seven, the orthodox Protestants all but six; the Monothelites rejected the sixth, the Eutychians the fourth, the Nestorians the [230] third, the Macedonians the second, the Arians the first, in which they are followed by the modern Unitarians. It is evident enough that there is a principle of consanguinity binding together all these families, from those who reject the Council of Nice to those who repudiate the Council of the Vatican. The Catholic Church is marked by the unbroken continuity of œcumenical councils. The other churches reject as many of these councils as seems good in their eyes, and accept the decisions of the others because they are in accordance with their own opinions. They do not submit to the councils; they judge them, and ratify such of them as they approve. The profession made by the Presbyterian doctors of receiving six councils amounts, therefore, to nothing as a plea in defence of their orthodoxy. Upon their own principle, they might just as rightfully reject these six councils as the seventh. They really reject and deny their authority as councils, they repudiate the very principle on which they were constituted, and affirm their own supreme right to judge. They acknowledge the truth of the doctrines which they defined; but it is purely on the ground that these doctrines agree with their own private opinions respecting the sense of the New Testament. The whole of this portion of the letter, in which the Presbyterian doctors attempt to use Catholic phraseology, is evidently nothing but a piece of special pleading. They do not venture the assertion that the church of the period of the six councils—that is, the three centuries and a half between the years 325 and 680—was identical in doctrine or discipline with the Presbyterian Church of the United States, which they represent. Nevertheless, they seem to wish to leave the impression on the minds of their readers that the fathers, the councils, the common belief and practice of those ages sustain their cause. The editorial comment in the Evangelist boldly asserts that such is the case. The small number of scholars well read in patristic theology who are found among the Presbyterian clergy will probably not risk their reputation for learning or put at hazard the success of their cause by any such rash statement. As a general rule, however, the Presbyterian clergy and theological students, though well-educated scholars in the college curriculum and certain special professional branches taught at the seminaries, have not turned their attention to ancient Christian history and literature. They know much more about Turretin than they do about St. Augustine. It is quite probable, therefore, that a very general impression prevails among them, that they are really on the whole in conformity with the doctrine of the great fathers of the ancient church. This is a delusion which a little study of the original works of the fathers themselves would soon dissipate. We could not desire any thing more efficacious for this purpose than the study of St. Augustine, called by Luther the greatest teacher whom God had given to the church since the days of the apostles, and revered in a most remarkable way by all those who follow the Lutheran and Calvinistic confessions.[52] The deeply learned men and independent thinkers among Protestants understand this well, and the notion of the half-learned sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that Protestantism can take its stand on the era of the first six councils is a mere remnant of mist that hangs for a while over portions of the landscape, but is destined soon [231] to disappear before advancing light. St. Augustine is diametrically opposed to the first principle of Presbyterianism and all Protestantism, that principle which is the dominant idea of the Presbyterian reply to the Pope.

He says, "Non crederem Evangelio nisi me commoveret Ecclesiæ Catholicæ auctoritas," "I would not believe the gospel unless the authority of the Catholic Church moved me to do it."[53] Prof. Reuss, of the Protestant theological faculty in the University of Strasburg, says that "St. Augustine's principles come to their result in this famous saying, diametrically opposed to the fundamental principle of all Protestant theology."[54] Julius Müller, another professor in the same faculty, says of all the fathers: "This must be openly admitted by every unprejudiced historical investigation, that not merely the ecclesiastical theology of the middle ages, but even the patristic theology of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, are, upon every point that is a matter of dispute between Catholicism and Protestantism, more on the side of the former than of the latter."[55]

Presbyterians cannot make any thing by an appeal from the Council of Trent to the first six councils. They have no connection either by continuity of thought or succession with historical Christianity, and their only resource is to maintain that the true interpretation of the gospel, which was lost before the Council of Nice assembled under the auspices of Constantine, has been restored by Calvin, Luther, and Knox. How they can account for the fact that the church which, on their theory, had subverted the apostolic church, was unerring in its definitions of the great dogmas of the Trinity, Incarnation, Original Sin, and Grace, is only known to themselves. It is only by a happy inconsistency that orthodox Protestants have preserved that portion of the Catholic faith which they have received by tradition from their ancestors. The true Protestant principle of individualism necessarily tends to master the contrary principle of faith in the minds of Protestants, and to produce the doubt, the denial, the hostility to all positive dogmas which marks the most advanced rationalism. All this was working in Luther himself, whose brain contained the seeds of the bitter fruit which has ripened in the minds of his followers in our day. He himself was the prey of doubt, and gave utterance to the strongest expression concerning the absurdity of the principal doctrines of his own system.[56] Thrown upon the discussion of what the Scripture is, and what it means, with nothing to appeal to but private judgment, Presbyterianism, or any other form of Protestantism, has nothing to look forward to but an endless shock and collision of conflicting opinions, which can have no other effect than the resolution of the whole mass into its component atoms.

We have concluded our remarks upon the reply of the Presbyterian moderators to the pope's letter. While we have been forced to point out distinctly that the principle of its protest against the doctrine and authority of the Roman Church is totally subversive of all faith, yet we willingly acknowledge that some of the most sacred and fundamental dogmas of faith are held and professed by the respectable bodies in whose name it was written. Their doctrine is like a superb ancient torso to which plaster limbs and head have been added. Although their principle is equally [232] destructive of all faith with that of the Arians, yet we by no means regard them in the same light. The authors of heresies who mutilate the faith are very different from those who receive and hold with reverence this mutilated faith. Their intellectual and moral worth, their philanthropy and zeal for God, the value of many most excellent works which they have written in defence of the divine revelation, we fully appreciate. That great numbers have been and are in the spiritual communion of the Catholic Church we sincerely hope. We desire that the schism which has separated them from our visible communion may be healed, not only for their own spiritual good, but also that the Catholic Church in the United States may be strengthened by the accession of that intellectual and religious vigor which such a great mass of baptized Christians contains in itself. Above all things, we desire that all who acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord and Sovereign should be united in mind, and heart, and effort, in order that his universal kingdom over the nations of the earth may be established as speedily and as completely as possible.

A HERO, OR A HEROINE?

CHAPTER I.
A HERO.

"No; I said he was nice-looking, and gentlemanly, as of course Philip's cousin would be. But you know I judge only from a photograph."

"How vain you are of your lover, Jessie! You would be just as proud of him if he had not his handsome face, of course?"

"I will not marry a handsome man! However, tell me some more about the cousin. Why should he bury himself at Shellbeach? I should think a man of any aspiration could not endure such a contracted life. I suppose he is as gossiping and weak-minded as a country minister."

"I know you think me uncharitable. The truth is, men exasperate me; and then remember I am twenty-five and not engaged."

"I don't know about that. Is it my fault that young men are all alike, and inexpressibly wearisome? Seriously, I am tired of being Miss Lester, and mean to change my condition. Why do you look at me in that peculiar manner?"

"I will not give it to you. I will read you something he says. No, you are not to look over my shoulder; sit down peaceably, or else I shall put the letter in my pocket."

"Why Jessie, what is the matter with you? I never saw you so dignified in all my life. I suppose the[233] letter is all about Philip, and that is why you choose to keep it to yourself. Well, here I am, meek as a lamb, actually submitting to you. It is too absurd!"

With these words, Margaret, who had seated herself on a sofa near her friend, jumped up, seized the letter and tore it open, while Jessie held out her hands imploringly, but did not offer to resist her impetuous companion. Margaret glanced at the first two pages.

"Philip, Philip. Don't be alarmed; I would not be hired to read it. Let me see; what is this? 'Why was not I fortunate enough to have you myself?' Aha! you have two irons in the fire, you artful little creature?"

"I don't know about this; I shall not scruple to warn Philip, if you are getting yourself into trouble. What comes next? 'But since so charming a companion is beyond my reach, cannot you undertake to find me some one as much like you as possible, or at least just as nice, who would not be afraid of a quiet, hard-working life with a poor doctor, in the dullest of country towns? A sweet temper is, of course, the first requirement; moderate personal attractions; some sense and experience, and a little money for herself. Of course I want a great many more things, but these will do for the present. So if you know of a young woman, strong and healthy—to think that a doctor should have almost forgotten those important items!—send her down here, will you? and I will marry her on the spot.' Well, I will not read any more of your letter, unless there are any more of this modest man's requirements. But seriously, Jessie, I think I would do very well for him, and you may write and tell him I am coming."

"Margaret, of course you are in fun? How can you look so sober? You would not surely mean any thing so improper."

"I am in very earnest, and really it is quite refreshing to be so. I am tired out with my third season of balls, operas, Germans, and all that kind of nonsense, and I would like to see a little of real life. I have not quite made up my mind what I will do; but I will go up-stairs for an hour, and then I will tell you what to write to the doctor. My good old aunty shall be favored with a long visit from her niece, whom she has not seen for five years; and in the mean time, you are not to say one word to your mother or to any one else. Do you hear, Jessie? Come, promise me."

The promise was given, and Jessie was left in great perplexity for nearly two hours, when a message was brought her that Miss Lester would be glad to see her up-stairs. She found her friend at a little writing-table, in a sort of boudoir between their rooms, where the girls used to work and read in the mornings, and receive calls from their intimate friends.

"There!" said Margaret, rising as she entered; "sit down there, Jessie, and read what I have written; you are to copy it in your answer to the doctor's letter. Read it aloud to me; I want to hear how it sounds."

Jessie was too much accustomed to her friend's eccentricities to be very much astonished by this unexpected termination to their morning's conversation. She disapproved, however, of the whole affair, and remonstrated as strongly as she dared; but she had grown to defer to Margaret's stronger will, and now felt it impossible to oppose her. "Besides," as Margaret said, "what could be more natural than that she should go to stay with old Aunt Selina? It was only what she ought to have done before." And, to crown all, Jessie was informed that a letter had been already written and sent to Miss Spelman, and Margaret intended to go, at any rate.

The discussion lasted some time, and ended by Jessie's unwillingly placing herself at the desk and writing a letter, which, though it contained the exact words of the copy given above, also enlarged, in Jessie's own affectionate language, on her friend's good qualities, attractions, and popularity, and had nearly alluded to the very handsome income, which would so far exceed the doctor's not unreasonable demand. But that Margaret cut short; it was enough, she said, that he should believe her to have a little pin-money; for of course he would expect to support the family, if he had any spirit, and if he had not, she would have nothing to do with him. Poor Jessie groaned over Margaret's downright speeches, but did not attempt to change her decision. The letter was at last sealed and sent, and Jessie could only wonder at Margaret's high spirits for the rest of the day. She had never looked handsomer, or been more amusing, or played more finely than on that evening, when Mrs. Edgar gave a little party. She was so kind to the young men, that they all were charmed with her and with themselves, and quite expanded under the warmth of her bright smiles.

Jessie, on the contrary, was preoccupied and distressed. She felt uncomfortable at what she had done, at the thought of the secret she was keeping from her mother, and troubled when she remembered the approaching separation from her friend. How she wished Margaret were not so hard to please! Why could she not like that pleasant Mr. Lothrop, who was so handsome, so rich, and who would so gladly have availed himself of the smallest encouragement to make her an offer? How kindly she smiled on him to-night! Why couldn't she be satisfied with pleasing him? And then what was the chance that this fastidious girl would take a fancy to Dr. James, whom, though she had never seen, she believed to be plain and unattractive? What could come of it, except trouble for the poor man? Of course he would fall in love with Margaret, while she would think of nothing but amusing herself. "And I shall have been the instrument of bringing disappointment and unhappiness to Philip's cousin and dearest friend."

All these thoughts kept Jessie in a very unenviable state of mind during the evening, and she was thankful when she could escape to her own room, and write a long letter, before going to bed, to her absent lover; of[235] course not disclosing Margaret's secret, but disburdening her mind of many anxieties on her friend's account.

While the answers to the letters written in so impulsive a manner are being expected with some impatience, a few words should be said on the history and circumstances of Margaret Lester, about whom a good deal is to be written in these pages.

CHAPTER II.
PRELIMINARY.

Margaret's mother died when she was about fourteen years old, and her father, unwilling to take the direction of his daughter's education, placed her at an excellent boarding-school, where no expense was spared to give her every advantage, and where, being perfectly happy, she remained until she was nineteen. It was at this school that she formed the friendship with Jessie Edgar which was afterward to be so great a benefit to her. Jessie was the second daughter of a wealthy New York family, and it was at her home that Margaret passed her first Christmas vacation, and all her succeeding holidays.

Jessie's gentle, yielding nature found great enjoyment in Margaret's boldness and self-reliance, and Margaret, who began by protecting and supporting the other's timidity and shyness, ended by heartily admiring and loving her sweet and unselfish room-mate. They became "inseparables," in school-girl phrase, and when school-days were over, and Mr. Lester thought that the best completion to his daughter's education would be a little travelling, Jessie's mother consented to her accompanying her dear friend. For two years they visited beautiful places together, and felt their friendship drawn more closely, as their sympathies became enlarged.

But this happy experience came to a sudden and sorrowful end. Mr. Lester had a dreadful fall while they were coming down a mountain, and, after lingering a few weeks in extreme suffering, died, leaving the two girls quite alone in a foreign land. They had a sad journey home; he had been the life and soul of their expedition, and, having travelled a good deal before, had been able to be the pleasantest kind of guide for them. It had been hard to prevail on Margaret to leave the Swiss town where he lay buried in the little graveyard; but Jessie's love prevailed, and they came safely back together to Mrs. Edgar's hospitable house. Once there, the kind friends would not let Margaret think of leaving them, and she had grown to consider the pleasant house almost as her own home.

It was long before she recovered her high spirits, but at twenty-three she was induced to go into society with Jessie, who had waited for her. She was, from every point of view, a desirable match—young, rich, and fine-looking; gay and good-humored. Pleased with herself and her surroundings, she thoroughly enjoyed her first season, and was unmistakably a belle. The next year, however, was a disappointment; there was a sameness in her life and amusements that became irritating to her. Jessie was engaged to be married, and Margaret found herself jealous of her friend's divided confidence. But, though she said to Jessie that she would like to follow her example, "to be able to sympathize with lovers' rhapsodies," like the princess in the fairy-tale, she found fault with all her admirers; criticised them, nicknamed them, and discouraged their attentions as soon as these became[236] exclusive. A very gay summer at a fashionable watering-place followed this wearisome winter, and Margaret entered upon her third season disposed for any thing but enjoyment. No one who saw her in society would have guessed her real character. High-spirited, gay, liking to astonish and slightly shock her friends by her behavior, a little of what is termed "a trainer," there lay underneath this careless exterior a depth of real sentiment that only one or two people whom she truly loved were aware of. To be loved for herself, and to love, were her aspirations.

First, she was perfectly aware of her own attractions, and believed she could have almost any man of her acquaintance, if she should choose to make herself agreeable to him; but she could not believe in any one's disinterested attachment to her.

"They all know I am rich," she would say to Jessie; "they would not take me and poverty. Now, I would be glad, if I were poor, to marry a poor man; then I could believe in his love, and we could have some trials to bear together."

Secondly, she earnestly wished to love; but this, with her, meant a great deal. She wanted to look up to some one, to honor and believe in him; she thought of this much more than of the sentiment; for she knew she should find that with the rest. She was tired of taking the lead, and of having her own way. How gladly would she submit herself to a noble guide! She imagined herself almost as a queen stepping down from her throne, resigning sceptre and authority, and saying, with Miss Procter,

"But these young men," she said to Jessie, "are so intensely matter-of-fact! They would think my brain softening, if they knew what I wanted and expected to find." At another time she said, "If I could only find something a little different! I think I will go to Australia, marry a squatter, and see all the queer animals. My money would be worth while out there."

It has been said that Margaret had a maiden aunt living at Shellbeach, her mother's only sister. This lady she had seen but once since her return from abroad, when Miss Spelman came to New York on purpose to take her niece home with her. Margaret, however, was not willing to leave the Edgars, and so her aunt returned to Shellbeach, a little offended by her niece's preferring strangers to her own flesh and blood, but, on the whole, perhaps relieved that her quiet home was not to be invaded by a person of so startling a character as she conceived Margaret to be. A visit had been agreed upon between them; but this had been declined and deferred so many times that the old lady, again offended, had given up proposing it. If it had not been for Margaret's curiosity about Jessie's friend, Doctor James, she certainly would not have remembered her duty to her mother's only sister; while it is equally true that, if it had not been for that convenient relative, she could not for a moment have entertained the idea of taking the lion (that is, the doctor) by storm in his den. For of any likelihood of being captivated herself in this adventure, it must be acknowledged, she had no thought. Her curiosity, her strongest weak point, was thoroughly excited about this doctor. That a man with a fine education, a profession, and enough money to live respectably, (all which information she had obtained from her friend,) should isolate himself in a stupid little sea-side town, because he liked to do so and enjoyed it, was to[237] her a mystery which demanded to be cleared up at once. How she should like to astonish this hermit! How she would dress! How she would shock his ideas of propriety, if he had any! He would be surprised and overpowered, of course, and then—well, then she would beat a graceful retreat, and come back to Jessie's wedding in the best of spirits.

"I shall take Cécile and the Marchioness and Jimmy, and you will see that we shall have an exciting time. I shall make myself so delightful to dear Aunt Selina that she will not hear of my staying less than six months; and I shall study housekeeping, economy, and medicine, and experiment on Cécile when she is sick."

"How can you ask? I must have exercise; and who knows but I may make myself useful by visiting the distant patients when the doctor's horse is tired?"

"She is too fine for my purpose. I don't want to seem wealthy, you know; and the Marchioness goes mousing along, her head level with her tail, in true Morgan style, and looks any thing but extravagant. Then Jimmy will keep us awake, and bark at Aunt Selina's cats when other excitement fails."

"Of course she has cats! Half a dozen, I have no doubt. Who ever heard of an ancient maiden living alone without cats? How I wish the answers would come!"

They did come, in due time; Miss Spelman's first, cordially welcoming her niece to Shellbeach for any length of time, or for good and all. Margaret felt rather ashamed, as she saw how her aunt had fallen into the trap, and how completely her own good faith had been taken for granted. She mentally resolved that, if it depended on her, Miss Spelman should not repent her generosity; she would make herself as delightful as she could, cheerfully give up her own convenience, if necessary, and make up for her long neglect of so disinterested a relation.

This letter arrived on the third day of expectation; the doctor's, not until a full week had elapsed. "A doctor's time is not his own, and the number of invalids at Shellbeach has been greater than usual." It would be well to give the letter in full, at least so much of it as relates to Margaret and her proposition.

Not a word more was given to the subject; the letter spoke briefly of Philip, of Jessie, and terminated.

Margaret of course saw this letter in the same forcible way that she saw the other. Jessie thought she would be offended, and so she was, but that did not have the result Jessie secretly hoped for.

"He is not well-bred, and evidently[238] thinks a great deal of himself. How I shall enjoy snubbing him!"

"I should think so! Do you suppose I shall disappoint Aunt Selina for such rudeness as this? But I will have no more second-hand dealings." And so saying, she seized pen and paper, and wrote as follows:

Jessie was not allowed to see this note, which was at once dispatched to Shellbeach.

"And now," Margaret said, "comes the fun of arrangements. We will go up-stairs and consult about my clothes, and all that I shall take with me."

CHAPTER III.
PASSENGERS FOR SHELLBEACH.

Dr. James's letter had been received on Tuesday; the following Monday, at about three o'clock on a bleak and gray January afternoon, Margaret, accompanied by her maid and terrier dog, arrived at the little way-station of Shellbeach, and ascertaining that Miss Spelman's carriage had not arrived, walked into the little waiting-room and to the airtight stove, which was, however, barely warm. Her teeth chattered, and she stamped her feet and rubbed her hands; the French maid followed, bearing bag and shawls, shivering and casting forlorn glances around her. The little dog alone seemed in good spirits, and ran about, inquiring into every thing, and snuffled suspiciously at a man who sat wrapped in a shawl, reading a book, and at two small boys, who were partaking of frost which they scraped off the windows.

"Well, we're all frozen, so it's no use saying it's cold," said Margaret, walking about the room; "but I'm famished, and as cross as a bear."

"It is a forlorn place, certainly; let me see if my provisions are exhausted," Margaret said, taking the bag. The little boys at the window became deeply interested, and paused in their unsatisfactory repast.

"One seed-cake! How exciting! What! you want it, do you? Well, take it," she said to the little dog, who jumped upon her, and while he devoured it she watched him, saying reflectively, "Little pig! if I were dying of starvation, and it were my last crumb, he would eat it. How do I look, Cécile? I am all covered with cinders."

Margaret smiled, and returned to the platform, where she made inquiries of a man who was looking helplessly at her trunks how they were to be got to Miss Spelman's. Having arranged that matter, she asked,

"Can't I have that buggy to drive up in? Does it belong to the man inside there?"

"It belongs to him," said the driver, with a grin, and Margaret turned away in despair.

"The train was early," said a boy standing by, "and perhaps the young lady's team will be along soon."

Margaret, who had her purse in her hand, at once presented the boy with twenty-five cents, as an acknowledgment for the ray of encouragement he had volunteered. He bore it philosophically, and she returned to the room.

"Cécile, it's only two miles to Miss Spelman's; suppose we walk; it will be warmer than waiting here. Give me the bag, and you take the shawls, and we will inquire the way."

She accompanied these words with a look of indignation at the man who was fortunate enough to have a buggy at his command; but to her great surprise, he rose, and, approaching her, said:

"The train was early, and I expected Miss Spelman's carryall; but it is evidently not coming, and you must manage with my buggy."

"You are right; and you are Miss Lester," he replied. "I am sorry you have had to wait in the cold; but when I saw you had a companion, I thought it would be wiser to wait for the carryall. Miss Spelman said she should probably send; but asked me, at any rate, to meet you. I will drive you home and come back for your maid."

"But it's so cold here, and Cécile feels the cold more than I. Could we not possibly go three in the buggy? Would it be too much for the horse?"

The doctor smiled for the first time; he was pleased by her thought for her maid.

"You and I are good-sized people, but she is small. I think Rosanna can stand the weight; but it will not do to start cold. I propose we go over to the store and get thoroughly warmed."

"Oh! delightful," cried Margaret, "the thought of being warm again is almost too much for me."

The doctor led the way across the railroad track to a kind of variety store, where there was certainly no reason to complain of the cold. The air was stifling, and conveyed to Margaret's sense of smell the impressions of soap, molasses, peppermint drops, brown paper, and onions, at one breath; but she was too grateful to be warm even to make a face, which under other circumstances she would doubtless have done. Seated in chairs before the energetic little stove, she and Cécile toasted hands and feet while the doctor went for the horse. When he returned, they were quite ready to start, and the bag being stowed away in the box, they put on all their wrappings, by the doctor's advice, and packed themselves into the buggy. Jimmy curled himself under his mistress's feet, the buffalo robe was well tucked in, and the sturdy-looking mare started with her load with a willingness which showed she too was glad to have her face toward home. It was cold enough in spite of their comfortable start, and, to make matters worse, Margaret's veil blew away; but she would not have alluded to it for the world. The doctor seemed absorbed in his driving, and Cécile occupied with her aching toes; and allowing it to escape seemed to her so feminine and weak-minded a proceeding that she bore the cutting wind in silence rather than expose her carelessness. Her gratitude to the doctor for rescuing her from her uncomfortable situation, and the genial feelings produced by her warming at the stove, now gave way to reflections on this man's previous behavior, as he sat wrapped in his shawl, in the cold little waiting-room. What a hard-hearted, outrageous monster he must be! Why did he not speak at once, and be sympathetic and kind? Of course he was studying her, and no doubt criticising her, at that unfavorable moment. It chafed her to think to what an inspection she had been exposed, and how utterly she had been at a disadvantage. At last[240] she broke the silence by saying abruptly,

She intended to embarrass him by reminding him of his profession, but she was disappointed; for he answered at once, with a slight movement of his mouth, not however a smile,

"Extreme hunger? Yes; especially such as the poor feel, who may have tasted nothing for two or three days, nor meat for as many months. How long is it since you breakfasted?"

The doctor, remembering with a little compunction that he had both breakfasted and dined, hastened to say,

"That is a long time for a person accustomed to regular meals. I am quite sure you will find a better reception in the matter of dinner than you experienced at the station."

"Nor I; she said to me, 'I shall send the carryall, if possible; but you will oblige me by meeting my niece, and if any thing should happen to prevent my man's being there, you will bring her home.' I am sure only you and the dog were expected."

"Yes, I said my maid would probably come in a day or two; but she was able to get ready to accompany me."

Then there was silence once more, till Dr. James drew up his horse before a well-clipped, flourishing hedge, and, getting out, opened a small brown gate, and carried the bag and shawls up the neat gravelled path. The short afternoon had come to a close, though it was scarcely four o'clock, and the firelight shone pleasantly out from the windows, where the curtains were drawn aside. The doctor deposited the wrappings on the steps, said hastily, "Good-by, Miss Lester, I shall call on you as soon as possible," and was in his buggy and driving quickly away before she had time to utter a word. She had stood for a moment, expecting the door to be thrown open at once; she even wondered that her aunt was not awaiting her on the threshold; but as no one appeared, she gave the bell a rather decided pull. Instantly the door was opened by the neatest of maids, in a white apron, who beamed upon the guests while she took the bag and shawls. Margaret walked at once toward the bright fire, which shone out of an open door, and there in the middle of the room stood a little lady, who met and embraced her, saying in an agitated voice,

Miss Spelman was trembling in every limb, but Margaret's decided tones, quite free from emotion of any kind, composed her. She drew an easy-chair to the fire, and then turned to Cécile, who stood hesitating in the hall.

"You brought your maid, did you not, dear Margaret? That is good; it will make you more at home. Ann, I hope you will make Miss Lester's maid quite comfortable. Her name, my dear? Oh! yes, Cecilia." And as the woman disappeared, she continued, "I am glad you have so respectable and steady an attendant, my dear; when I heard she was French, I feared she might be very dressy and flippant, and get restless in our quiet little household."

She gently helped Margaret to lay aside her things; then, as she seated herself in the comfortable chair and held out hands and feet to the grateful[241] flame, the little lady once more placed her hand on her shoulder, and kissed her forehead.

"For all the world like your poor father," she said softly. As Margaret was silent, she continued, "But I must tell you why I did not send for you. I beg your pardon, my dear child, for such apparent neglect. The fact is, I have a new man, and dare not trust him alone with the horses, and I have a cold and was afraid to go out this raw day. If it had been milder, nothing should have kept me at home; but as I had asked our good doctor to meet you, I knew you would really be provided for. Then, I thought it would seem so uncourteous to let him give his valuable time to going to the station for you, and then disappoint him of the pleasure of bringing you home. You see, I did not look for your maid. O dear! how very rude you must think me." And the poor lady stopped short, quite appalled at her own conduct, the impropriety of which for the first time impressed her.

"And thankful I am to have you, dear; but to think that I should have allowed you to drive home alone with a strange young man!"

"Why, sandwiched, three in the buggy, of course; Cécile in the middle; it was the shortest way. He wanted to bring first me and then Cécile, but I would not let him. However, don't worry about it now, aunty. I would like to go to my room, I think, and make myself presentable; I am covered with cinders."

"Certainly. You will find a fire there, and, I hope, every thing you want. If not, you must let me know." So saying, Miss Spelman led the way up-stairs to a good-sized room, where a little wood fire was burning and candles were lighted. The trunks were already there, and Cécile was unpacking and laying out what her mistress would want.

"We have tea, generally, at six; but I have ordered it to-day at five, for I know you need both dinner and tea. Cecilia will find me down-stairs if you want any thing." With these words, Miss Spelman withdrew and closed the door.

"I have arrived at that period of starvation," remarked Margaret, "when I am resigned to wait indefinitely for my food, provided it comes at last." At that moment a knock announced Ann, who brought in a waiter with cup and saucer and tea-things. "Miss Spelman thought a cup of tea would be warming."

Very soon Margaret was sitting in her wrapper and slippers, in a little rocking-chair, sipping her hot tea, while Cécile brushed and arranged her hair. She began to feel fatigued; but that was rather a delightful sensation, now that she had nothing to do but rest and be comfortable. Before five, she went down to the parlor, where her aunt once more received her with a little speech, and then came the looked-for tea-dinner. It appeared that Miss Spelman knew what was good as well as Mrs. Edgar, and Margaret, as she surveyed the well-spread table, the spotless linen, the shining glass and silver, the temptingly brown chicken before her, the spongy biscuit and delicate cake, was glad to find that, at least, she would not starve.

"I begin to feel a sea-air appetite already," she exclaimed; "and O aunty! how good every thing tastes."

Miss Selina was pleased, for she was a hospitable hostess; and when[242] she and Margaret were established before the fire, curtains drawn, and the lamp shining brightly, there was a mutual good feeling between them, which, from that time, nothing disturbed. Margaret, as she leaned back in her chair, holding a little screen before her face, had now time to examine her aunt more closely, and she studied her with considerable curiosity. She was decidedly petite, and so very neat and trim about her dress that she made Margaret think of a fairy godmother. Her hair was white, although she was not yet sixty; she wore a cap, and soft lace round her throat; her eyes were dark and bright, and her smile very sweet and cheerful. She must have been pretty, Margaret thought, and like that dear mother so well remembered.

After answering a good many questions about her life in New York, Mrs. Edgar, Jessie, and her lover, Margaret said rather abruptly,

"Oh! almost every day, my dear. He has to drive very often over to Sealing, and my house is right on his way. He feels quite attached to me, because, once when his sister was staying with him, she was sick, and I used to go and sit with her; and at last, when she was getting well, and was able to be moved, I got her to come and make me a visit; for I thought it must be dull for her, with her brother away so much. So he used to come every day to see about her, and he got into the way of dropping in as if he belonged here, and he has kept it up ever since."

"Oh! she was a charming creature—pretty and picturesque; young, too, and very clever for her age; and the doctor thought every thing of her, though he used to find fault with her and try to improve her, and was always bringing some hard book for Lucy to read, or asking me to tell her this, or remind her of that, and not let her forget the other, till I used to think the poor child would have been vexed with both him and me; but she used to laugh and shake her pretty brown curls, and make the best of it all. I grew to love that child, Margaret, and I confess to you, if you had not come to me, I would very probably have offered to adopt her, and do for her as if she were my own. I did not suppose you needed any money, my dear," she added in an apologetic tone.

"Don't mention your money, please," cried Margaret. "Dear aunty, I can't manage what I've got now; why should I want any more? By all means make the pretty Lucy an heiress, and let her come and live here, near her brother."

"They have had a country-seat in Maine for years, and are very nice people, I would think; the doctor, at least, is a perfect gentleman. He has been in the war, was wounded two or three times; and when it was all over, came here because the old doctor was about to move away. They knew each other, and so Dr. James just quietly took the other's place, and has a great deal more than filled it ever since."

"But why does he choose to live in a little place like this? Jessie told me something of his benevolence; but that doesn't seem reason enough to keep him here."

"That is the only reason, I am sure—that, and attachment to the place and people. He does an immense amount of good, my dear;[243] why, he attends all the poor people, for miles around, for nothing!"

"Certainly not on his fees. He has a little money of his own—enough for such a place as this—and that leaves him free, as he says, to have no hard money feelings between him and his patients. The consequence is, he is worshipped by the poor, and, in fact, by almost every one both here and at Sealing; they give him no peace, and he has to work like a horse all the time."

"He never alludes to living anywhere else; but I hope he may marry some day, and then, no doubt, he would go where his wife wished."

"Certainly, my dear Margaret, I think so; but then, I believe I'm old-fashioned." Miss Spelman was pleased, that was evident; and then she said she knew her niece was a fine musician, but she was perhaps "too tired to touch the instrument?"

Margaret smiled, and though she was tired certainly, and sleepy besides, she went with a very good grace to "the instrument," which she found to be an old piano, excellent in its day, but now out of tune and jingling; the keys were yellow, and one pedal was broken, but no speck of dust was to be seen inside or out, or on any thing else in Miss Selina's house. Margaret, without thinking much about it, played some very modern music, such as she generally played in the evenings at Mrs. Edgar's, deep and difficult music, playing well and carefully, without notes; till she began to realize how impossible any execution would be on such a piano. When she paused, Miss Spelman said rather plaintively,

"That is very fine, my dear; but my taste is not up to the present standard. And—do you play from note, dear Margaret?"

On receiving an affirmative reply, she went into an adjoining closet, and brought out one or two old music-books, marked on the covers, "M. and S. Spelman," and with Margaret and Selina alternately written on the music within. Margaret had never seen such a collection of curious, old, simple music. She smiled as she played, to see her aunt's hands beating time, and watched the absorbed expression of her face, varying from a smile of content to a look of sadness and regret. As she at last closed the piano, she said,

"I will play these pieces over when I am by myself, and then I shall do them more justice when I play them for you again. Forgive my many blunders."

Then came cake, fruit, and wine, at nine o'clock, and then Margaret was glad to say "good-night" and go to her pleasant room, where she found, to her great satisfaction, that she was soothed to sleep by the breaking of the waves on Shellbeach.

CHAPTER IV.
A CONFIDENTIAL LETTER.

My Dearest Jessie: I have received your most welcome letter, and only wish I could tell you how good it was to hear from you. It made me long to see you, dear; but as I am resolved I will not be so weak as to give up and go back to you yet, I will not sentimentalize now, nor dwell on my feelings, which, I assure you, are unusually tender for me.

I have now been here three whole[244] days, and they seem as many months; the snow-storm which began the night after my arrival, lasted perseveringly till this morning, when there was a beautiful clear-away, and my spirits, which were rather drooping, rose at once. It was very cold, and Aunt Selina was afraid to go out, and I was lazy, and passed the morning in the house. After dinner, however, I became desperate, put on my shortest dress and rubber boots, and went forth with Jimmy on an exploring expedition. The snow was very deep; but I needed exercise, and enjoyed immensely plunging about in the fresh drifts, and getting rid, at the same time, if I must confess it, of a fair amount of wrath and resentment, of which your paragon of a doctor was the cause. Only think, my dear, of his allowing me to be three days here without calling! In such weather, too, when he must have known I was penned up in the house with nothing to amuse me, (not that I didn't amuse myself very well, but he could not have known that.) How did he know that I mightn't have caught a severe cold in that horrid waiting-room at the station, or driving with him in his freezing chaise? And after leaving me in that abrupt way, waiting on the steps here, without a single polite word to me or Aunt Selina, as if he said, "I have been dreadfully bored by having to bring you here; now let me get away as fast as I can!" Well, I was provoked with him, and with myself for caring; but I grew pleasanter every step I took; and when I at last found myself on a high bank right over the sea, and the pretty little beach with the dear, blue waves breaking and foaming below me, I was in a state of exhilaration and delight that I can't describe. I could hardly have torn myself away, except that I was very cold; and the sunset light had almost faded when I got home. Then, my dear, what do you think? Aunt Selina greeted me with, "O Margaret! what a pity you went out; here Doctor James has been waiting nearly an hour for you, and he wanted so much to see you, and was so sorry that he couldn't come before! But, my dear, he has been away, and only got home this morning." That was funny, was it not? "He looked so nice," Aunt Selina said. "I wish you could once see him nicely dressed; he doesn't take enough pains with himself generally." Now, I know that aunty was as much surprised as I that this call had not been made before, and a great deal more disturbed. She praises the doctor on every occasion, and I am sure she wanted him to make a favorable impression on me. She has been very curious about our drive from the station; but I have said very little about it, except that I thought we were all of us cold and cross.

Well, I was nicely wet from my snowy walk; but after I had changed my dress and had my tea, I felt splendidly. At eight o'clock the bell rang—a wonderful circumstance, so far—and after a little delay in the hall, in walked the doctor. I suppose he could not bear that his get-up should be thrown away, and he really looked very nice indeed. I am sure he prides himself on his feet and hands, which are small—not in themselves, but for his size—and well shaped. His clothes were any thing but fashionable; but they fitted him well, and looked as if he were at home in them, and something in his general appearance made me feel that he had intended to do me honor, and I was quite mollified toward him. Aunt Selina was enraptured. I was—can you imagine it?—a little embarrassed, having been wholly taken by[245] surprise at his making his appearance; he was calm and at his ease. He explained his apparent neglect of me, expressed regret at finding me out this afternoon, and asked about my walk, etc. He is provoking in many ways, Jessie, but in one especially: he is so stingy of his smiles; I can express it in no other way. He is the most serious person I ever saw; even when it would be polite to smile, he will not; but moves the muscles round his mouth in a peculiar way that makes me want to say to him, "Well, why don't you do it? It won't hurt you!" His eyes are not particularly large, but gray, and look as if they saw as much as mine, only he does not stare as I do, but seems to take in every thing with one glance. I did not find him difficult to talk to, as I imagined I should, but am surprised to find how much he knows. He asked me to play, but did not like the piece; and when I tried him with a little of Aunt Selina's music—which I described to you in my first letter, you remember—he asked for Beethoven. That he enjoyed, I believe, and a few of my little French airs, one of which he recognized, and I discovered, to my astonishment, that he had been abroad. He spoke of organ music, and when I told him about my desire to learn to play on the organ, said he thought I could do so here, as there were both a good organ and organist at Sealing. And, if he arranges it so, I am to take lessons once or twice a week, and practise in the little church here. Well, dear Jessie, this letter must come to a close, as I am sleepy. Give my best love to your dear mother; write soon and tell me all about your own affairs and Philip.

CHAPTER V.
A SLEIGH-RIDE.

On the morning after Margaret had written the letter to her friend, given above, she was finishing her breakfast at about nine o'clock, while little Miss Spelman bustled about in her china-closet, and around the room, when a jingle of bells was heard, and in a moment more, Dr. James appeared at the dining-room door.

"Miss Lester, do you feel in the mood for a sleigh-ride? I have to go over to Sealing, and shall be glad to take you."

"Oh! yes," cried Margaret, jumping up from the table, "of all things what I would like best; but I must change my dress, I am afraid. I will not be ten minutes, if you can wait."

In a short time Margaret appeared, dressed in a dark blue suit with black dog-skin furs, and a very jaunty round cap to match on her head.

"I have my cloak besides," said Margaret, displaying a very thick and heavy mantle, of every color of the rainbow.

"You will set this quiet little place on fire, with your bright colors; we don't see such brilliant things here very often."

"Gay colors are the fashion," said Margaret, "and I almost always wear them. I get very tired of them, however, and wish my style were not prononcé. I quite long sometimes to wear neutral tints, and cool, delicate colors."

"Miss Edgar wears such shades,[246] does she not? She is so perfectly refined and lady-like."

"She does, when she is willing to take the trouble; but I generally have to insist upon her dressing becomingly. When we were in Paris, we were both told about our different styles, and how we should dress; and I think it is worth while to consider the subject, and Jessie does not; that is all."

"I think she does; but for dress without any reference to herself. She is very fond of pretty things, and would be quite contented to wear a rose-colored bonnet, or a bird-of-paradise evening dress, if I did not prevent it. You admire Miss Edgar very much, do you not, Dr. James?"

"As much as I can admire a lady I have never seen. But why should you think that I admire her?"

"And if she were not already engaged, you would like to marry her yourself, would you not?"

Margaret spoke impulsively; and before she had uttered the last words would gladly have swallowed the sentence whole, but it was too late. The doctor's face flushed, and he said very slowly,

"Yes—I mean no; that is, I mean, Dr. James, that I took it away from her and read it myself. She did not want me to see it; it was all my fault. Jessie is gentle, and I am rough, and I tyrannize over her very often."

"There was no reason why you should not have seen that letter, any more than any other. I would not have Miss Edgar other than Philip's wife for any thing in the world; and my saying I would have liked her myself, was meant only as a joke, and I am sure she understood it so. Indeed, I was far from being in earnest when I wrote that letter."

It was now Margaret's turn to change color, and her face burned; an unusual and painful thing for her. She felt at that moment as if she would like to find herself on the opposite side of the world. What an absurd position she was in! This man must regard her as a fool, or worse. What business had she to be at Shellbeach at all, or here in this sleigh, beside one on whom she had not the smallest claim, and who had no reason to think her any thing but a forward, unlady-like girl, as she was? These, and many equally disagreeable thoughts rushed through her mind, before Dr. James said pleasantly,

"Is it possible you keep up your city hours here, and breakfast at nine o'clock? How luxurious your life must be!"

"Does nine seem late to you?" asked Margaret, making an effort to speak carelessly; "it is early to me. When we used to come home from parties at three or four in the morning, we breakfasted at eleven or even twelve. But there is no excuse for sleeping late here, I know; I might go to bed at eight o'clock in the evening, except when we have a visitor, as we did last night. But you see there are no bells; my room is dark, and Cécile never comes in till I ring for her. Then, Aunt Selina says she does not mind."

"Miss Spelman is not a very early riser herself. But, Miss Lester, I think a poor man's household ought to be up with the dawn." He smiled at her in a friendly way as he spoke, and Margaret laughed.

"And the mistress of a poor man's[247] household ought to call all the members of the family, ought she not?"

"I think so; that is a very important matter. Yet I know few things in our daily life which require more heroism than getting up in the morning at the right time. Though I ought to be accustomed to being called at any and every hour, I never find it grows easy to forsake my pillow; and whenever it is not imperatively necessary for me to get up, I prolong my morning nap in the most cowardly way."

"It is a grand name for a small matter, certainly; but I was in earnest when I said it."

"I should so like to be a heroine! It is almost worth while to try the experiment."

They now drove into the main street of the town of Sealing, and there Dr. James showed Margaret a bookstore, the circulating library, and pointed out one or two more shops, and asked her if she thought she could occupy herself for half an hour, while he visited a few patients.

"I may be gone even longer than that," he said, "and it would be very cold for you to sit in the sleigh and wait."

"I should like to explore the town very well," she answered; "and I will meet you in an hour's time wherever you say. O Dr. James! I want a sled very much; I delight in coasting. Could I get a good one here?"

"There are no toy-shops, properly speaking, but there is an excellent carpenter across the street, and he would make you a satisfactory sled, I have no doubt."

"Yes, there are one or two capital hills. If you like, we will go to the carpenter's now, before I leave you; perhaps my advice on the subject would be acceptable."

They ordered the sled, and Margaret added, with a sideway glance at Dr. James, that the word "Enterprise" was to be printed in red letters on one side, and "1867" on the other. The apothecary's shop was appointed as the place of rendezvous, and the doctor drove away.

He was back again first; but after waiting and wondering a few minutes, she came round the corner, looking at her watch, with a bright color, and her dress white with snow.

"I am on time," she cried; "just an hour, Dr. James; and I have had such a splendid time! But I have a few things at the different shops; will you stop for them?"

From a small shop, combining the establishments of a small watch-maker, a locksmith, and a bell-hanger, a man came out with a parcel which Margaret insisted on holding in her own hands all the way home.

"I can't imagine what you should want from that shop, but the shape is very much like a clock."

Dr. James smiled, but made no comment; and as they drove home, she gave him an account of the hour she had spent alone.

"I got one or two books from the library; pretty trashy, I should think, but it was entertaining to read the names of the well-worn volumes on the shelves. I visited the dry-goods store, and then determined to explore; and pretty soon I found a little street which was one steep hill, down which some small boys were coasting. They seemed harmless and meek, and after bestowing upon them a paper of sugar-plums I had just bought, I requested the loan of a sled. You[248] should have seen the astonishment depicted on their faces, and heard the giggles and rapture when, taking the largest sled from the unresisting hand of its owner, I asked for instruction as to establishing myself upon it and starting, and then went full speed down the hill, regardless of the houses on either side and the shouts of my friends above me. It was splendid, Dr. James! I don't know when I have enjoyed any thing so much! Well, I dragged my sled up again, and asked for six more coasts, hinting at more candy to be forthcoming; but I found all offers of compensation quite unnecessary, as the little fellows were as enraptured as I at the performance, and each begged me pathetically to try his sled. But I held to my first choice; and though on the third coast I upset and rolled in the snow, I persevered till I found my hour was almost up, and then abandoned my sled to its owner."

"But for the credit of human nature, and especially of boy nature, which I have always considered to be remorseless to the last degree, I must tell you that when I fell off my sled into the snow the boys did not laugh at and deride me, but came running down the hill to see if I were hurt—a circumstance which pleased me very much."

The drive back to Shellbeach seemed all too short for Margaret; she was left, as before, on the doorstep with her several bundles; but this time she entered as a member of the family, glowing with the exercise and almost as noisy as Jimmy, who came barking and leaping to welcome his mistress. She gave a detailed account of her drive to her aunt, ending with the exclamation, "And Dr. James both smiled and laughed! I feel that I have achieved a triumph!"

CHAPTER VI.
ANOTHER LETTER.

It will be seen from this letter that Dr. James had not disclosed, even to his old friend, the secret of Margaret's visit to Shellbeach; neither was Jessie more communicative on the subject; for they were both rather ashamed of the affair. Margaret herself, to tell the truth, was not free from a like embarrassment; there was something manly and unassuming about the doctor, a freedom from all pretension and assertion, that made her feel, when with him, quiet and almost diffident. This, however, she did not acknowledge to herself; and her high spirits determined her to carry out her plan, and brave all the obstacles which her appreciation of the circumstances suggested to her. From one point of view, her coming was a success; Miss Spelman was charmed with her, and spoke of her remaining indefinitely. She made much of and petted her in a way Margaret was not accustomed to, and which was very pleasant to her. She could almost imagine, now, what it would be to have a mother's love and care during these years of her youthful womanhood. True, her aunt was no support, and her advice was not always wise; but Margaret was both by nature and habit self-reliant, and the person was not come, she thought, to whom she could abandon the reins of government, and in whose favor she might abdicate.

CHAPTER VII.
FROM THE LABORING CLASSES.

After a week had passed in her aunt's well-ordered household, Margaret received a few ceremonious calls from the ladies of Shellbeach and Sealing, which, in the course of another week, she returned with due formality with her aunt. The visiting acquaintance of Miss Spelman at Shellbeach consisted of a few elderly ladies, of whom Margaret saw but little during her visit, though they were kind and cordial, and always gave her a pleasant welcome to their houses.

There was one caller, however, of whom Margaret was destined to see a good deal, and who deserves a more particular description. She was[250] a lady who might have been between forty and fifty, who came walking into the house without ringing, one windy evening, in rubber boots, with which she had been making herself a path in the newly fallen snow. She was tall and thin, with heavy eye-brows, and rather masculine bearing and manners, but a very genial smile beamed on her lips and in her eyes. Her voice was loud but cheerful, and she gave Margaret a warm squeeze of the hand and a good, steady look in the eye, that seemed to show she was disposed for friendliness.

"Well now, Martha," said Miss Spelman, helping her guest off with hood and cloak, and wheeling up a comfortable chair for her to the fire, "where have you been all this long time? And how are you and your poor old father? How does the house stand this cold winter, and how are you getting along altogether?"

The visitor seated herself in the chair, tucked up her plain brown gown over her knees, and clasped her rough, strong-looking hands, seeming to enjoy the cheery blaze; then she answered rather slowly,

"We are very well off, thank you, Miss Spelman. Father's about the same as usual; he misses the garden now the snow has come. The house is pretty tight, and I keep the fires going with Norah's help. You know Dr. James got Norah for us, and a more willing, good-natured creature I never wish to see. She really seems to have brought sunshine into the house, and says, 'May the queen of heaven send you good health, sir!' and, 'May the blessed saints look out for you, Miss Martha!' quite in the old-country fashion."

"I don't know about Irish help," said Miss Spelman; "I never can get along with them. I haven't had one these ten years, since my poor old Bridget died; and then they're always so set about getting to church, and dreadfully put out if they are prevented now and then."

"Do you think so? Well, Norah says to me, 'I dearly love to go to holy Mass, and to pay my respects on the saints' days; but the priest tells me to mind my duty in the house first, and I wouldn't feel easy to go and leave that poor lamb (one of her names for my father) with none to look after his dinner.'"

"Well, long may she prove a treasure, that's all," and the old lady shook her head doubtfully.

"You've come to a pretty place, Miss Lester," said Martha Burney; "it's pretty enough now, with its fresh white dress of snow; but I don't know what you'll say to it when the young green comes out, and the birds begin to sing. But what do you find to do with yourself?"

"Nothing very useful yet. I have given my attention principally to coasting; I have got a new sled, and have found some charming coasts about here. I go out before breakfast."

"Bless me! how many ages is it, I wonder, since I did that?" cried Miss Burney. "Then you do not keep late hours in the morning?"

"I did at first, through force of habit; but now I have an alarm-clock, and try getting up at six, and dressing without a fire."

"Very well, very well indeed, for a New Yorker! Ah! I see you will do for the country. You must never go away, but make up your mind to settle down here."

"That's what I mean to have her do," said Miss Spelman; "and Margaret said she would consider the subject."

Miss Burney's call lasted a full hour; then she enveloped herself in cloak and hood, and shaking Margaret[251] once more warmly by the hand took her departure.

"Who is she, aunt? I think she must be a character, and mean to cultivate her acquaintance."

"Yes, she has a story. Her father—lamb, indeed!" cried Miss Spelman, interrupting herself; "that Norah had better call him 'poor wolf;' to be sure he is reaping the fruits of his misdeeds, but he has richly deserved his troubles. Well, he was a swindler; that is all. His poor wife died of the shame when the biggest of his robberies came to light, and he went steadily down-hill, with this brave daughter trying to keep him straight. He spent one or two poor little legacies she had left her, and at last became the broken-down, imbecile old man he is now. When he was too feeble to prevent her, Martha took him out of the great city where he lived, and they somehow found their way here; and then she went to work and has supported him ever since. She teaches in the public school over in Sealing; she is the head lady teacher now, and with that, and a little she has had left her within a few years, she supports herself and him."

"Very, but she prefers obscurity; and that is the best employment she can get here. She is a fine woman, independent and brave, owing no one any thing and taking care of herself. She had a lover once, they say," continued Miss Selina, dropping her voice; "but when it all came to light about her father's transactions, of course she released him."

"Why, certainly he did, dear Margaret; no man would wish to marry a woman with such a father."

"I like Martha Burney's company, and I try to make her come here often; but it is hard to induce her to leave her father. She says she has to be away from him so much of each day, that it is not right to let him pass any more time alone."

"She would be delighted to see you. She has all her evenings, and Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. She is very fond of young people."

The Sealing callers do not demand a particular description. There were a few young ladies, none of whom Margaret much liked; she thought them assuming and silly. One of them crowned her other offences by replying to a question of Margaret's about Miss Burney, "Oh! yes, very estimable person, I believe; I do not know her. Were you aware that she teaches in the public school?"

THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE SPECIES.[57]
I.

For a century and a half, the attention of the scientific world has been repeatedly called to theories purporting to prove the evolution of the species. Before the last dozen years, they elicited nothing but deserved contempt from those conversant with the phenomena of which they treat. Their absurdity was transparent, alike in their conclusion and in the processes by which that conclusion was held to have been reached. They were in succession fully refuted. But there arose a class of men, somewhat superior in intellect and ingenuity to the propounders of these speculations, who were imbued with similar atheistic principles. They directed all their efforts toward the conception of a theory more capable than the others of attaining a respectable scientific status. It would have been matter of great surprise, then, if this concentration of intellectual energy had not resulted in something sufficiently plausible to startle the world.

In the year 1859, Mr. Charles Darwin, one of the first naturalists of England, propounded his theory of development, in a work termed The Origin of Species. This purported to be a full and conclusive confirmation of the hypothesis of evolution. The theory was elaborate and ingenious, and on its appearance was immediately advocated by many men to whom it was not wholly unexpected. Its congruity with their atheistic views can alone furnish an adequate explanation of the haste with which they declared themselves its advocates. This harmony with preconceived ideas was confessedly the chief inducement urging them to accept the theory. Hear Mr. Herbert Spencer's conception of the spirit in which a person should approach the subject: "Before it can be ascertained how organized beings have been gradually evolved, there must be reached the conviction that they have been gradually evolved." The italics are his own. Mr. George Henry Lewes, in an article in the Fortnightly Review for April 1st, 1868, says:

That Mr. Lewes and other really able men have been so influenced, we entertain not the slightest doubt. But their failure to discover and appreciate the evidence against the theory, we ascribe not to incompetency, but to the bias of a foregone conclusion. We hail with delight the efforts of these men to sustain the theory, confident that, the greater the light thrown upon it, the more glaringly palpable will become its absurdity.

We purpose to show, in this and[253] other articles, that the facts which are seemingly so congruous with the conception of evolution are in reality grossly at variance with it, and strictly in accordance with the doctrine of special creations. We will proceed at once to their consideration.

Variations form the data of Darwin's theory. These, as facts, cannot be disputed. Variation is everywhere seen. Scarcely any species, either animal or vegetable, has escaped this tendency. While some species have not presented differences among their individuals sufficiently marked for the formation of varieties, a multitude of other species display modifications which form the characteristics of dozens of widely distinct breeds. Not less than one hundred and fifty distinct strains and varieties have descended from the original wild pigeon, columba livia. All these varieties result from man's careful selection, and his judicious pairing of those individuals which possess the required modifications. This he does in sure reliance on the law of heredity, which transmits to the offspring the most minute peculiarities of the parents, saving, of course, when they are brought into conflict with opposite characters. These variations are both in the direction of increase and in the direction of decrease. Here we find a variety formed by the appearance of a modification not observable in the species under nature, and there a variety formed by the total or partial suppression of one or more characters. Now, few portions of the organization are incapable of modification. Darwin has conclusively shown that even the bones and internal organs have been greatly modified. To realize fully the extent and scope of variation, it is necessary to consult Darwin's late work, Animals and Plants under Domestication. Many of the modifications—especially those most widely divergent—constitute differences greater than those which distinguish species from species, and, in some few cases, genus from genus.

It may here be thought that we have made too great concessions; that the logical and inevitable conclusion from the facts, as we state them, is the evolution of the species. Not so. For the more numerous and the more widely divergent the modifications are shown to be, the more easily will we be able to prove to demonstration the fixity of the species.

As these varieties (or incipient species, as Darwin conceives them to be) were formed through the selection by man of slight successive modifications, Darwin affects to believe that variations arose in the wild state; that they were accumulated and preserved by nature by a process analogous to man's selection; and that by the long continued accumulation and conservation, through countless ages, of these modifications, the species have evolved from one another. This selective power of nature he infers from the struggle for existence constantly carried on in the wild state, wherein the weak succumb, and the fittest, strongest, and most vigorous survive, and, according to the theory, attain to a higher development.

Many objections have been urged against Darwin's theory. Some have questioned the efficiency of natural selection; and others have contended that selection necessarily implies a selecter. Some have considered Darwinism sufficiently disproved by the absence of the transitional links between the different species. Others have asserted the inconceivableness of the primordial differentiation of parts in organisms when they all presented the simplest structure. Another argument has been adduced[254] from the tendency of domesticated animals and plants, when neglected, to recur to the ancestral form under nature. Some assume a limit to variation; while others have contended that domestication of itself has introduced something plastic into organisms, enabling them to vary, and that, therefore, the analogy drawn between animals and plants under domestication and those under nature is inadmissible. Others assert that domestic animals and plants have been rendered in an especial manner subservient to the uses and purposes of man. In conformity with this view, they also affirm that the conception of species is, for that reason, not applicable to the creatures under domestication. For ourselves, we concede that the analogy between domesticated and natural animals and plants is a just one, in the light in which the phenomena of variation are generally regarded. For we wholly dissent from the opinion of the introduction by domestication of any thing plastic into organisms, and firmly believe in the operation of secondary causes in the formation of varieties.

These arguments, in the form in which they are adduced, are inconclusive. Their weakness springs from an error into which those who have urged them have fallen, which vitiates at the start all their reasoning. To this error we shall presently advert. But while we cannot concur in their premises, we have something more than an intuition of the truth of their common conclusion.

The facts, of which the Animals and Plants under Domestication is a vast repertory, admit of a theory more conformable than that of Darwin to the phenomena of variation; a theory which fully accounts for the appearance of the profitable modifications under domestication, (confessedly inexplicable on Darwin's theory,) and for the formation of races under nature; a theory admitting of still further variation; and which is at the same time strictly in accordance with the doctrines of special creations and of the immutability of the species. This teleological explanation, of which we conceive the phenomena of variation to be susceptible, we will render amenable to all the canons of scientific research. And in doing so, we will rely for our proofs upon no evidence but that furnished us by noted evolutionists.

The seeming concurrence of all the evidence in favor of Darwinism results from a misconception by all of the true nature of its data. In all the arguments adduced by the advocates of special creation in disproof of Darwin's hypotheses, these variations have been tacitly admitted to arise by evolution. That they have thus arisen seems to be taken for granted. In this admission lies their error. Upon this current conception of varietal evolution rests the whole evolution hypothesis. Upon the validity of this assumption we join issue with Darwin, as we conceive that upon this point the whole question hinges. For it is not a little illogical to concede the evolution of varieties, and to deny the evolution of species. If we can show that this assumption is invalid, the whole evolution fabric will fall.

Darwin tacitly assumes that the existing state of nature is the normal or primordial condition of animals and plants. The difficulty hitherto experienced in confuting his errors springs from acquiescence in this assumption. True it is that Darwin does not believe in the validity of this assumption, but merely makes it to show the inconceivableness of the negation of evolution. With him a[255] species is not fixed but fluctuating, and is merely a subjective conception, having no objective reality. Believing in the converse assumption, we advance the following theory: That animals and plants have degenerated under nature, and that the favorable modifications arising under domestication are due to reversion to the perfect type.

Darwin, in treating of variations, refers them indiscriminately to reversion and to evolution. This he does according to no law, rule, method, or formula. The mere circumstance that he has one subject under consideration, suffices to induce him to ascribe to reversion a modification which, in another portion of his work, he, with strange inconsistency, attributes to "spontaneous variability." He affects to deem it a sufficient answer to the ascription of characters to reversion, to appeal to the absence of such characters in the species under nature. If the assumption of degeneration and subsequent favorable reversion can lay even the least claim to tenability, this answer is in no wise satisfactory. If it can be conclusively shown that most, if not all, creatures in a state of nature, are in a degenerated condition, then the irresistible inference will be, in the absence of any other rational explanation, that favorable variations are ascribable to reversion.

While, as Herbert Spencer says, "a comparison of ancient and modern members of the types which have existed from paleozoic and mesozoic times down to the present day shows that the total amount of change (in animals) is not relatively great, and that it is not manifestly toward a higher organization," paleontology furnishes us with many facts showing the great size of ancient mammals, and marked degeneracy in their descendants. Thus, Darwin concurs with Bell, Cuvier, Nilsson, and others in the belief that European cattle—the Continental and Pembroke breeds, and the Chillingham cattle—are the degenerate descendants of the great urus, (bos primigenius,) with which they cannot now sustain a comparison, so greatly have they degenerated. Cæsar describes the urus as being not much inferior in size to the elephant. An entire skull of one, found in Perthshire, measures one yard in length, while the span of the horn cores is three feet and six inches, the breadth of the forehead between the horns is ten and a half inches, and from the middle of the occipital ridge to the back of the orbit it is thirteen inches, (Owen's British Fossil Mammals, pp. 500, 501, 502.) The common red deer have so greatly undergone degeneration that the fossil remains of their progenitors have been held to be those of a distinct species, (strongylocerus spelæus.) An advocate of Darwinism—a writer in the Edinburgh Review for October, 1868—differs with Owen on this point, and holds that the common red deer are their descendants, greatly degenerated. From their antlers it is inferred that they equalled in height the megaceros, whose height to summit of antlers was ten feet four inches, (Owen's British Foss. Mam.) So marked is the difference in the size of the antlers, says the Edinburgh reviewer, that it would be possible to ascertain approximately the antiquity of a deposit in which they might be found from that fact alone. The horse and the elephas antiquus have also been shown to have decreased in size.

Changes similar to these have been adduced by the advocates of evolution, to show the manner in which species have been formed under nature. But these, we apprehend, imply[256] devolution rather than evolution. They also serve, contend they, as illustrations of the harmony subsisting between the organism and its environment. If by this is meant that the organism responds to every marked change in the environment, we admit the harmony. But if congruity between a perfect physiological state and the changed conditions is implied, we demur. Certain conditions are absolutely essential to the growth of characters and to general perfection. When they are so modified as to entail the diminution or loss of any positive feature, this tells upon the organism. Darwin, noting that the appearance of certain characters was invariably consequent upon the presence of certain conditions, says (in order to avoid any thing like a teleological implication) that we must not thence infer that those or any conditions are absolutely necessary to the growth of any organs or characters. That Darwin errs, and that full physiological perfection cannot exist except where there is full general growth, and full growth of all parts or organs, we shall clearly demonstrate when, in a future article, we treat of the laws of compensation or balancement of growth, of correlation, of crossing, and of close interbreeding. But whether there exists harmony between the organism or not, there is none the less deterioration. And when reversion to the type from which the organism has degenerated takes place under domestication, it is termed evolution.

But those proofs of degeneration and subsequent favorable reversion upon which we chiefly rely are those afforded by Darwin himself. On page 8, Vol. I. of his late work, he says, "Members of a high group might even become, and this apparently has occurred, fitted for simpler conditions of life; and in this case, natural selection would tend to simplify or degrade the organism; for complicated mechanism for simple actions would be useless or even disadvantageous." The efficiency of natural selection in this respect we fully concede.

And again, on page 12, "During the many changes to which, in the course of time, all organic beings have been subjected, certain organs or parts have occasionally become of little use, and ultimately superfluous, and the retention of such parts in a rudimentary and utterly useless condition can, on the descent theory, be simply understood." We heartily concur in this explanation furnished by the descent theory, as we fully believe all that is attributed to the law of hereditary transmission, the particularities of the hypothesis of pangenesis excepted.

Treating of a symmetrical growth, he cites the cases of "wrong fishes," gasteropods or shell-fish, of certain species of bulimus, and many achitinellæ, verucca, and orchids, and infers, from their being as liable to be unequally developed on the one as on the other side, that the capacity for development is present, and that it is due to reversion. "And as a reversal of development occasionally occurs in animals of many kinds, this latent capacity is probably very common." (P. 53, vol. ii.)

On pages 58, 59, and 60 are given cases of "the re-development of wholly or partially aborted organs." The corydalis tuberosa properly has one of its two nectaries colorless, destitute of nectar, and only one half the size of the other. Its pistil is curved toward the perfect nectary, and the hood, formed of the inner petals, slips off the pistil and stamens in one direction alone, so that when a bee sucks the perfect nectary, the stigma and stamens are exposed and[257] rubbed against the insect's body. "Now," says Darwin, "I have examined several flowers of the corydalis tuberosa, in which both nectaries were equally developed, and contained nectar; in this we see only the re-development of a partially aborted organ; but with this re-development the pistil becomes straight and the hood slips off in either direction; so that the flowers have acquired the perfect structure, so well adapted for insect agency, of dielytra and its allies. We cannot attribute these coadapted modifications to chance, or to correlated variability; we must attribute them to reversion to a primordial condition of the species." Upon Darwin's hypothesis, all the beautiful, delicate, involved, and harmonious adjustments, coadaptations, relations, and dependencies in organic nature must, at some time, have arisen by evolution. But here he apparently assigns their coadaptation as a reason for not ascribing these modifications to chance, or to correlated variability; as if their evolution were inconceivable. Does this consist with his theory? What difficulty exists against their evolution now, which is not susceptible of being urged with equal if not greater force against their evolution ages ago? Why push the question further back in time? Was the evolution of these modifications less inconceivable then than now? If so, why? In default of an answer, we have no alternative but to conclude that all favorable modifications arise by reversion.

Having given several cases of the "reappearance of organs of which not a vestige could be detected," he declares it "difficult to believe that they would have come to full perfection in color, structure, and function unless those organs had, at some former period, passed through a similar course of growth." We surmise that at the moment in which Darwin conceived such a difficulty, his singularly powerful imagination was impaired by over-exercise. We trust that, on the recurrence of such a mental state, he will cease to marvel at us for experiencing a like difficulty in conceiving the evolution of any favorable characters.

After giving the opinion of several naturalists—in which he concurs—"that the common bond of connection between the several foregoing cases is an actual though partial return to the ancient progenitor of the group," he says, "If this view be correct, we must believe that a vast number of characters capable of evolution (!) lie hidden in every organic being." Here Darwin, as if he had demonstrated the tendency to revert too clearly for the tenableness of his theory, asserts that the appearance of these characters, which have been by him attributed to reversion, is attributable to evolution. The inconsistency is manifest. But this may be taken as a type of the whole of Darwinism. For the author, after acquainting us, without the slightest apparent hesitation, with facts showing degeneration to have been little short of universal, declares that he is forced to believe that favorable modifications are due to "spontaneous variability," as they are otherwise inexplicable; seeming to be wholly oblivious of ever having mentioned previous degeneration. This reminds us of another inconsistency of which evolutionists are guilty. They never tire of inveighing against the reference of phenomena to what they term "metaphysical entities," such as "vital power," "inherent tendency," "intrinsic aptitude," etc. But this by no means precludes their use of the same phrases when treating of phenomena which refuse to be moulded into even seeming conformity[258] to their hypotheses. Again, these characters cannot be due to evolution if they are a return to the ancient progenitor of the group; for that implies the possession of a larger number of characters in the progenitor than in its descendants; which directly militates against evolution, which is an advance from the simpler to the more complex. But Darwinism is in part but an ingeniously disguised and elaborate revival of the idea of Geoffroy St. Hilaire. He conceived "that what we call species are various degenerations of the same type." Races under nature are, upon our theory, caused by degeneration; they are various degenerations of a specific type. Observing that races were thus caused, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, we apprehend, instituted an analogy between races and species, and inferred from the former being various degenerations of a specific type, that the latter were the various degenerations of a generic (or a still higher) type. He was also induced thus to conclude by the fact that characters, which were held in common by all the species of a genus, were in some species in a rudimentary state. But the sterility of hybrids precludes the possibility of this common origin of the species. In so far as this hypothesis relates to species, Darwin adopts it. The fact that races have been similarly caused, he ignores, as that is grossly at variance with his hypothesis of evolution, which lays claim to plausibility only in the absence of any rational explanation of the appearance of favorable modifications under domestication. Were races confessed to be the degenerations of a specific type, then it would be apparent to the capacity of a boy that the appearance of characters under domestication was due to reversion. Had not Darwin accepted the idea of St. Hilaire, his theory would be devoid of its present semblance of unity and coherency. Having started out to prove the common origin of the species by evolution, he preserves the appearance of consistency in his illustrations by assuming an identical conclusion, but one arrived at, as he unwittingly shows, by postulating degeneration. This furnishes him with a seeming confirmation of his theory; but as these hypotheses of degeneration and evolution are wholly incongruous, the vain endeavor to blend them harmoniously involves him in many inconsistencies and absurdities. Thus, in endeavoring to prove community of origin of the species, he, in conformity with the conception of degeneration, accounts for the appearance of characters by reversion, and then, apprehensive that this attribution would be wholly subversive of his theory of development, ends by inconsistently and gratuitously terming them instances of evolution. The expressions quoted above illustrate this. He has shown that the modifications are due to a return to the ancient progenitor of the group, and then says, "If this view be correct, we must believe that a vast number of characters capable of evolution (!) lie hidden in every organic being." Many other instances of this inconsistency could be given, but the following will, we trust, suffice. After adducing cases of bud variation, he says, "When we reflect on these facts, we become deeply impressed with the conviction that, in such cases, the nature of the variation depends but little on the conditions to which the plant has been exposed, and not in any especial manner on its individual character, but much more on the general nature or condition, inherited from some remote progenitor of the whole group of allied beings to which[259] the plant belongs." Mark the consistency. The appearance of nectarines on peach-trees by bud variation is here ascribed to reversion, while in numerous other places it is adduced as one of the most striking instances of evolution. He has cited the cases of bud variation as instances of evolution, to prove community of origin of the species, and then assumes the community of origin of the species to account by reversion for the appearance of nectarines and all bud variations. But Darwin may go on involving himself in a succession of absurdities, in the just confidence that, however gross they may be, they will not be observable so long as his opponents admit the evolution of varieties.

On page 265, he declares it "impossible in most cases to distinguish between the reappearance of ancient, and the first appearance of new characters." This of course implies that some characters arise by evolution. Now, how are we to discriminate between those arising by reversion and those arising by evolution? What is the distinguishing characteristic of the latter? Darwin has failed to inform us. We deny evolution in any case—"sport," strain, race, variety, or species. Darwin takes it for granted in the cases of "sport," strain, and variety, after having shown degeneration to have been almost universal. He professes to believe that these are due to evolution. What is evolution? Is it not "a name for a hypothetical property which as much needs explanation as that which it is used to explain"? Whence results this belief in evolution? From intuition? This knowledge of the existence of such a potent factor is doubtless very enviable, especially when it is possessed by able scientists. But—to follow a train of thought pursued in another connection—it needs some guarantee of its genuineness. For the first impulse of a scientific scepticism is to inquire by what means these scientists have acquired such a knowledge of the cause of variations. If it was gained from a study of nature, then it must be amenable to all the canons of scientific research; and these assure us that the appearance of favorable modifications is wholly inexplicable except upon the hypothesis of reversion, and that evolution is merely a name for a cause of which we are presumed to be ignorant. In science an explanation is the reduction of phenomena to a series of known conditions, thus bringing what was unknown within the circle of the known. Does the hypothesis of evolution fulfil this requirement? Has it not been confessed that "spontaneous variability," or evolution, stands in the place of ignorance? Is not the ascription of characters to evolution a "shaping of ignorance into the semblance of knowledge"? Has not Darwin shown that such it is, when he frankly acknowledges his ignorance of the cause of the appearance of favorable modifications, and when he attributes them to "an innate spontaneous tendency"? Of what validity, then, can an hypothesis be, when the assumption upon which it is grounded is, confessedly, wholly gratuitous? Before it can be entitled to a hearing in a scientific court of inquiry, it is necessary that it furnish some warrant for assuming evolution. We rely with the most implicit confidence upon Mr. G. H. Lewes concurring with us in deeming this requisite.

On page 350, Darwin says, "Many sub-varieties of the pigeon have reversed and somewhat lengthened feathers on the back of their heads, and this is certainly not due to the species under nature, which shows no[260] trace of such a structure; but when we remember that sub-varieties of the fowl, the turkey, the canary-bird, duck, and goose all have top-knots or reversed feathers on their heads, and when we remember that scarcely a single natural group of birds can be named in which some members have not a tuft of feathers on their heads, we may suspect that reversion to some extremely remote form has come into action." A high development of the "extremely remote form," together with degeneration under nature and subsequent favorable reversion, is here manifestly implied.

On page 247, the tendency to prolification is ascribed to reversion to a former condition.

"With domesticated animals," says Darwin, on page 353, "the reduction of a part from disuse is never carried so far that a mere rudiment is left, but we have good reason to believe that this has often occurred under nature."

Speaking of the gradual increase in size of our domesticated animals, he says, "This fact is all the more striking, as certain wild or half-wild animals, such as red deer, aurochs, park-cattle, and boars, have, within nearly the same period, decreased in size." (P. 427.)

On page 61, Vol. II., he says, "It is probable that hardly a change of any kind affects either parent without some mark being left on the germ. But on the doctrine of reversion, as given in this chapter, the germ becomes a far more marvellous object; for besides the visible changes to which it is subjected, we must believe that it is crowded with invisible characters, proper to both sexes, to both the right and left side of the body, and to a long line of male and female ancestors, separated by hundreds or even thousands of generations from the present time; and these characters, like those written on paper with invisible ink, all lie ready to be evolved (!!!) under certain known or unknown conditions." If this is the case, is not the scope of reversion sufficiently wide to cover every favorable modification which has arisen, or may arise, under domestication?

But these extracts from Darwin's Animals and Plants under Domestication, strongly confirmatory as they are of our hypothesis, ill sustain a comparison with the last we shall adduce. Fuller concession no one could reasonably desire.

"With species in a state of nature," says Darwin, on page 317, "rudimentary organs are so extremely common that scarcely one can be mentioned which is wholly free from a blemish of this nature." Stronger confirmation of our hypothesis, short of a full and unequivocal confession of its validity, we are utterly unable to conceive. Are we not, after this, justified in ascribing to reversion every favorable modification which has arisen or may arise?

Having thus furnished full warrant for assuming degeneration and subsequent favorable reversion, and for alleging the complete gratuitousness of the converse assumption of evolution, let us turn our attention to the grand principle of natural selection.

It is scarcely possible to read Darwin's graphic description of the struggle for existence among animals and plants, and not marvel at their survival. Creatures under nature are subjected to the greatest vicissitudes of climate. Thousands are born into the world with delicate constitutions, inherited from their progenitors. These enter into competition with their fellows for the means of subsistence; and although they eventually succumb, they have, during their short lives, by this competition, induced[261] the deterioration of their stronger companions. All without exception have to struggle, from the hour of their birth to the hour of their death, for existence. Natural extinction carries off those whose impaired constitutions are inconsistent with prolonged existence. Consequent upon natural extinction is the survival of the fittest and strongest. Darwin avers that the weaker portion of the species having been carried off by natural extinction, the next generation, having been derived only from the stronger portion of the race, will be of a still stronger constitution. This is not the case. Natural extinction does not arbitrarily carry off the weak, but merely those whose extremely impaired constitutions are incompatible with life. Many survive between which and the conditions there is little compatibility. And even the offspring of those which are the strongest are subjected in their turn to the same if not worse conditions, and to the same if not severer competition; for the probability is, that the increase in the number of animals and plants has been great. Thus degeneration is ever active. If the climate fails to entail deterioration, and becomes favorable, the same result is produced by the severe competition consequent upon "an astonishingly rapid increase in numbers."

Darwin implies that natural selection is something more than the correlative of natural extinction. That it is, he has not shown. All the facts show that the one is merely the correlative of the other. The semblance of the converse being the case is given, we conceive, by the constant use, when speaking of those preserved by natural selection, of the superlative, as strongest, fittest, most vigorous. Under nature, unfavorable modifications are ever arising, and those animals and plants which possess them in a marked degree are carried off by natural extinction. Natural selection, in its turn, operates merely by the preservation of those organisms which have undergone little or no modification. The two factors are only different aspects of the same process. One necessitates the other. More than this, natural selection is not. That it acts by the preservation of successive favorable modifications, Darwin has signally failed to adduce a single instance to prove. Instances of adaptation he has adduced, but they are invariably, except where man has intervened, those of degeneration. A description of the process of natural selection is always accompanied with an account of the incessant war waging throughout nature, resulting in natural extinction. Following this is natural selection, preserving the fitter, stronger, and more vigorous. Now, a tolerably clear conception of our view may be gained by considering that, although those preserved may be the fitter, stronger, and more vigorous, in comparison with their brothers or contemporaries, they may be—and the vast majority of the instances adduced by Darwin show this to be the case—less fit, less strong, and less vigorous than their progenitors. Those instances adduced which do not imply this, show no advance on the progenitors, but merely a struggle against degeneration and a continuance in the same state. For animals and plants under nature can scarcely hold their own. Many of them are reduced to the lowest condition compatible with life. If they do not remain stationary, their movement is in the direction of degeneration. Does not Darwin's assertion, before adverted to, that rudimentary organs are so extremely common that scarcely a single species can be mentioned which does not possess such a blemish,[262] imply the preëxistence of conditions sufficiently adverse to entail unfavorable changes in almost every point or character in an organism? It is not a little amusing to see that, in numbers of the exemplifications of the process of natural selection given by Darwin, the animals and plants are subjected to extreme vicissitudes of climate, the severest competition, and other unfavorably modifying influences, and although deterioration is acknowledged to result, and it is manifest that all are unfavorably modified, he invariably concludes with the assertion that the strongest and most vigorous survive. This assertion is true in one sense, but is false when viewed with reference to the inference intended to be drawn. It will be seen that the more correct assertion would be, those survive which have undergone less modification or none.

But independently of these considerations; even upon the supposition that natural selection was equally powerful with man's selection in the formation of varieties or races, that as strongly pronounced and as widely divergent modifications as those observable under domestication had arisen under nature, the efficiency of natural selection is a matter of no moment. For the argument therefrom begs the whole question. It takes for granted the whole point really in controversy. It assumes that those modifications which may arise, or which have arisen, are due to evolution. It is not in the least inconsistent with our views that favorable varieties or races should arise under nature. As a matter of fact, we deny their ever having arisen. But we are not by this denial estopped from believing it possible for them to arise in the future. For were the conditions to change, and to become as favorable as those to which animals and plants are subjected under domestication, races would then arise. They would probably be fewer in number, but a nearer approach to perfection could be attained, the conditions admitting; for man's improvement of the animals and plants under his care is retarded, owing to his not being as yet perfectly conversant with the conditions requisite for their full development. But the modifications which may arise under nature will be due to reversion. The improvement of natural species will imply their previous degeneration. Darwin conceives variations to arise by evolution, and concession of this is essential to the validity of his argument. The question then recurs, Are the favorable modifications which have arisen, or which may arise, due to evolution or to reversion? Until this point is settled in favor of the ascription to evolution, Darwin's argument from natural selection is wholly irrelevant.

An illustration may perhaps conduce to a clearer conception of the relation in which the theories of evolution and reversion stand to each other. The following will, we believe, fully serve this purpose.

Conceive a glass tube, bent into the shape of the letter V, of which the left leg alone is clearly visible. In this, water is seen slowly ascending by a succession of apparently spontaneous impulses. "Now," argue a certain class of philosophers, "this is a peculiar case. The water here manifestly does not acknowledge the law of gravitation. It must, then, conform to a law sui generis; a law of which we are wholly ignorant; a law which transcends the scope of our intelligence. This law, be it what it may, we will term evolution. Now, as this name, given arbitrarily, is the only explanation of which the singular ascent of the water will admit, we are forced to conclude that the water[263] will, if similarly confined above as here below, continue to rise for ever. Any theory other than this is inconceivable. The assumption of a limit to the ascent of the water is manifestly wholly gratuitous. What evidence is there to induce the belief that there exists such a limit?" But would not the calculations of these philosophers be signally confounded by the removal of the covering of the right leg of the tube, disclosing the downward course of the water from a certain height? The analogy, we presume, is clear to all. The ascent of the water in the left leg answers to the appearance of the profitable modifications under domestication, the apex of the tube to the existing state of nature, and the descent of the water in the right leg answers to degeneration under nature; while the height from which the water has descended in the right leg, and to which in the left leg it is ascending in conformity to the rule that water always seeks its own level, in like manner answers to the perfect type of the species from which the animal or plant has degenerated, and to which it is reverting.

But, even assuming that the argument from the gratuitousness of the assumption of varietal evolution, together with that from the explanation afforded by the theory of reversion, is inconclusive, there is yet another which may be adduced.

Darwin's theory is condemned by its advocates. For it is one of a class of theories which, they contend, are not entitled to any consideration or hearing in a scientific court of inquiry. Doubtless many of our readers, at least those conversant with science, have spent many a pleasant hour perusing numerous well-written pages filled with protests against the ascription of phenomena to such entities as "plastic force," "vital power," "intrinsic aptitude," "inherent tendency," etc. This attribution is one of the stock objections against every thing which does not tally with the ideas current among positivists. The advocates of Darwin, of whom most, if not all, are followers of Comte, wax eloquent and enthusiastic while on this theme. Here they disport themselves after the manner of men conscious of having alighted on a subject highly calculated to call forth their most happy thoughts. Here their rhetoric is consummate, and their turns of expression singularly felicitous. Their affected indignation at the assumed absurdity of thus accounting for phenomena knows no bounds. So thrilling is this tirade, and so perfect the simulation of honest indignation, that we, though of a somewhat cold temperament, have, through sympathy, often caught and retained for a moment the infection of enthusiasm. When our feelings ceased to have full sway, and when our reason returned, we were in a fit state to appreciate fully the great power of eloquence.

After animadverting thus severely on this ascription of phenomena, it was not to be expected that these positivists would be guilty of the inconsistency of advocating a theory the basis of which was one of these "metaphysical entities." Very little credence, we are sure, would be given to the assertion that the foundation of Darwin's theory was an occult quality. For that theory has again and again been held up to the world as a shining sample of what can be effected in science by conformity to the positive process of discovery. Yet such is the case. Darwin, on page 2, Vol. I. of his late work, says, "If organic beings had not possessed an inherent tendency to vary, man could have done nothing." In numerous other portions of his work may be found the reference of variations[264] to "an innate spontaneous tendency," (p. 362, Vol. I.,) to "spontaneous or accidental variability," (p. 248. Vol. II.,) to the "nature or constitution of the being which varies," (p. 289, Vol. II.,) and to "other metaphysical entities." So frequent is the recurrence of these expressions that it is scarcely possible to open any portion of his work and not alight on one. The whole of Darwin's theory is deduced from this occult quality in animals and plants. And this is a theory advocated by G. H. Lewes, and a number of others who have given in their adhesion to positivism! If this explanation is, as they claim, unphilosophical, are they not bound to withdraw their support from such a theory? Does not their present position argue a total want of consistency? Which is the more entitled to support, even from their own professed stand-point, a theory which refers favorable variations to an innate tendency in organisms, or that which ascribes variations to reversion? No; as any other view would be incompatible with the success of their darling theory, they are perfectly content to consider variation as an ultimate law, even though such a consideration involves a gross inconsistency. Regardless of this, they advance the theory, and, when engaged on a collateral point, marvel at their opponents for doing that which they have done at the start, and complacently extol the clearness of their own views, which have been arrived at by the aid of an hypothesis based upon the same occult quality against which they are now exhausting all their eloquence.

The truth is, that these "metaphysical entities" are in almost as frequent use among positivists as among their adversaries. They are, perhaps, more ingeniously disguised. But a close examination of their speculations will elicit the fact that they are guilty of the same (alleged) absurdity, and on a point, as in the present instance, most materially affecting their whole theory. But these explanations are denounced as metaphysical merely to facilitate the reception of their finely spun theories. The dawn of science in any department of knowledge is invariably preceded by a mist. This acts as a false medium, through which the subjects of science are dimly seen, presenting a most monstrous aspect. This is rendered still more distorted by the ingenious but absurd theories of men bent upon tracing a want of harmony between science and religion. Their hypotheses, at first sight, apparently preclude the need of these phrases, but they are at last necessitated to use them in accounting for phenomena of which the ascription to known factors would be grossly at variance with their views. The use of these entities is in some cases only provisional with us, to be abandoned on the advent of true knowledge; for religion does not shun the light of true science. In this transitional period between complete ignorance and full knowledge, these speculative theories are propounded. They purport to furnish an explanation of all phenomena, and to dispense with the necessity of using "metaphysical entities." Their adoption is necessitated, contend their propounders, if the converse theories are conceded to be unscientific. This we deny, and appeal to the existing low condition of scientific knowledge, which precludes for a time the possibility of the formation of any well-founded theory. This theory of evolution, for instance, is confessedly founded on ignorance—ignorance of the law to which its data conform. But when science advances, and when facts are exposed to the clear sunlight of precise[265] and impartial investigation, perfect harmony is observable between science and religion; and the absurdity of the theories which were urged for our adoption becomes manifest. Past experience justifies our belief that such will ever be the case. For it is only those departments of knowledge which are abandoned to speculation which present facts seemingly at variance with religion. We refuse to accept the alternatives which they offer, confident that, as they are at variance with religion, they are not the legitimate products of true science.

Races under nature have been formed exclusively by degeneration. By this we do not wish to imply any innate tendency in organisms to degenerate. The degeneration of which we speak is solely induced by the direct and indirect action of the conditions of life. Upon assuming certain conditions necessary to full growth, the formation of natural races becomes deductively explicable. It is with regret that we observe a disposition on the part of some of the advocates of special creation to believe growth independent of the conditions. The dependence of growth upon the conditions cannot be disputed. Nor do we wish to dispute it; for it is, to our mind, strong confirmation of the doctrine of final causes. The supporters of the evolution hypothesis maintain that an organism has the capacity for adapting itself to any conditions, so that they are not so marked and sudden as to entail extinction. We acquiesce in this thus far—where the conditions are favorable, improvement ensues. But with us improvement implies previous degeneration. And when the conditions are adverse, a change for the worse results in proportion to the change in the conditions. Such adaptation as this we admit. But we fancy Darwin would consider this too teleological to be a concession. Adaptation, with him, implies harmony. This harmony we will not gainsay. But if the conditions induce the total or partial suppression of any part or character, we contend that this adaptation of the organism to the conditions is not consistent with complete physiological integrity. The departure from a state of integrity is directly proportioned to the retardation of growth of either the organism as a whole, or of only one or more of its organs or characters. This repression is the criterion by which to judge of the adverseness of the conditions. For our belief in this incompatibility between full integrity and conditions which entail the loss or diminution of any part, character, feature, or organ, we will, in a future article, furnish full warrant.

Starting out, then, with perfect specific types, we will be able to account for the formation of races without the aid of an equivocal process, without postulating any occult quality, and by means in every way analogous to those which, as Darwin has shown, play an important part in inducing modification.

From the instances of degeneration adduced by Darwin, we may infer that the conditions of life were at one time extremely adverse. And surely, if they were sufficiently unfavorable to involve the reduction of most important organs to a rudimentary condition, they must also have caused the suppression of many minor characters. The climate in most countries has been adequately rigorous to act upon the organization as a whole, and thus entail deterioration in size; and as these unfavorable conditions ranged from those but little unfavorable to those barely compatible with life, the retention of the[266] organism in each or several of these stages would create diversity of size; for climate acts with different degrees of force in different countries. Then in a single country the animals or plants would be subjected to closely similar conditions, and long continued subjection to these would produce uniformity of size, and indigenous races.

In addition to these modifications consequent upon the direct action of the climate on the whole organization, there would result minor changes. The conditions of life would in different districts or countries be unfavorable to different parts or characters. The reduction of these parts would follow, and this would, through correlation of growth, involve modifications in other portions of the organization. For, says Darwin, "all the parts of the organization are to a certain extent connected or correlated together."

Owing to these causes there would be disproportionate deterioration of the characters. When an organ of which the function is activity would be little exercised, it would become atrophied. Different situations would occasion more or less disuse of organs, and these would consequently be differently modified. Then their modification would call for the modification of other characters. Thus, the legs in some animals are made more or less short by disuse, and by correlation the head is reduced in size, and changed in shape. Loss of characters, such as the crest of feathers on the head, and wattle, conjoined with changes in other parts of the organism, would, through correlation, produce more or less diminution in size of the skull. General decrease in size, and loss of tail or tail-feathers, would lessen the number of the vertebræ, which result would induce other changes. When the hair is affected by humidity of climate or other causes, the tusks, horns, skull, and feet become modified. There is also correlation of degeneration between the skin and its various appendages of hair, feathers, hoofs, horns, and teeth; between wing-feathers and tail-feathers; between the various features of head and skull.

With animals, a small supply of food would cause decrease in size; and with plants, an insufficient quantity of the necessary chemical elements, together with the starvation consequent upon the close contiguity of other plants, would produce the same result. Diseases peculiar to certain localities, heights, and climates have also played their part in the modification of animals and plants.

Given, then, a perfect type, the unfavorable action of these elements—heat and cold, dampness and dryness, light and electricity, disuse, disease, absence of some of the necessary chemical elements, and insufficient supplies of food—together with that of their countless modifications, acting separately and conjointly, directly and indirectly through correlation, is amply adequate to the production of the modifications by which, as we conceive, races have been formed.

That it is possible for characters to appear after having been lost for a great length of time, is amply shown by Darwin in his chapters on reversion. Individuals of breeds of cattle that have been hornless for the last one hundred or one hundred and fifty years occasionally give birth to horned calves. Characters, he assures us, may recur after an almost indefinite number of generations. "From what we see of the power of reversion, both in pure races and when varieties or species are crossed, we may infer that characters of almost any kind are capable[267] of reappearance after having been lost for a great length of time." Speaking of the transmission of color during centuries, he says, "Nevertheless, there is no more inherent improbability in this being the case than in a useless and rudimentary organ, or even in only a tendency to the production of a rudimentary organ, being inherent during millions of generations, as is well known to occur with a multitude of organic beings. There is no more inherent impossibility in each domestic pig, during a thousand generations, retaining the capacity to develop great tusks under fitting conditions, than in the young calf having retained for an indefinite number of generations rudimentary incisor teeth which never protrude through the gums." The power of reversion is further shown in the cases of pelorism before given. And again, he urges that, "It should also be remembered that many characters lie latent in organisms ready to be evolved (?) under fitting conditions." But it is scarcely necessary to adduce proofs of the possibility of reversion; for, if characters arise in species which have confessedly degenerated, it is the height of absurdity to attribute them to evolution, rather than to reversion.

Many objections, we are sure, will suggest themselves, and many doubts will be expressed whether the theory here enunciated will cover all the facts. We feel confident of succeeding in obviating every difficulty, and in dissipating all such doubts. In this article we have shown upon what an infirm basis the evolution hypothesis rests, and have suggested a legitimate alternative. In our forthcoming articles, we shall show still further weakness of the views of Darwin and Spencer, and point out facts which, while grossly at variance with the development doctrines, afford conclusive proof of the objective reality of the species.

HAYDN'S FIRST LESSONS IN MUSIC AND LOVE.

The Hungarians, like the Austrians and Bohemians, have great love for music. "Three fiddles and a dulcimer for two houses," says the proverb; and it is a true one. It is not unusual, therefore, for some out of the poorer classes, when their regular business fails to bring them in sufficient for their wants, to take to the fiddle, the dulcimer, or the harp, playing on holidays on the highway or in taverns. This employment is generally lucrative enough, if they are not spendthrifts, to enable them not only to live, but to lay by something for future necessities.

An honest wheelwright, called "merry Jobst," on account of his stories and jokes, lived with Elschen his wife, in a cottage in the hamlet Rohrau, on the borders of Hungary and Austria. They were accustomed to sit by the wayside near the inn on holidays; Jobst fiddling, and Elschen playing the harp and singing with her sweet, clear voice. Almost every traveller stopped to listen, well pleased, and on resuming his journey[268] threw often a silver twopence into the lap of the pretty young woman. Jobst and his wife, on returning home in the evening, found their day's work a good one.

The old cantor of the neighboring town of Haimburg passed along the road one afternoon, and in the arbor, opposite the tavern, sat merry Jobst fiddling, and beside him pretty Elschen, playing the harp and singing. Between them, on the ground, sat a little chubby-faced boy about three years old, who had a small board shaped like a violin hung about his neck, on which he played with a willow twig as with a genuine fiddle-bow. The most comical and surprising thing of all was, that the little man kept perfect time, pausing when his father paused and his mother had a solo, then falling in with his father again, and demeaning himself exactly like him. Often, too, he would lift up his clear voice, and join distinctly in the refrain of the song.

The cantor came from this time twice a week to the house of merry Jobst to talk with him about his little son, and the youngster himself was soon the best of friends with the good-natured old man. So matters went on for two years, at the end of which time the cantor said to Jobst, "If you will trust your boy with me, I will take him, and teach him what he must learn to become a brave lad and skilful musician."

Jobst did not hesitate long, for he saw clearly how great an advantage the instruction of Master Wolferl would be to his son. And though it went harder with pretty Elschen to part with Joseph, who was her only child, yet she gave up at last. She packed up the boy's scanty wardrobe in a bundle, gave him a slice of bread and salt and a cup of milk, embraced and blessed him, and accompanied him to the door of the cottage, where she signed him with the sign of the cross three times, and then returned to her chamber. Jobst went with them half way to Haimburg, and then returned, while Wolferl and Joseph pursued their way till they reached Wolferl's house, the end of their journey.

Wolferl was an old bachelor, but one whose heart, despite his gray hairs, was still youthful and warm. He gave daily lessons to the little Joseph, and taught him good principles, as well as how to sing and to play on the horn and kettle-drum; and Joseph profited thereby, as well as by the other instructions he received in music.

Years passed, and Joseph was a well-instructed boy; he had a voice as clear and fine as his mother's, and played the violin as well as his father; he likewise blew the horn, and beat the kettle-drum, in the sacred music prepared by Wolferl for church festivals. Better than all, Joseph had a true and honest heart; had the fear of God continually before his eyes, and was ever contented, and wished well to all.

The more Wolferl perceived the lad's wonderful talent for art, the more earnestly he sought to find a patron for him, for he felt that his own strength could reach little further, when he saw the zeal and ability with which his pupil devoted himself to his studies. Providence so ordered it at length that Master von Reuter, chapel-master and musical[269] director in St. Stephen's Church, Vienna, came to visit the deacon at Haimburg. The deacon told Master von Reuter of the extraordinary boy, the son of the wheelwright Jobst Haydn, the pupil of old Wolferl, and created in the chapel-master much desire to become acquainted with him. The next morning, accordingly, Von Reuter went to Wolferl's house, which he entered quietly and unannounced. Joseph was sitting alone at the organ, playing a simple but sublime piece of sacred music from an old German master. Reuter, astonished and delighted, stood at the door and listened attentively. The boy was so deep in his music that he did not perceive the intruder till the piece was concluded, when, accidentally turning round, he fixed upon the stranger his large dark eyes, expressive of astonishment indeed, but sparkling a friendly welcome.

"Very well played, my son!" said Von Reuter at last. "Where is your foster-father?"

"Call him, and say to him that the chapel-master Von Reuter wishes to speak to him. Stop a moment! You are Joseph Haydn, are you not?"

Joseph went and brought his old master, Wolferl, who with uncovered head and low obeisance welcomed the chapel-master and music director at St. Stephen's to his humble abode. Von Reuter, on his part, praised the musical skill of his protégé, inquired particularly concerning the lad's attainments, and examined him formally himself. Joseph passed the examination in such a manner that Reuter's satisfaction increased with every answer. After this he spent some time in close conference with old Wolferl; and it was near noon before he took his departure. Joseph was invited to accompany him and spend the rest of the day at the deacon's.

Eight days after, old Wolferl, Jobst, and pretty Elschen, the younger son, little Michael, on her lap, sat very dejectedly together, and talked of the good Joseph, who had gone that morning with Master von Reuter to Vienna, to take his place as chorister in St. Stephen's church.

II.

Wenzel Puderlein, a noted hair-dresser in the Leopoldstadt of Vienna, was one day dressing the hair of the Baron von Swieten, first physician to the empress, when he heard the great man's son ask permission to present to him a wonderful young musician, whose talents were beginning to attract public attention. Puderlein was happy to say he knew all about him, having long been hair-dresser to the chapel-master Von Reuter, in whose house young Haydn had lived ten or eleven years. He had been chorister at St. Stephen's, but had been obliged to relinquish the position two years before, having lost his fine, clear soprano voice after a severe illness.

"Ah! your honor, the poor fellow must find it hard to live by giving lessons, playing, and thus picking up what he can; he sometimes also composes, or what do they call it? He lives in the house with Metastasio; not in the first story, like the court poet, but in the fifth; and when it is winter, he has to lie in bed and work, to keep himself from freezing; he has a fireplace in his chamber, but no money to buy wood to burn therein."

"This must not be; this shall not[270] be!" cried the Baron von Swieten, as he rose from his seat. "Am I ready?"

"And you, help me on with my coat, give me my stick and hat, and bring me your young teacher this afternoon." Therewith he departed; and young Von Swieten, full of joy, went to the writing-table to indite an invitation to Haydn to come to his father's house.

Meanwhile Joseph Haydn sat sorrowful, and almost despairing, in his chamber. He had passed the morning, contrary to his usual custom, in idle brooding over his condition. Now it appeared quite hopeless, and his cheerfulness seemed about to take leave of him for ever, like his only friend and protectress, Mademoiselle de Martinez. That young lady had left the city a few hours before. Haydn had instructed her in singing, and in playing the harpsichord; and by way of recompense, he enjoyed the privilege of boarding and lodging in the fifth story in the house of Metastasio. All this now ceased with the lady's departure, and Joseph was poorer than before; for all that he had saved he had sent conscientiously to his parents, only keeping so much as sufficed to furnish him with decent though plain clothing.

"But where now?" thought he; and asked himself, sobbing aloud, "Where shall I go, without money?"

Just then, without any previous knocking, the door of his chamber was opened, and, with bold carriage and sparkling eyes, entered Master Wenzel Puderlein.

"Come to me!" cried the hair-dresser, while he stretched his curling-irons like a sceptre toward Joseph, and pressed his powder-bag with an air of feeling to his heart. "To me! I will be your father; I will foster and protect you; for I have feeling for the grand and the sublime, and have discerned your genius. I will lead you to art—I myself; and if, before long, you be not in full chase, and have not captured her, why, you must be a fool, and I will give you up!"

"Ah! worthy Master Puderlein," cried Haydn, surprised, "you would not receive me when I know not where to go nor what to do?"

"Now, sit you down on that stool," said Puderlein, "and do not stir till I give you leave. I will show the world what a man of genius can make of an indifferent head."

"Are you determined, then, to do me the honor of dressing my hair, Master von Puderlein?"

Joseph obediently seated himself, and Wenzel began to dress his hair according to the latest mode.

When he had done, he said with much self-congratulation, "Really, Haydn, when I look at you and think what you were before I set your head right, and what you are now, I may, without presumption, call you a being of my own creation. Now pay attention: you are to dress yourself as quickly as possible, and collect your movables together, that I may send to fetch them this evening. Then betake yourself to the Leopoldstadt, to my house on the Danube, No. 7; go up the steps, knock at the door, present my compliments to the young lady my daughter, and tell her you are so and so, and that Master von Puderlein sent you; and if you are hungry and thirsty, call for something to eat and a glass of Ofener or Klosteruenburger; after which you may remain quiet till I come home, and tell you further what I design for you. Adieu!"

Therewith Master Wenzel Puderlein rolled himself out of the door, and Joseph stood awhile with his hair admirably well dressed, but a little disconcerted, in the middle of his chamber. When he had collected his thoughts at length, he gave thanks with tears to God, who had inclined the heart of his generous protector toward him, and put an end to his bitter necessity; then he gathered, as Puderlein had told him, his few clothes and many musical notes together, dressed himself carefully in his best, shut up his chamber, and after he had taken leave, not without emotion, of the rich Metastasio, walked away cheerfully and confidently, his heart full of joy and his head full of new melodies, toward the Leopoldstadt and the house of his patron.

III.

When young Von Swieten came half an hour later to ask for the young composer, Signor Metastasio could not inform him where "Giuseppe" had gone. How many hours of despondency did this forgetfulness on the part of the renowned poet prepare for the poor, unknown, yet incomparably greater artist, Haydn!

When Joseph, after a long walk, stood at length before Puderlein's house, he experienced some novel sensations, which may have been consequent on the thought that he was to introduce himself to a young lady and converse with her; an idea which, from his constitutional bashfulness and his ignorance of the world, was rather formidable to him. But the step must be taken, nevertheless. He summoned all his courage and knocked at the door. It was opened, and a handsome damsel of eighteen or nineteen presented herself before the trembling young man.

In great embarrassment he faltered forth his compliments and his message from Master Wenzel. The pretty Nanny listened to him with an expression of pleasure, and of sympathy for the forlorn condition of her visitor. When he had ended, she took him by the hand, to his no small terror, without the least embarrassment, and led him into the parlor, saying in insinuating tones, "Come in, Master Haydn; it is all right. I am sure my papa means well with you; for he concerns himself for every dunce he meets, and would take a poor wretch in for having only good hair on his head! But you must give in to his humors a little; for he is sometimes a trifle peculiar. Now tell me, what will you have? Do not be bashful; it is a good while since noon, and you must be hungry from your long walk."

Joseph could not deny that such was the case, and modestly asked for a piece of bread and a glass of water. Nanny, laughing, tripped out of the room. Ere long she returned, followed by an apprentice whom she had loaded with cold meats, a flask of wine, tumblers, etc. She arranged the table, filled Joseph's glass, and invited him to help himself to the cold pastry and whatever else awaited his choice. The youth fell to, timidly at first, then with more courage, till, after he had, at Nanny's persuasion, emptied a couple of glasses, he took heart to attack the cold meats more vigorously than he had done for a long time before; making the observation mentally that if Mademoiselle Nanny Puderlein was not quite as distingué and accomplished as his departed patroness, the honored Mademoiselle de Martinez, still, as far as youth, beauty, and polite manners were concerned, she would not suffer by a comparison with the most distinguished dames in Vienna. When Master Wenzel Puderlein came home an hour or two later, he[272] found Joseph in high spirits, with sparkling eyes and cheeks like the rose, already more than half in love with the pretty Nanny.

Joseph Haydn lived thus many months in the house of Wenzel Puderlein, burgher and renowned friseur in the Leopoldstadt of Vienna, and not a man in the imperial city knew where the poor but gifted and well-educated artist and composer was gone. In vain he was sought by his few friends; in vain by young Von Swieten; in vain, at last, by Metastasio himself. Joseph had disappeared from Vienna without leaving a trace. Wenzel Puderlein kept his abode carefully concealed, and wondered and lamented, like the rest, over his loss, when his aristocratic customers, believing he knew every thing, asked him if he could give them any information as to what had become of Joseph. He thought he had good reason and undoubted right to exercise now the hitherto unpractised virtue of silence; because, as he said to himself, he only aimed at making Joseph the happiest man in the world!

Joseph cheerfully resigned himself to the purposes of his friend, and was only too happy to be able undisturbed to study Sebastian Bach's works, to try his skill in composing quartettos, to eat as much as he wanted, and, day after day, to see and chat with the fair Nanny. It never occurred to him to notice that he lived, in a manner, as a prisoner in Puderlein's house; that all day he was banished to the garden behind the dwelling or to his own snug chamber, and only permitted to go out in the evening with Wenzel and his daughter. It never occurred to him to wish for other acquaintances than their nearest neighbors, among whom he was known simply as "Master Joseph;" and he cheerfully delivered every Saturday to Master Wenzel the stipulated number of minuets, waltzes, etc., which he was ordered to compose. Puderlein carried the pieces regularly to a music-dealer in the Leopoldstadt, who paid him two convention-guilders for every full-toned minuet, and for other pieces in proportion. This money the hair-dresser conscientiously locked up in a chest, to use it, when the time should come, for Joseph's advantage. With this view, he inquired earnestly about Joseph's greater works, and whether he would not soon be prepared to produce something which would do him credit in the eyes of the more distinguished part of the public.

"Ah! yes, indeed," replied the young man. "This quartetto, when I shall have finished it, might be ventured before the public; for I hope to make something good of it. Yet what can I do? No publisher would take it, because I have no distinguished patron to whom I could dedicate it!"

"That will all come in time," said Puderlein, smiling. "Do you get the thing ready, yet without neglecting the dances."

Joseph went to work; yet every day he appeared more deeply in love with the pretty Nanny; and the damsel herself looked with very evident favor on the dark though handsome youth. Wenzel saw the progress of things with satisfaction; the lovers behaved with great propriety, and he suffered matters to go on in their own way, only interfering, with a little assumed surliness, if Joseph at any time forgot his tasks in idle talk, or Nanny her housekeeping.

But not with such eyes saw Mosjo Ignatz, Puderlein's journeyman and factotum hitherto; for he thought himself possessed of a prior claim to the love of Nanny. It was gall and[273] wormwood to Ignatz to see Joseph and the fair girl together. He would often fain have interposed his powder-bag and curling-irons between them when he heard them singing tender duets; for Nanny had really a charming voice, was very fond of music, and was Joseph's zealous pupil in singing.

At length Ignatz could no longer endure the torments of jealousy. One morning he sought out the master of the house, to discover to him the secret of the lovers. How great was his astonishment when Master Wenzel, instead of falling into a violent passion and turning Joseph out of doors without further ado, replied, with a smile, that he was well pleased to have it so. In vain Ignatz urged his own prior claims to Nanny's favor, and the encouragement he had received from father and daughter. His pretensions were treated with the utmost scorn.

The journeyman declared he would instantly quit the hair-dresser's treacherous roof, and him and his periwig stock. He hastened to pack up his goods, demanded and received his wages, and left the house vowing vengeance against its inmates. Puderlein was incensed; Nanny laughed; Joseph sat in the garden, troubling himself about nothing but his quartetto, at which he was working.

Wenzel Puderlein saw the hour approaching when the attention of the imperial city, and of the world, would be directed to him as the protector and benefactor of a great musical genius. The dances Joseph had composed for the music-dealer in the Leopoldstadt were played again and again in the halls of the nobility. All praised the lightness, the sprightliness and grace that distinguished them; but all inquiries were vain, at the music-dealer's, respecting the name of the composer. None knew him, and Joseph himself had no idea what a sensation the pieces he had thrown off so easily created in the world. Master Wenzel, however, was well aware of it, and waited with impatience the completion of the first quartetto. At length the manuscript was ready. Puderlein received it, took it to the music publisher, and had it sent to press immediately, which the sums he had from time to time laid by for Joseph enabled him to do. Haydn, who was confident his protector would do every thing for his advantage, committed all to his hands; he commenced a new quartetto, and the old one was soon nearly forgotten.

They were not forgotten, however, by Mosjo Ignatz Schuppenpelz, who was continually on the watch to play Master Puderlein some ill trick. The opportunity soon offered; his new principal sent him one morning to dress the hair of the Baron von Fürnberg. Young Von Swieten chanced to be at the baron's house, and in the course of conversation mentioned the balls frequently given by Prince Esterhazy, and the delightful new dances by the unknown composer. In the warmth of his description the youth stepped up to the piano and began a piece which caused Ignatz to prick up his ears, for he recognized it too well; it was Nanny's favorite waltz, which Joseph had executed expressly for her.

"I would give fifty ducats," cried the baron, when Von Swieten had ended, "to know the name of the composer."

"Fifty ducats!" repeated Ignatz. "Your honor, I can tell your honor the name of the composer."

"If you can, and with certainty, the fifty ducats are yours," answered Fürnberg and Von Swieten.

"How? Joseph Haydn? How do you know? Speak!" cried both gentlemen to the friseur, who proceeded to inform them of Haydn's abode and seclusion in the house of Wenzel Puderlein; nor did the ex-journeyman lose the opportunity of be-powdering his ancient master plentifully with abuse as an old miser, a surly fool, and an arch tyrant.

"Horrible!" cried his auditors, when Ignatz had concluded his story. "Horrible! This old friseur makes the poor young man, hidden from all the world, labor to gratify his avarice, and keeps him prisoner! We must set him at liberty."

Ignatz assured the gentlemen they would perform a good deed by doing so; and informed them when it was likely Puderlein would be from home, so that they could find an opportunity of speaking alone with young Haydn. Young Von Swieten resolved to go that very morning, during the absence of Puderlein, to seek his favorite; and took Ignatz along with him. The hair-dresser was not a little elated to be seated opposite the baron, in a handsome coach, which drove rapidly toward Leopoldstadt. When they stopped before Puderlein's house, Ignatz remained in the coach, while the baron alighted, entered the house, and ran up stairs to the chamber before pointed out to him, where Joseph Haydn sat deep in the composition of a new quartetto.

Great was the youth's astonishment when he perceived his distinguished visitor. He did not utter a word, but kept bowing to the ground. Von Swieten, however, hesitated not to accost him with all the ardor of youth, and described the affliction of his friends (who they were Joseph knew not) at his mysterious disappearance. Then he spoke of the applause his compositions had received, and of the public curiosity to know who the admirable composer was and where he lived. "Your fortune is now made," concluded he. "The Baron von Fürnberg, a connoisseur, my father, I myself—we will all receive you; we will present you to Prince Esterhazy; so make ready to quit this house, and to escape, the sooner the better, from the illegal and unworthy tyranny of an avaricious periwig-maker."

Joseph knew not what to reply; for with every word of Von Swieten his astonishment increased. At length he faltered, blushing, "Your honor is much mistaken, if you think I am tyrannized over in this house; on the contrary, Master Puderlein treats me as his own son, and his daughter loves me as a brother. He took me in when I was helpless and destitute, without the means of earning my bread."

"Be that as it may," interrupted young Von Swieten impatiently, "this house is no longer your home; you must go into the great world under very different auspices, worthy of your talents. To-morrow the baron and I come to fetch you away." Therewith he embraced young Haydn with cordiality, quitted the house, and drove back to the city, while Joseph stood and rubbed his forehead, and hardly knew whether all was a dream or reality.

But the pretty Nanny, who, listening in the kitchen, had heard all, ran in grief and affright to meet her father when he came home, and told him every thing.

Puderlein was dismayed; but he soon collected himself, and commanded his daughter to follow him, and to put her handkerchief to her eyes.

Thus prepared, he went up to Haydn's chamber. Joseph, as soon as he heard him coming, opened the[275] door and went to meet him, to inform him of the strange visit he had received.

But Puderlein pushed him back into the chamber, entered himself, followed by the weeping Nanny, and cried in a pathetic tone, "I know all; you have betrayed me, and are now going to leave me like a vagabond."

"I will not listen! Your treachery is clear; your falsehood to me and to my daughter! O ingratitude! see here thine image. I loved this boy as my own son. I received him, when he was destitute, under my hospitable roof; clothed and fed him. I have dressed his hair with my own hands, and labored for his renown; and for my thanks, he has betrayed me and my innocent daughter!"

"Master Puderlein, listen to me. I will not be ungrateful; on the contrary, I will thank you all the days of my life for what you have done for me."

"No buts; you must marry her, or you are a shameless traitor! Think you a virtuous damsel of Vienna lets every callow bird tell her she is handsome and agreeable? My innocent Nanny thought you wished to marry her, and made up her mind honestly to have you. She loves you; and now will you desert her and leave her to grief and shame?"

Joseph stood in dejected silence. Puderlein continued, "And I—have I deserved such black ingratitude from you, eh? have I?" With these words, Master Wenzel drew forth a roll of paper, unfolded and held it up before the disconcerted Joseph, who uttered an exclamation of surprise as he read these words engraved on it, "Quartetto for two violins, bass viol, and violoncello. Composed by Master Joseph Haydn, performer and composer in Vienna. Vienna, 1751."

"Yes!" cried Puderlein, triumphantly, when he saw Haydn's joyful surprise—"yes, cry out and make your eyes as large as bullets. I did that; with the money I received in payment for your dances I paid for paper and press-work, that you might present the public with a great work. Still more: I have labored to such purpose among my customers of rank that you have the appointment of organist to the Carmelites. Here is your appointment. Now go, ingrate, and bring my daughter and me with sorrow to the grave."

Joseph went not; with tears in his eyes he threw himself into Puderlein's arms, who struggled and resisted vigorously, as if he would have repelled him. But Joseph held him fast, saying, "Master Puderlein! listen to me! There is no treachery in me! Let me call you father; give me Nanny for my wife."

Master Wenzel was at last quiet. He sank exhausted into an arm-chair, and cried to the young couple, "Come hither, my children; kneel before me, that I may give you my blessing. This evening shall be the betrothal, and a month hence we will have the wedding."

Joseph and Nanny knelt down and received the paternal benediction. All was festivity in No. 7, on the Danube, that evening, when the organist, Joseph Haydn, was solemnly betrothed to the fair Nanny, the daughter of Wenzel Puderlein, burgher and proprietor in the Leopoldstadt in Vienna.

The Baron Von Fürnberg and[276] young Von Swieten were not a little astonished, when they came the next morning to take Haydn from Puderlein's house, to find him affianced to the pretty Nanny. They remonstrated with him earnestly in private; but Joseph remained immovable, and kept his word, pledged to Puderlein and his bride, like an honorable young man.

At a later period he had reason to acknowledge that the step he had taken was somewhat precipitate; but he never repented it, and consoled himself, when his earthly muse caused a little discord among his tones, with the companionship of that immortal partner, ever lovely, ever young, who attends the skilful artist through life, and who proved herself so true to him that the name of Joseph Haydn shall, after the lapse of centuries, be pronounced with joyful and sacred emotion by our latest posterity.

A SKETCH OF THE IRISH VOLUNTEERS.
BY COUNT FRANK RUSSELL KILLOUGH, LATE OF THE PONTIFICAL ARMY.

It was worthy of Catholic Ireland, that noble daughter of the church, which has preserved intact the faith of St. Patrick in the midst of struggles, trials, and persecutions of every kind, to send to the pope a legion of her sons to fight beside the generous volunteers whom every vessel brought from France, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland. As my thoughts revert, after an interval of eight years, to this noble band, whose organization I superintended temporarily, I love to recall the great natural qualities which redeemed their defects, and, despite their disorders and uproar, and their incessant quarrels, won for the Irish the admiration of Lamoricière, and merited the approval of the pope, who, after the crisis, desired to form around him a guard of these valiant soldiers, these indomitable heroes, these Catholics faithful to the death.

Unfortunately, in the midst of the fatigues and excitement of this period, amid marches and countermarches, orders and countermands, it was impossible for me to keep a journal of the thousand and one strange incidents, daily events, interesting or amusing, of which I was a witness; indeed, they would furnish Alexander Dumas abundant matter for dramas and endless tales. I must limit myself to those scenes which have left the deepest impression on my memory.

The 30th of May, 1860, found me in garrison in a small hamlet on the frontiers of Tuscany, Titta della Pieve, situated some leagues from Lake Trasimene, famous for the struggle between Hannibal and the Romans, which took place upon its border. Thence a sudden order despatched me to Macerata, a small town of the Adriatic Marches, where I was to organize the Irish Legion. Already a hundred and fifty recruits had arrived, and the order was couched in terms admitting of no delay. I left[277] with regret, for in this little hamlet I had found a family, whose hospitality had touched me. It was that of the gonfalonnier.

The young matron, simple in her tastes, well educated, and handsome as Italians naturally are, had undertaken by her kindness to make us forget the ungracious reception which our uniform had won for us in Perugian society. And in this she manifested not only sound judgment and education, but also rare courage, at this dangerous time, when the least respect toward a pontifical officer merited the stroke of the assassin's dagger. A little later, I was to find her in Rome, proscribed for her fidelity by a violent, iniquitous, and vindictive government. Will she be able to return to her home despite the cruel vexations to which she has been exposed? I know not, and dare not hope any thing of Piedmontese mercy. Could I separate myself from that noble Swiss regiment, dear for so many reasons, beneath the shadow of whose flag I for the first time drew my sword for the pope? Alas! I was obliged to quit for a long time, perhaps, my brethren in arms, whose friendship had become a pleasure and encouragement and even a necessity, to find in a new corps new associates; and this at the moment when great events were vaguely rumored, when each could foresee the necessity of all that was dear to brace up against the storm, whose distant echoes were already to be heard. But military obedience exacted this sacrifice. I left early on the following morning, and, after escaping an attack on the diligence by twelve masked brigands, in the gorges of the Apennines, I arrived at Macerata on June 1st.

I immediately received a visit from the almoner of the volunteers, whose appearance deserves particular description.

He was an Irish Franciscan father, and by his lofty stature and sonorous eloquence reminded me of the portrait of the great O'Connell, which in my childhood I had seen traced by enthusiastic admirers of his oratory. When Father Bonaventure appeared in the midst of the recruits, the men made way for him respectfully. One of them had been guilty of some breach of discipline. The priest spoke sweetly to him, and a few words of tender severity brought tears to the eyes of the offender. Indeed, this monk, with his lofty brow and stately gait, his coarse habit falling in ample folds from his massive shoulders, was well calculated to impress these children of nature, at once simple but keen, enthusiastic but fickle, good in heart but hasty in character, on whom the priest alone has fitted the yoke of authority.

I immediately saw the necessity of establishing the best possible relations with this influential man. The preliminaries of our conversation being ended, he said, "My dear captain, will you—"

"Pardon me, reverend father, but you give me a title to which I have no right. I am only a lieutenant."

"Why, captain dear, this will never do. I have announced to the recruits the arrival of their captain; they are prepared to receive you, and all the prestige of your authority will be lost if they find that you are only a lieutenant. No; permit me without offence to attribute to you the rank to which you won't be long coming, if all that I have heard of you be true."

"You flatter me infinitely, and I am much obliged for your high opinion; but as we have many things to do, let us save our compliments for some future occasion, and look at the[278] men, whom I must inspect without delay."

"They are in the barracks, and I will present you to them. Come with me; these good fellows await you with impatience, and I hope you will be pleased with them. Remember, you are captain."

I found the recruits, about a hundred and fifty in number, ranged in two lines along the vast corridor, and I must confess that my first impression was not favorable. They were for the most part ragged, evidently fatigued by the long voyage. A long bench stood before them.

"We must remove this bench," said I to the priest. "It will be in the way during my inspection."

"Not a bit of it, captain dear," he answered; "on the contrary, it will assist wonderfully for the ceremony of your presentation. You are shorter than I, and my height destroys the effect that you ought to produce, (he was six feet eight inches in stature.) Get up on that bench, and you will appear as tall as I, and your prestige will increase proportionally."

"All right, reverend father; here goes for the bench. You are a decided master of scenic art."

I acted on his advice, and mounted my platform, while the chaplain prepared his countenance and attitude for the grand discourse that was to follow. He waited for silence, and, when he saw all eyes directed toward me and all ears open to him,

"Boys," he said, swinging with majestic movement the loose sleeves of his habit, "welcome this happy day, the object of your ardent desires, on which you will enjoy the honor of enrolling yourselves in the army of the sovereign pontiff, and on which your names, children of St. Patrick, will be inscribed on the great list of the defenders of the papacy. You see before you, at this moment, the representative of that august sovereign for whom your Irish and Catholic hearts beat with filial love. Welcome with acclamations him whom God has sent us—the illustrious Captain Russell," (here he laid his heavy hand on my head as if he wished to flatten it,) "the noble descendant of your ancient kings, the worthy nephew of the gallant Marshal McMahon, the hero of Perugia, into whose hands I gladly resign the authority which I have hitherto exercised. Now, boys, from the bottom of your throats, hurrah for Captain Russell."

"And you, captain," (here he turned his great, benevolent eyes toward me,) "whom the pope has invested with the powers of commander until the arrival of their regular chief, consider in the goodness of your heart the devotion of these true sons of Ireland, who, abandoning their homes and families, came through fatigues, dangers, and privations, over mountains and seas, to place at your disposal their lives, their strength, and their heart's blood."

I answered this harangue as well as I could, giving with all my might a hurrah for the pope, which was repeated along the line; then, descending from my pedestal, I shook warmly the hand of the reverend chaplain, to testify publicly my trust in him, and, after the inspection, occupied myself immediately in forming the companies. Alas! the first act of my administration was unlucky, and showed that my brains were not equal to the organization of an Irish regiment.

Having learned from the chaplain[279] that the recruits of different provinces mutually entertained profound jealousy, I thought I would succeed well in putting all the Dublin men in one company and all the Kerry men in another. This disposition having been made, I assigned to each of the companies one or more apartments of the barracks, and ordered them to take immediate possession of their quarters.

This order, simple in appearance, was the occasion of a prodigious storm; and you would be long divining its cause.

While the Dublin men executed my order without delay and betook themselves quietly to their quarters on the upper story, the Kerry men, on the contrary, gathered in several noisy groups under the conduct of as many leaders, as if they did not understand the orders, and finally declared point blank that they would not obey them.

"Peste, Monsieur l'Aumonier," said I to the chaplain, who observed with a certain anxiety the disturbance which was brewing, "if things begin thus, they do not augur well for the future."

"Wait a bit, captain, before dealing harshly with the culpable. Let me find out the motives of their resistance."

"We want the upper floor! We'll have the top floor!" was the only answer he received.

"We want the upper! The Kerry lads are not made to be stowed away on the ground-floor."

The volunteers from "county Kerry," whose blood is proverbially warm, were indignant because I had quartered them on the ground-floor, while the Dublin lads occupied the upper story; wherefore they were determined not to budge until this insult was repaired and Kerry vindicated.

"But, reverend father, the order is given, and cannot be revoked without compromising my dignity. Try to point out to me the leaders; I will have them arrested. As to the others—"

I had the leaders of the disturbance arrested, and, on seeing this, the remainder quietly dispersed and occupied without further difficulty their allotted barracks.

"Boys," said I, going among them, "the leaders who have brought you astray are scoundrels, whom I am going to punish. They have trifled wickedly with that proud sentiment of rivalry which does honor to the different provinces of Ireland. Keep this sentiment of noble jealousy, of just emulation, keep it for the field of battle, where you can make better use of it than here."

A few days later, on a beautiful afternoon in June, the detachment of volunteers from Limerick arrived. They numbered about two hundred, conducted like the others by their chaplain, a man at once indefatigable and full of courage, whose almost juvenile ardor was irresistibly communicated to his companions.

I thought that these brave men, fatigued by a long journey and numerous privations, deserved to be well treated by that pope to whom they came thus to offer their arms and blood. Hence, I had prepared for them at the barracks fresh straw mattresses and warm soup, and, having made these arrangements, went forward to meet them on the road to Ancona.

Confused cries and sounding hurrahs soon announced the approach of the column. I presented myself to the new almoner, whom I recognized by his long black coat and high gaiters. At once he gave a prodigious hurrah for the pope, which was instantly repeated by the two hundred volunteers with an enthusiasm of which the pure races are alone capable. At the same time they brandished enormous cudgels, which served them alike as walking-sticks and weapons, and with which each man had provided himself before quitting his native parish.

It would be difficult to portray the terror which such scenes produced on the peaceful inhabitants of the town, little accustomed to such noisy demonstrations. They always avoided meeting the Ollandesi, as they then ignorantly termed them—the Verdoni, (canary color, half green and half yellow,) as they afterward called them, from the colors of their uniform. The women were content to gaze timidly from the windows at these strange guests; the urchins alone, braver or more frolicsome, escorted the newly-arrived, and strove to keep step with these giants of the north, four times as great as themselves.

During the bombardment of Ancona, which lasted six days, I occupied with the fourth Irish company a bastion of the intrenched camp, situated on a height which commanded the city and the defence from the land side. For some days we had nothing to shelter us; and to add to the annoyance, the earth having been lately turned for the works ordered by the general, the first rain changed it to thick mud. On this couch my men had to sleep, with naught above them save the arch of heaven. Nevertheless, they did not complain, as I might have expected from their previous conduct, and they remained the whole night exposed to a driving rain on this wet soil without uttering one complaint, so much had the sight of the enemy excited their ardor and developed their military virtues. Strange! It had only required a few bomb-shells to change these peasants, so untractable the evening before, into sober, patient, and warlike soldiers, ready for all sacrifices. Every afternoon, about five o'clock, the bombardment ceased, as if by agreement, and then commenced the most original scene which can be imagined.

In the midst of the terreplein of my bastion they kindled a fire, and grouped themselves pell-mell around it, just as chance arranged them, soldiers, non-commissioned and commissioned officers. For the latter seats of honor were reserved, consisting principally of inverted wheel-barrows, water-buckets, and old pieces of lumber. The pipes struck up, the gourds of brandy passed from hand to hand, and tongues were unloosed; and as the day had been more or less exciting, so was the conversation animated. One of a dramatic turn, endowed with a long and neglected beard and draped majestically in some old cloak, recited with upraised hands some scene of mighty Shakespeare. Another, somewhat younger, sung tenderly a national air, a sweet melody of the poet Moore. I have always[281] remembered one of these touching ballads, and cannot resist giving it here:

Another, an inhabitant of the mountains, began some interminable legend, in which the ghosts of his ancestors played an important part. Sighs and cries of joy accompanied the recital, broken only by the monotonous "All's well," which the sentries on the parapet passed from one end of the camp to the other. All listened, awed, wonder-stricken, and transported in spirit to the hearths which they had left, and around which they had often kept joyous vigil by the light of the burning turf. Fortunately, no inopportune shell came from the enemy's batteries to cast its lurid glare over the joyous group or glitter on the beard of the singer. O pure and romantic natures! Oh! what a natural poesy and gayety surrounds this race, which we are wont to cover with a cloud of melancholy sadness. Were I to live a hundred years, I could not efface the vivid remembrance of those noisy vigils at Bastion No. 8, at the bombardment of Ancona in 1860.

Momentary enthusiasm was their great motive power. Whoever knew how to excite them, could obtain from them whatever he wished. And then, to see the play of their chests, their arms and shoulders; they seemed like so many Vulcans. The heaviest weights, which an Italian could scarcely move, gun-carriages, shell, beams, blocks of stone, they raised without difficulty, and, placing them on their stalwart shoulders, carried them with the greatest ease, one after another. From this I derived much benefit in a critical situation.

The Piedmontese having, half by surprise and half by main force, seized one of the outposts of Monte Pelago, and having there posted a battery, whence a raking fire entirely commanded the bastion which I occupied, I saw that, in order to protect my men, I must construct a traverse in the midst of the bastion. But how remove the earth? How perform all the necessary work under the fire whose balls rained among us and whistled unpleasantly in our ears? Fortune favored me; a heavy rain storm interrupted the bombardment.

"To work, boys! to work!" I cried. "In three hours you must raise twelve feet in length of a traverse, eight feet high, five feet thick at the top, and ten at the bottom, which will withstand every thing they may send from Monte Pelago. Here, you terrace-makers, come on with your picks and shovels. And you, Sergeant Tongue—you are a master carpenter; dress these logs and slabs for me, to make a frame for the work. In this manner, by God's grace, we will get ready a traverse that would keep the devil out, even if we had not the Pope with us. To work, boys! to work!"

In a few hours we had the bastion sheltered from the fire of the enemy. Alas! my poor traverse, fruit of such generous labor, we did not keep you long. In fact, the following day all was over, unfortunately ended; Bastion No. 8, along with all the others, passed into the hands of the enemy.

I did not take part in the defence of Spoleto, that feat of arms so glorious for the Irish Legion; but after seeing these volunteers at the bombardment of Ancona, I can easily imagine what must have been that struggle of twenty-four hours of their two companies against ten thousand Piedmontese.

An old cannon of heavy calibre, for many years laid aside as condemned, was buried in a corner of the fortress. Instantly it was extricated from the débris, transported by main force to a height whence it commanded the enemy, and mounted on a gun-carriage; and the rusty old piece, astonished at its resurrection, killed more men on that one day than during the entire century of its past existence.

A decayed, half-ruined gate afforded an entrance into the citadel. The enemy directed their efforts against it. The athletic sons of St. Patrick fell to work, and in an hour it was braced up and barricaded with gabions, and firmly resisted two successive assaults of the enemy's column.

I could cite twenty instances of this kind, where heroic courage joined to prodigious muscular strength worked miracles. But if a more prosaic example will suffice to form an idea of the strength of these iron limbs, I would add, softly and not without a slight blush, that during the period of my command I never saw a guard-house door which could resist their opposing efforts more than two hours, however well bolted it might be. After the iniquitous bombardment, which did not respect the white flag floating over all the works of the citadel and fort, our general capitulated, and we were obliged to abandon the place. The departure was very trying, and I cannot recall without grief the humiliation of that disastrous day. I do not wish to speak of it, nor could I do so without bitter tears; but it gives me pleasure to remember a spirited act of the Irish Legion.

It was six o'clock in the evening; our companies, of which I commanded the last, marched in close column, flanked, alas! by a line of Piedmontese, who, I must admit, had more regard for our misfortune than the dastardly population of the city. We passed gloomily the gate which leads to the Porta Pia, quickening our step as much as the escort would allow, when some of my men came to me. "Captain," said they, "we have come to say that Ireland will blush for her children if she learns that we abandoned this city without bidding a last adieu to the pope; we ask permission to salute him after our fashion at this last moment."

"I understand; be quiet for a moment, and Ireland will be content with you and with me."

A few moments after this, we reached the boundary of the suburbs. As the last man passed the gates of this unfortunate city, judging the moment opportune for the execution of our project, I gave with all the strength of my voice a last hurrah.

"Hurrah for the pope!" shouted all in unison. The walls, the city, the gate, even the ocean itself, were shaken. To paint the astonishment of our guards would be impossible. They consulted together for an explanation of what had just occurred. Finally, I heard a sous-officer say to his neighbor,

"Lasiamo fare, sono Irlandesi! Bah! these are Irishmen; of what use is it to trouble yourselves about their savage cries?"

Such was our departure from Ancona, on the 29th of September, 1860, and such the solemn adieu of the Irish Legion to the pontifical soil.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

The Literature of the Age of Elizabeth. By Edwin P. Whipple. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co. 1869.

The volume of essays bearing this title is a contribution to our critical literature by a writer who is, perhaps, the best of American critics. If "to see things as they really are" is, as Matthew Arnold says, the end and office of true criticism, Mr. Whipple, we think, is in literary matters fairly entitled to the distinction we have mentioned; and although we are far from having in this country such critics as Taine, or St. Beuve, or even Arnold himself, it is one which, in these days of improved and improving literary taste among Americans, is real and desirable.

The essays in the present volume, written originally to be delivered as lectures before the Lowell Institute, and then published during the years 1867 and 1868 in the Atlantic Monthly, are upon those subjects in which he is most at home, and appears always at his best. He is an enthusiastic and thoroughly appreciative student of English literature, and though, as the authors and the works which form the topics of these essays have been long ago thoroughly discussed by such critics as Lamb, Hazlitt, and Leigh Hunt, the critical scholar will find but little strikingly new in the book, he cannot fail to derive pleasure and profit from many things in it which are preëminently suggestive, and from the greater clearness and precision which many of his previous ideas will gather.

The most striking characteristic of Mr. Whipple in these essays is the masterly manner in which he connects the work with the author. He deals less with words than with things; less even with ideas than with mind. He presents to us especially the mental characteristics, the habits of thought and feeling—in a word, the inner self of the author of whom he is treating. From a careful study of the works he has traced the man, and he gives us now the result; and using the works for illustration and proof, asks us if they are not the expression of the individual character which he has drawn. Thus, it is the arrogant and conceited Jonson, the bitter and misanthropic Marston, the "one-souled, myriad-minded" Shakespeare, rather than arrogance, misanthropy, or universality in their writings, that he portrays by his criticism.

The book manifests also Mr. Whipple's usual independence, which prevents him from becoming the slavish admirer of any author, however great, and his innate love of moral purity, which he shows especially in his criticisms upon the dramatists.

Its style is marked by that wonderful control of language and facility of expression for which Mr. Whipple has always been distinguished. But we think it bears evidence of the object for which the essays were originally prepared—delivery as popular lectures. Such a sentence as we give below seems to us to detract from the dignity of style which we might rightfully expect in the author. Referring to Jonson's brief occupation as a mason, Mr. Whipple says:

Such things as this, which occur more or less frequently throughout the book, might have been advantageously omitted when Mr. Whipple transferred his essays from the judgment of a mixed audience at a lecture-hall, to that of the readers of a book which will be likely to find its way only into the hands of those who are interested in its subject. But, as a general rule, he uses allusions and anecdotes[284] appositely and well, and gains much sprightliness and vivacity in treating of subjects which might otherwise appear somewhat dull to the general reader by witty and humorous illustrations.

He has also shown a singular felicity of expression in many phrases and figures which seem to embody the result of a careful study of the author, and by them he often succeeds in conveying in one condensed and vivid sentence more of the essential idea of his criticism than he could have done in pages of elaborate discussion. Thus, speaking of Jonson's tragedies, he says:

Mr. Whipple's work seems to us more peculiarly valuable in the discussion of the minor dramatists and poets of the time—authors who are comparatively unknown to the general mass of readers. But these writers are neglected only on account of the great wealth of genius in which the age abounded. Their real brilliancy appears only as darkness by the side of the overpowering light of Shakespeare and Jonson, Spenser and Bacon. We hope that many will be induced by this book to cultivate an acquaintance with the works of the men of whom it treats, and we have the more expectation that this will be so from the fact that not its least praiseworthy characteristic is the care and good taste with which the extracts from these authors, by which Mr. Whipple illustrates his criticisms, have been made. We can only regret that they have been so sparingly introduced.

The author's treatment and discussion of Bacon's genius, and his claim to be the founder of the inductive philosophy, are unsatisfactory to our mind; but this subject involves a question into which it is impossible to enter in this notice.

We regret that we cannot take leave of this pleasant and on the whole admirable book without being obliged to say, that though it is by no means dangerous, it is often annoying to the Catholic reader. Mr. Whipple seems to be imbued with that prejudice and unfairness which is so common in English and American literature when alluding to the church, and in several places by slight words and phrases expresses that sneering contempt in which authors of his "liberal and tolerant" views are so apt to indulge toward those who differ from them in belief. We think, too, that in his introductory chapter he gives altogether too much prominence to the "Reformation" as a means of intellectual awakening. The so-called Reformation may indeed have been partially, and in a peculiar sense, a result of the intellectual ferment of the time—an unhappy and deplorable result—but it was not one of its causes, as the author seems to think. Those lie further back, in those other great events which Mr. Whipple names—the revival of classical learning, the invention of printing, and the discovery of America; events which he and his class of writers would do well often to remind themselves were brought about by loyal and devout Catholics.

The writings of Madame Swetchine. Edited by Count de Falloux of the French Academy. Translated by H. W. Preston. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 126 Nassau street. 1869.

The Life and Letters of Madame Swetchine, published some eighteen months since, might dispense us from any more special mention of her Writings than to say that she is in both works well and eloquently portrayed as a character "destined to hold a front place[285] among the most powerful, original, pure, and fascinating revealed in all history."

Madame Swetchine was of aristocratic birth, very wealthy, accomplished, and even learned. Better than all these, she was liberal in ideas, the friend of the poor and lowly, modest, humble, and pious. The greatest minds of the age—De Maistre, De Bonald, Cuvier, Frayssinous, De Falloux, De Broglie, Lacordaire, and Montalembert—sought her friendship and hung upon her words. And yet even such homage as this never inspired her with the slightest literary vanity or worldly ambition. She wrote much, but never for publication. She never specially preserved what she wrote, never desired to. The material of the book before us, collected after her death by her executor, Count de Falloux, of the French Academy, was written without any fixed plan, at various periods, upon loose leaves in a rapid, illegible hand, most of it in pencil. The manuscript was distributed among several of her literary friends, with whom it was a labor of love to arrange and prepare it for the press.

Rarely has unpublished writing had so bright a constellation of posthumous interpreters. The "Thoughts" are arranged by the Abbé de Cazalès and Count Jules de Berton; "Old Age," by Count Paul Resseguier; "Resignation," by Count Albert De Resseguier and Prince A. Galitzin.

The general title "Writings" is eminently proper here, as Madame Swetchine never entertained the premeditation implied by the term "works." They are marked by a knowledge of the world, a philosophical range of thought, a purity of soul, and an elevation of piety rarely united in one person. Here are a few of her scattered "Thoughts," which we take almost at random:

The treatise on old age is a classic Christian De Senectute, with an elevation and morality impossible to Cicero.

The Airelles (flowers that ripen under the snow) are a series of beautiful reflections, as remarkable for their strength as for their delicacy. They are utterances which sprang from Madame Swetchine's own heart, but reached no other; impressions which clothed themselves in images to people her solitude. Here are a few which we select with hesitation, as we must necessarily confine our choice to the shortest:

There are various other chapters, comprising a remarkable range of subjects—on the soul, the intellect, on nature, courtesy, music, the fine arts, on resignation, the world, the affections, etc.

The translation is well executed by Miss Harriet W. Preston, and the typography and paper are excellent.

Catholic Doctrine, as defined by the Council of Trent, expounded in a Series of Conferences, delivered in Geneva. By the Rev. A. Nampon, S.J. Proposed as a means of reuniting all Christians. Translated from the French, with the approbation of the author, by a member of the University of Oxford. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. 1869.

We know of no work recently issued by the American Catholic press whose appearance we more cordially welcome than this of Father Nampon's, Catholic Doctrine, as defined by the Council of Trent. It is truly a book for the times; and we unite with the most Rev. Archbishop of Baltimore, whose approbation, together with that of the Archbishops of New York and Cincinnati, and of the Bishop of Philadelphia, it bears, in expressing the conviction that "it is well calculated to do a great amount of good," and the "hope that it may be extensively circulated." When the illustrious Bossuet gave to the world his incomparable work on Catholic doctrine in contrast with "Protestant Variations," Protestantism was but in its seed-time; and the harvest of errors, which it has since so abundantly brought forth, had scarcely begun to show itself. Since then, to use the words of the author of the book before us, "How many new variations and divisions have appeared among Protestants! What ruins has the explosion of rationalism scattered on that desolated plain! And what weakness has been produced in that which yet remains among them of Christian belief! How many doctrines, at that time respected, are now thrown aside with contempt in the exercise of private judgment! How much has the authority of Scripture been shaken! To what an extent have the sublime mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and, indeed, all mystery, all notions of the supernatural, become, in the eyes of an ever-increasing number of those who heretofore were Christians, superannuated, absurd, mythological ideas!"

But the author of the present volume does not propose to himself to add to the work of the great Bossuet—to be a continuator of the history of the variations. He adopts a different method. Translating and setting before the reader the definitions and decrees of the sacred Council of Trent, whose work was called forth by, and mainly directed against the errors of the so-called Reformers, or to which their revolt against the church's authority had given rise, he first expounds the true Catholic doctrine impugned by them, and then contrasts with it the ever-varying opinions and fading beliefs which they undertook to substitute for that doctrine. And this is done so clearly and eloquently, and yet so kindly withal, that his book may be specially commended to the Protestant reader, as one wherein he will find Catholic doctrine set forth in its verity, and Protestant error in its deformity, without occasion given to take offence. May it fall into the hands of many such readers; and may its perusal be to[287] them, as was happily the case with the excellent translator of the book, the occasion of their recognizing the verity of Catholic doctrine, and of their conversion to the Catholic Church!

The volume is got out in a handsome dress, as are all of Mr. Cunningham's later publications.

Man in Genesis and in Geology; or, The Biblical Account of Man's Creation, Tested by Scientific Theories of his Origin and Antiquity. By Joseph P. Thompson, D.D., LL.D. New-York: Samuel R. Wells, 389 Broadway. 1870.

This is a short treatise of considerable value, showing both research and a power of clear reasoning on the part of the author. To a very great extent we concur with his conclusions and opinions, and altogether in his estimate of the importance and utility of such investigations. The student of biblical science will find his book useful to a greater extent than its unpretending size and appearance would indicate; and its general effect, so far as it is circulated in the ordinary reading community, must be wholesome, as furnishing an antidote to the pseudo-scientific trash which is such a common article of intellectual diet in our day. The lack of a sufficient authority to define what is revealed with certainty prevents the author from affirming with due assurance some revealed verities, such as the unity of the race, and brings down his argument too much to a mere balancing of probabilities, a defect which is inherent in modern popular theology and philosophy. He makes also an over-estimate of the value of material progress in itself, and its effect on the sum of human happiness. Like most Protestant ministers, he is unable to keep from betraying his uneasiness in regard to Protestantism by bringing in the confident but groundless and unproved assertion that it is the mainspring of all modern civilization, science, and progress. Dr. Ewer has fully shown the fallacy of all such assumptions, which, at all events, are quite irrelevant to Genesis and geology, and would be more appropriately put forth by the author in his sermons than in a scientific treatise. There are other things which are out of keeping with the solid, scholarly character of the best portion of the book, betraying haste and a lack of care and finish in the composition. With these deductions, we gladly acknowledge our obligations to the learned author for a really valuable contribution to sacred literature.

A Critique upon Mr. Ffoulkes's Letter. By H. I. D. Ryder, of the Oratory. London: Longmans.

Mr. Ffoulkes's unfortunate pamphlet is completely pulverized by this short, pithy, and complete reply. Dr. Ward and F. Bottalla have also performed the same task, each in his own way, and we cannot but commiserate any one who falls into the hands of such a trio. We look upon Mr. Ffoulkes as a man who has some very good points, and who has shown a temper of mind and heart inclining us to judge his mistakes very leniently. His pamphlet is tedious, crude, inconsistent, and utterly without any logical or historical basis. It is, nevertheless, a fair reflex of the state of mind in which many Anglicans are at present detained, so that it is well calculated to do a great amount of mischief. Refutations of it are, therefore, not a superfluous work, but a very useful one. We are glad that F. Ryder has answered Mr. Ffoulkes, for the reason above given; but, apart from this, we are glad to see any thing on theological topics from his pen. In our opinion he has shown more of the true genius of theology than any other of the rising young authors in the Catholic Church of England, except, perhaps, Fr. Bottalla, who is without his equal in his manner of handling the controversy respecting the papal supremacy. F. Ryder is a deep student in certain departments of theology which lie below the surface presented in the common text-books; he is uncommonly discriminating and judicious, and possesses a fine tact which[288] enables him to feel the seat and nature of the errors and misconceptions in the English mind most in need of skilful handling. We hope, therefore, that his pen may be employed as frequently as possible on theological topics.

The Intelligence of Animals, with Illustrative Anecdotes. From the French of Ernest Menault. With Illustrations. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1869. 1 vol. 16mo.

This is a most interesting work, and is one of the volumes of the "Illustrated Library of Wonders," the previous ones of which have been noticed in our pages. The information given in this little book about insects and animals is highly interesting, and if heeded there would be less need of "societies for the protection of animals." In the preface, the author very justly remarks that "The marvels of animal intelligence claim now more than ever the attention of observers. Without admitting, like some people, that we came from a quadruped; without approving the beast-worship of the Egyptians; we believe that most animals which crawl or walk on the earth, or fly in the air, form communities like ourselves. We believe that the lower animals possess, in a certain degree, the faculties of man, and that our inferior brothers, as St. Francis of Assisi calls them, preceded us on earth." The illustrations are good, and apropos to the subjects.

Seen and Heard. Poems, or the Like. By Morrison Heady. Baltimore: Henry C. Turnbull, Jr. 1869.

Criticism is disarmed on taking up the literary productions of an author who has suffered under almost total loss of sight and hearing since the age of sixteen. That under this double deprivation he should have produced poetry marked by so many vivid passages of description, is truly remarkable. No wonder that he feelingly seizes on the fine invocation passage of Young in his Night Thoughts:

Mr. Heady is known in the West as the Blind Bard of Kentucky, of which State he is a native.

The Works of Horace. Edited, with explanatory notes, by Thomas Chase, A.M., Professor in Harvard College. Philadelphia: Eldredge & Brother. New York: J. W. Schermerhorn & Co. 1870.

This edition of Horace is one of the best we have seen. The type is excellent, the text accurate, the notes neither insufficient nor superfluous.

Elements of the Greek Language. Taken from the Greek Grammar of James Hadley, Professor in Yale College. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1869.

This excellent "abridgment of Professor Hadley's Grammar" will prove, we have no doubt, a very serviceable book. We agree with those who have represented to the professor that his larger grammar is somewhat cumbersome to a beginner.

The Elements of Molecular Mechanics. By Joseph Bayma, S.J., Professor of Philosophy, Stonyhurst College. London and Cambridge: Macmillan & Co.

This work contains a philosophical, mathematical, and mechanical theory of the ultimate molecular constitution of matter, probably the most generally interesting question now being discussed in the scientific world. It is not one which can be dismissed hastily; and we shall, therefore, postpone a fuller notice of this certainly very able treatment of the subject to a future number.

FATHER HECKER'S FAREWELL SERMON.[59]

"Render, therefore, to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's; and to God the things that are God's"—St. Matt. xxii 21.

The Pharisees endeavored to entrap our blessed Lord by a dilemma which would force him to present his doctrine under a false and untenable issue, whichever side of it he might take. He overcame their cunning by a superior wisdom which reduced them to silence and covered them with shame. In a precisely similar manner the enemies of the church are perpetually endeavoring to force upon her some false issue, with equally signal ill success. The Pharisees presented the rights of God and the rights of Cæsar as two contrary, antagonistic sides of a dilemma, one of which must be chosen to the exclusion of the other, and either one of which would be fatal to the cause of Jesus Christ. The modern enemies of the church place religion in opposition to reason, faith to science, grace to nature, liberty to authority, as if these were contrary and antagonistic to each other. They require us to choose between them. If we choose the first set of principles, they expect to ruin our cause by simply showing its opposition to the second set; if we choose the second set of principles, they expect an equally easy victory, because in that case religion and the church become unnecessary. The church will not, however, permit herself to be placed in any such false position. She will not choose between religion and reason, faith and science, grace and nature, authority and liberty, but she will embrace and reconcile them all, giving to each one of them all that is justly due to it.

At the present moment, when the pope has summoned an œcumenical council, the influence of which upon the world is dreaded by anti-Catholics and some nominally Catholic statesmen, the cry has become unusually loud and alarming that the church is assuming an aggressive attitude against science, civilization, the rights of the state, religious and political liberty. What! the church aggressive, her attitude dangerous? It is not long since you all said she was an effete institution, an affair of past ages, totally dead! Now it seems you have suddenly become afraid of her aggressions, and are alarmed lest she should swallow up all modern society.[290] You no longer affect to pity her feebleness, but you exclaim against her audacity. Undoubtedly, the convocation of an œcumenical council by Pius IX. was a very bold act. When you consider his advanced age of nearly eighty years, the critical state of Europe, the vastness and complication of the questions and interests upon which a council must deliberate, and other circumstances well known to you all, which I need not specially enumerate, the act of the pope may very properly be characterized as one of the boldest steps which has ever been taken by any sovereign ruler.

Yet, in the light of the Catholic faith, so far from being such a very bold act, it appears like the most natural and the safest thing which he could possibly do. The Catholic faith teaches that the church founded upon the rock of Peter is infallible, by the promise and perpetual presence of Christ, the continual, inamissible indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In an œcumenical council, where the universal episcopate is gathered together under the presidency of its head, the successor of Peter, as vicar of Christ, the Catholic Church is organized for deliberation and action in the most perfect way possible. Who compose a council? The bishops of the world, to whom the right of membership belongs by divine law, and other prelates in eminent positions to whom the privilege is conceded by ecclesiastical law. Among them are men of distinct races, of different nations and languages, and governing dioceses or missions in all the different quarters and regions of the globe. The most learned and able men of the Catholic Church, the men who are most experienced in affairs and most intimately connected with the great political interests of the world, the men who have made the greatest sacrifices and performed the most important labors in the cause of God, are to be found among them. It is a world-congress of men in every intellectual and moral respect the most venerable that could possibly be collected on the earth; without comparison superior to any other deliberative or legislative assembly. An œcumenical council is, as the church teaches and every Catholic is bound to believe, infallibly directed and assisted by the Holy Spirit. Its decisions are to be received as proceeding from the mouth of God, its definitions of faith are final, unerring, and unchangeable. It is impossible, therefore, to imagine a greater absurdity, a more palpable contradiction, than that of appealing from an œcumenical council to Jesus Christ while professing to continue a member of the Catholic Church. It is appealing from the Holy Spirit to the Son; and, to carry out the absurdity to its utmost length, we have only to suppose one appealing from the Son to the Father Almighty. The god who is really appealed to in such a case is the idol of self in the bosom of the individual.

The question which is so frequently and anxiously asked, What, then, will the council do? has already been answered by anticipation in what I have just said, so far as it can be answered, at the present time, or need be answered, to reassure every good Catholic. The council will do whatsoever the Holy Ghost dictates. Further than this we cannot say any thing positively. But we can say very distinctly and certainly, what the council will not do. If it were to be an assembly of Protestant divines, guided each one by his private light, or of Swedenborgians, Spiritists, or Mormons, something piquant might be expected in the line of new doctrines or new revelations. But since it is a Catholic council, there will be[291] no new revelations or new doctrines proclaimed. The church has no mission or authority to add any thing to the deposit of faith, committed by our Lord, orally or by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to the apostles. Her office is to guard, to teach, to protect, and explain the faith. She decides what Jesus Christ taught to the apostles, and they to their successors, according to evidence contained in Scripture and apostolic tradition, assisted by the infallible light of the Holy Spirit. Whatever she defines as pertaining to Catholic faith has always been believed in the church. The council will, therefore, so far as relates to faith, proclaim no new doctrines, but merely explain, so far as necessary, the ancient faith as it is opposed to the errors of the day, and declare in a more precise and explicit manner that which is really contained in the divine revelation, and, therefore, always implicitly believed by every Catholic.

In respect to discipline, the church has no power to alter any divine laws; but she has power over her own laws, to add to them, to amend, modify, or abrogate them. In matters of variable discipline, the council will, therefore, consider how far any new legislation is necessary and expedient, will make such enactments as it shall deem best, and these will become part of the supreme, universal law of the church, binding on the conscience of all its members.

But it is objected, and even some ill-informed or disaffected Catholics are found to join in the cry, the Roman court will prevail in the council, the bishops will not be free to discuss or decide any thing; for every thing has already been determined by the pope, who will impose his will as law upon the council. Be it so! All I have to say, then, is that, if the Roman court prevail, it is the Holy Ghost who prevails through the Roman court. Those who use such language know but little of the real state of things at the Roman court, or of the character of the prelates who will compose the council. In regard to the Roman court, I can speak from my own personal knowledge and experience. There is no sovereign on earth toward whom so much freedom of speech is used, by those whose position and character qualify them to give him advice, as the sovereign pontiff. There is no place where there is so much freedom of opinion and discussion as Rome. The former councils, and especially that of Trent, show how great is the freedom of debate, and how thorough the discussion of topics which prevails in these august assemblies. I will speak of but one instance, that of the Archbishop of Braga, at Trent, who insisted in the most pointed manner on the obligation which rested on the most illustrious cardinals to set the example to the rest of the faithful, of "a most illustrious reform." So far from giving offence at Rome, the freedom of this holy prelate caused him to be treated by the pope with the most distinguished consideration, and honored by marks of the warmest friendship. The prelates who will compose the council of the Vatican are not men who can be either allured or terrified by any human or worldly motives into any action contrary to their consciences or their convictions.

But the pope has already in his recent encyclical and syllabus, with the acquiescence of the great body of Catholic bishops, condemned science, progress, civilization, and liberty.

What is the authority on which this assertion is made? The newspapers. The newspapers! Who would not be ashamed to cite such an authority on such a subject. Newspaper articles[292] written, as some of them openly confess, chiefly with a view of making a sensation, by persons destitute of the proper information for speaking intelligently on ecclesiastical matters, and too frequently not of a disposition to tell the truth if they knew it. To place faith in opposition to science is a patent absurdity, for it is the same as opposing truth to truth. And there is no person upon whom the charge of maintaining such an absurdity can be fastened with less justice than Pius IX. There is no pontiff who has appeared to take such an especial pride and delight in maintaining by his decisions and by the magnificent language of his pontifical letters the dignity and the rights of human reason as he has, a fact which I could easily prove by citations, if the time permitted. But let us know what those persons who charge the syllabus with opposing science, signify by that term. If they mean by it the theories of sophists like Humboldt, Huxley, Comte, Mill, Spencer, and certain philosophers of Boston, who dethrone God, deify matter, degrade the rational and spiritual nature of man, and reduce all knowledge to a chaos of scepticism, the pope and the church are opposed to all such science as that. Whoever upholds it is certainly fully authorized to apply to himself the definition which his favorite philosophy gives of man; to wit, that he is nothing more than a finely organized ape.

What do they mean by progress and civilization? Is it the supremacy of material interests, the dictatorial control of the state over education, the doctrine that the chief end of man is to establish railways and telegraphic lines? Then the church is opposed to them. But to call her the enemy of civilization in the true, genuine sense of the word, is not only false, but the basest ingratitude on the part of those to whom she has given that inheritance of civilization on which all the nations of Christendom are at this moment living.

What do they mean by liberty? Freedom from all religion, from all moral restraints, from the bonds and obligations of marriage, the subjection of the church to the power of civil rulers, and the atheistic constitution of the political and social state? To all these the church is opposed, and these she will resist to the last drop of her blood. And so are you opposed to them, if you have the sentiments of a man or make any pretension to the name of a Christian. So are the wisest and most virtuous of those who are out of the communion of the church, by whatever name they may choose to be designated. Such false liberalism as this we all alike detest, and must oppose with all our strength; for it is destructive of that only true liberty which we prize above all things—the "liberty of the children of God."

I have thought it necessary, my dear brethren—I may say my beloved children in Christ, for I am your pastor—to present before you these considerations on the eve of my departure to attend the Œcumenical Council.

It is not that you have need to be taught these things—for you are believing and instructed Catholics—that I have presented them before you; but that you may better understand what great benefits and blessings we may expect to flow from the deliberations and acts of that great council which is about to assemble, the most numerous and the most important which has been seen in the church for centuries. I desire you to look forward, as I do, to a new and glorious era in the church's history, an era of the triumph of faith and holiness, in which I trust our own country[293] is destined to become the theatre of a brilliant development of the Catholic religion. I earnestly recommend to your prayers the success of the great work which is before the council, and my own prosperous return to you after its close. As I kneel at the sepulchre of the holy apostles SS. Peter and Paul, and before the holy shrines of the saints, I will remember you; and in now taking my leave of you for a short time, I pray God to give you his blessing, and to keep us all in peace and safety until we shall meet again.

ANGELA.

CHAPTER VI.
THE ULTRAMONTANE WAY OF THINKING.

On the following morning no message was sent for the doctor. The child had died, as Klingenberg foretold. Frank thought of the great affliction of the Siegwart family—Angela in tears and the father broken down with grief. It drove him from Frankenhöhe. In a quarter of an hour he was at the house of the proprietor.

"You cannot speak to my master," said she. "We had a bad night. My master is almost out of his mind; he has only just now lain down. Poor Eliza! the dear, good child." And the tears burst forth again.

"At four o'clock this morning; and how beautiful she still looks in death! You would think she is only sleeping. If you wish to see her, just go up to the same room in which you were yesterday."

After some hesitation, Frank ascended the stairs and entered the room. As he passed the threshold, he paused, greatly surprised at the sight that met his view. The room was darkened, the shutters closed, and across the room streamed the broken rays of the morning sun. On a white-covered table burned wax candles, in the midst of which stood a large crucifix; there was also a holy-water vase, and in it a green branch. On the white cushions of the bed reposed Eliza, a crown of evergreens about her forehead and a little crucifix in her folded hands. Her countenance was not the least disfigured; only about her softly-closed eyes there was a dark shade, and the lifelike freshness of the lips had vanished. Angela sat near the bed on a low stool; she had laid her head near that of her sister, and in consequence of a wakeful night was fast asleep. Eliza's little head lay in her arms, and in her hand she held the same rosary that he had found near the statue. Frank stood immovable before the interesting group.

The most beautiful form he had ever beheld he now saw in close contact with the dead. Earnest thoughts passed through his mind. The fleetingness of all earthly things vividly[294] occurred to him. Eliza's corpse reminded him impressively that her sister, the charming Angela, must meet the same inevitable fate. His eyes rested on the beautiful features of the sufferer, which were not in the least disfigured by bitter or gloomy dreams, and which expressed in sleep the sweetest peace. She slept as gently and confidingly near Eliza as if she did not know the abyss which death had placed between them. The only disorder in Angela's external appearance was the glistening curls of hair that hung loose over her shoulders on her breast.

At length Frank departed, with the determination of returning to make his visit of condolence. After the accustomed walk with Klingenberg, he went immediately back to Siegwart's.

He had scarcely written down these thoughts, when he bit impatiently the pen between his teeth.

With a peculiar stubbornness which struggles to maintain a favorite conviction, he closed the diary.

On the second day after Eliza's death the body was consigned to the earth. Frank followed the diminutive coffin, which was carried by[295] four little girls dressed in white. The youthful bearers had wreaths of flowers on their heads and blue silk ribbons about their waists, the ends of which hung down.

After these followed a band of girls, also dressed in white and blue. They had flowers fixed in their hair, and in their hands they carried a large wreath of evergreens and roses. The whole community followed the procession—a proof of the great respect the proprietor enjoyed among his neighbors. Siegwart's manner was quiet, but his eyes were inflamed. As the coffin was lowered into the ground, the larks sang in the air, and the birds in the bushes around joined their sweet cadences with the not plaintive but joyful melodies which were sung by a choir of little girls. The church ceremonies, like nature, breathed joy and triumph, much to Richard's astonishment. He did not understand how these songs of gladness and festive costumes could be reconciled with the open grave. He believed that the feelings of the mourners must be hurt by all this. He remained with the family at the grave till the little mound was smoothed and finished above it. The people scattered over the graveyard, and knelt praying before the different graves. The cross was planted on Eliza's resting-place, and the girls placed the large wreath on the little mound. Siegwart spoke words of consolation to his wife as he conducted her to the carriage. Angela, sunk in sadness, still remained weeping at the grave. Richard approached and offered her his arm. The carriage proceeded toward Salingen and stopped before the church, whose bells were tolling. The service began. Again was Richard surprised at the joyful melody of the church hymns. The organ pealed forth joyfully as on a festival. Even the priest at the altar did not wear black, but white vestments. Frank, unfamiliar with the deep spirit of the Catholic liturgy, could not understand this singular funeral service.

After service the family returned. Frank sat opposite to Angela, who was very sad, but in no way depressed. He even thought he saw now and then the light of a peculiar joy in her countenance. Madame Siegwart could not succeed in overcoming her maternal sorrow. Her tears burst forth anew, and her husband consoled her with tender words.

Frank strove to divert Angela from her sad thoughts. As he thought it would not be in good taste to speak of ordinary matters, he expressed his surprise at the manner of the burial.

"Your sister," said he, "was interred with a solemnity which excited my surprise, and, I confess, my disapprobation. Not a single hymn of sorrow was sung, either at the grave or in the church. One would not believe that those white-clad girls with wreaths of flowers on their heads were carrying the soulless body of a beloved being to the grave. The whole character of the funeral was that of rejoicing. How is this, Fräulein Angela; is that the custom here?"

"That is the custom in the whole Catholic Church," she replied. "At the burial of children she excludes all sadness; and for that reason masses of requiem in black vestments are never said for them; but masses of the angels in white."

"Do you not think the custom is in contradiction to the sentiments of nature—to the sorrowful feelings of those who remain?"

"Yes, I believe so," she answered tranquilly. "Human nature grieves about many things over which the spirit should rejoice."

"Grief at the death of a relative is proper for us, because a beloved person has been taken from our midst. But the church, on the contrary, rejoices because an innocent, pure soul has reached the goal after which we all strive—eternal happiness. You see, Herr Frank, that the church considers the departure of a child from this world from a more exalted point of view, and comprehends it in a more spiritual sense, than the natural affection. While the heart grows weak from sadness, the church teaches us that Eliza is happy; that she has gone before us, and that we will be separated from her but for a short time; that between us there is a spiritual union which is based on the communion of saints. Faith teaches me that Eliza, rescued from all afflictions and disappointments, is happy in the kingdom of the blessed. If I could call her back, I would not do it; for this desire springs from egotism, which can make no sacrifices to love."

Her eyes were full of tears as she said these last words. But that peculiar joy which Richard had before observed, and the meaning of which he now understood, again lighted up her countenance. He leaned back in the carriage, and was forced to admit that the religious conception of death was very consoling, even grand, when compared with that conception which modern enlightenment has of it.

The carriage moved slowly through the silent court-yard, which lay as gloomy under the clouds as though it had put on mourning for the dead. The chickens sat huddled together in a corner, their heads sadly drooping. Even the garrulous sparrows were silent, and through the linden tops came a low, rustling sound like greetings from another world.

Assisted by Richard's hand, Angela descended from the carriage. Her father thanked him for his sympathy, and expressed a wish to see him soon again in the family circle. As Richard glanced at Angela, he thought he read in her look a confirmation of all her father said. Siegwart's invitation was unnecessary. The young man was attracted more strongly to the proprietor's house as Angela's qualities revealed themselves to his astonished view more clearly. But Frank would not believe in the spotlessness and sublime dignity of a Christian maiden. He did not change his former judgment against the sex. His stubbornness still persisted in the opinion that Angela had her failings, which, if manifested, would obscure the external brilliancy of her appearance, but which remained hidden from view. Continued observation alone would, in Frank's opinion, succeed in disclosing the repulsive shadows.

Perhaps a proud determination to justify his former opinions lay less at the bottom of this obstinate tenacity than an unconscious stratagem. The young man anticipated that his respect for Angela would end in passionate affection as soon as she stood before him in the full, serene power of her beauty. He feared this power, and therefore combated her claims.

The professor had returned from his excursion into the mountains, and related what he had seen and heard.

"Such excursions on historic grounds," said he, "are interesting and instructive to the historical inquirer. What historical sources hint at darkly become distinct, and many incredible things become clear and intelligible. Thus, I once read in an[297] old chronicle that the monks during choral service sung with such enchanting sweetness that the empress and her ladies and knights who were present burst into tears. I smiled at this passage from the garrulous old chronicler, and thought that the fabulous spirit of the middle ages had descended into the pen of the good man. How often have I heard Mozart's divine music, how often have I been entranced by the stormy, thrilling fantasies of Beethoven! But I was never moved to tears, and I never saw even delicate ladies weep. Two days ago, I wandered alone among the ruins of the abbey of Hagenroth. I stood in the ruined church; above was the unclouded sky, and high round about me the naked walls. Here and there upon the walls hung patches of plaster, and these were painted. I examined the paintings and found them of remarkable purity and depth of sentiment. I examined the painted columns in the nave and choir, and found a beautiful harmony. I admired the excellence of the colors, on which it has snowed, rained, and frozen for three hundred and twenty years. I then examined the fallen columns, the heavy capitals, the beauty of the ornaments, and from these significant remnants my imagination built up the whole structure, and the church loomed up before me in all its simple grandeur and charming finish. I was forced to recognize and admire those artists who knew how to produce such wonderful and charming effects by such simple combinations. I thought on that passage of the chronicle, and I believe if, at that moment, the simple, pure chant of the monks had echoed through the basilica, I also would have been moved to tears. If the monks knew, thought I, how to captivate and charm by their architecture, why could they not do the same with music?"

"If you had spoken those words at my side in that tone as I stood amid those ruins, they would have sounded like malicious envy from the mouth of the spirit of darkness."

"Your admiration for the monks is indeed a great curiosity," said Frank, smiling. "Sybel's congenial friend a eulogist of the monks! That indeed is as strange as a square circle."

"If I admire the splendor of heathenism, must I not also admire the fascinating, still depth of Christian childhood? In heathenism as well as in Christianity human genius accomplishes great and sublime things."

"That, in its whole extent, I must dispute," said Frank. "Where is the splendor and greatness of heathenism? The heathen built palaces of great magnificence, but crime stalked naked about in them. When the lord of the palace killed his slaves for his amusement, there was no law to condemn him. When lords and ladies at their epicurean feasts would step aside into small apartments, there by artificial means to empty their gorged stomachs, they did not offend either against heathen decency or its law of moderation. The marble columns proudly supported gilded arches; but when beneath those arches a human victim bled under the knife of the priests, this was in harmony with the genius of heathenism. The amphitheatres were immense halls, full of art and magnificence, in which a hundred thousand spectators could sit and behold with delight the lions and tigers devour slaves, or the gladiators slaughtering each other for their amusement. No. True greatness and real splendor I do not[298] find in heathenism. Where heathen greatness is, there terrible darkness, profound error, and horrible customs abound. Christianity had to contend for three hundred years to destroy the abominations of heathenism."

"I will not dispute about it now," said Lutz. "You shall not destroy by your criticism the beautiful impressions of my excursion. I also met the Swedes on my tour. About thirty miles from here there is, among the hills, a valley. The peasants call the place the 'murder-chamber.' I suspected that the name might be associated with some historical event, and, on inquiry, I found such to be the case. In the Thirty Years' War, when Gustavus Adolphus, the pious hero, passed through the German provinces murdering and robbing, the inhabitants of the neighborhood fled with their wives, children, and property to this remote valley. They imagined themselves hid in these woods and defiles from the wandering Swedes, but they deceived themselves. Their hiding-place was discovered, and every living thing—cows, calves, and oxen excepted—was put to the sword. 'The blood of the massacred,' said my informer, 'flowed down the valley like a brook; and for fifty years the neighborhood was desolate, because the Swedes had destroyed every thing.' Such masterpieces of Swedish blood-thirstiness are found in many places in Germany; and as the people celebrate them in song and story, it is certain that the pious hero has won for himself imperishable fame in the art of slaughter."

"No; fable must be carefully separated from history; and in this case I want the inclination for the subject."

"Fabulous! I find in the 'murder-chamber' nothing but the true Swedish nature of that time."

"Gustavus Adolphus may wander for ever about Germany as the 'pious hero,' if for no other purpose than to annoy the ultramontanes."

"I believe we are unjust in our judgments of the ultramontanes," said he. "I visit every day a family which my father declares not only to be ultramontane, but even clerical, and on account of it will not associate with them. But I saw there only the noble, good, and beautiful." And he reported circumstantially what he knew of the Siegwart family.

"You have observed carefully; and in particular no feature of Angela has escaped you. This Angela," he continued jocosely, "must be an incarnate ideal of the other world, since she has excited the interest of my friend, even though she wears crinoline."

"Not!" returned the professor, smiling. "Then it is just right. The Angel of Salingen belongs to the nine choirs of angels, and was sent to the earth in woman's form to win my proud, woman-hating friend to the fair sex."

"My conversion to the highest admiration of women is by no means impossible; at least in one case," answered Richard, in the same earnest tone.

"I am astonished!" said the professor. "My interest is boundless. Could I not see this wonderful lady?"

On the way Frank spoke of Angela's charitable practices, of her love for the poor, her pious customs, and of her deep religious sentiment, which manifested itself in every thing; of her activity in household matters, of her modesty and humility. All this he said in a tone of enthusiasm. The professor listened with attention and smiled.

As they went through the gate into the large court-yard, they saw Angela standing under the lindens. She held a large dish in her hand. About her pressed and crowded the representatives of all races and nations of that multitude which material progress has raised from slavish degradation. From Angela's hand rained golden corn among the chattering brood, who, pressed by a ravenous appetite, hungrily shoved, pushed, and upset each other. Even the chivalrous cocks had forgotten their propriety, and greedily snatched up the yellow fruit without gallantly cooing and offering the treasure to the females. Nimble ducks glided between the legs of the turkeys and snatched up, quick as lightning, the grains from their open bills. This did not please the turkeys, who gobbled and struck their sharp bills into the bobbing heads of the ducks. A solitary turkey cock alone scorned to participate in the hungry pleasures of the common herd. He spread his wings stiffly like a crinoline around his body, strutted about the yard, uttered a gallant guttural gobble, and played the fine lady in style.

Near the gate stood the stalls. They all had double doors, so that the upper part could be opened while the lower half remained closed. As the two friends passed, they saw a massive head protruding through the open half of one of those doors. The head was red, and was set upon the powerful shoulders of a steer who had broken loose from his fastening to take a walk about the yard. When he saw the strangers, he began to snort, cock his ears, and shake his head, while his fiery eyes rolled wildly in his head.

"A handsome beast," said Frank, as he stopped. "How wide his forehead, how strong his horns, how powerful his chest!"

The steer was not pleased with these compliments. Bellowing angrily he rushed against the door, which gave way. Slowly and powerfully came forth from the darkness of the stall the colossal limbs of the dangerous beast. The friends, unexpectedly placed in the power of this terrible enemy, stood paralyzed. They beheld the colossus lashing his sides with his tail, lowering his head threateningly, and maliciously stealing toward them like a cat stealing to a mouse till she gets within a sure spring of it. The steer had evidently the same design on the strangers. He thought to crush them with his iron forehead and amuse himself with tossing up their lifeless bodies. They saw this, clearly enough, but there was no time for flight. The red steer in his mad onset would certainly overtake and run them down. Luckily, the professor remembered from the Spanish bull-fights how they must meet these beasts, and he quickly warned his friend.

Scarcely had the words escaped his trembling lips, when the steer gave a short bellow, lowered his head, and, quick as an arrow, rushed upon Frank. He jumped to one side, but slipped and fell to the ground. The steer dashed against a wagon that was standing near, and broke several[300] of the spokes. Maddened at the failure of his charge, he turned quickly about and saw Frank lying on the ground, and rejoiced over his helpless victim. Richard commended his soul to God, but had enough presence of mind not to move a limb; he even kept his eyes closed. The steer snuffed about, and Frank felt his warm breath. The steer evidently did not know how to begin with the lifeless thing, until he took it into his head to stick his horns into the yielding mass. The young man was lost—now the steer lowered his horns—now came the rescue.

Angela had only observed the visitor as the bellowing steer rushed at him. All this took but a minute. The servants were not then in the yard; and before they could be called, Richard would be gored a dozen times by the sharp weapons of the steer. The professor trembled in every limb; he neither dared to cry for help, lest he might remind the steer of his presence, nor to move from the place. He seemed destined to be compelled to see his friend breathe out his life under the torturing stabs.

Before this happened, however, Angela's voice rang imperatively through the yard. The astonished steer raised his head, and when he saw the frail form coming toward him with the dish in her hand, he gave forth a friendly low, and had even the good grace to go a few steps to meet her.

"Falk, what are you about?" said she reproachfully. "You are a terrible beast to treat visitors so."

Falk lowed his apology, and, as he perceived the contents of the dish, he awkwardly sank his mouth into it. Angela scratched his jaws, at which he was so delighted that he even forgot the dish and held still like a child. The professor looked on this scene with amazement—the airy form before the murderous head of the steer. As Master Falk began even to lick Angela's hand, the professor was very near believing in miracles.

"So now, be right good, Falk!" said she coaxingly; "now go back where you belong. Keep perfectly quiet, Herr Frank; do not move, and it will be soon over."

She patted the steer on the broad neck, and holding the dish before him, led him to the stall, into which he quickly disappeared.

"Not in the least," answered Frank, taking out his pocket handkerchief and brushing the dust from his clothes. The professor brought him his hat, which had bounced away when he fell, and placed it on the head of his trembling friend.

Angela returned after housing the steer. Frank went some steps toward her, as if to thank her on his knees for his life; but he concluded to stand, and a sad smile passed over his countenance.

"Fräulein Angela," said he, "I have the honor of introducing to you my friend, Herr Lutz, professor at our university."

"It gives me pleasure to know the gentleman," said she. "But I regret that, through the negligence of Louis, you have been in great danger. Great God! if I had not been in the yard." And her beautiful face became as pale as marble.

Richard observed this expression of fright, and it shot through his melancholy smile like rays of the highest delight; but for his preserver he had not a single word of thanks. Lutz, not understanding this conduct, was displeased at his friend, and undertook himself to return her thanks.

"You have placed yourself in the greatest danger, Fräulein Angela," said[301] he. "Had I been able when you went to meet the steer, I would have held you back with both hands; but I must acknowledge that I was palsied by fear."

"I placed myself in no danger," she replied. "Falk knows me well, and has to thank me for many dainties. When father is away, I have to go into the stalls to see if the servants have done their work. So all the animals know me, and I can call them all by name."

"It is well that my parents are absent to-day, and that the accident was observed by no one; for my father would discharge the Swiss who has charge of the animals, for his negligence. I would be sorry for the poor man. I beg of you, therefore, to say nothing of it to my father. I will correct him for it, and I am sure he will be more careful in future."

While she spoke, the eyes of the professor rested upon her, and it is scarcely doubtful that in his present judgment the splendor of the rostrum was eclipsed. Frank sat silent, observing. He scarcely joined in the conversation, which his friend conducted with great warmth.

"This occurrence," said Lutz, on his way home, "appears to me like an episode from the land of fables and wonders. First, the steer fight; then the overcoming of the beast by a maiden; lastly, a maid of such beauty that all the fair ones of romance are thrown in the shade. By heaven, I must call all my learning to my aid in order to be able to forget her and not fall in love up to the ears!"

"And you did not even thank her!" said Lutz vehemently. "Your conduct was more than ungallant. I do not understand you."

"No matter! Your conduct cannot be justified," growled the professor. "I would like to know the reason that prevented you from thanking your preserver for your life?"

Richard stopped, looked quietly into the glowing countenance of his friend, and proceeded doubtingly,

He began to relate how he met Angela for the first time on the lonely road in the forest, how she then made a deep impression on him, what he learned of her from the poor man and from Klingenberg, and how his opinion of womankind had been shaken by Angela; then he spoke of his object in visiting the Siegwart family, of his observations and experience.

"I had about come to the conclusion, and the occurrence of to-day realizes that conclusion, that Angela possesses that admirable virtue which, until now, I believed only to exist in the ideal world. If there is a spark of vanity in her, I must have offended her. She must have looked resentfully at me, the ungrateful man, and treated me sulkily. But such was not the case; her eyes rested on me with the same clearness and kindness as ever. My coarse unthankfulness did not offend her, because she does not think much of herself, because she makes no pretensions, because she does not know her great excellence, but considers her little human weaknesses in the light of religious perfection—in short, because she is truly humble. She will bury this dauntless deed in forgetfulness. She does not wish the little and great journals to bring her courage into publicity. Tell me a woman, or even a man, who could be capable[302] of such modesty? Who would risk life to rescue a stranger from the horns of a ferocious steer without hesitation, and not desire an acknowledgment of the heroic deed? How great is Angela, how admirable in every act! I was unthankful; yes, in the highest degree unthankful. But I placed myself willingly in this odious light, in order to see Angela in full splendor. As I said," he concluded quietly, "I must soon confess myself besieged—vanquished on the whole line of observation."

"Then I am convinced," said Richard, "that female worth exists, shining and brilliant, and that in the camp of the ultramontanes."

"A shaming experience for us," replied the professor. "You make your studies practical, you destroy all the results of learned investigation by living facts. To be just; it must be admitted that a woman like what you have described Angela to be only grows and ripens on the ground of religious influences and convictions."

"And did you observe," said Richard, "how modestly she veiled the splendor of her brave action? She denied that there was any danger in the presence of the steer, although it is well known that those beasts in moments of rage forget all friendship. Angela must certainly have felt this as she went to meet the horns of the infuriated animal to rescue me."

Frank visited daily, and sometimes twice a day, the Siegwart family; he was always received with welcome, and might be considered an intimate friend. The family spirit unfolded itself clearer and clearer to his view. He found that every thing in that house was pervaded by a religious influence, and this without any design or haughty piety. The assessor was destined to receive a striking proof of this.

One afternoon a coach rolled into the court-yard. The family were at tea. The Assessor von Hamm entered, dressed entirely in black; even the red ribbon was wanting in the button-hole.

"I have learned with grief of the misfortune that has overtaken you," said he after a very formal reception. "I obey the impulse of my heart when I express my sincere sympathy in the great affliction you have suffered in the death of the dear little Eliza."

The tears came into the eyes of Madame Siegwart. Angela looked straight before her, as if to avoid the glance of the assessor.

"We thank you, Herr von Hamm," returned the proprietor. "We were severely tried, but we are reasonable enough to know that our family cannot be exempted from the afflictions of human life."

Hamm sat down, a cup was set before him, and Angela poured him out a cup of fragrant tea. The assessor acknowledged this service with his sweetest smile, and the most obliged expression of thanks.

"You are right," he then said. "No one is exempt from the stroke of fate. Man must submit to the unavoidable. To the ancients, blind fate was terrific and frightful. The present enlightenment submits with resignation."

If a bomb had plunged into the room and exploded upon the table, it could not have produced greater confusion than these words of the assessor. Madame Siegwart looked at him with astonishment and shook her head. The proprietor, embarrassed, sipped his tea. Angela's blooming cheeks lost their color. Hamm did not even perceive the effect of his fatal words, and Frank[303] was scarcely able to hide his secret pleasure at Hamm's sad mishap.

"We know no fate, no blind, unavoidable destiny," said Siegwart, who could not forgive the assessor his unchristian sentiment. "But we know a divine providence, an all-powerful will, without whose consent the sparrow does not fall from the house-top. We believe in a Father in heaven who, counts the hairs of our heads, and whose counsels rule our destiny."

"You believe then, Herr Siegwart, that divine providence, or rather God, has aimed that blow at you?"

"Pardon me. I think you judge too hard of God. It is inconsistent with his paternal goodness to afflict your beloved child with such misfortune."

"Misfortune? It is to be doubted whether Eliza's death is a misfortune. Perhaps her early departure from this world is precisely her happiness; and then we must reflect that God is master of life and death. It is not for us to call the Almighty to account, even if his divine ordinances should be counter to our wishes."

"I respect your religious convictions, Herr Siegwart. Permit me, however, to observe that God is much too exalted to have an eye to all human trifles. He simply created the natural law; this he leaves to its course. All the elements must obey these laws. Every creature is subject to them; and when Eliza died, she died in consequence of the course of these laws, but not through God's express will. Do you not think that this view of our misfortunes reconciles us with the conceptions we have of God's goodness?"

"No; I do not believe it, because such a view contradicts the Christian faith," replied Siegwart earnestly. "What kind of a God, what kind of a Father would he be who would let every thing go as it might? He would be less a father than the poorest laborer who supports his family in the sweat of his brow."

"And the whole army of misfortunes that daily overtake the human family? Does this army await the command of God?"

"Do not forget, Herr Assessor, that the most of these misfortunes are deserved; brought on by our sins and passions. If excesses would cease, how many sources of nameless calamities would disappear! For the rest, it is my firm conviction that nothing happens or can happen in the whole universe without the express will of God, or at least by his permission."

"This question is evidently of great importance to every man," said Frank. "Man is often not master of the course of his life; for it is developed by a chain of circumstances, accidents, and providential interferences that are not in man's power. I understand very well that to be subject to blind chance, to an irrevocable fate, is something disquieting and discouraging to man. Equally consoling, on the other hand, is the Christian faith in the loving care of an all-powerful Father, without whose permission a hair of our head cannot be touched. But things of such great injustice, of such irresistible power, and of such painful consequences happen on earth, that I cannot reconcile them with divine love."

While Frank spoke, Angela's eyes rested on him with the greatest attention; and when he concluded, she lowered her glance, and an earnest, thoughtful expression passed over her countenance.

"There are accidents that apparently are not the result of man's fault," said Siegwart. "Torrents sweep over the[304] land and destroy all the fruit of man's industry. Perhaps these torrents are only the scourges which the justice of God waves over a lawless land. But I admit that among the victims there are many good men. Storms wreck ships at sea, and many human lives are lost. Avalanches plunge from the Alps and bury whole towns in their resistless fall. It is such accidents as these you have in view."

"Precisely—exactly so. How will you reconcile all these with the fatherly goodness of God?" cried Hamm triumphantly.

"I anticipated this natural reply," continued the proprietor. "If malefactors were not punished, thieves and desperadoes, their bad practices being permitted, would have full play. Then all order would vanish; human society would dissolve into a chaos of disorder. God also created laws which are necessary for the preservation of the natural order. Storms destroy ships. If there were no storms, all growth in the vegetable kingdom would cease. Poisonous vapors would fill the air, and every living thing must miserably die. Avalanches destroy villages. But if it did not snow, the torrents would no longer run, the streams would dry up and the wells would disappear, and man and beast would die of thirst. You see, gentlemen, God cannot abolish that law of nature without endangering the whole creation."

"That explains some, but not all," replied Hamm. "God is all-powerful; it would be but a trifle for him to protect us by his almighty power from the destructive forces of the elements. Why does he not do so?"

"The reason is clear," answered Angela's father. "God would have constantly to work miracles. Miracles are exceptions to the workings of the laws of nature. Now, if God would constantly suppress the power, and unceasingly interrupt the laws of nature, then there would be no longer a law of nature. The supernatural would have devoured the natural. The Almighty would have destroyed the present creation."

"No matter," said the official. "God might destroy the natural forces that are inimical to man; for all that exists is only of value because of its use to man."

"Then nothing whatever would remain. All would be lost," said Siegwart. "We speak and write much about earthly happiness that soon passes away. We glorify the beauty of creation; but we forget that God's curse rests on this earth, and it does not require great penetration to see this curse in all things."

"Divine revelation teaches it," said Siegwart. "The Holy Scriptures expressly say there will be a new earth and a new heaven; and the Lord himself assures us that the foundations of the earth will be overturned and the stars shall fall from the heavens."

"The stars fall from the heavens!" cried Hamm, laughing. "If you could only hear what the astronomers say about that."

"What the astronomers say is of no consequence. They did not create the heavenly bodies, and cannot give them boundaries; besides, we need not take the falling of the stars literally. This expression may signify their disappearance from the earth, perhaps the abolition of the laws by which they have heretofore been moved, and the reconstruction of[305] those relations which existed between heaven and earth prior to the fall. God will then do what you now demand of him, Herr von Hamm," concluded Siegwart, smiling. "He will destroy the inimical power of nature, so that the new earth will be free from thorns, tears, and lamentations."

Thus they continued to dispute, and the debate became so animated that even Angela entered the list in favor of providence.

"I believe," said she with charming blushes, "that the miseries of this earthly life can only be explained and understood in view of man's eternal destiny. God spares the sinner through forbearance and mercy; he sends trials and misfortunes to the good for their purification. God demanded of Abraham the sacrifice of his only son; but when Abraham showed obedience to the command, and consented to make that boundless sacrifice, he was provided with another victim to offer sacrifice to God."

"Fräulein Angela," exclaimed Hamm enthusiastically, "you have solved the problem. Your comprehensive remark reconciles even the innocent sufferers with repulsive decrees. O Fräulein!"—and the assessor fell into a tone of reverie—"were it permitted me to go through life by the side of a partner who possesses your spirit and your conciliatory mildness!"

Angela looked down blushing. She was embarrassed, and dared not raise her eyes. Her first glance, after a few moments, was at Richard.

Frank sprang from an obstinate Westphalian stock; and that the Westphalians have not exchanged their stiff necks for those of shepherds, is sufficiently proved by their stubborn fight with the powers who menaced their liberties. Had Frank been a good-natured South-German or even Municher, he would long since have bowed head and knees to the "Angel of Salingen." But he now maintained the last position of his antipathy to women against Angela's superior powers.

He visited the Siegwart family not twice, but thrice, even four times a day. He appeared suddenly and unexpectedly before Angela like a spy who wished to detect faults.

Just as he was going over the court, on one occasion, a tall lad came up to him. The boy came from the same fatal door through which Master Falk had rushed out upon Richard with such bad intentions. The servant held his hat in his right hand, and with his left fumbled the bright buttons on his red vest.

"Herr Frank, excuse me; I have something to say to you. I have wanted to speak to you for the last three days, but could not because my master was always in the way. But now, as my master is in the fields, I can state my trouble, if you will allow me."

"I am the Swiss through whose fault the steer came near doing you a great injury. It is inexplicable to me, even now, how the animal got loose. But Falk is very cunning. I cannot be too watchful of him. His head is full of schemes; and before you can turn around, he has played one of his tricks. The chain has a[306] clasp with a latch, and how he broke it, he only knows."

"I am not to blame about the chain. But I am for the door being open, Miss Angela said; and she is perfectly right. Therefore, I beg your pardon and promise you that nothing of the kind shall happen in future."

"Miss Angela said that too; and she required me to ask your pardon, which I have done."

Angela stood in the garden, hidden behind the rose-bushes, and heard, smiling, the conversation.

As Frank passed over the yard, she came from the garden carrying a basketful of vegetables. At the same time a harvest-wagon, loaded with rapes and drawn by four horses, came into the yard.

"Your industry extends to the garden also, Miss Angela," said Frank. "Now I know no branch of housekeeping that you cannot take a part in."

"My work is, however, insignificant," she returned. "In a large house there is always a great deal to do, and every one must try to be useful."

"Your garden deserves all praise," continued Richard, eyeing the contents of the baskets. "What magnificent peas and beans!"

For the first time Frank observed in her face something like flattered vanity, and he almost rejoiced at this small shadow on the celestial form before him. But the supposed shadow was quickly changed into light before his eyes. "Father brought these early beans into the neighborhood; they are very tender and palatable. Father likes them, and I am glad to be able to make him a salad this evening. He will be astonished to see his young favorites of this year, eight days earlier than formerly. There he comes; he must not see them now." She covered them with some lettuce.

And this was the shadow of flattered vanity! Childish joy, to be able to astonish her father with an agreeable dish.

The loaded wagon stopped in the yard; the horses snorted and pawed the ground impatiently. The servants opened the barn-doors, and Frank saw on all sides activity and haste to house the valuable crop.

"The first blessing of the year," said the proprietor. "The rapes have turned out well. We had a fine blooming season, and the flies could not do much damage."

"I have often observed those little flies in the rape-fields," said Frank. "You can count millions of them; but I did not know that they injured the crop."

They both went into the house, where a bottle of Munich beer awaited them. Soon after, the servants went through the hall, and Frank heard Angela's voice from the kitchen, where she was busily occupied. The servants brought bread, plates, cheese, and jugs of light wine to the servants' room.

"Neighbor," said Siegwart, "I invite you to-morrow afternoon at four o'clock to a family entertainment—providing it will be agreeable to you."

"You must not expect much from the entertainment. It will, at least, be new to you."

Frank was much interested in the character of this ultramontane entertainment. He thought of a May party, a coronation party; but rejected this idea, for Siegwart promised a family entertainment, and this could[307] not be a May party. He thought of all kinds of plays, and what part Angela would take in them. But the play also seemed improbable, and at last the subject of the invitation remained an interesting mystery to him, the solution of which he awaited with impatience.

An hour before the appointed time Richard left Frankenhöhe, after Klingenberg had excused him from the daily walk. He took a roundabout way along the edge of the forest; for he knew that the Siegwart family would be at divine service, and he did not wish to arrive at the house a moment before the time. Sunday stillness rested on all. The mountains rose up a deep blue; the vari-colored fields were partly yellow; the vineyards alone were of a deep green, and when the wind blew through them it wafted with it the pleasant odors of the vine-blossoms.

Madame Siegwart was just returning home from Salingen between her two children. Henry, a youth of seventeen and the future proprietor of the property, had the same manners as his father. He walked leisurely on the road-side, examining the blooming wheat and ripening corn. When he discovered nests of vine weevils, he plucked them off and crushed the eggs of the hated enemies of all wine-growers. Angela remained constantly at her mother's side, and as she accidentally raised her eyes to where Richard stood, he made a movement as though he was caught disadvantageously.

A short distance behind them came Siegwart, surrounded by some men. They often stopped and talked in a lively manner. Frank thought that these men were also invited, and hoped to become acquainted with the élite of Salingen. He was, however, disappointed; for a short distance from Siegwart's house the men turned back to Salingen. They had only accompanied the proprietor part of the way. The servants of Siegwart also came hastening along the road, first the men-servants, and some distance behind them the maid-servants. Frank had observed this separation before, and thought it must be in consequence of the strict orders of the master. Frank considered this narrow-minded, and thought of finding fault with it, in true modern spirit. But then he considered the results of his observations, which had extended to the servants. He often admired the industry and regular conduct of these people. He never heard any oath or rough expressions of passion; every one knew his work, and performed it with care and attention. He observed this regular order with admiration, particularly when he thought of the disobedience, dissatisfaction, and untrustworthiness of the generality of servants. Siegwart must possess a great secret to keep these people in agreement and order; therefore he rejected his former opinion of narrow-mindedness, and believed the proprietor must have good reason for this separation of the sexes.

Frank remained for a time under the shadow of an oak, looked at his watch, and finally descended the shortest way. He was expected by Siegwart, and immediately conducted to the large room. The arrangement of the room showed at a glance its use. There was a small altar at one side, and religious pictures hung on the walls. There was also a harmonium, and on the windows hung curtains on which were painted scenes from sacred history. In the middle of the room there was a desk, on which lay a book. To the right of the desk sat the men-servants, to the left the maids, the Siegwart family in the centre. A smile passed over Frank's countenance at the present[308] religious entertainment—for him, at least, a new sort of recreation. At his entrance the whole assembly rose. He greeted Angela and her mother, pressed warmly the hand of Henry, and took the seat allotted to him.

Angela ascended the pulpit, sat down and opened the book. She read the life of the servant St. Zitta, whom the church numbers among the saints. Angela read in a masterly manner. The narrative tone of her soft, melodious voice ran like a quickening stream through the soul. Some passages she pronounced with plastic force, and into the delivery of others she breathed warm life. All listened with great attention. Zitta's childhood passed in quick review, then her hard lot with a master difficult to please. The servants listened with astonishment. They heard with pious attention of Zitta's pure conduct, of her fidelity and humility, of her industry and self-denial. They all felt personally their own deficiency in comparison with this shining model. When Angela closed the book, Frank saw that the servants were deeply impressed. Meditatively they left the room, as though they had heard a striking sermon.

"Ah!" thought Frank. "Now I know one of the means by which Siegwart influences his people."

"Now comes the second part of the entertainment," said the proprietor, taking Richard's arm. "We will now go into the garden."

On the way thither Frank saw under the lindens a long table set with food and wine, and at it sat the servants. Richard heard their conversation in passing. They talked of St. Zitta and recounted the striking facts of her life.

Near the garden wall grew a vine-arbor, which caught the cool air as it passed and loaded it with pleasant odors. Thousands of the flowers of the blooming vine appeared between the indented leaves. Each of these diminutive flowers breathed forth a fragrance which for sweetness of odor could not be surpassed.

A young brood of goldfinches, who had taken possession of the arbor, now cleared off. They flew up on the dwarf trees, or hid among the roses, which of all colors and kinds grew in the garden. The hungry young ones cried incessantly, and tested severely the parental duty of support. But the old ones were not ashamed of this duty. Here and there they caught flies and other insects, and carried them to the young ones, who stood with outstretched wings and flabby bills wide open. Then the old ones would fly away again, light on the branches—mostly on bean-stalks—make quick dodges, wave their tails, smack their tongues, and seize as quick as lightning a harmless passing fly. The sparrows did not behave so harmlessly. They pecked at the bright shining cherries that hung in full clusters on the swaying branches. Others of this sharp-billed gentry hopped about on the strawberry-beds, and disfigured the large berries as they tore off great pieces of the soft meat. One of them had even the boldness to hop about on the decorated table that stood at the upper end of the arbor, to strike his sharp bill into the buttered bread, make an examination of the preserves, ogle the slices of ham, and admire the black bottles that stood on the ground. He also took to flight as the company arrived. The vine-blossoms seemed to send forth a sweeter fragrance as Angela, bright and beaming, approached, leaning on the arm of her mother.

"Regularly," answered the proprietor. "It is an old custom of our family, and I find it has such good[309] results that I will not have it abolished. The servants are not obliged to be present. They are free after vespers, each one to employ himself as best suits him. But it seldom happens that a servant or a maid is absent. They like to hear the legends, and you may have remarked that they listen with great attention to the reading."

"I have observed it," said Frank. "Miss Angela is also such an excellent reader that only deaf people would not attend."

"I consider it a strict obligation of employers to have a supervision over the conduct of the servants," said Madame Siegwart. "Many, perhaps most, servants are treated like the slaves in old heathen times. They work for their masters, are paid for it, and there the relation between master and servant ends. This is why they neglect divine service on Sundays and feast-days; their moral wants are not satisfied, their natural inclinations are not purified by restraints of a higher order. The servants sit in the taverns, where they squander their wages, and the maids rove about and gossip. This is a great injustice to the servants, and full of bad consequences. It cannot be questioned that masters should shield their servants from error and keep them under moral discipline."

"Precisely my opinion," returned Frank. "If servants are frequently spoiled and general complaint is made of it, the masters are greatly in fault. I have long since admired the conduct of your servants. I looked upon Herr Siegwart as a kind of sorcerer, who conjured every thing under his charge according to his will. Now a part of the sorcery is clear to me."

"Well, you were favorable in your judgment," said the proprietor, laughing. "So you considered me a magician; others consider me an ultramontanist, and that is something still worse."

"And I scarcely deceive myself in supposing," continued Siegwart good-humoredly, "that your father has spoken to you of his neighbor, the ultramontane."

"You do not deceive yourself at all," answered Frank. "I consider it a great honor to have become better acquainted with the ultramontane."

"I have often wished to speak to you," continued the proprietor, "of the reason which called forth your father's displeasure with me. I suppose, however, that you have heard it."

"It is as follows. About ten years ago your father, with some other gentlemen, wished to establish a great factory in this neighborhood. The land on which it was to stand is a marsh lying near a pond, the water of which was to be made of use to the factory. I tried with all my power to prevent this design, and even for social and religious reasons. Our neighborhood needed no factory. There are but few very poor people, and these support themselves sufficiently well among the farmers. Experience proves that factories have a bad effect on the people in their neighborhood. Our people are firm believers. The peasants keep conscientiously the Sundays and festivals. In all their cares for the earthly they do not forget the eternal life. This religious[310] sentiment spreads happiness and peace over our quiet neighborhood. The factory, which knows no Sunday, and the operatives, who are sometimes very bad men, would have brought a harsh discordance into the quiet harmony of the neighborhood. I considered these and other injurious influences, and offered a higher price for the swamp than your father and his friends. As there was no other convenient place about, the enterprise had to be given up. Since that time your father is offended with me because I made his favorite project impossible. This is the way it stands. That it is painful to me, I need not assure you. But according to my principles and views I could not do otherwise. Now judge how far I am to be condemned."

"I speak freely," said Frank. "You have acted from principles that one must respect, and which my father would have respected if he had known them."

The proprietor could have observed that he had, in a long letter, justified himself to Herr Frank. But he suppressed the observation, as he felt it would be painful to his son.

"Father," said Henry, "hunger and thirst are appeased. Can I ride out for an hour?"

The young man promised, and, after a friendly bow to Frank, hastened from the garden. The little circle continued some time in friendly chat. The servants under the lindens became noisy and sang merry songs. The maids sat around the tea-table in the kitchen and praised St. Zitta.

The cook appeared in the arbor and announced that Herr von Hamm was in the house, and wished to speak on important business to Herr and Madame Siegwart.

"What can he want?" said the proprietor in surprise. "Excuse me, Herr Frank; the business will soon be over. I beg you to remain till we return. Angela, prevent him from going."

"That is very easy, Fräulein. Your presence is sufficient to realize your father's wish. A weak child of human nature cannot resist one who can conquer steers."

"Now you make a steer-catcher of me. Such a thing never happened in Spain; for there the steers are not so cultivated and docile as they are with us."

"Do you consider knitting unlawful after one has fulfilled one's religious duties?"

"The case is not clear to me," said Frank, smiling secretly at the earnestness of the questioner. "My casuistic knowledge is not sufficient to solve such a question reasonably."

"The church only forbids servile work," said she. "I consider knitting and sewing as something better than doing nothing."

"I am rejoiced that you are not narrow-minded, Fräulein. But this little stocking does not fit your feet?"

"It is for little bare feet in Salingen," she replied, laying the finished stocking on the table and stroking it with both hands as a work of love.

"I have heard of your beneficence," said Frank. "You knit, sew, and cook for the poor people. You are a refuge for all the needy and distressed. How good in you!"

"You exaggerate, Herr Frank. I do a little sometimes, but not more than I can do with the housework, which is scarcely worth mentioning. I make no sacrifice in doing it; on[311] the contrary, the poor give me more than I give them; for giving is to every one more pleasant than receiving."

"But you are accustomed also to visit the sick, and the hovels of poverty are certainly not attractive."

"Indeed, Herr Frank, very attractive," she answered quickly. "The thanks of the poor sick are so affecting and elevating that one is paid a thousand times for a little trouble."

Frank let the subject drop. Angela did not give charities from pride or the gratification of vanity, as he had been prepared to assume, but from natural goodness and inclination of the heart. He looked at the beautiful girl who sat before him industriously sewing, and was almost angry at his failure to detect a fault in her pure nature.

"Do you always adorn the statue of the Virgin on the mountain?" said he after a pause.

"No; not now. The month of our dear Lady is over. I always think with pleasure of the happy hours when in the convent we adorned her altar with beautiful flowers."

"You must have a great reverence for Mary, or you would not ascend the mountain daily."

"I admire the exalted virtues of Mary, and think with sorrow of her painful life on earth; and then, a weak creature needs much her powerful protection."

"Do you expect, Miss Angela, by such attention as you show the statue to obtain protection of the saint?"

"No, I do not believe that. The adorning of the pictures of saints would be idle trifling if the heart wandered far from the spirit of the saints. Our church teaches, as you know, that the real, true veneration of the saints consists in imitating their virtues."

Frank sat reflecting. The examination and probation were thoroughly disgusting to him. Siegwart appeared in the garden, and came with quick steps to the arbor. His countenance was agitated and his eyes glowed with indignation. Without speaking a word, he drank off a glass of wine. Frank saw how he endeavored not to exhibit his anger.

"Yes, he is off again," said the proprietor. "Angela, your mother has something to say to you."

"Now guess what the assessor wanted?" said Siegwart, after his daughter had left the arbor.

Frank was astonished. Although he long since saw through Hamm's designs, he did not expect so sudden and hasty a step.

"It is revolting," said the proprietor, much offended. "Herr von Hamm graciously condescends to us peasants. He showed that it would be a great good fortune for us to give our daughter to the noble, the official with brilliant prospects."

"I reminded the gentleman that identity of moral and religious principles alone could render matrimonial[312] happiness possible. I reminded him that Angela was an ultramontane, whose opinions would daily annoy him, while his modern opinions must deeply offend Angela. This I set before him briefly. Then I told him frankly and freely that I did not wish to make either him or Angela unhappy, and at this he went away angrily."

"You have done your duty," said Frank. "I am also of opinion that similar convictions in the great principles of life alone insure the happiness of married life."

He buried his face in his hands and leaned on the table. He remained thus a long time; when he raised his head, his face was pale, and his eyes were moist with tears.

DR. HARWOOD'S PRICE LECTURE.

A certain Mr. Price, of Boston, left a sum of money for a course of annual lectures, one of which is to be against "Romanism," and Dr. Harwood, the rector of Trinity church, New-Haven, having been selected as the lecturer for the current year, has favored us with the publication of his lecture on "Romanism," in the pages of the New-Englander, as well as in the form of a separate pamphlet. The dignified place which is held by the author of this lecture, as well as his personal character and influence, give a considerable weight to whatever he may publicly say on such a topic, in addition to the intrinsic claim it may have on the attention of both his partisans and opponents. On this account, and moreover on account of the tangible, well-exposed issue which distinguishes the production of the reverend doctor from most of the brochures of his polemical associates, we have thought it worth while to devote a little time to the discussion of its contents.

Dr. Harwood does not attempt a formal argument against the claims of the Roman Church to supremacy over all Christendom. He is addressing an audience with whom, as with himself, it is a foregone conclusion that these claims are baseless, and Romanism a fearful, dangerous superstition. There is a tone of dislike and fear running through the lecture with which the audience is expected to sympathize fully, as when something is spoken of whose very mention is sufficient to awaken the aversion of all the moral sensibilities without any need of showing reasons. Just as the[313] mere mention of the words polytheism, Mohammedanism, Mormonism, call up those sentiments of the falsehood and evil of the things they represent, which are interwoven with the intellectual and moral constitution inherited from our ancestors, nurtured by education, and governing our judgments like a second nature, so the mere pronunciation of the terms Rome, pope, sacrifice of the mass, with their derivatives and the other phrases associated with them, are quite sufficient to carry away an average New-England audience in a tide of sympathy with any anti-Roman orator. It was not necessary, therefore, for Dr. Harwood to argue with an audience already convinced, in proof of the position that the Roman Church must be resisted and opposed. The question to be considered was how best to do it? What are the points to be attacked? is one division of the question; by what road, with what weapons are these points to be attacked? is the other. With a singular and very honorable manliness and directness, the lecturer puts aside all secondary issues and places himself openly in front of the fundamental dogmatic basis of the Roman Church, with the avowal that it is necessary to the victory of his cause to attack and subvert this central stronghold. He seeks to ascertain, like a topographical engineer who is laying out positions for a bombardment, the precise situation and extent of this central work, and the exact spot on which the heavy guns which are to play upon it must be planted. It remains yet to be seen whether his report will be accepted by the leaders of his side, and an attempt made to carry out the bold, perhaps somewhat hazardous, strategy which he recommends.

Aside from all preliminaries and accompaniments which serve to give rhetorical finish and effect to the lecture as a popular oration, its gist and pith consist in the statement that the two dogmas of the sacrifice of the mass and the papal supremacy form the constitutive principle of the Roman Church, which the masters of heavy polemics are recommended to step up and overthrow. We have no objection to this issue, and are perfectly willing to fight the whole campaign through on that line. If the doctor intends, however, to define precisely and scientifically that these two dogmas together constitute the differentia of the doctrine of the Roman Church, his definition is open to criticism. The dogma of the sacrifice of the mass is no part of the differentia which distinguishes the Roman Church from the Eastern Christians, or from a respectable party in the author's own communion. The true differentia marking the Catholic Church in the communion and under the headship of the Bishop of Rome, as a sole and singular organization without its like among all the corporate religious societies of the world, is what is called in theological language the juge magisterium ecclesiæ, the living, perpetual, infallible, supreme authority in spirituals exercised in constant and uninterrupted continuity, and keeping the body of the church in indefectible unity. This magistracy is focussed and capitalized in the headship of the primatial see of the world, the Roman Church, and the supremacy of its bishop. A Greek or an Anglo-Catholic may hold theoretically that this magisterium belongs rightfully to the church, and could be exercised in case the church were assembled in what each of them respectively would acknowledge to be an œcumenical council. Neither of them, however, can acknowledge the continuous and present exercise of this plenary authority, because both are obliged to maintain that the church is in a disunited,[314] disorganized state. It is precisely because both refuse to acknowledge the papal supremacy, that they deny the church in communion with Rome to be the complete church in organized unity and its general councils to be œcumenical. It is precisely this supremacy which makes this church an organized unit, and places it in the condition to act with full and complete power. The supremacy of the pope may, therefore, stand for the differentia, and we are willing to accept it as such, with the explanation above given, that it includes also the unbroken unity, together with the plenary judicial and legislative power of the Catholic episcopate as a whole, including both the pope as supreme head, and the bishops as conjudices cum papa, or fellow-judges and rulers, with and under the pope, of the universal church.

This simplifies the issue, and reduces the controversy, as between the Roman Church on one side, and all professed Christians refusing to acknowledge her supremacy as "mother and mistress of churches" on the other, to one question only. A victory on this one question is for us complete and decisive, for it enables us to sweep the whole battle-field. If the supremacy we claim for the pope is established, the obligatory force of all the doctrines and laws proclaimed by him as head of the universal church is established also, without need of further argument, or possibility of appeal to any other tribunal on the earth or in heaven. If our antagonists could vanquish us, our cause would be a lost one; we should be brought down to a common level with the Greeks as a mere branch of the church, and the way would be open for those negotiations in view of the "reunion of Christendom" which to certain persons seem so desirable. There would still remain, however, a vast field of controversy before one holding what we understand to be Dr. Harwood's views could make his position good. The entire hierarchical system of the Eastern churches, maintained also in theory by such a powerful party in the doctor's own church, would remain to be refuted and overthrown. Suppose this to be done, and we will readily concede that the system of what is called the broad-church school, represented by Stanley, Robertson, the author of the book called Liber Librorum; to whom we think might be added the New-Haven divines, and the higher school of Unitarians, such as Dr. Bellows, Dr. Osgood, Mr. Ellis, Mr. Alger, and others; is the most rational and sensible of all the soi-disant Christian systems which would be left on the ground. Perhaps Dr. Harwood, looking on Greek Christianity and the amateur catholicity of his own brethren as without real significance, intended to find some doctrine which might stand for the entire hierarchical, sacramental system, and which, joined with the doctrine of papal supremacy, might with that make up the differentia of the Roman Church in respect to Protestantism. In this point of view, he has well chosen the doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass. Our preceding strictures are merely critical, and we are willing to meet Dr. Harwood on the precise ground he has chosen for himself, the wager of battle being this: that our Lord Jesus Christ established the papal supremacy and the sacrifice of the mass, as essential parts of his religion. Since the doctor has only appeared, however, in the character of a scout, to clear the way for more heavily-armed combatants, and merely skirmishes a little in advance, we will skirmish in the same manner, without engaging more deeply in the controversy than simply to repel his attacks. If the champions[315] he has called on come up, which we very much doubt, we hope they will go to work in earnest, and undertake to meet and answer in detail all the proofs and arguments adduced by our able writers, at least in English, in support of the papal supremacy and the eucharistic sacrifice. Unless they do this, they will not be entitled to any notice at our hands.

So far as Dr. Harwood merely describes the doctrine we hold respecting the papal supremacy, he is almost entirely correct, and so eloquent that the effect produced in his mind by its grandeur, in spite of his inward reluctance, is visible. Of argument against it there is hardly the semblance, a point we note not to the author's disadvantage, but merely as a reason for not arguing in its favor. One passing objection he does throw, as he goes by, at the title supreme pontiff or pontifex maximus. This word appears to alarm him, and no doubt alarmed all the excellent ladies and other worthy persons in his audience, who are easily alarmed by words. "He is regarded as the pontifex maximus of the whole church of Christ. Pontifex maximus! The very word brings up memories of the imperial city before it became Christian. Julius Cæsar was pontifex maximus—the office was held by all the Cæsars—it was held while the disciples of Jesus Christ, worshipping their Lord in the catacombs, or dying in the amphitheatre 'to make a Roman holiday,' associated the office with all cruelty and impiety." If this passage is any thing more than a rhetorical flourish, it means that the name and office of supreme pontiff are bad, unchristian things, because the heathen had them. We ought, then, to carry this principle out to its fullest extent. The heathen had an order of men specially devoted to religion, public prayers, holy days, temples, religious hymns, etc., therefore we should have none of these. The surplice which Dr. Harwood wears is derived through the Jews, from the ancient Egyptian priests; his prayer-book is full of observances derived from the Roman Church. He preaches sermons and observes a fast of forty days, like the Mohammedans, all of which is very wrong, and reminds us painfully of Pharaoh, and the fires of Smithfield, and the cruel persecutions of the Turks against the Christians. The Jews had a high priest appointed by Almighty God. Our Lord is a high-priest, pontifex maximus. Heathen perversions or travesties of divine things make no argument against the things themselves. Neither is there any reason why names, forms, observances, used by heathen, if they are good and suitable, should not be adopted by Christians, just as we appropriate heathen architecture, take possession of heathen temples, and employ heathen philosophy in the service of religion. We have no doubt that Moses imitated the civil and religious customs of the Egyptians to a very great extent in the prescriptions of his law. Parallelisms between the Catholic religion and various false religions may easily enough be pointed out. We laugh at such an argument as not worthy of being seriously refuted. The greater the number of analogies that can be pointed out, the stronger is the proof that the principles of our religion are derived from the origin of the race, universal, and in accordance with human nature. Rome was not all bad before it was converted. Whatever in it was good did not need to be abolished, but only sanctified. Our Lord drove out Jupiter, the angels and saints supplanted the imaginary divinities of Olympus, the successor of Peter[316] took the place of the successor of Cæsar. The glorious temples of the gods became Christian churches, and Roman polity became an organizing power over all Christendom. In this was only fulfilled the prophecy of St. Paul, "The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly."[60] This kind of play upon words with pontifex maximus will, therefore, help Dr. Harwood very little unless he can disprove the existence of the thing they represent—a human priesthood with a supreme head over it, possessing power delegated by Jesus Christ.

The lecturer is not precisely accurate in what he says of the definition of the immaculate conception. The judgment of the Catholic bishops and doctors had been for ages manifested, and was taken anew in the most formal manner, before Pius IX. proclaimed his definition. Those few persons among the prelates and theologians who were opposed to the definition, did not merely submit outwardly by keeping silence, but inwardly by an interior submission of the mind, precisely as a good Christian would have submitted to St. Peter himself in a similar case. If Dr. Harwood admits the doctrinal infallibility of the New Testament, he can easily understand that, if the meaning of any passage in it about which he had previously doubted should be made clear to him, he would have to give his interior assent to it, even though he must change an opinion he had held all his life long. Precisely so with us. An infallible judgment makes known to us with the certainty of faith the true sense of the divine revelation, which we receive accordingly as equally certain and obligatory on the conscience with every other revealed truth. Whoever does not give this inward assent becomes a heretic, and therefore Pius IX., in his Bull Ineffabilis, pronounces that every one who does not believe the immaculate conception as a revealed truth has suffered shipwreck of the faith.

In his account of the Catholic doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass the author of the lecture is less successful, and misrepresents it seriously; not intentionally, or through wilful carelessness, but through a misunderstanding of Catholic phraseology. Because the church calls it the same sacrifice with the sacrifice of the cross, he appears to think that our Lord is believed to have redeemed the world by the oblation of himself at the institution of the eucharist, and to be continually repeating this act of redemption in the sacrifice offered daily on our altars. Dr. Seabury, the first Protestant bishop of Connecticut, did actually teach that our Lord offered himself in the eucharist as a sacrifice, and not on the cross. This strange notion of the founder of his own diocese, Dr. Harwood incorrectly ascribes to the Catholic Church.

The church teaches that our Lord redeemed the world by his death and the shedding of his blood upon the cross. He did not redeem it by the oblation of himself in the Last Supper, nor does he do so by the sacrifice of the altar; the sacrifice of redemption having been offered once for all upon the cross, and not needing to be repeated. The church does not mean by "same sacrifice" that the oblation in the eucharist is[317] a similar act of redemption, propitiatory in the divided sense, or merely as containing the body and blood of Christ, and presenting them before God. The sacrifice is the same, because the victim is the same, the priest is the same, and all the value or merit contained and applied in the sacrifice of the altar is derived from the bloody sacrifice of the cross. There is thus a moral unity binding together the innumerable acts of consecration and oblation which take place on the Christian altars with each other and with the sacrifice of the cross, in one whole, just as the innumerable acts of obedience performed by our Lord during his earthly life make one integral act of obedience with the final and consummating act of his oblation on Mount Calvary. No doubt the intrinsic excellence of the sacrifice of the eucharist is infinite, and therefore sufficient for the redemption of this world or a thousand others, if there were others needing redemption. The merit of the circumcision, the fasting, the prayer, the preaching, the poverty and humiliation, the labors and tears of our Blessed Lord was infinite, and fully adequate to the redemption of mankind, without the sacrifice of the cross. Every act of love to God the Father proceeding from the sacred heart of Jesus Christ in heaven is simply infinite in its intrinsic value. Yet no Catholic theologian maintains that the meritorious acts of our Lord performed while he was a wayfarer on the earth redeemed mankind apart from his death, or that he has merited any additional grace for men since his sacrifice was completed. The sacrifice which our Lord offered in the Last Supper did not, therefore, constitute that act of expiation to which, in the divine decree, the remission of original and actual sin was annexed; and much less is there any such distinct, expiatory merit in the sacrifice which he perpetually makes of himself in the eucharist, since his meritorious work has been consummated. He offered himself once for all as a bloody sacrifice upon the cross, meriting thereby an eternal redemption. At the Last Supper he offered up himself to the Father as the Lamb who was to be slain the next day, presenting by anticipation the merit which he would gain by his cruel and ignominious death, as an act of adoration, thanksgiving, expiation, and impetration in behalf of all those who were included either generally or specially in his intention. Doubtless, he frequently in prayer had presented these same merits to his Father; and from the time of Adam's sin these same merits had constituted the only ground on which pardon or grace had been conferred, thus verifying the appellation applied to our Lord in the Scripture of "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." In the sacrifice now offered by the priests of the new law, Christ is presented before the Eternal Father as the Lamb who has been slain. And although, as a sacrifice, the eucharist is equally an oblation of the body and blood of the Lamb of God with the sacrifice of the cross, differing only in the manner of offering, yet as this manner of offering upon the cross by pain, blood-shedding, and death constituted the precise act which expiated sin and redeemed the world, the sacrificial nature of the eucharistic action which it has in common with the crucifixion does not derogate from the exclusive attribute belonging to the latter as the redemptive expiation or the sacrifice of ransom, blotting out the curse of the fall, and reopening the gates of heaven to our lost race. A sacrifice of expiation including all ages, all men, and all sins having been once offered, there is no need[318] and no place for another, which is precisely what St. Paul proves in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Dr. Harwood fancies that we have a dread of that epistle. It is not long since we went through that epistle carefully with a theological class without being aware of any sentiments of repugnance to its doctrine arising in our minds. It is very true that the unlearned and unstable may wrest this, as they do the other epistles of St. Paul and the Scriptures generally, to a sense in contradiction to the Catholic faith. To one, however, who is sufficiently learned to understand the real scope and intent of the apostle, or sufficiently docile to receive the instruction of competent interpreters, it presents no difficulty. St. Paul is not speaking of the eucharist or of the Christian priesthood at all, but is confronting the priesthood and sacrifices of Jesus Christ in the work of redemption with the priesthood and sacrifices of the old law, as these were understood by unbelieving or heterodox Jews. The point to be established was, that Jesus Christ would never give up his priesthood to a successor, or offer up another sacrifice similar to the one offered on the cross. It needs no reasoning to show that Catholic priests do not pretend to be in the place of Jesus Christ, but simply his instruments. The perpetuity of his priesthood is therefore not in the slightest degree incompatible with ours, which is in a different line, but rather requires it. Neither is it necessary to prove that we do not pretend to offer a sacrifice which expiates sins or atones for persons not included in the sacrifice of the cross. The doctor misunderstands the phrase "propitiatory sacrifice." The church does not mean that a new sacrifice is offered for persons whose sins were unatoned for on the cross, or who have fallen a second time under the curse and need a new ransom. The word "propitiatory" merely denotes that in the sacrifice of the altar an application is made of the merits of Christ's death to individuals for the remission of temporal penalties due to the justice of God. The redemption was made on the cross; the application of the grace of remission is made in the sacrament of penance; the remission of temporal penalties, both for the living and the dead, is obtained through the sacrifice of the altar. All the efficacy of the divine eucharist, whether as a sacrifice or a sacrament, is derived from the merits of Jesus Christ, which were consummated in his death. It is, therefore, by the application of the merit of the sacrifice of the cross that the sacrifice of the mass becomes efficacious to salvation. The Lamb of God is presented before the Father with the merit acquired by his death upon Mount Calvary, and this presentation is an act of supreme adoration, of thanksgiving, of impetration, and of satisfaction for the debt due to the divine justice, made in a sensible, visible manner, with mystic rites and ceremonies; which is enough to constitute a sacrifice in the strict and proper sense, whatever difference of opinion there may be concerning the essence of the sacrificial act in the eucharist. Although, therefore, there are many priests and many sacrifices numerically, it is one act performed by one person which is exhibited and applied in all, so that there is truly but one sacrifice and one priest. The reverend doctor might have seen this for himself if he had reflected more carefully on the words of the Council of Trent which he has himself quoted, Cujus quidem oblationis cruentæ, inquam, fructus per hanc uberrime percipiuntur—"The fruits of which bloody oblation, indeed, are[319] by this most abundantly partaken of."

The words of the lecturer following his exposition of the doctrine are not at first sight intelligible. "We may be pardoned, then, if we ask what then is our Lord to us personally?" It is very difficult to see how the hidden presence of our Lord under the sacramental veils is any obstruction to our personal relation to him as our Saviour. How does this presence derogate from the fact that he died for each of us on the cross, and is ever living in heaven to make intercession for us? Our adoration of his sacred body and precious blood under the forms of bread and wine does not hinder our meditating upon his passion and death upon the cross, or raising our mental eye to his glorious form at the right hand of God. The author appears to imagine that his sacramental presence must destroy his natural mode of existence and reduce him to a passive, helpless state of being in the host. But this is only because he fails to conceive the Catholic doctrine that our Lord is present both in heaven and also in the host at the same time, though in two different modes. He says, "He is present with us, we adore that presence, but he is passive and lifeless in the hands of a priesthood. No sign or word comes from the pix. When the church is in travail over a new doctrine, recluse and learned men busy themselves in vast libraries in order to catch the consensus of Catholic tradition. A believer may be excused, if, like Mary, he cries out, 'They have taken away the Lord, and I know not where they have laid him!'" Strange language this from a member of the communion of Andrewes, Hooker, Taylor, Pusey, and Hobart! Has the author ever read their glowing words respecting this same theme? Is he familiar with the doctrinal books of his own church? Taken away the Lord, when he remains perpetually in our tabernacles awaiting the visits of those true believers who pass hours in sweet communion at the foot of the altar, conversing with him as with the friend and spouse of their souls? When he is given to them in communion and his sacred body rests in their bosoms, kindling there the flames of a sacred love often equal to that which glows in the seraphim? Let the reverend doctor read the lives of the saints, and ask them if the Lord is silent when they converse with him in the blessed sacrament, or let him even ask the ordinary pious Catholic that question. He does not indeed break the silence of his hidden state by words audible to the bodily ear, but he speaks far more efficaciously to the heart in a way which is unintelligible to cold rationalism, but perfectly well known to faith inflamed by love. The divine eucharist was not instituted as a medium for communicating light to the church concerning revealed truths. Christ teaches and rules the church by the Holy Spirit, and not by his human voice. It is his will that study, meditation, and counsel should be the means by which the prelates and doctors of the church obtain the light and assistance of this divine Spirit. Dr. Harwood is not pleased with this arrangement; but as the Lord appears to have determined definitely that it must be so, we are afraid that his suggestions will not be attended to. At all events, he may console himself with the reflection that he has discovered an entirely new objection to the Catholic doctrine.

We have unwittingly passed over one other objection, namely, that the doctrine of the eucharistic sacrifice destroys the idea of communion. The eucharist does not cease to be[320] a sacrament by being a sacrifice. If there is communion among Episcopalians through a reception of bread and wine, it would seem that there might be also communion among Catholics in receiving the true body and blood of Christ. If the Protestant Episcopal liturgy is a common prayer, certainly the Catholic liturgy is equally one, though it is also a sacrifice. Moreover, there is, in the strictest sense, communion in the very act of offering the sacrifice. The priest, though consecrated by a heavenly grace and commissioned by the divine authority of our Lord, is consecrated to minister for the people, in their name and as their representative. He offers up the sacrifice for the people, and they offer sacrifice to God through him, which is signified in the mass by the action of the deacon, who, as the representative of the laity, holds the pixis in his hand at the offertory, and placing his right hand on the foot of the chalice, recites with the priest the prayer, Offerimus tibi, Domine, calicem, etc. We will not attempt to prove the truth of the Catholic doctrine of the mass, since the author does not directly attempt to disprove it, but will drop the subject here, and proceed to notice what method he proposes to follow in refuting the two grand Catholic doctrines of the papacy and the mass.

The reverend doctor takes a review of the condition of Protestantism as in contrast with that of the Catholic Church, in which we are happy to be able to concur with him as well as to commend the graphic power of his description. He then briefly indicates three ways of proceeding: one by tradition, one by tradition and Scripture together, and one by Scripture alone, which he selects, reserving the right to appeal to tradition when it is convenient. We will let his language speak for itself:

Dr. Harwood is sagacious enough not to follow the example of the generality of his Episcopalian associates, which the Presbyterians have been lately seduced by their evil genius into following, that is, to appeal to the first six councils. He probably agrees with the author of Liber Librorum and Dr. Stanley, that in A.D. 200 we find the thing he is opposing and anxious to escape from, existing. "How, then, came such an institution into existence? For nothing can be plainer than that about a hundred years after the death of John it appears, although in any thing but apostolic garb. All is altered." "No other change," says Dean Stanley, "equally momentous has ever since affected its fortunes; yet none has ever been so silent and secret. The church has now become history, the history not of an isolated community or of isolated individuals, but of an organized society, incorporated with the political systems of the world."... "Hard is it to see in such a church any thing but a profound mystery of God, a mystery of spiritual evil, a mystery of iniquity."[61] [322] Dr. Harwood feels it to be necessary to take refuge in the obscure period between the year 100 and the year 200 as in a chasm separating historical from scriptural Christianity. It is very easy to make a theory concerning the silent, sudden change which took place during this century, and then, clearing history by a bound, to land in the New Testament. Once there, with full liberty of private interpretation, which means freedom to interpret it by the light of any philosophical theory or preconceived opinions one may choose to adopt, Dr. Harwood thinks he is safe, and able to defend himself to the end against Romanism. He imagines that we are unwilling and unable to follow him there, and meet him—or rather the champions of his cause—on their own chosen ground. "In conclusion, we will ask you to remember that the Roman Catholics have never liked our appeal to Scripture. They do not like it to-day any better than they liked it three hundred years ago." If the doctor thinks we are afraid of the Scriptures, or in any way distrustful of our ability to prove our doctrines from it, he is extremely mistaken. We have always been ready to enter into that part of the argument, and we maintain specifically respecting the two grand doctrines of the papacy and the mass that they can be fully and satisfactorily proved from Scripture, as in point of fact they have been proved, to mention no others, by Mr. Allies and Cardinal Wiseman. We object to the demand that Scripture should be the only source of appeal, not because we are afraid that we shall be defeated by scriptural arguments; but because the demand is unjust, and the assumption on which it is founded is baseless. We demand that the subject shall be discussed in all its bearings, on all its grounds, by the light of all the knowledge that is attained from every source. We deny the ability of our adversaries to establish the authority of Scripture without first assuming Catholic principles, and we deny their logical and moral right after using these principles in establishing Scripture, to throw away or burn their ladder by denying or ignoring these same principles when it is a question of establishing the sense of the Scripture, explaining or integrating its statements. If we are to shut out of our minds all the ideas of Christianity which are extraneous to the literal statements of the New Testament, to take the attitude of learners searching after truth, and to get from the naked text without other interpreter than itself the sense that is in it, we have a difficult task of doubtful issue before us. John Locke, who was probably as capable of doing this impartially as any Englishman can be, tried it, and proclaimed as the result of his studies that only one idea is demonstrably revealed in the New Testament, namely, that Jesus Christ is the prophet of God to whose teaching and precepts obedience is due. As to his actual teaching and precepts, he could only find probability, concluding, therefore, very justly, that there is no system of doctrine or code of precepts clearly binding upon all alike, each one being left to the guidance of a probable conscience only.

It is very difficult, if not impossible, to read the New Testament without spectacles. For our own part, we are quite sure that the New Testament contains more or less explicitly all the principal and many of the minor Catholic doctrines, and that the sense given by the church is the one given by true exegesis and criticism. Yet we will not venture to say how far we should be able to see this without Catholic spectacles. We are quite[323] sure that Dr. Harwood also has a pair of spectacles, and cannot lay them aside if he would. We find in point of fact, that ordinarily persons who believe in the Bible and read it all their lives, whether Episcopalians, Presbyterians, or even Unitarians, are seldom startled out of the belief they have been taught, and convinced of some different interpretation, merely by reading it. It is evident, therefore, that any one exposition made of Christianity from the simple text will never be a demonstration in the view of all candid, sincere persons. There will always be various interpretations having more or less probability, and unity will never be reached. Besides this, the degree and extent of inspiration will never be settled, or the limits between the human, transitory element and the divine, unchangeable element become fixed. The result will be that we must fall back on philosophy and a system of rationalism. Let it be conceded that the ideas in the mind of each sacred writer when he wrote are clearly apprehended, it will be impossible to secure perfect submission even to the teachings of inspired men, when the principle of church authority has been cast to the winds. This is the reason why, even at the outset of an argument, and before we are entitled to cite the authority of tradition as divine to one who denies it, we refuse to permit the case to be argued on the scriptural ground alone, even though both parties admit the divine authority of Scripture. We desire to do something more than to make a good case, and to establish our interpretation as even the more probable or the most probable. We desire to prove it to a demonstration which does not leave even a slight probability on the other side, through which an adversary may creep. We wish to have the question adjudicated and decided, so that it may be clear and indisputable that God has revealed and commands all men to believe and obey the Gospel of his Son as a distinct and positive law of faith and practice, and not as a mere theory. We are not afraid, however, that we cannot get the best of it, in a discussion of the text of the New Testament, conducted on the same principles that we should apply to an ancient manuscript about whose contents we have no extrinsic light whatever. Those who come nearest to this cold, critical impartiality are men who possess the intellectual keenness necessary to see into ideas as they are, without having any motive to misrepresent them. One who is indifferent as to the question what the sacred writers thought and intended to say, because he considers their teaching as equivalent only to that of Socrates or Confucius, and who is qualified to examine critically the New Testament, will at least attempt to state impartially what impression it has made on his mind. And that statement will throw some light on the question, What does the text clearly and unmistakably signify by itself, apart from ideas on the same subject-matter which are derived from Christian tradition? One person of this kind, Mr. Samuel Johnson, of Lynn, Massachusetts, who is a leader among the Bostonian free-thinkers, in an article which appeared in The Radical gave his opinion that the doctrine of the papacy is clearly contained in St. Matthew's Gospel. The infidel Jew Salvador, in a work whose name we do not now remember, but which we have attentively read, declares that the Roman Catholic religion is the genuine religion of the New Testament, and that Protestantism is a total misconception of Christianity; an opinion we have ourselves personally heard expressed by a well-informed[324] and zealous Israelite of our acquaintance. We do not care to press these testimonies too far; but at all events they indicate, in connection with the fact that so many learned students of the Bible, both Protestant and Catholic, interpret it in a manner quite different from that of Dr. Harwood's school, that it does not on the face of it clearly and unmistakably pronounce in his favor or against us.

We insist then, further, that even conceding Dr. Harwood for a moment in possession of the ground on which his belief of the divine authority of the Scripture stands, he is bound to admit all the light that ecclesiastical history throws back on its text, as he himself partially but inconsistently admits, and as all Protestants have ever done so far as it suited their purposes to do so. We may illustrate this by a parallel case. A Christian discusses the text of the Old Testament with a Jew. If the Jew should insist on sticking to the text, and interpreting the prophecies exclusively by biblical criticism, the Christian could justly insist that the facts of the life of Jesus Christ and the history of Christianity must be considered. The Jew himself would not fail to cite all kinds of historical facts not prejudicial to himself against an infidel, as manifesting the sense and fulfilment of the prophecies. Let the Jew shut his eyes to the miracles proving the divine mission and miraculous conception of Jesus, and he can very plausibly explain the famous prediction, "Behold the Virgin (ha almah) shall conceive," etc., as signifying. "Behold this young woman"—that is, one standing by and pointed out by Isaias—shall conceive and bear a son. So, with all the Messianic passages of the Old Testament, as one may see by consulting Rabbi Leeser's English translation, with notes, published at Philadelphia. Now, it is a perfectly fair and conclusive argument against a Jew to show that the history of Jesus, established on merely human faith, presents such a correspondence to the prophecies of the Old Testament that it must be regarded as their fulfilment. Although the Old Testament alone might not reveal Jesus to his individual reason, yet in the light of his life it is shown that these ancient Scriptures testify of him. It is not competent for him to allege his Scripture as a complete and finished revelation, rejecting every thing which is not clearly visible on its face; for we can show him that his Scriptures point out the glorious son of David's royal daughter as the one who will carry out the dispensation of Moses to its consummation.

It is precisely the same case between us and Protestants. We point to the church as presenting historical facts and verities corresponding to the somewhat obscure predictions or other declarations of the Scripture, and manifesting their significance. We show how all that can be learned from the New Testament by itself is in harmony with what the church proclaims herself to be, and declares true Christianity to consist in; and we show the Scripture presupposes, provides for, and points toward the church. If we take all those passages which relate to the divine eucharist, and place beside them the traditional teaching and practice of the church, we see them at once lit up with meaning and irradiating our minds with the true and Catholic doctrine. One is the explanation of the other, and the historical existence of the sacrifice of the mass confronted with the language of the Scripture demonstrates that it must be the thing which the sacred writers meant. We take the prediction of[325] our Lord to St. Peter, "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." One who knows nothing about the Catholic Church might easily be persuaded that our Lord meant no more than this: "Thou art firm like a rock in thy faith, and upon such a firm faith I will establish all the elect who are an invisible society known to me, and these Satan shall never be able to overcome." But when that stupendous, world-subduing might of Peter's see which overawes even Dr. Harwood is contemplated in history as it emerges from the obscure dawn of the Christian era, and goes forward through all time conquering and to conquer, its plain correspondence to and fulfilment of the literal significance of our Lord's words proves conclusively that he meant this, and nothing else. We do not intend, however, to go into this argument any further, as Dr. Harwood does not profess to argue the point himself. All we aim at is, to show that the argument must be conducted on the ground of history as well as that of Scripture. And here we desire to call attention to an admirable article by President Woolsey in the same number of the New-Englander, in which Dr. Harwood's lecture was first published, on the Church of the Future, which exhibits with rare ability the very idea we are insisting upon, that the true Christianity is the genuine historical Christianity.

The only true issue which can be made is respecting the genuine, historical development of the Christian idea. Dr. Harwood and his school cannot escape from this. If, therefore, the champions whom he summons to the controversy respond to his call, they will be bound to demonstrate historically that the papal supremacy was a purely human invention substituted for the authentic constitution which the apostles gave to the Christian church. This Dr. Harwood thinks can be done. "If the pope be that rock, we can find by the lights of history the strata and the law of its structure. We observe it acquired shape and size—and there is a hammer which can break it in pieces." If there is such a hammer, we wonder that it has not yet been found and wielded. In our opinion, the enemies of the papacy have already said every thing which can be said on their side of the question. We are at a loss to know how history can be made to give up any thing new on the subject, any thing which has not been already thoroughly sifted and discussed. We are perfectly willing that our adversaries should try again to look up or manufacture a hammer with which to try the effect of their blows upon the Rock of Peter. We think they will find that they are undertaking a herculean task. One thing only we must be permitted to observe, that any one who undertakes this controversy ought not to ignore and pass by what has already been written by Catholic controversialists. It is not fair that the discussion should be always beginning de novo, and Catholic writers be required to repeat all the labor of their predecessors. If Dr. Harwood, or any one else, is disposed to attempt our demolition, let him first master all the arguments and evidences which have been already adduced on our side, give a distinct answer to them, and rebut the answers which we have already made to anti-papal arguments. Whoever does this with competent learning and ability, will no doubt receive due attention; but until this is done, it will be quite sufficient for us to challenge a refutation of the works of our champions which hitherto have remained unanswered, and which we confidently affirm to be unanswerable.

HAYDN'S STRUGGLE AND TRIUMPH.

"Seventeen kreutzers for a morning's work!" exclaimed a pretty but slovenly-dressed young woman, standing at the door of an apartment in a mean-looking house in one of the narrow streets of Vienna, addressing a man of low stature and sallow complexion, who had just come in. "And the printers running after you ever since you went out! Profitless doings for you to spend your time! At eight, the singing-desk of the brothers De la Merci; at ten, Count de Haugwitz's chapel; grand mass at eleven; and all this toil for a few kreutzers!"

"Do! Give up this foolish business of music, and take to something that will enable you to live. Did not my father, a hair-dresser, give you shelter when you had only your garret and skylight, and had to lie in bed and write for want of coals? Had he not a right to expect you would dress his daughter as well as she had been used at home, and that she should have servants to wait on her, as in her father's house?"

"You should not reproach me, Nanny. Have I not worked till my health has given way? If fortune is inexorable—"

"Fortune! As if fortune did not always wait upon industry in a proper calling. Your patrons admire and applaud, but they will not pay; yet you will drudge away your life in this ungrateful occupation. I tell you, Joseph Haydn, music is not the thing!"

Here a knock was heard at the door; and the wife, with exclamations of impatience, flounced away. The unfortunate artist threw himself on a seat, and leaned his head on a table covered with notes of music. So entirely had he yielded himself to despondency that he did not move, even when the door opened, till the sound of a well-known voice close at his side startled him from his melancholy reverie.

The speaker was an old man, shabbily dressed, but with something striking and even commanding in his noble features. His large, dark, flashing eyes, his olive complexion, and the contour of his face bespoke him a native of a sunnier clime than that of Germany. Haydn sprang up and welcomed him with a cordial embrace.

"This morning only; and my first care was to find you out. But how is this? I find you thin, and pale, and gloomy. Where are your spirits?"

"Gone," murmured the composer, and dropped his eyes on the floor. His visitor regarded him with a look of affectionate interest.

In answer to Porpora's inquiries, Haydn told him of the struggles and failures by which he had been led to doubt his own genius, till he had succumbed under the crushing hand of poverty. "I am chained," he concluded bitterly; and, giving way to the anguish of his heart, he burst into tears.

"I must, I see, give you a little of my experience. I was, you know, a pupil of Scarlatti more fortunate than you; for my works procured me almost at once a wide-spread fame. I was called for not only in Venice, but in Vienna and London."

"Ah! yours was a brilliant lot," cried the young composer, looking up with kindling eyes.

"The Saxon court," continued Porpora, "offered me the direction of the chapel and of the theatre at Dresden. Even the princesses received my lessons; in short, my success was so great that I awakened the jealousy of Hasse himself. All this you know, and how I returned to London upon the invitation of amateurs in Italian music."

"Where you rivalled Handel!" said Haydn enthusiastically. "Handel, with all his greatness, had no versatility. Your sacred music, Porpora, will live when your theatrical compositions have ceased to enjoy unrivalled popularity."

"My sacred compositions may survive and carry my name to posterity; for taste in such things is less mutable than in the opera. You see now, dear Haydn, for what I have lived and labored. I was once renowned and wealthy. What did prosperity bring me? Envy, discontent, rivalship, disappointment! Would you know to what period I can look back with self-approbation, with thankfulness? To the toil of early years; to the struggle after an ideal of greatness, goodness, and beauty; to the self-forgetfulness that saw only the glorious goal far, far before me; to the undismayed resolve that sought only its attainment. Or to a time still later, when the visions of manhood's impure and selfish ambition had faded away, when the soul had shaken off some of her fetters, and roused herself to a perception of the eternal, the perfect, the divine; when I became conscious of the delusive vanity of earthly hopes and earthly excellence, but at the same time awakened to the revelation of that which cannot die!

"You see me now, seventy-three years old, and too poor to command even a shelter for the few days that yet remain to me in this world. I have lost the splendid fame I once possessed; I have lost the riches that were mine; I have lost the power to win even a competence by my own labors; but I have not lost my passion for our glorious music, nor enjoyment of the reward she bestows on her votaries; nor my confidence in Heaven. And you, at twenty-seven, you—more greatly endowed, to whom the world is open—you despair! Are you worthy to succeed, O man of little faith?"

"My friend, my benefactor!" cried the young artist, clasping his hand with deep emotion.

"Cast away your bonds; cut and rend, if your very flesh is torn in the effort; and the ground once spurned, you are free. What have you been doing?" And he turned over rapidly the musical notes that lay on the table. "Here, what is this—a symphony? Play it for me, if you please."

So saying, with a gentle force he led his young friend to the piano, and Haydn played from the piece he had nearly completed.

"This is excellent, admirable!" cried Porpora, when he rose from the instrument. "When can you finish this? for I must have it at once."

"To-morrow then; and you must work to-night. I will go and order you a physician; he will come to-morrow[328] morning—how madly your pulse throbs!—and when your work is done, you may rest. Adieu for the present." And pressing his young friend's hands, the eccentric but benevolent old man departed, leaving Haydn full of new thoughts, his bosom fired with zeal to struggle against adverse fortune. In such moods does the spiritual champion wrestle with the powers of the abyss, and mightily prevail.

When Haydn, late that night, threw himself on his bed, weary, ill, and exhausted, his frame racked with the pains of fever, he had accomplished the first of an order of works destined to endear his name to all succeeding time.

While the artist lay on a sick-bed, a brilliant fête was given by Count Mortzin, an Austrian nobleman of immense wealth and influence, at which the most distinguished individuals in Vienna were present. The musical entertainments given by these luxurious patrons of the arts were at that time, and for some years after, the most splendid in Europe.

When the concert was over, Prince Antoine Esterhazy expressed the pleasure he had received, and his obligations to the noble host. "Chief among your magnificent novelties," said he, "is the new symphony, St. Maria. One does not hear every day such music. Who is the composer?"

"I have heard his quartettos; he is no common artist. Is he in your service, count?"

"With your good leave, he shall be transferred to ours; and I shall take care he has no reason to regret the change. Let him be presented to us."

There was a murmur among the audience and a movement, but the composer did not appear; and presently word was brought to his highness that the young man on whom he intended to confer so great an honor was detained at home by illness.

"So! Let him be brought to me as soon as he recovers; he shall enter my service. I like his symphony vastly. Your pardon, count; for we will rob you of your best man." And the great prince, having decided the destiny of a greater than himself, turned to those who surrounded him to speak of other matters.

News of the change in his fortune was brought to Haydn by his friend Porpora; and so renovating was the effect of hope that he was strong enough on the following day to pay his respects to his illustrious patron. His highness was just preparing to ride, but would see the composer; and he was conducted through a splendid suite of rooms to the apartment where the proud head of the Esterhazys deigned to receive an almost nameless artist. The prince, in the splendid array suited to his rank, glanced somewhat carelessly at the low, slight figure that stood before him, and said, as he was presented, "Is this, then, the composer of the music I heard last night?"

"So—a Moor, I should judge from his dark complexion. And you write such music? Haydn—I recollect the name; and I remember hearing, too, that you were not well paid for your labors, eh?"

"Well, you shall have no reason to complain in my service. My secretary shall fix your appointments; and name whatever else you[329] desire. All of your profession find me liberal. Now then, sir Moor, you may go; and let it be your first care to provide yourself with a new coat, a wig, and buckles and heels to your shoes. I will have you respectable in appearance as well as in talents; so let me have no more of shabby professors. And do your best, my little dusky, to recruit in flesh—it will add to the stature; and to relieve your olive with a shade of the ruddy. Such spindle masters would be a walking discredit to our larder, which is truly a spendthrift one."

So saying, with a laugh, the haughty nobleman dismissed his new dependent. The artist chafed not at the imperious tone of patronage; for he did not yet feel the superiority of his own vocation. It was the bondage-time of genius; the wings were not yet grown which were to bear his spirit up, when it brooded over a new world.

The life which Haydn led in the service of Prince Esterhazy, to which service he was permanently attached by Nicolas, the successor of Antoine, in the quality of chapel-master, was one so easy that it might have proved fatal to an artist more inclined to luxury and pleasure, or less devoted to his art. Now for the first time relieved from the care of the future, he was enabled to yield to the impulse of his genius, and create works which gradually extended his fame over all the countries of Europe.

II.

On the evening of a day in the beginning of April, 1809, all the lovers of art in Vienna were assembled in the theatre to witness the performance of the oratorio of The Creation. The entertainment had been given in honor of the composer of that noble work—the illustrious Haydn—by his numerous friends and admirers. He had been enticed from Gumpendorf, his retreat in the suburbs, the cottage surrounded by a little garden which he had purchased after his retirement from the Esterhazy service, and where he was spending the last years of his life. Three hundred musicians assisted at the performance. The audience rose en masse and greeted with rapturous applause the white-haired man, who, led forward by the most distinguished nobles in the city, was conducted to the place of honor. There, seated with princesses at his right hand, beauty smiling upon him, the centre of a circle of nobility, the observed and admired of all, the object of the acclamations of thousands—who would not have said that Haydn had reached the summit of human greatness, had more than realized the proudest visions of his youth? His serene countenance, his clear eye, his air of dignified self-possession, showed that prosperity had not overcome him, but that amid the smiles of fortune he had not forgotten the true excellence of man.

"I can see plainly," remarked one of Haydn's friends, whom we will call Manuel, "that he will write no more."

"He has done enough; and now we are ready for the farewell of Haydn," said another.

"Did you never hear the story? I have heard him tell it often myself. It concerns one of his most celebrated symphonies. The occasion was this: Among the musicians attached to the service of Prince Esterhazy, were several who, during his sojourn upon his estates, were obliged to leave their wives at Vienna. At one time his highness prolonged his stay at Esterhazy castle considerably beyond the usual period. The disconsolate husbands entreated Haydn to[330] become the interpreter of their wishes. Thus the idea came to him of composing a symphony in which each instrument ceased, one after another. He added at the close of every part the direction, 'Here the light is extinguished.' Each musician, in his turn, rose, put out his candle, rolled up his notes, and went away. This pantomime had the desired effect; the next morning the prince gave orders for their return to the capital.

"He used to tell us a somewhat similar story of the origin of his Turkish or military symphony. You know the high appreciation he met with in his visits to England; but notwithstanding the praise and homage he received, he could not prevent the enthusiastic audience from falling asleep during the performance of his compositions. It occurred to him to devise a kind of ingenious revenge. In this piece, while the current is gliding softly, and slumber beginning to steal over the senses of his audience, a sudden and unexpected burst of martial music, tremendous as a thunder-peal, startles the surprised sleepers into active attention. I would have liked to see the lethargic islanders, with their eyes and mouths thrown open by such an unlooked-for shock!"

A stop was suddenly put to the conversation by the commencement of the performance. The Creation, the first of Haydn's oratorios, was regarded as his greatest work, and had often elicited the most heartfelt applause. Now that the aged and honored composer was present, probably for the last time, to hear it, an emotion too deep for utterance seemed to pervade the vast audience. The feeling was too reverential to be expressed by the ordinary tokens of pleasure. It seemed as if every eye in the assembly were fixed on the calm, noble face of the venerated artist; as if every heart beat with love for him. Then came, like a succession of heavenly melodies, the music of The Creation, and the listeners felt as if transported back to the infancy of the world. At the words, "Let there be light, and there was light," when all the instruments were united in one full burst of gorgeous harmony, emotion seemed to shake the whole frame of the aged artist. His pale face crimsoned; his bosom heaved convulsively; he raised his eyes, streaming with tears, toward heaven, and, lifting upward his trembling hands, exclaimed, his voice audible in the pause of the music, "Not unto me—not unto me—but unto thy name be all the glory, O Lord!"

From this moment Haydn lost the calmness and serenity that had marked the expression of his countenance. The very depths of his heart had been stirred, and ill could his wasted strength sustain the tide of feeling. When the superb chorus at the close of the second part announced the completion of the work of creation, he could bear the excitement no longer. Assisted by the prince's physician and several of his friends, he was carried from the theatre, pausing to give one last look of gratitude, expressed in his tearful eyes, to the orchestra who had so nobly executed his conception, and followed by the lengthened plaudits of the spectators, who felt that they were never to look upon his face again.

Some weeks after this occurrence, his friend Manuel, who had sent to inquire after his health, received from him a card on which he had written, to notes of music, the words, "Meine kraft ist dahin," "My strength is gone." Haydn was in the habit of sending about these cards, but his increased feebleness was evident in the handwriting of this; and Manuel lost no time in hastening to him[331] There, in his quiet cottage, around which rolled the thunders of war, terrifying others but not him, sat the venerable composer. His desk stood on one side, on the other his piano; he smiled, and held out his hand to greet his friend.

"Many a time," he murmured, "you have cheered my solitude, and now you have come to see the old man die."

"Speak not thus, my dear friend," cried Manuel, grieved to the heart; "you will recover."

He then made a sign to one of his attendants to open the desk, and reach him a roll of papers. From these he took one and gave it to his friend. It was inscribed in his own hand, "Catalogue of all my musical compositions, which I can remember, since my eighteenth year. Vienna, 4th December, 1805." Manuel, as he read it, understood the mute pressure of his friend's hand, and sighed deeply. That hand would never trace another note.

"Better thus," said Haydn softly, "than a lingering old age of care, disease, perhaps of poverty! No; I am happy. I have lived not in vain. I have accomplished my destiny; I have done good. I am ready for thy call, O Master!"

His spiritual adviser and guide was with him the next hour, and administered the last consolations of religion. The aged man was wrapped in devotion. At length he asked to be supported to his piano; it was opened, and as his trembling fingers touched the keys, an expression of rapture was kindled in his eyes. The music that answered his touch seemed the music of inspiration. But it gradually faded away; the flush gave place to a deadly pallor; and while his fingers still rested on the keys, he sank back into the arms of his friend, and gently breathed out his parting spirit. It passed as in a happy strain of melody!

Prince Esterhazy did honor to the memory of his departed friend by the pageant of funeral ceremonies. His remains were transported to Eisenstadt, in Hungary, and placed in the Franciscan vault. The prince also purchased, at a high price, all his books and manuscripts, and the numerous medals he had obtained. But his fame belongs to the world; and in all hearts sensible to the music of truth and nature is consecrated the memory of Haydn.

PRAYER.

THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE SPECIES.
II.

Of the several circumstances which led to the conception of the theory here advanced, the first and most important was the recognition of the fact that variation was left unaccounted for upon the hypothesis of evolution. Here, if anywhere, we conceived, was to be found the vulnerable part of Darwinism. It occurred to us that the probabilities were that a theory was false when it had for its data phenomena which conform to no law. Our subsequent inquiries furnished us with nothing by which to rebut this presumption; but with much to confirm it. Our suspicion at last strengthened into conviction, and we became confident that contemplation of the subject of the cause of variation alone could furnish us with a solution of the whole question.

It is of laws alone of which we speak in these articles. All the facts adduced by Darwin we accept, and use them merely as illustrations. We have nothing in common with those who contend that the refutation of Darwinism lies solely with mere compilers of facts—fanciers, florists, and breeders. Darwin has heretofore anticipated nothing but a joinder of issue upon facts. He has apparently never contemplated being met by a demurrer. He has endeavored to confound his opponents by a vast multitude of facts; and, owing to his reverence for whatever has the sanction of antiquity, it has never entered his mind that any one would be so presumptuous as to demur to the time-honored conception of new growth, upon which these facts are based. Of this presumption we are guilty when we deny the very existence of organic evolution.

In the preceding article we directly intimated, on several occasions, that no theory other than that of reversion can afford a solution of the mystery of the appearance of favorable modifications. As some little diversity of opinion exists respecting Darwin's views on the subject of the cause of variation, it may be well for us to dwell awhile on this question, and to furnish some evidence substantiating our statement.

Darwin, in his Origin of Species, candidly and frankly admits that he can assign no satisfactory reason for the appearance of favorable modifications. He ascribes them to "spontaneous variability," and assures us that "our ignorance of the laws of variation is profound." We might adduce a number of other expressions equally declaratory of his inability to assign the cause of variation; but as the Duke of Argyll has taken such pains to direct attention to this hiatus in Darwin's evidence, we cannot refrain from quoting from his The Reign of Law:

It will be seen that we have not gone too far in proclaiming Darwin's inability to account for variation. In the absence, then, of any other rational explanation, are we not necessitated to accept the theory of reversion? What possible objection can be urged against it? Reversion is not a heretofore unknown factor. Nor is it an occult factor. It is constantly recognized by Darwin. Two chapters of the Animals and Plants under Domestication are filled with phenomena illustrating its action; and it forms the basis of his lately propounded hypothesis of pangenesis.

In the interval between the publication of his Origin of Species and the writing of his Animals and Plants under Domestication, Darwin has received no enlightenment as to the cause of variation. A writer in The North American Review for October, 1868, holds the contrary, and distinctly asserts that Darwin is inclined to adopt the mechanist theory, to attribute the phenomena of variation solely to the influence of the physical conditions, and to repudiate the idea of a concurrent cause. After speaking of Mr. Herbert Spencer's ascription of variations to the physical conditions, he says:

Now, there is nothing in the expressions quoted from Darwin's work, which justifies such a construction as The North American Review has here placed upon them. Although we, as a vitalist, implicitly believe in the coöperation of other than mechanical causes, yet we fully and most unqualifiedly concur in Darwin's assertion that there would be no variability were all the individuals of a species exposed to absolutely uniform conditions. This fact is by no means incompatible with a belief in "forces which manifest themselves in the organism." We have shown that varieties or races under nature are attributable solely to the action of the conditions of life. Under domestication, the changed conditions are the secondary cause of favorable modifications, reversion being the primary cause. But without the concurrence of this secondary cause, it is wholly impossible for favorable variations to occur. The expressions of Darwin, then, carry with them no implication that variations are solely caused by the changed condition; for the recognition of the power of the conditions to the extent claimed by Darwin by no means precludes the belief in a concurrent cause. The conclusion that a change in the conditions is a cause of variation, and that were there no such change there would be no variability, is necessitated by the theory here advanced. For, an acquaintance with phenomena displaying the action of the physical conditions forces upon us the teleological inference that certain conditions are essential to the full development of characters. Does it not thence necessarily follow that, when the conditions are dissimilar, modifications will result from the individuals of a species being exposed to conditions favorable or unfavorable in different degrees to the growth of some of the parts or features? Darwin's assertion is then quite consistent with a belief in the concurrence of causes not mechanical.

But the discovery of Darwin's opinion on this point is not left solely to conjecture and speculation. Had the North American Reviewer carefully perused Darwin's late work, he would have found many most unequivocal declarations of the author's belief in the concurrence of other causes. They recur most frequently.

On page 248, Vol. II., he says, "Throughout this chapter and elsewhere, I have spoken of selection as the paramount power; yet its action absolutely depends on what we in our ignorance call spontaneous or accidental variability."

Page 250: "Variation depends in a far higher degree on the nature or constitution of the being, than on the nature of the changed conditions."

On page 291, after giving cases of bud-variation, he says, "When we reflect on these facts, we become deeply impressed with the conviction that in such cases the nature of the variation depends but little on the conditions to which the plant has been exposed, and not in any especial manner on its individual character, but much more on the general nature or constitution, inherited from some remote progenitor of the whole group of allied beings to which the plant belongs. We are thus driven to conclude that in most cases the conditions of life play a subordinate part in causing any particular modification;[335] like that which a spark plays when a mass of combustible matter bursts into flame—the nature of the flame depending on the combustible matter and not on the spark." And again, on page 288, "Now is it possible to conceive external conditions more closely alike than those to which the buds on the same tree are exposed? Yet one bud out of the many thousands borne by the same tree has suddenly, without any apparent cause, produced nectarines. But the case is even stronger than this; for the same flower-bud has yielded a fruit one half or a quarter a nectarine, and the other half or three quarters a peach. Again, seven or eight varieties of the peach have yielded, by bud variation, nectarines; the nectarines thus produced no doubt differed a little from each other; but still they are nectarines. Of course there must be some cause internal or external to excite the peach-bud to change its nature; but I cannot imagine a class of facts better adapted to force on our mind the conviction that what we call the external conditions of life are quite insignificant in relation to any particular variation, in comparison with the organization or constitution of the being which varies."

These assertions that there is something beyond the actions of the conditions of life are met with continually in his work, and they fully and conclusively show that he is no-wise inclined to adopt the mechanist theory. What alternative have we, then, but to conclude that this occult potent factor is reversion?

We have, we think, sufficiently shown that Darwin does not attribute variations solely to the conditions. But it has been asserted by the North American Reviewer, of whom we have often spoken, that Mr. Herbert Spencer declares them to be thus solely due. A dozen careful perusals of The Principles of Biology have failed to corroborate such a statement. On the contrary, Mr. Spencer on many occasions makes use of the phrase "spontaneous variations," though, apparently, under protest. It is true that throughout his work there is a constant insistance on the great part played by the physical conditions in causing variations. The greatest prominence is given to this factor. There is also a manifest desire that the mechanical forces be taken as adequate to the production of the phenomena. But nowhere is there clearly expressed a repudiation of the idea of concurrent cause. In some places there is a recognition of it.

Thus, on page 281, Mr. Darwin, after speaking of the action of the conditions of life, says, "Mr. Herbert Spencer has recently discussed with great ability this whole subject on broad and general grounds. He argues, for instance, that the internal and external tissues are differently acted on by the surrounding conditions, and they invariably differ in intimate structure; so, again, the upper and lower surfaces of true leaves are differently circumstanced with respect to light, etc., and apparently in consequence differ in structure. But, as Mr. Herbert Spencer admits, it is most difficult in all such cases to distinguish between the effects of the definite action of physical conditions and the accumulation through natural selection of inherited variations which are serviceable to the organism, and which have arisen independently of the definite action of these conditions."

It may be well to remark that the physical conditions are the sole cause of variation when viewed in their statical aspect; but when viewed in their dynamical aspect, the conditions[336] are, except when the movement is in the direction of degeneration, only the secondary cause. For, upon the theory here enunciated, were all the individuals of a species fully developed, there would be but one race or variety, that is, the perfect type. The existence of a plurality of races or varieties necessarily implies the unfavorable modification of some of the parts or characters of some of the members of the species.

It is hardly possible for any one's common sense to be so impaired, even by speculation or the bias of a foregone conclusion, as to induce a belief that the characters given below have arisen solely by the action of the physical conditions. When the cases are isolated, such a belief is, in a small measure, excusable; but when they are given consecutively, the ascription of the characters solely to mechanical causes would imply not a little aberration of mind.

Numerous instances of bud-variation are given by Darwin. Several of these we have incidentally adverted to. By this process of bud-variation have arisen in one generation alone, and even in one season, nectarines from the peach, the red magnum bonum plum from the yellow magnum bonum, and the moss-rose from the Provence rose. Many other instances might be adduced of the appearance of characters equally strongly pronounced.

That the following characters have not arisen in one generation is confessedly owing to the lack of scientific knowledge as to the conditions requisite for their growth. The English lop-eared rabbit, which is under domestication, weighs not less than eighteen pounds. The pouter-pigeon is distinguished by the great size of its œsophagus; the English carrier-pigeon, by its surprisingly long beak; and the fantail, as its name connotes, by its immense upwardly-expanded tail. In the progenitor of these birds, the rock pigeon, (columba livia,) there is not a trace of these characters discernible. It is a matter of great surprise to look at the stringy roots of the wild carrot and parsnip, and then to note the astonishingly great improvement which has resulted from their subjection to more favorable conditions. Gooseberries have attained a great size and weight. The London gooseberry is now between seven and eight times the weight of the wild fruit. The fruit of one variety of the curcurbita pepo exceeds in volume that of another by more than two thousand fold!

Now, these strongly pronounced favorable modifications are explicable only upon the theory of reversion. Had they arisen by the slow accumulation, through centuries, of successive, scarcely appreciable increments of modification, their being due to evolution, or solely to the physical conditions, would be less inconceivable. Darwin's professedly favorite rule is, Natura non facit saltum—"Nature makes no leaps." But we fail to see nature's conformity to it. We must confess that upon the hypothesis of evolution nature indulges herself with the most gigantic leaps.

It might be urged that, upon assuming, for the purposes of the argument, that Mr. Herbert Spencer does attribute variations solely to the physical conditions, he is thereby discharged from the imputation of advocating a theory which is wholly gratuitous. But he assuredly is not. He is placed by this ascription of variations in no better position, so far as respects this point. He has adduced no evidence in favor of their being thus solely ascribable. His attribution of them solely to the physical conditions is equally gratuitous with his ascription[337] of them to evolution. The fact that variations are due to a change in the conditions, and that variations would be absent were all the individuals of a species subjected to absolutely uniform conditions, is, as we have seen, quite compatible with a belief in a concurrent cause. The necessity of a change in the conditions is admitted, and even called for, upon our theory. Mr. Herbert Spencer's assumed assertion of variation being due solely to mechanical causes would necessarily imply a denial of a concurrent cause. But this denial is wholly gratuitous; he has furnished no warrant for it. And again, assuming him to concede a concurrent cause, the question then recurs, Are variations attributable to reversion or to evolution? As we have seen, there is no foundation for ascribing them to evolution—evolution being merely a name for a cause unknown.

In The Westminster Review for July, 1865, and in The North American Review for October, 1868, Mr. Herbert Spencer is taxed with inconsistency. In his Principles of Biology, Mr. Spencer writes, "In whatever way it is formulated, or by whatever language it is obscured, this ascription of organic evolution to some aptitude naturally possessed, or miraculously imposed on them, is unphilosophical. It is one of those explanations which explains nothing—a shaping of ignorance into the semblance of knowledge. The cause assigned is not a true cause—not a cause assimilable to known causes—not a cause that can anywhere be shown to produce analogous effects. It is a cause unrepresentable in thought; one of those illegitimate symbolic conceptions which cannot by any mental process be elaborated into a real conception. In brief, this assumption of a persistent formative power, inherent in organisms, and making them unfold into higher forms, is an assumption no more tenable than the assumption of special creations; of which, indeed, it is but a modification, differing only by the fusion of separate unknown processes into a continuous unknown process." When he proceeds to treat of the waste and repair of the tissues, he finds that they refuse to acknowledge his mechanical principles, and he is forced to assume for the living particles "an innate tendency to arrange themselves into the shape of the organism to which they belong." The inconsistency was noted, commented upon, and became the subject of much animadversion.

This inconsistency, however, is comparatively excusable, as the histological phenomena which he had to explain are complicated and involved, and have to respond to the influences of divers parts of the body. But were we to show that his denunciation of the "ascription of organic evolution to some aptitude," is equally applicable to the attribution to "evolution," he would be considered, we are sure, guilty of the grossest possible inconsistency. This we can show; for there is no definition of a "metaphysical entity," to which the term evolution does not answer. Can any one conversant with the works of the first of evolutionists, particularly with his First Principles, Principles of Psychology, and Principles of Biology, gainsay the fact that organic evolution implies a tendency in organisms to advance, when under the influence of physical conditions, from the simpler to the more complex?

Mr. Spencer tacitly assumes the inevitable "becoming of all living things;" and that organic progress is a result of some indwelling tendency to develop, naturally impressed on[338] living matter—some ever-acting constructive force, which, concurrently with other forces, moulds organisms into higher and higher forms. Many instances of this we might adduce, but we will quote but two. On page 403, of his First Principles, he speaks of "a tendency toward the differentiation of each race into several races." And on page 430, Vol. I. of his Principles of Biology, he says, "While we are not called on to suppose that there exists in organisms any primordial impulse which makes them continually unfold into more heterogeneous forms, we see that a liability to be unfolded arises from the action and reaction between organisms and their fluctuating environments."

Surely, it cannot, with any show of reason, be contended that the word "liability" is not here used as the perfect synonym of that "metaphysical entity," the word "tendency." If the concurrence of a "liability to be unfolded" and the physical conditions be the definition of evolution, were we not warranted in asserting all that we did, with respect to the implication of organic evolution? Evolution a "metaphysical entity"! The words seem strange. They sound like a contradiction in terms; and we know that it is hard to realize the fact that Mr. Spencer has based his whole theory upon "some aptitude." But can the fact be gainsaid? Do not the thoughts of every one who reads of a "liability to be unfolded," recur to the page where Mr. Spencer stigmatizes such phrases as unphilosophical? Hear again how he characterizes them. "In whatever manner it is formulated, or by whatever language it is obscured, this ascription of organic evolution to some aptitude naturally possessed, or miraculously imposed on them, is unphilosophical. It is one of those explanations which explains nothing—a shaping of ignorance into the semblance of knowledge." Every reader will, we are sure, concur with us in the opinion that the evolution hypothesis is here clearly condemned. The special creation theory, as here advocated, involves no occult factor. The physical conditions concur with reversion to cause the favorable modifications.

While we do not join in such a strong protest against the use of what are termed "metaphysical entities," as that in which positivists are wont to indulge, we cannot but concede that they have often retarded the progress of science, and directed the course of inquiry into wrong channels. But the true scientist does not altogether eschew their use; nor does science preclude his following a middle course. But that, however, against which we do most earnestly and most indignantly protest is their use for the purpose of showing incongruity between science and religion; and their use when there is a perfectly legitimate alternative. The advocates of evolution endeavor to laugh to scorn such phrases; but, double which way they will, they are forced to use them, if not in one instance, at least in another.

We hope, then, never again to hear "metaphysical entities" urged as an objection against the special creation theory. But we incline to retract that. For the positivists have become, through practice, so well conversant with the phraseology peculiar to this theme, that they are now capable of masterpieces of wit and eloquence. Were they, through fear of the imputation of inconsistency, to refrain from furnishing the world with these, we would be debarred the pleasure of their perusal. With[339] reluctance would we forego such opportunities of cultivating a delicacy of taste.

In Appleton's Journal for July 31st, 1869, Mr. Spencer has declared that "the very conception of spontaneity is wholly incongruous with the conception of evolution." Now, to our mind, the theory of "spontaneous generation" is the perfect analogue of the theory of evolution. We conceive that the latter theory is open to the same objections which are urged by Mr. Spencer against the hypothesis of heterogenesis. "No form of evolution," he declares, "organic or inorganic, can be spontaneous, but in every instance the antecedent forces must be adequate in their quantities, kinds, and distributions to work the observed effects." Now, do not the alleged cases of evolution, equally with those of spontaneous generation, fail to fulfil this requirement? Does not Mr. Spencer's assumption of a tendency as a concurrent cause with the conditions, imply such a failure? What precludes the advocates of "spontaneous generation" from assuming "a liability" in inorganic matter "to unfold" into microscopic organisms? Could not agenesis have resulted from the concurrence of this tendency with mechanical causes? Such an explanation is equally open to the believers in "spontaneous generation." The true status of the evolution hypothesis is really no higher than that of the hypothesis of heterogenesis. They are both founded upon similar bases.

Together with the absurdity of adducing alleged cases of necrogenesis as the assumed missing link in the evolution process, might also have been mentioned, by Mr. Spencer, an objection to which the experiments of Professor Wyman are open. It is assumed in those experiments that, if fully matured organisms are not able to stand a temperature above two hundred and eight degrees, their ova would be destroyed when subjected to a temperature of two hundred and twelve degrees. These ova are allowed to stand only a little over three degrees more than a developed organism. Is this a fair supposition? Is it not to be expected that, if a fully matured organism can stand a temperature of two hundred and eight degrees, its ova, which are almost diatomic in character, will sustain a temperature approaching that of incandescence? We trust that this digression will be pardoned.

Before treating of variation under domestication, we may take occasion to disclaim any attempt to account for variations of color. These are not so manifestly due to degeneration and subsequent favorable reversion. They accord with our theory; but as this accordance is not susceptible of the short and complete demonstration of that of all other variations, the limits of our series preclude our entering into a long dissertation on the subject. Nor would the importance of modifications of color justify such a course; for Darwin characterizes them as phenomena of no consequence, and assures us that little attention is paid to them by naturalists.

Under domestication, animals and plants are subjected to comparatively favorable conditions, to conditions of which they have been deprived in the state of nature. Thus stimulated, they display marked improvement, and revert to the perfect condition from which they have degenerated. The favorable changes which they present are noted by man, and carefully preserved by crossing and judicious pairing with those possessing equal advantages. In this way, the best are selected and made to[340] transmit to their offspring their improved condition. Each breeder's success is determined by the more or less favorable conditions of the situation, district, or country, and by his sagacity and discrimination in selecting those in which occurs the greatest increase of size. As the conditions vary in different localities, and as breeders possess different degrees of scientific knowledge, animals and plants would be differently improved, and thus there is established a series of gradations all answering to the characters of as many varieties. As we have seen, in a somewhat similar manner races have been formed under nature. They were in part established by the retention of the animal or plant in several of the phases of degeneration; while varieties under domestication are in part due to the retention of the organism at each stage of reversion. The greater number of varieties under domestication, as compared with the paucity of races under nature, results in a measure from man's selection retaining the organism at almost every gradation. Under nature, the animals of a district or country freely intercross, and from this intercrossing results uniformity of character and the consequent existence of only one race in a country. Besides, the conditions of life are comparatively uniform in each district; but under domestication man is, by means of his scientific knowledge, continually varying the conditions.

We are conscious that this explanation accounts only for difference of size. It does not show how wholly different characters have been acquired by the various varieties; nor the cause of the possession of the greatest structural differences by individuals of the same species. Were this the sole process by which varieties were formed, one variety would be merely the miniature of the other. Other explanations are required to illustrate the manner in which the great divergence of character observable under domestication, has been effected. These we shall furnish.

Darwin, both in his Origin of Species and in his Animals and Plants under Domestication, draws particular attention to this divergence of character. It forms a most conspicuous portion of his theory. It displays the gradual acquisition by individuals originally alike of differences as great as those characterizing species.

As Darwin has assured us, there is scarcely a single species under nature which does not possess organs in a rudimentary state. Now, these arise under domestication, and are apportioned among the several varieties. Each organ is developed, and is allotted to a certain variety, of which it forms the peculiarity. In one variety, special attention is paid to the development of a single organ, while the remaining organs are left to be developed in and to form the characteristics of other varieties. Thus the upwardly-expanded tail in the pigeon constitutes the peculiarity characteristic of the fantail; the enlargement of the œsophagus, that of the pouter; and the divergent feathers along the front of the neck and breast, that of the turbit.

By this process—the development of rudimentary organs and their apportionment among the several varieties—a portion of the divergence of character is effected.

These rudimentary organs have been the occasion of many a warm controversy. They are asserted to be totally incongruous with the doctrine of teleology. Their uselessness and occasionally detrimental nature, it is contended, preclude the possibility of design. Several objections have been urged against the doctrine of[341] final causes; but those who profess to disbelieve in design concur in according to these organs the greatest prominence.

The doctrine of final causes is a conception thrust upon us by a vast multitude of facts from organic nature. But, now and then, exceptional phenomena will present themselves apparently at variance with it. These, as a writer in The London Quarterly Review for July, 1869, ably maintains, are merely objections, not disproofs. Owing to a misconception current among the advocates of special creation, they have been unable to reconcile rudimentary organs with the doctrine of teleology. All the attempts heretofore made to harmonize these anomalous features with the doctrine of final causes have been feeble. We may instance one. A Mr. Paget, in his Hunterian Lectures at the College of Surgeons, argues that the function of these organs is "to withdraw from the blood some elements of nutrition, which, if retained in it, would be positively injurious." We can readily appreciate the feelings which induce an evolutionist to smile at this assumption of excretion as the sole function and purpose of a rudimentary organ.

Upon the theory of degeneration and subsequent favorable reversion here propounded, these rudimentary organs are quite congruous with the doctrine of final cause. To obviate the difficulty presented by these parts, we have accepted the interpretation of the evolutionist. This interpretation we adopted at the start. It forms the basis of our theory—its foundation-stone. That for which the evolutionist contends is, that these organs have at one period been fully developed. In this we concurred; for it furnished us with an explanation of the favorable modifications under domestication; while, as we shall show, it is by no means at variance with the doctrine of the immutability of the species. Rudimentary organs imply degeneration, past complexity of structure, and present comparative simplicity of structure; facts at variance with evolution, but strictly in accordance with our theory. We have seen that the idea of the normal nature of the existing natural condition has rendered the advocates of special creation unable to account for the appearance of profitable modifications. The seeming incongruity between rudimentary organs and the doctrine of teleology is a result of the same misconception. A curious confusion of ideas, generated by the assumption of this false position, has urged the opponents of evolution tacitly to contend that animals and plants were originally created with these organs in a rudimentary state, and that the present condition of these parts is a normal one. We, concurrently with the evolutionists, recognize in these organs "traces of old laws"—"records of the past." They are the traces of laws which obtained when the conditions were favorable to the full development of the organs. Under domestication, the conditions are being supplied, and the organs are, in consequence, being developed. On page 386 of his Principles of Biology, Mr. Herbert Spencer says, "And then to complete the proof that these undeveloped parts are marks of descent from races in which they were developed, there are not a few direct experiences of this relation. 'We have plenty of cases of rudimentary organs in our domestic productions—as the stump of a tail in tailless breeds—the vestige of an ear in ear-less breeds—the reappearance of minute dangling horns in hornless breeds of cattle.'"

But together with their being[342] traces of old laws, they are traces of laws which so far adhere to the present that the laws of the whole organism fail fully to obtain without their concurrence; and their concurrence is consequent solely upon the full development of these rudimental features. In other words, full perfection consists in the perfect coördination of all the parts, and absence of this coördination suffices to throw the organism within the domain of pathology. The reduction, therefore, of any organ to a rudimentary condition is deleterious to the organism as a whole. We are perfectly aware that this needs something more than gratuitous affirmation; but as the adduction of evidence in this place would be inconsistent with the symmetry and continuity of our argument, we are forced to bespeak our readers' indulgence until the publication of the next article of this series. But it is sufficiently clear that, upon assuming the truth of our theory, the difficulty offered to the doctrine of final causes by rudimentary organs is obviated.

It is manifest that the development of rudimentary organs, with their distribution among the several varieties, is but a partial explanation of the great divergence of character. There remain to be shown, then, other processes by which this has been effected.

Divergence of character has been also caused by the development in different varieties of those parts which have been only partially suppressed under nature. This necessarily causes disproportionate development of the characters in the individuals. Proportionate development would occur if all the features of the animal or plant were subjected to equally favorable conditions, and if they were all impartially cared for by man. Convergence of character would thence result. And this convergence of character is at first sight to be expected. For if an animal or plant has, as we have seen, diverged in character under nature, and then reverts under domestication to the original perfect type, that which is to be anticipated is convergence of character. But some part presents a modification in advance of its fellows. This man seizes and makes it the peculiarity of a certain variety. By the careful conservation and judicious mating of those individuals which display a tendency to diverge in the same direction, and of those which tend least to develop new characters, he preserves the type of the variety. Modifications arising in other points of structure are similarly preserved by other breeders, and characterize other varieties. When a variety is marked by a certain peculiarity, the fancier or breeder looks with a jealous eye upon the acquisition by any individual of any new character, even though it be for the better. When, therefore, any individual of a well-established variety displays a tendency toward the production of a new character, it is systematically suppressed. "Sports" are regarded with disfavor by the fancier or breeder, and rejected as blemishes, because they tend to destroy uniformity of character among the members of the variety. Owing to these and similar causes, in each variety a different point of structure is admired, selected, and attended to, and exclusive attention given to its development, to the neglect of the others. All the features are not developed in the same variety, but are distributed among different varieties. Thus, in the carrier-pigeon the length of the beak is the character particularly attended to; in the barb, quantity of eye-wattle; and in the runt, the weight and size of the body.

In this way is effected the disproportionate development upon which divergence of character is consequent. Darwin shows this, with this difference: he believes that the modifications arise by evolution, while we contend that they arise by reversion. Nor does he concur with us in the use of the term "disproportionate development;" for that implies that the presence of all the parts in an individual is necessary to perfection. But he shows the process to be the same, be the law to which the variations conform what it may. On page 245, Vol. II., he says, "Man propagates and selects modifications for his own use and fancy, and not for the creature's own good." And on page 220 he asserts, "that whatever part or character is most valued—whether the leaves, stems, bulbs, tubers, flowers, fruit, or seed of plants, or the size, strength, fleetness, hairy covering, or intellect of animals—that character will most invariably be found to present the greatest amount of difference both in kind and degree."

Strong confirmation of this view that divergence of character is attributable to disproportionate development may be drawn from the fact that those species in which is observable the greatest divergence of character are those whose breeding is directed by fancy or fashion. Where utility guides selection, there an approximation to convergence of character is seen; but where selection is guided by fancy, there is a very strongly-marked tendency toward divergence. In the formation of varieties, fancy nowhere enters as such a predominating element as it does in the breeding of pigeons; and consequently, nowhere else is seen such great divergence. Darwin is ever directing attention to this. On page 220, Vol. I., he dwells upon it with peculiar emphasis. The converse fact is also seen. With cattle, the object of breeders is not the formation of numerous varieties, but merely the improvement of the animals. An objective mode of treatment is here identical with a subjective mode. And here we have comparatively proportionate development, and a consequent approach to convergence of character. After citing convergence of character in the case of pigs, Darwin says, (Vol. II., page 241,) "We see some degree of convergence in the similar outline of the body in well-bred cattle belonging to distinct races."

In the foregoing description of the processes of formation of domesticated varieties, we have assumed reversion as the cause of modifications. We have occasion now to speak of a process which implies a cause that is not reversion. Varieties are formed, and disproportionate development and divergence of character effected, by man's continuing the process of degeneration commenced under nature. Several illustrations of this we will adduce.

In the tumbler-pigeon, the beak is greatly reduced, and, by correlation, the feet have become of a size so small as to be barely compatible with the bird's existence. Its skull is scarce one half the size of the wild rock-pigeon, its progenitor; and the number of the vertebræ has lessened. The ribs are only seven in number, whereas the rock-pigeon has eight. The peculiarity characteristic of this variety is confessedly due to degeneration. We refer to the habit of tumbling which Darwin attributes to disease—to "an affection of the brain." (P. 153.) Other varieties of the pigeon also owe some of their characters to degeneration. In the barb, the beak is .02 of an inch shorter than in the wild rock-pigeon.[344] Important characters have correspondingly deteriorated. Darwin, speaking of domesticated pigeons, says, "We may confidently admit that the length of the sternum, and frequently the prominence of its crest, the length of the scapula and furcula have all been reduced in size in comparison with the same parts in the rock-pigeon."

Pigs present several cases of deterioration of parts under domestication. Through protection from the climate, the coat of bristles has been greatly diminished. By disuse and man's selection, the legs have become of a size scarcely compatible with the animal's power of locomotion. Darwin requests us to "hear what an excellent judge of pigs says, 'The legs should be no longer than just to prevent the animal's belly from trailing on the ground. The leg is the least profitable portion of the hog, and we therefore require no more of it than is absolutely necessary for the support of the rest.'" Fully to realize the extreme shortness of the legs, it is necessary to see them in the possession of a highly improved breed. Correlation with the legs has led to the complete reduction of the tusks, and has induced the shortness and concavity of the front of the head which are so characteristic of domestic breeds.

With pigs, there is disproportionate development and also convergence of character. This is owing to all the breeders having aimed at the same object, the reduction of the characters given above, and the full development of the trunk or body. On page 73, Vol. I., Darwin says, "Nathusius has remarked, and the observation is an interesting one, that the peculiar form of the skull and body in the most highly cultivated races is not characteristic of any one race, but is common to all when improved up to the same standard. Thus the large-bodied, long-eared, English breeds with a convex back, and the small-bodied, short-eared Chinese breeds, with a concave back, when bred to the same state of perfection, nearly resemble each other in the form of the head and body. This result, it appears, is partly due to similar causes of change acting on the several races, and partly to man breeding the pig for one sole purpose, namely, for the greatest amount of flesh and fat; so that selection has always tended toward one and the same end. With most domestic animals, the result of selection has been divergence of character, here it has been convergence." Divergence of character is solely caused by disproportionate development, and proportionate development in all the members of the species necessarily causes convergence of character; but disproportionate development may also induce convergence, as it has done in this case.

Degeneration has also been the means of the formation of breeds of cattle, as the niata cattle, and those distinguished by the complete suppression of the horns.

Tailless breeds of animals have been formed; among which may be mentioned the rumpless fowl, and tailless cats and dogs.

Degeneration is also seen in the great deterioration in size of dogs. The turn-spit dog is manifestly a case of degeneration. Blumenbach remarks "that many dogs, such as the badger-dog, have a build so marked and appropriate for particular purposes, that I should find it difficult to persuade myself that this astonishing figure was an accidental consequence of degeneration." "But," says Darwin, "had Blumenbach reflected on the great principle of selection, he[345] would not have used the term degeneration, and he would not have been astonished that dogs and other animals should have become excellently adapted for the service of man." (Vol. II., page 220.) It is difficult to conceive why Darwin here ignores the fact of degeneration. The peculiar build of the badger-dog is not an accidental consequence of degeneration. But it is equally far removed from being the product solely of selection. Degeneration is not the less present because of the operation of selection. Could the two not act concurrently? It is clearly manifest that it is the joint action of degeneration and selection which accomplishes the appropriateness for particular purposes, and not either alone. Selection, in such a case as this, merely guides the course of degeneration. Unfavorable modifications occur, and such of them as best subserve the uses and purposes of man, he selects and preserves; the rest he rejects. Thus results the adaptation of these animals to the service of man.

With some fowls, the comb has been lost. The Sebright bantam, which is one of the greatest triumphs of selection, weighs hardly more than one pound, and has lost its hackles, sickle-tail feathers, and other secondary sexual characters.

The Porto Santo rabbit differs in size from the wild English rabbit, its progenitor, in the proportion of rather less than five to nine.

The crooked and shortened legs of the Ancon sheep of New England, frequently referred to by Darwin, also displayed the action of degeneration. This is a case which shows that disproportionate development in a single variety will produce divergence in the species, even when there is great proportionate development in the other varieties.

"With cultivated plants," says Darwin, "it is far from rare to find the petals, stamens, and pistils represented by mere rudiments, like those observed in natural species." (P. 316.) The Red Bush Alpine strawberry is destitute of stolons or runners. In the St. Valery apple, the stamens and corolla are reduced to a rudimentary state. It has, consequently, to be fertilized by artificial means. This is effected by the maidens of St. Valery, each of whom marks her fruit with a ribbon of a certain color, and fertilizes it with the pollen of adjacent trees.

Thus we have four processes of formation of varieties. 1st. The retention of the organism at each stage of reversion, accounting only for differences of size. 2d. The development of rudimentary organs and their apportionment among the several varieties. 3d. The development in different varieties of those parts which have been only partially suppressed under nature. 4th. The continuation under domestication of the process of degeneration commenced under nature.

Now, we conceive that, by showing the phenomena of variation to be conformable to the theory of degeneration and reversion, and by proving the unscientific nature of the assumption of evolution, we have fulfilled the promise made by us at the start. Even as the case now stands, the theory of special creations must commend itself to every truly scientific mind. But it is not our design to leave the subject a mere question of probabilities. It lies within our power to prove the doctrine of special creations to demonstration; to place our theory upon evidence beyond the reach of cavil.

To the mind of every reader accustomed to scientific habits of thought, it is clear that our next step[346] is to adduce proofs of our belief that the development of all the parts in every individual is necessary to perfection. In this direction we shall push the subject, and we now affirm that there is a typical structure—the sum of all the positive features of the species.

With a full appreciation of the magnitude and importance of the act, we advance the following definition of a species.

A species is a class of organisms, capable of indefinitely continued, fertile reproduction among each other, and endowed with the possession—either actual or potential—of character; the suppression, reduction, or disproportionate development of which is incompatible with a state of physiological integrity.

A HERO, OR A HEROINE?

CHAPTER VIII.
THE LION'S DEN.

Dr. James invited Margaret to visit "the shop," and one day, after returning a few calls in Sealing, she stopped, with her aunt, on their way home, at a plain brown house in the one street of Shellbeach. There were two square pieces of green, one on each side of the front door, shut in with a brown fence; the small door seemed quite covered up, for, besides a large shining knocker in the middle, there was above it a brass plate, on which was inscribed "Dr. James," in large letters. There also appeared a small bell on one side, and another opposite labelled "night-bell." Which of these advantages to improve, was at first rather a puzzle to Margaret; but her aunt settled the question by giving a smart pull to the right-hand bell, whence she concluded that the knocker, on which she had meditated an attack, was intended solely for unprofitable ornament.

A tall and thin young man, who had the appearance of having outgrown all his clothes, opened the door with a promptness which seemed to imply that he had been lying in wait for the favorable moment to pounce upon them, and which was a little startling to the ladies. He surveyed them both with interest, explained that the doctor was not at home, but was expected in, and proposed that they should walk into the parlor and wait. Having ushered them into that apartment, the youth discreetly withdrew.

Miss Spelman shook her head in a mournful manner, and proceeded to establish herself on a black horsehair couch, (having first gently flapped it with her handkerchief,) while Margaret walked about from one thing to another, commenting and criticising.

"This is where he sits to write, I suppose. And if here isn't a family of three little kittens curled up in his arm-chair! I hope he won't mistake them for a cushion, that's all! What piles of books! Medicine, medicine, medicine! Oh! here is something of a different kind; poetry! who[347] would have imagined it? Shelley, Longfellow, Tennyson. How many nice things! This bookcase is filled with treasures. The dust can't get in there, that's a comfort! And this is a family portrait, I suppose; a lady with one, two, three, six children. How funny and old-fashioned it is! Here are his pipe and smoking-cap; oh! do see these funny skin slippers;" and she balanced one on each hand. "How I would like to rummage here! Oh! there are sleigh-bells." And Margaret established herself, prim and proper, in one of the hard, straight-backed chairs just as Dr. James entered. He gave them a pleasant welcome, and conducted them at once into "the shop."

"It's a good time to look about here," he observed, "while John is gone with the mare. The shop is his especial sanctum, and I think he regards visitors as interlopers."

There was no dust to be seen in that room; every thing was scrubbed and brushed till it shone, and absolute neatness reigned.

"I can't say I deal in 'slippery-ellum,' 'stick-licorish,' and 'gum-arrabac-drops,'" replied the doctor; "if you want the real name, this is a dispensary on a small scale. You see, I have no faith in Mr. Creamer, in Sealing, further than for simple doses. You might buy essence of peppermint or tincture of rhubarb of him, to great advantage; but as for compounding pills and powders, I prefer to attend to those myself. Then it is a convenience to some of my patients, who can make a visit to the doctor and obtain their remedies at one and the same time."

At these words, Miss Spelman gave her niece a little nudge, as they stood side by side, and looked, as the saying is, volumes; but Margaret did not understand, and wondered what her aunt could mean.

"Oh! John is my factotum; as much a part of myself as the shop is. You see he stays here when I am away, and goes on errands; he keeps every thing nice, and can be trusted with simple prescriptions; in return for which, I impart to him a little medical knowledge; so we stand both amicably in each other's debt, which leads to an excellent understanding between us."

Again Margaret felt herself gently poked; but being as completely in the dark as ever, she was forced to wait for an explanation till a future time. They admired all the arrangements, till John's return, when the doctor led them back into the parlor, where, the fire having been stirred up and the curtains drawn so as to admit the sun, the aspect of things was more cheerful. Margaret once more admired the kittens and books, and accepted the doctor's offer to lend from the latter, by borrowing Miss Procter's poems, in blue and gold, which she espied on a high shelf.

"No, indeed! I only wanted you to notice what the doctor was saying. What was it?"

"The first time was when he said his patients could visit him and get their remedies at the same time."

"Yes, just his benevolence. Those are his poor patients, you see, for whom he has set up that dispensary; he gives them advice and medicine free."

"So he has, a little; but he uses up every cent and more; for he sends some to his mother and sister, and takes ever so much care of the poor for miles around."

"But he must have fees from his rich patients; you told me he was as popular at Sealing as here."

"Certainly they pay him; but he does not encourage a large practice in Sealing, for there is a very good doctor living there, with a wife and family. So though Dr. James visits a few patients in Sealing, they are almost all people who used to live here, and are now not willing to give him up. But his fees could not begin to enable him to do all he does, if he had not something of his own."

"It was exactly like him to speak as if that matter was a give-and-take affair! The fact is, the boy's mother, a widow, took it into her head, like all mothers, that her son was something remarkable, and ought to be sent to college; of course without a penny to do it with. She disclosed her mind to Dr. James, and the end of it was, that he has taken him clean off her hands, gives him a nice little salary for the work he does in the dispensary, and is educating him, besides, to be a first-rate physician; and I suppose when the doctor goes away from this town, young Richards will just step into his place and have it all his own way. I know all this, you see, because I know the mother. The doctor never breathed a word of it, you may be sure; but she told me all about it. And this is what Dr. James calls a mutual-benefit society, or something of the sort."

Margaret laughed; but she was not disposed to praise or admire the doctor, chiefly because she was aware that her aunt expected and wished her to do so. She listened attentively, however, to this, and as much more information as Miss Spelman chose to volunteer about her favorite, now and then putting in a doubtful question, or slightly depreciatory remark, which only elicited fresh praises; until sometimes the little lady would dimly perceive the game her niece was playing, and retire into silence and dignity.

CHAPTER IX.
STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE.

A month had gone, Margaret was astonished to find how quickly. She was contented and happy; interested, too, in her various occupations, and, except for missing Jessie's sympathy and companionship, feeling no regret for her former life. Such a state of things would have been impossible, had she not been utterly wearied with the whirl of gayety and the accumulation of engagements which seemed to her unavoidable while she remained in New York. But the complete change was reviving to her, and, as she said, she had taken up the study of human nature, which really meant that she had become interested in one person, and that person was Dr. James. She saw him a good deal; for he came freely to Miss Spelman's house, he had taken her sleigh-riding, accompanied her on expeditions in search of coasting or skating, played chess with her, and lent her books.

Since that occasion, on their first drive to Sealing, when "the mistress of a poor man's household" had been alluded to, that ideal person was frequently spoken of with considerable enjoyment of the joke by both parties, and once Margaret had asked him outright, what he would consider necessary accomplishments in such a person.

"I don't know that a poor doctor's wife would differ from the wife[349] of any other poor man," he had answered her. "I have in my mind a woman not afraid of work, not requiring amusement nor excitement, able to do her own work; you see I say able—not that I would object to her having a servant, or perhaps two; but she should understand and be able to explain and direct all the domestic arrangements of the house. She should wait on herself; therefore her dress should be plain and simple. Especially should she know how to cook and sew, to market well, and to be considerate and cheerful to her servants. Then, as concerns my professional business, I should think a slight acquaintance with simple medicines and remedies, and where they are kept in the shop, in case of emergency, would be useful; fortitude to bear the sight of, and even to suffer, pain and sickness, so as to set a good example; and, to sum up, a cool head, a steady hand, and presence of mind."

When Dr. James had ended this minute description, he was struck by the extent of his requirements; and as Margaret's eye met his, they both laughed heartily, and though at the time she made no comment on his ideal poor man's wife, she often alluded to her virtues afterward, before other people, who, of course, could not understand what she meant, while the doctor, she was delighted to see, was slightly embarrassed and at a loss for a reply.

Margaret had seen a little of the Sealing society at a few tea-parties, which aimed at being so genteel that they were insufferably stiff and drowsy. Margaret longed to do something to wake up the young men, who, dressed in their best, with the stiffest of collars and the most surprising cravats, sat with folded hands and feet placed close together, helplessly, just where they happened to be put, without daring to do more than assent in as few words as possible to the stream of conversation kept up by the ladies, who seemed to consider it the business of the evening to entertain them. She very nearly proposed "blind-man's buff" on one occasion, but her courage failed her at the last moment; she thought it would be a hopeless undertaking to attempt to infuse life and activity into such frozen figures. At last, one young woman, named Mary Searle, gave a small party, and had the independence to propose playing games; and when Margaret warmly seconded the movement, and set the example by suggesting "fox and geese," she was astonished to behold every body become at once natural and merry. The young men were metamorphosed, forgot their feet and hands, and performed wonders of agility. It dawned upon Margaret that all this restraint must have been occasioned wholly by her presence, and she did her best to dispel all respect for "city ways" by showing that she could romp with the merriest. The evening ended with a Virginia-reel, and from that time the ice was broken, and Margaret saw the people in their pleasantest light—without affectation, simple, kindly, and cheerful. But of "society" she saw little; the Sealing young ladies complained that she was not "sociable," though when they were with her they got on very well; she said she was "too busy" to visit much, and so managed to keep a good deal to herself.

Of Martha Burney, however, she saw a good deal, and before long made an arrangement to drive her every morning to her school. The Marchioness had come, and Margaret had hired a little sleigh for her own use and pleasure.

"You see I have to get up early[350] now, for my drive with Miss Burney," she explained to the doctor; for she was anxious that he should not think she was trying to please him. After leaving her companion, who returned in the afternoon by the cars, she sometimes stopped for her organ lesson, and sometimes came directly home, where she practised, or shut herself up to study Latin. This latter, however, was a secret. The day she visited Dr. James's dispensary, she had noticed Latin names on his jars and vials, and had then and there decided in her own mind that some acquaintance with Latin would be indispensable to "a poor doctor's wife." So she had bought a dictionary, grammar, and one or two Latin books, and now worked laboriously in private, every day, while in the afternoons she walked, drove, or read with her aunt.

CHAPTER X.
AN AWAKENING.

One Sunday evening, Dr. James was sitting in Miss Spelman's pleasant parlor; she was dozing in her chair by the fire, and Margaret sat on a little sofa near her. There had come a long pause, such as very often came on Sunday evenings, and on this occasion the doctor had been more abstracted and inattentive than usual. He sat by the table in an arm-chair, studying the fire with a troubled face, and Margaret watched him and wondered what was wrong. At last he started and said, as their eyes met,

"Miss Lester, pardon me. I believe I am very rude; I have a good deal on my mind, and when you stop speaking, my thoughts go off to something I cannot forget."

He paused a moment, and then, before she could answer him, went on. "They talk about a doctor's becoming callous, and indifferent to pain and suffering; I wish it were more true! Of course there are certain things which, when we have seen them borne well and bravely by some, we expect others to meet in the same way, and so seem unfeeling and unsympathizing when folks make a great fuss about them.

"When, however, I see people really suffering and in want, it makes me sick at heart, and I cannot forget it. There is a family a couple of miles out of the east end of this town who are in great trouble, and I don't see what can help them out of it." He stopped abruptly and stared at the fire again.

"Dr. James, do you suppose I am not interested? Go on quickly, and tell me the rest; for perhaps I can help these poor people."

"The husband is a shoemaker; a good fellow, though thriftless. It is the old story; want of work, a sick wife, a large family, rent due, and the wolf at the door. I have been to several people; but money seems very scarce just now, and more is needed than I can raise for them. My own funds are very low, and some kind people suggest the poor-house at Sealing for them; but that would break their spirit; so I can't bear to think of it."

"Why, Dr. James! of course I can help them. Why did you not come to me before? Cannot we go to-night and pay the rent, and take them what they need?"

"To-morrow will do for them; if you like, however, I can take the rent to Mr. Brown to-night. Perhaps you will sleep better for it; I know I shall. To-morrow you can drive there, and do what you think best for them."

Margaret's sympathy seemed very consoling to the doctor, and he talked to her freely of the state of the poor people with whom he came in contact. He said he had to see so much misery he could not possibly relieve, that it was a constant weight on his mind; it haunted him like a ghost; and even when warm and comfortable himself, he could not forget those wants which he so desired to relieve but could not. Then the people in the neighborhood rendered him but little assistance; for they either did not realize, or else were indifferent to the destitution of their neighbors.

Dr. James had never before opened his mind to Margaret as he did that evening. He spoke of his intense sympathy with the poor, simply and as a matter of course; and every word conveyed to her a reproach, for it made her conscious of her own selfishness and hardness of heart. Though she had always given freely, when asked, to fairs and subscriptions, and to charity collectors, she had done so, as she now saw, out of her abundance, and with a cold heart. How much thought had she ever given to the sufferings of the poor? What had she ever done to relieve them? Yet here was a man whose whole life was devoted to helping and healing his fellow-creatures, and who reproached himself for enjoying the simplest comforts so long as others were without them. A whole mine of new thoughts seemed opened in her mind; she longed to be alone; and when Dr. James had left her, after warmly grasping the hand that had given him the rent for his poor family, she said good-night to her aunt as early as possible, and going to her own room, she thought long and regretfully of the past, and formed a firm resolution to live more nobly for the future.

CHAPTER XI.
UNEXPECTED ADVICE.

The next morning, after driving Martha Burney to Sealing as usual, Margaret filled her sleigh with good things at the grocery and provision stores and then made her way, by the directions Dr. James had given her, to the house of John McNally, the poor man of whom he had spoken. She found the distress quite as great as she had expected, and would not have known what to do first, had she not found there a woman from the neighborhood who was endeavoring to assist the sick wife. This woman at once made gruel and tea, and put away the provisions in their proper places, while Margaret collected around her the children, who were half starving, and distributed among them a plentiful supply of bread and butter, to which she afterward added a dessert of oranges and candy.

Poor John looked on as though it were all a dream, and watched Margaret's every movement as he would those of a good fairy, till, she turning to him, said kindly,

"Will you not sit down and have some breakfast? Perhaps this friend of yours will cook some steak for you."

Then he mechanically sat down on a chair near the table, and covering his face with his hands, strove to hide tears of joy that trickled down his cheeks. Margaret went into the chamber and sat by the wife, who was sitting up in bed drinking her gruel, while Susan, the friend, went to cook the steak, the savory smell of which soon filled the little house. Margaret left them with a promise to return the next day; but before she went, she put into John's hand a twenty-dollar bill, bidding him get every thing that his wife and family needed.

What a happy day that was for Margaret! She felt so light-hearted and joyous that she could hardly attend to her usual duties; but she endeavored to study and practise the regular number of hours, saying to herself, "If I am going to do good every day, I must not let it interfere with every thing else." In the afternoon she would not go out; she was sure the doctor would come, and she could not afford to miss his call. So Miss Selina took one of her friends to drive, and Margaret sat at home waiting. Tea-time came and her aunt returned, and still the visitor she expected had not appeared; at length, as they left the table, sleigh-bells were heard, and the doctor opened the hall door.

"There is a lovely moon, Miss Lester; can you not wrap yourself up and take a short drive with me?"

She hastened to get her hood, muff, and shawl, and in a few moments was flying over the frozen ground, in and out of the white moonlight and the dark shadows, the sleigh-bells ringing gayly, and her own heart beating fast with joy.

"You can't think what a pleasure it has been to me all day, to think of those poor people relieved from their trouble and wretchedness; I am sure it has been a happiness to you also. The poor things consider your help as a direct interposition of providence, and I must say they seem full of gratitude rather to God than to you. They appear to consider you as merely a secondary cause of their relief."

"That is right enough, Dr. James; I owe a great deal more to them than they to me; I was never so happy before in my life."

"I can well believe it. But I must tell you something, Miss Lester, that may diminish your satisfaction a little; which I would not mention, however, if I did not think it would be useful in the future. What you did for the family was, in the main, excellent; but you remember I told you McNally was thriftless! Well, the sum of money you put into his hands was too large; when he went to Sealing for medicine and things for his wife, some idle fellows got hold of him, and the consequence was, I found him reeling about the street this afternoon, with a small bottle of medicine in his pocket, and all his money gone. I took him home, and administered the medicine to his wife myself; it was useless to speak to him then, but to-morrow I am going there to talk to him as he deserves, for he has not been drunk before for months."

"Not so bad as that, I am sure; you were injudicious, and a great deal too lavish in your bounty."

"Dr. James, it seemed to me very little to leave, when so much was needed; I quite congratulated myself on my prudence."

"It was a great deal of money for a poor man to have in his pocket. In almost all such cases the wife is the one to intrust with the money; she knows for what it is most needed, and makes it go as far as it can; but the best way of all, I think, is to find out, by interesting yourself, what are the wants of the poor, and supply them by your personal care. When you have time, you might go and talk with Rose—that is the wife—and, if you like, give her what she needs."

"I am glad you told me this, Dr. James; it will teach me to be wiser next time. You see I am wholly inexperienced, for I never did any thing of the kind before in my life. Now I am determined to try again. Can't[353] you tell me of another case of distress among your patients?"

"Not at present, I believe, though, for that matter, I believe there is no want of poor people at any time. Miss Lester, excuse my asking you; do you want to do good systematically, and practically, and perseveringly, or is this only a passing enthusiasm, which will vanish when the novelty ceases?"

"Dr. James, if I do good perseveringly, as you say, I suppose the excitement will wear off, and it will become a very matter-of-fact, unromantic business, perhaps even tedious and inconvenient; still, I have thought about it all to-day, and I have made up my mind to help as many people as I can. So long as I remain here, it shall be one of my occupations."

"Very well, then; and for the direction of practical, systematic good works, I advise you to go to the Catholic priest."

"Ah Miss Lester! if you had a little more medical knowledge, you would be aware that natural temperament is in itself enough to account for the corpulence of some people, to say nothing of the sedentary life a priest generally leads; and in finding fault with that laugh, you touch on a tender point; for it is, in my eyes, one of Father Barry's shining virtues. It is the 'being jolly' under all circumstances, and in spite of every thing adverse and difficult, which makes this obscure country priest a great man. Think of his life! What can be more laborious, more self-sacrificing, more ill-paid, thankless and disheartening? And look at his face! My dear Miss Lester, he is an educated man, and yet his intercourse is entirely with the rude and ignorant poor of this most bigoted of places. He is cut off from all those who profess to be people of education here, and who look down on him with contempt and suspicion, because they cannot even conceive what a life of devotion and self-sacrifice means. What could have induced him to choose such a life, liable to be condemned to such a place and such a people, I do not understand."

"Ay, there it is; I often think of the two lives, and naturally compare them. Now, see the difference: I choose this place for myself, and shall stay here as long or as short a time as I see fit; he, as I understand it, is placed here by his bishop, for a year or for his lifetime, he knows not which. Then, I work among these people because it makes me contented, and because I cannot bear to see misery and not relieve it. But he, strange to say, is not moved by a spirit of active benevolence only, or even chiefly, so far as I can judge; for he believes human suffering to be the penalty of sin; a penalty which must be paid—therefore, better paid in this life than in the life to come; and when I say to him, 'Then why do you do good to every one within your reach?' he answers, 'For the love of God.'"

"Strange!" Margaret answered, feeling that he expected her to say something, but with her mind occupied, it must be confessed, rather with her companion's character than with that of the priest.

"Yes, you see he is as far removed from mere philanthropy as he can be, and yet I know of no life so useful as his; mine grows dim beside it. Then, again, when I compare our lives, he has none of that self-approval, or rather self-complacency, which is the staff and support of mine."

"Just what I say. Of course I know that my work is a good and useful one, and that I do it well. I know, moreover, that there are not many men of my age and abilities who would consent to live such a life as mine. Hence I feel at times a self-satisfaction which is to me inspiration, and strength, and refreshment. On the contrary, Father Barry, though his life appears to me crowded with good works, seems to fear that if he should die now his hands would be found empty. His life differs from mine in its motive: he acts from religious principle, while I help the poor only because it makes me wretched to see suffering without trying to relieve it. You see I talk to him freely; I meet him a good deal among my patients, and we have done some good turns for each other. I go to see him, and when he is not busy, often sit with him of an evening; and he is the best company I know. But I have been so engrossed by my own reflections that I forgot I was giving you advice; by all means if you want to bestow relief where it is most needed, ask his assistance.

"Dr. Thorndike here is, as you know, an old man, too old and infirm to visit much; he could not help you; and Mr. Sparks, at Sealing, has a large family, a wife who is always delicate, and a small salary. Poor fellow! he means to do his duty; but his only servant is a little girl, and after a wakeful night, walking up and down with the baby, he has to see to the furnace fire, split the wood, and do 'chores' generally. Then he has his sermons to write, his parishioners to visit, and little tea-drinkings to grace with his presence; of all of which duties I admit he acquits himself irreproachably. He is, in fact, quite a model parson, and so, I assure you, he is considered at Sealing; but, as you may imagine, he has little time for miscellaneous visiting among the poor. Indeed, he is only too glad to have Father Barry assume almost the whole of that hard work, and is on the best of terms with him in private, though he rails against popery and the priesthood from the pulpit in the most popular manner. No; I don't advise you to be guided either by our Congregationalist brother here, or our Methodist brother at Sealing. Father Barry knows every poor family for twenty miles around, and he can give you as much and more work than you can attend to." By this time they were nearing home and the doctor said,

"I am glad you are not discouraged by this little accident, at the outset of your benevolent works; it is brave of you, and deserves better success next time. You have done well for the beginning, and have reason to feel happy. I will go over to McNally's to-morrow, and frighten him a little, and in the afternoon, or the next day, you can go to see his wife again."

Dr. James declined to come in; he shook hands warmly with Margaret, and drove away. Miss Spelman was very curious to know what had taken place on the drive.

"Rather about his friend the priest; how strange that he should think so much of him."

Miss Spelman shook her head, "I don't approve of that intercourse; these priests are very sly, and who knows that he may not be a Jesuit in disguise? I have warned the doctor about it, but he is very self-willed. Would you believe it, my dear? The only place he ever goes on Sundays is to the Catholic mass, either at Sealing[355] or here, where they have it in the hall once a month; on which occasion Father Barry always dines with him. I do not mean to say that Dr. James goes to the mass every Sunday, for he often sleeps late on that day; but he never goes to church anywhere else."

"I don't blame him," said Margaret, "for not enjoying Dr. Thorndike's sermons; they always put me to sleep; or Mr. Sparks's either, for that matter, they are so intensely commonplace! I am sure I could write a great deal better ones, without having been to college or studied divinity, either."

CHAPTER XII.
PROGRESS.

Margaret did not see the doctor till the next evening; she had been very busy all day, and so had he; but as she was playing cribbage with Miss Spelman, after tea, he made his appearance, and, declaring that he had plenty of time, and that they must finish their game, he sat down before the fire and waited till Miss Spelman triumphantly announced:

"It is a rubber, too," Margaret observed, rising and approaching the fire. "Now, Doctor James, I have some business to talk over with you, and you must come with me into the dining-room; or I will put on my cloak, and we will go out on the piazza."

"It is moonlight out there," remarked Miss Spelman, "if you only dress warm enough."

"And will the moon retire behind a cloud, if I should insist on catching cold, aunty? But you need not be afraid; my cloak is very warm; I will put the hood over my head, and we will walk fast up and down all the time. Shall we not, Doctor James?"

They proceeded to the piazza, and began their promenade, while Miss Spelman, taking occasion to go into the dining-room, stood there in the dark, smiling as she watched their figures pass back and forth before the window. "It is all going just right," she thought; "how much they always have to say to each other!"

Meanwhile, as soon as they had stepped out of the window, Margaret began, "Well, Doctor James, where do you suppose I have been to-day?"

"Really!" he exclaimed, now surprised indeed, for he had not imagined she would act so promptly on their talk of the previous evening. He did not yet understand the energy of her character, her activity and earnestness, which made a resolve and its fulfilment almost simultaneous.

"Why are you surprised? Listen, and I will tell you all about it. I had such a remarkable adventure! You see Miss Burney and I drove to Sealing this morning, as usual. I did not tell her a word of what I was going to do; I only worked on her sensibilities a little about the McNallys; not that I wanted her to do any thing for them, but merely because I felt like harrowing somebody's feelings. After I had left her, I took my lesson, shopped a little, paid a visit to those silly Gleeson girls—putting off the evil day, you see—and then went straight to Father Barry's house. As I approached, I saw a woman coming out of the gate, holding in her hand two plates—one turned upside down[356] —evidently containing something good. She was talking to herself and saying, 'O God bless him! God bless him!' and did not seem to see me or any thing else. My curiosity was roused, and I stopped her by asking, 'God bless whom? And what have you got in those plates?' She stared at me for a moment, and then exclaimed, 'Oh! but he is a darling man!' 'God bless and reward him!' and so on. At last I extorted from her that his reverence had given her 'a bit of lovely steak,' for her sick daughter at home. I was interested, and hurried past her, up the steps, where I found the door ajar, left so probably by the woman, in coming out. I was a little curious, I acknowledge, and hence did not stop to ring. After entering, I paused to consider what I should do next. There were two closed doors on one side of the entry, and one half open, on the other. I approached the one that was partly open, and stood on the threshold of—what do you suppose? actually the dining-room, with Father Barry seated at the table, eating bread and butter, with a dish of potatoes on the table, and before him a saucer containing two boiled eggs. I understood how things were, at a glance; he had sent his own dinner away with that woman, and was dining on eggs instead. Why are you laughing?" Margaret exclaimed, suddenly breaking off.

"The whole thing is so amusing, and I would say so characteristic. Your stopping the woman, entering the house as if it belonged to you, seeing all that poor Father Barry was eating for his dinner, and then making so complete a story out of the whole affair. Forgive me for laughing; you can't think how interested I am. Will you not go on?"

Margaret, who had been perfectly serious herself, after a moment's pause continued, "I was taken aback, you may be sure, and begged pardon in a very confused manner; but Father Barry rose, and, with the utmost politeness, asked me if there was any thing he could offer me. I thought to myself that there was not much left to offer any one. So I asked permission to wait till he had finished, and he showed me into a sort of parlor, where something, which must have been a confessional, made part of the furniture; and there I sat and stared at large maps of the county and of Ireland, and pictures of a pope and of the Virgin, for about ten minutes, when he came and asked me to excuse him for keeping me waiting. He knew me before I told him my name, and seemed surprised when I explained what I had come for. He said he wished he could give me Sunday-school work to do, but as I was not a Catholic, that was impossible. However, there was quite enough of other work to be done. He was very kind, and we soon came to a good understanding. The first family he spoke of were the McNallys, and he proposed—only think how sensible!—that I should give John some work to do. He said shoes were very much needed among his Sunday-school children, this winter; so he proposed that I should order a number of pairs of different sizes, and bring them by instalments, for him to distribute among his children. Altogether, I was very glad I went, and I see that his advice will be most useful. I am going again on Friday."

"I am sure you have been quite successful. Still, don't undertake more than you can perform."

"No. Father Barry said the same; I will take care not to overdo things in the beginning, because I mean to keep it up."

"I found John McNally," said[357] the doctor, "quite overcome by shame and remorse; he was sure the lady would never trust him again. I told him he did not deserve that she should. I was very harsh at first, and only allowed myself to be softened by degrees. At last I told him that his rent was paid, and that I would try to get him work."

"And I found Rose sitting up, this afternoon," said Margaret. "She would like to do a little plain sewing when she is better, and I said I would get her some. She says they could get along very well, if John could only have steady work to do; but it is so much easier to buy shoes in Sealing, that people forget him. Now, Dr. James, I have a plan of moving them to Sealing, and getting a little shoe-shop for John, and then they would be sure to prosper, for he is a good workman, I hear."

"Let me caution you against beginning too impulsively in favor of this one family. Remember that there are others in want, and you cannot do so much for all. Besides, I have known a sudden stroke of good luck to prove the ruin of poor and honest people like these. I think we can get John more work, and I will take care that other people do not forget him."

Margaret was reluctantly persuaded to give up the plan of a removal to Sealing, and only comforted herself by ordering of McNally fifty pairs of shoes for Father Barry's Sunday-school children.

CHAPTER XIII.
A PROOF OF FRIENDSHIP.

There is no need of describing more fully the three winter months that Margaret passed at Shellbeach. The time went faster than ever, after she had offered her services to Father Barry. Under his direction, she did great good; more indeed than any one knew of, for she had obtained a promise from the good priest that he would not speak of her charities. So when Dr. James once or twice tried to lead his friend to speak about the matter, Father Barry, desirous that she should not lose the reward of the "Father who seeth in secret," only smiled and said, "She knows all about it, you must go to her." As for the McNallys, Margaret still considered them as her protégés, and cherished in private the project for improving their condition.

Then she had done something else, a thing of which she was very proud, and of which she often afterward boasted—she had taught a roomful of children in the public school at Sealing! Old Mr. Burney was growing more and more infirm, and seemed threatened with the entire loss of his mind. It became every day more difficult to leave him; and one morning, Margaret, on calling as usual for her friend, found that her father had had a shock of paralysis, and could not be left. Martha had planned to send an excuse by Margaret for her absence; but she could think of no person to supply her place, and she was completely surprised by Margaret's announcing her intention to try her hand at managing the children! All remonstrance was in vain, and having received a few brief directions, Margaret drove rapidly away to Sealing. How her fashionable friends in New York would have opened their eyes, had they been favored with a sight of Miss Lester hearing two or three dozen children recite the multiplication-table!

She returned in the afternoon, radiant, and, as she herself said, "hungry as a bear." She gave glowing accounts to Martha of her success, and begged to be allowed to try the[358] experiment again on the morrow. Some of the boys, she remarked, evidently "took her measure;" but after trying a little impertinence, they gave it up as a bad job, and every thing went as well as Martha could have desired. For three days, Margaret kept this up, and gained the hearts of even the most obdurate of her scholars. How delighted she was with her success! At the end of that period, as old Mr. Burney had grown better, Margaret's school duties came to a close.

CHAPTER XIV.
MARGARET'S COURAGE.

It was early spring. The buds were swelling, the birds beginning to sing, and a week of mild weather had filled every one's heart with a longing for out-of-door life, when an excursion was planned by a few of the Sealing young people, to a wild and beautiful spot called the Glen, a few miles inland, a favorite resort for picnic parties. There were a dozen in all, and they were to go in a large open wagon with four seats, and take their provisions with them. It was the custom of the place for the young men to have the nominal getting-up of these excursions; that is, they incurred the expense of the "team" and the trouble of invitations, while the girls prepared the eatables. There was always to be an equal number of ladies and gentlemen; the couples were arranged beforehand, and each youth was in duty bound to devote himself to his companion unremittingly, during the drive and at the place of the picnic.

Dr. James had agreed to join this party, an almost unheard-of thing for him to do, and the committee of arrangements had assigned him to Margaret, as her escort. This was disinterested on the part of the other ladies; for although they were not supposed to have a voice in the distribution of the gentlemen, their influence was certainly felt, as one or two of the committee very conveniently had sisters, who gave their advice at home, and communicated to their intimate friends the results of their important deliberations. It was disinterested in them, then, to allow Miss Lester to have as her escort the doctor, who was a great favorite, and by far the most desirable man, in the towns of Sealing and Shellbeach combined, for an escort, a partner, a husband, or what not. Added to this, it was quite an honor to have him devote so much of his precious time to their picnic; he was, in fact, the lion of the party, and perhaps no one else could have been selected for his companion without exciting disapprobation, to say the least, in the minds of many of the others. So it seemed to be a wise as well as a magnanimous plan which gave to Margaret the privilege of the exclusive attention of Dr. James for one whole afternoon.

A perception of the state of the case dawned upon her, as the great wagon stopped at Miss Spelman's door, and she inwardly smiled when, after seeing her contribution to the feast safely packed away, she took her place between the doctor and a young man, who was usually accounted for as being "in the bank," though what office he held in that important institution was left rather uncertain.

She resolved to repay the politeness of the rest of the party by making herself generally agreeable, and monopolizing her escort as little as possible. In this she succeeded admirably, and the whole company were in high spirits and enjoying themselves to the utmost when they reached the Glen, and began to walk through pastures and over rough and broken ground, before reaching the bed of[359] the brook, where the picnic proper was to be held. All the provisions were set down on the high, flat rock which answered for a table, and then the party broke up into couples, as the girls expressed their inclinations, some to sit down on the rocks and others to explore the woods or follow up the stream to its source.

Margaret, to whom every thing was new and interesting, wished to go through the Glen, and proposed that they should climb the wooded bank above them, follow the stream through the woods, and return by the rocks. Dr. James was very willing, and they set out on their scramble up the bank, and then along the edge, catching at branches or roots of trees for support, and slipping frequently on the wet last year's leaves and damp earth. It was all fun to Margaret; she laughed with an almost childish delight at every difficulty, refused all assistance, and kept generally ahead of her companion, who seemed inclined to take the rough climbing more leisurely, and was not enraptured when the treacherous leaves landed him in a hole, or a seemingly firm bough which he grasped gave way in his hand, and almost made him lose his balance and fall.

At last the head of the Glen was reached; a turn had hidden the rest of the party from them, and their voices sounded faint and distant.

"Now we will go down to those lovely green meadows," said Margaret. "But, O Dr. James! what is that?"

"Only a bridge across, made of a great pine log. You see the top has been smoothed."

"Certainly, if you wish. I have been foolish enough to cross it before, and am willing to do so again."

"Because it is dangerous. It is only a few steps across, I acknowledge. But look down; how would you like to fall among those rocks?"

At this moment three or four of the party came round a huge rock which had hidden them from sight, and evidently noticed the two standing by the bridge.

"You need not try to frighten me, Dr. James; my nerves are not easily shaken. Come, shall I go first?"

"If you please. Your stick may be a sort of balance-pole; imagine yourself on the tight-rope, and look steadily at that little tree before you; don't look down. I am in earnest, Miss Lester."

Margaret looked at him, laughed, and stepped on the little bridge. The people who were looking at them were frightened, and the girls turned away their faces. Margaret made three steady steps, then paused.

Two steps more and her stick dropped, she staggered, and put her hands to her head.

But she felt a strong hand on each of her shoulders, and a voice of command said,

"Fix your eyes on that tree, and walk straight on." She obeyed, and three more steps brought her to firm ground. Instantly, almost before her feet touched the bank, the doctor withdrew his hands, and without a word, with a displeased and gloomy face, preceded her down the bank. He was saying to himself,

"Now we shall have a scene, and she will say she owes her life to me, and call me her preserver, or some such nonsense."

Margaret leaned for a moment against the little tree she had been told to look at so steadfastly, and then followed her companion through the[360] woods. He walked so fast that she was soon out of breath trying to overtake him. When she had done so, she said in a low voice,

"I am vain and contemptible. I despise myself more than I can express. Forgive me for giving you so much trouble."

Dr. James turned; his face was clear, and he smiled upon her with a smile that was sunshine itself; he did not reply, but walked slowly by her side, then stooped, and holding something out to her, said,

"See, here are the first flowers; the little hepatica ventures out before all the rest. Will you take it? How pretty it is! how delicate the colors are; and the stem is covered with fur. Notice the green and brown leaves, too; they add to its beauty and singularity. It is my favorite flower."

The deep flush in Margaret's face had died away, and her voice had resumed its usual tone when they joined the rest of the party, and sat down to the feast; but her gayety was gone, and it seemed as if nothing could recall it. She was abstracted and serious, and not in accordance with the merriment around her. At last she arose, and went to a rock, on which she leaned, and watched the little minnows darting about in a green pool of water, when she was startled by the doctor's voice close beside her. He held toward her a small silver tumbler, filled with iced claret and water, and said in an undertone,

"Miss Lester, how can you let a trifle weigh so on your mind, and cloud all your enjoyment?" He was smiling in a friendly way; but she looked at him reproachfully, and said,

"You are right," he replied gravely; "nothing ought to be called a trifle whose consequences might be serious; though attendant circumstances make us look at the same thing in such different lights at different times. On the bridge, and when I felt angry with you afterward, your conduct seemed to me a most weighty matter; now I can with difficulty recall any thing except the honesty and courage of your apology. Having seen and humbly acknowledged your fault, will you not now confer a favor on the whole party by forgetting what is past?"

Margaret smiled, and saying, "I will, at least, forget myself," accompanied him back to the party.

She did her part very well, and, owing in a great measure to her efforts, the rest of the picnic and the moonlight drive home were quite as pleasant as the setting out had been.

"She is a brave woman," the doctor said to himself that night in his study; but Margaret was quite unconscious that his opinion of her had been raised instead of lowered, by the occurrences of the picnic party at the Glen.

CHAPTER XV.
A CHANGE.

This little mortification—and it really was one to Margaret's high spirit, owing to her anxiety to stand well in Dr. James's opinion—should have been a lesson to her to give up contradicting him, and opposing her own will to his, and for a time it was so; and yet that very wish to please, of which she was conscious and ashamed, made her often dispute with and appear to oppose him, when she would have liked to agree and do as he advised.

She began to realize something else, too, that had the effect of making her surround herself, as it were, with an armor of prickles and thorns; so that her intercourse with the doctor was far from peaceful or pleasant.[361] She felt that the work she was doing among the poor was wholly with and for Father Barry; she was helping him, not Dr. James; and this, she felt, was the doing of the latter, and not without a reason. At first, when he had recommended her to take the priest as her adviser, she had felt a cooling of enthusiasm; still, having said she meant to persevere, she would not draw back.

It would have been sweet to her, she knew it now, to help the doctor; to be his friend, confidant, coadjutor; to feel that she was making his labor, which she revered and sympathized with, easier and pleasanter. But he had made that impossible; he had directed her to go to some one else for help, for counsel, for support, while he stood alone as before, and had never again applied to her for assistance for his patients, though she had once or twice asked if she could not relieve them. She understood the pride which prevented him from accepting her money, or placing himself under obligations to her. "He does not like me well enough to let me help him," she said to herself; and she soon abandoned all those efforts to make herself agreeable to him, which at first came so naturally to her.

The picnic lesson, therefore, though by no means forgotten, had ceased to influence her actions; and when the real spring-time came, with mild air, and young, fresh green, as May drew to its close and June was at hand, Margaret had managed to quarrel with Dr. James several times, and had made herself unhappy and him far from comfortable. He began to come less often to his old friend, Miss Spelman's, and to hear less of Margaret's plans and doings.

Miss Selina was much puzzled at the turn things were taking, and yet, when they disputed, she was half the time uncertain whether they were in fun or in earnest; and it did no good to remonstrate with Margaret; for the incomprehensible girl agreed with all she said, and acknowledged the doctor to be perfectly right.

The friendship with Martha Burney continued, however, and at her house Margaret always appeared to the best advantage, even before Dr. James. She seemed to stand somewhat in awe of her older friend, and was desirous to please; and besides, she had made a kind of agreement with herself that when she met the doctor there, she might allow herself to be as pleasant and conciliatory as her inclinations led her to be. She was in a peculiar frame of mind, and this curious compromise can be better described than explained.

In the mean time, old Mr. Burney gradually became more and more feeble; soon he lost his mind to such a degree as not to be able even to recognize his faithful daughter; and at last, early in May, he died. Margaret could not understand how Martha could grieve as she did at his loss; knowing his character and former misdoings, and seeing him a broken-down, witless old man, the daughter's sorrow seemed to her unreasonable; but when Martha talked of him as he was once, when his wife was living, handsome and brave and generous, the idol of those two fond women, it made her think of her own dear and noble father, lying alone in his quiet resting-place in the little Swiss graveyard, and she found she could give the sympathy and comfort which before were impossible.

His death made little apparent difference. Martha, after the funeral, went quietly on with her school duties, till she "could think of something more useful to do," she said; and her little household was as quiet and homely as usual, only, as it seemed[362] to other people, much pleasanter. But Martha said,

"Oh! it was such a difference; she could not work with half the spirit now that it was only for herself; she had always had some one to live for, and now she could not feel any interest in what she did."

Margaret often went for her in her phaeton and brought her back to her aunt's to tea, and there grew up between them a sympathy and affection that was destined to last for life.

THE SANITARY TOPOGRAPHY OF NEW YORK CITY.

The rapid growth of New York City is at present exciting universal interest throughout the country; and as a place of residence, or in a business point of view, it would be difficult to over-estimate the vast advantages it possesses. Nature has lavished upon the island its choicest gifts; surrounded on one side by the East and Harlem rivers, on the other by the beautiful Hudson, the "Rhine of America," as an entirety, its advantages for natural drainage and general healthfulness cannot be surpassed. But eighteen miles from the Atlantic Ocean, with an admirable harbor, the nations of the earth already vie with each other in pouring into the lap of this infant giant their most costly productions and most beautiful works of art. It is now the most populous city and the greatest commercial emporium of the western hemisphere, and stands with its youthful vigor a proud rival of the largest cities of the old world. With the vast undeveloped wealth of free America, and the energy and ambition of her sturdy sons to press it forward, is it not easy to foreshadow the prospective importance of this metropolis of the Union?

But one subject of uneasiness presents itself in this glance at the future, and that is the rather limited space which nature's barriers have allowed us, and which threatens eventually to stop the progress of the city. "Manhattan Island is but thirteen and one half miles long, and has an average width of one and three fifths miles. This gives an area of twenty-two square miles, or fourteen hundred acres."[62]

We may consider the city as pretty solidly built up as far north as Fifty-ninth street, the border of Central Park. The census of next year will probably show the population to number between thirteen and fourteen hundred thousand souls; and the rate of increase is estimated to be between six and seven per cent per annum. Thus the population of the island in 1880 will number far above two millions, and the city be extended as far northward as Ninetieth street. There are but "37,244 lots of full size, that is, twenty-five by one hundred feet, between Eighty-sixth and One Hundred and Fifty-fifth street."[63] This shows conclusively that before many more such decades of years roll round, every available [363] portion of the island will be built upon, and our further expansion apparently prevented. But this, we hope, will be obviated by the erection of the East River bridge, and other modes of rapid transit to our sister city, Brooklyn, and the Jersey shore; thus enabling us to bring within our limits all the territory that will be required.

For the present, the rapidly increasing number of our commercial houses and the consequent greed for space shown by trade in the lower part of the city, as well as our constantly augmenting population, show conclusively that the better class of residents now occupying locations south of Thirty-fourth street will be obliged to look elsewhere for homes. That this is to be the case no one can doubt, who has studied the progress of business marts in their up-town march, during the last two years. The invasion of Union Square, the magnificent buildings on Broadway between Eighteenth and Nineteenth streets, the "Grand Hotel," and, more than all else, the appropriation of the lower end of Fifth Avenue for public galleries, attest this fact, and warn us that no prominent location below Thirty-fourth street will, in a short time, be safe from the all-powerful grasp of this insatiable demand. With this fact before us, the question arises, What portion of the island offers the greatest prospective permanency for private residences, and at the same time the best inducements for the happiness and physical well-being of the people?

That tract of the island bounded on the south by Thirty-fourth street, on the east by Lexington avenue, on the west by Sixth avenue, and on the north by Fifty-seventh street, is undoubtedly very desirable property; but with our rapid growth it is impossible to tell what it will be twenty years hence; and besides, we are lured past this portion by the many advantages offered by the section north of it.

We have now before us the Central Park, extending from Fifth Avenue on the east, to Eighth avenue on the west; and stretching out in picturesque beauty from Fifty-ninth to One Hundred and Tenth street. To the east and west of this, we find topographically a very different character of country. On the east side from Fifty-ninth to Ninetieth street, the surface is very uneven; in some parts ledges of rock run up one hundred and twenty feet above tide-water, and then abruptly descend into valleys almost on a level with tide-water; and here are found the beds of old streams, so many of which formerly rolled their sluggish waters through this portion of the island into the East River. The general fall is eastward, though not sufficiently so to make natural drainage into the river good. From Ninetieth street to the Harlem River, we have a perfectly flat plain; unbroken, with the exception of Mount Morris Square, by any marked elevation. The land lies but little above tide-water, and presents every appearance of being to a great extent "made ground." This supposition is further strengthened by the alluvial character of the soil. Many suppose that a branch of the Hudson once flowed across the island at Manhattanville to Hell Gate; but we believe that originally the upper portion of Manhattan was a distinct island, and have no doubt the waters of the Hudson washed freely between the two, and in time the amount of soil gradually deposited on either bank limited and eventually closed the gap, thus giving us our present formation.

To appreciate, one must see the romantic beauty presented by the bold bluff of rocky formation against which the crystal waters of the Hudson dash in ceaseless waves and eddies. At points forming ascents from seventy to one hundred and forty feet above tide-water, it stretches away, with varying elevation and constantly changing scenery until it reaches Manhattanville. There, as if to make space to cradle the village in its rocky embrace, for a few blocks it disappears, only to rise in more stately proportions beyond, forming its crowning glory of landscape grandeur at Washington Heights.

With a view to the prospective physical health of the city, the authorities should do every thing possible to destroy the extensively prevailing malaria found in it, which emanates from the large tract of made ground along the East River, and from the beds of the original streams, which covered acres of land in the primitive state of the island. Few people fully comprehend the insidiousness of this poison which affects the system in such a variety of ways and shows such erratic developments that at times the skill of the physician is baffled in attempting to detect its presence. It is rendered more permanent in many locations by the miserable condition of the sewers, and, where these have not been built, by the irregular grading of streets forming obstructions to the natural drainage of the soil. Again, in many places where sewers have been provided, as along the course of Seventy-fourth street between Third and Fifth avenues, they do not seem to entirely prevent the generation of the poison, as intermittent and remittent [365] fevers are still rife in the surrounding districts: not properly filling up the beds of the streams in many of these cases may, however, account for this.

Owing to its rocky formation, malaria has found a home in but few locations in the north-western section of the city; and if these are examined, they will generally be found to be lots which, by the grading of the streets, have been made lower than the side-walks. When these are properly filled, the deleterious influence they exert will disappear. In addition to this, the level of this section is so much above tide-water that it possesses every advantage for natural, and, when that does not prove sufficient, every facility for promoting artificial, drainage.

According to the report of the Board of Central Park Commissioners for last year, "the prevailing winds for the year were west and north-west." Let us see what comparative difference this makes to the two sections of the city under consideration. The west side receives this wind in all its bracing freshness directly after it has passed over the Jersey highlands, on the opposite side of the Hudson. It carries before it all the exhalations from this side toward the east, and imparts a healthful vigor to all who come within its influence. The east side, being so much below the level of the west, receives but little of the benefit to be derived from this wind. Again:

The absence of foliage is a great disadvantage in malarious districts, and here the east side of the city enjoys a marked superiority over the west in the ample and rich character of its soil, which, with proper cultivation would produce trees of luxurious foliage. On account of the small quantity and the poor quality of the soil in many locations in the north-western section of the island, trees are not as numerous as they should be; but it becomes only a greater duty to foster those we have, and to constantly increase their number by planting others in every desirable location. Too little regard has in all ages been paid to that beautiful harmony established by the wisdom of God in nature, and but few persons consider how essential the vegetable kingdom is to animal life. With each inspiration of air which we draw into our lungs to obtain oxygen, a certain amount of blood is purified, and throws off its carbon. [366] This carbon is rapidly absorbed by plants, and nurtures them; and in return they liberate the oxygen which is absolutely necessary for our being.

Man, in his ruthless desire to utilize, according to his weak appreciation, every thing placed within his power, destroys the very breastworks against disease and death with which the foresight of the Creator has surrounded him. Many instances are recorded where the removal of a grove of trees has rendered entire villages for ever afterward a prey to the innumerable miseries produced by malarial poison. This fact has been recognized from the earliest days, and demonstrated so clearly by experience, that the more intelligent inhabitants of rural districts, where marshes abound, build their homes so that winds passing over them, and consequently laden with their pestilential exhalations, shall be intercepted by some belt of forest-trees. Many parts of Italy would be uninhabitable without the protection of its luxurious vegetable productions, and it is well known that the citizens of Rome are thus shielded from the south-west wind passing over the dreaded Pontine marshes. The salutary influence of foliage is not felt in the case of malaria alone; observers have noticed the comparative immunity from epidemic diseases also enjoyed by those whose homes are thus protected. During the prevalence of cholera in Burlington, Iowa, in 1850, this was strikingly demonstrated.

Trees are useful to us in another respect; they moderate temperature. In winter, the heat of the earth is constantly ascending their trunks to be given to the air. It is well known that large forests decidedly lessen the intense cold, and, in summer, moderate the extreme heat, by the great amount of moisture which they exhale from their leaves. Again, who has not felt the happy influence a forest has upon the mind? How our petty troubles melt away, and our hearts expand with grateful homage, when we listen to the tuneful harmony [367] of æolian sweetness, as the feathered songsters of the grove, and the passing breezes rustling through the verdant foliage unite to form nature's orchestra, wafting upward one grand strain of praise to the Deity. And when, in the autumn of our lives, borne down by blighted hopes and ruined ambition, we seek the forest's solitude, every fitful breeze sounds a low wail of sympathy, falling in gentle cadence on the crushed heart.

The young growth of the trees is particularly noticeable in Central Park, and in this respect it will be many years before we can rival Druid Hill Park near Baltimore, where the grand old trees, raising their majestic heads toward heaven, seem whispering to every passing zephyr hymns of adoration. Here, art may carve meandering roads, span the crystal streams with elaborate bridges, erect statues in honor of man, decorate and adorn to suit the taste of the most fastidious; but high above all these, the majestic oaks wave their luxuriant foliage, and assert the superiority of the works of the Creator over the imitations of the creature. Thus it needs but a moment's consideration to see what a material advantage to our comfort, physical well-being, and happiness trees are; and to understand why our broad avenues should be bordered with them, and their growth fostered as much as possible in our parks; and we may rest assured that succeeding generations will bless us for the forethought which will add so much to the beauty and healthfulness of our metropolis.

The eastern portion of all large cities is devoted to manufacturing purposes, and New York presents no exception to this almost universal rule. By reason of the comparatively level and easily graded character of the east side, buildings were rapidly erected along the line of the Second, Third, and Fourth avenues; and the suburban villages of Harlem and Yorkville have been most remunerative to property-holders on that side of the park. The easy access to the points above named by the city railroads has drawn that kind of capital which invests in good substantial tenant-houses. These pay sufficiently well to prevent their being demolished, even with a prospect of better pecuniary results from a higher class of property; and thus are always an obstacle in the way of first-class improvements in a neighborhood.

The east side possesses a great many advantages which will in time increase its commerce, and render its entire river-side most valuable. Already numbers of manufactories, lumber-yards, and other business places occupy nearly the entire water-front as high as Fiftieth street; and the easy approach to, and gentle slope of its bank offering great facility for landing merchandise, will rapidly increase their number toward the northern extremity of the island. Again, should the attempt to relieve Hell Gate of its dangerous rocks be successful, a new era of prosperity will dawn for the East River shore, and every foot of its extent at once receive increased valuation. Piers will spring into existence, and vessels of every description bearing the precious wares of every clime, will seek this hitherto inhospitable channel, and thus lessen their tedious voyage by at least two hundred miles.

North of Fifty-ninth street on the west side, with the exception of the squatter's shanty, removable at a few days' legal notice, there is nothing to impede the numerous and beautiful improvements designed by the Central Park Commissioners, to whose judgment this work is intrusted. These improvements consist in laying[368] out parks and public drives, and in adding in every possible way to the natural advantages of this section. First, at the intersection of Broadway, Eighth avenue, and Fifty-ninth street we will have the Circle, with a radius of two hundred and sixteen feet. This will provide at once an opening to the grand Boulevard, and also add to the beauty of the entrance at this point to Central Park. The ground around this circle will undoubtedly present one of the finest positions in the city for public buildings, and will become as valuable for this purpose as that in the neighborhood of Union Square. In this connection we would express a hope that the commissioners will reconsider the great mistake they have made in closing Sixtieth street between Eighth avenue and the Boulevard, thereby cutting off the view of the park and its grand entrance from the residents of that street. It would add much to the finish of the circle, and the beauty of the approach to the park, if Fifty-ninth street retained to either river the width it has between Fifth and Eighth avenues. Eventually a ferry will be established at either extremity of this street, for the accommodation of persons desiring to visit the park; and this with other circumstances, combines to make it very desirable that it should be one of the wide streets. Several efforts have been made to have the Belt Railroad running on this street removed to Fifty-eighth street, but so far without success. As this change is desired by the property-owners and residents in the neighborhood of the park, it is hoped it will be effected by the Legislature during their session this winter.

From the north-western portion of the circle issues the boulevard mentioned above. This will be in reality the extension of Broadway, and is designed to be one hundred and fifty feet wide, with twenty-two feet of its central portion reserved for a grass-plot, to be bordered on either side with shade-trees. It will extend along the line of the old Broadway road "crossing Ninth avenue at Sixty-fifth street and Tenth avenue at Seventy-second street, and then passing about midway between the Tenth and Eleventh avenues to One Hundred and Fourth street, where it bends to the westward, following the line of the Bloomingdale road, and strikes the Eleventh avenue at One Hundred and Seventh street, and then follows the Eleventh avenue to One Hundred and Fifty-fifth street. Beyond One Hundred and Fifty-fifth street it continues as a part of the improvements of the Fort Washington district, which are now being carried out by the commissioners under the law of 1865,"[69] framed for this purpose.

Then we have the Zoölogical Garden, which is considered a portion of Central Park, and which is to occupy the space bounded by Seventy-seventh street on the south, Ninth avenue on the west, Eighty-first street on the north, and Eighth avenue on the east. It should properly be extended, taking in the same blocks from Seventy-seventh to Eighty-first street, as an arm of the park, and crossing the intervening avenues and boulevard by arched bridges, to the Riverside Park, which skirts the Hudson. This last will be one of the most beautiful improvements on the island. Commencing at Seventy-second street, with the rocky highland, it continues along the bank of the Hudson as far north as One Hundred and Thirtieth street. It will be bounded on the east by the new River-bank avenue, which runs along the crest of the highland, and is to be [369] one hundred feet wide, and on the west by Twelfth avenue. It is difficult to imagine a more charming variety of scenery than this park must present from its many prominent points. A continuous view of the Hudson for miles will be seen, with the bold highlands of New Jersey on the opposite shore, and the limpid waters of the river adding variety to the charming landscape. Turning toward the north, Fort Washington looms up in grand proportions against the distant horizon, covered with rich foliage, and studded here and there with princely mansions. Glancing eastward, the park, with its charming intermingling of natural and artificial beauty, stretches away toward the East River in endless variety of lawn, shrubbery, and pebbly pathway; while to the south a grand panoramic view of the island city is presented, with its myriad towers and steeples of public buildings and of churches, all attesting the prosperity and wealth of the people. We hope the Park Commissioners will consider the extension we have above suggested. If made now, its expense would be light in comparison with the increased value of the property bordering the proposed connections; while the combination of the two parks, the boulevard, and the Zoölogical Garden would form a succession of grand pleasure-grounds such as no city of the world can now boast of.

We have still to mention Morningside Park, which is to commence at One Hundred and Tenth street, and extend as far north as One Hundred and Twenty-third street. It will be somewhat irregular in form and its southern portion will be bounded on either side by one of the new avenues, and the northern extremity by Ninth and Tenth avenues. It is most fortunate that the original intention of cutting down the grade of the streets in this section has been changed, and the matter left to the option of the Central Park Commissioners. We may rest assured that excellent taste will harmonize their improvements, and every notable point be reserved for some artistic design, and thus no natural advantage be destroyed which would add to the beautiful symmetry of the whole.

During the progress of these vast improvements a permanent system of sewerage should be devised for the comfort and convenience of the inhabitants of this district. At present this could be readily effected, as in many parts of the boulevard, Eighth avenue, and side streets, the grade will have to be raised several feet above the present level. This is particularly noticeable in the boulevard in the neighborhood of Eighty-fourth street, where the old Broadway road must lie twenty feet below the grade of the grand drive. It should also be a question as to the kind of sewer to be adopted. We are convinced that throwing away the contents of our sewers is an irreparable error, as all the débris passing through them should be used as a fertilizing agent. Throughout the country, but more particularly in the South, is the reckless abuse of the soil noticeable. Our farmers sow and reap their crops year after year until the earth is worn out, and loses its productive power; then they seek new fields. Our territory is so vast, that the effect of this wretched mode of farming has not as yet been felt; but it must be, sooner or later. In many parts of Europe, the same ruinous policy has been pursued, and now the inhabitants are obliged to import guano to sufficiently revivify their impoverished land to raise even the lightest crop. We are happy to see that some of our public men have had their attention drawn to this fact. Senator Sprague in a[370] recent conversation said, "We are rapidly exhausting our virgin soil, without furnishing it the means of recovery in the shape of fertilizers, and extending our railroads to new tracts as fast as we wear out the old cultivated ones." If we could deodorize the material from our sewers, and put it to practical uses, we would be gainers in many ways. In the first place, our piers would be relieved of the enormous quantity of decomposing matter which may constantly be seen festering under the sun's rays, and emitting pestilential exhalations; and secondly, a vast amount of valuable fertilizing material would be garnered from this large city, which would go far toward enriching the lands around us; and we may add that this experiment has been tried, and proved not only a success, but also highly remunerative.

It is an unquestionable fact that through the sewers of cities enormous quantities of the constituents of plants are conveyed into the sea, and unless saved and restored to the soil, the loss must be made up from other sources, or the lands become impoverished. From the London sewers, refuse matter is thrown into the river Thames; and so fearfully does this immense body of filth pollute its waters that it has been found necessary during warm weather to neutralize the impurity and destroy the foul gases by throwing large quantities of disinfectants into the river, costing the city as much as "£20,000 in the summer of 1859." They are now constructing an addition to their sewers which will carry their contents along the course of the river eight miles to Barking, into a reservoir a mile and a half long, and about one hundred feet wide by twenty-one feet deep. From this reservoir it will be, at high-tide, discharged, through numerous large pipes, into the middle and bottom of the river, at the depth of sixty feet below the surface. "The estimated cost of this vast work is about £4,000,000, and the time fixed for its completion five years."[71]

As the river Seine divides the city of Paris into two parts, so it divides the sewers into two districts, which formerly emptied their contents respectively on the right and left bank of the river. In order to prevent the infection of the water of the river, the main sewer of the left bank was made to pass its contents through a tunnel under the river, and empty them at Asnières, the same point where that of the right bank emptied, thus avoiding the current which washed the discharged material back upon the city.

Thus we see that the disposition of sewerage has always been a question of great import, even to cities situated on large streams of water, into which it could be turned. While proposing a system for at once doing [371] away with the nuisance caused by it, and at the same time utilizing it for fertilizing purposes, we are happy to add that it is not the first time the plan has been brought forward for New York. Professor Lewis A. Sayre during his administration as Resident Physician of this city, had regular plans drawn up and calculations made as to the cost of the entire work; and also what return could with certainty be expected from the investment. The designs were made by the late John Randall, of Maryland, one of the ablest civil engineers the country has ever produced.

The professor's idea was, to have the street excavated for some twelve feet below its grade. A substantial wall of masonry was to be built on either side to sustain the sidewalk, and a convex iron girder was to cross the entire width of the street, upon which the pavement could be laid. Within the inclosure thus made, the sewer, water, and gas-pipes could be placed, and trap-doors arranged at certain distances to make it possible to get at them without disturbing the pavement. Here could be carried on a vast laboratory for deodorizing the contents of the sewers. His plan also embraced a sort of trap by which the yard of each house communicated with the main sewer, and an arrangement by which the fluid portion was allowed to drain away from the solids, which in turn were to be dumped from the temporary reservoir in which they were received into a small car at the bottom of the excavation, and then carried to the laboratory by a regular railroad intersecting every portion of the city.

This general plan of subterranean sewerage may strike the eye of the uninitiated as very expensive; but when we consider the manipulation a street is subjected to from the time its boundaries are defined by the surveyor, until it has been handed over to the city as complete, by the last contractor, we think the plan will appear in a very different light. In the first place, take a street that requires filling up to a certain specified grade. Sealed proposals or bids are received from contractors for the work, and the party making the most advantageous offer obtains the contract, and in due course of time completes the work. Then, in all probability, a second party obtains a contract to at once put down some kind of pavement. After this, houses are built upon the street, and a sewer must be laid. This completed, the gas and Croton mains must be put down. Then each house must have separate sewer, gas, and water connection. Thus the pavement is perpetually torn up and relaid, each removal rendering it more unfit for travel. Why not, when the street was low enough to lay the sewer without turning out one shovelful of earth, put in the pipes for the sewer, gas, and water, and leave the laying of the pavement until it could be done without having it torn up four or five times for necessities which every one knows will arise? Let any one calculate the vast sums of money spent on a street, in these various changes, and we are sure the amount will be larger than the cost of the plan above proposed, with this great difference, that when the work is completed, in the latter case, a yield of from six to seven per cent upon the outlay could be at once expected, while in the former there would be constant call for additional expense in repairs. Where the grade of a street requires to be raised several feet, it is doubtful if it would cost much more to put up the two walls of masonry and the iron girders than it costs to fill up the space with earth and rocks. Contractors pay from forty to seventy-five[372] cents per load for this filling; and every one knows how very few square feet the carts used for this purpose hold. Again, the question of an underground railroad has been much discussed during the past few years. With this plan of sewerage, it would be no more expensive to carry such a railroad over the entire city, worked from given points by stationary engines and wire ropes, as is proposed for the overground railroad, than to lay such a road in the streets of the city; excepting that arrangements would have to be made at certain distances to enable passengers to go down to platforms below, for the purpose of entering the cars. This project would at once put into the hands of the city authorities a subterranean city, and also the vast revenues to be obtained from its underground railroads, and does not present half the difficulties that must have been experienced in bringing the Croton water across the Harlem River.

Having shown that nature has particularly favored that portion of the city which lies west of the park, and that, from present indications, the highest art will prevail in the magnificent improvements which are there going on, we will mention another cause, which will add weight to the many reasons already adduced, why it should in the future become the home of the fashion and wealth of the metropolis. If we look at the great capitals of Europe, we will notice the general tendency the affluent classes have shown to select their abodes in the western sections of these cities. Paris, London, St. Petersburg, Berlin, and others show this conclusively. In each, the western section is covered with the elegant palaces of the rulers and the costly mansions of the rich; while on the east side is found the bustling activity of the work-shops and manufactories. In a translation from Le Correspondant published in the April number of this magazine, the writer, speaking of this subject, says,

In the first part of this article the influence of "atmospheric pressure" was fully spoken of, as also the effect of the winds so favorable to residents on the west side. With these facts in view, it is easy to foresee that those who possess means will always purchase homes in this portion of the city, which offers the best security against disease and the greatest guarantee for continued physical health.

It is curious to go back to the commencement of the present century, and to note the changes in location the growth of the city has obliged the wealthy to make since that time. In the early days, State street, and then Bowling Green, offered to this class attractions superior to those of any other portion of the city. The ample shade of the latter, its stately forest-trees, verdant lawn, and beautiful walks, with the refreshing sea-breeze constantly blowing in from old ocean, and the magnificent moving panorama in the harbor, made it a great favorite of our forefathers.[373] They whiled away their time in this charming resort, smoking their pipes, and watching the merry gambols of the children. It may be, they canvassed the future of this goodly city, which under their thrifty influences already promised well, never dreaming, however, of the gigantic growth its future was to develop. In time this garden spot changed into the great entrepôt, where emigrant ships daily landed vast numbers eager to obtain employment and homes in this new country where every thing promised wealth and happiness. Greenwich street next absorbed within its precincts the votaries of fashion; soon after, it had for rivals in public favor East-Broadway and College Place. They, in turn, were deserted for the location between Fourth and Eighth streets. But the same agency being at work here as below, soon brought Union Square into requisition. After this, Fifth and Madison avenues became the grand centres of the opulent classes; and to-day the entire course of the former, with its long line of brown-stone architecture and regal grandeur, attracts the attention and challenges the admiration of the world. But after this avenue reaches Ninetieth street, its grade descends rapidly to the low level of the Harlem plains, and is no longer so desirable for residences. At the rate it is now being built upon, it will soon be completed to this point, and then in what direction will this current turn? The Harlem Railroad will always prove an insurmountable objection to Fourth avenue, which is behind it; and it does not require a prophet's power to foresee that the Grand Boulevard, the garden parks overlooking the Hudson, and the great aids to general healthfulness possessed by the west side, will prove sufficiently attractive to cause the next move to be in the direction of the beautiful sites which border these improvements.

The proposed widening of Broadway from Thirty-second to Fifty-ninth street adds certainty to this prediction. We think it most unfortunate that this change did not commence as low down as Seventeenth street, and we hope it may yet be found advisable to do so. We would then have a noble thoroughfare starting from the Battery, crossing the various avenues diagonally until it reached the beautiful circle at the Eighth avenue entrance to the park; and then continuing as the Grand Boulevard to the upper extremity of the island. This measure, which seems to meet with the disapprobation of a large portion of the community, if carried out, would, we are convinced, prove a crowning glory to the metropolis; and it is but fitting that the thoroughfare which is to vie with any other in the world should have a continuance in the lower part of the city worthy its princely magnificence; for it would then be a subject of pride not only to us but to the whole country, which would regard it as a national ornament.

We may also look forward to an ever-increasing commercial importance for the east side, with its long line of piers fronting the harbor, always filled with vessels bearing the flags of every commercial nation of the world.

Its shore will be covered with capacious warehouses and immense manufactories, from which will resound the noisy bustle and unceasing activity of trade.

A glance at the residences in the different locations mentioned above, as being at various times the homes of those possessing wealth, will show that each successive change has been marked by an increase in the lavish expenditure of means for the purpose[374] of producing architectural display. With this fact before us, we may form an idea of the palatial houses with which, by means of their rapidly increasing wealth, the rising generation will crown the hill-sides of the western section.

When the proposed improvements for this portion of our city have been completed, the whole, bounded on the one side by Central Park, with its many natural and artificial beauties appearing like a fairy-land, and on the other by the dancing waters of the Hudson, will give to our metropolis attractions superior to those possessed by the most celebrated cities of Europe.

THE BASILICA OF ST. PETER.

While visiting, two or three months since, the Vatican Basilica, it seemed to me there was a certain correspondence, a kind of harmony, between this monument and the great event of which it is soon to be the theatre. Since that time new observations have strengthened this first impression; then reminiscences of a different kind, the perusal of various works, unfortunately too limited in numbers, and especially a more attentive examination of St. Peter's, have had the effect of defining more clearly what at first was only a vague and confused perception.

Before my pilgrimage to Rome, I was so fortunate as to visit one of the cities which had for a long time been the objects of my most ardent curiosity. I refer to the humble Tyrolean city where, more than three hundred years ago, was held the last and most glorious of the general councils. The city of Trent presents nothing extraordinary to the eye of the traveller except, perhaps, a kind of trident of mountains which gives it its name, and which forms around it a group of natural fortifications truly grand. Certain monuments, among others the cathedral of a Roman style, and somewhat interesting, appeared to merit some attention. But that which attracts and interests the Catholic heart in the most lively degree is the church where the holy Œcumenical Council held its immortal sessions. It bears the name of St. Mary Major, the same as the great Roman basilica so generally known and venerated. In truth, this renowned title is hardly appropriate, if the dimensions of the edifice and its architectural merits alone are considered. In these respects it more nearly resembles our modest Parisian church of Notre Dame des Victoires. This comparison, without being wholly just, may yet give a good idea of the sanctuary rendered illustrious by the Council of Trent.

As to the local traditions respecting this august assembly, a sojourn far too short prevented me from collecting them as fully as I could have wished. According to the information of a respectable priest with whom I conversed a short time, a great revival of faith, the effects of which are still visible, took place in the city on the third commemorative centenary in the[375] month of June, 1863. This same ecclesiastic likewise informed me that the memory of our great Laynez has always been dear to the popular memory, and that the greatest eulogium that can be passed upon a man who devotes himself to works of charity is to compare him to that indefatigable apostle. Probably his learned discourses are nearly forgotten even in the places where they were delivered; his preaching is only remembered because of his deeds, a new proof, among so many others, in support of the divine word, "Wisdom passeth away, ... but charity shall never pass away."

Not far from the entrance of Santa Maria Maggiore is a monument, erected in 1855 for the first anniversary of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. It bears a statue of her "who has destroyed all heresies throughout the world," and for whom the fathers of the Council of Trent formally stipulated an exception in the decrees respecting the doctrine of original sin. I noticed in the interior of the church a painting representing one of the reunions of the council, and especially the crucifix which stood on a table in the centre of the nave and presided, so to speak, at those solemn assemblies. This crucifix may now be seen above one of the side altars. It is regarded with extreme veneration by the faithful. I will not attempt to depict my emotion in celebrating the holy mysteries before this sacred image with the same chalice the cardinal legate had used, which was kindly loaned me by the venerable chaplain. You can easily imagine that the place, the circumstances, and those precious relics, without mentioning my own inclinations, imposed it on me as a duty to offer up the holy sacrifice for the success of the approaching council.

On the whole, the city of Trent and the sanctuary of the council do not fully correspond with the solemn grandeur of the event which took place therein. It is unnecessary to say that this kind of contrast does not shock in the least a mind at all familiar with objects connected with the faith. This want of correspondence is frequently to be noticed even in a more striking degree. The least supernatural eye soon forgets the whole edifice and these material objects only to behold the great Christian wonders once wrought within so small a space. We say to ourselves, with profound emotion, that this is the cenacle of modern times—a real cenacle, in truth, where the light of the Holy Ghost was diffused more abundantly than had ever taken place since the day of Pentecost.

Without any great effort of the imagination I could see a figure of the religious renovation produced by the holy Council of Trent in circumstances, wholly accidental, that occurred at the time of my journey. It was during the latter part of the month of October. On the way from Botzen the country had been ravaged by an inundation of the Adige. Everywhere was a scene of desolation sad to behold. The following morning, on the contrary, just as we were starting for Italy, a glorious sun rose over the city of Trent. The bold summits that surround it were crowned with such lights as are only seen in mountainous countries. Clouds of magic brilliancy hung here and there over the deep gorges and on the heights, the fields had resumed their joyous and smiling aspect, even the traces of the inundation were less sad to behold, and our eyes could linger with a pleasure almost without alloy on the magnificence of nature.

The council of the nineteenth century, for which preparations are now[376] being made at Rome and throughout the civilized world, cannot be less fruitful than that of the sixteenth in the regeneration and salvation of souls. The gravest reasons on every hand appear to justify this hope, and perhaps it is allowable to find a significant sign of it in the happy choice of the place where this great court of Catholicity is to be held. At all events, the basilica of St. Peter is certainly the most suitable theatre in the whole world in which to assemble an œcumenical council. Every thing about it is marvellously adapted to this purpose; every thing seems to reveal a preconceived harmony that divine Providence is so often pleased to manifest in the accomplishment of his august designs. In speaking thus, I only express differently, if I am not mistaken, the idea of Sixtus III. in the fifth century. This pontiff, having convoked in the ancient basilica of St. Peter a certain number of bishops, wrote to Cyril, the patriarch of Alexandria, to announce this synod, and, among other things, wrote these remarkable words: "Ad beatum Petrum Apostolum universa fraternitas convenit. Ecce auditorium congruens auditoribus, conveniens audiendis."[72] "The whole brotherhood meets at the tomb of blessed Peter the Apostle. Behold a place befitting both the hearers and the things to be heard."

It cannot be doubted that this suitability, so well understood by Sixtus III., also occurred to Pius IX., when he designated the tomb of St. Peter as the rendezvous of his brethren in the episcopate. It seems to me desirable that an inscription in a conspicuous place should bear the fine expression of Sixtus III. Its meaning and adaptation with regard to the approaching council would be more strikingly apparent than they could have been at the particular synod of the fifth century.

Let us now enter this august temple and regard with admiration, as we pass, the colossal portico and the vast nave, whose length and height cannot at once be taken in by the unaccustomed eye. Almost at the extremity of the nave, at the right, is the bronze statue of St. Peter, which for more than fourteen centuries has received the homage of pilgrims. Let us not forget to prostrate ourselves after their example, and press our trembling lips to the feet of the apostle, literally worn by the pious kisses of so many generations. A few steps further on, and we stand before the Confession, that is, the glorious sepulchre of the first vicar of Jesus Christ, around which a hundred lights do not cease to burn night and day. After kneeling for a few moments, not without being penetrated by a powerful but sweet emotion which stirs the soul to its very depth, let us rise and look first at the superb baldaquin of gilded bronze which rises to the height of eighty-six feet over the grand altar and the tomb of St. Peter. Above bends over us "the Pantheon raised in the air" by the genius of Michael Angelo—the incomparable dome, measuring one hundred and thirty feet in diameter, and four hundred and twenty-six feet in height on the outside.

If, from this central point of the basilica, we look to the right, we see the northern transept extending more than one hundred and sixty feet from the Confession. The altar at the end is consecrated to the Saints Processus and Martinian—two Roman soldiers, at first jailers of the apostle St. Peter, and then his disciples, baptized by his own hand. "From that time,"[377] says the Abbé Gerbet, "the remembrance of these two saints has constantly clung to that of St. Peter, their master and their friend, as the shadow follows the body." Martyred the same year as he, they were buried near the Aurelian way, not far from the Vatican. The antique statue of St. Peter, now venerated in the basilica, was formerly in a monastery connected with the cemetery where these two martyrs reposed. It was afterward placed in the oratory which Pascal I. had erected in their honor in the ancient Vatican basilica, whither he had their relics transported. The ashes of these two jailers of St. Peter always in a manner gravitated around him, until, placed here at his side, they have become for ever his acolytes in this magnificent crypt, as they were his guardians in the dark dungeons of the capitol.[73]

Another glory is in reserve for Saints Processus and Martinian. Before their altar and in the spacious chapel which is dedicated to them are to be held the solemn sessions of the council. Let us hope with firm assurance that these faithful guardians of the first pope, and his immortal acolytes, will keep invisible guard around his successor, and around the bishops, his brethren, when they are reunited in this sanctuary to continue the work of the great Fisher of Souls.

Returning from the altar of Saints Processus and Martinian, before resuming our place by the Confession, let us notice at the left, at the end of the Gregorian chapel, the tomb of Gregory XVI. and the marble statue with his hands raised to bless. Connected with him many interesting thoughts came into my mind. He is the last of the popes who joined the church triumphant. His tomb and that of St. Peter, so near each other, bring before us the two extremities of the great chain of apostolical succession which extends back from our own age to the first Christian era. The intermediate links are known to us all through the authentic records of history, and they are represented here almost entire under our eyes. Look first at the tombs and statues of the greater number of popes since the commencement of the sixteenth century. It is sufficient to name a few of them. There is the funereal monument of Pius VI. at the foot of the staircase leading to the Confession. He merited this post of honor, as has been justly remarked, because he was "the first pope who died from the martyrdom of exile and captivity after the construction of the new basilica." Two other pontiffs, Benedict XIV. and Clement XIII., are entombed close by the transversal nave where the council is to be held. They will be there on each side of the august assembly—the double personification of clerical learning and pontifical firmness. The throne of Pius IX. will almost touch the tomb of Clement XIII. A little further on, in the southern nave, is the monument of one of the greatest pontiffs of the seventeenth century—that of Innocent XI., the firm antagonist of Louis XIV. At the end of the choir, or apsis, the sixteenth century is represented by Paul III. His tomb is at the right of the symbolic chair of St. Peter, which is supported by the four great doctors. He also was worthy of this privileged spot; for his name is indissolubly connected with what have been called "two of the greatest providential events of modern times," (and I can say that the expression is certainly true of the first of these:) he convoked the Council of Trent, and was the first to give his approval to the formation of the Society of[378] Jesus. Among the tombs of the pontiffs of the fifteenth century we select at hazard those of Sixtus IV., Nicholas V., and Eugenius IV., all three rendered illustrious by the great events of their pontificates. The ashes of the two last are in the subterranean church of the Vatican. Only six or seven tombs represent the preceding ages in the upper church. They are those of St. Gregory the Great, St. Leo the Great, Sts. Leo II., III., IV., and IX. The crypts spread before us a much longer list. Conspicuous therein is Boniface VIII., the pontiff who declared the first jubilee of the fourteenth century; and then, going back into the preceding ages, Alexander III.; Calixtus II.; Urban II., the first organizer of the Crusades; St. Nicholas I., one of the men who merited by the most brilliant claims the title of great; Adrian I., the friend of Charlemagne, and celebrated by him in that immortal elegy so worthy of the great pope and of the great emperor, and still to be read in the portico of St. Peter's; St. Agatho, made glorious by the sixth œcumenical council, held at Constantinople; Honorius I., the beautiful inscription on whose tomb so eloquently avenges undeserved calumny; St. Boniface IV., who consecrated the Pantheon; and then a great number of other glorious pontiffs, till we come to St. Simplicius, the second successor of St. Leo the Great. Dating from the latter, there is an interruption of more than two centuries in the pontifical sepulchres of the Vatican. The popes of this time repose in the catacombs, particularly in that of St. Calixtus. But until the year 202 all the others, with the exception of St. Clement I. and of St. Alexander I. in going back from St. Victor to St. Linus, the immediate successor of St. Peter, have been deposited near the Prince of the Apostles in the place where St. Anacletus, even in the first century, constructed "the memorial of the blessed Peter called the Confession," according to the expression of an ancient inscription on the walls of this sacred crypt. When a portion of the pavement was removed in order to construct the monument of Pius VI., the bones of the first successors of the apostle were exposed. Their faces were found turned toward his tomb.

Altogether, the Vatican basilica and its crypts contain the tombs of about one hundred and forty popes. Let us not fail to remark that almost all the others are in the catacombs, or the neighboring churches; only a small number of popes have been buried out of Rome. We have then here, without going out of St. Peter's, the greater part of that dynasty which is the most ancient and the most glorious in the history of the world. I refer to the privilege it possesses—and it alone—of tracing a succession, uninterrupted and of incontestable legitimacy, back to him whom Jesus Christ established as head and foundation of the universal church. Some slight shadows, I know, seem to hover here and there over certain links in this descent of eighteen hundred years, but this cannot disturb an unprejudiced mind for a moment. The glory of the whole line diffuses too powerful and subduing a light for that! Where is the rival church that can show in its history, in its monuments, its temples, and even in its tombs, a succession, a connection, an antiquity, and a proof of catholicity, worthy, I will not say of equalling, but of being compared with this? Christian tradition, the liturgy, the frequent language of schismatical churches themselves, are agreed in giving the pope the name of Apostolic. This name,[379] as well as that of Catholic, of which St. Augustine boasted with such good reason against the Donatists, would alone be a strong title in favor of Rome. At all events, it is the unique and incommunicable privilege of the Roman Church to have been built upon the foundation of the apostles—super fundamentum apostolorum. And this expression of St. Paul, which has not perhaps been sufficiently noticed, is verified at Rome with a fulness of evidence truly wonderful. It has, in truth, pleased Divine Providence to consecrate this church in the eyes of all with the special characteristic of apostolicity, to collect within its walls, if not the entire bodies of all the apostles of Jesus Christ, at least considerable portions of their relics. A part of the bones of St. Paul repose fraternally beside those of St. Peter in the Vatican, and, as if to attest more strongly the brotherhood of these two founders of Christian Rome, a part of the body of St. Peter has been transported to the basilica of St. Paul beyond the walls, and their skulls are placed together at St. John Lateran; both thus taking possession of the three great basilicas of Rome. The bodies of Sts. Simon and Jude are also at the Vatican. Those of St. James the Minor and St. Philip are in the Church of the Holy Apostles, that of St. Matthias at St. Mary Major, and that of St. Bartholomew in the basilica that bears his name. Different churches at Rome possess important relics of other members of the apostolic college, as well as of St. Mark and St. Luke. One apostle delayed longer than the rest joining this rendezvous of the glorious dead, and yet it was only proper, it would seem, that he should be near Simon Peter, for it was his brother in the flesh, his elder brother. But this vacancy was at last filled up by the agency of Him who directs all human events. Toward the middle of the fifteenth century, Thomas Paleologus, King of Peloponnesus, fearing that the head of St. Andrew, preserved until that time in Achaia, would fall into the hands of the Turks, wished to preserve it by confiding it to the Roman Church. At this news great was the joy of the magnanimous pontiff whose name, destined to cast such brilliancy over succeeding ages, was just becoming renowned. Pius II., in order to receive this precious relic, had a procession and ceremonies of extraordinary solemnity, an enthusiastic description of which has been handed down to us in the annals of that time. The sacred head, which the Saviour of the world "had more than once, without doubt, touched with his hands and with his divine lips," (these are the words of Pius II., in an admirable discourse on this occasion,) was placed not far from the tomb of St. Peter, where it remained till a sacrilegious hand dared to carry it away from its sanctuary for a time. But, as is known, Pius IX. had the joy of finding it some days after with the seals intact, and henceforth the homage of the faithful will not cease to offer reparation for the outrage committed.[74] To increase devotion toward St. Andrew, a unique privilege, which had its origin in the delicate inspirations of Christian sentiment, has long been granted to him; the colossal statue of the brother of the Prince of the Apostles stands before the altar of the Confession, and on a level with the three great statues which recall the precious relics of the Saviour's Passion.

Thus, it is evident, the apostolic college is in a manner assembled in the city [380] of Rome. "The legend, according to which all the apostles assembled together to witness the last moments of the Blessed Virgin, has in a manner been verified as to their mortal remains around the tomb of St. Peter. The first council of Jerusalem seems to be held here permanently."[75]

This idea appears to me to give an admirably beautiful significance to one of the most solemn prayers of the liturgy which is chanted at the mass of the apostles and especially on the festivals of Sts. Peter and Paul. Imagine that we hear resounding the voice of Pius IX., of a compass and harmony equal to the basilica itself, which it fills with its powerful undulations. Listen to this prayer which he addresses the eternal Shepherd: Gregem tuum, Pastor æterne, non deseras, sed per beatos apostolos tuos continua protectione custodias; ut iisdem rectoribus gubernetur quos operis tui vicarios eidem contulisti præesse pastores. "Desert not, O eternal Shepherd, thy flock, but through the blessed apostles grant it thy unceasing protection; that it may be governed by those rulers whom thou hast appointed to continue thy work and to be the pastors of thy people." Does it not seem that the truly providential presence of the sacred relics of all the apostles at Rome is like a continual reply of Jesus Christ to the supplication of his high-priest? Or raise your eyes toward the radiant dome, as Pius IX. often loves to do while he is chanting, and while the sursum corda of his soul is manifested by his looks, do you not behold the mosaics gleaming there on high like celestial apparitions? See the eternal Shepherd who does not cease to watch over his flock, and around him his blessed apostles, his vicars on earth, who now from the highest heavens continue to protect and govern the lambs and sheep of the divine fold.

I have not yet had the great Christian joy of assisting at the festival of St. Peter in the basilica itself; but on another occasion I experienced in the same place, leaning against the balustrade of the Confession, a joy almost comparable. It was on Palm-Sunday, when the choristers of the Sistine chapel made the arches resound with the grand and solemn affirmations of the Catholic Credo. I shall never forget the quiver that passed through my frame when I heard resounding these simple words as they were taken up one after another: et unam—sanctam—Catholicam—et apostolicam—ecclesiam ... "and one—holy—Catholic—and apostolic—church." Then my eyes were irresistibly attracted toward the dome, and through the light which at that moment flooded it I had a sight of the glorious figures with which it is adorned, and which appeared to me like a reflection of the church triumphant in the heavens. Then I recalled the gorgeous procession I had just seen pass through the grand nave of the basilica—Pius IX. borne on his Sedia Gestatoria, and before him the imposing cortége of cardinals, bishops, and prelates, all bearing in their hands the triumphal palms—and it seemed to me that this immense inclosure expanded to a still larger size, or rather, its walls vanished and gave place to the church universal dispersed in the four quarters of the globe, but all bound to the tomb of St. Peter, in perpetual communion with him, receiving from him by a constant influence its divine characteristics of unity, sanctity, catholicity, and apostolicity, living by his faith and his love, ruled and governed by his authority, and always spiritually present where he is to be found, according to the words of St. Ambrose,[381] the truth of which I had never comprehended so fully, Ubi Petrus, ibi ecclesia! "Where Peter is, there is the church."

But let us leave these retrospective ideas and evocations, and rather endeavor to discover in the basilica of St. Peter the visible signs of unity, sanctity, and catholicity, as well as of apostolicity, the authentic marks of which we have just noticed.

And first, let us read around the dome these words in colossal letters on a golden ground of mosaic, Tu es Petrus; et super hanc petram ædificabo ecclesiam mea; et tibi dabo claves regni cœlorum. "Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church; and I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." And a little lower on the frieze, above the two pillars of the choir, these words recently placed on a similar ground, Hinc una fides mundo refulget, "Hence one faith shines upon the world;" to correspond with which these other words are hereafter to be engraved above the opposite pillars, Hinc sacerdotii unitas exoritur, "Hence the unity of the priesthood arises." There is a symbolic commentary on this last inscription in the urn placed on the tomb of St. Peter. It contains the palliums which the pope sends to the metropolitans. They are kept in this place to signify that that is the origin and source of all jurisdiction and all ecclesiastical authority. This urn and these inscriptions are sufficient to make us understand the whole mystery of Catholic unity. This unity, indeed, is comprehended in the decisive words which established Peter as the foundation of the church and confided to him the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Peter thus became the true representative of Jesus Christ and the personification, so to speak, of the divine authority. And he himself in his turn transmitted this plenitude of power to the Roman pontiff, his successor, his inheritor, his universal legatee, thus living again, as it were, in his successor, investing him with his authority, and communicating to him by a continued operation the full and entire power of feeding, directing, and governing the universal church, according to the dogmatic definition of the Council of Florence. From this centre of power the apostolic authority extends through all ranks of the hierarchy, and by a wonderful ubiquity is diffused without being weakened to the lowest grades of the Catholic priesthood. Patriarchs, primates, metropolitans, archbishops, and bishops throughout the world are all armed with the plenitude of this authority; all derive from this source their jurisdiction and the legitimate exercise of their rights; all, as they love to acknowledge, govern their own churches "by the grace of God and of the apostolic see." And this is why throughout the church there is the same government, the same doctrine, the same administration of the sacraments and divine worship. There is but one rule of government; for, as Bossuet (who was always incomparable when the whole truth illumined his soul) has somewhere said, "There is such a sympathy in all parts of the body of the church, that what each bishop does according to the rule and spirit of Catholic unity, the whole church, the entire episcopate and the chief bishop, does with him." There is the same doctrine; for the Roman see teaches all others, and these again all the faithful, or, to express it better, the different grades of teachers (it is still Bossuet who speaks) "have only one doctrine, by reason of the necessary connection they have with[382] the chair which Peter and his successors have always occupied."[76] Finally, the administration of the sacraments and the divine worship are the same; for the central authority of Peter intervenes in some manner in all the sacramental functions, whether to render them legitimate, or, as is seen in the ministry of the confessional, to make them efficacious and valid; and besides, it is only in communion with Peter that God accepts the offering of the divine sacrifice as well as all other acts of worship and prayer.

The perfect unity that reigns in the hierarchy and the government of the church engenders a not less perfect unity in the entire body of the faithful. Indeed, all the members of the church are reunited and bound together by means of the central authority of Peter, always present in the pope, and, through him, in all the representatives of the episcopal hierarchy. All the faithful recognize this peculiar authority as that of Jesus Christ. It is by submission and obedience to it that they rise when fallen. It is by faith in this authority and its depositaries of every degree that they receive the teachings of the true faith. It is to this they have recourse in order to be admitted to the participation of the sacraments and all the treasures of the church. And thus all, whoever they may be, remain attached to this authority by the intelligence that affirms the same truth, the will that observes the same law, and the heart that draws from the same sources of life; a unity of faith, of obedience, and of the sacraments—a triple unity realized by Jesus Christ and his vicar, to whom all hearts, all inclinations, and all minds adhere as luminous rays to their centre and source. It is true that this adhesion has not among all the same strength and efficacy; sometimes it is purely exterior, and yet it exists in a certain manner till the rupture is consummated either by excommunication or by manifest schism and heresy. But, thanks be to God, the number of the faithful is always immense in whom this union is full and entire. And they accomplish thereby a mystery of unity still more close and wonderful than that which we have just considered. It is given to the authority of Peter, who visibly unites the faithful, to bind them also together invisibly by the ineffable tie of the communion of saints—the crown and full consummation of unity. But no; the vicar of Christ has yet another privilege by virtue of the power that he has received of binding and loosing in heaven as well as on earth—he opens the entrance to the eternal mansions. The souls submissive till the end to his authority, and ruled by the power of his attraction, rise and mount to become living stones in the harmonious construction of the celestial temple:

It is thus that the gigantic edifice of the Vatican dome, after taking root around the tomb of the apostles, springs up from the soil on its four enormous supports, binding them together by the key-stone of its vast arches, and then, gathering itself together, rises more and more resplendent, more and more transfigured, till, at the moment of uniting all its ascending lines, it half opens to form a sublime sanctuary around the Ancient of Days, whose form beams forth from its very top.

It is grand to assist in the basilica of St. Peter at one of these solemnities which are like splendid foreshadowings[383] of the future state of souls in their glorious union with God. Behold around the choir the inscriptions engraved on marble. They recall the dearest and most solemn festival that has yet been celebrated in our age—the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. That day witnessed under these arches the triumph of Catholic unity, as well as the triumph of the Virgin conceived without sin. The accounts of ocular witnesses, still remembered by all, have made us familiar with that great manifestation of the cor unum and the anima una, of the "one heart" and "one soul," when, at a word from Pius IX., the act of faith, full, absolute, and unanimous, burst forth in loving tones from the hearts of the two hundred prelates and bishops, and the multitudes of priests reunited in this basilica, then resounded with one accord from the souls of forty or fifty thousand of the faithful likewise assembled in the same church, and was prolonged in repeated echoes from the lips of the two hundred millions of Catholics scattered throughout the world. Since that time two or three manifestations almost as glorious have been made in this basilica, and in all cases the great episcopal hierarchy, represented by a vast deputation, have inclined before the word of their august chief, believing what he believes, approving what he approves, and condemning what he condemns; and in all cases also the universal voice of true Catholics, whether present at Rome bodily or only in spirit and in heart, has risen to hail with one acclamation the infallible decisions of the successor of Peter.

But how can we forget the last festival, so sweetly and deliciously touching, which has just been celebrated in this grand basilica? That also was a brilliant manifestation and triumph of unity; of that unity the sweetest and most beautiful of all others—that of brethren of the great Catholic family around their father and their pope, to celebrate with him the golden wedding of his old age so long and painfully tried, but ever courageous and serene, and always blessed by God. There were mingled people of all ages, of every condition, and, morally speaking, of every race and nation on the globe. And these representatives of all nations, divided among themselves not less by distance than by their interests, prejudices, and hereditary enmities, and perhaps—who knows?—on the point of renewing old fratricidal struggles, drawn in against their will by the calculations of human policy—they were all there, drawn together and united by mutual love for their common father! And doubtless there was among them another source of division. I refer to divergence of opinions—opinions more or less correct, more or less at variance with the truth. There are always such in the bosom of Catholic unity. But admire the strength of this unity, remaining still intact in the midst of these elements of discord. We know that every assent given to mere opinions is necessarily conditional in this sense—that every Catholic worthy of the name is always ready to yield them to the teachings of revealed truth. Adhesion to the faith, on the contrary, is absolute, without condition or reserve, and moreover, this adhesion extends not only to the truths that the church requires us directly and expressly to believe, but also to the whole order of truths contained in the depository of revelation. What takes place, then, when the soul of the believer finds himself clinging to an erroneous opinion? That which happens in the physical order when two forces are in opposition to one[384] another—the more feeble is absorbed by the overruling force. By virtue of the same law of moral dynamics, faith, which is an absolute affirmation, neutralizes and absorbs an erroneous opinion, which is only a conditional affirmation; in other terms, the latter is disavowed—retracted by the very fact that he makes a genuine act of faith. And this is how, among Catholics, the unity of the faith bursts forth and triumphs even in the midst of the causes that would seem to destroy, or at least to modify, it.

You will not expect me to describe this sacerdotal festival in detail. It was at once solemn and grand, as well as simple, popular, and affecting. Besides, other accounts have made you as familiar with all this as it is possible to be with what is indescribable. I will only select from the wonderful whole one thing which perhaps escaped general attention. It was at the moment when the grandest Te Deum I ever heard was resounding beneath the arches of the basilica like the voice of the great deep. When this verse of the Ambrosian hymn was being chanted, Te per orbem terrarum sancta confitetur ecclesia!—"The holy church acknowledges thee throughout the whole earth"—Pius IX. raised his hands to his eyes as if to collect his thoughts. It was as if his mind wandered off from one hemisphere to the other—to every region where there is a Catholic church—and saw the entire world communing in thought with him, praying with him, and with him rendering glory and thanksgiving to God. And indeed, as you know, at that same hour, millions of souls scattered over the globe were united in a general concert of prayer in order to join themselves more completely to him who was more than ever the great Chief of Prayer, as the savages of the new world sublimely style the vicar of Jesus Christ.

I can boldly declare that in no time, no place, did any man, any king and father of a nation, any pontiff, perhaps any saint, have such an ovation, such a manifestation of universal love; and I say further that this was not merely a triumph, but a miracle of supernatural union in the church—a miracle doubtless presaging still greater to come.

I have said that this jubilee of Pius IX. drew representatives from the whole Catholic world to Rome. The city of unity was on that day also the city of Catholicity par excellence. This last characteristic, however, Rome does not manifest only on extraordinary occasions, but permanently by its physical and moral position. "If a nation possessed a cathedral surrounded by a portico to which each province had furnished an arcade or column which bore its name, this monument would be a harmonious emblem of the diversity to be found in the unity of this people. There is something analogous to this in the Christian world." In the shadow of the great basilica of the popes most nations have their church, their festivals, and their national tombs. Each one finds some sacred monument bearing on the history of his country. Every one breathes here, in the atmosphere of religion, his native air. National establishments, reunited in the same city by political or commercial interests, represent concord less than division. Counting-rooms are rivals, altars are brethren. This is one cause of the sentiment that almost every one experiences who lives for some time in Rome, far from his native country. "Nowhere does one feel so much at home as in this city."[77] If one comes from a remote province of Lower Brittany or [385] from the extremities of Ireland, from the depths of Ethiopia, the Indies, or the two Americas, he finds everywhere sanctuaries, tombs, institutions, offerings ex-voto, and indeed all kinds of mementoes that recall the far-off country. The prelacy, the priesthood, and the religious orders have representatives from all countries. The army itself has a cosmopolitan character. You see there, under the noble garb of the Zouave, the dark skin of the African beside the white face of the Dutchman or Canadian. Whoever you may be, you are sure not to be wholly isolated or unknown. Soon a familiar accent or an unforeseen accident will reveal a compatriot or a friend. It is impossible to forget your country; it becomes dearer to you than ever. You appreciate it perhaps more fully, but the narrowness of your former attachment is destroyed by contact with the broad spirit of Catholicity which penetrates you.

He who has the leisure to examine certain statistics will find at Rome evidences of Catholicity even in examining the list of travellers, or the missives of the mails, or even the catalogues of gifts sent to the holy father, and especially that of the offerings he recently received for the jubilee of his priesthood. All this and many other things constantly verify a proverb now misinterpreted, and too trivial to be quoted, but which the ancients expressed very nobly, "All roads lead to Rome." There is this difference—the roads leading to the Rome of Sts. Peter and Paul are far more extended than those of the Rome of Romulus and Remus. What one only accomplished by force of arms, the other has effected by the universality of evangelical preaching.

Without leaving the Vatican basilica we can discover, on all sides, authentic proofs of this universality. On the day of solemn functions, when the pope celebrates the holy sacrifice, a Greek deacon officiates beside a Latin deacon, and chants the Gospel in the language of St. Luke. A Greek archbishop also assists at it as well as one of the Armenian Church. The Syriac Church has also its ministers at the holy see. The presence of these bishops and these priests of different rites is not a mere spectacle unsustained by reality. They are representatives of churches scattered throughout the East.[78] We have many other reflections to make on this subject, but they must be reserved, with a thousand things, till a future time. See now, on the tablet that perpetuates the remembrance of the formal decision respecting the Immaculate Conception, the names of the bishops who were present. The titles of a great number of their churches would be vainly sought for in the ancient diptychs. They assert the presence of the Catholic hierarchy in regions unknown to the fathers of Nice or even of Trent. See, further on, the confessionals ranged around the southern transept; the inscriptions they bear notify you that there are penitentiaries and confessors who speak all the principal languages of Europe, including that of Greece. Behold also a bas-relief, peculiarly significant, under the statue of Gregory XVI. It is symbolical of the most glorious event of his reign—the institution of the work of the propagation of the faith. At the feet of the pontiff are the types of almost all races, who render him their tributes of veneration and gratitude. There is another idea under this symbol: it shows that the see of Peter is the source of the apostolic missions, the centre of a power which is expansive and subjugating, and the focus of [386] that divine light which seeks to be diffused throughout the entire heart of humanity.

It is in truth from Rome that the great evangelizers of nations have set out. To mention here only a few, and not the most ancient, Patrick, the apostle of Ireland, wished, as is said in his Acts, "to repair to the see founded on a rock. He wished to comprehend more fully the canonical laws of the holy Roman Church, and obtain for his mission and his labors the strength derived from the apostolic authority." He came then to the tomb of the holy apostles, and set out again with the benediction of Pope St. Celestin I., as at a later date the monk Augustin departed, sent by St. Gregory I. to evangelize England. Another pope of the same name, St. Gregory II., had the glory of conferring his blessing on the monk Wilfrid, the great apostle of Germany. He summoned him to his presence in the church of St. Peter, and consecrated him bishop after having changed his name to Boniface. After his consecration, he placed in the Confession of St. Peter a writing that ended with these words:

St. Corbinian, who was also one of the first preachers of Christianity in Germany; St. Amandus, who preached on the shores of the Garonne, the Escaut, and the Danube, and St. Kilian, who evangelized Franconia, came likewise to prostrate themselves at the Confession of St. Peter, whence set forth in other times Paul, Formosus, Donatus, Leo, and Marinus, sent by Pope Nicholas I. among the Bulgarians; Egidius, Bishop of Tusculum, sent to Poland by Pope John XIII.; and Willibald, Prochorius, etc., who received an apostolic mission to Vandalia.[79] Let us also mention St. Anscharius, who was sent by Gregory IV. as legate to the Swedes, Danes, Icelanders, and all the northern nations. Two other apostles who evangelized a great race, now, alas! almost entirely given over to schism, kindled their missionary ardor at the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles. After having commenced their apostolic labors among the Sclaves, St. Cyril and St. Methodius came to Rome to receive episcopal consecration, and celebrated here the first mass in the Sclavonic language.[80] Then, their second evangelical expedition being terminated, they both returned to Rome. One of them, Cyril, died here, and his tomb, placed beside that of Pope St. Clement, remains as a perpetual memorial of his attachment to the centre of unity and of Catholicity.

It would take too long to mention here the names of all the other apostles who set forth from Rome before or after the most illustrious of all—St. Francis Xavier. We will only remark that the numerous pupils that the Roman ecclesiastical seminaries have sent on a mission never fail to kindle their zeal at the Confession of the Prince of the Apostles.

One of these seminaries requires special notice, because it is in itself a proof of Catholicity and of the principle which engenders a Catholic spirit. I wish you could have been present, as I was, at the festival that the Propaganda celebrated on the Sunday in the octave of the Epiphany. You would have heard speak or chant in their own languages Greeks, [387] Syrians, and I know not how many from other nations—even a negro from Senegambia, who was not applauded the least, for, though his wolof was understood by hardly any one, his powerful and pathetic voice made an extraordinary impression on the whole audience. A composition in verse, recited some years ago at one of these exhibitions, sets forth in a happy manner the peculiar character of this house. Here is an extract from it which you will not read without pleasure:

These verses quoted by the Abbé Gerbet, and which he had, I think, composed himself for that occasion, express with a rare felicity this unique character of Christian Rome, which is the harmonious fusion of Catholicity with unity. Besides, are not these two prerogatives one and the same thing under two different aspects? For what is Catholicity but a unity which expands and is diffusive? And what is unity but Catholicity drawn to its centre?

The name of Holy City, now synonymous with that of Rome, implies another characteristic, not less brilliant, not less peculiar of the church which is one and universal. The Vatican basilica—for it is this we are particularly studying—seems to have been constructed and arranged expressly to prove that the church is the mother of the saints. Remember, first, that this temple has been for a long time the only sanctuary used at the great festivals of beatification and canonization. It is useless to recall the ceremonies of this kind that have recently been celebrated here with so much solemnity; but what is not useless to remark is, that the public honors conferred on these heroes of sanctity have always been preceded by examinations so minute and scrupulously careful that the most distrustful critic could not, without the loss of human confidence, resist the light of evidence. Look up above the arches of the grand nave. There, on a level with the acanthus leaves of the pilasters, are the colossal representations and personifications of the Christian virtues, mingling like the flora of heaven with the vegetation of earth. Are there only mere symbols there? Look a little lower down, and you will discover something else. Ranged around the nave from the choir and the transepts to the porticoes are the statues of the founders of the religious orders, beginning with the patriarch St. Benedict and ending with St. Vincent de Paul and St. Theresa; and under the form of these great leaders, the eye of thought beholds an innumerable number of holy souls—monks or religious—who, following their footsteps, have acquired the palm of sanctity. This[388] brilliant array of saints around the basilica does not end at the threshold of the temple. Go for a moment into the grand portico, and you will see the chain continued and prolonged on the immense colonnade of the square. There is a whole nation of martyrs, pontiffs, confessors, and virgins, ranged like a procession before the Saviour and his apostles, whose images look down from the façade of the basilica. And entering anew into the nave, you will find on the pillars of the three first balustrades at the right and left, the medallions of the first popes, almost all martyrs; and this is not a complete list of those who are honored as saints. There are more than eighty here who bear this title; and how many more are also worthy of being numbered with them! For, in spite of some stains that calumny has vainly magnified, the successors of Peter have brilliantly justified the title of Holy See conferred on the Roman chair, and have left in history the most luminous train in the annals of sanctity. You see also the fine mosaics on the projecting arches of the small domes—they are the doctors and the fathers of the church; and among them you will find these grand oriental figures: St. Flavian, St. Germanus of Constantinople, and St. John Damascene. Beneath the altars of the lateral chapels you will discover the bodies of these other incomparable glories of the ancient oriental church: St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nazianzen, and St. John Chrysostom. The whole church is in a manner paved with the tombs of the saints.[81] Do not forget that this is the place where Nero, the greatest of persecutors, had the Christians of Rome burned as torches before his atrocious eyes. Add to all these venerable relics, the numberless others that St. Peter's possesses in its treasury, without mentioning a second time the ashes of the holy apostles, and your faith will behold a thousand times more beauty and brilliancy in the august remains that adorn this grand basilica than in one of its great illuminations, though the finest in the world.

And what would we find if we could examine all the other sanctuaries of Rome and its immense cemeteries? The catacombs alone have furnished for the veneration of the faithful an incalculable number of bones of martyrs, and the richness of these mines, so fruitful in sanctity, has not yet been exhausted. Different circumstances have contributed to bring together at Rome relics from the entire Christian world. The most humble oratories and chapels display such treasures without number. "One would say that from almost every region where the gospel has been preached—from the mountains of Armenia to the forests of America, from the shores of England to the caves of Japan—the most of those who were martyrs by the shedding of their blood, or martyrs of charity, have been desirous that some part of themselves should join this great council of catacombs. The ancient Christians sometimes designated the cemeteries of the martyrs by the name of councils." A list has been drawn up of the countries and cities which were the birthplace, the residence, or the tombs of the saints whose relics are at Rome. This geographical selection is in a manner a funereal atlas of the Christian world.... What constellations of tombs are here! An antiquary has happily said they form the subterranean heaven of Rome.... If you connect in imagination with the different parts of this reliquary of the universe the virtues[389] that each specially represents, and which altogether afford the least imperfect likeness of the God-man, you will see in the midst of this campo santo of the Christian world the most sublime image of the Saviour that can be found on earth; for it is not produced by colors, or composed of pieces of marble, but of the members of those who lived the life of Jesus Christ—a kind of mosaic doubly sacred by reason of what it represents and the materials of which it is composed, in which each part contributes to reproduce more grandly the image with which it is itself stamped. Every Christian era has contributed to this work, and Rome is the sepulchre where this mysterious form will repose till the last day.[82]...

This is not all. Relics much more sacred than those of the saints are also reunited in this great metropolis. Pious pilgrims may venerate considerable fragments of the wood of the manger and of the true cross, as well as the inscription in three languages that Pilate attached to it. They can climb the staircase of the pretorium which the Saviour must have ascended and descended several times, and on which may be still seen traces of his blood. Finally, (for I cannot tell all,) from the tribune of the Vatican basilica there is exposed, on certain solemn occasions, the holy face imprinted on the veil of Veronica, a part of the true cross, and the lance that pierced the heart of Jesus after his death. What was most precious at Jerusalem providence has transferred to Rome, to show that it is henceforth a new Jerusalem—the holy city and the treasury of the merits of Jesus Christ.

This accumulation of relics and sacred memorials gives to Rome a peculiar power of profoundly moving every Christian heart. It is well known that it is particularly in thus holy city that are wrought the wonders of divine grace—the most extraordinary conversions. When one has a soul reasonable and noble enough to rise above prejudice and common views, when one is capable of tasting the gift of God, it is impossible not to feel the sweet influence of this atmosphere all impregnated with supernatural odors. All the religious monuments, all the sanctuaries, every atom of dust, so to speak, of this soil impregnated with the blood of martyrs, cause in the worthy heart, an emotion more penetrating and powerful than any other on earth. And whatever frivolity or hatred—too often agreed—may say, these impressions are not weakened by observing the Roman people in general, or the majority of the pilgrims to the Holy City, or its adopted children; on the contrary, the sight of the crowds kneeling on the pavements of the churches or proceeding with grave thoughtfulness to the stations and religious festivals, has its share in affecting the very fibres of each Christian heart. All this I know does not move those who quench the light, according to the expression of Holy Writ: these can, if they choose, repeat the insolent proverb, Roma veduta, fede perduta—"To see Rome is to lose your faith;" and, after all, they are right; for when the[390] eyes are diseased, nothing blinds them more easily than the rays of the sun.

Is there any need of adding that in this respect the Roman Church defies all comparison with schismatical or Protestant churches, wherever they may be? I confine myself to one question: where is the city in England, Germany, or Russia that, after attracting to it the noblest and most sincere souls in the world, imposes on them the irresistible desire of abjuring the religion of their fathers, as illustrious Protestants have often done at Rome? This strange phenomenon, this power of converting, peculiar to Rome, and to Rome alone, suffices to prove to those who can reason from cause to effect that the Roman Church is truly a holy and sanctifying church, as it is a church indivisible, catholic, and apostolic—unam, sanctam, catholicam, et apostolicam ecclesiam.

All these privileges, these characteristic signs of the true church are found, as we have seen, in the basilica of St. Peter. It is more than certain that no premeditated intention has produced this lapidary and monumental synthesis. All has been brought about in a spontaneous manner—effected only by a sense of the truth here set forth, and whose inspirations have been followed. The Vatican basilica has become an immense book, which shows on every leaf the authentic proofs and characteristics assigned by Christian antiquity as the means of recognizing the true institution founded by Jesus Christ.

It seems to me there is no need of prolonging these observations to show the correspondence I mentioned at first, between this basilica and the solemn reunion which is soon to take place under its arches.

When the Council of the Vatican holds there its grand sessions, the very stones of the edifice will cry aloud, lapides clamabunt, to attest that the church is indivisible—one in its faith, its government, its sacraments and worship, and united in all these by the unity of its priesthood to its central authority. The stones of the basilica will proclaim by their inscriptions, their statues, and all the sacred mementoes of which they are the witnesses and depositories, that this is the church alone Catholic, the only origin and source of Catholicity; alone holy, the only mother of the saints, and the only source of sanctity. They will unite their voice to that of the monuments and tombs in declaring that this is the church alone apostolic—the only inheritor of the see and privileges of Peter, and, consequently, the only foundation of all other churches.

The Vatican basilica possesses a particular memorial which I have not yet mentioned, and which is a material proof of the legitimate succession of Peter in the Roman Church. It is the chair once used by the Prince of the Apostles. This incomparable relic was exposed to the veneration of the faithful at the eighteenth centenary of the martyrdom of St. Peter. Since that day it has been religiously enclosed in the walls of the basilica; but if it is no longer visible to the eye, there is, at the end of the apsis, a symbolical representation which eloquently expresses the same idea. It is the apostolic chair supported by the four great doctors of the East and West, St. Augustine and St. Ambrose, St. Athanasius and St. John Chrysostom. In conferring on them the glory of supporting the chair of Peter the genius of art has only expressed the constant language of their deeds and their writings, condensed in an expression of St. Augustine, "The primacy of the apostolic see has always been confined to the Church of[391] Rome." A similar testimony in favor of the Roman primacy has been given by other doctors and founders of churches whose forms adorn the basilica, or whose bodies repose under its altars. They all proclaim the rights of the apostolic see in union with St. Jerome, "It is on this rock that the church was founded; whoever eats of the lamb out of this house is defiled." They all proclaim with St. Irenæus that "all churches ought to rally around that of Rome on account of its preponderating preëminence," as the smaller domes of the basilica surround the great dome to render homage to its royal dignity, propter potiorem principalitatem. Finally, the same testimony is rendered to the supremacy of St. Peter's chair by the immense "council of catacombs," by all the saints whose relics repose in this campo santo, this "holy field" of the Christian world. Their remains are the glory of the Roman communion in which they professed to live and die, and, all dead as they are, they speak and prophesy that this church will be till the end the true tabernacle of God with man.

Thus, when Pius IX. takes his seat to preside at the august council, he will be surrounded by all the proofs that assert the plenitude of his apostolic authority—the testimony of the martyrs and holy confessors, of the doctors and founders of churches, of the popes his predecessors and all the traditions they represent; finally, the testimony of Jesus Christ himself, whose words the Vatican basilica expresses in various ways: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.... And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.... I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.... Feed my sheep. Feed my lambs." Surrounded by so many proofs of his power, of which no other place in the world can give a recapitulation more solemnly eloquent, the successor of Peter can here claim, with more reason than anywhere else, the prerogatives of the Prince of the Apostles; he can apply to himself the words graven on the pedestal of the bronze statue of St. Peter, "Behold in my person the Divine Word, the rock beautifully wrought with gold, upon which I now stand immovable."

The bishops also will find in the basilica more monuments than in any other place in the world that attest the divine right they have received to govern the church with the successor of St. Peter, and under his supreme authority. The expressive statues of Athanasius, Ambrose, Augustine, Flavian, and Germanus of Constantinople, the bodies of Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzen, and Chrysostom will be there to proclaim the glory, the privileges, and the inalienable rights of the episcopacy. But especially the united relics of the apostolic college of whom the bishops are collectively the successors, the constant presence of this "council of Jerusalem" will be a proof that it belongs to them to judge in all matters of faith and discipline, and to appropriate the august formula, "It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us"—Visum est Spiritui Sancto et nobis.

The Son of God himself will give to the council of the Vatican very special pledges of his protection and love. I have already mentioned the precious relics of the Passion, the imprint of the divine face, his cross which redeemed the world, and the lance that brought forth blood and water from his heart—symbols of baptism and all the treasures of grace. The Catholic faith has the assurance of the divine assistance promised to[392] œcumenical councils. It cannot receive from the presence of these venerable objects any substantial augmentation; but they may produce a sensible excitation, and will be a very special pledge of reasonable hope; and besides, if it is true that certain privileged places have the power of profoundly moving the soul, how can it be denied that this virtue evidently belongs to the basilica of St. Peter? Yes, it is right that the greatest event of our age should take place in this temple—the largest in the world—under these arches which astonish us the more the longer we regard them, because they give us an ever new sensation of immensity and majesty. It is right that the representatives of the universal church should be face to face with the immortal monuments of apostolicity, unity, catholicity, and sanctity; in presence of these tombs of the sovereign pontiffs and great bishops; in contact, so to speak, with the corner-stone on which whoever falls shall be broken. It is right that in looking down into the glorious tombs of Sts. Peter and Paul they should behold the very origin of Christianity; and this at a time when there is a question of the renovation and modification of Christian society. Finally, it is right that, in laboring upon this superhuman work, they should have before them the eloquent examples of their glorious predecessors in the same work, and likewise the visible signs and authentic proofs of the assistance, protection, and blessing of Heaven. All these mementoes and holy objects will inspire the fathers of the council with a more profound sentiment of the greatness of their task and a deeper consciousness of their strength; and when they behold on the dome the representation of the Father of light, from whom cometh every perfect gift, that of the eternal Shepherd surrounded by his apostles and the Queen of saints, and that of the Spirit of truth hovering over the tomb of St. Peter and over his symbolic chair, they will feel more fully that they are not vain representations; they will hear and comprehend with a more profound and intense emotion the words of the divine promises, Behold I am with you.... As the Father hath sent me, so have I sent you.... I will send you the Paraclete, who shall teach you all truth.... He who heareth you heareth me: he who despiseth you despiseth me. He who believeth shall be saved: he who believeth not shall be condemned.

I have endeavored to present some of the reflections suggested by the Vatican basilica by reason of the coming council. From the same point of view we might find many other perspectives not less interesting, by taking new positions near the tombs of the holy apostles.

For the present, however, it is time to close. Let us leave these sacred walls after having kissed anew the revered foot of Peter. In traversing the great square, let us read the celebrated inscription graven by Sixtus V. on the obelisk, and which, it is to be hoped, will have, by means of the council, its entire verification, Christus vincit—Christus regnat—Christus imperat. Christus ab omni malo plebem suam defendat. "Christ overcomes—Christ reigns—Christ rules. May Christ defend his people from every evil."

And now, before separating, let us ascend for a moment one of the hills of Rome to contemplate this great basilica from a distance, at the hour preferred by visitors, when the sun is about to set behind the dome. Here listen to the lines of a poet whose name is dear to us by so many titles:

Yes, Silvio Pellico is right: there are before us two of the finest creations in the universe. The light that God has suspended in the firmament to shine on man, and this temple that man has erected to honor his God. But if the divine basilica of Peter appears so beautiful and radiant when the sun surrounds it with an aureola of rubies and sapphires, what will it be when the look of faith, which discovers things invisible, sees it surrounded by the rays, a thousand times more brilliant, of divine and incorruptible truth? Such, nevertheless, will be the spectacle Catholic souls will enjoy when is accomplished what the bishops in a celebrated address have styled the great work of light—grande opus illuminationis.

BEECHER'S NORWOOD.[83]

The Beecher family is certainly a remarkably gifted family, though we think the father, Dr. Lyman Beecher, was the best of them all. Yet his two daughters, Miss Catharine Beecher and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, are women of rare abilities, and have made their mark on the times and sad havoc with New England theology. Dr. Edward Beecher has written several notable books, among which may be mentioned The Papal Conspiracy and the Conflict of the Ages, which prove him almost equally hostile to Rome and to Geneva. Henry Ward Beecher is the most distinguished of the sons, and probably ranks as the most popular, certainly the most striking, pulpit orator in the country. But none of the family are remarkable for purity of taste, refined culture, or classical grace and polish as writers. They would seem to owe their success partly to their audacity, but principally to a certain[394] rough vigor and energy of character, and to their sympathy with the popular tendencies of their country. They rarely take, never knowingly take, the unpopular side of a question, or attempt to stem the current of popular opinion. They are of the world, and the world loves them. They never disturb its conscience by condemning its moral ideal, or calling upon it to strive after a higher and purer ideal. They have in an eminent degree the genius of commonplace. There are in Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Ministers Wooing passages of rare force and vigor, but they are not very original, nor very recondite. The Beecher genius is not lyrical or dramatic, but essentially militant and prosaic. It can display itself only against an antagonist, and an antagonist at least about to fall under the ban of public opinion. They have some imitative ability, but little creative power, and rarely present us with a living character. We remember only two living characters in all Mrs. Stowe's writings, Dred and the Widow Scudder; and we are not certain that these are not copies of originals.

The author of Norwood is less of an artist than his sister, Mrs. Stowe, and under the relation of art his novel is below criticism. It contains many just observations on various topics, but by no means original or profound; it seizes some few of the traits of New England village life; but its characters, with the exception of Judge Bacon, Agate Bissell, and Hiram Beers, are the abstractions or impersonations of the author's theories. The author has little dramatic power, and not much wit or humor. The persons or personages of his book are only so many points in the argument which he is carrying on against Calvinistic orthodoxy for pure naturalism. The substance of his volume seems to be made up of the fag-ends of his sermons and lectures. He preaches and lectures all through it, and rather prosily into the bargain. His Dr. Wentworth is a bore, and his daughter Rose, the heroine of the story, is a species of bluestocking, and neither lovely nor lovable. As a type of the New England cultivated and accomplished lady she is a failure, and is hardly up to the level of the New England school-ma'am. The sensational incidents of the story are old and worn out, and the speculations on love indicate very little depth of feeling or knowledge of life, or of the human heart. The author proceeds on a theory, and so far shows his New England birth and breeding, but he seldom touches reality.

As a picture of New England village life it is singularly unfortunate, and still more so as a picture of village life in the valley of the Connecticut, some twenty miles above Springfield, in Massachusetts, where the scene is laid, and where the tone and manners of society in a village of five thousand inhabitants, the number Norwood is said to contain, hardly differ in refinement and polish from the tone and manners of the better classes in Boston and its vicinity. There are no better families, better educated, better bred, more intellectual in the State, than are to be found in no stinted numbers in the towns of the Connecticut valley, the garden of Massachusetts. The book is full of anachronisms. The peculiar New England traits given existed to a certain extent, in our boyhood, in back settlements or towns not lying near any of the great thoroughfares; but they have very generally disappeared through the influence of education, the railroads, which run in all directions through the State, and the almost constant[395] intercourse with the society of the capital.

The turnpikes did much to destroy the rustic manners and language of the population of the interior villages, and the railroads have completed what they left undone. Save in a few localities, there is no longer a rustic population in Massachusetts, and very little distinction between the countryman and the citizen. In small country villages you may find Hiram Beers still, but Tommy Taft, Polly Marble, and Agate Bissell are of a past generation, and even in the past belonged to Connecticut rather than to the Old Bay State. Strangers suppose the people of the several New England States have all the same characteristics, and are cut out and made up after the same pattern; but in reality, except in the valley of the Connecticut, where there is a blending of the characteristics of the adjoining States, the differences between the people of one State and those of another are so strongly marked that a careful observer can easily tell, on seeing a stranger, to which of the six New England States he belongs, without hearing him speak a word, and not unfrequently the section of his State from which he comes. There is no mistaking a Berkshire countryman for a Cape Codder, or a Vermonter for a true son of the Old Bay State, or a Rhode Islander. The gait, the air, the manners, the physiognomy even, tell at once the man's native State. The Vermonter is the Kentuckian of the East, as the Georgian is the Yankee of the South, and we have found no two cities in the Union, and there are few east of the Rocky Mountains that we have not visited, where the citizens of the one have so many points of resemblance with those of the other, as Boston, the metropolis of New England, and Charleston, the real capital of South Carolina. Accidental differences of course there are, but the type of character is the same, and the purest and best American type we have met with. And we are very disinterested in our judgment, for we are natives of neither city nor State. In both we have the true English type with its proper American modifications. No two cities stood firmer, shoulder to shoulder, during the American war of independence, "the times that tried men's souls," than Boston and Charleston. They became opposed not till, under the lead of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania and Kentucky politicians, Congress had fastened on the country the so-called American system, which struck a severe blow at the commerce of New England, and compelled its capitalists to seek investment for their capital in manufactures. It is a little singular that New England, which up to 1842 had voted against every protective tariff that had been adopted, should have the credit or discredit of originating and securing the adoption of the protective system. The ablest speech ever made against the system in Congress was made in 1824 by Mr. Webster, then a member of the House of Representatives from Boston. We express no opinion on the question between free-trade and so-called protection; we only say that Pennsylvania and Kentucky, not the New England States, are chiefly responsible for the protective system; the very remote cause, at least, of the late terrible civil war between the North and South, in which, if the victory was for the Union, the South are likely to be the gainers in the long run, and the North the losers.

But we are wandering. Mr. Beecher speaks truly of the diversity and originality of individual character in New England, which you discover[396] when you have once broken through the thin crust of conventionalism; but he seems not to have observed equally the marked differences of character between the people of the several States. The wit of a Massachusetts man is classical and refined; of the Connecticut man sly, and not incapable of being coarse; of the Vermonter it is broad farce, and nobody better than he can keep a company of good fellows in a roar till morning. The Bay State man has a strong attachment to tradition and to old manners and customs, and his innovating tendency is superinduced, and is as repugnant to his nature as Protestantism is to the perfervidum ingenium Scottorum. He is naturally a conservative, as the Scotch are, if we may so speak, naturally Catholic; and it was only a terrible wrench of the Scottish nature that induced the loyal Scots to adopt the Reformation. The Connecticut man excels the Bay State man in ingenuity, in inventive genius, in doing much with little; is less conservative by nature, and more enterprising and adventurous, and in his exterior conduct more under the influence of public opinion. Each is proud of his State, and the Connecticut man especially, who has acquired wealth elsewhere, is fond of returning to his early home to display it; but attachment to the soil is not very strong in either, and neither will make heavy sacrifices for simple love of country. The Bay State man is more influenced by his principles, his convictions, like the South Carolinian, and the Connecticut man more by his interests.

The Vermonter has no conservative tendency by nature; he cares not the snap of his finger for what his father believed or did; is personally independent, generally free from snobbishness, no slave to public opinion, and for the most part has the courage of his convictions; but he loves his State, loves her green hills and fertile valleys, and when abroad holds a fellow-Vermonter dear as his brother. A Georgian and a Connecticut man are fighting in Georgia; the Connecticut man looking on will wish his countryman to get the better of his Georgian opponent, but will not interpose till he has inquired into the cause of the dispute, and ascertained on which side is the law. A Georgian and a Vermonter are fighting under the same circumstances; the Vermonter comes up, looks, knocks the Georgian down, rescues his countryman, and investigates the cause and the law afterward. The Vermonter pays no attention to the personal responsibility he may incur; the Connecticut man tries to keep always clear of the law; and if he makes up his mind to do a great wrong to some one, he takes care to do it under cover of law, so that no hold can be got of him. The Bay State man is much the same; and the Connecticut man has less of patriotism than the Vermonter. We speak of what was the case in our own youth and early manhood; yet the character of the whole American people has so changed during the last forty years that we can hardly any longer recognize them, and in the judgment of an old man they have changed not for the better.

We have no space to remark on the characteristic differences of the three remaining New England States. These States have still less resemblance to each other. The people of Maine differ widely from the people of New Hampshire, and the people of Rhode Island have very few traits in common with the people of any of the other New England States. The author of Norwood has lost no little of his own original New England character or overlaid it with his Westernism. He is not in sympathy[397] with the true New England character, as found in any of the New England States, and is more disposed to exaggerate, in his descriptions, its few eccentricities than to bring out its higher and nobler qualities. No doubt the Puritan settlers of Massachusetts and Connecticut set out with the intention of founding what they regarded as a Christian commonwealth, in which the evangelical counsels should be recognized and enforced as laws. They would have organized and maintained society, except in not enjoining celibacy, after the mode of a Catholic monastery. They attempted by constant vigilance and the strict enforcement of very rigorous laws to shut out all vice and immorality from their community. They were rigorists in morals, somewhat rigid and stern in their personal character, and have been generally supposed to be much more so than they really were. Their experiment of a Christian commonwealth as it existed in their own ideal failed, partly through their defective faith and the absence of supernatural grace, and partly through their exacting too much of human nature, or even of men in the flesh, except an elect few. But they, nevertheless, succeeded in laying the foundation of a Christian as distinguished from a pagan republic, or in founding the state, the first in history, on truly Christian principles; that is, on the rights of God, and which better than any other known state has protected the rights of man.

The Puritan did not separate from the Church of England on the principle of liberty of dissent, or because he wished to establish what liberals now understand by religious liberty. The principle of his separation was the Catholic principle, that the magistrate has no authority in spirituals, and no right to prescribe any forms or ceremonies to be used in worship. It was a solemn protest not against the doctrines of the Anglican Church, but against the authority it conceded in spiritual matters to the civil power—or the civil magistrate, as they said then. The Puritan was logical; he had a good major, and his conclusion would have been just, if his minor had only been true; and we are, in our opinion, indebted to him far more than to Lord Baltimore or to Governor Dongan of New York for the freedom of conscience secured by our institutions. Lord Baltimore and Governor Dongan sought the free exercise of their own religion for their co-religionists, and asserted, and in their situation could assert, only toleration. Neither could assert the principle of true religious liberty, the incompetency of the state in spirituals, holding, as they did, their power from the king of England and head of the Anglican Church. The Puritan abominated toleration, called it the devil's doctrine, and proved himself little disposed to practise it; but in asserting the absolute independence of the church or religion before the civil magistrate, he asserted the true principle of religious liberty, which the Catholic Church always and everywhere asserts, and laid in the American mind the foundation of that religious freedom of which our religion, which they hated, now enjoys the benefit.

We have nothing to say of the virtues of the Puritans in relation to the world to come; but they certainly had great and rare civil virtues, and they have had the leading share in founding and shaping the American state. They were grave, earnest—too much so, if you will; but however short they fell in practice, they always asserted the independence and supremacy of the moral order in relation[398] to civil government, and the obligation of every man to obey God rather than men, and to live always in reference to the end for which God makes him. Their moral standard was high, and they set an example of as moral a people as can be looked for outside of the church. They had only a faulty religion, and perhaps were Stoics rather than Christians in their temper; but they always put religion in its right place, and gave the precedence to its ministers. They placed education under charge of the church, and the system of common schools which they originated or adopted was really a system of parochial schools, under the supervision of the pastor, and supported by a tax on the parish, imposed by the parishioners, in public meetings, on themselves. The centralized system of godless schools, borrowed from the Convention that decreed the death of Louis XVI., generally adopted by the Middle and Western States, is hardly yet fully adopted in Massachusetts, though since 1835 it has been gradually gaining the ascendency; and Cambridge University, founded for God and the church, has only this very year thrown off its religious character, dispensed with morning prayers,[84] and become a purely secular institution—an inevitable but a lamentable change.

The Puritans not only adopted a high moral standard, but they lived as nearly up to it as is possible for human nature alone since the fall, and few examples of a more rigidly moral people can be found than were the New England people for a century and a half after the landing of the Pilgrims, and to them, in no small measure, the whole Union is indebted for its moral character as well as for the greater part of its higher institutions of learning. There have been as learned, as gifted, as great men, found in other States, and perhaps even more learned, gifted, and greater; but there is no part of the Union where the intellectual tone of society is so high, or intellectual culture so general as in New England, especially in the States founded by the Puritans, as were Massachusetts and Connecticut. New York leads in trade and commerce; Pennsylvania latterly, Virginia formerly, in politics; but the New England mind has led in law, jurisprudence, literature, art, science, and philosophy; though since Puritanism has been lapsing into liberalism its preëminence is passing away. We speak of New England as it was thirty or forty years ago, or a little earlier, when the majority of the supreme judges, and two thirds of the members of the legislature of New York were Connecticut or, at least, New England men. New England, we fear, is no longer what she was when we were young, and she appears only the shadow of her former self. She is attempting to do, from sheer calculation, and purely secular motives, what even in the heyday of Puritanism was more than she could effect, aided by strong religious convictions and motives. Still, if the substance is wanting, she keeps up the appearance of her old moral character, and in no part of the Union will you hear finer moral sentences, or better reasoned orations on the beauty of virtue and the necessity of religion to the commonwealth. Even New England infidelity is obliged to assume a moral garb, to express itself in Christian phrases, and affect to be more Christian than Christianity itself.

The author of Norwood does not do justice to the intellectual character of New England life, to the thought,[399] the reflection, and movements of a New England village of five thousand inhabitants. His village philosopher, Dr. Wentworth, is very shallow, being very narrow and very prosy. We could easily find any number of farmers in the valley of the Connecticut able to see through his paganism at a glance, and refute it with a word. Especially is the author unjust to New England women. No doubt such women as Polly Marble, Rachel Cathcart, Agate Bissell, and Mother Taft can be found in a New England village, but they are not representative characters. New England Puritanism was never so stiff, or so annoying to one's self or to others, as it appears in these exceptional characters. The women of New England are in general remarkable for their intellectual culture, their gentleness, their refinement, their grace and dignity of manners, the elevation and breadth of their minds, and the extent and variety of their information, no less than for their domestic tastes and habits, or superior faculty as housekeepers. There are, no doubt, blue stockings in Yankeeland which their wearers' skirts are too short to conceal; no doubt, also, there are women there who encroach on the rights and prerogatives of the other sex, and aspire to be men; but your leading woman's rights women and men are not New Englanders. Our old friend, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, is a New Yorker, and Susan B. Anthony, if born in Nantucket, is a Quakeress, and the Quakers are of no country, or simply are their own country.

Many movements are accredited to New England which originated elsewhere, and are simply taken up by a certain class of New Englanders in easy circumstances, as a diversion or a dissipation, instead of whist, balls, routs, and plays. Yet they are only a class. The Massachusetts legislature voted down, by a large majority, the proposition to give the elective franchise to women, and the legislation of the Old Bay State continues far more masculine and conservative than that of the State of New York.

Norwood leaves the impression on the reader that the Puritans were a set of gloomy fanatics, austere and unbending, harsh and cruel, minding every body's business but their own, and seeking, in season and out of season, to cram their horrible doctrines down every neighbor's throat, and that the only sociable and agreeable people to be found among them were precisely those who had broken away from the Puritan thraldom, and returned to the cultivation and worship of nature. The wish is father to the thought. More social, neighborly, genial, kind-hearted, hospitable people it would be difficult to find in the Union than were the great body of these New England Puritans, than perhaps they are still; though they have by no means improved since they have abolished the dinner-table, as they suppose in the interest of temperance, and substituted opium for Santa Cruz rum and old Jamaica spirits, as they have philanthropy for devotion. Intellect, morals, and sociality seem to us to have sadly deteriorated under the misdirected efforts to advance them.

But Henry Ward Beecher has had a far other purpose in Norwood than to produce a work of art, to construct a story, or to sketch New England village life. He is willing enough to correct some of the misapprehensions which Southerners have, or had, of New England character; but his book, after all, has a serious purpose, and is intended to be a death-blow to New England theological and moral doctrines.

The author, though nominally a Christian, and professedly a Congregational[400] preacher, is really a pagan, and wishes to abolish Puritanism for the worship of nature. But it is less the Puritan than the Christian he wars against; and if he understands himself, which is doubtful, his thought is, that a child, taken as born, without baptism or regeneration, may be trained up by the influence of flowers and close communion with nature, beasts, birds, and fishes, reptiles and insects, to be a Christian of the first water. Dr. Wentworth represents this theory, and reduces it to practice in the training of his daughter Rose, whose chief educator is the half-idiot negro, Pete, "no great things in the intellects, but with a heart as big as that of an ox." The theory recognizes Christ only in nature, and really identifies him with nature, and resolves the Christian law of perfection into the natural laws of the physicists. The author holds, if any thing, that heaven, the crown of life, is in the order of generation, and is attainable as the result of natural development.

The theory, of course, rejects the very fundamental principle of Christianity, which declares that "except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." The author, indeed, does not deny in words the new birth; nay, asserts it, but resolves it into a natural operation, a sort of mental and physical crisis, and recognizes nothing supernatural, or any infusion of grace in it; which is in reality to deny it. We have as hearty a dislike of Calvinism as any one can have, and we know it passably well by our own early experience; but we confess that we have no wish to see old-fashioned Puritanism exchanged for pure rationalism or mere naturalism, and as against Henry Ward Beecher, we are strongly tempted to defend it. Any one who knows New England at all, knows that its morals have deteriorated just in proportion as its old Puritanism has declined, or been liberalized. The fact, whatever the explanation, is undeniable. In our judgment, it is the natural result of loosening the restraints which Puritanism undoubtedly imposed on the passions and conduct, and leaving people to their natural passions, instincts, and propensities, without any restraint at all. Despotism is bad enough; but it is better than no government, better than anarchy. As it affects the question of conversion to the church, we see no gain in the change. We think a sincere, earnest-minded Puritan a less hopeless subject than a liberal, like an Emerson, a John Weis, a John Stuart Mill, a Mr. Lecky, a Herbert Spencer, or such men as were the late Mr. Buckle and the late Sir William Hamilton, who despise Christianity too much to offer any direct opposition to it. The honest Puritan is prejudiced indeed, and unwilling to hear a word in favor of the church; yet he believes in Christian morals, and has some conception of the Christian plan of salvation, and therefore really something for the missionary to work on; but men who have resolved Christianity into naturalism, and measure reality or even the knowable by their own narrow and superficial understandings, are beyond his reach. Their case is hopeless.

Puritanism keeps alive in the community a certain Christian habit of thought, a belief in the necessity of grace, and more or less of a Christian conscience. The greater part of the common people gathered into the sects in seasons of revivals, if our missionaries were present, could just as easily be gathered into the church, and be saved. We suffer terribly in this country for the want of missionary priests, who can go wherever their services are needed[401] by those who know not yet "the faith once delivered to the saints." Our priests are too few for the wants even of our old Catholic population, and what with hearing confessions, and attending sick calls, building churches and school-houses, and providing for the most pressing wants of a Catholic people, are over-worked, and soon exhausted. The great majority of our priests die young, from excessive labor. There is with us a vast missionary field, not indeed among the sects, but among the so-called Nothingarians, who comprise the majority of the American people, and who, though without any specific belief, are yet far from being confirmed unbelievers. But let the Beechers and their associates succeed in reducing Christianity to naturalism, and you soon make this whole class downright infidels. We can have, therefore, no sympathy with Beecherism, or pleasure in seeing its success against even old-fashioned New England Puritanism.

We should say as much of the Presbyterianism of the Middle, Western, and Southern States. We believe any of the older Protestant sects that retain a belief in the Trinity, the Incarnation, and future rewards and punishments, and that practise infant baptism, are preferable by far to any form of modern liberalism, which discards dogma for sentiment and reason for the soul, and are really nature-worshippers, and as much idolaters as were the old pagans, whose rivers and ponds, whose gardens and orchards were overrun with gods. Even a Methodist is upon the whole better than a Liberal, however puffed up he may be by the successful worship of mammon by his sect, and its growing respectability in the eyes of the world.

We have bestowed, perhaps, more attention on Mr. Beecher and his novel than they deserve, but we have made them the text for a desultory discourse, partly in defence of New England against her denigration attempted by one of her prominent sons, and partly in protest against the revival of heathen nature-worship favored by the author. We have not aimed at exalting New England above other sections of the Union. Each section of our common country has its peculiar merits, which are essential to the welfare and development of the whole. New England has hers, which, in some respects, excel those of other sections, and in other respects fall short of them. It is not for us to strike the balance, and to decide which upon the whole preponderate. We have wished to give New England her due, without detracting any thing from what is due to any other section of the Union. We should be sorry to see the effort now making to New Englandize the South succeed. There are some things in the New England character that could be corrected with advantage; and there is much in the Southern character, its openness, its frankness, its personal independence, its manliness, its aristocratic tone and manner, that we should be sorry to lose. But we do not like to find any man decrying his own native land or insensible to its merits.

CHURCH MUSIC
I.

"The Prayer of the Church is the most pleasing to the ear and heart of God, and therefore the most efficacious of all prayers." While we have been perusing the various works on church music that have come before us in the shape of book, pamphlet, tract, and magazine article, we could not keep the words we have quoted above from the celebrated Dom Gueranger out of our mind. In Europe, both in England and on the continent, it is evident, from the numerous publications pertinent to the subject which have been lately issued, that the due celebration of the divine offices of the Church is becoming more and more the object of no little anxiety on the part of the hierarchy, and that the clergy are everywhere making strenuous efforts to get rid of the abuses which since the Protestant reformation, the straitness of the times has tolerated. One of the most notorious of these abuses, fully naturalized amongst us, is the profane character of church music. Several writers, among whom stand preëminent two English priests—the Rev. Canon Oakeley and the Rev. James Nary—have crossed swords on the subject of reform, and we have thus been enabled not only to get at the merits of the particular dispute between these two amicable combatants, but have been led as well to reflect upon the primary object of music in the divine offices, the intention of the Church, and the means she has ordained for realizing it; although we must confess that, with Dom Gueranger's words ringing in our ears, we have not heard from the pages of the publications in question quite so clear an echo to their truth as we would have wished.

The ritual service of the Church is her prayer, and melody is the almost universal form of expression employed in its celebration. Whatever music is sung or performed at her solemn rites is supposed to be sung and performed by her not as a musical performance, but as a prayer. These are the points more or less ignored in all the discussions on what is or may be made suitable music for the Church. The different sentences, anthems, psalms, etc., appointed to be sung by the choir, are all so many prayers offered by the Church. Therefore it is plain that what is proper as music at her offices must as a first principle be a worthy expression of the voice of the Church lifted in prayer. When the priest, robed in his garments of sacrifice, intones the Gloria at the altar, he does so in the name of the Church, not as the Rev. Mr. —— performing a short, effective, and fine tenor solo; and when the choir continues the same angelical anthem, they do so—or rather, are supposed to do so—as his assistants in the divine action. The priest takes his seat to await its conclusion, not to make one of an audience who for the time being are to be relieved from the more engrossing thoughts of prayer by criticising the Gratias as rendered by Mr. A., enjoying the Qui tollis by Miss B., or the telling chorus of the Cum Sancto.

That the musical portions of the church offices are in a true sense[403] prayer, and are based upon that idea alone, namely, the union of the soul with God; that such is the chief intention of the Church, and should be the only object sought in the choice of music and the execution of it, to the absolute subserviency, even if not to the completely ignoring, of every other sentiment, is therefore beyond question; but who will not be able to count upon his ten fingers the churches in the United States where the music would be likely to leave any such impression upon the minds of the worshippers?

We say this not in any cynical spirit. We know the "straitness of the times," and we ourselves have been straitened, and are still, as well as our neighbors; but the general uneasiness and discontent felt among all classes because of the wretched performances of sacred music to which we have been subjected, utterly at variance as they are with the spirit of the sublime and solemn functions of religion, is beginning to find a voice to make audible complaint, and exciting some laudable efforts to rid the holy place of harmonies which savor more of the world, the flesh, and the devil than they do of divine prayer. So common is the ignorance of what the true music of the Church is, that it is a rare thing to find even a Catholic who has any idea that the Mass has not yet been fully sung when he has heard the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei, and not a note of the Introit, Gradual, Prose, Offertory, or Communion. And as for the Vespers, we think the fingers of one hand might suffice to count the churches where any attempt is made to perform them entire. Of the compositions executed in every style of musical art at Mass, will not the first person to whom you may address yourself, be he a devout Catholic well instructed in other matters, or a music-loving Protestant who is fond of "attending service" in our churches on account of the "glorious music of the Catholic Church," which he thinks he hears there—will they not both tell you, if you are at the pains to interrogate them, that Mozart and Haydn hold the place of angelic doctors of music in the Catholic Church, and Webbe, Farmer, Concone and Co. have equally honorable titles for small churches and country choirs?

Would not either of them return you a stare of incredulity if you told them that not one composition of any of these authors has ever been recognized by any authority in the Church, and that the singing of them has, in point of fact, been only barely tolerated; that the great mass of these musical morceaux are wholly unfit for the purpose for which they were written, and that, ten chances to one, neither of these good friends have ever heard, save the chanting of the priest, one single note of the music sanctioned by the Church in all their lives? Yet all this is true to the very letter. Lamentably true; for religion, in the grandeur, power, and spiritual beauty of its sacred offices, is the loser by it, and the devout and prayerful spirit which such offices are calculated to excite in the souls of the faithful is to a great extent hindered, and replaced by a spirit of sensuousness and worldly amusement.

The fact beyond dispute is, that the faithful are deprived of the true expression of the divine prayer of the Church, both on account of the profane character of the music performed and the entire omission of those portions of the Mass and Vespers which give a distinctive color, tone, and meaning to the seasons and festivals, such as the Introit, the[404] Gradual, Prose, Offertory, Communion, and Antiphons.

Not to speak of the wholly inexcusable practice of reproducing well-known arias from different operas to which the words of some devout hymn are adapted in the most shockingly garbled manner, without regard to grammar or sense, a cursory examination of "the masses" popular among us, and sung, without distinction, at any season and on any festival, would be sufficient to condemn them as totally unfit as vehicles of expression for the words set to them, or the occasion of their performance. Let us quote some true words from the Rev. Mr. Nary:

We need to add little to this. The impressions left upon the mind after being subjected to any one of such performances is well known to all who have suffered. What religious feelings might one reasonably expect to have pervaded (may we not say the audience?) or what devotion could possibly be excited in the hearts of any unfortunate worshippers present on the occasion of which the following is a report:

We are aware that some, while agreeing with us, as they cannot help but do, that "masses" in figured music, and "figured vespers," are in the style of their composition essentially profane, yet choose them, and cause them to be performed, on the plea that the sacredness of the place and the occasion of the divine office is a sufficient corrective of their innate profanity, or that, being "magnificent," "sublime," "classic," etc., such music may justly be employed to adorn the grand functions of religion, and that the theatre ought not to boast of better music than the house of God; that—as one such admirer of classic music said to us—we ought to "spoil the Egyptians;" or again, that Protestants are attracted to churches where such music is given, and may be led by the charm of the music to inquire into the truths of our religion; and finally, that there is nothing else to take its place; the antiquated Gregorian chant being wholly unfit for the cultivated musical ears of the nineteenth century, and to banish this music from Catholic churches would be to do an irreparable injury to high art. But all these pleas fail absolutely in producing any influence upon our judgment, the words of Dom Gueranger sounding so loudly in our ears as they do, and our own experience to the contrary. In point of fact, the sacredness of the place where this kind of music is sung is no corrective of the unworthy nature of the music itself. Doubtless the cantatrice is denied the clapping of hands and the encore which her splendid singing calls for, and the primo basso retires from the front of the organ-gallery without a bow to his fashionable auditory—nevertheless interiorly disgusted, we warrant, by the lack of some visible appreciation of one of his best efforts—and a well-behaved congregation will quietly resume their attitude of prayer at the close of some crashing finale; but are these sufficient evidences of the very opposite impression being produced upon the worshippers to that which the music from its character, aside from the similar manner of its rendering, is not only calculated but is expected to produce? "I hold it for certain," said good old Saint Alphonsus, "that vanity and the devil usually get more by it than God."

What those who defend the use of figured music in our solemn offices must show is, that it not only edifies the faithful, but that it edifies equally with, or more than, the authorized chant. That it is the source of no little disedification; that it distracts the soul from the great object upon which all its powers ought to be concentrated; that it is always more or less an imperfect performance, and, in most cases, a mere makeshift; and that where the organist and singers are in power the sacred ministers play but a subordinate part in a scene in which, as it has been well said, the music from the choir gallery is the magnet which attracts the gold and silver, there cannot be the shadow of a doubt.

But this is not all. Is figured[406] music in conformity as to its style with the spirit of the other portions of the divine office? Will its most strenuous adherents claim for it the title of being a fair and true expression of the Church's prayer? Does it harmonize with those other parts of the office performed in the sanctuary? Here we can speak feelingly. How often have we not been tempted to smile at our own voice intoning the per omnia sæcula sæculorum, as the echoes of that galloping finale of an interminable "offertory piece" or Benedictus were yet resounding in the aisles of the church! What feelings of vexation have not arisen in our breast as the response came back to our ears in slovenly haste, as if our inharmonious cadence had too quickly disturbed the well-merited repose of our choir after, we must confess, their too successful effort to captivate the attention of the congregation, and put the priest in the very pillory of singularity and discord! Why must our mind at such times suffer the painful distraction of remembering the well-known sarcastic remark, that "the Rev. Mr. —— then put up a supplication which was one of the most eloquent prayers ever offered to a Boston audience!"

The second plea, that these classic harmonies, so rich, so melodious, so sublime, etc., etc., should not be denied to the greater glory of God, is of equally small weight, since there are many other things in nature and art extremely beautiful in themselves, truly classic in their conception and execution, which, it must be confessed, would hardly bear transporting to the house of prayer, and which it would take the heroic virtue of a saint to refer to the greater glory of God if exhibited in any place. We do not object to the offering of these harmonies to God, but the question is, Do these harmonies, by their religious tone and devout style, offer themselves to God? Does the Church judge them to be suitable for her divine offices? Let these questions be answered in the affirmative, and our own personal judgment and sentiments shall go to the wall.

The plea that the music as now commonly heard in our churches allures Protestants, and thus brings them within sight and hearing of Catholic truth, has been already well answered in our quotation from Mr. Nary. For ourselves, judging from the behavior of the mass of these visitors, we are forced to the conclusion that they frequent our churches where fine music is given because they can get it at a cheaper rate than they would have to pay for it elsewhere.

That there is nothing else to take its place, and that the antiquated Gregorian chant is unfit for our ears of modern cultivation, is simply the plea of ignorance. The established chant of the Church not only can take its place, as we shall attempt to show further on, but as a fact it has never ceded its right to any other style of music; and those who know any thing of the Gregorian chant scientifically, know that it is our modern ears that are at fault, perverted as they have been in their sense and appreciation of true religious melody by the sensuous and effeminate spirit which pervades all modern art.

It is strongly urged that the reintroduction of the Gregorian chant in our churches, now wholly committed to the use of modern music, is impossible, for the hired singers will have nothing to do with it. To which we answer that, as the execution of the Gregorian chant necessarily excludes female vocalists from the choir in accordance with the sacred[407] canons, the prima donna will undoubtedly have to look elsewhere for an engagement, and very likely the tenore and basso who sing in the Mass on Sunday in our church, and perform in the opera buffa all the rest of the week, may refuse to employ their highly cultivated voices in singing music that affords them so little opportunity of exhibiting their artistic powers; but, we may ask, are these the only favored beings whom God has endowed with good voices and the ability to use them? We propose to enter more fully into this question of difficulty, and think we shall be able to show that in this as well as in other matters, "where there's the will, there's a way."

In the interests of art, it is asked, ought not the composition, and by consequence the reproduction of sacred music be encouraged? Will not its banishment from our churches be a species of vandalism in art greatly to be deplored? Let us look at this fairly. What is this so-called "sacred" music? Is it more or less than the adaptation of the words of prayer uttered by the church to concerted harmony composed as an artistic expression of the sentiment conveyed by the sacred words? Surely nothing more. But what is concerted harmony, as a rule, "sacred" or "consecrated" to? To the words of the offices of the church? By no means. There is but one kind of music consecrated to that—the Gregorian chant. And, with our hands upon our hearts, can we say that modern music has received such an aid in its development through the composition and execution of Masses, Magnificats, Offertories, Tantum Ergos, and the like, that its present state of advancement is as much indebted to them as is popularly supposed, or that their withdrawal from the service of the Church would prove any very serious detriment to it? As pieces of musical art, the operas and oratorios of composers are far superior to the masses they have written, and we who may choose would much rather listen to them. We must not be understood to decry the composition of so-called sacred music, or the singing of it. On the contrary, we would do all in our power to encourage it; but we object to its usurping the place of music better fitted for the divine offices of the Church, and vastly surpassing it for such use in every particular. There is plenty of time, outside of the hour or two in which we are present at Mass or Vespers, to hear all the sacred music we desire or can bear. All we ask is, let the Church pray her own prayers and sing her own divine song without hinderance, or the intrusion of harmonies as ill-suited to her voice as they are powerless to express the emotions of her more than human soul.

This leads us to the utterance of a grave complaint against modern sacred music, namely, the absurd settings of words by which the divine offices are not only prolonged to a tedious extent, but the Holy Church is made to stammer, repeat, hesitate in her speech, and fall at last into an inextricable confusion of tongues. Did our pious congregation below stairs know what their singers are singing up aloft, they would not unfrequently be reminded of certain warnings against "vain repetitions." The Masses of composers who wrote in the seventeenth and eighteenth century are not only open to the charge of being replete with these vain repetitions, but are full of the most ridiculous blunders.

We subjoin a specimen. The words given are those sung by the[408] leading soprano; the lines (—) show where the text is broken up by instrumental interludes:

And this from Doctor Mozart's renowned Mass No. 12, which we have heard so often, and enjoyed so much! But he is not alone. We quote from an able paper from the Dublin Review on "Church Music and Church Choirs:"

To the ignorance, alas! so general, of what the Church is actually saying in her holy offices, and what the choir is singing in her name, as well as of what they are omitting to sing as in duty bound, may be attributed in great measure the apparent indifference with which the people of our congregations listen to any musical production from the choir, be it in harmony with the season or the festival, as the case may be, or not, provided only that the voices are in harmony with each other. Did they know better, they would say with Pope Benedict XIV., who, it seems, had some of our own abuses to contend with and reform in Rome itself, as other popes have had since his time. Speaking of St. Augustine, who used to be moved to tears by the singing (be it well understood, not of such music as we possess) in the churches, he says that "the music moved him indeed, but still more so the words he heard. But he would weep now also for grief; for, although he heard the singing, he could not distinguish the words."

Let us hear something more of the opinions of the same holy pope about figured "sacred music." "The Gregorian chant is that song which excites the minds of the faithful to piety and devotion; it is that music, therefore, which, if sung in our churches with care and decorum, is most willingly heard by devout persons, and is justly preferred to that which is called figured or harmonized music. The titillation of figured music is held very cheaply by men of religious mind in comparison with the sweetness of the Church chant, and hence it is that the people flock to the churches of the monks, who, taking piety for their guide in singing the praises of God, after the counsel of the prince of psalmists, skilfully sing to their Lord as Lord, and serve God as God with the utmost reverence."

Did we add no more, we think we have said enough to show that the employment of figured music for the divine offices is an abuse. It does not answer its purpose, and its permission is nothing better than a winking at our weakness, (the wisdom of which, considering all things, we by no means presume to condemn for the past,) while the prevailing sensuousness and libertinism of the times has debased and emasculated our taste in true religious art.

But it is a comfort to know that such music has never received from the supreme pastors and rulers of the church any thing more than a reluctant permission, that the concessions they have made in its favor have always been exacted by the force of circumstances, and that they have[410] constantly raised their voice in opposition to it as an abuse, and urged in the strongest terms of command and persuasion its abolition, and a return to the authorized chant, the universal song of the Church, ever ancient and ever new.

Dilettanti talk, with an air of superior knowledge, of the Gregorian chant as if it were something obsolete, the uncouth production of a barbarous and unartistic age. We think there are not a few other fashions and modes of religious expression besides her chant, that the Church has persistently adhered to, which modern ideas might with equal justice denounce as obsolete and of unartistic origin. As has been well remarked,

To be sure. What would we think of an archbishop to-day standing before the altar dressed in a frock-coat with a stove-pipe hat on his head, and a pair of patent leather boots on his feet, giving his solemn benediction en roulade?

What we have said in regard to the wishes and commands of the Church, as expressed by the papal bulls and decrees of councils in regard to this matter, we propose to prove by referring the reader to several of these authorities.

Alexander VII., in his Constitution 36, Piæ sollicitudinis, 23d April, 1657, excludes all singing of pieces not contained in the liturgy or approved by the Congregation of Rites, and all profane styles of music. (Bullar. t. 6.)

The Congregation of the Apostolical Visitation, July 30th, 1665, enforced and explained more fully the constitution of Alexander VII. The character of the music at Mass and Office is to be ecclesiastical, grave, and devotional. Only what is prescribed for the day or season is to be sung. It prohibits prolonged solos. It prescribes that the words are to be sung as they were written, without any inversion, addition, or other change.

The popes, Innocent XI., 1678, and Innocent XII., 1692, renewed and enforced similar rules, imposing, as their predecessors had done, heavy penalties on choir-masters for disobedience. (V. Bullar. t. 7.)

In the Council of Rome, 1725, Benedict XIII. insists upon the ecclesiastical character of the music to be used in church. (Tit. 15, cap. 6.)

Benedict XIV., in a circular letter, enters at large into the subject of church music, and, while he does not wholly condemn the use of figured music, yet deplores the bad taste of those who employ it, as well as the great neglect of religion which he attributes to the careless performance of the divine offices of the church. As we have seen already, he distinctly prefers the Gregorian chant, and refers in this letter to the decree of the Council of Trent in regard to it.

Clement XIII., Sept. 17th, 1760, issued an edict against the abuse of prolonging the music in church "to the detriment of devotion and of the approved rites, and in violation of the canons and rubrics."

The cardinal vicar of Gregory XVI., 1842, inveighs against tiresome repetition and arbitrary inversion of words.

Pius IX., June 28th, 1853, showed his great wish for the thoroughly religious character of church music; for in his letters establishing the Seminario[411] Pio, in connection with the Roman Seminary, he ordered that the students should be taught the Gregorian chant, and no other. "Cantus Gregorianus, omni alio rejecto, tradetur." (Tit. 5, de studior. ratione.)

The latest instruction issued by the cardinal vicar, Nov. 18th, 1856, denounces the scandals caused by the introduction of profane theatrical music in the churches, and the interminable length of their execution, and, "by express command of his holiness," lays down a set of rules which are to be observed in future. At the same time the cardinal issued a series of instructions to composers, from which it is evident very little encouragement is given them to write for the Church, and they are so restricted that we very much doubt if they care to put their Pegasus in such a cumbrous harness as the good cardinal prescribes.

The late Plenary Council of Baltimore confirms a decree made in the former one, which reads as follows:

The wishes of the fathers of the Council in regard to the Gregorian chant may be seen in the decree De Vesperis:

In the same strain many bishops in Europe have raised their voices against the profane music which has crept insidiously into the holy place, and urged a speedy return to the use of the ancient chant.

From the authorities we have adduced we get at the mind of the Church, and see that it is plainly adverse to the introduction of the modern style of music in our sacred offices, and we have not been able to find one instance where its use has been officially permitted in any particular diocese but with the utmost reluctance, and not without expressing at the same time an earnest wish that the old chant of the Church might be restored to its primitive universal use.

There is also a significant fact not unworthy our notice. Looking at the Protestant churches around us, we see that it is only in those which are fast losing their former hold upon some form of ritual in their religious meetings, that elaborate figured music is finding a home, and garbled portions of "the masses" [412] of Mozart, Haydn, and other Catholic composers are being sung to a nauseating adaptation of English words: while, on the other hand, those which are with equally rapid advances returning to the bosom of unity with the Catholic Church are cultivating the Gregorian chant to a degree which ought to put us to the blush, and imitating, as best they may, the ecclesiastical and devout order of Catholic worship, and hold our figured and florid music in deserved contempt. Straws show which way the wind blows.

Sudden revolutions, however, are not to our mind; and we know something of the difficulties in the way of such a reform in the matter of church music as the Church evidently desires, and a general movement toward the ancient discipline which she would encourage and bless. Because we cannot do all in a day is no reason why we cannot do something in a week. In England, the clergy have taken the whole subject to heart, and have already accomplished wonders. There are many churches where the whole services are given entire. All that is prescribed de rigueur to be sung at Mass is sung. Vespers and Compline strictly according to the breviary are chanted in more than one church by the whole congregation. They have not entirely eliminated figured music, but are reducing it to its lowest terms.[87] Few churches are without their boy choirs, trained to sing the devout song of the sanctuary. The zealous Archbishop of Westminster has issued an order that no new church be opened in his diocese unless provision be made for a sanctuary choir. He has not thought it right, as he says, to enforce the orders of the former vicars apostolic, "Fœminæ voces ne audiantur in choro," yet he adds, "All that I can effect by the strongest expression of desire and by persuasion, I shall endeavor to effect."

Surely we can also do something toward aiding the Church in liberating herself from this captivity to an expression of her majestic offices so foreign to the true sound of her own voice. Looking back upon the days when the untiring voice of prayer was ascending to heaven from the holy sanctuaries of religion, when the festival days were kept and the faith was strong and the people devout, a faith and devotion due in a great measure to the sacredness of liturgical worship and the inspiration of the holy chants, may we not justly mourn the loss of this ancient fervor, and earnestly strive to awaken an interest in what, for so many good reasons, appears to hold more than an accidental relation to it?

We have no doubt that the coming Œcumenical Council will speak in yet stronger terms in favor of a reform so vital to the interests of religion in the whole world.

In subsequent articles we propose to consider some propositions made to ameliorate the present state of things, the characteristics of the Gregorian chant as the true song of the Church, and offer some hints as to the manner of its execution, and the means of obtaining and holding a[413] permanent chorus of singers who shall make the divine praises resound in our consecrated Houses of Prayer in a manner more edifying to the faithful, and more becoming the Divine Majesty.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE ISLAND OF NEW YORK.[88]
THE COLONIAL DAYS.

The appearance of a new edition of the brief but valuable and attractive work which the present Bishop of Newark issued in 1853, is a matter of congratulation. The Catholics of New York City have a history in this land, and it is too little known. Bishop Bayley was the first to supply the want; he wrote, as the title-page shows, while still connected with the diocese of New York as secretary to the late distinguished archbishop; and of course with singular advantages for correctness of details and for a just view of his subject. We may here ask our readers to pause and look back with us at the early history of Catholicity in this busy metropolis, and trace the progress of the church from its small beginning toward its present development, when we behold it with its archbishop, its zealous and active secular clergy, its regular clergy, embracing Franciscans of the Observance and Capucins, Dominicans, Jesuits, Redemptorists, Priests of Mercy, Paulists; its various orders and congregations devoted to the instruction of youth, the care of the orphan, the foundling, the wayward and the erring, whom it shelters in its asylums, hospitals, and protectorates, with a Catholic Publication Society, and several publishing houses and journals.

This progress the Brief Sketch of Bishop Bayley enables us to trace down to the year 1853, his duties as bishop depriving him of the leisure needed to collect and arrange materials to continue it to the present time, by including an account of the progress since the work originally appeared. But even then, as the title shows, it professed to treat rather of the earlier history than of that which is almost contemporaneous.

The early history of the Catholic Church on the island of New York is indeed an attractive and interesting theme. It opens with the romantic story of the early Jesuit missions; for of the visits of the Catholic navigators, Verazzani and Sebastian Gomez, we have too little detail to know whether a priest actually said mass on our island.

The first priest who is known to have set his foot on the island of Manhattan was an illustrious missionary, who, while on his way from Quebec to his mission ground on the upper lakes, was in 1643 taken by the Mohawks, tortured almost beyond the power of human endurance, spared to become the slave of savages,[414] bearing their burdens in their winter hunts, in their fishing trips to Saratoga Lake and the Hudson, on their trading visits to the Dutch Fort Orange, where Albany now stands, bearing all, enduring all, with a soul ever wrapt in prayer and union with God, till at last the Dutch overcame his reluctance and saved him from the hands of his savage captors, as they were about to put him to death. Covered with wounds and bruises, mutilated, extenuated, scarce human in dress or outward form, such was Isaac Jogues, the first Catholic priest to enter our great city, then in its infancy, to meet with respect and kindness from the Dutch, with the reverence due to a martyr from the two Catholics, sole children of the ancient faith then in New Amsterdam.

The stay of this illustrious missionary was brief, and his ministry was limited to the confessional, his chapel and vestments having fallen into the hands of the Indians, and greedily seized as trophies.

Governor Kieft displayed great humanity in his care of the missionary, and seized the first opportunity to enable him to return to Europe. Panting for martyrdom, Father Jogues remained in his native land only to obtain needed dispensations and permission to return to his labors. On reaching Canada, he found peace almost made with the Mohawks, and, proceeding as envoy to their territory, concluded a treaty. He was invited to plant a mission among them, as his associates had done among their kindred, the Hurons. But when he returned to do so, prejudices had sprung up, a hatred of Christianity as something baneful had seized them, the missionary was arrested, treated as a prisoner, and in a few days put to death on the banks of Caughnawaga Creek, on the 18th of October, 1646.

The next priest known to have visited New York was the Italian Father Bressani, who underwent a similar course of suffering, was captured, tortured, enslaved, and ransomed by the kindly Dutch; and by them sent to France. Although he subsequently published a short account of the Huron missions, he is entirely silent as to New Amsterdam, and we know nothing in regard to any exercise of the ministry during his stay on our island.

The first priest who came here actually to extend his ministry to any Catholics in the place was the Jesuit Father Simon Le Moyne, the discoverer of the salt springs at Syracuse, and the successful founder of the Mohawk and Onondaga missions. His visit was repeated, and there would seem to be a probability that he may have actually offered the holy sacrifice. The real field of his labors, and those of his associates, was, however, the castles of the Five Nations of Iroquois, in which, for many years, regular Catholic chapels subsisted, winning many to the faith, and saving many by baptism in infancy or in fatal illness. The converts at last began to emigrate to Canada, where three villages of Catholic Iroquois still attest the power of the gospel as preached by the early missionaries. Political jealousies, infused by the English, gradually intensified the innate dislike of the pagans to Catholicity, and prejudice, debauchery, and penal laws at last drove the Catholic missionaries from a field in which they had labored with such courageous and unremitting zeal.

For years the only Catholic missionary in their territory was Father Milet, held at Oneida as a prisoner. Flying visits alone after this kept up the faith, and in 1709, Father Peter Mareuil, on the outbreak of war, retired to Albany, and the mission in the[415] Iroquois country virtually closed. The later and tardy Protestant efforts were in a measure built on these early Catholic labors, and from Dellius to Zeisberger they gladly availed themselves of the pupils of the Jesuits to form their own instructions.

This Iroquois church has its martyr missionary Jogues; its martyred neophytes, who died at the hands of their countrymen rather than renounce Jesus to bow the knee to Aireskoi; and its holy virgin in Catharine Tehgahkwita, the Genevieve of New France. Then came the growth of mustard-seed in the Dutch colony. We hear of the freedom of worship achieved and established by the founders of the Dutch republic. It is indeed a favorite theme. Catholic and Protestant alike battled with Spain, and the blood of both won the liberty of the Seven United Provinces. Then as now Catholics formed nearly half the population of Holland. But as soon as freedom was obtained, the Protestants turned on the Catholics, who had fought by their sides, deprived them of civil rights, put their religion under a ban, expelled them from their ancient churches. In fact, they halted in their course of tyranny and oppression, only when fear dictated a little prudence.

The very church given to the English Puritans under Robinson, by the Dutch authorities, was the church of the Catholic Beguines, whose residences encircled the chapel of which Dutch laws deprived them, in order to give it to foreigners who reviled the creed that erected it and the worship of the Most High so long offered within its walls.

When New Netherland was colonized, this fierce intolerance of the dominant party in Holland excluded Catholics from the new settlement as rigorously as Puritan fanaticism banished them from the shores of New England. The Catholic Hollander could not emigrate to the new land. No worship was permitted but that of the Protestant church of Holland. It is well to talk of Dutch toleration, but it is the veriest myth ever concocted; and in New Netherland, though men were received who had denied Christ and been pirates on Salee rovers, Catholicity was excluded.

Gradually a few Catholics did creep into the colony. Father Jogues on his visit in 1643 found an Irishman and a Portuguese woman, forerunners of the four hundred thousand now on Manhattan Island. Le Moyne, as we have stated, subsequently visited the island, and a Dutch domine avers that he did so in order to give the consolations of religion to some Catholic sailors and residents; but the fanaticism of Holland was here, and as an illustration of the freedom of worship supposed to exist, we find that in 1658 a Catholic in Brooklyn was punished for objecting to support a Reformed minister.

By the reduction of New York, in 1664, to the English sway, restrictions were really if not explicitly removed. James, Duke of York, was a Catholic, and his province of New York was for a time governed by Colonel Thomas Dongan, also a Catholic. His character and career are known to our readers. Under his administration Catholic priests for the first time took up their residence on the island. Unfortunately, we have little more than the names of three clergymen and some indication of the period of their stay; though hostile notices tell us of one terrible crime they perpetrated—they actually did erect a "Jesuit colledge," and taught boys Latin. The King's Farm was assigned as the place for this institution of learning; but before Catholicity could take an enduring form,[416] James II. was hurled from his throne for trying to make the Anglican bishops speak a little toleration. As has often happened, intolerance, with the banner-cry of "Liberty," became the order of the day. New York soon enjoyed the benefit of a governor of a true bigot stamp, grandson of one of the bloodiest butchers in the blood-stained annals of Ireland, Coote, Earl of Bellomont. He disgraced the colonial legislation with penal laws against Catholics, and characteristically lied in the preamble of his act. But he was a stanch Protestant, and had some curious dealings with Captain Kidd. The result of this change in New York affairs was that the King's Farm slipped into the hands of the Episcopalians, and they built Trinity Church on it. There is some squabbling now about this property; why not settle the matter amicably by devoting it to the object originally intended—"a Jesuit colledge"?

Under the harrying that began with Leisler's usurpation of authority in the province on the fall of James, and his mad brain full of plots and "diabolical designs of the wicked and cruel papists," such Catholics as had settled in New York seem gradually to have removed elsewhere; or, if they remained, reared families who were strangers to the faith.

Thus far Catholicity in New York had a strange history. Is it a dream? Fact first: Enlightened Dutch Protestants, champions of liberty of conscience, exclude Catholics, and when they creep in, tax them to support a church against the dictates of their conscience. Fact second: Enlightened English Protestants, after a great and glorious revolution, and of course full of toleration, passed penal laws subjecting Catholic priests to imprisonment for life with murderers and criminals. Fact third: Catholics during the brief period of their influence gave the colony a legislature, a bill of rights, freedom of worship to all Christians, and a college, and first attempted to elevate and christianize the negro slave. Bishop Bayley thus narrates one of these glorious works:

For fifty years the history of Catholicity on New York island is a blank. A priest was occasionally brought in as a prisoner on some Spanish ship taken by a privateer; that is all. Catholics are scarcely alluded to. But an awakening came in 1741 in one of the wildest excitements in our annals. Catholics had, indeed, nothing to do with it, and for a long time no breath implicated the few Catholics with the supposed dangers, till a silly letter of General Oglethorpe put the idea into the heads of the New York authorities. Then the negro question and the Catholic question, which have so long alternately afforded a topic for sensation, and have at times been so oddly combined, met for the first time in New York annals.

Of course after this attack of insanity New York was scarcely a place for a Catholic to reside. There must have been a few; but evidently they avoided attracting attention. The next Catholic sensation was that of a poor creature whose life had been a sad defiance of all religion and morality, but who, at her death, sent some money to the Rev. Mr. [418] Inglis, rector of Trinity Church, with a request that she should be buried in the church. She was indeed interred there, till a clamor rose fierce and loud. She was not only a public sinner but a Catholic; the latter, too terrible a sin to forgive, so she was taken up; but Mr. Inglis never recovered from the stigma.

Not long before the Revolution, the few Catholics in New York were again the object of the zeal of the Jesuit fathers, with whom so much of our history is connected. The mission of the sons of St. Ignatius, which in Maryland was coeval with the settlement of that colony, gradually extended to Pennsylvania and New Jersey, aided chiefly by the bequest of Sir John James. The mission was one involving some danger, and hence required great caution; but finally a Catholic priest stood in New York to begin to gather the faithful, and administer the sacraments of which they had been so long deprived. The priest who formed this first congregation, the nucleus of St. Peter's, and thus of all the Catholic institutions on the Island of Manhattan, was a German Jesuit, Father Ferdinand Steinmeyr, known on the American mission as Father Farmer. A man of extensive learning, not only in the theological studies of his church, but in the natural sciences, the Royal Society of London had been glad to add his name to their list of members. Here he would have been a fit associate for Colden, Franklin, and Barton, but the gratification of this taste would have made him too conspicuous in a prejudiced and hostile community; and the man of science submitted to be passed by without notice, anxious only to do his duty as a missionary, and gather the lost sheep of Israel. The reticence required unfortunately leaves us without any direct information as to his visits, and we do not positively know when or where this man, whose learning would have adorned the colony of New York, first offered the holy sacrifice for the pioneer congregation of Catholics in this city. Bishop Bayley has collected the various early notes and hints on this interesting point, but it is after all involved in great obscurity. Yet this founder of Catholicity in New York City lived so recently, that the writer, who can claim neither gray hairs nor advanced years, remembers several who had received the sacraments of the church at his hands.

Father Farmer came undoubtedly with the address of some German Catholic, and his visit would thus be less likely to attract attention, as German clergymen of various denominations often passed through the city. Mr. Idley, a German of the early day, claimed that mass was first said in his house in Wall street, and the claim may not be unfounded.

Father Farmer continued these occasional visits until the breaking out of hostilities with England. The defeat of Washington on Long Island threw New York into the hands of the English, and for the next seven years his pastoral visits became impossible.

So long as the colonial dependence prevailed, the British government stimulated anti-Catholic fanaticism, because while this spirit was fanned the colonies readily gave men and money to aid in the reduction of Canada. That French colony, after many fruitless attempts, at last fell under the combined efforts of the mother country and the colonies; but Canada, once reduced, became the object of sounder and more dispassionate statesmanship. By the surrender, the Canadians were guaranteed certain rights, as the Irish were[419] by the treaty of Limerick. Protestant governments have never been over-scrupulous on such points, and it was as easy to break faith with the Canadians as with the Irish, but this time England was honest. The Catholic Church was left almost intact in Canada; nay, its clergy continued under British rule to gather tithes and receive certain traditional honors.

This was too much for the people of the older colonies to brook. They had not lavished blood and treasure for this. The very bigotry nurtured by English rule now turned against it. And what wonder, then, that the first standard of revolt reared in New York expressed this long-cherished feeling, this hatred of Catholics so long encouraged by government, what wonder that the flag of American freedom that first floated to the breeze in New York bore the motto, "No Popery"!

How little we can fathom the designs of the Almighty! Who looking on that flag could see in it the germ of a freedom of the church which she then nowhere out of the patrimony of St. Peter really possessed? Yet it was there. Down to the French alliance, this anti-Catholic feeling nerved the Whigs and discouraged the friends of British rule. Then it changed, and the Tory papers caught up every occasion to show how zealously Protestant the British party was. While the selectmen of Boston followed a Catholic procession through the streets, and Congress went to mass, the British authorities in New York are pointed out by a pamphleteer of the day as beyond reproach. They showed their anti-Catholic zeal in this way:

Benedict Arnold—for even this precious worthy may come in as an illustration—when he sat down in New York in his uniform of a British brigadier, to write his address to his countrymen justifying the step which he had taken, and which we are accustomed to characterize by the ugly name of treason, made his strong anti-Catholic feeling justify his course. He had entered the movement as a thorough Protestant; but when Congress began to favor popery, he foresaw the ruin of his country, and as a true Protestant made his peace with England. Strong as the anti-Catholic feeling had been in the hearts of the colonists, we do not find that this appeal of Arnold to their prejudices induced a single man to desert the American ranks; it is far more likely that it may have sent some Irish soldiers from the British ranks to swell Washington's regiments.

We are apt to associate our republic with the idea of unbounded religious toleration. As we have shown, hostility to Catholics was a potent element in arousing the people to declare against Great Britain, and the State governments as originally framed bear deeply impressed the traces of that common feeling which once, in Lyons, proclaimed in one line free toleration in matters of religion, and in the next prohibited the mass[420] under terrible penalties. If freedom was dreamed of, it was to be one which we were not to enjoy.

The anti-Catholic feeling that characterized the first national movement was displayed in the convention which in 1777 formed a constitution for the State of New York. There no less a personage than John Jay, subsequently minister to England and chief-justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was the ardent, fiery advocate of intolerance. Catholics of New York owe a debt of gratitude to Gouverneur Morris and Philip Livingston for the manliness with which in that convention they fought the battle of human freedom and sought to check the onslaught of intolerance. But they failed. Under that constitution no Catholic could be naturalized, and the liberty of worship granted was couched in such terms as to justify the legislature at any time in crushing Catholicity, and in point of fact they at once adopted an iron-clad oath that effectually prevented any Catholic from holding office.

The Brief Sketch gives the debates on the interesting questions before the convention; and it notes how, in that curious system of language so common with our public speakers and writers, this constitution found an advocate in the late polished Benjamin F. Butler, of New York, who praised it in an address before the New York Historical Society for its liberality in containing no provision repugnant to civil and religious toleration, as though laws excluding Catholics from citizenship and office were not slightly repugnant.

In point of fact, however, the hostile feeling of the earlier days was soon neutralized, and at the close of the war New York was virtually free to receive a Catholic Church.

how it has spread and done its work of struggle and triumph under the federal government, will be the matter of another article.

MATTERS RELATING TO THE COUNCIL.

The following items are condensed from a letter written to the Correspondant, and from other European periodicals.

Tribunes have been prepared in the chapel of SS. Processus and Martinus, where the council will be held for princes, or their ambassadors, who will be permitted to attend the sessions, without, however, enjoying the privileges conceded to them in former councils. It is in contemplation to cover the chapel with a roof of glass, in order to make the voices of the speakers more easily audible, as the chapel is equal in size to an ordinary cathedral. If this is not done, the ordinary sessions will have to be held in the great hall, where the mandatum is performed on Maunday-Thursday. It is probable that the public will not be admitted, even to the solemn sessions, although the doors leading into the basilica will be thrown open. The entire pavement of the chapel will be covered by the magnificent carpet presented by the King of Prussia. It is definitely decided that the council shall be called the First Council of the Vatican. The first stone of the monument of the council was laid on the 14th of[421] October. It has been determined to admit the generals of orders and honorary abbots without jurisdiction to seats in the council. Two of the four legates who are to preside in the absence of the sovereign pontiff have been named, the Cardinals Bilio and De Reisach. The preliminary labors of the theologians have been completed, the commissions dissolved, and the results of their work have been formulated ready for presentation to the council. The Holy Father has declared that the most complete liberty of discussion will prevail, and that no decisions will be approved which have not been passed by a vote approaching to unanimity. Mgr. Gianelli, secretary of the permanent congregation of the council, has said that the session of the council will necessarily be a long one, on account of the great number of questions to be proposed for discussion. The mode of publishing the decisions has not yet been determined. Some propose that the official journal of Rome publish a daily compte rendu of the acts of the session; others, that the Civilta Cattolica be published more frequently, with an account of the debates and decrees; while others think that no publication will be made until the close of the council. The report that the Holy Father was displeased with the mandement of the German bishops assembled at Fulda is contradicted. On the contrary, he was well satisfied with it, and a favorable notice of it has appeared in the Civilta Cattolica. It is reported that M. l'Abbé Freppel has been charged with an important commission in reference to those English Protestants who may be disposed to come to the council.

A superb history of the council, illustrated in the highest style of art, is to be published at Rome as a private enterprise, in six folio volumes. The first will contain the life of the sovereign pontiff, Pius IX.; the second, the biographies of the cardinals; the third will contain a description of all the grand functions and ceremonies which are celebrated at Rome; the fourth will contain a history of all the preceding councils; the fifth will contain the biographies of all the prelates who assist at the council; the sixth will contain the acts of the council. These volumes will contain a great number of lithographic portraits, and of chromo-lithographic illustrations of the places, scenes, costumes, etc.

All anxiety which may have been felt in regard to the disposition of the French Liberal Catholics toward the council is completely set at rest by the clear and emphatic declaration of their principal organ, the Correspondant, that they will submit most unreservedly and joyously to all its decisions, as expressing the infallible judgment of the church.

The Grand Master of the Free-Masons of France has published a circular calling an extraordinary convention of the order, to meet on the 8th of December, in order to issue a manifesto declaring the principles of universal human right. The Anti-Council of Free-Thinkers will also assemble at Naples on the same day.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

It was simply natural that the universal desire to hear and learn something concerning the approaching Œcumenical Council—a desire that with some meant anxiety for serious knowledge and with others mere idle curiosity—should be responded to by writers willing and able to gratify it. We should far transcend our prescribed limits were we to undertake to do more than give a list of works on the subject possessing the mere qualities of serious treatment and some degree of merit. Of a large class of works on the council whose object is to vulgarize the subject we of course make no mention. Not to speak of pamphlets without number, France and Germany have been most prolific in literary productions concerning the council. Indeed, in these two countries alone, books of solid erudition and elevated tone are so numerous as almost to form a special encyclopædia, treating of the council from the various stand-points of history, law, politics, social philosophy, liturgy, and theology. And now, scanning more narrowly the long list, we find ourselves obliged to pass over in silence many of them that present the subject simply as historical, doctrinal, or specially theological, and to confine our brief mention to those which distinguish themselves from the mere treatise by an exceptional style and tone that render them more spirited and militant. We begin with La Société devant le Concile, par le Chanoine Martinet. For the great majority of persons outside of the Catholic Church in England and the United States, the mere title of this work is in itself a surprise. They have been so absorbingly occupied in arraigning the council before society in general and before their own little societies in particular, that it never appears to have occurred to them that a counter-arraignment was among modern possibilities. They have busied themselves, and for that matter still busy themselves, in squaring the ability and jurisdiction of the church by what they are pleased to call the demands of modern society—the ideas of modern civilization; as though these demands and these ideas were so perfectly recognized, classified, and codified as to present a compact and intelligible system. And yet, if, going from one to another of the entire chorus so loudly chanting the hosannas of the assumed system, we ask what is this system, you will find that no two of them agree. If the Œcumenical Council were to commence its work by a decree that should meet the views of any given one out of a hundred of them, there would arise a shout of malediction from the other ninety-nine. Suppose the orthodox Episcopalian to be satisfied, the Unitarian would inevitably be discontented. And if the Socialist could with any reason approve of what was done, just so certainly it would not suit his Presbyterian neighbor. Thus, for instance, take the first fourteen articles of the so-called "Papal Syllabus," of December, 1864, and will any one undertake to point out the Protestant country in Europe or in America in which one half the community would not be at once arrayed against the other half on the question as to whether they are truth or error? People talk of modern civilization and the spirit of the age as though these expressions conveyed a clear and definite meaning, and represented certain ideas distinctly recognized as truth by all; as though this so-called spirit of the age were something as definite, as tangible, and of as efficacious an application as a code of civil law; and as though its practical working were one of truth and harmony; whereas, in reality, no incomprehensible jargon of words, no jumble of ideas, no jungle of thicket is so helplessly confused and impenetrable as the maze of struggling, confused, and contradictory theories supposed to constitute the spirit of the age and serve as the exponent of modern enlightenment. We are not aware that the author of the[423] work before us takes this view of the matter; but it is one so irresistibly suggested to us by the juxtaposition of the two statements—society before the council, and the council before society, that we cannot avoid expressing it. The enemies of the church, whose fear of her and whose ignorance concerning her are equally great, have long announced that she is in her decline; and yet she is now about to affirm her existence by a movement of prodigious vitality—an œcumenical council. The council, pronounced impossible by a great number, will obtain its first success by showing the falsity of the asserted impossibility of the attention of the world. "The council," says the Abbé Martinet, "will do all that needs be done to classify and render coördinate without destroying, all those ideas whose want of unity distracts us, whose opposition, real or apparent, creates strife and destructive collision among social classes and nations. Not only will it place in the light grand principles, great truths, but it will show to all right-minded men universal Catholic truth, which, in enlightening and conciliating all truths, all principles, prevents them from degenerating into serious errors in theory, into great iniquities in application. Possessing the centre of lights that do not deceive, it will elevate the source of the vital forces which save individuals, families, and nations."

Le Concile Œcumenique et la Situation Actuelle, par M. l'Abbé Christophe, presents the main ideas of the preceding work, with more concision.

L'Influence Sociale des Conciles is by M. Albert Du Boys, already known as the author of a meritorious work on jurisprudence.[93] The work now under consideration is a historical study in which the author describes the influence former councils have exercised upon the past. From a social point of view, the author shows that the councils have powerfully contributed to the enfranchisement and amelioration of humanity by victoriously combating the material and moral disorders of rude and barbarous ages, by their promotion of the foundation of hospitals and institutions of charity, by their denunciation of errors and superstitions injurious to public order or social well-being, by their gradual renunciation of clerical privileges and immunities whenever those immunities and privileges appeared to have become anomalous in a new social order. Showing that all the elements of modern civilization come to us from and through the church, the author concludes that the coming council will not be less inspired by the spirit of the gospel than the councils that have preceded it. The work is accompanied by a complimentary letter of the distinguished Bishop of Orleans, who says in it that the council assembles no less for the good of civil than of religious society.

The Lettre sur le Futur Concile Œcumenique, by the Bishop of Orleans, a translation of which was given in The Catholic World, has already reached its seventh edition. The immense notoriety acquired by this small book in the Catholic world, and the letter of felicitation received by its author from the sovereign pontiff, have made it so generally known as to dispense us from very special mention of it. Bishop Dupanloup thus assigns the council its place in the firmament of truth. "It will be," he says, "a rising, not a setting sun." Addressing himself to the human mind separated from the church, he says, "While you disperse, we unite; while you lose, we retain." And again, "In all this world, only the church and the sun are able to affirm positively that they will arise the next day, and this is what the church does in daring, amid the existing tumult, to announce a council."

Le Concile Œcumenique, son Importance dans le Temps Présent, is the title of a work equally well known in Germany and in France. It is translated from the German, and is from the pen of the Bishop of Mayence, Rt. Rev. Dr. Ketteler. He demonstrates, with his[424] well-known learning and eloquence, than for eighteen centuries the infallible teaching of the church has had no eclipse.

Another work not less remarkable is by Monseigneur Deschamps, Archbishop of Malines, and entitled, L'Infaillibilité et le Concile Général. It discusses the question of the infallibility of the head of the church.

Finally, the Abbé Jaugey, in his Petit Traité Théologique sur le Concile Œcumenique, appears to have addressed himself to the class commonly known as "worldly people." In an easy and pleasant style he explains on this grave subject all that such people desire to know, and at the end of his work groups under five headings the subjects most likely to be passed upon by the council. These are,

First. Speculative truths, or the natural and supernatural orders and their mutual connection.

Fifth. Truths concerning the rights of the church, and its relation to the state.

Catholic England has lately made a solid contribution to the historic-critical literature of the Pentateuch in The Book of Moses, or the Pentateuch in its Authorship, Credibility, and Civilization. By the Rev. W. Smith. Vol. I. London. 577 pages. It is highly spoken of by the best German biblical critics, and specially commended for its strength in the historical treatment of the subject.

Some two years since, Alfred Ritter von Arneth edited a volume of the correspondence between Maria Theresa and her daughter Marie Antoinette, and a collection of the letters of the unfortunate queen of France to her brothers Joseph and Leopold. Both these works were not only valuable contributions to history, but of the most touching interest to every class of readers. The same author has now published [94] at Vienna, the remarkable correspondence between Catharine, Empress of Russia, and Joseph II., Emperor of Austria. Better than the most eloquent essay or the most erudite history, these letters show us these two personages in the truest of colors, and they form edifying reading for any one not fully and blindly committed to the belief in the "right divine of kings to govern wrong." Under profound assurances of esteem and the most hyperbolical compliments, you see an utter absence of respect or of belief in the honesty, the one of the other. Each had his or her designs to accomplish—that is to say, the stealing of other people's land and the annihilation of other people's rights; the manner of the transaction proposed being similar to the disposal of a flock of sheep or the transfer of a turnip-field. Of their sincerity, take a single specimen. Joseph writes to Catharine, January 9th, 1781, and forwards the letter to his prime minister Kaunitz, with the following confidential note:

Death could not wait for the fruition of most of their selfish combinations. Even at this day, nearly a century later, several important projects discussed between them have not yet received a solution.

An elaborate work on China is France et Chine. Vie Publique et Privée des Chinois Anciens et Modernes, etc. etc. Par M. O. Girard. 2 vols. 8vo. This is not a mere book of travels, but a work descriptive of the political, social, civil, military, and religious institutions of China, its philosophy, literature, science, and art. It appears to be the joint result of personal observation during a residence in the country, and of long and careful study of Chinese history and literature. Coming from an ecclesiastic, we might naturally expect to find a large portion of the book filled with accounts of the missions of the church in China. That subject, however, receives scarcely more than mere mention, the author evidently thinking that such information is already elsewhere accessible, and that it is now of more importance to make the country known in its more peculiar aspects. The book is too ambitious in its scope to be thorough, and we think it is to be regretted that the author did not rather give us an account of his residence (if residence he had) in China, grouping about facts and incidents as they arose the varied and extensive knowledge he appears to possess of the Flowery Kingdom.

In accordance with the desire of several American bishops of the Catholic Church, and under the auspices of the Bishop of Münster, (Westphalia,) the college of St. Maurice, near Münster, was founded in the spring of 1867, expressly for the education of theological students destined for the priesthood in missions of the United States. Not only young men from Germany but from America, enter the college, of whose course of studies the English language forms an important feature. The institution has already sent forth seven priests. Persons desiring special information concerning the institution, may address, "Rev. Mr. Witte, St. Maurice, Münster, Westphalia, Germany."

There has lately appeared at Venice a work [96] equally curious and interesting on Abyssinia, (Ethiopia,) or rather on its relations with the republic of Venice. It shows that centuries ago Abyssinia had reached as high a degree of civilization as Europe.

On the occasion of the late centennial anniversary in honor of Macchiavelli, there was produced a singular literary work of his, hitherto entirely unknown.[97] It is a translation, made by Macchiavelli himself, of a work written by Saint Victor, Bishop of Utica, on the persecution of Christians in Africa, under the reign of Huneric, King of the Vandals, in the year 500.

The question so familiar to all Americans some dozen years ago, Have we a Bourbon among us? is now practically asked in England,[98] and one Mr. Augustus Meves disputes the place claimed for the Rev. Eleazar Williams. For any one who has seriously examined the historical paradox involved in this question there can remain no doubt that the son of Louis XVI.—called Louis XVII.—died in Paris, and was buried in the cemetery of the church of St. Margaret, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, on the 10th of January, 1795. There can also be as little doubt that Messieurs Williams and Meves were, with more less sincerity, impostors.

The great and justly celebrated work of the Chevalier Rossi on subterranean Rome has just been published in England in a translated abridgment.[99] It is a superb volume, beautifully and profusely illustrated. All that is essential in Rossi's work has been preserved in the present, and important additions made. The work is especially full and satisfactory concerning the frescoes of the catacombs, the transition from pagan art to Christian symbolism, the sarcophagi, the ceremonies of the primitive [426] church, and other similar subjects. MM. Northcote and Brownlow establish irrefutably that the catacombs were never used as a burial-place for any but members of the Christian church, and moreover, conclusively show that the objections presented to this hypothesis will not bear examination.

M. Athanase Coquerel fils is well known as a preacher in one of the Protestant churches of Paris, and as the author of two or three works on literature and the fine arts. During the past year he delivered a series of lectures at Amsterdam, Strasburg, Rheims, and Paris, which, being revised and corrected, have lately appeared in a small volume under the title of Rembrandt et l'Individualisme dans l'Art. M. Coquerel is troubled—and very much troubled—by the superiority of Catholicity in art—is desirous of convincing the world that it labors under a mistake, and, if we will consent to look through M. Coquerel's spectacles, we will see that it is not only doubtful if Catholicity possesses the superiority so generally attributed to it, but rather certain than otherwise that Protestantism rightly claims it. Here are two of the processes by which M. Coquerel arrives at the results mentioned, and they are remarkable for their simplicity. First. Rembrandt was a great genius, and he owes his greatness to the liberal element, to the spirit of individualism of the reformation. Second. Leonardo da Vinci, says M. Coquerel, "was certainly great in the domain of art, and we cannot say that he was absolutely a stranger to Christian sentiment." Really, a very handsome admission on the part of M. Coquerel when we remember that da Vinci is the painter of the immortal "Last Supper." "But what is there in all this," continues our author, with an apparently serious countenance, "what is there in all this that is Catholic?—a Protestant would not have conceived the subject otherwise!" And here was the opportunity for M. Coquerel to mention the names of half a dozen or so of Protestant da Vincis; but, strange to say, he neglects it. The gentlemen referred to have thus far eluded public observation. One fact in connection with this subject is very suggestive. It is that the superiority of Catholicity in art may sometimes be disputed by Protestant ministers and controversialists, but by artists, never.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

A little Boy's Story. (Mémoires d'un Petit Garçon.) By Julie Gouraud. Translated from the French by Howard Glyndon. With eighty-six illustrations from designs by Emile Bayard. New York: Published by Hurd & Houghton. Cambridge: Riverside Press. 1869.

This is a pleasant story for children; simple, full of real life, and the more interesting from being apparently written by one of themselves. It will interest American boys and girls to know how French children live, how they play and think and study. The illustrations are excellent, and will be a perfect delight to the little ones.

A Memoir on the Life and Character of the Rev. Prince Demetrius A. de Gallitzin, Founder of Loretto and Catholicity in Cambria Co., Pa.; Apostle of the Alleghanies. By Very Reverend Thomas Heyden, of Bedford, Pennsylvania. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1869.

It is impossible that any one at all interested in the history of the faith in our country should fail to welcome the[427] appearance of this memoir of the great and good priest Father Gallitzin. A Russian prince of high rank, baptized and educated as a child in the Greek schismatical church, he early became a convert to the Catholic faith. Though destined by his father, the Prince Demetrius, for the military service, Providence directed his steps to America, where he had scarcely landed when he felt himself urged, as he says, "to renounce all his schemes of pride and ambition, and to embrace the clerical profession for the benefit of the American mission."

Ordained priest by Bishop Carroll in 1795, he was sent as a missionary to labor single-handed in the immense district of country which now embraces the dioceses of Pittsburg, Erie, and Harrisburg. One can easily imagine the severe hardships and sacrifices that fell to his lot, and which were nobly sustained for forty-six years with that apostolic zeal which always and in every place distinguishes the Catholic missionary.

Amid the incessant labors and unrespited fatigues of his career he still found time to devote himself to literary pursuits. His Defence of Catholic Principles, and Letter on the Holy Scriptures, to-day so widely known, are clear, logical expositions of the Catholic faith surpassed by few controversialists. This little memoir of the learned, holy, and self-sacrificing priest needs no commendation from us to insure its extensive circulation among the Catholics of our country, while we would say to those who are not of us: Read here the life and character of a true priest, and the labors of a real, bonâ-fide missionary.

Cantarium Romanum: Pars Prima: Ordinarium Missæ. Studio et sumptibus Monachorum Ord. S. Benedicti. Conv. St. Meinradi, Ind. 1869. Benziger Brothers. New York and Cincinnati. Harmonized edition.

We are sorry not to have had this volume before our eyes when called upon to notice the same work, in simple melody without accompaniment, issued some months ago. The harmonies enable us to interpret the movement, which alone we deemed ill regulated. We are aware that it is extremely difficult to express in musical notation the melodic movement of Gregorian chant, and that even the same phrase is dependent, as to the style of its execution, upon the spirit of the season or festival when it is sung. Pure Gregorian chant is not rhythmical in its measure, yet we think that a work intended for the use of our singers and organists, who, as a class, are utterly ignorant of its traditional expression, might very well be so arranged as to afford an approximative notion of it. The notation in this work does not make any such attempt, but gives a simple translation of the ancient Benedictine melody into semibreves and crotchets, without further direction. If sung rigidly according to the relative length of the notes as they are written, most certainly the singer would fail to give the true expression either of the Latin or of the melody in several phrases. A careful study would perhaps correct this in many instances. Since our reception of the book we have had the pleasure of hearing this chant rendered by one perfectly competent to give its true meaning, and must confess that it disarmed all adverse criticism. On principle we object to the introduction of the sensible note which prevails throughout, but do not wish to quarrel with those who, contrary to us, deem it only a matter of taste. Every organist would do well to procure and study this most praiseworthy contribution to the much to be desired reformation in our church music.

German Tales. By Berthold Auerbach. With an introduction by C. C. Shackford. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

This volume, containing five short German tales, is a charming book, replete with life and spirit, full of beautiful descriptions of quaint German customs, and overspread with wise and gentle teachings that are "like apples of gold in pictures of silver."

Pure morals, kindliness, and heartfelt interest in the brotherhood of man breathe through these pages.

It is entirely free from that vein of self-conceit so visible in Villa Eden, by the same author, and the pages are not sullied by the infidel opinions which mar that volume; opinions "that have no sure, firm soil out of which they grow, but skip about like a 'will-o'-the-wisp' in the blue ether, very readily changing from transcendental to nonsensical." Indeed, we think these early German tales a great improvement on his later works.

Auerbach displays a keen power of analyzing hearts and motives, bringing to light the hidden springs of action; and in these stories it is done with such kindliness and evident desire to look on the best side of human nature, that his searchings of the heart leave no sting.

The book is in excellent type and paper, and, being of the "Handy Volume Series," would make a most comfortable and pleasing travelling companion.

The Mysteries of the Ocean. Translated, edited, and enlarged from the French of Arthur Mangin, by the translator of The Bird. With one hundred and thirty illustrations by W. Freeman and I. Noël. London: T. Nelson & Sons, Paternoster Row; Edinburgh and New York. 1868.

M. Mangin has chosen a grand subject, and treated it in a masterly and comprehensive manner. He takes us back to the very beginning of Old Ocean, when "Darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." These ages of chaos give him an opportunity of setting forth innumerable theories—enough to suit even the most scientific; and fancies enough to please the most imaginative. Here is his picture of the primeval ocean: "Imagination not unwillingly pictures to itself the strange and superb spectacle of a limitless ocean seething over its volcanic bed, and heaving in every direction its contending billows, kindled here and there by the blood-red lustre of a glowing sky, struggling through a dense and stifling mist; while in its waves myriads of invisible beings, embryos of future organisms fighting for life, and rising to the surface in quest of inspiring light, wait expectant, amidst the throes of the terrible stir and tumult all around them, the dawn of the true day upon a completed world." However, from the time that ocean becomes the ocean that we know it, he gives innumerable facts regarding its tides, circulation, convulsions, atmosphere, winds, and tempests. The living sea-weeds, the plant animals, the fishes of the ocean and even the sea-birds, are not forgotten in this study of the mysteries of the ocean.

The relations of man to the ocean are also treated of—navigation, whale and seal fishing, etc. Altogether the book is most interesting, is finely got up, and is fully illustrated with excellent engravings.

Adventures on the Great Hunting Grounds of the World. By Victor Meunier. Illustrated with twenty-two wood-cuts. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1869. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 297.

This is another volume of the interesting series of Library of Wonders, the object of which is to present to the reader a collection of well-authenticated facts illustrative of the nature, habits, and various modes of capturing some of the largest and fiercest of the animal world, and to describe some of the numerous adventures, terrible fights, and hairbreadth escapes to which the hunting of the animals has given rise.

The Desert World. From the French of Arthur Mangin. Edited and enlarged, by the translator of The Bird. With 160 illustrations. London, Edinburgh, and New York: T. Nelson & Sons. 1869.

This is a companion book to the Mysteries of the Ocean, and the best notice we can give this elegantly printed and illustrated volume is to let the author, in his preface, speak for himself:

"The area of our present work would be very limited if we understood the word desert in its more rigorous signification; for we should then have only to consider those desolate wildernesses which an inclement sky and a fertile soil seem to exclude for ever from man's dominion. But by a license which usage authorizes, we are able to attribute to this term a much more extended sense; and to call deserts not only the sandy seas of Africa and Asia, the icy wastes of the poles, and the inaccessible crests of the great mountain-chain, but all the regions where man has not planted his regular communities or permanent abodes; where earth has never been appropriated, tilled, and subjected to cultivation; where nature has maintained her inviolability against the encroachments of human industry."

The author has made a most interesting and instructive work, one that can be read with much interest and profit. His description of the mountain regions of the world is especially good.

A very good description of New York City. The illustrations of its churches, public and other buildings, are well executed, and the description of each must prove a valuable assistance to strangers visiting our city.

An Historical Sketch of the Order of St. Dominic; or, A Memorial to the French People. By the Rev. Father Lacordaire. Member of the same Order, of the French Institute, etc. New York: P. O'Shea, 27 Barclay Street. 1869.

All that was mortal of the great Lacordaire sleeps in the grave; but men such as he are not born to die—they belong to all time; their spirit for ever lives and breathes in their works. His was the eloquence that possesses the true trumpet ring that stirs men's souls; even when read, it is powerful.

The work before us was first published in 1839. In a masterly manner it exposes the absurdity of liberty proscribing liberty; of giving license for all things save serving God in the most perfect manner, and according to the very beau ideal of Christianity. Then, in a summary and graphic manner, it sketches the history, and points out the great names and the eminent services of one of the great bodies of the church militant—an order from whose ranks have been taken four popes, seventy cardinals, archbishops by hundreds, and bishops by thousands; which has produced theologians, artists, and architects who rank with the first; which has sent forth tens of thousands of missionaries, who have preached the Gospel in every language under the sun, and which has the glory of being able to point at the same time to Aquinas, the Corypheus of theologians, and to Las Casas, the slave of the enslaved Indians.

This book is especially à propos at the present, when the dogs of the press, after scouring the world through years of famine and lack of popish horrors, have just dropped the sorry bone picked up four thousand miles away in Cracow, hungrily passed from mouth to mouth, and found, alas! to be in reality without a vestige of consolatory meat—dry bone, "and nothing more."

Let those who love "fair play" read this short defence of a religious order by the Bossuet of the nineteenth century.

The Book of Moses; or, The Pentateuch in its Authorship, Credibility, and Civilization. By Rev. W. Smith, Ph.D. For sale by the Catholic Publication Society. (Second Notice.)

At the time of writing our first notice of the first volume of this great work, we had merely glanced at its contents, and were only able to give a first impression of its merit. Since that time we have read it carefully, and made use of it in giving a course of lectures to a theological class. We deem it, therefore, due to the author and to the interests of sacred science that we should express our deliberate judgment that it is a work of the highest erudition and merit. The Mosaic authorship of the[430] Pentateuch is proved by the learned author with all the cogency and conclusiveness of a complete moral demonstration. Not only is it by far the best work on the subject in the English language, but it is admitted by Dr. Reusch, the learned editor of the Bonn Litteratur Blatt, to be equal to the best of the German treatises, and acknowledged by the Katholik of Mayence to be superior to any of them. The latter periodical criticises Dr. Smith for the statement made by him that Moses imitated several things in the Egyptian sacred rites in his ritual laws. The critic admits the similarity between them, but asserts that Moses prescribed these rites by divine revelation. We venture to suggest that this is an irrelevant remark. The inspiration of the Divine Spirit may have directed him to imitate whatever was really excellent in Egyptian institutions, whether sacred or secular.

We hail this admirable work with the greatest joy, and await with anxious expectation the publication of the succeeding volumes. No professor of sacred science or student of the Holy Scriptures should be without it. Neologians and irrationalists are being crushed by the very science of criticism which they have so loudly vaunted as their own peculiar and irresistible engine of destruction for the overthrow of revelation. It is perhaps needless to add that Dr. Smith is a young, hitherto unknown priest of a small country mission in Wales.

This is one volume of a commentary on the Old and New Testament, prepared by several learned Protestant divines of Germany, and translated by competent scholars into English. It is esteemed among the orthodox Protestants as the ablest work of the kind which they possess. It is certainly far superior to the dull, old-fashioned commentaries which were formerly used to produce compression of the brain in their unfortunate readers. To a Catholic scholar the work may be useful in so far as it throws the light of patient German investigation on critical and historical questions. Its exposition of doctrine is chiefly interesting as showing the views at present prevailing among the sounder portion of Protestants, which we may add are a decided improvement on the original doctrines. In the volume on Genesis we were surprised to see two ridiculous statements dictated by anti-Catholic bigotry, one that a pope condemned the doctrine of the antipodes, the other that Cardinal Cullen denounced the Copernican system. This is not creditable to a professor in Bonn University.

Moral Tales. By Maria Edgeworth. With original designs by Darley. A new edition. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1870.

Popular Tales. By Maria Edgeworth. With original designs by Darley. A new edition. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1870.

The Parent's Assistant; or, Stories for Children. By Maria Edgeworth. A new illustrated edition. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1870.

These are new editions of what were in their day among the best known and most popular of books. They deserve to become well known and popular again. When Miss Edgeworth, at the beginning of the present century, commenced her series of novels, the public, says one of her later critics, "was surprised by novels which contained neither ruinous towers, terrible subterranean cells, nor mysterious veils, and in which the characters were neither peers nor foundlings." The works, too, were remarkable for their humane sympathies and their moral tendencies, as well as for their disregard of the materials out of which it was then the fashion to construct romances. The same writer mentions the fact that among the most ardent admirers of them was Sir Walter Scott, who avows that it was her humorous, tender, and admirable delineations of Irish character which prompted him to attempt similar portraitures of his own country.

We trust that the publishers will continue the series thus begun, and give us others of her numerous and excellent works.

The poems of Mrs. Eckley have received some very high encomiums from the British press, more flattering though no truer than what we ourselves are disposed to award them after a sufficiently careful perusal. They possess a pure, elevated tone, are deeply religious in sentiment, smooth in their rhythm, with here and there a rhyme a trifle too mechanical, yet abounding in evidences of poetic genius.

Manual of the Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi, called also the Order of Penance. 2 vols. London: Burns, Oates & Co. For sale by the Catholic Publication Society.

This manual has been compiled in order to enable members of the Third Order of St. Francis to follow the precepts and the spirit of their rule. They are, we believe, quite numerous in this country, and many of them will be very glad, no doubt, to obtain this book, well calculated as it is for their instruction and edification.

Caseine: being Rural Meditations. By Joseph Fitzgerald, A.M. Cincinnati: John P. Walsh. 1869.

To those persons especially who have a leisure hour to while away in reading a pleasant, chatty book, we commend this volume with hearty good-will. The first paper, "Concerning Boys," abounds in sallies of wit, with a good deal of what we would call "wholesome thought." The author need not have given us an apology for its publication, as he does in his preface; but we think the one he offers deserves more than a favorable notice on account of its singularity. We reproduce it, therefore, in this place, hoping that many will purchase Father Fitzgerald's little work, not only because of its intrinsic merits, but with a view to thereby increase their own:

The First Class Book of History. Designed for pupils commencing the study of history. With questions. Adapted to the use of academies and schools. By M. J. Kerney, A.M., author of Compendium of Ancient and Modern History, Columbian Arithmetic, etc. etc. Twenty-third revised and enlarged edition. Enlarged by the addition of Lessons in Ancient History. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1869. Pp. 396.

In this small volume we have an abridgment of the world's history, ancient and modern, sacred and profane. Commencing with the creation, it brings its well-digested record of events down even to the present day. We are positive that there has not been, and we are morally certain that there never will be an abridgment of history satisfactory to all. This being premised, we can safely[432] assert that this little book is, of its class, as nearly perfect as is possible. While as a text-book this work has deservedly enjoyed a very large circulation in its previous editions, the present one has several additional and weighty claims to general approval. We are told in the preface "that the portion embracing sacred and ancient history has been, in a measure, rewritten. In modern history, the chapters on Greece and Switzerland, and portions of other chapters, are new, the whole being brought down to the present time. Errors and inaccuracies of whatever kind have been carefully rectified. Superfluities have been retrenched, and facts equally important to be known as those already stated, introduced." After a thorough and careful perusal of the book, we can fully indorse the above, and give the publishers our best wishes for its success, trusting with them that "it will now find its way into a still wider circle of institutions than those in which it has been heretofore known and appreciated."

The Patriot's History of Ireland. By M. F. Cusack, author of The Illustrated History of Ireland. New York: Catholic Publication Society, 126 Nassau Street. 1869. Pp. 320.

This History of Ireland has been written in order to comply with a very generally expressed desire that the author of The Illustrated History of Ireland would furnish a compendium of Irish history for the use of schools, and for the benefit of those who have not time to read a larger work.

The good sister has, we need hardly say, well performed her task, and literally left nothing to be desired. The book is very neatly got up, well illustrated, and sells at a low price. As the profits are entirely devoted to purposes of charity in Kenmare, Ireland, we earnestly hope for it an extended circulation.

A Text-Book of Chemistry. A Modern and Systematic Explanation of the Elementary Principles of the Science. Adapted to use in high-schools and academies. By Leroy C. Cooley, A.M. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1869.

This text-book lacks one important chapter, no attempt being made to explain the manner of preparing the necessary articles for successful experiments. The fundamental principles are well presented and clearly explained, while the carefully arranged nomenclature is all that can be desired in an elementary work. The series of illustrations are excellent. The book will be found useful to all teachers who wish to give their pupils a general knowledge of chemistry.

Frederick W. Robertson's Sermons. Popular Edition. 2 vols. 12mo. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co. 1869.

Of the literary merit of these sermons there can be no two opinions. It is also undeniable that there is much to admire in the character of the man, and much that is true and valuable in his discourses. There is too much of the poison of rationalism in them to make them profitable or even safe reading for any except well-instructed theologians. Clergymen will find them, however, valuable to themselves as models of style and of the art of sermonizing, especially in regard to the use to be made of the narratives of Scripture history, and the application of religious doctrine to the affairs of human life. The portrait of the author presents him before us as a man of strikingly handsome and prepossessing physiognomy, and accords perfectly with the idea we have formed of his manly character.

THE FUTURE OF PROTESTANTISM AND CATHOLICITY.[100]

This work of serious and conscientious learning by the Abbé Martin, former curé of Ferney, noted as the residence of Voltaire when exiled from France, has been written mainly for the purpose of making known to Catholics of the old Catholic nations of Europe the real character and tendencies of contemporary Protestantism—a work not uncalled for, since those old Catholic populations, seldom coming into personal contact with Protestants, have not kept themselves well posted in the changes, developments, and transformations that Protestantism has undergone during the last two centuries, and are hardly able to recognize it in its present form, or to meet and combat it with success. The great controversial works of the seventeenth century, excellent as they were in their time, only imperfectly serve the present wants of Catholic polemics; for the dogmatic Protestantism they met and vanquished is, save in its spirit, not the Protestantism that now confronts the church. That primitive phase of Protestantism has passed away, never to reappear, and a new and a very different phase has been developed, which demands a new study and a new and different mode of treatment.

The learned Abbé Martin, favorably situated for his task, during several years, at the gate of Geneva, the Protestant Rome, has embodied in his volume the result of much serious and conscientious labor devoted to this new study, and has so well accomplished his task as to leave nothing to be desired, till Protestantism undergoes another metamorphosis, which it is not unlikely to do; for to assume new forms or shapes according to the exigencies of time and place, is of its very essence. For this reason, the labor of refuting or even explaining it can never be regarded as finished.

It is the characteristic of Protestantism to have no fixed and permanent character, except hatred of Catholicity. It has no principles, doctrines, or forms, which in order to be itself, it must always and everywhere maintain. It may be biblical and dogmatic, sentimental or sceptical, combine with absolutism or with the revolution, assert the divine right of[434] kings and passive obedience with the old Anglican divines, or shout, à bas les rois, and vive le peuple! vive liberté, égalité, et fraternité! with the old French Jacobins and contemporary Mazzinians and Garibaldians, as it finds it necessary to carry on its unending warfare against the church, without any change in its nature or loss of identity. It is not a specific error, but error in general, ready to assume any and every particular form that circumstances require or render convenient. It, like all error, stands on a movable and moving foundation; and to strike it we are obliged to strike not where it is, but where it will be when our blow can reach it. The abbé is well aware of this fact, and sees and feels the difficulty it creates. Hence he regards Protestantism as imperishable, and holds that our controversy with it must, under one form or another, continue as long as error or hostility to the church continues, which will be to the end of the world.

To those of us who were brought up Protestants, who have known Protestantism in all its forms by our own experience, the Abbé Martin tells little, perhaps nothing that had not previously in some form passed through our own minds, and not much that had not already been published among us by our own Catholic writers. It is not easy to tell an American Catholic any thing new of Protestantism. There is no country in the world where Protestantism is or can be so well studied as our own; for in no other country has it had so free a field for its development and transformations, or in which to prove what it really is and whither it goes. It has suffered here no restraint from connection with the state, and till quite recently the church has been too feeble with us to exert any appreciable influence on its course. It has had in the religious order every thing its own way, has followed its own internal law, and acted out its nature, without let or hinderance. Here it may, therefore, be seen and studied in its real character and essence.

But if the Abbé Martin has not told us much that we did not already know, or which American writers had not already published, he has given us a true and full account of the present aspects and tendencies of Protestantism throughout Europe, very instructive to those Catholics who have had no personal acquaintance with it, and not unprofitable even to those who, though converts to the church, were familiar with it only as seen in some one or two of the more aristocratic sects, in which large portions of Catholic tradition have been retained. We in fact wonder how a man who, like the abbé, has had no personal experience of Protestantism, who has never had any internal struggle with it, and has been brought up from infancy in the bosom of the church and in the Catholic faith, can by study and observation, by prayer and meditation, make himself so fully master of its real character, and come so thoroughly to understand its spirit, its internal laws and tendencies. No doubt one who has been a Protestant, and knows thoroughly its language, can find in his work proofs that Protestantism was not his mother tongue, and that he knows it only as he has learned it; but learned it he has, and knows it better than it is known by the most erudite and philosophical Protestant ministers themselves, and the Catholic reader may rely with full confidence on his expositions. The work is, in fact, an admirable supplement alike to Bossuet's Variations and to Moehler's Symbolik.

It will startle some Catholics, no[435] doubt, to hear the well-informed author assert, as he does, that Protestantism is not dead or dying, that it is imperishable, its principle is immortal, and never was it a more formidable enemy to the church than it is at this present moment; but they will be less startled when they learn what he means by Protestantism.

All this is perfectly true. Protestantism undoubtedly differs essentially from all the particular heresies of former times, such as the Arian, Macedonian, Nestorian, Eutychian, Pelagian, etc.; but we think it bears many marks of affinity with ancient Gnosticism, of which it is perhaps the historical continuation and development. Gnosticism was not a particular or special heresy, denying a particular article, dogma, or proposition of faith. The Gnostics held themselves to be the enlightened Christians of their times, men who had attained to perfect science, been initiated into the sacred mysteries concealed from the vulgar, professed to be spiritual men, spiritually illuminated, and looked down with contempt on Catholics as remaining in the outer court, sensuous and ignorant, knowing nothing of the Spirit. This is no bad description of contemporary Protestants. They call themselves the enlightened portion of mankind, claim to be spiritual men, spiritually illumined and instructed in the profoundest mysteries of heaven and earth; while from the height of their science they look down on us Catholics as simply sensuous men, having only a sensuous worship, and hold us to be a degraded, ignorant, superstitious, and besotted race. We are very much disposed, for ourselves, to regard Protestantism as Gnosticism modified to suit the taste, the temper, the mental habits, and the capacity of modern times.

The author makes Protestantism not a special heresy, nor yet a union of heresies, but the receptacle of illimitable denials; yet he throughout distinguishes it from absolute unbelief in Christianity, and maintains that even as so distinguished it is imperishable, and its principle immortal. We confess that we do not see how he can make this distinction without giving to Protestantism a specific character and making it a positive heresy, and not simply a frame for the reception of heresy or heresies. Assuming it to be a positive heresy, and not the general spirit of error adapting itself to any and every form of error, his reasoning is far from satisfying us that it is imperishable. The assertion that "its principle is immortal," can in no case be accepted; for all error must ultimately die, and only truth survive, if our Lord is to overcome all his enemies, and God, who is truth itself, is to be all in all. It is[436] not to be supposed that they who are eternally lost continue to err and to sin for ever. They know and confess the truth at last, and it is their severest hell that they know and confess it when it is too late for it to liberate them. Understanding Protestantism to be the general spirit of error, we can concede it to be imperishable, in the sense that the world is imperishable; for men will hate Christ and deny him as long as the world stands; but in no other sense are we prepared to concede it.

The author defines the essence of Protestantism to be hatred of the church, and yet throughout his book distinguishes it from absolute infidelity or unbelief. We do not see the propriety of this distinction, nor understand how he can consistently exclude from Protestantism any form of error that hatred may assume. He makes Protestantism not a particular, a specific heresy, but the frame in which any negation of religion under a religious garb may be set. We see no ground for this restriction, and it seems to us that it contradicts his own assertion that Protestantism is a circle capable of indefinite extension, and practically illimitable; for if the circle can include only the denials of religion that wear a religious garb, it is not illimitable, or capable of indefinite extension.

The learned abbé, we suspect, has been led into this real or apparent contradiction by neglecting to distinguish sharply between Protestants and Protestantism. Protestants are of all shades, from the Calvinist down to the unitarian or rationalist, from the high-churchman down to the no-churchman. The great majority of them retain some shreds of Christian belief, read the Bible, look to Christ as the redeemer of mankind, and are governed more or less in their opinions, sentiments, and conduct by Christian tradition. It would be a great mistake as well as gross injustice to represent all or even many of them as actually or intentionally unbelievers in Christ, or to hold them to be, in the way of error, any thing more than heretics. But Protestantism is not a form of heresy, is nothing in itself but hatred of Catholicity or hostility to the church of God; and there are no lengths in the way of denial it will not go, if necessary for its gratification. It is potentially absolute infidelity.

This seems to be in reality the abbé's own doctrine, and its truth is evident from the fact that the general tendency of Protestants is not toward Catholicity, but farther and farther from it. Individuals among them, in certain times and places, even in large numbers, manifest decided Catholic tendencies, and ultimately find their way back to the church; but whoever knows Protestants well, knows that the mass of them, if driven by Catholic polemics to choose between the church and the denial of Christianity, indeed, of all religion, will not choose the church. "If I can be saved only by becoming a Catholic, I do not wish to be saved," said a Protestant minister to us one day. "I would rather be damned than be a Catholic." We politely assured him he could have his choice. This minister expressed only the too common sentiment of Protestants. A certain number among them, when convinced that Catholicity and Christianity are identical, will, the grace of God moving and assisting, become Catholics; but every day's experience shows that the larger number of them love Christianity less than they hate Catholicity, and will become infidels sooner than they will become Catholics. In doing so, are they illogical? Do they reject Protestantism, or simply[437] follow out its spirit to its last logical consequences?

The learned abbé restricts Protestantism to such negations as wear a religious garb. But with us, in what is called Free Religion, we have seen infidelity itself wearing the garb and speaking the language of religion. In France there are the positivists, real atheists, who clothe themselves with a religious vestment, adopt a ritual, and observe a regular worship. These, if the author insist on his restriction, must be included within the Protestant circle, and if these are included, it will be difficult to say what class of enemies of Christ and his church are to be excluded. We see no good reason, therefore, for any restriction in the case. Protestantism is made up of negations, without any affirmation or positive truth of its own; and no reason can be assigned why we should not hold it capable of including within its circumference, without loss of identity or essential alteration, any or all errors against the Catholic Church, and if as yet only heretical with the many, why it is not capable in its developments of becoming downright apostasy or complete denial of Christianity.

Taken in this sense, we admit that Protestantism is not dead, nor dying; but will continue to confront the church to the end of time. The church in this world is always the church militant. She will always have her enemies with whom she can never make peace so long as she remains faithful to her Lord. "Think not," said our Lord, "that I am come to send peace on the earth; nay, a sword, rather." The synagogue of Satan stands always over against the church of God, and the world will always hate the church as it hated our Lord himself; for she is not of the world as he was not of it. Yet we attach no great importance, if this be its meaning, to the proposition, "Protestantism is imperishable," which the Abbé Martin labors hard and at great length to sustain; for it is only saying in other words that hatred to the church will continue till the consummation of the world.

But if the proposition means that Protestantism under its original or even its present form, as held by the mass of Protestants, is imperishable, we can only say, nothing proves it to our satisfaction. That the essence of Protestantism, which the author defines to be hatred of Catholicity, will continue as long as the world stands we do not doubt; but nothing proves to us that it may not change its form in the future as it has done in the past, or that the great body of Protestants may not gradually eliminate all that they have thus far retained of Christian tradition or Christian belief, reject even the Christian name, and lapse into pure Gentilism, as they are already lapsing into carnal Judaism.

The abbé, while he is strictly correct when telling us what Protestantism is, that it is less a religion than the frame for the reception of all possible anti-Christian negations, yet seems in much of his reasoning with regard to its future to proceed as if he held Protestantism to be, not an immutable system indeed, but, after all, something definite and positive or affirmative. He knows as well as we do, and abundantly proves in his book, that Protestantism affirms nothing, contains as peculiar to itself no affirmative proposition whatever. The affirmative propositions held by Protestants are simply fragments of Catholic truth taught and held fast in their integrity by the church long ages before Luther and Calvin were born, and constitute no part of Protestantism. The Protestantism is all in the perversion, corruption, or denial[438] of Catholic truth. There is nothing in it of its own but its negations and hatred of the church, her faith, her discipline, and her worship, to be continued, or that can be the subject of any predicate. Protestantism receives into its bosom one form of error as readily as another, and complete unbelief as the inchoate apostasy called heresy, though we readily grant that the majority of Protestants are not, as yet, prepared to accept infidelity pure and simple; and many of them, we trust, are, in their intentions and dispositions, prepared to accept and obey the truth when made known to them, and may yet in God's gracious providence find their way into the Catholic communion and be saved.

The Reformers, or the fathers of the modern Protestant movement, did not intend to give up Christianity or the church. They thought they could reject the papacy and the sacerdotal order, and still retain the Christian faith and the Christian church. But they were not slow to discover that this was impracticable, and that, if they gave up the papacy and the sacerdotal order, they must give up the sacraments, save as unmeaning rites, infused grace, the merit of good works, the church as a living organism, the whole Mediatorial work of Christ in our actual regeneration, and fall back on immediatism, and deny all living or present Mediator between God and man. Their successors have found out that an irresistible logic carries them farther still, and requires them to reject all creeds and dogmas as superfluous, to resolve faith into confidence, and to rely solely on the immediate internal illumination and operations of the Holy Ghost. A new generation is beginning to discover that even this is too much, and is preparing to attribute to nature and the soul what its predecessors had attributed to the immediate supernatural operations of the Spirit. There is but one step farther, and you have reached the goal, that of resolving God himself into the human soul, or the identification of God with man and man with God, and not a few have already taken it.

Protestant experience has proved that the Catholic system is homogeneous, self-consistent, all of a piece, so to speak; woven without seam, and not to be parted; that it must either be accepted or rejected as a whole. We do not say that all or the majority of Protestants see this; but many of them see it, and their vanguard loudly proclaim it, and declare the issue to be, Catholicity or rationalism, that is, naturalism. There is no middle ground tenable, to a logical mind with a courage equal to its logic, between the two. It must be either the church or the world, Catholicity or naturalism, God or atheism. We know great bodies move slow, and the great body of Protestants will not come to a full conviction of this to-day nor to-morrow; but they are tending to it, and can hardly fail, in the natural course of things, one day to reach it. Having reached it, we think the sincere and earnest Protestants, who love and study the Bible and mean to be Christians, will be gathered into the Catholic fold, and the others most likely, other things remaining as they are, will follow their Protestant spirit into naturalism, and give up Christian baptism and Christian faith altogether.

The author tells us that there are two very obvious tendencies among Protestants: the one a tendency to return to the church, and the other a tendency to rationalism and complete infidelity; but he thinks there will always remain in the non-Catholic body a certain number of honest, pious souls who shrink from[439] unbelief, and yet, while they hold on to certain shreds of Christianity, will, from ignorance, prejudice, and other causes, continue to protest against the Catholic faith. He supposes that among Protestants there are large numbers of such persons, who really believe in Jesus Christ, who really love his religion as far as they know it, who have real Christian piety, and actually believe themselves to be true Christians in faith and practice. These, he contends, preserve to Protestantism a certain religious and Christian character, and will prevent it from ever lapsing into complete unbelief and irreligion. They will always insist on some form of Christianity; and whatever the form they adopt, it will be Protestantism. He may be right; but we think, in discussing the future of Protestantism, he makes too much account of these pious persons; for if as well disposed as he assumes them to be, they can hardly fail, as time goes on and the real character of the Reformation becomes more and more manifest, to follow out their Christian tendency, and return to the communion of the Catholic Church.

Looking at the two tendencies among Protestants, studying them as thoroughly as we are able, and considering especially the essential nature of Protestantism, together with what we may call the logic of error—for error as well as truth has its logic—we think Protestantism as pretending to be Christian will, as we have said, finally disappear, and prove itself practically, as it is logically, the total rejection of the Christian religion, and therefore of Christ himself. In point of fact, Protestantism in its spirit and essence, as the author shows beyond contradiction, is only the revival under a modern form of the great Gentile Apostasy that followed the building of the Tower of Babel, and must, if it run its course, lapse either into no-religion, as it has already done with our modern scientists, or into demon-worship and gross idolatry and superstition, as it is actually doing with modern spiritists right under our eyes. We look, as we have already intimated, for a separation of the wheat from the chaff, and believe the time will come when the real issue will be made up, and the battle we must wage be not with heresy, but with undisguised and unmitigated infidelity, rationalism, naturalism, or pure secularism.

We cannot give a complete analysis of the Abbé Martin's work; for it is itself little else than an analysis. But an interesting and important portion of it is devoted to the Protestant revival and propaganda, beginning in the latter half of the last century, and continued so vigorously in the present. Protestantism, seeking from the first the aid and protection of the princes, soon assumed in each country that adopted it the form and state of a national religious establishment, defended and governed by the secular power. Having no true spiritual life within, and defended without and provided for by the government, it fell, as soon as the religious wars occasioned by its origin had subsided, into a state of torpor, and the people under it fell almost universally into a religious somnolence. The establishment was sustained even with rigor, but personal religion was generally unknown or disregarded. Some individuals, seeing this, applied themselves to awaken in the torpid masses a personal interest in religion. From them began a religious revival, or a movement in behalf of personal religion, known in Germany as Pietism, in Great Britain and elsewhere as Methodism, which holds principally from John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield,[440] and Lady Huntington. This revival, which has done much to increase individualism, and to weaken the influence of dogma and church principles, and which has developed a species of evangelical illuminism resulting in a sort of infidel illuminism, as seen in our American transcendentalists and free religionists, has, upon the whole, the author thinks, injured more than it has advanced Protestantism. Such, we are sure, has been the fact in this country, unless we identify Protestantism with pure unbelief and indifference. Not one fourth of those assumed to be "hopefully converted" in revival seasons stay converted, while the backsliders are worse Christians, and those who remain pious are no better Protestants, than they were before their conversion.

The revival has, however, given birth to a vigorous propaganda in pagan and Catholic countries, and even in Protestant countries themselves, by means of Bible societies, tract societies, home and foreign missionary societies, supported on a large scale and with apparently inexhaustible means. The author discusses this Protestant propaganda in relation to infidel nations; to mixed nations, or nations composed of Protestants and Catholics; and finally to old Catholic nations. In infidel or pagan nations he maintains that it has thus far been null. He maintains also that in all those Protestant nations, or nations in which Protestantism became the established church, but in which some remnants of the old Catholic population still remained and adhered to the Catholic faith and worship, the propaganda has, upon the whole, proved a failure, and in nearly all of them Catholicity has gained, and is still gaining, on Protestantism. This, counting from the date of the institution of the Protestant foreign and home missions in the beginning of the present century, is certainly true in Great Britain and Ireland, in Holland, Switzerland, especially in Sweden and Norway, and in this country; though the principal gains in England, Scotland, and the United States are due to the immigration of Catholics from countries under Protestant governments, or governments not friendly to the church. In the United States we are almost wholly indebted for the astonishing growth of the church to the migration hither of Catholics from Ireland and Germany. We have numerous conversions, indeed; but they form hardly an appreciable element in our entire Catholic population. In the English-speaking world there have been many conversions from the upper classes and from the ranks of the Protestant ministry, especially of the Anglican and Protestant Episcopal communions; but very little impression is as yet made on the middle and lower classes, who must be converted before much progress is made in the conversion of a nation. We have certainly gained ground in Protestant nations, but probably not much more than we have lost in old Catholic nations.

While the Protestant propaganda has failed with infidel or pagan nations, and with the Catholic populations of Protestant nations, the author maintains that, allied with rationalism and the revolution, it has not been wholly unsuccessful in old Catholic nations, as France, Italy, Spain, Austria, and Hungary. It is, he maintains, "worse than idle" to pretend that Protestant missions in these nations are wholly barren of results, or have met with only insignificant success. Their success has been considerable, not perhaps in making Protestants, but in unmaking Catholics. Their missions are generally favored by the press, by the higher[441] literature, and by the governments, which, even though nominally Catholic, are always jealous of the church, and ever encroaching on her rights and restraining her freedom.

The success of the Protestant propaganda in these old Catholic nations, the author thinks, is due to the reputation Protestant nations have of surpassing Catholic nations in material well-being; of having founded civil and religious liberty; and chiefly to the unpopularity of the clergy, the supineness of Catholics, and the ignorance of the Catholic clergy of the real character of contemporary Protestantism. All these causes no doubt are operative; but the real cause, we apprehend, is to be sought in the ascendency acquired by the world in the fifteenth century, and which has invaded Catholic nations hardly less successfully than Protestant nations. Protestantism is the child of this ascendency, and its legitimate tendency is to place the world above heaven, and man above God; or the complete supremacy of the secular over the spiritual.

In its origin Protestantism seemed to be an exaggerated supernaturalism, denying to the natural all moral ability since the fall, and consequently assigning to the human will no active part in the work of justification or sanctification. But extremes meet; and the exaggerated supernaturalism in relation to the world to come proved to be only an exaggerated naturalism in relation to this world. To deny all activity of the natural in the work of sanctity is only emancipating the natural from the supernatural, from the moral law, and leaving it therefore free from all moral accountability, to follow without restraint its own inclinations and tendencies; for what is incapable of meriting is necessarily incapable of sinning. As the affections of the natural fasten on this world and the goods of this life, Protestantism soon lost practically all sense of the divine, as it is now rapidly losing it theoretically, and turned the whole activity of the nations that embraced it to the cultivation of the material order and the acquisition of material goods, leaving the spiritual order behind as a popish superstition, or an invention of priestcraft for enslaving the soul and restraining the natural freedom of mankind.

The spirit that generated and operates in Protestantism, and which its doctrine of free or sovereign grace only fortifies, is, in fact, only the old heathen spirit that seeks only the goods of this life, and so pointedly condemned by Christianity. It reverses the word of our Lord, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you;" and says, "Seek first these things—the goods of this life—and the kingdom of God and his justice shall be added; if, indeed, such kingdom or justice there be." This spirit was not originated by the Reformation. It had preceded it. It had originated the great Gentile Apostasy, and caused the carnal Jews to misinterpret the prophecies and to expect in the promised Messiah a temporal prince instead of a spiritual redeemer and regenerator. It had even entered the garden and induced the fall of our first parents. It has always subsisted in the world; nay, is what St. Augustine called the City of the World as opposed to the City of God, and which had its type and representative in the Roman republic and empire. It is the purely secular spirit emancipated from the spiritual, and substituting itself for it.

This spirit is everywhere warred against by Christianity, therefore by Catholicity; and during the temporal calamities of the barbarous and middle[442] ages was held in check by the church; but the advancement of political and social order, the progress of well-being, the revival of pagan literature and art, the opening of new or long disused routes of commerce, and the discovery, in the fifteenth century, of a new continent with its untold treasures, gave new force and activity to the pagan spirit, and enabled it to pervade and take possession of the governments, never very submissive to the church, of the emperor, of kings, princes, and nobles, and, in general, of the upper classes of European society. Christendom was well prepared at the opening of the sixteenth century for a revival of Gentilism, which found able and magnificent supporters in the Medici of Florence, so dear to modern uncatholic scholars, but so fatal in their influence on Catholic interests.

With the revival of Gentilism or secularism there came the revival of the quarrel of pagan times between Germany and Rome; and Luther's movement derived its chief strength from its appeal to the old German hatred of Roman domination, represented in the fifteenth century, it was assumed, in part by the pope, and in part by the emperor, who pretended to revive the old Roman empire and to succeed to the Roman Cæsars of the West. The Germanic nations, never thoroughly Romanized, rebelled against the church, not because the secular spirit was more or less rampant with them than with the Romanic nations that remained Catholic, but because the centre of her authority was the old hated city of Rome; and they looked upon her authority as Roman, and incompatible with their own national independence. Nothing is farther from the truth than to suppose that they were moved by a desire to emancipate the human mind from its pretended thraldom under the pope, or to establish free inquiry and the liberty of private judgment; for they yielded from the first to the secular or national sovereign all the authority in spirituals which had been previously exercised by the Roman pontiff. Wherever Protestantism gained a political status, the two powers, as under paganism—unless we except Geneva, Scotland, and, subsequently, New England—were united in the secular sovereign or the state. Calvin in Geneva, Knox in Scotland, and the Puritans in New England, though they sought to unite the two powers in the same governing body, sought to unite them in the hands of the church rather than of the state, in consequence of their misinterpretation of the Hebrew commonwealth, which, in fact, gave us the first example in history of the separation of the two powers, the sacerdotal and the secular, always asserted and insisted on by the Catholic Church.

The real character of the Protestant movement was a movement in behalf of nationalism—the distinctive feature of Gentilism—revived by the insurgent worldly spirit. The church herself, in the nations that adhered to her, was defended against the so-called Reformation, except by the theologians, not on Catholic principles, but on national principles; and hence the secular authority sought constantly to exercise a supervision over the church, and, as far as possible, to convert her into a national church. The so-called Catholic governments did not differ in principle from the Protestant governments, and have never done so since. They protected the church, to a certain extent, from recognized heresies, and provided for the pomp and splendor of her worship; but restrained in every possible way her full freedom of action,[443] and compelled her to yield to their respective national policies in order to avoid a greater evil. The church could not fully instruct the people in any Catholic nation in the principles which should govern the relations of church and state without incurring the persecution of her pretended protectors. Hence, there grew up in all Catholic nations a false view of those relations, which greatly weakened the church and aided the growth of the secular spirit. Catholicity, having been supported, not as Catholic but as a national religion, by Catholic governments and their courtiers, we find now, when the governments cease to defend it even as a national religion, and are more hostile than friendly to the church, that the Catholic populations of old Catholic nations, never allowed by the secular authority to be fully instructed in the secular relations of their religion, and never accustomed to act personally in the intellectual defence of their faith, incrusted over with the secularism encouraged by their governments, are almost universally unarmed and defenceless before the Protestant propaganda, having in its favor the prestige of the worldly power and supposed well-being of Protestant nations, and of the championship of civil and religious liberty.

Here, we apprehend, is the real secret of the success of Protestant missions in old Catholic nations; not in the ignorance of the Catholic clergy of the real character of contemporary Protestantism, as the Abbé Martin maintains. He shows, perhaps exaggerates, the danger which the church runs in these old Catholic nations, and admits that it is becoming apparent, if not to all, at least to many of the clergy, and asks,

No doubt there is more or less ignorance even among the French clergy as to the various phases and wiles of Protestantism, and which their text-books will hardly help them to dissipate; but what seems to us to stand most in their way is precisely their need of studying Catholic theology more thoroughly in its relations to human reason and the secular order—a study they could hardly prosecute under what are facetiously termed "the Gallican liberties;" that is, liberties of the government to enslave the church. No man who has learned Catholic theology as catholic instead of national, who has learned that the church represents on earth the spiritual order, and has the freedom and courage to maintain that the spiritual is superior to the temporal, is, in fact, the end for which the temporal exists, and therefore that which prescribes to the temporal its law, can ever be at a loss to understand or to know how to meet Protestantism the moment he sees it, whatever the particular phase it may exhibit. Protestantism is not and never was any thing but a series of negations, and all the advantage it has ever had or ever will have over Catholics is precisely in their ignorance of the real or intrinsic relation of the Catholic doctrine or doctrines it denies to the whole body of Catholic truth.

Protestantism, the author himself sees, is simply revived paganism; but what he does not see is, that the state[444] in all European nations has always been pagan, and never in its principle or constitution been truly Christian. Our own political constitution may be very imperfect, may be destined to a speedy end; but it is the first and only instance in history of a political constitution based on Christian principles; that is, on the recognition of the independence of religion and the supremacy of the spiritual order. It recognizes, in our modern phrase, the inalienable rights of man as its basis; but what the American statesman calls the rights of man are, in reality, the rights of God, which every human authority must hold sacred and inviolable. We pretend not that the American people or American statesmen fully understand or adhere practically to the American constitution, or that they ever will till they become Catholics and understand, as comparatively few Catholics even now do, the principles of their church in their political and social applications. Nevertheless, the constitution is based on the independence and supremacy of the spiritual order, which the secular order must always and everywhere recognize, respect, and defend. This is in direct contradiction of the principle of the pagan republic, which asserts the independence and supremacy of the state alike in temporals and spirituals.

But this pagan principle of the supremacy of the state has always been the basis of the European public law, and the church, though she has always maintained the contrary, has always been held in the civil jurisprudence to have only the rights accorded her by the civil government. This has always been the doctrine alike of the Civil Law and the Common Law courts, always rigidly enforced by the French parliaments, and not seldom yielded by courtly prelates afraid, as in England, of the statute of præmunire. There have been individual sovereigns who personally understood and yielded the church her rights; but their lawyers never recognized them save as grants or concessions by the prince. Hence the interminable quarrel of the legists and the canonists, and the sad spectacle of the bishops of a nation not seldom deserting almost in a body the supreme pontiff in his deadly struggle with their civil tyrants in defence of their own rights, and the freedom and independence of the spiritual order. Hence, too, we see Italian statesmen, while pretending to acknowledge and confirm religious liberty, confiscating the goods of the church, and prescribing in the name of the state the conditions on which the bishops of the church will be permitted to exercise their pastoral functions. Hence it is, also, that we have seen pious and devout Catholics defend the revolution and preach political atheism in one breath, and the most rigid orthodoxy in another.

With all deference to M. l'Abbé Martin, we must think that what is wanting in the Catholic populations of old Catholic countries in order to resist the Protestant propaganda, is not so much a better knowledge of Protestantism, as a more thorough knowledge of their own faith, and of Catholic principles themselves, in relation to one another and to the secular order—a knowledge which has been hindered, and to a great extent prevented, by the paganism of the state, which has disabled the church from freely and fully giving it. Happily, the European governments by ceasing to be protectors of the church have in great measure lost the power, if not to afflict and persecute, at least to enslave her. The bishops, with only here and there an exception, no longer take the side of Cæsar against Peter, and see that their interests[445] and those of the church can be saved only by the strictest union with and submission to the supreme pastor, the vicar of Christ. The supreme pastor himself, without consulting earthly potentates or conferring with flesh and blood, has pronounced in his Encyclical and Syllabus, a rigorous judgment on political atheism and paganism in modern society, and set forth the Catholic principles in which the faithful need to be instructed in order to resist the Protestant propaganda, supported by rationalism and the revolution. He has asserted the independence and freedom of the church in convoking by his own authority, almost in defiance of the secular powers, an œcumenical council, to be held in his own palace of the Vatican, in which the universal church, aided by the Holy Ghost, will, we presume, deliberate and pronounce upon the errors of the times, and indicate the means of arresting the evils that now so grievously afflict society, both spiritual and secular. Hereafter, we may hope, the faithful, cost what it may, will be more thoroughly instructed as to the relations of the two powers, and of faith to reason and civil society, so that an end will be put to the progress in Catholic nations of Protestantism, rationalism, and political atheism.

The Abbé Martin succeeds better in describing Protestantism as it is, and in setting forth the danger it threatens, than in pointing out the remedy to be applied by Catholics, or in assigning the causes of the defects he finds or thinks he finds among them. He does not see that these defects, in so far as general, are almost wholly due to the pagan constitution of the state, which has survived the downfall of pagan Rome, and to the fact that the church has never yet in the Old World had her full freedom and independence, but has always been more or less restrained in her action by the jealousy or hostility of the state. The lack of individual energy and self-reliance of Catholics in asserting and defending the rights of the church, which the abbé deplores, has its origin in the restraint imposed by the civil authority on the freedom of the church.

The author adds that Catholics, not only nominal but even many practical Catholics, lack the individual energy that

There is no doubt truth in this, and with but too many Catholics their religion is little more in practice than a lifeless form; but this, so far as due to the clergy, is due rather to their want of earnestness and zeal, which the author says they do not lack, than to their ignorance of contemporary Protestantism. We pay little heed to the reproaches of Protestants, more likely to mislead than to instruct Catholics; but we are quite willing to concede that in old Catholic nations there may be a want among Catholics of the sort of individual energy defined and demanded by the author; but, in the first place, we are disposed to think that his long study of Protestantism, which is based on individualism, and his observation of the part played by what Protestants call personal religion, have led him to overrate the importance of this outward individual zeal and energy in the church; and in the second place, he seems not to have sufficiently considered that they can hardly be looked for in a community accustomed for ages to rely on the civil power to look out for the defence of the church, and for her protection against heretics and heresies. In such communities the free action of the church has been crippled by the attempt of the state to do her work and only bungling it, and in which no call for personal effort in preserving and defending the church externally has been made on Catholics as individuals. The evil results naturally from the condition in which Catholics must be found when abandoned by the government that had hitherto saved them from all necessity of any personal activity in their own defence against external enemies. It can be only temporary, if the church is left henceforth free by the government to appeal to the individual faith, love, and exertions of the faithful under her direction.

There is, no doubt, much tepidity, formalism, and momentary imbecility in the face of the enemy in old Catholic populations; for not the just nor the elect only are members of the church; but abandoned or opposed as the church now is by the governments, and thrown back as she is everywhere upon her own resources as a spiritual kingdom, forced to be even in old Catholic nations once more a missionary church in every thing except in outward form, and obliged to appeal directly to the faithful individually, there can hardly fail to be developed in Catholics the personal qualities which the author thinks they do not now possess. The need of a robust and manly piety to struggle with the world and the enemies of the church will very soon call it forth, where religion is free and faith is not extinct.

We cannot but think, if the author had experienced the vexations and annoyances that we have from the personal and individual zeal and activity of Protestants of the revival stamp, each one of whom acts as if he were an Atlas and bore the whole weight of the religious world on his individual shoulders, he would much prefer its absence among Catholics to its presence. Not more troublesome were the frogs of Egypt, that came up into the kneading-troughs and the[447] sleeping-chambers. It is not easy to describe the sensation of relief a convert from Protestantism feels on coming into the church and learning that he has now a religion that can sustain him instead of needing him to sustain it. With Protestants, the member bears the sect; with Catholics, the church bears the member. The sacraments are effective ex opere operato. We are disposed, moreover, to believe that Catholics best serve the Catholic cause by each one's doing in his own sphere his own allotted work. The unity of faith, and the unity of the spirit that works alike in all the faithful to will and to do, are sufficient to secure unity of action, and action to one and the same end, and to effect with marvellous rapidity the grandest and most magnificent results. This, we think, is the Catholic method, quiet, peaceable, orderly, and, if less showy and striking than the Protestant method, less noisy and prosy, far more fruitful in results. The Catholic is sustained, the Protestant must sustain.

For our part, we are grateful to the author for his masterly exposition of contemporary Protestantism; but we hope we may be permitted to say that, while we do not deny the danger with which it threatens the populations of old Catholic nations, we think he exaggerates it, and supposes Protestant negations are more powerful than they really are. It may be that the Catholic populations are not at present very well prepared to withstand the Protestant propaganda, allied as it is with rationalism and the revolution; but they cannot long remain unprepared. The revolution having, wherever attempted, resulted in the loss of old liberties without the acquisition of any additional civil freedom, must gradually lose its credit with the people, who must ere long be disillusioned; rationalism is too cold, too absurd, and too destitute of life to hold them in permanent subjection. Scientists and sciolists may adhere to it while its novelty lasts, but both the reason and instincts of the people reject it, and demand faith, religion. Protestantism severed from the revolution and rationalism is too much what the great Catholic controversialists met in the seventeenth century and vanquished for its revival to be able to gain and hold much new territory.

The real danger, in our judgment, is in the spread of secularism or the secular spirit among Catholics themselves. This is the only serious obstacle we see to the conversion of the American people to the church. Catholics here and elsewhere conform to modern civilization, and are carried away by its spirit. They follow the spirit of the age without knowing it; and though a Catholic may accept without scruple all the positive results of what is called modern civilization, he cannot imbibe and follow its spirit without great loss on the side of religion, which requires the renunciation of the world as the end for which one is to live and to labor. But there are even among Catholics very worthy men, men of excellent parts and rare learning, who virtually subordinate the spiritual to the secular. They have so far yielded to the secular spirit of the day as to place the defence of the church on secular rather than on spiritual grounds, and defend her claims as the church of God rather as necessary to secure civil liberty and advanced civilization than as necessary to save the soul and secure the beatitude of heaven. They are, in some degree, affected by the philanthropy or humanitarianism of the age, and occasionally confound it with Christian charity, which loves God supremely, and our neighbor as[448] ourselves in God, or for the sake of God.

These men pursue a line of argument that draws off the Catholic mind from the kingdom of God and his justice, and fixes it on those things after which the heathen seek, secularize it, and lead it to think that our Lord's mission had for its object the multiplication of earthly goods and securing earthly felicity. They unintentionally play into the hands of radicals and revolutionists, by influencing Catholics to strive after social instead of spiritual progress, and making them feel that the great work for the church is less to train men for heaven than to make the earth a more pleasant abode for them; or that the proper way for men to work out their salvation hereafter is to work earnestly and perseveringly for the progress of civil and political liberty, and the reform of political and social abuses. It can hardly have any but a bad influence on the Catholic mind to find prominent Catholics urging their Catholic fellow-citizens to make common cause with the most notorious and irreligious infidel and radical leaders of the revolution, as if there could be any thing in common between Catholics and men who demand liberty only to emancipate themselves from the divine law and to suppress the church, or at least to restrain her freedom.

But we are forgetting our author. Of the three causes he assigns for the partial success in old Catholic nations of Protestant missions, we have considered only the third and last—the alleged ignorance of the clergy of contemporary Protestantism, the supineness of Catholics, and their lack of individual zeal, energy, and self-reliance. We have ventured to differ in some respects with regard to this alleged cause from the eminent author, and to take a deeper and a broader view of the real cause of Protestant success. We have traced it to the ascendency of the worldly spirit which has given birth to Protestantism itself, and, even in Catholic countries, deprived the church of her rightful freedom of action. We see the cause in the false relations of church and state that have hitherto subsisted in Christian nations, in the oppression and restraint of the church by the state. The other two causes, the impression that Protestant nations surpass Catholic nations in material wealth and well-being, and that Protestantism has founded and sustains civil and religious liberty, we must reluctantly reserve for a future article.

HURSTON HALL.

The great avenue of Hurston was all aglow with the golden sunset. Stray beams trembled among the shadows of the massive oaks, bathed the stone terrace in a flood of crimson radiance, and lingered lovingly among the quaint parterres, where all day long they had given life and beauty to the flowers. The "parting smile of day" illumined lawn and garden, mellowed the rugged outlines of the ancient hall, and threw over its gloomy grandeur a golden mist that seemed to spiritualize it.

But more brightly and lovingly than elsewhere it rested on the fair brow and golden curls of young Lord Hurston, as, reclining on his couch with his face turned to the sunset, he watched with boyish delight the beauty of the scene.

"Close the book, Aunt Caddy," he said, turning to a pale, graceful lady, who, seated on an ottoman beside him, had been reading to the young invalid the most beautiful of the great poet's Idylls. "Close the book; for you are tired, and I want you to look at the sunset and talk to me. Isn't it beautiful? See that great oak at the bend of the avenue! Every leaf seems woven with gold. I wonder if that little squirrel has his nest among the roots yet. What a pile of nuts I found there long ago, before I was sick! I wonder if I will ever be well enough to hunt squirrels again?" And the little speaker sighed as he turned restlessly on his couch.

"I hope so, darling," Aunt Caddy replied fondly. "But we must be patient, you know."

"Yes, I know. But it is hard sometimes—only sometimes—Aunt Caddy; for boys are not like girls; they might lie still and not care so much. But when Lady Rayburn and Percy and George were here, and I saw how the boys could climb and ride and jump; and when I had Floy brought out from the stable for them and I heard her call me just as she used when I could ride—I wouldn't tell any one but you—but O Aunt Caddy! I cried when I was all by myself—cried like a great baby girl."

"My poor pet! was it so hard for you? Then grandmamma will not ask them here again."

"No, no! dear auntie; that would never do. I am not such a coward as to mind feeling badly; and then, I would bear it better next time. No, no! Hurston Hall must be open to every one, as it was in grandpapa's time, as it would be if papa had lived, even though its lord is only a sick boy who can but lie on his cushions and let his guests amuse themselves as they please. Only I wish I were as good and patient as you would be in my place. You are just like Elaine. If you were grieved or sorrowful, no one would ever know it. You would only grow pale and quiet and silent, until some morning you would float away from us over the dark waters with the story of your sorrow folded over your still heart."

The crimson glow of sunset seemed to flush Aunt Caddy's cheek as she bent to kiss the pale, little, earnest face.

"You are a poet yourself, Arthur. Who knows but that you may prove a second Sir Philip Sidney. We have had so many bold barons of Hurston that Sir Arthur may well afford to win gentler fame and more peaceful laurels."

"Auntie, dear, you are all kind and loving to me; but you try to deceive me. I saw Doctor Woodley's face when he sounded my lungs the other day, and I know what it meant. Poor papa did not live to be twenty-four; and I—I was reading a book the other day, and I saw in it the sentence, 'Born to die.' It seemed as if it were written for me—born to die, not to live and win laurels, Aunt Caddy."

"My darling, you must not talk so! Think of poor grandmamma, think of us all if we should lose you. You are only twelve, and youth can hope for every thing."

But even as she spoke a flood of memories welled up from her heart; sweet yet mournful voices of the past, whispering sadly of her youth—its vanished hopes, its faded dreams. The sunset radiance had paled now, and dim shadows were gathering over the rosy, western horizon as Aunt Caddy thought of her life, with its early sunset, its shadowy twilight, that would be so cheerless did not the starry gleam of other worlds sometimes pierce the gloom.

"I don't think it seems so dreadful now to die, Aunt Caddy. When I was well and strong, it seemed so; and I used almost to shiver when I passed the tomb where poor papa and mamma lie side by side, beneath the painted window in the chancel. It seemed so hard that he should not live long enough to bear the title. But now I sometimes lie awake at night and think how strange it will look to see beside grandpapa's monument that tells how very, very old he was, another with a broken column, or something like that, and the inscription, Arthur, seventeenth baron of Hurston, aged twelve, or thirteen—not any more I think, auntie."

"I don't want to grieve you, Aunt Caddy; but why should we fear to talk of what must be? I will leave you here in my place—you and grandmamma. You will be the lady of the hall, and help the poor people around, and keep the old place from getting ruined and desolate; and make Johnson spare those oaks that he wanted to cut down; grandpapa's oaks must not be touched. O Aunt Caddy! you will always stay at Hurston, even when I am gone, won't you?" And the earnest eyes pleaded eloquently.

"Your Uncle Charles would be the owner of Hurston, my darling," was the low reply. "He would live here or send some one in his place. Grandmamma and I would have a right here no longer. So you must get well and strong, if you want to keep us at Hurston," she added with an attempt at playfulness.

"My Uncle Charles!" said the young lord in amazement. "Why must he come here? Where is he now? Why should he be owner of Hurston?"

"He is next heir—your father's younger brother; he has been with his regiment in Canada for a great many years," she replied hurriedly. "But do not let us talk of sad fancies any longer. You will be strong as Cousin Percy in the spring, and will ride Floy as gayly as ever."

"But I want to hear about my[451] Uncle Charles," said Arthur eagerly. "Did I ever see him?"

"But why does he not come to England? Why did not grandpapa hear from him?" continued the eager little questioner.

"My dearest, you are too young to weary yourself with others' troubles. Your grandfather and his younger son parted in anger. They were both proud and passionate, and neither would forgive or yield; and now death has come between them," Aunt Caddy said sadly.

"No, dearest, I could not," she replied with deepening color. "When my sister wrote to your grandma and to me that she was dying, and we must take her place to her orphaned boy; when your grandfather, old Lord Hurston, placed you in my arms, then Hurston Hall became our home; but when Colonel Charles Thornbury is its master, it ceases to be so."

"Thirty-one," was the thoughtful reply. "And he will be Lord Hurston when I die. I wish I knew him, Aunt Caddy. Do you think he would come to England if you wrote him? You knew him, auntie. I want to see him; I want to ask him not to leave Hurston to ruin and desolation; I want to ask him to let you stay and take care of the dear old place that grandpa was so proud of. I want to ask him not to let Johnson cut down the oaks that he wanted to thin out last fall. Dear, dear Aunt Caddy, won't you write for me?" pleaded the earnest little speaker.

"My darling Arthur," she replied with a deepening blush that freshened her pale face wonderfully, "I cannot. It—it—would be impossible."

"But why, Aunt Caddy?" continued the persevering boy. "Is he so very bad, so wicked, that you never speak? Is my uncle a bad man, Aunt Caddy? Has he"—and the boy's cheek flushed with the pride of his noble race—"has he disgraced us in any way?"

"My dear Arthur," was the hurried response, "oh! no; a thousand times no! Your uncle was proud, passionate, headstrong; but he was—he is, I am sure, all that is noble, brave, generous; and, Arthur, he loved your father as fondly as brothers could love."

"My darling," the words came reluctantly, "your grandpapa—in short, they had some disagreement when your uncle came of age about—about a marriage that the old lord had set his heart upon. But your uncle was unwilling; that is—the lady was rich, and he feared he would be thought mercenary—and—and—we must speak reverently of the dead, dear Arthur," and she bent to kiss his pale, pure brow; "but your uncle was not to blame. Let us talk no more about it now. See, the moon is rising. Look how large and beautiful it is! Have you no sonnet for such a scene, my gentle troubadour?"

But Arthur was not to be deceived. Spite of the gathering twilight,[452] he could see the large tears brimming Aunt Caddy's still beautiful eyes; could hear the tremor in her playful tone; could feel, boy as he was, that some chord had been touched that thrilled with saddening memories.

The boy baron almost idolized the fair, gentle aunt who had replaced to him the mother he had never known, and it was with a remorseful sympathy that he flung his arms around her neck, kissed her flushed cheek, and whispered fondly, "Your tiresome little troubadour knows but one, and that is for you alone, dear auntie—Je t'aime, je t'aime; yes, more than any one in the world, dear Aunt Caddy."

He was not prepared for the long, low sob that shook her slight frame as she replied, in trembling accents,

"I believe you, my darling, my own Arthur; the one sunbeam of a cheerless—but never let us talk again as we have done to-night."

So Arthur was silent; but with a strange, precocious wisdom he "pondered these things in his heart."

And the result was that a letter, indited in a clear, boyish hand, sped like a white-winged messenger of peace across the broad Atlantic, bearing the address of Colonel Charles Thornbury, —th Dragoons.

And months after that twilight talk, when the leaves of Hurston Park fell in showers of crimson and gold on the broad avenue, when the last roses breathed their sweet farewells around Arthur's latticed window, and the autumn winds began to sigh through the leafless vines, far away beneath the clear blue sky of another hemisphere a bronzed, bearded man read those frank, boyish words of welcome that bore the proud seal of his ancient race, and, with a tear and a smile, whispered a blessing on "Arthur's boy."

Christmas snow lay white and pure on the fields and groves of Hurston, and Christmas moonlight fell like a benediction on the spotless earth. The old hall stood boldly out with every rugged outline clearly defined against the frosty winter sky. A strange, irregular old pile, with little architectural symmetry; for it had grown with the fortunes of the race that had ruled there for generations, dating its foundation far back in the mist of centuries before England bent to Norman William's sceptre. Tradition pointed to the grove where the mistletoe was culled with many a sacred rite; to the tower where the fair bride waited and watched in vain for her lord, who lay cold and stiff on the lost battle plain of Hastings; to the gate whence issued the stout Baron of Hurston, stern in his demand for right, to the rendezvous at Runnymede. The long, low building stretching into the shadows of the grove was said to have been built by Ethwold the Saxon, when, weary of the toils of war, he retired into the quiet "Hurst," beneath whose leafy shelter his race grew and flourished for generations.

Remnants of fearful tales still were heard around the cottage fires—tales of awful orgies held by the fierce Saxon, and of invocations of Woden and Thor, and rude banquets when the wild chant of the bard and the pledge of Waeshael echoed through the ancient Hurst. It was even whispered that these fierce, unbaptized spirits still lingered around their earthly haunts, watching the fortunes of their race and guarding it from extinction.

But the young Baron of Hurston resting in his dainty sick-chamber, surrounded by all that wealth and affection could bestow, yet feeling with a strange, peaceful resignation that his young life was fast ebbing away,[453] bestowed little thought on the name and fame of the proud ancestors that had ruled Hurston before him.

"I can do nothing, Aunt Caddy," he said with gentle sadness; "nothing great, noble, glorious; I am only a sick, helpless boy. But for the little while I am with them, I would like my people to be happy. I would like every heart to be light and free that I can render so. I will never live to add any thing to the lustre of the old name, never win fame or laurels in camp or court. Only I would like, when I am gone, to have it said that Sir Arthur, their boy-lord's rule was a light and happy one. So don't let me hear any more of unpaid rents, Johnson," he would add, smiling merrily at the faithful steward. "What do I want with poor Farmer Cropper's few guineas? Let my heir attend to all such matters, if he will; no one must be troubled while I can prevent it."

They had learned ere this not to be astonished at these strange, unchild-like speeches, and all tried to carry out their young lord's wishes with almost worshipping fondness and devotion.

So it happened that this Christmas the old Saxon hall was decked gayly with holly and ivy; mistletoe boughs hung temptingly from the dark old rafters, and the oaken floor was polished till it shone again.

Sir Arthur had determined that the servants' ball this year should be an unprecedented success; and he himself—"blessings on his sweet young face," as the good old housekeeper said when she announced the great event—was "to be present in person."

Scores of wax lights winked merrily between the heavy wreaths of ivy, and a yule log, parent of a hundred oaks, blazed like a royal bonfire on the spacious hearth.

Already the old fiddler, blind of one eye, and the old harpist, lame of one leg—a pair of musicians whom Sir Arthur patronized extensively, had taken their places; already many a bright eye and nimble foot danced expectant, and many a rosy cheek flushed deeper with anticipated pleasure. Stately Lady Nesbitt, Arthur's grandmother, was there, smiling benignantly; Aunt Caddy—or the "sweet Lady Caroline," as some of her devoted pensioners called her—with her Madonna face, waving hair, and soft silvery robe, looking like some gentle moonlight spirit; and Arthur, his fair cheek flushed—ah! too brightly—his golden ringlets, soft as a maiden's, clustering on his pale white brow, his clear blue eyes radiant with pleasure, sat looking on, the happiest baron of Hurston that ever reigned in that grim abode.

Old Johnson, the steward and master of ceremonies, alone was wanting; and the impatient dancers began to grow restless awaiting his signal to open the ball. "Where can Johnson be?" questioned Arthur for the twentieth time; when the door suddenly burst open, and Johnson appeared, not a vestige of color in his usually ruddy face, and every white hair on his aged crown bristling with terror.

"Great heavens!—I beg pardon, my lord and ladies," panted the old man breathlessly. "But I've seen him at last! The Lord forgive me! I'll never doubt that there be spirits return again. I saw him with these very eyes—the master, old Sir Ralph himself. O my poor blessed lamb! I beg pardon, my lord—Sir Arthur, I mean. I hope this portends nothing awful." And the faithful old servitor wiped the great beads of moisture from his brow.

"What do you mean, Johnson? What has terrified you?" asked Lady Nesbitt, calming in her stately way[454] the excited group that had gathered around her.

"This, madam—simply this, my lady," replied the terrified old man. "I was in the chapel, putting the last wreath on Lady Edith's, my young lord's blessed mother's tomb, when I felt a sort of cold chill creep over me, and says I to myself, 'It's only the dampness'—for I have the rheumatics occasionally, as my Lady Caroline well knows. So says I, 'It's only the dampness;' for I never believed the stories the country folk tell about the barons of Hurston leaving their holy graves to walk on earth again. And so I was walking slowly out, when I heard a sort of groan, and I turned, and, O my lord and ladies! sure as the Lord sees me here, I saw old Sir Ralph, our young lord's grandfather, standing beside his own tomb, with his head bent down and his arms folded, as I've seen him over and over again in life. O my dear young lord! I couldn't be mistaken; it's he himself and no other. I could take my Bible oath to his back and legs; begging your pardon, ladies, I could indeed." And poor Johnson paused for breath.

It was Arthur's clear tone that broke the silence. "If it be my grandfather," he said with that reverence that pure young minds feel for the unseen, "it is my place to go and speak to him; he has returned from the other world for some good purpose, and I will speak to him."

"O my blessed lamb!—my dear young lord, I mean," cried poor Johnson in a fresh fit of terror; "don't, for heaven's sake; don't go near him! I am only afraid," and the faithful old man fairly sobbed, "it is to take you away that he has come."

"Yes," and though the boy's cheek grew pale, his voice was firm, "it is my place to go. Aunt Caddy," he whispered, "he died, you know, without having forgiven my uncle."

"Come then, Arthur," said Lady Caroline in a low voice; "for it is my place as well as yours, to hear the message of peace and forgiveness."

"My lord, my lord!" pleaded the terrified servants. But he had gone. With his little, thin hand clasped in Aunt Caddy's, he ascended the winding stone staircase that led to the chapel.

The lords of Hurston had adhered through poverty, change, and persecution to the ancient faith, and worshipped for centuries beneath their own roof.

The chapel of Hurston was rich with quaint carving and mediæval ornament. Six graceful columns supported the Gothic roof, each column bearing tablets to the memory of the lords of Hurston who slept beneath. Old Sir Ralph's tomb lay in the shadow of the altar, while that of Arthur's parents—a snow-white shaft supporting a broken pillar—stood in the full light of the chancel window, whose richly-colored panes bore witness to the virtues of the early dead who slept beneath. Lady Caroline felt Arthur's hand tremble, and she herself grew pale with awe; for there indeed, in the bright moonlight that streamed through the painted window—there, close to the tomb of old Sir Ralph, in the shadow of the altar, there stood a form with bowed head and folded arms, a form that Arthur's silver, trembling voice called "Grandfather!"

"Grandfather!" and the boy with his pale face and golden curls looked in the falling moonlight like a[455] seraph. "Grandfather, speak to me! What is it that you wish of me? Speak, dear grandfather! It is your little Arthur; he does not fear you. Grandfather," and his voice grew lower and more musical, "is it the thought of my uncle that disturbs your rest? I will tell him that he is forgiven; that you sent him the angels' Christmas greeting—'Peace on earth to men of good-will—'"

"My brave, my saintly boy! Arthur's boy!" sobbed a deep, manly voice; and the young lord found himself clasped in a warm, living, loving embrace, while a bronzed, bearded face with great luminous dark eyes looked almost reverently into his.

"Nephew, you have done what I believed no mortal could do. You have brought tears into Charles Thornbury's eyes, and peace into his heart!"

"O Aunt Caddy, Aunt Caddy!" cried Arthur joyfully; "speak to him. It is Uncle Charles; dear Uncle Charles, that I wrote to so long ago!"

Aunt Caddy was pale and speechless as the marble shaft against which she leaned for support; but Colonel Thornbury had a more potent spell. "Caroline!"—the low whisper brought a flush to cheek and brow—"Caroline, my long lost love, whose tender heart I wounded so deeply, can you too join your voice to this angel boy's, and whisper peace? Caroline, I was mad with wounded pride and jealous love—love that scorned the thought of gain, that snapped every tie when they said it was for your wealth I sought you. God forgive me! I cast the words back in their teeth, and swore I would roam the world a penniless adventurer rather than be enriched by my wife. Caroline, if my sin was great, my punishment has been bitter. Ten years; ten long, weary, loveless years! Arthur has welcomed me with the voice of peace. Have you no Christmas gift for the penitent wanderer? None for the faithful heart that has ever been yours alone?" Lady Caroline was pale again; but a radiance fairer than moonlight seemed to light up her brow.

"Arthur has given you peace; and I—I, Charles, have only the love that has waited for you these long, weary years—that would have waited for you until death!"

And the sequel to this little Christmas romance? Need we tell of the wild joy and amazement that reëchoed through the hoary old hall? Of the girlish roses that deepened in Aunt Caddy's still beautiful cheek, and the radiant light in the wanderer's clear dark eye as, a few months later, the merry peal of wedding-bells succeeded the Christmas chimes?

"A blithe bridal for a bonnie bride," Arthur had said when the long-parted lovers pleaded his fast failing health as a reason for a quiet wedding.

"Uncle Charles, if you don't have a real glorious wedding, I'll marry Aunt Caddy myself." Brightest and merriest of all was the lordly young host as he welcomed his guests with the princely grace that so well became him, though many a living heart was sad, and kindly eye grew dim, as they marked in the glowing cheek and wasted form the fatal heritage of his youthful parents.

Once only he himself betrayed amid his graceful gayety the consciousness of his early doom.

After their young lord had been repeatedly toasted by the joyous tenantry, some one merrily proposed, "Sir Arthur's bride;" and "Our future lady" was pledged in brimming bumpers.

Arthur's face flushed for a moment as he caught the unthinking shout;[456] then, raising his own glass to his lips, he bowed to his uncle's bride. "Aunt Caddy, we drink your health. Long life and happiness to the future lady of Hurston!"

A year later, and hushed voices and noiseless steps alone were heard around the dying couch of the fair boy-baron. Patient and gentle as ever, he waited with his own angelic smile upon his lips the summons that was to call him from life.

His uncle, pale with anxiety and sorrow, watched with paternal love over the dying boy's pillow, until an attendant whispered something which Arthur's fast failing ear caught.

"Bring him here, uncle; let me see him before I go; let me see Aunt Caddy's boy."

Colonel Thornbury called the attendant, and they laid a little slumbering babe in the dying boy's outstretched arms. "Call him Arthur for me, dear uncle, and do not grieve. He has come to take my place; to perpetuate the glorious old name; to be all that I would have been if God had so willed it. I am happy now; so very, very happy!" He died with the words yet on his lips, the smile still on his face, the light scarce faded from his eye.

Years afterward, when the proud spirit of her impetuous boy threatened to burst from her gentle restraint, and the fierce blood of his fiery ancestors showed itself in his kindling eye and mantling cheek, the gentle Lady Hurston had one spell that calmed his angriest moods. She would whisper of that young cousin who had breathed his last sigh with her Arthur's first breath, with the baby form clasped to his dying breast, of those last words of hope and happiness murmured over the slumbering babe from the very portals of eternity. "He said you were to take his place, dear Arthur; be worthy of him and of his name." And the boy's eye would grow calm and peaceful as it rested on the snowy column—the column of which Arthur had spoken when he foretold his own doom:

Arthur,
SEVENTEENTH BARON OF HURSTON.
BORN MAY 2, 1830. DIED MARCH 5, 1844.
AGED 14 YEARS.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

DECEMBER EIGHTH, 1869.

VANSLEB, THE ORIENTAL SCHOLAR AND TRAVELLER.

CHAPTER I.

Count De Maistre somewhere says that during the last century a reputation was made much in the same manner as you make a shoe, "Au dernier siècle, on faisait une réputation comme on fait un soulier."

The manufacturing process indicated by De Maistre was known and practised long before the last century, and is even at the present time by no means to be counted among the lost arts. This very day the reader may look around him and easily find numerous specimens of the peculiar industry here described. And going back two hundred years, we may, out of many cases, select that of a learned, laborious, self-sacrificing and pious man, who, driven to a premature grave by ingratitude, neglect, and calumny, has been falsely handed down to posterity as untruthful, dishonest, brutal, and grossly immoral. His transmitted reputation was not the reflection of his deeds. It was manufactured of shreds and patches. Dying in the disgrace caused by the displeasure of the prime minister of a powerful monarch, it would have been remarkable, indeed, had any one at that day so forgotten himself as to become the advocate of a cause hopelessly lost. And so his enemies had a clear field.

Writers of history and biography of the years immediately succeeding took their word, and subsequent biographers and historians had merely to repeat what their predecessors had said. His story is fraught with more than one moral, and the impressive vindication of his character after the silence of two centuries has something in it that seems higher than mere human agency.

John Michael Wansleben was born at Sommerda, near Erfurth, November 1st, 1635. His father was the Lutheran minister of the place. At a proper age he was sent to the University of Erfurth, and afterward completed his studies at the University of Königsberg in 1656. He held for a short time a position as private tutor, and entered the army of the Elector of Brandenburg in 1657, serving as a private soldier through the campaign of that year.

With some idea of embracing a commercial career, he then visited Schleswig, Amsterdam, Glückstadt, and Hamburg, but without result, and returned to Erfurth in 1658. Job Ludolf, a distinguished savant of Erfurth, was then in the meridian of his fame. Ludolf had been sent to Rome in 1649, to make search for the memoirs of John Magnus, Archbishop of Upsal, a man noted for his learning and piety, who, after an unsuccessful struggle against the kingly power of Gustavus Vasa, and the introduction of Lutheranism into Sweden, retired to Rome, where he died. Ludolf, failing to find the memoirs he sought, remained some time in Rome, occupied in the study of the Ethiopian tongue. He was, unquestionably, a man of remarkable acquirements, and was in his day credited with knowing twenty-five languages.

Vansleb [102] attracted the attention of Ludolf, and was received by him partly as a pupil, partly as an assistant, specially devoting himself, by Ludolf's direction, to the study of the Ethiopian language. In 1661, when he was thought sufficiently advanced, Ludolf sent him to London to supervise the publication of his Ethiopian dictionary. Vansleb performed his task, and the dictionary was published the same year. At this time, the English polyglot edition (six vols. folio) of the Bible, by Walton, Bishop of Chester, was in course of publication. There was in that day no dearth of imitators of Cardinal Ximenes. Although bearing the name of Walton, it was the work of several learned men, and its oriental versions were copied from the Bible of Le Jay, (Paris.) Distinguished among its collaborators was Edmund Castell, Canon of Canterbury, an oriental scholar, who afterward published his Lexicon Heptaglotton, the fruit of eighteen hours' daily labor for a period of seventeen years.[103] Castell met with Vansleb, and engaged him as his assistant, taking him into his house and admitting him to his table. For three years and a half Vansleb labored with Castell, who thus mentions him in the preface to his Lexicon: "In ethiopicis per idem tempus operam impendebat suam D. M. Wanslebius, qui ad perpoliendum in eisdem ingenium in varias orientis oras, longa atque periculosa suscepit itinera."[104]

Returning to Germany, Vansleb found that Ludolf, as the tutor of the young princes of Saxony, had obtained great credit and influence with Duke Ernest, surnamed the Pious. Ludolf had long cherished the singular project of bringing about an alliance between some German prince and the King of Ethiopia, (modern Abyssinia,) and by dint of long conferences on the subject with the duke, had succeeded in enlisting [461] Ernest's enthusiastic interest in his plan. This it was:

An ardent champion of what is called Luther's Reformation, he was assiduous in seeking for it moral support wherever it could possibly be found. He imagined that he saw a certain degree of conformity between Lutheranism and the Coptic rite, and the idea of the appearance of antiquity the new religion would receive from a union with one of the oldest oriental churches was more than enough to awaken his warmest enthusiasm. Ludolf, moreover, hoped, through superior German civilization, that Protestantism would be enabled to exercise a decided influence upon the retrograde population of Abyssinia.

The better to appreciate Ludolf's project, let us take a rapid glance at the history of Abyssinia and its condition at that time.

Ethiopia embraced Judaism during the reign of Solomon, following the example of Queen Sheba, who, according to the best authorities, was sovereign of that country.

It was also one of the first nations converted to Christianity through the baptism of the treasurer of Queen Candace, by the Deacon Philip. (Acts of the Apostles, viii. 27-38.) And this result was predicted by God. Ethiopia præveniet manus ejus Deo.[105] (Psalm lxvii. 32.) In the fifth century, Ethiopia was drawn into the Eutychian heresy, and, under the name of Jacobites, her people to this day persevere in it.

In the sixteenth century, the Portuguese having rendered some signal service to the reigning king, they obtained from him authority allowing Jesuit missionaries to enter the country. They did so enter, and made numerous conversions. But persecution undid their work. Catholicity was placed under ban, the faithful pursued, and the dispersed missionaries put to death. The two last Jesuits, who remained with their neophytes, were taken and hung in 1638. Others sought to penetrate Abyssinia; but all who entered the country were arrested and decapitated. The king, Basilides, was the most furious in persecution. He persuaded himself that the king of Portugal was organizing against him a league of all the monarchs in Europe. The very name of Catholic was made treasonable; and he sent his own brother to execution simply on suspicion of leniency to the hated religion.

It was mainly from his enmity to it that he permitted, contrary to law, the introduction of Mohammedanism, and even sent for doctors to preach it to his people. These so-called "disasters of the papacy" were far from being a subject of grief to the German reformers, particularly to those inspired with the desire of proselytism. Duke Ernest was called the Pious, and was now fired with the ambition of adding illustration to his surname.

The circumstances looked favorable in the highest degree. Any thing was sufficiently recommended to King Basilides if it were only anti-Catholic; and therefore, the success of the Protestant mission was a foregone conclusion.

But who could be found capable of executing such a mission? He should be, independently of the requisite religious qualification, a person of experience and superior education—at once a man of the world and a scholar—and more, an oriental scholar.

"I have him here in Erfurth," said Ludolf to the duke; "an alter ego, as familiar as I am with the language,[462] literature, and customs of the Ethiopians."

He referred, of course, to Vansleb, who was already fully advised in the matter from long conferences with Ludolf.

Duke Ernest assumed all the expenses of the mission, drew up the necessary instructions, and traced the itinerary to be followed.

Vansleb was to make his way to Egypt, and thence to Abyssinia, with no more apparent object than the ordinary curiosity of a traveller desirous of studying the language and the natural history of the country. In case he found influential men favorably disposed, he was to advise them confidentially that a German prince named Ernest, who held the Abyssinians in high esteem, as well for their warlike qualities as for their attachment to the ancient faith of their fathers, had given him letters for them in their own language, and that he was willing to make the necessary advances in money to bring to Europe a certain number of well-disposed young Abyssinians desirous of instructing themselves as to the condition of the Christian reformed churches, and thus bring about, between the two peoples and confessions, a sincere and lasting friendship.

In every respect the proposition suited Vansleb. The arrangement was soon completed, and he was invested with all the necessary powers of an ambassador, but in a disguised and indirect form, with special instructions not to exhibit his credentials until fully satisfied that his advances would be met.

The result of this remarkable embassy is soon told. Ludolf himself relates that he does not know whether to attribute the failure of a plan conceived with all possible prudence to the parsimony of the duke or to the imprudence of Vansleb. That Ludolf, who, after this period, never hesitated to paint Vansleb in the blackest colors, should make it a matter of doubt, is quite enough to justify the latter.

And now let us accompany Vansleb on his route to Ethiopia. He reached Cairo in January, 1664, and spent a year in visiting Egypt, and in studying and copying Abyssinian books. The Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria, Matthew de Mir, whose jurisdiction extended over the churches of Ethiopia, dissuaded Vansleb from attempting to penetrate that country, and he addressed Duke Ernest a letter in Arabic, giving the reasons for his advice, which letter is still preserved in the ducal library of Saxe-Gotha.

And now the grand project of Ernest was visited—humanly speaking—with poetic justice. The Coptic patriarch, who was pleased with Vansleb, obtained from him an exposition of the history of the reformation and of Lutheran doctrine, and Vansleb, instructed in return, could, as he listened to the patriarch, compare the German novelties with the antique symbol of the oriental communions. The result was inevitable, and he began to see a light that illuminated his mind and made evident his errors. He soon afterward embarked for Italy, fully resolved to seek admission to the Catholic Church.

Landing at Leghorn, he went to Florence, where he spent some time, and was protected by the prince, who was afterward Cosmo (de' Medici) III. Here, also, he made the acquaintance of the British ambassador, Finch, whom he subsequently met at Smyrna. Going to Rome, he there abjured Protestantism, was received into the church, and entered the Dominican convent of the Minerva.[463] This order, specially devoted to teaching and preaching, was best suited to his tastes and habits.

And here, for a period of four years, Vansleb disappears from the world and from history. He passed them in solitude, exclusively occupied with study and religious exercises.

Meantime, imagine, if you can, the storm that broke at Erfurth. Duke Ernest was bitterly disappointed, as was natural; but it would be difficult to describe the fury of Ludolf. It burst forth never to be extinguished but with his death. Vansleb, so warmly recommended by Ludolf to the duke, suddenly became a monster not only of ingratitude, but of every other possible vice. There were no limits to the abuse nor to the accusations of the angry professor.

All this did not then trouble Vansleb, but he was made to feel their effects long afterward.

CHAPTER II.

At the end of his four years with the Dominicans of Rome, Vansleb went to France, where he was presented by Bosquet, the learned Bishop of Montpellier, to the minister Colbert, as a man of superior merits and of great erudition in the oriental languages. Succeeding Mazarin and Fouquet in the councils of Louis XIV., Colbert aimed to distinguish his administration by fostering letters, sciences, and the arts.

The Royal Library, of sixteen thousand volumes at the accession of the king, contained seventy thousand at the end of his reign—an increase mainly due to Colbert. At once recognizing the merit of Vansleb, Colbert charged him with an important Scientific mission. He was instructed to travel through oriental countries, and especially to visit Mount Athos, the island of Chio, Aleppo, Mount Sinai, Nitria, Constantinople, Turkey, Persia, and Baalbec; everywhere seeking and purchasing Arabian, Turkish, Persian, and Greek books and manuscripts. He was to make his way to the most remarkable monasteries for the purpose of obtaining certain ecclesiastical works; to collect rare medals, statues, and bas-reliefs, besides preparations in botany, natural history, and mineralogy; to give descriptions of machinery, utensils, costumes, and vestments of the different nations he saw; to copy inscriptions on monuments, pillars, obelisks, and tombstones. He will keep aloof—continued his directions—from political complications, wear such costumes as he may think proper, and select the route which to him seems best.

The original of these instructions was found only a few years since among the papers of Vansleb. They bear this singular indorsement in the handwriting of Colbert himself: "I do not understand these instructions, more particularly as you proposed Vansleb for a mission to Ethiopia, which country is not even mentioned. The instructions, as they stand, might just as well have been given by the French ambassador at Constantinople."

In point of fact, the instructions had been drawn up by Carcavy, the royal librarian, a man of great merit. He saw almost insurmountable obstacles to the success of an Ethiopian mission, and thought it better to confine its authorization to merely verbal instructions, leaving it to Vansleb to attempt it or not, as he might find most advisable.

The dissatisfaction of Colbert was not at first fully appreciated, but it was doubtless the germ of the neglect with which Vansleb was afterward treated, and of the coolness and[464] injustice of his reception when he returned.

Vansleb departed on this, his second journey to the East, in the spring of 1671, and visited Malta, Cyprus, Aleppo, Damascus, and a part of Phœnicia. He reached Damietta in March, 1672, after a journey marked by delays, dangers, storms, and sickness; for oriental travel was not the comparatively easy and comfortable journeying of to-day, nor had the brutality and tyranny of eastern officials toward Christians been rebuked and corrected as they since have been. Establishing his headquarters at Cairo, Vansleb made numerous excursions to the Pyramids, the Sphinx, and the various monuments then so novel, but now so familiar to Europeans, and indeed to Americans. After renewing his acquaintance with the Patriarch Matthew de Mir, who had unconsciously been the instrument of his conversion to Catholicity, Vansleb embarked for Rosetta in May, 1672.

But we do not propose to follow our traveller through all his wanderings. They were full of novelty for him and for those who, at that period, read his descriptions of them. In 1673, he visited Upper Egypt and explored the antiquities of Esneh and Denderah, and the remains of ancient Thebes at Luxor and Karnak. At Lycopolis, the Bishop Amba Joannes introduced to him one Muallim Athanarius, the only man in all Egypt, he said, who spoke the Coptic language. Vansleben did not converse with him, but flattered himself on having seen the man with whom the Coptic language was to expire. After exploring the Thebaide and its grottos, and visiting the ruins of Enseneh, the column of Marcus Aurelius and the Triumphal Arch, he returned to Cairo. Of course he had not lost sight of one of the main objects of his mission, the purchase of rare and valuable works for the Royal Library. He neglected no opportunity to obtain them, and up to this period of his journey he had purchased and forwarded to Paris three hundred and thirty-four volumes, Turkish, Persian, and Arabic. Compelled to deal with people of all classes, some of them had spoken of his purchases, and by the time he returned to Cairo it was reported that the Frank stranger was gathering all the sacred books in the country for the purpose of sending them away to the infidels. The Mohammedan laws made it a capital crime for a stranger to buy, sell, or even have in his possession any of their books, whether treating of religion or any other subject. To exemplify the feeling with which they regard the possession of their books by infidels, (Christians,) M. Champollion Figeac relates that during the reign of Louis Philippe a number of young Arabs were sent to France by Mehemet Ali, Viceroy of Egypt, and among them two sons of the viceroy. While visiting the Royal Library, M. Champollion took pains to show one of the young princes the magnificent copy of the Koran taken from a mosque in Cairo during the French expedition to Egypt. When he saw what the book was, the young Arab turned away his head, covering his face with both hands.

Under the circumstances, Vansleb of course understood at once that he could not remain in Egypt. For two years he had been dealing in books, and, if arrested, there was evidence enough to take his life a hundred times. Without losing a day, he at once set out for Constantinople. Touching at Rhodes and the island of Chio, he went to Smyrna, where, to his great astonishment, and contrary to his uniform experience in the[465] East, his letters of introduction and his credentials were made light of by the resident French consul, who more than insinuated that he suspected him of being an impostor.

Personally wounded, and annoyed at a circumstance that endangered his mission and deprived him of the only legal protector to whom he could have recourse in case of difficulty, Vansleben sought advice and assistance of the English consul, Paul Ricault. Notwithstanding his decidedly French name, Ricault was a veritable Englishman, born in London within the sound of Bow bells. He had been secretary of the Earl of Winchelsea, and ambassador extraordinary of Charles II. to Mohammed IV. After serving eleven years as consul of England at Smyrna, Clarendon appointed him, in 1685, his first secretary for the provinces of Connaught and Leinster. He was afterward privy councillor and judge of the Admiralty, and under William III. was minister resident for the Hanseatic towns. He is the author of a History of the Present Condition of the Ottoman Empire, and other works of merit. The two scholars Ricault and Vansleb immediately sympathized, and through Ricault Vansleb renewed the acquaintance of the ambassador Finch, whom he had met in Florence, and who was then on his way to Constantinople. Unfortunately for Vansleb, a serious difficulty just then arose between the two consuls, English and French, on account of some incivility offered by the latter to the ambassador on his arrival. Already prepossessed against Vansleben, through some underhand manœuvre, Chambon, the French consul, from that moment became his bitter enemy, alleging as one of the principal accusations against him his personal intimacy with the enemies of France. In those days there were no lines of Mediterranean packetboats, and Vansleb was glad to accept the invitation of the ambassador to take passage on the man-of-war which was to transport him and his suite to Constantinople. This added fuel to the flame of Chambon's resentment, and he thereafter left nothing undone to injure Vansleb in the East and in France. Vansleb's destination was perfectly well known, and he had hardly set foot in Constantinople when he perceived that Smyrna had been heard from. The Marquis de Nointel was temporarily absent when Vansleb arrived; but the manner of his reception by those in charge of the ambassador's residence, and by the merchants of the Company of the Levant, for whom he had letters, made it plain to him that these people to whom he was a stranger had already been set against him.

He found lodgings (by no means gratuitous) at the house of a French apothecary named Chaber, who discoursed eloquently on the shortcomings of the French embassy, criticising its extravagance, and its want of consideration for the French merchants of the Levant, who were heavily taxed to maintain its expensive display.

Vansleb, unfortunately, joined in the conversation, although saying but little. He afterward discovered that his few words were wrested to his prejudice. With his experience he should have been more on his guard, but he could not entirely overcome his native simplicity of character. Innocens credit omni verbo. To add to his annoyances, he was arrested by a Turkish patrol for wearing his beard and a turban, thrust into prison, subjected to personal indignities, and barely escaped the bastinado. Meantime, his salary was in arrears; and as it was his intention to strike from this point for Ethiopia, it was[466] necessary that he should start with a full purse. He bridged over the unavoidable delay by excursions to Broussa and the environs, and a trip to Chio, in order to witness the celebrated mastic harvest, which was at that time made the occasion of a religious festival. At Chio he had made several friends, on his former visit—Dom Georgio, the curate of the cathedral, Dom Matthew, the vicar-general, and a Dr. Pepano, who was acquainted with Vansleb's History of the Church of Alexandria. The doctor was enthusiastic as to the rewards he felt certain must await Vansleb on his return to France, and composed an acrostic in his honor, which ran thus:

"He had not the gift of prophecy," calmly writes Vansleb years afterward, when in poverty and disgrace. Returning to Constantinople, Vansleb visited Mitylene and Tenedos.

In January, 1675, he wrote to Colbert that he was in absolute want on account of the non-payment of his salary. In April, he received a small remittance of one hundred and fifty francs. A letter from Carcavy, of April, 1674, received July 20th, announced orders soon to be issued for the continuance of his mission. But the orders were as slow in arriving as his salary. Again, on the 20th of March, he wrote to Colbert, expressing his impatient anxiety to be again at work, and suggesting various journeys, all of them important, which he was ready to make—to Trebizond, the Chersonesus, to Persia, Syria, Mount Lebanon, Baalbec; or he would even return to Egypt, where he would have the advantage of former experience, and his late acquisition of the Greek and Turkish languages, which he now spoke fluently, and where he could now be protected against annoyance by a passport from the sultan. Meantime, Carcavy had assured Vansleben that his labors were fully appreciated and praised by Colbert. Finally, on the 22d of October, our traveller received two letters from the minister, dated July 4th and August 17th; but the money orders they contained were not cashed by the Company of the Levant until the following December.

Writing to Colbert in November, Vansleben says, "And what greater satisfaction could I have than to start immediately for the country to which your excellency sends me?" So that some new country was designated by Colbert in his letter. What was it? It could only be Ethiopia, according to the original design, and Vansleben's preparations at the time appear to have been for that direction. In December, having received two thousand francs, he writes to Colbert on the 18th that, but for the delay of waiting for a caravan and the passport of the sultan, he should already have started; that he expects to depart in January; to pass a month at Aleppo, in order to see Antioch and the Euphrates; thence to Damascus and the country of the Druses; thence to Jerusalem; from which he would take a fresh departure for Egypt, no longer as a Frank traveller but as an oriental, and there await a favorable occasion to penetrate into Ethiopia.

And now, just at the moment when a fresh horizon of useful enterprise was opening before him, when the thick clouds of envy, malevolence,[467] and misfortune were apparently dispersed, the bolt fell that for ever shattered his career, forced him back in disgrace, and sent him bowed down with sorrows and persecution to a premature grave.

What had in the mean time taken place—what reports, complaints, or insinuations had been brought to Colbert's ear, has never been clearly ascertained; but a dispatch from him of the thirtieth September, addressed to Nointel, advised the ambassador that Vansleb was recalled to Paris. Docile and respectful, he immediately prepared to obey. Nointel advises Colbert in reply, January 5th, 1676, that Vansleb was just ready to start on his eastern journey, and had already expended some money in its preparation.

"Unhesitatingly though, and with apparent satisfaction, he sails to-morrow for France, viâ Malta."

Forced by storms to stop in the island of Candia, (ancient Crete,) and also at Milo, Vansleb continued his labors of observation and research as though his mission had just begun. His return by sea was slow and tedious, and being moreover detained by illness at Lyons, he did not reach Paris until the end of April, 1676. It was a long time before he could obtain audience of the minister, whose reception of him was freezing and curt. The year wore away in expectation, and winter had come again before he could obtain a second interview with Colbert, which was more discouraging than the first.

Meantime, the arrearages due him, as well for his salary as for expenditures, were not paid, and he was obliged to sell his own Ethiopian MSS. in order to live.

Finally, a vigorous placet dispatched to Colbert July 15th, 1677, obtained a third and last interview with the minister.

In this, Colbert, without making any accusation against Vansleb, intrenched himself in a refusal pure and simple, either to allow him any indemnity or to pay the amount claimed by him for his advances.

Meantime, the poor monk's brother Dominicans who, on his arrival, had received him kindly, had evidently been affected by the disgrace to which an all-powerful minister had consigned the unfortunate traveller, and Vansleb's relations with them soon ceased.

Discouraged and broken-hearted, he left Paris, and after passing a few months with Counsellor Langeois at Atys, accepted the hospitality of M. Texier, the curé of Bourron, a small village near Fontainebleau. This kind priest's sympathy and affection alone, of earthly things, softened his rapid descent to the grave; for he only survived by nine months his arrival at Bourron, where he died June 12th, 1679, at the age of forty-four years.

During his oriental journey, Vansleb had scarcely been free from fever and ague, and he had contracted in Egypt an ophthalmic affection that gave him trouble. But neither of these maladies, nor both of them together, were sufficient to have caused his death. It seemed a sudden sinking of the moral forces rather than the physical that made him so sudden a prey to dissolution.

The man Vansleben's enemies represented him to be would not so easily have succumbed. The liar, the cheat, the libertine they painted would have had no heart to break.

Thus, in the obscurity of a small village, near the solitude of a great forest, Vansleb silently descended into the tomb. The earthly sounds that gathered around his existence had ceased, and the phantom of his fame was buried with his earthly remains.[468] As his death had been obscure, so his last resting-place was hidden from the public gaze. At the peril of his life, he endowed France with the scientific riches that may still be seen in her royal collections; yet under the most prodigal of her monarchs he did not receive the recompense of a winding-sheet, or the poor commemoration of a gravestone.

On Vansleb's return from Egypt, Dr. Bernard, of the University of Oxford, composed in his honor the following lines:

Of Vansleb's merits as a savant there could be no question. Before he left London, his reputation was already established as an oriental scholar, although his knowledge at that time was small compared with what he afterward acquired. Latin, Greek, and Hebrew he knew well, and he spoke and wrote correctly and fluently the German, French, Italian, English, Arabic, modern Greek, Turkish, and Ethiopian languages. His principal published works are,

1. Conspectus operum Æthiopicorum quæ ad excudendum parata habebat Wanslebius. Paris, 1671, in 4to.

3. Nouvelle Relation d'un Voyage fait en Egypte par le P. Vansleb, R.D., en 1672 et 1673. Paris, 1677.[108]

4. Voyage du Caire à Chio, et de Chio à Constantinople, fait de 1673 jusqu'à 1675.

5. Histoire de l'Eglise d'Alexandrie, fondée par St. Marc, que nous appelons celle des Jacobites Coptes d'Egypte, écrite au Caire même en 1672 et 1673. Par le P. J. M. Vansleb, Dominicain du Convent de la Minerve à Rome. Paris, 1677.

The works on Egypt and on the Church of Alexandria, it will be remarked, were published on his return from the east, precisely at the period of his severest trials. There is quite an interesting chapter in the history of criticism connected with Vansleb's work on the Church of Alexandria, a work of great merit, which covered nearly the same ground as that of a History of Abyssinia written by Ludolf. This, of course, was, in Ludolf's eyes, only another and a greater crime added to those of which he had already accused Vansleb.

Although Moreri, Le Grand, Michaud, and Renaudot were all more or less misled as to Vansleb's personal character, they testify unanimously as to the positive merit of the work in question, and to its superiority over that of Ludolf. It is remarkable that Father Papebrock and his illustrious colleague Bollandus were led astray, and indeed deceived, by Ludolf. They had confidence in him as a brother savant, but leaned too much upon him. Their error was naturally shared by the Journal de Trevoux, and thence extended to other Jesuits.

Although Vansleb's works were at first freely used, they were not freely quoted. Gradually they sank out of sight. Only rare catalogues chronicled them, and his unpublished MSS. had totally disappeared. Occasional echoes of his name might, at intervals, be heard in the sanctuaries of science, and these, rarely repeated during two centuries, became at last so feeble as no longer to be perceptible.

But sleep is not death, nor is night an eternal eclipse. The day of reparation was at last about to dawn, and the memory of Vansleb to arise vindicated from the tomb.

CHAPTER III.

M. Champollion Figeac, the well-known savant and orientalist, was for many years conservator of the Imperial Library of the palace at Fontainebleau. One day in 1856 [109] he attended the sale of the library of the late Marquis de Coulanges. His daughter relates that on his return he appeared to be in a state of high mental excitement, the main symptom of which was the manifestation of extravagant joy. Convulsively embracing her, he exhibited a volume he had just purchased, and which appeared to be the cause of his superlative satisfaction. The volume was Vansleb's manuscript. Familiar with Vansleb's published works, M. Champollion and many other scholars had long regretted the loss of this manuscript. His joy at finding it can readily be understood. Finding an indorsement on the manuscript that indicated Bourron as the place of Vansleb's death and burial, M. Champollion immediately wrote to the curé of that village for information as to Vansleb, and as to the condition of his tomb. But the deceased monk had passed so short a time at Bourron that he had left absolutely no trace in the local traditions of the place, and no one there had ever seen or heard of his tomb. However, on a careful search of the registers, the entry of his burial was found, and his last resting-place sufficiently indicated.

In 1859, the church was completely renovated, and advantage was taken of that circumstance to search for and find the remains of the poor monk. After the necessary formalities of identification had been complied with, they were carefully re-interred, and M. Champollion, having interested the emperor in the matter, was authorized to have erected over the grave an appropriate and elegant monument, bearing the inscription of which the following is a translation:

To the Memory of
John Michael Vansleb,
Dominican of the Minerva,
Learned Traveller in the East,
By order of Louis XIV.
Died, Vicar of Bourron,
June 12, 1679.
Restoration of his Tomb
Under the Auspices of the Emperor,
Napoleon III.,
In the Year 1861.

But a more important rehabilitation remained to be made, and M. Champollion showed, if possible, greater zeal in this than in the merely material one. Vansleb's MSS. and letters were carefully examined and found to throw new and important light on capital incidents heretofore either totally suppressed or wrested to his disadvantage.

Too aged and infirm even to undertake a task which would have been to him only a labor of love, M. Champollion confided the papers to the Abbé Pougeois, the present curé of Bourron, who, under the inspiration of the learned orientalist, prepared a careful and elaborate memoir of the forgotten Dominican. It was eminently fitting, and poetic in its justice, that Vansleb's vindication should come from the double source of science and the church. On the completion of the Abbé Pougeois' work, it was, by order of the emperor, submitted for examination to M. Octave Feuillet, member of the French Academy, and the successor of M. Champollion at Fontainebleau. The report being entirely favorable, the Abbé Pougeois' memoir was ordered to be published at the expense of the emperor,[470] under the title, Vansleb, savant, orientaliste, et voyageur. Sa Vie, sa Disgrace, ses Œuvres. Par M. l'Abbé Pougeois, Curé de Bourron. Paris, 1869. The book is a large and handsome volume of 481 octavo pages. It has been freely used in the preparation of this article.

The current misrepresentations concerning Vansleb were taken up into the literary history of the period, and have been ever since repeated by successive historians and biographers. Nevertheless, some of them were apparently struck with the inconsistencies and contradictions involved in the charges against the defenceless monk, and gradually the most offensive of these were dropped. Among the modern biographical notices of Vansleb, that contained in Charles Knight's English Cyclopædia (article "Wansleben;" nearly identical with one in the Penny Cyclopædia) is generally fair. It states, however, that Vansleb "was called to account for moneys intrusted to his disposal, and disgraced for misapplying them." Although the writer of that notice doubtless had the warrant of half a dozen biographies for making the statement, it is utterly devoid of truth; so much so, indeed, that at the period of his death Vansleb was the creditor, not the debtor, of the French government. Colbert was to have paid Vansleb the miserable salary of two thousand francs per annum, and one thousand francs for the purchase of MSS. and valuable curiosities! Even allowing liberally for the difference in the values of money then and now, two thousand francs still remains a pitiable sum wherewith to remunerate one year's services of such a man as Vansleb.

With the miserable stipend of one thousand francs per annum, he purchased and sent (in 1671-72 and 1673) to the Royal Library, where they still remain, four hundred and fifty-seven valuable MSS. and books, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Coptic, and Ethiopian, besides a large quantity of inscriptions on stone and metal, marbles, medals, and animals, living and dead.

If we must believe Vansleb's traducers, we witness the strange spectacle of a defaulter insisting upon and with difficulty obtaining an interview with his principal. And this not once, but twice and thrice. In one of his letters to Colbert, written March 20th, 1677, more than a month after his return to Paris, Vansleb claims as due him—First. The amount expended in preparation for the journey he was about to undertake when ordered back by the minister. Second. The balance of his last account rendered. Third. The amount still unpaid him for books, MSS., etc., sent to the Royal Library. Fourth. His salary up to the time he was definitely discharged, at the third and last audience accorded him by the minister. The letter referred to is dignified, firm, and moderate—as unlike as possible in its tone that of a defaulter and a dishonest man. Thus, he tells Colbert,

The injustice and indignity with which Vansleb was treated by Colbert is in marked contrast to the liberality usually displayed by Louis XIV. and his administration toward travellers whose merits were far inferior to those of the Dominican monk. On Tavernier, who brought back with him from his travels precious stones to the value of three millions, distinguished honors and letters of nobility were conferred. Sanson, the geographer, besides honorary titles, received a salary of two thousand livres. Vaillant, who made a journey somewhat similar to that of Vansleb, was honored with a position in one of the academies, and endowed with a pension. Tournefort, who travelled in the east under order of the court, was absent but two years, had all his expenses paid, and received a salary (in advance) of three thousand livres. He returned in 1702, at a period when the French finances were far from prosperous, and was awarded a recompense beyond his salary. Paul Lucas, toward the end of Louis XIV.'s reign, was also an eastern explorer. His travels were published by the king's command. They are filled with amusing but absurd stories, which diverted the king and made the traveller's fortune.

Vansleb's solid erudition was not so profitable. His published works, which are of a nature to interest none but the archæologist, the ethnographer, and the theologian, may soon be forgotten, and need no further notice than the few words we have given them; but it is eminently proper that we should, in his case, contribute our mite to the vindication of truth and the rehabilitation of a too long suffering reputation.

ANGELA.

CHAPTER VII.
POISONOUS FOOD.

"Herr Frank has not been here for four days," said Siegwart as he returned one day from the field. "He will not come to-day, for it is already nine o'clock. I hope the young man is not ill."

"At least, I know no other reason that could prevent him from coming. He has become a necessity to me; I seem to miss something."

Angela concealed her uneasiness in true womanly fashion. She busied herself about the room, dusted the furniture, arranged the vases and trimmed the flowers; but one could see that her mind was not in the work.

"It would if we were certain that he was ill. I only made a conjecture. However, if he does not come to-morrow, I will send Henry over.[472] We owe him this attention; he is sensible, modest, and very intelligent. We find at present in the cities and first families few young men of so little assumption and so much goodness and manliness."

Angela pricked her finger. She had incautiously wandered into the thicket, as if she did not know that roses have thorns.

"Many things tell of his kind-heartedness," she replied, with averted face. "He sends five dollars every week to the old blind woman in Salingen; he often takes the money himself, and comforts the unfortunate creature. The blind woman is full of enthusiasm about him. He bought the cooper a full set of tools, that he might be able to support his mother and seven little sisters."

As Siegwart came home in the evening, Angela met him in the yard. She carried a basket and was about to go into the garden.

"Herr Frank is not unwell," said he; "I saw him in the field and went through the vineyard to meet him; but when he discovered my intention, he turned about and hastened toward the house. That surprises me."

Angela went into the garden. She stood on the bed and gazed at the lettuce. The empty basket awaited its contents, and in it lay the knife whose bright blade glistened before the idle dreamer. She stood thus meditating, lost in thought for a long time, which was certainly not her custom.

"Bad, very bad! And it is all your fault. You gave Richard those materialistic books which I threw out of the window. He has read the trash—not read, but studied it; and now we have the consequences."

"Pardon me, doctor. I did not give my son those books. He was passing the window when you threw them out, and took them to his room."

"I had no idea of the danger of these writings. Explain yourself further, I entreat."

"You must first see your son. But I bind it on your conscience to use the greatest precaution. Do not show the least surprise. We have to deal with a dangerous disorder. Do not say a word about his changed appearance. Then come back to me again."

Greatly disturbed, the father passed to the room of his son. Richard sat on the sofa gazing at the floor. His cheeks had lost their bloom, his face was emaciated, and his eyes deeply sunken. Vogt's Physiological Letters lay open near him. He did not rise quickly and joyfully to kiss his father, as was his custom. He remained sitting, and smiled languidly at him. Herr Frank, grieved and perplexed, sat down near him, and took occasion to pick up the book.

"A rare book, father—a remarkable[473] book. One learns there to know what man is and what he is not. Until now, I did not know that cats, dogs, monkeys, and all animals were of our race. Now I know; for it is clearly demonstrated in that book."

"All this sounds very silly," said he. "Vogt asserts that man has no soul, and proves it from the fact that men become idiotic. If the functions of the brain are disturbed, the soul ceases, says Vogt. He therefore concludes that the spirit consists in the brain. The man must have been crazy when he wrote that. I am no scholar; but I see at the first glance how false and groundless are Vogt's inferences. Every reasonable man knows that the brain is the instrument of the mind, which enables it to participate in the world of sense; now, when the instrument is destroyed, the participation of the mind with the outward world must cease. Although a man may be an expert on the violin, he cannot play if the strings are broken or out of tune. But the player, his ideas, the art, still remain. In like manner the spirit remains, although it can no longer play on the injured or discordant fibres of the brain."

"Of course not. I should do as the ostrich. When he is in danger, he sticks his head into the bushes not to see the danger. A prudent plan. But I cannot close my eyes to the light, even if that light should destroy my human respect."

"He will, I hope, be rescued. My stay at Frankenhöhe was to end with the month of May; but I cannot forsake a young man whom I love, in this helpless state of mental delirium."

"I do not understand the condition of my son; and your words give me great anxiety. Have the goodness to tell me what is the matter with Richard, and how it came about."

"It would be very difficult to make your son's condition clear to you. In you there is only business, lucrative undertakings, speculative combinations. The bustle of the money market is your world. You have no idea of the power of an intellectual struggle. You know the thoughtful, intellectual nature of your son; and here I begin. In the first place, I will remind you that Richard wishes to be governed by the power of deduction. With him fantasies and passions retreat before this force, although usually in men of his years, and even in men with gray hair, clearness of mind and keen penetration are often swept away by the current of stormy passions. Richard's aversion to women is the result of cool reflection and inevitable inference, and therefore on this question I do not dispute his views. I know it would be useless, and I know that the study of a pure feminine nature would overcome this prejudice. The same force of logical inferences places Richard in this unhappy condition. He read the writings of the materialist. There he found the physiological proofs that man is a beast. From these proofs Richard drew all the terrible consequences contained in those destructive doctrines. As the intellectual life predominates in him, and as he has[474] a strong repugnance to materialistic madness, his nature must be stirred in its profoundest depths. If Richard succumbs, he will act in his habitual consistent manner. All moral basis lost, morality would be foolishness to him, since it is useless for beasts to curb the passions by moral laws. As with immortality disappears man's eternal destiny, it would be foolish to "fight the giant fight of duty." If he is convinced that man is a beast, he will live like a beast—although he might cloak his conduct with the varnish of decency—and thus suddenly would the sensible Richard stand before his astonished father a ruined man. This is one view; there is still another," said the doctor hesitatingly. "I remember in the course of my practice a suicide who wrote on a slip of paper, 'What do I here? Eat, drink, sleep, worry, and fret; much suffering, little joy; therefore—' and the man sent a bullet through his head. This suicide thought logically. This earthly life is insupportable; it is foolishness to a man who thinks and is at the same time a materialist."

"What prospects—horrible!" cried Herr Frank, wringing his hands. "Accursed be those books; and I am the cause of this misfortune!"

"The involuntary cause," said Klingenberg consolingly. "You now have a firm conviction of the devastating effects of those bad books. But how many are there who consider every warning in this connection an exhibition of prejudice or narrow-mindedness! How few readers are so modest as to admit that they want the scientific culture to refute a bad book, to separate the poison from the honey of sweet phrases and winning style! How few can see that they cannot read those bad books without detriment! No one would sit on a cask of powder and touch it off for amusement; and yet those hellish books are more dangerous than a cask full of powder. To me this is incomprehensible. Poisonous food is always injurious; yet thousands and millions drink greedily from this poisonous stream of bad reading which deluges all grades of society."

"By no means," said Klingenberg. "This would be a psychological mistake. Richard would buy the same books again at the book-shop, and read them secretly. A man who has the resolution of your son must be won by honorable combat. Authority would here be badly applied. Therefore I forbid you to interfere. You know nothing of the matter. Treat him kindly, and have forbearance with his sensitiveness. That is what I must require of you."

Greatly afflicted, Herr Frank left the doctor. Overwhelming himself with reproaches, he wandered restlessly about the house and garden. He saw Richard standing at the open window with folded arms, dreamy and pale, his hair in disorder like a storm-beaten wheat-field—truly a painful sight for the father. He went up to his room, where the small library stood in its beautiful binding. A servant stood near him with a basket. The works of Eugene Sue, Gutzkow, and like spirits fell into the basket.

The doctor had compared bad literature to poisonous food. The comparison was not inapt; at least, it gave Richard the appearance of a man in whose body destructive poison was working. He was listless and exhausted; in walking, his hands hung heavily by his side. His eyes were[475] directed to the ground, as if he were seeking something. If he saw a snail, he stopped to examine the crawling creature. He sought to know why the snail crawls about, and, to his astonishment, found that the snail always followed an object; which is not always the case with man, animal of the moment, who goes about without an object. If a caterpillar accidentally got under his foot, he pushed it carefully aside and examined if it had been hurt. It seemed to him logical that creeping and flying things had the same claims to forbearance and proper treatment as man, since according to Vogt and Büchner's striking proofs, all creeping and flying things are not essentially different from man.

He paid particular attention to the spiders. If he came to a place where their web was stretched, he examined attentively the artistic texture; he saw the firmly fastened knot on the twig which held the web apart, the circular meshes, the cunning arrangement to catch the wandering fly. He was convinced that such a spider would be a thousand times more intelligent than Herr Vogt and Herr Büchner, with half as big a head as those wise naturalists. The enterprising spirit of the ants excited not less his admiration. He always found them busy and in a bustle, to which a market-day could not be compared. Even London and Paris were solitary in comparison to the throng in an ant-hill. They dragged about large pieces of wood, as also leaves and fibres, to construct their house, which was laid out with design and finished with much care. If he pushed his cane into the hill, there forthwith arose a great revolution. The inhabitants rushed out upon him, nipped him with their pincers, and showed the greatest rage against the invader of their kingdom, while others with great celerity placed the eggs in safety. He observed that the ants gave no quarter, and considered every one a mortal enemy who disturbed their state.

The young man sat on a stone and examined a snail that crawled slowly from the wet grass. It carried a gray house on its back, and beslimed the way as it went, and stretched out its horns to discover the best direction. Its delicate touch astonished Frank. When obstacles came in its way which it did not see nor touch, it would perceive them by means of a wonderful sensibility.

How stupid did Richard appear to himself, beside a horned, blind snail. How many men only discover obstacles in their way when they have run their heads against them, and how many wish to run their heads through walls without any reason! He arose and looked toward Angela's home. He was dejected, and heaved a sigh.

"All is of no avail. The activity of the animal world affords no diversion, the benumbing strokes of materialism lose their effect. The rare becomes common, and does not attract attention. There walks an angel in the splendor of superior excellence, and I endeavor in vain to distract my mind from her by studying the animals. I follow willingly the professors' exact investigations, into the labyrinth of their studied arguments to make it appear that I am only an animal, that all our sentiment is only imagination and fallacy. It is all in vain. Can these gentlemen teach me how we can cease to have admiration for the noble and exalted? Here man forcibly breaks through. Here self, irresistible and disgusted with error, brings the nobility of human nature to consciousness, and all the wisdom of boasted materialism becomes idle nonsense."

"Thank God! I see you again, my dear neighbor," said Siegwart cordially. "Where have you kept yourself this last week? Why do you no longer visit us? My whole house is excited about you. Henry is angry because he cannot show you the horses he bought lately. My wife bothers her head with all kinds of forebodings, and Angela urged me to send and see if you were ill."

A new life permeated Frank's whole being at these last words; his cheeks flushed and his languid eyes brightened up.

"I know no good reason as an apology, dear friend. Be assured, however, that the apparent neglect does not arise from any coolness toward you and your esteemed family." And he drew marks in the sand with his cane.

Siegwart gave a searching glance at the pale face of the young man who, broken-spirited, stood before him, and whose mental condition he did not understand, although he had a vague idea of it.

"I will not press you further," said he cheerfully. "But, as a punishment, you must now come with me. I received yesterday a fresh supply of genuine Havanas, and you must try them."

He took Richard by the arm, and the latter yielded to the friendly compulsion. They went through the vineyard. Frank broke from a twig a folded leaf.

"Oh! yes; it is the work of the vine-weevil," answered Siegwart. "These mischief-makers sometimes cause great damage to the vineyards. Some years I have their nests gathered and the eggs destroyed to prevent their doing damage."

"You consider every thing with the eyes of an economist. But I admire the art, the foresight, and the intelligence of these insects."

"Intelligence—foresight of an insect!" repeated Siegwart, astonished. "I see in the whole affair neither intelligence nor foresight."

"But just look here," said Richard, carefully unfolding the leaf. "What a degree of considerate management is necessary to fix the leaf in such order. The ribs of this leaf are stronger than the force of the beetle. Yet he wished to fold the eggs in it. What does he do? He first pierces the stem with his pincers; in consequence of this, the leaf curls up and becomes soft and pliable to the frail feet of the insect. This is the first act of reflection. The piercing of the stem had evidently as its object to cause the leaf to roll up. Then he begins to work with a perfection that would do honor to human skill. The leaf is rolled up in order to put the eggs in the folds. Here is the first egg; he rolls further—here is the second egg, some distance from the first, in order to have sufficient food for the young worm—again an act of reflection; lastly, he finishes the roll with a carefully worked point, to prevent the leaf from unfolding—again an act of reflection."

Siegwart heard all this with indifference. What Richard told him he had known for years. His employment in the fields revealed to his observing mind wonderful facts in nature and in the animal world. The wisdom of the vine-weevil gave him no difficulty. He looked again in Frank's deep-sunken eyes and noticed a peculiar expression, and in his countenance great anxiety.

He concluded that the work of[477] the vine-weevil must have some connection with the young man's condition.

"You see actions of reflection and design where I see only unconscious instinct."

"The common evasion of superficial examination!" cried he. "Man must be just even to the animals. Their works are artistic, intelligent, and considerate. Why then deny to animals those powers which operate with intelligence and reflection?"

"I do not for a moment dispute this power of the animals," replied the proprietor quickly.

"You find mind in the animals?" interrupted Frank hastily. "This conviction once reached, have you considered the consequences that follow?"—and he became more excited. "Have you considered that with this admission the whole world becomes a fabulous structure, without any higher object? If the spider is equal to man, then its torn web that flutters in the wind is worth as much as the crumbling fragments of art which remain from classic antiquity. Virtue, the careful restraining of the passions, is stark madness. The disgusting ape, lustful and brutish, is as good as the purest virgin who performs severe penances for her idle dreams. It is with justice that the criminal scoffs at the good as bedlamites who, with fanatical delusion, strive for castles in the air. Every outcast from society, sunk and saturated in the basest vices, is precisely as good as the purest soul and the noblest heart; for all distinction between right and wrong, good and evil, is destroyed."

Angela's father gazed with solicitude into the perplexed look and distorted countenance of the young man.

"You deduce consequences, Herr Frank, that could not be drawn from my admissions," said he mildly. "There is no conscious power in animals—no reflecting soul. The animal works with the power that is in it, as light and heat in the fire, as in the lightning the destructive force, as the exciting and purifying effects in the storm. The animal does not act freely, like man; but from necessity—according to instinct and laws which the Almighty has imposed upon it."

"A gratuitous assumption! A shallow artifice," exclaimed Frank. "The animal shows understanding, design, and will; we must not deny him these faculties."

"If the lightning strikes my house and discovers with infallible certainty all the metal in the walls, even where the sharpest eye could not detect it, must you recognize mental faculties in the lightning in discovering the metal?"

"What a botcher is the most learned chemist compared with the root-fibres of the smallest plant," continued Siegwart. "Every plant has its own peculiar life; this I observe every day. All plants do not flourish alike in the same soil. They only flourish where they find the necessary conditions for their peculiar life; where they find in the air and earth the conditions necessary for their existence. Set ten different kinds of plants together in a small plat of ground. The different fibres will always seek and absorb only that material in the earth which is proper to their kind; they will pass by the useless and injurious substances. Now, where is the chemist who with such certainty, such power of discrimination, and knowledge of substances, can select from the inert clod the proper material? A chemist with such knowledge does not exist. Now,[478] must you admit that the fibres possess as keen an understanding and as deep a knowledge of chemistry as the man who is versed in chemistry?"

"Well," concluded Siegwart quietly, "if the vine-weevil weaves its wrapper, the spider its web, the bird builds its nest, and the beaver his house, they all do it in their way, as the root-fibres in theirs."

Soon in the mild countenance of Madam Siegwart there appeared nearly the same expression as in the first days after the death of Eliza—so much did the painful appearance of the young man afflict her. Angela turned pale, her eyes filled, and she strove to hide her emotion. Frank only looked at her furtively. Whatever he had to say to her, he said with averted eyes. Siegwart expended all his powers of amusement; but he did not succeed in cheering the young man. He continued depressed, embarrassed, and sad, and constantly avoided looking at Angela. When she spoke he listened to the sound of her voice, but avoided her look. Presently a low barking was heard in the room and Hector, who had growlingly received Frank at his first visit, but who in time had become an acquaintance of his, lay stretched at full length dreaming. Scarcely did Richard notice the dreaming animal when he exclaimed,

"The dog dreams! See how his feet move in the chase, how he opens his nostrils, how he barks, how his limbs reach for the game! The dog dreams he is in the chase."

"Have you considered the consequences that follow from the dreams of the dog? Dreams show a thinking faculty," said he hastily. "Animals, then, think like men; thoughts are the children of the mind; therefore, animals have minds. Animals and men are alike."

"You conclude too hastily, my dear friend," said Siegwart coolly. "You must first know that animals dream like men. Men think, reflect, and speak in dreams. The dreams of animals are very different from those mental acts."

"Very easily. Hector is now in the chase. The dog's sense of smell is remarkable. By means of the fragrant wind Hector smells the partridges miles away. He acts then just as in the dream; feet, nose, and limbs come into activity. Suppose that in the surrounding fields there is a covey of partridges. The air would indicate them to Hector's smelling organs; these organs act, as in the waking state, on the brain of the animal; the brain acts on the other organs. Where is there thought? Have we not a purely material effect? The cough, the appetite, the sneezing, the aversion—what have all these to do with mind or thought? Nothing at all. The dream of the dog is an entirely muscular process, the mere co-working of the muscular organs; as with us, digestion, the flowing of the blood, the twitching of the muscles—facts with which the mind has nothing to do."

"Your assertion is based on the assumption that partridges are near," said Richard; "and I will be obliged to you if, with Hector's assistance, you convince me of this fact."

"That is unnecessary, my dear[479] friend. Suppose there are no partridges in the neighborhood. The same affection of the brain which would be produced by the smell of the partridges could be produced by accident. If it is accidental, it will have the same effect in the sleeping condition of the dog.[111] Affections accidentally arise in man the causes of which are not known. We are uneasy, we know not why; we are discouraged without any knowledge of the cause. We are joyful without being able to give any reason for it. The mind can rise above all these dispositions, affections, and humors; can govern, cast out, and disperse them. Proof enough that a king lives in man—the breath of God, which is not taken from the earth, and to which all matter must yield if that power so wills."

The dog stretched his strong legs without any idea of the important question to which he had given occasion.

"Herr Frank," began Madam Siegwart earnestly, "I have learned to respect you, and have often wished that my son, at your years, would be like you. I see now with painful astonishment that you defend opinions which contradict your former expressions, and the sentiments we must expect from a Christian. Will you not be so good as to tell me how you have so suddenly changed your views?"

"Esteemed madam," answered Frank, with emotion, "I thank you for this undeserved motherly sympathy; but I beg of you not to believe that the opinions I expressed are my firm convictions. No, I have not yet fallen so deep that for me there is no difference between man and beast. I can yet continue to believe that materialism is a crime against mankind. On the other hand, I freely acknowledge that my mind is in great trouble; that every firm position beneath my feet totters; that I have been tempted to hold doctrines degrading to the individual and destructive to society. I have been brought into this difficulty by reading books whose seductive proofs I am not able to refute. Oh! I am miserable, very miserable; my appearance must have shown you that already."

He looked involuntarily at Angela; he saw tears in her eyes; he bowed his head and was silent.

"I see your difficulties," said the proprietor. "They enter early or late into the mind of every man. It is good, in such uncertainties and doubts, to lean on the authority of truth. This authority can only be God, who is truth itself, who came down from heaven and brought light into the darkness. We can prove, inquire, and speculate; but the keenest human intellect is not always free from delusion. As there is in man a spiritual tendency which raises him far above the visible and material, God has been pleased to lead and direct that tendency by revelation, that man may not err. I consider divine revelation a necessity which God willed when he created the mind. As the mind has an instinctive thirst after truth, God must, by the revelation of truth, satisfy this thirst. Therefore is revelation as old as the human race. It reached its completion and perfection by the coming of the Lord, who said, 'I am the truth;' and this knowledge of the truth remains in the church through the guidance of the Spirit of truth, till the[480] latest generation. This is only my ultramontane conviction," said Siegwart, smiling; "but it affords peace and certainty."

Angela had gone out, and now returned with a basket, in which lay a little dog, of a few days old, asleep. She set the basket carefully down before Frank, so as not to awaken the sleeper.

"As you appreciate the full worth of striking proofs, I am glad to be able to place one before you, in the shape of this little dog," said she, appearing desirous of cheering her dejected friend. But Frank did not receive from her cheerful countenance either strength or encouragement, for he did not look up.

"This little dog is only eight days old," she continued; "its eyes are not yet open; it can neither walk nor bark; it can only growl a little; and it does nothing but sleep and dream. I have noticed its dreams since the first day of its birth. You can convince yourself of its dreaming." She stooped over the basket and her soft hair disturbed the sleeper.

"See," she continued, "how its little feet move, and how its body jerks. Hear the low growl, and see the hairs round the mouth how they twitch, how the nose shrinks and expands—all the same as in Hector. The little thing knows nothing at all of the world—no more than a child eight days old. We certainly, therefore, will not deceive ourselves in assuming that all these movements are only muscular twitchings; that neither the pup nor Hector dreams like a man."

Frank first looked at the dog in great surprise, and then gazed admiringly on Angela.

"Your house is a great blessing to me. It appears that the pure atmosphere of religious conviction which you breathe victoriously combats all dark doubts, as light dissipates darkness."

Angela stood in her room. She knew that the spirit of unbelief pervaded the world, taking possession of thousands and destroying all life and effort. She saw Richard threatened by this spirit, and feared for his soul. She became very anxious, and sank on her knees before the crucifix and cried to heaven for succor.

Night was upon all things. The black clouds, lowering deep and heavy, shut out all light from heaven. The wind swept the mountains, the forest moaned, and thunder muttered in the distance. Klingenberg sat before his folios. A fitful light glimmered from the room of Richard's father. Richard himself came home late, took his supper, and retired to his chamber; there he walked back and forth, thinking, contending with himself, and speaking aloud. Before his door stood a dark figure—immovable and listening.

It knocked at the door of the elder Frank. Jacob, a servant who had grown gray in the service of the house, entered. Frank received him with surprise, and awaited expectantly what he had to say.

"We are all wrong," said Jacob. "My poor young master has now spoken out clearly. He is not sick because of the foolish trash in the books. He is in love, terribly in love."

"You should just have heard how he complains and laments that he is not worthy of her. 'O Angela, Angela!' he cried at least a hundred[481] times, 'could I only raise myself to your level and make myself worthy! But your soul, so pure, your character, so immaculate and good, thrusts me away. I look up to you with admiration and longing, as the troubled pilgrim on earth looks up to the peace and grandeur of heaven.' This is the way he talked. He is to be pitied, sir."

"So—so—in love, and with Siegwart's daughter," said Frank sadly. "The tragedy will change into comedy. Even if they were not so unapproachably high, but like other people on earth, my son should never take an ultramontane wife."

"Continue to watch him. I must immediately make known to the doctor this love affair. He will be surprised to find the philosopher changed into a love-sick visionary."

THE PHILOSOPHICAL DOCTRINES OF ST. AUGUSTINE COMPARED WITH THE IDEOLOGY OF THE MODERN SCHOOLS.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

The Dublin Review has recently commenced a series of articles with the view of promoting philosophical unity among Catholic scholars, and of urging upon them the necessity of a combined effort against modern scepticism. We are very glad that Dr. Ward has turned the powerful stream of his great literary engine in this direction. We are in perfect accord with him on this point, that false philosophy lies at the foundation of all the worst errors of the day, and that these errors can only be effectually subverted by a true and sound philosophy. We desire, therefore, as we have always desired and endeavored, to do what we can in this magazine, both to promote agreement among Catholics in sound philosophical principles, and to refute those false principles in modern times so generally adopted, which are better designated by the term pure psychologism than by any other name that we know of. We desire to make it clearly known, however, that by this term we intend only to designate the philosophical doctrine of Des Cartes, and that which constitutes the primary principle of the systems of Locke, Hamilton, Mansel, Mill, Kant, Spencer, and other uncatholic writers. We call it pure psychologism, because it acknowledges no other first principle of thought and reason than the consciousness which the thinking subject has or seems to have of itself under various phases or modifications. We[482] do not apply the term to any recognized school of Catholic philosophy, or to the system of any respectable author whose works are in good repute in the church, and we believe that there is no one among them who would not repudiate the epithet if applied to his doctrine by an opponent. In the sense in which we have defined it, it is the heresy of nominalism carried to its utmost logical consequences—that is, to complete subjecticism or scepticism in the order of pure reason. Opposed to it is the realism sustained in theology by every orthodox writer, and in philosophy by every one whose philosophy is not in direct contradiction to his theology. This realism is the affirmation of the objective entity, distinct from and superior to the thinking subject of that which reason immediately apprehends as intelligible, necessary, self-evident, universal idea, together with the objective entity of that which is perceived as existing under sensible phenomena. It is the denial or doubt of this objective reality which nullifies the effect of all reasoning from principles or from evidence in proof of Catholic dogmas. We meet with a scepticism in regard to the real existence of God, of truth, of the external world, of the soul itself, which renders logic vain. It is only a return to first principles and to a belief in reason, therefore, which can give us a basis on which to reintegrate the rights of faith against the modern irrationalists and misologists—that is, haters of reason. The restoration and improvement of philosophy is an object of primary importance to the religious, moral, and political welfare of the world. It is in vain to think of looking for this improvement elsewhere than in the investigation and development of the philosophical doctrine of Plato, Aristotle, the great fathers and doctors of the church, the scholastic metaphysicians, and their successors. As there is no real progress in theological science except in the continuity of scholastic theology, so there is none in metaphysical science except in the continuity of scholastic philosophy. As, in theology, all sound Catholic authors work together harmoniously in defending and propugnating those essential doctrines which are clearly defined and universally admitted, at the same time discussing among themselves in a friendly manner those opinions which are as yet only probable, so it should be in philosophy. The most important thing is to maintain that philosophical truth in which all sound Catholic authors are agreed against the sceptical principles of modern sophists. Advance in the science of this truth; with that increase of clearness in conception and statement, and of unanimity in opinion, which is its natural consequence; can only be gained by exhaustive study and argumentation of obscure and disputed questions, carried on in a truly catholic, impartial, and conciliatory spirit.

The author of the article before us was one who labored most zealously in this direction. He was a learned Barnabite monk, occupying a high position among the erudite scholars of the Roman court and schools. He held the position of consultor to one of the Roman congregations, and was a member of the commission on oriental affairs, preparatory to the Council of the Vatican, at the time of his decease. The present essay was read before the Academy of the Catholic Religion at Rome, on the 27th of August, 1863, and published by the Propaganda press. We have taken it from an edition of F. Vercellone's Dissertazioni Accademiche di Vario Argomento, published at Rome in 1864, and dedicated to Cardinal De[483] Luca. There can be no doubt of F. Vercellone's competency to discriminate in philosophical matters between the doctrine prescribed by authority, and that which rests only on the judgment of eminent schools and authors, and on the arguments by which this judgment is supported. His position gave him unusual facilities for understanding the reason and true import of the judgments pronounced by the holy see on philosophical questions, so that whatever he has written with a bearing on points which have been a subject of controversy among Catholic writers must have the greatest weight, and be entitled, at least, to be considered as safe opinion. For this reason, as well as for the intrinsic value it possesses, we have thought the essay now presented to the readers of The Catholic World to be especially worthy of translation into English, and of careful study by all who are interested in the advancement of sound philosophy.—Ed. Cath. World.

DISSERTATION.

In contradiction to that most grave and deplorable error by which many unbelievers of our own day, more than those of an earlier period, love to confound religion with philosophy, we firmly hold the principle which was efficaciously and unanimously sustained by the ancient sages, pagan as well as Christian, that religion is the chief end to which philosophy is directed. If this were not so, we should never have seen what forms one of the chief glories of the holy church. I mean, that the eagle of all human philosophy, the incomparable Augustine, claims the first and most glorious place among the renowned and venerable company of the holy fathers; I mean, that to the holy fathers generally belongs the merit of having initiated the whole Christian world into a philosophy much more severe, more legitimate, and more conclusive than that which was previously a most rare privilege, one, also, more or less temporary and successive, of Cortona, of Elea, of Athens, of Alexandria, and of some other cities; so that not a few of these fathers have left us, in their works, an immense harvest for the benefit of philosophy, partly the fruit of their own genius and thought on various topics, partly in the form of precious monuments of that admirable wisdom of more ancient times which was itself, as it existed among the heathen, not altogether free from the influence of the true religion, and therefore descended by a just title of inheritance to Christianity. And if philosophy revived and arose from its ashes two centuries, at least, before our language and literature, as this preceded by several hundred years those of foreign nations, to whom does the praise more justly belong than to the renowned Benedictine of Aosta, a man whose genius and metaphysical power equalled his sanctity? If, besides, the philosophy of Aristotle was exhibited to the world in a Christian form—that is, purified, completed, rigorous, true, irrefutable, as Augustine and the other fathers had done to the Platonic wisdom—to whom belongs the merit but to a seraphic cardinal and an angelical Dominican? Perhaps the modern depreciators of scholasticism, the chief enemies of the Catholic clergy, the persecutors of religious orders, have on their side philosophers worthy to be compared with an Anselm, a Bonaventure, a Thomas? Whoever has received from God the grace of appertaining to the Catholic Church can easily see, with his own eyes, if he is not altogether a faster in science, how many and great services the true religion renders to philosophy; by simply[484] opening at random any one of the sacred and precious volumes, either of the illustrious ancient fathers or of the venerable princes of the schools. But those of us who are honored by the privilege of representing in the chairs of instruction, or cultivating and illustrating in books the Catholic philosophy, have far greater reason to know and esteem the masterpieces of the doctors and the fathers. Such can see, by contrast with these, that what is called the modern philosophy, although sustained and kept on foot, here and there, by some authors of unusual and vast speculative ability, nevertheless never satisfies in the least any one who attempts to revive it, always lacking a valid direction, always liable to sudden changes and vacillations—a sure sign of internal contradiction—agitated, discomposed, tormented by all the follies of the most mediocre and turbulent intellects. Such persons as these, not observing that logic (permit me here to use the language of St. Augustine) is properly the intellectual judgment of entire humanity, that it cannot be made anew, as it cannot either be unmade, but only obtained by inheritance and amplified and extended by felicitous discoveries; not considering, I say, any of these things, they believe that out of the present age there ought to issue a new and magnificent rational philosophy; just as there certainly has issued a new and stupendous literature, a geometry totally renovated and enlarged to most gigantic proportions, and a system of physics in great part constructed anew, corrected by experiments and elucidated by better hypotheses. But I pray and hope that the time of undeceiving has arrived, and that the Catholic masters (the others will turn back when this happens) will apply themselves in earnest to pick up again the thread of perfect and classical tradition in science. This I come to-day to recommend; and I have confidence that I can better persuade men to undertake it by example, and, as it were, by means of something actually done, if you, with your accustomed benignity, will deign to bear with my proposition, and to give it the support and weight of your authority.

I invoke the authority of this respectable assembly for an end I have greatly at heart, and which seems to me of supreme importance both to scientific advancement and religious edification; that is, to obtain that our philosophers, divided, not by their own fault but by that of our ancestors of the last century, into ontologists and psychologists, should once for all give their attention and open their eyes to the history too long belied and alone worthy of consideration—the history, I say, ever new, brilliant, and unsurpassable, of our own philosophy; and instead of consuming all their strength in a war among our excellent doctors—which it is high time to break off—should apply themselves rather to lay a new grasp on the ancient wisdom of Catholicism with one hand, and with the other to repulse and discomfit the audacious and execrable crowd of modern errors. Assuredly, when the doctrine as well of the fathers relatively to the Platonic system, as of the greater schoolmen to the metaphysics of Aristotle, shall have been first placed in a better light and looked at in its multiform aspects by means of various and judicious investigations, it will be made universally manifest that the Platonism and Aristotelianism of the heathen were not in any wise identical with the ontologism and psychologism of the Catholic masters; that the war between the Academics and Peripatetics was annihilated and put aside by the rigor and integrity of Catholic thought; that, in[485] fine, the Plato of the holy fathers does not disdain the psychologism of St. Thomas, and that the Aristotle of the chief schoolmen does not reject the ontologism of St. Augustine. Since this may appear to some as a thing which is more specious in assertion than capable of solid proof, I will draw out that exemplification of it which I have promised, and will come to facts; setting forth certain brief considerations in relation to ideology—that is to say, in relation to the most controverted theme and the most grave and obstinate question of the modern schools in rational philosophy, especially among Catholics. I will describe and mark out, first, from original testimonies, the Augustinian conception, or, indeed, the genesis of his ideology; in the second place, I will search into the modern origin of the division between the ideology of the Catholic ontologists and that of the psychologists equally Catholic; finally, I will make evident how the reconciliation of the children with the father and of the modern scission with the ancient unity, suffices to consolidate the hope of a peace which all desire, and which, by combining the forces of our best minds, may render Catholic philosophy more harmoniously operative against the better united forces of the modern enemies of truth.

A man who in his whole life had done nothing except to write the twenty-two books of The City of God ought justly to be esteemed the first and most admirable philosopher on the earth. Never was it better known or more loudly proclaimed than in our day, that the philosophy of history carries off the palm on the field of human speculations. In recommending, therefore, the philosophical excellence of St. Augustine, we can prove the justice of our opinion by this one argument, which is by itself sufficient. Let us compare whatever modern writers have been able to do in this class of books with The City of God; if no work of modern times, can be found either so original, so extensive, so erudite, or so profound as The City of God, written fourteen centuries ago, we must necessarily agree that a return to this centre of Catholic wisdom is the only method of giving impetus and improvement to philosophical speculations. But we will not now extend our search so far as this. I will confine myself to the eighth book, which includes a notice and an appreciation of the different systems of the entire pagan philosophy, and forms an introduction to that long and sublime parallel between natural reason and revelation, carried on throughout the succeeding books in a manner equally novel and splendid, with a view to the illustration of the whole field of Catholic theology by the highest efforts of human wisdom and the best sentiments of the pagans themselves. The most vital part of the preliminary views, introducing the subject of the eighth and succeeding books, is as follows:

There are two points, he says, which must be firmly held: that Catholics ought not to deny that which is good in the philosophy of the pagans; and that, on the other hand, they are bound to reject and refute all the falsehood contained in it. The first is proved by that which the apostle says. What is known of God is manifest in them; for God has manifested it to them. For the invisible things of him are beheld from the constitution of the world, being understood by means of those things which are made, even his eternal power and divinity. Moreover, at the Areopagus, when he affirmed that in him we live and move and are, he added, as some also of your own poets have said. The second[486] is proved by another text. Beware lest any one deceive you by philosophy and vain seduction according to the elements of the world.[112]

This being laid down, the duty of Catholic philosophers is that already touched upon—the separation of the good gold in pagan philosophy from the counterfeit; and as all the philosophy is divided into three parts, natural, rational, and moral, "we shall hold," continues St. Augustine, "that natural philosophy for false which does not place God as the only principle and true creator of all other natures; we shall hold as false that rational philosophy which does not maintain that God alone is the intelligible reason of all minds; we shall repute as false that moral which does not prove that God alone is that good which is worthy to be the end of a virtuous and perfect course of life." Now, the great multitude of pagan philosophers was far distant from any recognition or profession of the three heads we have given; scarcely was there a small number of privileged persons among the disciples, I hardly know whether to say in preference of Plato or of Pythagoras, who made any near approach to Catholic truth, aided, in all probability, by some knowledge of Jewish traditions.

It is very necessary, he says, to exclude all merely verbal questions, since it is of things not words that he is treating. I wish to demonstrate that the philosophy of the pagans, when it is good and true, accords wonderfully with Catholic truth, and gives rise naturally to Catholic philosophy—that is to say, the principal and most excellent philosophy of mankind; similarly, I wish to demonstrate that, in so far as the pagan philosophy is in discordance and repugnance to Catholic truth, it is false, corrupt, and in need of better and more rational emendations.

No one, certainly, will exact of me that I make a minute examination of the innumerable and varying systems or opinions of pagan antiquity; it is enough that I prove my proposition by confining myself to the best philosophy of all paganism. If I make good my assertion respecting the best system of doctrine which [487] ever appeared in Gentile philosophy, it will be evident enough that the same assertion holds even more strongly in reference to other systems, more or less inferior to this one. But this is certain, that gentilism had no philosophy worthy to be compared, much less preferred, to the doctrine of those authors who acknowledged, and, in the best manner of which they were capable, proclaimed the existence of one only supreme and true God, "from whom we derive the principle of our nature, the truth of our knowledge, and the happiness of our life."[114] I turn, therefore, to these authors with the purpose of examining what is good and what is bad in them; "but I find it more suitable to discuss this subject with the Platonists, because their writings are better known; for not only the Greeks, whose language is preëminent among the nations, have made them celebrated by greatly extolling their excellence; but the Latins also, moved by their excellence or their renown, have studied them with greater ardor than any others, and by translating them into our language have made them still more famous and renowned."[115]

From all this, not a few consequences, whose value you above all others are able to judge and appreciate, are immediately deduced with a clearness greater even than we could desire. The first is, that the noblest and greatest problem of modern philosophy, to wit, that the protological and encyclopædic principle cannot be placed elsewhere than in the principle of creation, understood in conformity with the tradition of the Catholic Church; this principle, I say, was stated and solved amply, doubly, irrefutably, by St. Augustine; first, in his Soliloquies, where one by one the partial principles of all the sciences are recovered; secondly, in this eighth book of The City of God, where the one only rule is laid hold of and exhibited by which to distinguish the only true system among various and opposite philosophical systems. The second consequence is, that those persons must cover their eyes with both hands who will not see and admit that St. Augustine preferred the Platonic doctrine, and specifically preferred the Platonic or Pythagorean ideology, in the clearest terms in which it was possible for him to express his meaning. The third is, that St. Augustine not only derived his ideology from the very principle of creation, in the way of an inference more or less remote; but held it, rather, as an integral part of the principle itself, and made of it a second cycle, one lying between the first, which respects the origin of substances, and the third, which assigns the good of operations. The final consequence is, that this second cycle, relating to rational intelligence, has been passed over by the moderns; which may serve as a useful admonition to them, to convince them thoroughly that no one can take St. Augustine's place in philosophy; that modern philosophy, with all its power, lags very far behind the Augustinian speculations, and that if all other books are understood and studied to the neglect of St. Augustine, this will turn not to his disadvantage but to ours. Thus we see, by a most striking example, that he alone not only saved, by the principle of creation, physics and ethics; but moreover, by that middle cycle, which is as it were central to the other two, saved rational philosophy, without which the other two result less necessarily, and, so to speak, revert back to nullity.

The first of the consequences above enumerated was noted by me[488] in this place many years ago; and has been better exhibited for the benefit of science by the illustrious F. Milone in his book entitled, La Scuola di Filosofia Razionale Intitolata a S. Augustino; wherefore I will abstain from considering it any further at present. I will restrict myself on this occasion to taking advantage of the other consequences which follow to a marvel from the ideology, but especially from the genesis of the ideology of St. Augustine. Indeed we have a great number of authors, beginning with the most exalted of all, that is, the seraphic and angelic doctors, and terminating with writers who are still living in Italy, France, and Belgium, who have collected from the Augustinian writings a most extensive list of disputed questions concerning ideology and human knowledge; but, above all, we have two more remarkable collections in the works of those two fathers of the Oratory of France, who are equal to any in learning and merit—Thomassin and Martin.[116] That which may perhaps have something new and original in it, in our own investigation, is the more exact indication of the primitive fountain and source whence these large streams take their issue; that source, namely, from which St. Augustine derived the logical moment of that ideology which he bases, constructs, and amplifies with such great strength; which was the concept, original with him, of that most vast and sublime theory of human cognitions formed by him alone. It appears to me that I have made it clear to all, from those things which have been laid down and the testimonies adduced, that St. Augustine concentrates and hinges the three branches of the natural encyclopædia in one sole principle unfolded in three members: the principle being that of creation; the three members being physics, logic, and ethics; which are respectively the sole cause of existence, the sole light of knowledge, the sole end of virtue. From this every one can see and touch with the hand that St. Augustine found his ideology in the principle of creation, regarded it as a part of the principle of creation, distinguished it from the two extreme cycles, and from the two opposite members of the principle of creation. If any one had denied the ideology of St. Augustine in his time, St. Augustine would have been bound to say that such a person denied the principle of creation; if some one else had vaunted a contrary system of ideology, he would have been bound to judge that system to be contrary to the principle of creation; if any one had demanded from St. Augustine the substantial formula of his ideology, the origin of that ideology, or the proofs of the stability, security, and irrefutable validity of that ideology, he would always have been obliged to answer by appealing to the universal principle established by reason and the Catholic faith, that is, to the principle of creation. Therefore the genesis of the Augustinian ideology, if it had not been already traced out or properly considered before to-day, would be now as clear and certain as the light, and with the eighth book of The City of God, we might predict that it would be immortal.

In scientific themes a twofold labor must be undergone; on the one hand, in ascertaining, and in elucidating on the other, the matters to be treated of; and the one who must apply himself rigorously to one part of this is rarely able at the same time to attend to the other. This is the case with myself; for, having[489] been obliged to point out the seat and position of the Augustinian ideology in that encyclopædic principle which I have above defined, I could not bring forward the second cycle except as implicated and restricted by the other two, the first and third. I am glad to be able now to supply, at least partially, this defect, by alleging one quite peculiar testimony, which, fortunately, leaves in the background the two cycles with which we are not concerned, and brings forward with admirable distinctness the one which specially concerns us in ideology.

Lumen autem mentium esse dixerunt ad discenda omnia eumdem ipsum Deum a quo facta sunt omnia.[117] The principle of creation, then, in so far regards our rational intelligence as it places on the one hand the sensible perception we have of it, and on the other the intelligence which we have in addition as our great prerogative. Rational cognition comes from the conjunction of intellect with sensibility; and therefore the greater part of the ancient philosophers, grossly taking our cognition for an act tied to a mere sensible perception, and badly mixing up sense with intellect and the sensible with the intelligible, knew little or nothing of the contra-position of the one to the other. Some of them, giving every thing to the sensible, fell into Epicureanism, into materialism, into atheism, denying God, and thus the principle of creation; others, paying attention only to the intelligible, rushed into fatalism and pantheism, denying created substances, and thus again the principle of creation. These are the philosophers whom we Catholics cannot prefer to the others; whom St. Augustine says, non prodest excutere, it is lost time to discuss them. But those, on the contrary, quos merito ceteris anteponimus, began from a fundamental distinction between the intelligible and the sensible, and therefore also between the intelligence and the sensibility; discreverunt ea quæ mente conspiciuntur ab eis quæ sensibus attinguntur; nor did they take away from the senses their proper office and necessary value in the act of defending as their principal aim the intelligence, which is so true that they regarded rational cognition as a sort of marriage, and a true coöperation, of the mind with the senses. If, then, concludes the most glorious father of Catholic philosophy, the best sages of antiquity, and we with them admit and give value to the sensibility, that is necessary in order to maintain the principle of creation, since otherwise all the substances created by God, which are sensible natures, disappear. Likewise if the same sages, and we as much as or even more than they, admit and defend intelligence, this is of equal if not greater necessity, in order to keep the same principle of creation. In fact, with the sensibility alone, non est discere, we can learn nothing, as the brutes, certo nusquam discunt certainly never learn any thing; but only minds endowed with intelligence, who have as a light ad discenda omnia, eumdem ipsum Deum a quo facta sunt omnia—as a light for learning all things, that same God himself who created all things. Since, therefore, by the principle of[490] creation, God is the only light of all minds, so, by denying to minds that divine, creative light, all rational intelligence is denied, and the principle of creation is totally destroyed, just as much as by taking away all substances.

But perhaps some one of you, considering that St. Augustine had been instructed in the Platonic doctrine, as we read in the Summa of Aquinas, will remain doubtful whether the genesis which I have traced out is not that of the Platonic or Pythagorean ideology, whichever we may choose to call it, rather than of the Augustinian. I think that I have in the preceding portion of this dissertation cited from the original texts enough of St. Augustine's own expressions, which always revert to these constant formulas, qui nobiscum sentiunt, quos merito ceteris anteponimus, to render it certainly and for ever incontestable that in these passages it is St. Augustine who cum istis sentit; it is he who hos ceteris anteponit; and by consequence he it is who embraces, explains, and defends the Platonic ideology, amending it where it sins, and supplying to it what it lacks. But, conceding that there is a difficulty here in our way, corroborated by an expression of the angelic doctor, I wish it to be noted distinctly that I do not resolve it principally by alleging any solitary expression whatever of the angel of the schools himself, but by a series of formulæ as distinctly marked in their significance as they are harmoniously located in the structure of his thought and of his boundless learning. Whenever there shall be for the first time produced a copious and well-arranged history of our philosophy, we shall see among other things relating to that most glorious Aquinas, a fact which gives lustre to his works, and is a memorable one in human philosophy; and the fact, which is one completely manifest and palpable, is this, that while he pays so little deference to the Platonic philosophy, while he habitually interprets the ideas of Plato only in the sense ascribed to them by Aristotle and other philosophers, the most hostile to him; while, consequently, he does not notice the Platonic ideology except to reject and confute it, he nevertheless gives us to understand, and professes a hundred times, that he has nothing to oppose to the ideology of St. Augustine; that he agrees that it is not the secondary truths which serve as the rule of our judgments, but rather the one only and primary truth which is the divine light and God himself; that he agrees that our soul is an image of God principally by the intelligence which we possess, into which the light of that first and one truth falling produces there an image of the intelligible things, as like as possible in the spiritual order to that figure which bodies cast upon a mirror by virtue of the exterior material light; that he agrees that our intellect is like wax which receives the impression of the primary truth as if from a seal; that he agrees that those universals from which metaphysics works under the form of principles, mathematics under the form of axioms, morals under the form of unchangeable, imperishable laws, these universals, (questi generali,) I say, and nothing else, St. Thomas admits to be eternal, in the eternal light of the eternal truth, which is the light of the divine intelligence.[118] Is there any great need of certifying [491] that these formulæ to which St. Thomas agrees are not a single one of them taken from Aristotle, but are without exception taken from St. Augustine himself? Therefore St. Thomas, who had to treat the ideology of Plato, as it was presented to him, as absurd, sustains and honors as much as we could wish the Augustinian ideology; that is to say, he makes Augustinian and not Platonic the ideology of the eighth book of The City of God.[119]

What should hinder us from passing for an instant to those other books altogether similar to this one, Of the Trinity, Of the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, and the Confessions? The last five books of The Trinity are, indeed, a complete ideology which for novelty, sublimity, insight, and scientific force cannot be equalled in the whole range of human science. I will cite only one passage, however, which amid so many others is especially noteworthy, that one, namely, in which Augustine protects and defends, (who would believe it?) against Plato himself, that ideology which is nowadays called Platonic. Here it may be seen in express words.

This passage being only an incident in connection with the whole context, we find him saying a little above that this incorporeal light is nothing else than the truth; that these intelligible things are the eternal reasons, and a little below, that this light and these things are "something eternal and unchangeable;" that our soul is made naturally in the image of God, inasmuch as "it can use reason and intelligence to know and form a conception of God," and as noted in another place, "although the mind is not of the same nature with God, nevertheless the image of that nature which is more perfect than any other must be sought and found in that part of our nature which is more perfect than any other."[121]

Joining together and recapitulating all this in the Confessions, he says in formal terms:

Moreover, in those most stupendous books of the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, he undertakes to distinguish [492] partitively the vision in the light of the truth from all the other manners of vision conceded to the nature of the human soul, and terminates with a final contrast which presents the fundamental opposition between the intelligent soul and its intellectual light in these words:

The few moments which remain to me will barely suffice for the briefest possible exposition of the contrast between the belligerent ideology of modern Catholics and the certain and incontestable ideology founded by the prince of all our philosophers, of which I have just given a sketch in his own words. I feel bound to say one thing here which has probably not been attended to, but is nevertheless not the less true or the less demonstrable to a wise critical judgment. However much it is to be lamented that the modern philosophy of the Catholic masters, through a miserable obliviousness of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, has brought once more into vogue and patronized so long, in great measure so blindly also, the Gentile dispute between the ideology of Plato and that of Aristotle; this most obstinate war, more bitterly waged in our day than ever before, has no right to be considered as excusable. Whoever will look a little into the interior of this matter, will be persuaded that the great mass of questions of this kind should rather be regarded as vain and superfluous, than as founded on unreasonable or unjust opinions. The Catholic ontologists and the Catholic psychologists sustain one and the same thing in two contrary parties; but that which all in common wish to maintain appears to the members of one party to be badly comprehended and worse defined by those of the other. All say unanimously, We ought to hold that theory alone as good and perfect in which is maintained the capital distinction between God and his creation; in which is firmly established the knowledge of God on the one hand, and that of things created on the other; in which neither the reality of the divine nature, which is the principle of every other reality, nor the reality of that which is created, apart from which that principle itself is no longer such, and all knowledge is overturned and destroyed from summit to foundation, is compromised. This all profess and maintain. But when it comes to the definition of a theory sufficient for such a lofty scope, the one party divide themselves from the other through the diverse aspect in which they regard, on the one side, that most sublime and universal truth which they hold as anterior to the mind, and, on the other side, the multitude of created natures which are perceived by the internal or external sensible faculty. To make my meaning clearer, there are two points[493] to be made secure in ideology: the truth by which all things which are true exist; and the true things which furnish the argument by which their principle, that is, the truth, is proved. The psychologists observe the following maxim, which is irreprehensible. It is impossible to prove the existence of the creator without asserting and proving the existence of the creation; since we cannot attain to the scientific notion of the truth except by the medium of the knowledge of actualities. The ontologists contemplate the matter from another entirely diverse side, reasoning with equal evidence in this form. To know a thing to a certain extent, is to distinguish to the same extent whether it be true or false; but we must necessarily distinguish whether a thing be true or false by the light of truth—the truth, however, is God; therefore, without an interior and divine light, neither man nor angel can know any thing whatsoever. But take care, exclaim the psychologists, that you do not by such a method destroy physical cognition; in fact, if every thing is known in the truth, which is eternal and immutable, created things, which are mutable and temporal, cannot be known at all. You ought rather to take much greater care, reply the ontologists, lest by your mode of reasoning you deny and destroy metaphysical cognition; in fact, the universal cannot be any kind of created thing, since every creature is completely individual and particular; wherefore, it follows, from your statement, that the universals are nothing either physically or metaphysically. The psychologists rejoin by saying, God in creating things renders them knowable; therefore, when we know them, this comes from the fact that they are thus created—that is, precisely knowable. The ontologists with equal force respond, We agree entirely that created things are knowable because they are created; but since they would not be created except for the divine action of the creator, so they would not be any more knowable except for the divine action which creates their knowledge in the human mind; wherefore, in the same way as the drawing of a substance from nothing requires omnipotence, which is entirely from God, the giving of intelligence to a created spirit requires the truth, which is entirely from God, and is God himself. But, reply again the psychologists, you are obliged to admit the reality of the created apart from the divine reality; therefore, also, its cognoscibility. And you, reply the ontologists, ought further to maintain the contra-position of intelligence to sensibility. We, who profess that the intelligibility of things consists in a divine light, easily secure the contra-position of intelligence and sensibility by means of the contra-position of God and created substances visible in the creation; whereas, taking away the divine light, the creation alone remains to form the object of the sensibility on one part, and the object of intelligence on the other. But in that case it is impossible to secure one's self scientifically, logically, demonstratively, as is necessary, from confounding intellect with sense, which results—note it well!—in the denial of the creation of man itself, and the reduction to nullity not less of revealed religion than of natural morality.[124]

I will not proceed any further, but will leave it to the historians of Catholic philosophy to continue, if they see fit, this chain of parallel arguments, which describe the whole cause of combat between the two great modern schools. The sketch I have given will, I hope, suffice to convince you, first of all, of that which is chiefly commendable, honorable, and worthy of attention in this dispute, which, in many other respects, is so excessively wearisome. I have demonstrated that the two contrary parties look toward one and the same end—which is, to make valid in ideology the Catholic principle of creation; that both govern themselves by the same criterion—which is, the genuine and Catholic interpretation of the principle of creation, more or less known naturally, and perfectly defined in Catholic doctrine. All this is due to the praise of the two schools, and to the glory of that philosophy to which both pride themselves in belonging. This, however, would go but a little way toward the attainment of that peace at the present day so necessary, and always so desirable. Since, therefore, all truths are in agreement with each other, and are harmoniously united in one only and self-same truth, I have consequently wished to demonstrate by actual proofs that, aside from human weakness and the errors of certain teachers on both sides, the living and substantial arguments on either side which are brought forward in an opposite sense are not really opposed to each other, being drawn from the difference of terms, and the fact that they apprehend and contemplate from opposite sides that truth which is, above all others, universal and comprehensive in the principle common to both parties. This consideration, most powerful for promoting the peace we all desire and recommend, ought so much the more to be held as good and sound, as the Augustinian formula in which all the force of Catholic philosophy is concentrated with the most luminous evidence, appears divided into two parts, and distributed between the argumentation of the two opposite schools. For, while the one sustains that first clause which forbids to take away from the senses their proper capacity—neque sensibus adimentes id quod possunt—the other stands firmly by the last clause, which declares that the light of the mind is God, lumen autem mentium ad discenda omnia esse ipsum Deum a quo facta sunt omnia. But would it not be a great fault of the ideologists, to whatever school they might belong, if they should wilfully dismember and destroy the organism of Christian protology? Is it, perhaps, not true that the Catholic masters of modern psychologism and ontologism all completely agree in that maxim, as new in itself as it is felicitous for the whole human encyclopædia, and clearly distinct to us?

Let us then bring these things back to their origin, and the philosophers of our times will recognize that [495] they have much the advantage in antiquity and merit of the philosophers of another class who are the chiefs of natural science; the psychologists will observe that they have a psychological formation in St. Thomas against which Catholic ontologism cannot have any just complaints; on the other hand, the ontologists will observe that there is an ontological form in St. Augustine to which nothing is wanting of that which Catholic psychologism can hold as correct. The time is past for beginning philosophy over again da capo; whoever wishes to participate in it, let him gather it from the most choice, weighty, and authoritative traditions. That peace which for so many ages it has been impossible to conclude, was already made centuries ago. There was no ideological dispute, (whoever maintained that there was?)—no! there was only diversity of method of exposition and of language, between St. Augustine and his most faithful disciple, who was in every sense the Angelical; and this was wrought by the infinite Providence, so that Catholic intellect might remake philosophy twice over by the two opposite ways, from intelligence to sense, and from sense to intelligence. It is a shame to mention the Platonists with dispraise, when our glory is a Catholic Plato; it is a vile thing to lose one's self in reproaches against Aristotle, after that a Catholic Aristotle has filled the whole church with the fame of his wisdom.

The learned Caramuele affirmed that if that ancient Plato of heathenism could have seen the Aristotle who diverged from him so widely, as St. Thomas re-cast him, corrected and entirely altered, he would have been forced to applaud him, and to declare himself satisfied with him. Cardinal Sigismund Gerdil announced and demonstrated [126] that in the ideology of St. Thomas more than one principle is encountered wonderfully conformed to the principles of St. Augustine. The Scuola di Filosofia Razionale of the excellent F. Milone is for this reason more precious and valuable in my eyes, that he, contrary to Gioberti, who is only one among numberless others, marks out a theory of peace between the ontological and psychological method, between St. Augustine and St. Thomas. It is a matter of the most transparent certainty that, if the ontologism of Catholic authors is reduced to a profession of the philosophical doctrines of St. Augustine, well understood and better exposed and elucidated, nothing can be more secure and more respectable among Catholics than ontologism; nor is it less certain and transparent that, if the psychologism of Catholic authors turns to a maintenance of the philosophical doctrines of St. Thomas, well and symmetrically arranged, and with fine language reduced to science and made accessible to our age, nothing can be more adapted to our time, or more suitable, or more irreprehensible than the same psychologism. Let Catholic philosophers follow the example of the holy church, who, since the time of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, has turned toward no one a regard more steady and fixed than to Augustine and Thomas.

In the name of these most authoritative and most blessed doctors, I pray for Catholic philosophy the just and desired tranquillity, which can only be obtained from a direction less arbitrary in the selection of questions, and more capable of embracing all the grand problems. Ideology distinguishes naturally between the objective and the subjective; in [496] it the ontologists are accustomed to establish with sound reasoning the objectivity of the truth, and likewise the psychologists the subjectivity of signs and knowledge. If both the one and the other desire to become victors in such a grand combat, let them make place, as they ought, the ontologists to larger considerations respecting the created, non adimentes sensibus id quod possunt; and the psychologists to a greater security of the intelligibility of things, non dantes sensibus ultra quam possunt. Then, the choice will be free to all to select between the two opposite methods, and they can, in respect to that divine light, quo illustratur anima, profess indifferently the original formula of Catholic ontologism in St. Augustine, or the imitative exposition of Catholic psychologism in St. Thomas. With these peace-makers, so glorious, so well-deserving, so venerable, it appears to me that we ought at once to treat of peace. May these saints aid from heaven my humble undertaking!

MY CHRISTMAS GIFT.

A HERO, OR A HEROINE?

CHAPTER XVI.
GOOD-NIGHT.

During the latter part of Margaret's stay at Shellbeach, the doctor noticed that he never saw her alone; and as formerly he had observed, with amusement, Miss Spelman's many admirable reasons for leaving the room, he imagined that Miss Lester had been the cause of the change. "She wants to prevent my going too far," he said to himself; and then with a rather bitter laugh, "She need not be afraid." He often met her riding alone on the Marchioness, or caught sight of her at sunset on the beach with her little dog, but they had very little satisfactory conversation of any kind together. Once or twice she made allusions before him to a "period of importance," or to a "momentous decision," or to the "turning-point of her existence," which was at hand; but it was always as a joke, and she seemed to enjoy his surprise and embarrassment.

"She does not want me to forget July 18th, the date of our absurd agreement," he said mentally. "What a fool I was to allow such a nonsensical arrangement! I wish I were well out of the scrape."

At last, on the evening of the appointed day, Miss Spelman gave a little tea-party and Dr. James was present. He had resolved that he would decline; but he was curious to see what Miss Lester would do and say, and so, at some inconvenience to himself, he made his appearance among the guests. He happened once to have expressed his dislike to pink bonnets, and indeed to that color for any part of a lady's dress; and lo, on this occasion Margaret came to meet him, radiantly smiling in rose-colored muslin, with delicate roses to match in her hair and on her breast! It was extremely becoming, the doctor perceived, and he saw also that her spirits were at their height. He inwardly groaned at the prospect of the evening before him. It was pleasant, however; even he acknowledged it. Margaret's mischievous remarks were[498] few, and she seemed to have the power of drawing people out and making every one appear his best; every one, the doctor felt, except himself. In vain he exerted himself to be agreeable and unconscious; he was grave and preoccupied. The thought of that dreadful letter which he had promised to write that very evening weighed on his mind, and he was perplexed by doubts and questions concerning it, himself, and Miss Lester. Was he not taking her words too literally? Had she the remotest idea of writing to him? or would it not end in his making an utter fool of himself? No; never before had she been so handsome, so gay, so universally kind. Little Miss Spelman caught the infectious cordiality, and beamed upon her guests with overflowing hospitality.

The windows and doors stood open, the sweet breath of roses was in the air, and suddenly from the garden came the sound of instruments. A serenade! Miss Spelman and every one looked at each other in surprise, for the music was not such as was obtainable in Sealing. But a glance at Margaret convinced all that she was the author of this unexpected pleasure. She said in a low voice to her aunt, "This is my contribution to the general festivity;" and it was indeed a delightful addition. The band played at intervals through the evening, the music varying from grave to gay, from solemn to pathetic.

The Shellbeach tea-parties were early affairs, and at ten o'clock the guests reluctantly departed, almost all driving home to Sealing, and a few from the neighboring houses walking slowly along the road, with the sweet notes of the music still in their ears. Dr. James lingered. Why, he could not have told; and it was with a start that, turning away from the window, he saw that he was the very last. He apologized; but Miss Selina coming to him, kindly took his hand,

"You are a true friend, you know, Dr. James," she said, "and should feel yourself at home."

Margaret was at the door, bidding good-night to the last guests, when the doctor, after warmly shaking Miss Spelman's hand, came into the hall for his hat. She walked with him down the little path to the front gate, while the air of the "Last Rose of Summer" came to them from the garden, and for the first time that evening he saw that her face was serious.

"No; there will not be time. You forget that you and I have an engagement at eleven o'clock this evening." Then, as he did not know how to reply, she continued, "I shall send you a note, to-morrow morning, at seven, and the boy will bring me back, not an answer, for it will not be that, but a corresponding note from you."

She leaned on the little gate, and watched him as he walked away without once turning back. The music stopped, and a voice was heard calling, "Margaret!" She slowly walked into the house, and, sitting quietly down by her aunt on the sofa, told her that Jessie Edgar's marriage was fixed for the first day of September, and she was going to Newport, to be with Jessie till the wedding.

"Yes, my dear," returned Miss Selina rather plaintively. "I must not be selfish; but when do you think of leaving me?"

Poor Miss Spelman was astounded, shocked, and hurt; but Margaret pacified and consoled her. She assured her that it was a great deal better than if they had had this separation hanging over them for weeks, and if she had been obliged to take a formal leave of every body.

"Now I have bidden them good-by in the pleasantest way," she said; "they are all pleased with me, and so must you be, too, dear, dear Aunt Selina! We are too good friends to disagree about this."

"But you will come back after the wedding, dear? You feel this is your home, do you not?"

"I will come back, but not immediately. I mean to pass next winter in New York; and you will come and make me a long visit, to make up for my living on you so long here." And Margaret drew so bright a picture of the good times they would have together in New York that Miss Spelman bade her good-night quite happily. Margaret's movements were always so sudden that the quiet old lady was not, after all, as surprised as might have been expected.

"It was just like her," she said; "such decision of mind, such energy of character!"

CHAPTER XVII.
CONQUERED BY CONQUERING.

Margaret, meanwhile, who had quietly completed all her arrangements and packed her trunks, went to her room, and, after laying aside her rose-colored dress, and putting on her wrapper, sat down to her table and wrote her letter. It did not seem at all difficult to her to write, though she once or twice laid down her pen and thought for a few minutes, with a grave face.

She wrote no rough copy, and made no alterations; but went on firmly, line by line, till she had signed her name, when she read it carefully over, sealed and directed it. It took her about half an hour, and then she went directly to bed, and slept as soundly as a child.

Dr. James's state of mind grew worse and worse, as he approached his home, and, after leaving Rosanna at her stable, he walked up and down before the house many times, before he went in to write his letter. Never before had any letter given him such trouble. He wrote and rewrote it; left it and walked about his room; took refuge in a book, and then put it down in despair. At last he resolved to try for the last time, and keep what he should write; and this was his letter:

The clock struck one as the doctor signed his name, tore up the unfinished letters which lay around him, and hastened to extinguish his light and go to bed. He was angry with himself, and disgusted with his letter; and for the first time for years, found that he could not sleep. One minute he repented of what he had done, and called himself a fool; the next, he said to himself, "I must tell her the truth; she deserves it." He then asked himself what she did deserve? It was plain to him what her plan of action was to be: she wished to part friends, because she supposed that she would by her letter give a dreadful blow to his hopes, and consign him to despair. At this, he laughed with pleasure, to think that his letter would undeceive and disappoint her. Then rose up clearly before him the always recurring temptation of his great need of money, and all the good he could do with it. What a chance had been offered him! Would he ever have such another? Might he not, if he had gone to work differently, won her heart? Other men had done such things; and he was better worthy of her, he was sure of it, than the society-men she had so often spoken of with contempt. Had he not heard that "any man can have any woman"? No, that was not right; it was, "Any woman can have any man." Then, had she tried to ensnare him? had she really endeavored to please him? He could not say she had; but he remembered, with some discomfiture, her apparent enjoyment in shocking and teasing him. She was an enigma; but he believed her honest, and was glad he had told her the truth.

To tell all Dr. James's reflections of that night, would take considerably longer than it took him to make them, which was two or three hours; so we will leave him to his uncomfortable pillow, and not return to him till he opened his chamber-door, at seven o'clock in the morning, and saw Tommy McNally waiting with a letter in his hand. The doctor handed the boy his own, and walked into his study, where he sat down at his table and contemplated the square white envelope and graceful monogram, and his own name written in a large, firm hand. He slowly opened the letter, struck by its neatness and the fair, distinct writing, and read as follows:

Poor Dr. James! He read the last word, and sat like a man in a dream staring at the letter before him. Suddenly he started up, seized his hat from its peg, put it on, and rushed to the door; then came back, threw his hat away from him and sat down again, burying his face in his hands. Fool, fool that he had been! What had he thrown away? Was there ever a woman like this? What would it not be for him, for any man, to go through life with such a companion; who would never hold him back from what was right; who would not fear to meet any thing for the sake of truth and justice? What woman in a hundred would have done this? knowing, too, that her love was not returned. And how did she know it? Oh! how much more clear-sighted she had been than he, with all his wisdom and experience! If he had not shut his eyes, if he could have had the least suspicion of this, what a difference might it not have made? Then he resolved to seek her, to go through fire and water if need be, if he could only find her, and bring her back, and never let her leave him again.

At that moment, the words he had written to her came before him, and threw him again into despair. No; all was lost! He had insulted her, causelessly and needlessly; he had said that he valued her money more than herself! Her money! Would she had not a cent; would she were dependent and friendless, that he might work for her, share with her all that he had, and win name and fame for her!

When Mrs. Day, his housekeeper, put her head into his room, exclaiming that the breakfast-bell had rung half an hour ago, he followed her to the dining-room and swallowed his cold coffee without a word, with a meekness that touched the heart of his Gorgon. She proposed boiling him an egg, or cutting a few shavings of ham; but the doctor declined her attentions (to her great relief) and hurried to the stable for Rosanna. He drove twenty miles away to his most distant patient, whom he alarmed by his gloomy face and abrupt manner; he drove Rosanna back to Sealing at a rate she was unaccustomed to, and walking up the street—it was then late in the afternoon—encountered Tommy McNally, roaring at the top of his voice, and rubbing his eyes as if he wished to leave in them no powers of vision. Dr. James stopped and asked rather crossly what ailed him:

"O doctor! she's gone away, and she's given me this," holding up a dollar bill and continuing to cry, "and one for each of us; and she's gone away, and we won't see her any more!"

"Yes, doctor," said Tommy, beginning to dry his eyes. "I've been to the station and seen her go off; and she told me to be a good boy and help mother."

"Mind you do it," said the doctor, hurrying away and home to his cold dinner. That evening he called on Father Barry, and heard that Margaret had been there on her way to the cars, and had left directions for all her protégés, especially the McNallys. Father Barry seemed quite dejected[502] about her departure, and much surprised at it; but the doctor, of course, chose to throw no light on the subject.

CHAPTER XVIII.
"THE HEARTBREAK OF TO-MORROW."

A few days after, as soon as Dr. James could make up his mind to do so, he called on Miss Spelman, and found the house quite as forlorn as he had expected, and his old friend very glad to receive sympathy. She said she had heard from her niece that very day.

"It was an amusing, affectionate letter," said Miss Selina, "just like her. Poor child! she will be easy now she is with her friend. She was very much changed, doctor."

"Why, she had grown so quiet and so strange—that is, she seemed to me strange; she would sit so long without speaking a word; and then she was much more affectionate—I mean more demonstrative—than when she first came; but she seemed to have lost her good spirits."

"Yes, she was gayer than ever when any one was here; but that was only put on. Poor child! she felt Jessie's marriage, and that she was so soon to be separated from the friend of her childhood."

Miss Spelman seemed to think the doctor needed consolation, and from little remarks and insinuations, he imagined that she considered him suffering from disappointment; he did not try to undeceive her, for was it not true?

He found Martha Burney a great comfort; to her he sometimes talked of Margaret, and from her he learned to understand things in her character which had been puzzling to him before. And the more he became convinced that Margaret had spoken the truth in saying that she loved him, the more he wondered at and admired her for so completely concealing it from him in their intercourse; and the better he understood that her apparent levity and exaggerated spirits were no doubt assumed in order to hide her deeper feelings. He thought much of all these things, and wondered more; but he kept his secret and hers, and only suspected sometimes that Miss Burney knew more than any one else about the matter.

Dr. James was a disappointed man, and he made no effort to disguise it from himself; but he was not a man to sit down in despair and waste his life in regrets. So, recognizing the fact that he had thrown away a great chance of happiness, and been wholly to blame for it, he resolutely turned the energy of his thoughts into other channels, and worked harder than ever. But Sealing became unutterably wearisome to him; it was only by iron determination that he went through with his daily round of duties, and as for society, he confined himself exclusively to making the calls that he imposed on himself, and going for relaxation to Father Barry and Miss Burney.

In the middle of August he left Richards in charge, and went for a week to his mother and sisters in Maine.

CHAPTER XIX.
A LAST LOOK.

Soon after Dr. James's return from Maine, he was apprised by his friend Philip of his approaching wedding, to take place at Newport, on September first. Philip urged his and Jessie's wish that he should be a groomsman; but this Dr. James,[503] knowing that Margaret would of course be a bridesmaid, declared would be out of the question. He unwillingly promised to be present at both wedding and reception, because he had no reason to give for declining; and he looked forward to the day with mingled feelings of dread and impatience. He bought a dress suit for the first time for years; and when he was arrayed in state, gloves and all, surveyed himself from head to foot with strong disapprobation. He had spent the night at a hotel in Newport, and, having completed his toilet, descended to the parlor, where he had an opportunity of beholding his tout ensemble in the long glass between the windows.

"I look like the ass in the lion's skin," he said to himself; "only I suppose that was too big for him, while every thing I have on is too small for me. I sha'n't be myself again till I get off these vanities."

He arrived at the church full half an hour before the time, he was so afraid of being late, and chose his seat up-stairs, where he could see better without being conspicuous. He observed the showy dresses and latest fashions with wonder and disapproval, and speculated on the probable cost of the ladies assembled to their husbands and fathers, till the clock pointed to twelve and the bridal party arrived. First came a troop of little girls in white, with pink and blue sashes, carrying baskets of flowers; then Mrs. Edgar with Philip; the six bridesmaids followed, headed by Margaret, each accompanied by her groomsman, and the doctor noticed that Miss Lester's companion was a tall, handsome fellow, with a fair mustache; last came the bride, on the arm of an elderly man, whom Dr. James supposed to be her uncle.

The ceremony was soon over, and the church rapidly becoming deserted, when Dr. James descended from his post of observation, and got into a carriage to go to Mrs. Edgar's house. He found the two handsome parlors quite full, and stood for a few minutes at the door observing the scene before him.

The bride and bridegroom stood at the end of the room, with the pretty children playing in the bay-window behind them. Philip looked as proud and beaming as might have been expected, and Jessie was just what the doctor thought she would be: very pretty and refined, looking timid and rather flushed at receiving so many congratulations. His eyes scarcely rested on her; for he was immediately conscious of Margaret standing near her, apparently dividing her attentions pretty equally between three gentlemen. Her dress was white, very rich and flowing; she held a beautiful bouquet, and there were rose-buds in her hair and on her dress. The next thing he knew, one of the gentlemen-managers was asking his name, he was led up and presented, and found himself embraced by Philip, and greeted with a sweet smile by Jessie.

Then he turned to find Margaret by his side, with the smile he knew so well, and the cordial, outstretched hand. His face flushed painfully, but he was not called upon to speak, for Philip remarked,

"Oh! yes, you are old acquaintances, are you not? Where is Mrs. Edgar? I want her so much to see him. Oh! there she is at the end of the other room. I suppose it wouldn't do for[504] me to leave Jessie." And he turned to his bride with a face full of happiness.

"I will go with Dr. James," said Margaret at once; and he found himself walking, with her on his arm, through the crowd of people, some of whom regarded him with curiosity.

"You were at the church, were you not?" began Margaret at once; "and was she not a lovely bride? I was very much afraid it would be a showery wedding; but Jessie behaved very well, only she arrived at home a perfect Niobe, and had to be consoled in private before she could face all these people."

"Now, that's just what I say, Dr. James; why does she marry him if it doesn't make her happy? Philip, however, seems to understand her, and I leave to him the task of comforting. She is very fond of her mother, and it is very hard for her to live so far away, you know."

"Miss Lester, you look thin and pale," the doctor said very abruptly; he did not mean to say it, the words came almost involuntarily.

"Yes, this has been a wearing time for all of us; I am glad it is nearly over. Here we are. Mrs. Edgar, this is Philip's friend and mine, Dr. James."

The doctor received the kindest greeting, and was overpowered with questions about his mother, who had been a school friend of Mrs. Edgar, and his sisters. He tried to answer them intelligibly, thinking, however, only of Miss Lester, and conscious that she had turned away to be polite to other guests. Mrs. Edgar then introduced him to Jessie's sister Isabel, a fresh little girl of sixteen, who looked full of fun and mischief, and she in turn presented him to a friend, a tall young lady, who immediately began to talk to him so fast that he could hardly keep up with her. Mrs. Edgar suggested that he should get some ice-cream for himself and them, and then occupied herself with other people, considering that her duties of hospitality to him were performed. Dr. James went obediently into the next room and returned, after some difficulties, with ices and cake, and did his best to be polite. Soon Isabel was sent into the other room to see about the children, and the talkative young lady became engaged in conversation with an equally voluble young gentleman, so that Dr. James found himself again alone. He put down his untasted cake, and seeing a glass of wine near him, which seemed to belong to no one, he drank it and felt rather better. The solitariness one sometimes feels in a crowd came over him, and he looked from one strange face to another, feeling himself completely out of place. Mrs. Edgar was absorbed in duties of hospitality; Jessie and Philip in the distance, during a pause in the stream of guests, were engrossed in each other; even Margaret seemed to have completely forgotten him, and he saw her earnestly talking with her handsome groomsman. He regretted that he had refused to be a groomsman; no doubt he would have been assigned to Margaret, as the corresponding "best friend," and then she would have been talking to him instead of to that fellow; from which it will be seen that he had already arrived at a stage of lover-like inconsistency, since his sole motive for declining his friend's invitation had been his dread of encountering Miss Lester.

He saw that many people were going, and it came to him as a happy thought that he might go too. He interrupted Mrs. Edgar to shake[505] hands again with her, observed that Margaret was near the door, and next made his way to Philip, with whom he had a little talk, unsatisfactory, of course, but one's best friend must be excused for being preoccupied on such an occasion. Philip parted from him with resignation, saying that he must come to California and settle, that he would do splendidly there and make a fortune. Such a prospect seemed to the doctor dreary in the extreme; and owning to himself that he did not at all begrudge to Philip his pretty and delicate bride, he bade her a friendly farewell, and approached Margaret. He was glad to interrupt the groomsman in the sotto voce remarks he was making, and to have Margaret turn at once to him and leave her companion to his own reflections.

"Good-by, Dr. James. I am very glad you came." That was all; how soon these words were said! Again he met the straightforward look of those clear, brown eyes; again he felt the kind pressure of her hand. Her glove was off and so was his, (not accident on his part,) and he felt that her hand was cold. He was on the point of saying, "How pale you are!" but remembered just in time, that he had made that remark before.

In another minute he was outside the door, and driving to the hotel. As he drew his tight boots from his aching feet, and resumed his comfortable, familiar clothes, he said to himself,

"This episode in my life is closed. I must shut her completely out of my existence, and go on as if there were no such woman as Margaret Lester."

CHAPTER XX.
MISS BURNEY LEAVES SHELLBEACH.

One evening, two or three weeks after the wedding at Newport, Dr. James was sitting with Miss Burney in her little parlor. They often used that privilege of fast friends, silence; and it was after an unbroken pause of full a quarter of an hour that Martha looked up from her sewing, and said:

"I have noticed it; but supposed you had some good reason, which you would tell me when you were ready."

"I am ready now. I have given up teaching for the present, and perhaps for ever." The doctor made no reply, only showing by his attentive face that he was listening.

"From any body else except her. In the first place, she is rich and can afford it; secondly, it makes her happy to help people; thirdly, I love her and she loves me, and that is the best reason of all."

"It seems she has had it in her mind ever since last spring; however, she only said to me, just before she left here, that she hoped I would make no arrangements for the winter, without first telling her my plans. Two weeks ago, I received a letter from her, saying that she had decided not to live any longer with Mrs. Edgar; but, after passing the month of September at Newport, to take a house for herself in New York. She said she could not live alone, and that[506] she must have some one for company and for the sake of appearances. She begged me to be that somebody, because there was no one else with whom she could feel independent, and free to do what she chose. I considered the subject a week, and then wrote her my consent to do as she wished, for next winter at least. It will be a great advantage to me, of course, as well as a pleasure. Still I should not think of it on that account for a moment, if I did not believe that such an arrangement would be a good thing for her as well as for me. I do believe so, and therefore I am going to try the experiment."

"She has not decided yet, and wants my help about furnishing, etc.; so the sooner I go the better."

"Yes, at a private boarding-house, where I am to stay with her till the house is ready."

Dr. James had made up his mind that nothing would astonish him again, yet this did take him by surprise; after he thought about it, however, he only wondered such an arrangement had not occurred to him before. Miss Burney was a great loss to him; for there was no other woman whose society was any pleasure to him, and Father Barry was now the only person with whom he had any sympathy, and of him he saw more and more.

He begged Martha Burney to write to him, but she was a miserable correspondent; her letters were few and far between, and never told him what he wanted to know. He was obliged to go to Miss Spelman for all his information regarding these two people in whom he was so deeply interested. He heard from her that Margaret had bought a very pretty little house, furnished it, and was comfortably established with Martha. She said Margaret always wrote in excellent spirits, and seemed to her to be enjoying her winter very much.

The doctor's "young man" Richards, thanks to the careful instructions and preparation he had received, was now become of great assistance, and, being left in charge, had very successfully treated several cases, and even performed very well one or two surgical operations, so that people began to feel considerable confidence in him. Dr. James encouraged this as much as possible; for the idea of giving up his practice at Shellbeach and vicinity had taken strong hold on him. Finding that he left his patients in competent hands, he often went away on business for a week at a time, and felt his own work considerably lightened.

At Christmas time, Miss Spelman went to New York, and staid a month, and returned eloquent about the delights of her niece's establishment, and the charming people she had met. The doctor, by careful questions, learned from her that Margaret was occupied with countless good works and charities, though Miss Selina seemed to have only a vague idea what they were. She described to her attentive auditor how she breakfasted in her own room, every day, at ten o'clock, or as much later as she liked, (which had always been her idea of comfort,) and then had the carriage to do what she chose till luncheon at two, when she saw Margaret for the first time; for she was always full of her charitable engagements till one, when she came home to dress. After luncheon, in time for which some pleasant person always dropped in, they drove, visited, or shopped, and dined at six. Then Miss Spelman told of the opera, and[507] concerts, and a dinner-party that Margaret gave while she was there, and of the old friends she had met, and of the many calls and great attention she had received; and she went on, telling about herself, with only now and then a word about Margaret, till the doctor was quite tired of listening. He was very curious about Margaret's morning work; of that his old friend, having seen nothing, could give no information; and after the account of the gayeties of Miss Lester's household, Doctor James grew more restless than ever.

CHAPTER XXI.
SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

January wore away, and February, and at last, on one of the first days of the first month of spring, a raw and dreary day, when Dr. James had been glad that no patient needed his attendance, he had made a bright little fire, and was sitting in his study chair, deeply engaged with the last number of The Catholic World, which Father Barry had lent him. Richards came in from the post-office, laid the doctor's mail upon the table, and then went home to his mother's house. Dr. James very deliberately finished the article he was reading, stared at the fire for a few minutes, and then carelessly took up his letters and glanced at the handwritings. There was one from his sister Lucy, one from a medical friend at the West, and—what was this?—one in a clear, firm hand, which gave him a start, and brought him very quickly out of his reverie.

A misgiving came over him as he held the letter in his hand, and he delayed opening it. What might not her boldness and independence be capable of! He smiled contemptuously as he realized that his imagination was running away with him.

Father Barry received this news by the same mail as Dr. James, and from him Margaret heard at once. The pious priest wrote a letter full of joy and congratulation, of good advice and blessing; but to her other letter no answer was received. Two weeks passed, and no word came. Miss Selina had written a reproachful and admonitory letter, assuring Margaret that it was not too late, and while life was spared her she could draw back. She insinuated that a plan of rescue could be easily arranged, and offered her home as an asylum to the fugitive.

Margaret laughed over this letter, and showed it to her friends with great glee. However, she wrote back a kind and soothing answer, which softened her aunt a little, though the subject continued a very sore one for a long time. To think that she should have been a month in the same house with Margaret, never suspecting the machinations of which the poor child was being made the victim! But when she applied to Dr. James for sympathy, he said abruptly,

"I don't agree with you at all, ma'am. Miss Lester has done right because she has consulted her own conscience, and been brave enough not to stop for what the world or her friends would say or think."

He then changed the subject; and Miss Spelman was so much scandalized that she never spoke of it again.

CHAPTER XXII.
ALL THINGS SHALL BE ADDED UNTO YOU.

On the 18th of March, Margaret had returned to luncheon from visiting some sick persons; Martha had staid at home to cut out work to be given to poor women. She entered Margaret's room as she was dressing, holding one hand behind her.

"I have had a note from Dr. James to-day," said Martha. "He is in the city, and we shall see him to-morrow."

"You have something else to tell! I see it in your face. Why do you make me wait?"

"I have something else to tell, and this shall tell it for me," she answered, laying a letter down on Margaret's table, and going out of the room. Margaret, with trembling fingers, tore it open and read as follows:

Margaret read this letter steadily through to the end, and then fell on her knees by her little table, where Martha found her some time after, when she came to summon her to luncheon.

"He has asked me to be his godmother," remarked Martha, as they were sitting at the dining-table.

"Don't you remember what you told me once about the spiritual relationship between sponsors and their god-children, and what it precludes?"

On arriving next morning at St. —— church, Margaret found that the first pew was reserved for Martha and herself, and soon Dr. James appeared and knelt with them. To the surprise and delight of Margaret, who should enter the sanctuary to celebrate mass but Father Barry; and it was he who, at the conclusion of the holy sacrifice, administered the sacrament of baptism.

Margaret's cup of happiness was very full when, going into the house afterward, by invitation, she was able to exchange congratulations with her good friend Father Barry, and grasp, with a glowing face and speaking eyes, the hand of the newly-baptized. They both agreed to dine with her; and then she went home with Martha, wondering over the changes which one year had brought about in her life, and thanking God in her heart for her conversion and for that of the person dearest to her in the world.

The dinner that evening was a very delightful one. Margaret and the doctor were surprised to find all embarrassment between them gone. All their past intercourse seemed far away and like what had happened in a dream, and they felt that they were beginning their friendship over again on a new and true basis.

Margaret had many questions to ask of Father Barry about Sealing, and the different families she was interested in, and he had a great deal to tell her, as well as questions to ask in his turn. And Margaret told all about the beautiful religious houses she had visited, and about kind Abbé Saincère, who had done her so much good, lent her books and led her gently on till she was safely in the fold.

Martha Burney had to tell of her horror when she found what Margaret was wrapped up in; how she[510] scolded, and argued, and ridiculed, and at last went in secret to see the abbé, to remonstrate with him. How she was won by his gentleness and courtesy, and how, still in secret and with his assistance, she read and learned about the church, till on Margaret's asking one day why she made no more fuss about her becoming a Catholic, she said the reason was because she was going to be one herself as soon as she could be prepared.

Then Dr. James told about his plans: how Richards was all ready to step into his place, and in a great hurry to have the establishment, dispensary, etc., under his own control; how he was a good-hearted young fellow, and the doctor thought would be merciful to the poor; and his mother would come and live with him, and take the place of the tyrannical housekeeper. Then, for himself, Dr. James announced his intention of removing to New York as soon as his affairs at Shellbeach were settled.

Margaret was quieter than usual, and more simply dressed than the doctor had ever seen her before, in a plain black silk absolutely without ornament, except that she wore round her neck an amber rosary, which she said she had obtained abroad when she was a heathen. There was in her face an expression of serenity and quiet happiness that was new to it, and Dr. James thought he had never seen her so attractive and lovable.

The evening flew away; Father Barry was to return to Sealing the next day, and the doctor with him for a week or two, but he would soon come back to New York to live. At parting he said in a low voice to Margaret,

"I am to receive communion in Father Barry's church a week from Sunday; you will pray for me?"

CHAPTER XXIII.
MARGARET'S BIRTHDAY.

The story draws to a close, and there is little more to tell; the rest is such plain sailing that it might almost be taken for granted. There is one little scene, however, pleasant to write and possibly pleasant to read, which took place on August 15th of that same year, in the church at Sealing; and in explanation of which a short account should be given of what happened after Dr. James had come to live in New York.

He had taken rooms in that city and begun to work among the poor, doing much although with small means. He began to go regularly every day to Miss Lester's house in the afternoon; then they walked and drove together, and learned to know each other well. He was often with her in the morning, too, and together they visited many a sick and suffering soul, leaving behind them comfort, encouragement, and substantial relief. They every week knelt together at the altar of the little French chapel Margaret loved so well, and received God's greatest gift of love to man, and it was a time of pure, unclouded happiness.

It was June; and there had been a week of very warm weather. The fashionables had fled from the city, or shut themselves up in their houses, excluding every ray of light and sun. Dr. James, weary from his morning's labors, had been home, refreshed himself a little, and then, at about five o'clock in the afternoon, stood on the steps of Margaret's house, and was ushered into the shady parlor. The green blinds were closed, the carpets were gone, cool white matting was on the floors, and great bunches of roses stood about on tables and mantel-pieces. Margaret came to[511] meet him, fresh and cool in her light dress, and holding in her hand a very beautiful line engraving of the Dresden "Madonna and Child."

"Why did you not tell me beforehand that this was your birthday, that I might have given you a present?"

"Truly, because I forgot it till I found this on the breakfast-table this morning. It seems I told Martha at Shellbeach that this was my birthday, and she remembered it. Was she not kind?"

"I want to speak to you about leaving the city," said the doctor; "the hot weather has come, and it will not be healthy for you to be here. The cholera may be about, they say, and you go into places where you will be sure to catch it."

"But a doctor is pretty safe; he can guard against infection in a great measure."

"Well, a great many other people stay in New York and do not get sick. The religious and priests stay in their houses, and they go among more wretched people than I do."

"Yes; but Miss Lester, you are not a religious; your life has not been wholly consecrated to God, as theirs have."

"I can't see why, because I have not a vocation for a religious life, that should make any difference."

"Plainly, then, because your life is precious, if not to yourself, to other people; to me. It should not be lightly thrown away."

"I shall not throw it away; I don't believe in contagion. God will preserve my life, if he wishes it to be spared."

"Yes; but God is not called upon to work a miracle in your behalf; and if you wilfully expose yourself to danger, he may not interpose to avert the consequences."

"I said your life was precious to me; and though you did not notice it, I say it again. I have never had courage till to-day to speak to you about the letter I wrote you at Shellbeach; but it is possible for me to do so now. You did not seem angry with me when I saw you at the wedding. Had you forgotten it, or didn't you care for my rudeness?"

"I cared for it; that is, of course, I was sorry, perhaps hurt; still, not for a moment angry or offended. I knew that you were not cruel but kind, for you told the truth; and any thing except the truth would have been unkindness. I honored you for writing it."

"Yet it was not the truth; although in writing it I sincerely and honestly believed it to be the truth. I said I did not love you; I believed I did not love you; but I had no sooner read your letter than scales seemed to fall from my eyes. You see, I was sure that you were perfectly indifferent to me; and I thought you would write me a polite letter, expressing friendship, esteem, etc., and regret if I had suffered disappointment; and then that you would go off to New York and leave me to support the downfall of my hopes as best I might. I was sure of this, and your parting words that night seemed to confirm me in it. 'She wishes to part friends,' I thought to myself, 'because she believes she is going to ruin my hopes of happiness.' I was filled with unpleasant and bitter feelings. I read your letter, and the ground seemed to go from under my feet, and I realized what a blind fool I had been. I felt then but one longing, which I feel still, although I know its uselessness and absurdity: that you[512] might be, by some chance, stripped of your fortune to the last cent, that I might lay my poor little pittance at your feet and implore your acceptance of it.

"Oh! if I could tell you what I endured. Shellbeach became unbearable to me; all life and interest seemed to have left me. How I missed you! You can never imagine it, and I cannot describe it. The more I thought of you, the more wretched I became, and after that wedding I felt tenfold worse. I went home to my mother for a change; and then resolved to put you completely out of my head, and, as an assistance, resumed my study of Catholicity, that I had for a time neglected. Then, though I blush to own it, and would not risk my standing in your estimation by telling you of it except that it proves my love for you, the only thing which deterred me from entering the church was the thought that I should lose your esteem, and that it would completely cut me off from any chance I might ever have again of winning you for my wife. Your second letter came, and seemed as an answer from heaven, 'Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?' You know the rest—but I cannot go on. Even supported by the blessed sympathy we have in our faith, I cannot ask for what my heart craves."

"Dr. James, you seem to feel as if you were before me as a criminal before his judge. Now you have done only what was right and true toward me, and you owe me no apology for any thing. You and I, I believe, have done each other real good, and we have mutually helped each other into the church; we stand on equal ground, and I will accept no other position."

"You do me good and make me feel like myself. Then, Margaret, though I am not worthy of you, will you be my wife?"

CHAPTER XXIV.
THE SEVENTH SACRAMENT.

Margaret was unwilling to leave New York; but the doctor insisted, and a compromise was effected. She was to stay through July, and complete the preparations for her marriage; for that was to take place in August, and they would go for their wedding journey to visit Mrs. James in Maine. Margaret expressed a strong wish to be married at Sealing, and the plan was very pleasant to Dr. James; so a week before the day appointed, she went to her aunt, Miss Spelman's. There she spent a happy week, visiting her friends among the poor, and hearing from them about the goodness and kind deeds of their favorite doctor, whom they seemed to regard in the light of a good angel. Martha Burney was also at Miss Spelman's, and the doctor came two days before the fifteenth, so it was a very merry and happy household.

The feast of the Assumption of Our Lady was as beautiful a day as ever shone on a happy bride; the bells rang as if for a public celebration; for Dr. James was beloved by every one and Margaret was very popular. The time was nine o'clock; for the bride and bridegroom were fasting. Margaret's dress was white, with veil, orange-blossoms, and every thing as it should be; she had inclined very much to be married in her travelling dress; but the doctor wanted white, and she thought besides, that a gay, showy wedding would give pleasure to many of the guests.

Father Barry said that it was like the marriage feast in the Gospel; for the deaf, the halt, and the blind were well represented. Margaret's "friends" were many, and the more aristocratic inhabitants of Sealing and Shellbeach were rather surprised to find themselves in close neighborhood with the McNallys, O'Neills, and O'Flahertys, who were put in the best places, and were perfectly at home in their own church.

The high altar, and those of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, were covered with flowers; and a fine new set of vestments and sacred vessels, presented by the bride and bridegroom elect, were used for the first time.

It seemed to Margaret and to Dr. James a beautiful circumstance, though a natural one, that they had neither of them ever seen a nuptial mass before this, their own. Nor had they realized what marriage might be, until they studied the wonderful office of that church that has elevated the natural union of man and woman to the dignity of a sacrament, which St. Paul declares to be typical of the union of our Lord with his spouse, the church. They were profoundly impressed with the thought that the holy of holies was to be offered upon the altar on that day, the happiest of their lives—for them, for their happiness and blessing; and that, as God was to descend from heaven, as it were, in their honor, so they should offer their new life for his greater honor and glory.

How is it possible that Catholics should ever forego this privilege of the nuptial mass, and avail themselves only of the form absolutely required by the church? Do they not realize that in sanctifying the first day of their wedded life by assisting together at the sacrifice of the mass, and as their first united action, receiving their Lord unto their hearts, they draw down a blessing on all that is to follow?

Never had Margaret felt so pure a joy as when, kneeling beside the one she loved best in the world, she heard the solemn benediction pronounced upon them, and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob besought to "himself fulfil his blessing" upon them. Never had Dr. James realized so fully his happiness as when he heard the beautiful prayer offered for his bride, and the virtues of Rachel, Rebecca, and Sarah invoked for her.

And when, in the little instruction which Father Barry gave them, he said they might indeed hope that Jesus and Mary had been present at their wedding, as at that of Cana in Galilee, they felt as if they had received a favor similar to the one then bestowed; for, as the water was turned into wine, was not their natural rejoicing changed into a joy more pure and sublime than earth can bestow?

The married couple, and every Catholic in the church, remained on their knees for some time after mass was ended, and, as one of the spectators afterward said, "The happy pair behaved as if they were by no means the most important persons present." Martha Burney heard the remark, and immediately replied,

"You must remember that they recognized the presence of the Lord Jesus, surrounded by legions of holy angels;" to which remark the first speaker was too much astonished to make any answer.

On his return to Miss Spelman's house, Dr. James was greatly surprised to find standing at the gate an elegant little doctor's chaise, with a very beautiful horse; a plainly dressed man stood by its head, whom the doctor recognized as a mechanic[514] whose life he had saved when he was lying at death's door with smallpox. As he spoke to him pleasantly, the man took off his hat and said,

It was the kind thought of a kind heart, and the author of it, himself indebted to the doctor's devoted care, had gone in person to every house within twenty miles, inquiring who had been treated by Dr. James, and proposing to each a small contribution.

"They only wanted to give too much," he said to the doctor afterward; "but all, even the very poorest, gave something."

CHAPTER XXV.
THE MISTRESS OF A POOR MAN'S HOUSEHOLD.

After a fortnight spent very happily in Maine, Dr. and Mrs. James came back to New York, bringing with them the doctor's youngest sister, Lucy, to make a long visit. Martha Burney had been left in charge of the house, and had received a warm invitation to consider it her home; but she only replied that she would think about it.

On arriving at home, (for it was decided to begin their married life in the house that Margaret had already bought and furnished,) and asking eagerly for her friend, Margaret was informed that Miss Burney had gone away that day, and left a note to explain. It was as follows:

That evening, when Lucy, tired with her long journey, had gone up-stairs, Margaret and Dr. James sat together in the parlor talking. The windows were open, and there was a refreshing breeze; the moonlight lay brightly on the floor, but except that, the room was dark.

"I tremble sometimes," said Dr. James, "when I think of the broad path of sunshine in which I am walking, and see that every wish is fulfilled. I have left Shellbeach with none but friends behind me; I have health and strength; money enough for necessaries, superfluities, and charities; the noblest and handsomest wife in the world; the best and only religion to love and serve with her; the angels and saints for friends and comrades; a living God to worship, and the hope of heaven hereafter. But O Margaret! the words of St. Paul are very often with me now, 'But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.' We have not much to make us remember the cross now; but let us try, at least, to be ready for it when it comes to us."

"We will not forget it. I will write those words this night in the prayer-book Father Barry gave me for my wedding present."

And when they said their prayers, Margaret opened the blank page at the beginning of the book, and, showing it to her husband, pointed to this inscription, written by Father Barry, "The Lord is merciful to those whom he foreknoweth shall be his by faith and good works;" and below she had herself added these words,

"But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE ISLAND OF NEW-YORK.

The history of Catholicity in colonial days, with its romance, its terrors, and the last impotent struggles of fanatical opposition have, we trust, not been without interest. The peace opened New-York to Catholic immigration, and the influence of the French officers, of both army and navy, had done much to dispel prejudice. The church to which Rochambeau, La Fayette, De Kalb, Pulaski, De Grasse, Vandreuil belonged was socially and politically respectable—nay, it was not antagonistic to American freedom.

The founder of the Catholic congregation had looked anxiously forward to this moment.

The venerable Father Farmer came on to resume his labors, and gather such Catholics as the seven years' war had left or gathered. His visits and pastoral care, then resumed, were continued till the arrival of the Rev. Charles Whelan, an Irish Franciscan, who had been chaplain on one of the vessels belonging to the fleet of the Count de Grasse. He was the first regularly settled priest in the city of New York. Catholicity thus had a priest, but as yet no church. Mass was said near Mr. Stoughton's house, on Water street; in the house of Don Diego de Gardoqui, the Spanish ambassador; in a building in Vauxhall Garden, between Chambers and Warren streets; and in a loft over a carpenter shop on Barclay street. An Italian nobleman, Count Castiglioni, mentions his attending mass in a room any thing but becoming so solemn an act of religious worship. The use of a court-room in the Exchange was solicited from the city authorities, but refused. Then the little band of Catholics took heart and resolved to rear an edifice that would lift its cross-crowned spire in the land. It is a sign of the good feeling that had to some extent obtained, that Trinity church sold the Catholic body the five lots of ground they desired for the erection of their church. Here, at the corner of Barclay and Church streets, the corner-stone of St. Peter's church was laid November 4th, 1786, by Don Diego de Gardoqui, as representative of Charles III., King of Spain, whose aid to the work entitles him to be regarded as its chief benefactor.

This pioneer Catholic church was[516] a modest structure forty-eight feet in front by eighty-one in depth. Its progress was slow; and divine worship was performed in it for some years before the vestry, portico, pews, gallery, and steeple were at last completed in 1792.

The congregation, living so long amid a Protestant population whose system Halleck describes so truly,

had adopted some of their ideas, and forgetting that the mass was a sacrifice, and the peculiar and only worship of God, thought that an eloquent sermon was every thing. A vehement and impassioned preacher it was their great ambition to secure, and as the trustees controlled matters almost absolutely, the earlier priests had to endure much humiliation and actual suffering.

The reader will find this period of struggle well described in Bishop Bayley's pages, with the culmination of the evils of trusteeism in the bankruptcy of St. Peter's.

A pastor was at last found who filled the difficult position. This was the Rev. William O'Brien, assisted after a time by Doctor Matthew O'Brien, whose reputation as a preacher was such that a volume of his sermons had been printed in Ireland. Under their care the difficulties began to diminish; the congregation took a regular form, and the young were trained to their Christian duties; and the devotion of the Catholic clergy during the visits of that dreadful scourge, the yellow fever, gave them an additional claim to the reverence and respect of their flock.

Beside the church soon sprang up the school. The Catholics of New York signalized the opening of the nineteenth century by establishing a free school at St. Peter's, which before many years could report an average attendance of five hundred pupils.

This progress of Catholicity naturally aroused some of the old bitterness of prejudice.

The sermons of the Protestant pulpits at this period exulting over the captivity and death of Pius VI. produced their natural result in awakening the evil passions of the low and ignorant. The old prejudices revived against Catholics with all their wonted hostility. The first anti-Catholic riot occurred in 1806, as a result. On Christmas eve, some ruffians attempted to force their way into St. Peter's church during the midnight mass, in order to see the Infant rocked in the cradle which they were taught to believe Catholics then worshipped. The Brief Sketch details the unfortunate event from the papers of the day.

From that time anti-Catholic excitements have been pretty regular in their appearance; for a time, indeed, eleven years was as sure to bring one, under some new name, as fourteen years did the pestilent locusts. Yet mob violence has been less frequently and less terribly shown in New York than in some other cities with higher claims to order and dignity.

Once we remember how a mob, flushed with the sacking of a Protestant church where a negro and a white had been married, resolved to close their useful labors by demolishing St. Patrick's cathedral. They marched valorously almost to the junction of the Bowery and Prince street, but halted on the suggestion of a tradesman there, that a reconnoissance would be a wise movement. A few were detached to examine the road. The look up Prince street was not encouraging. The paving-stones had actually been carried up in baskets to the upper stories of the houses, ready to hurl on the assailants; and the wall around the churchyard was pierced for musketry. The mob retreated[517] with creditable celerity; but all that night a feverish anxiety prevailed around St. Patrick's cathedral; men stood ready to meet any new advance, and the mayor, suddenly riding up, was in some danger, but was fortunately recognized.

What might have been the scenes in New York in 1844, when murder ran riot in Philadelphia! The Natives had just elected a mayor; the city would in a few days be in their hands; a public meeting was called in the park, and all seemed to promise a repetition of the scenes in the sister city. A bold, stern extra issued from the office of The Freeman's Journal that actually sent terror into the hearts of the would-be rioters. It was known at once that the Catholics would defend their churches to the last gasp. The firm character of the archbishop was well known, and with that to animate the people the struggle would not be a trifling one.

The call for the meeting was countermanded and New York was saved; few knew from what.

To return to the earlier days of the century. If attacks were made, inquiry was stimulated. Conversions to the truth were neither few nor unimportant. Bishop Bayley mentions briefly the reception into the church of one nearly related to himself, Mrs. Eliza Ann Seton, daughter of the celebrated Doctor Bayley, and widow of William Seton, a distinguished New York merchant. Born on Staten Island, and long resident in New York, gracing a high social position by her charming and noble character, she made her first communion in St. Peter's church on the 25th of March, 1805, and in a few years, giving herself wholly to God, became, under him, the foundress in the United States of the Sisters of Charity, whose quiet labors of love, and charity, and devotedness in the cause of humanity and education in every city in the land seek no herald here below, but are written deep in the hearts of grateful millions.

Several Protestant clergymen in those days returned to the bosom of unity, such as the Rev. Mr. Kewley, of St. George's church, New York; Rev. Calvin White, ancestor of the Shakespeare scholar, Richard Grant White; and Mr. Ironsides. Strange, too, was the conversion of the Rev. Mr. Richards, sent from New York as a Methodist preacher to Western New York and Canada. We follow him, by his diary, through the sparse settlements which then dotted that region, whence he extended his labors to Montreal. There, good man, in the zeal of his heart he thought to conquer Canadian Catholicity by storming the Sulpitian seminary at Montreal, converting all there, and so triumphantly closing the campaign. His diary of travel goes no further. Mr. Richards died a few years since, a zealous and devoted Sulpitian priest of the seminary at Montreal.

New York was too far from Baltimore to be easily superintended by the bishop of that see. His vast diocese was now to be divided, and this city was erected into an episcopal see in 1808, by Pope Pius VII. The choice for the bishop who was to give form to the new diocese, fell upon the Rev. Luke Concanen, a learned and zealous Dominican, long connected with the affairs of his order at Rome. Bishop Bayley gives a characteristic letter of his. He had persistently declined a see in Ireland with its comparative comforts and consolations among a zealous people; but the call to a position of toil, the establishment of a new diocese in a new land, where all was to be created, was not an appeal that he could disregard. He submitted to the charge imposed upon him, and after receiving[518] episcopal consecration at Rome, prepared to reach his see, wholly ignorant of what he should find on his arrival in New York. It was, however, no easy matter then to secure passage. Failing to find a ship at Leghorn, he proceeded to Naples; but the French, who had overrun Italy, detained him as a British subject, and while thus thwarted and harassed, he suddenly fell sick and died. Thus New York never beheld its first bishop.

Then followed a long vacancy, highly prejudicial to the progress of the church, but a vacancy that European affairs caused. The successor of St. Peter was torn from Rome, and held a prisoner in France. The Catholic world knew not under what influence acts might be issued as his, that were really the inventions of his enemies. The bishops in Ireland addressed a letter to the bishops of the United States to propose some settled line of action in all cases where there was not evidence that the pope was a free agent. The reply of the bishops in the United States is given in the volume before us.

Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Baltimore extended his care to the diocese of New York. When Father O'Brien at last sank under his increasing years, New York would have seen its Catholic population in a manner destitute, had not the Jesuit fathers of Maryland come to their assistance. Rev. Anthony Kohlmann, a man of sound theological learning and great zeal, who died many years after at Rome, honored by the sovereign pontiffs, was the administrator of the diocese. With him were Rev. Benedict Fenwick, subsequently Bishop of Boston, and Rev. Peter Malou, whose romantic life would form an interesting volume; for few who recollect this venerable priest, in his day such a favorite with the young, knew that he had figured in great political events, and in the struggle of Belgium for freedom had led her armies.

Under the impulse of these fathers a collegiate institution was opened, and continued for some years on the spot where the new magnificent cathedral is rising; and old New York Catholics smiled when a recent scribbler asserted that the site of that noble edifice was a gift from the city. Trinity, the Old Brick church, and some other churches we could name were built on land given by the ruling powers, but no Catholic church figures in the list. The college was finally closed, from the fact that difficulties in Maryland prevented the order from supplying necessary professors to maintain its high position.

To secure to young ladies similar advantages for superior education, some Ursuline nuns were induced to cross the Atlantic. They were hailed with joy, and their academy was wonderfully successful. The superior was a lady whose appearance was remarkably striking, and whose cultivation and ability impressed all. Unfortunately they came under restrictions which soon deprived New York of them. Unless novices joined them within a certain number of years, they were to return to Ireland.

In a new country vocations could be only a matter of time, and as the Ursuline order required a dowry, the vocations of all but wealthy young ladies were excluded, and even of these when subject to a guardian.

As the Catholic body had increased, a new church was begun in a spot then far out of the city, described as between the Broadway and the Bowery road. This was old St. Patrick's, of which the corner-stone was laid June 8th, 1809. This was to be the cathedral of the future bishop; and the Orphan Asylum, now thriving under the care of an incorporated society,[519] was ere long to be placed near the new church.

During this period a strange case occurred in a New York court that settled for that State, at least, a question of importance to Catholics. It settled as a principle of law that the confession of a Catholic to a priest was a privileged communication, which the priest could not be called upon or permitted to reveal.

This decision, by the influence of De Witt Clinton, when Governor of the State, was incorporated into the Revised Statutes as part of the lex scripta of the State.

With this period, too began the publication of Catholic works in New York, which has since attained such a wonderful development. Bernard Dornin stands as the patriarch of the Catholic book trade of New York, of which an interesting sketch will be found in the appendix to Bishop Bayley's work. He also gives a list of subscribers to some of the earliest works, which will possess no little interest to older Catholic families, who can here claim ancestors as not only Catholic, but devoted to their faith, and anxious to spread its literature. We have looked over the list, and amid familiar names have endeavored to find the oldest now living. If we do not err greatly, it is the distinguished lawyer Charles O'Conor, Esq.

When Pope Pius VII. was restored to Rome, another son of St. Dominic was chosen; and the Rev. John Connolly was consecrated the second bishop of New York. After making such arrangements as he could in Ireland for the good of his diocese, he set sail from Dublin, but experienced a long and dangerous passage. From the absence of all notice of any kind, except the mere fact of his name among the passengers, his reception was apparently a most private one. He was utterly a stranger in a strange land, called from the studies of the cloister to form and rule a diocese of considerable extent, without any previous knowledge of the wants of his flock, and utterly without resources.

His diocese, which embraced the State of New York and part of New[520] Jersey, contained but four priests, three belonging to the Jesuits in Maryland, and liable to be called away at any moment, as two were almost immediately after his arrival. The college and convent had disappeared, and the church seemed to have lost in all but numbers. Thirteen thousand Catholics were to be supplied with pastors, and yet the trustee system stood a fearful barrier in his way. As Bishop Bayley well observes,

Yet he secured some good priests and ecclesiastical students from Kilkenny College, whom he gradually raised to the priesthood, his first ordination and the first conferring of the sacrament of holy orders in the city being that of the Rev. Michael O'Gorman in 1815. One only of the priests ordained by this first bishop occupying the see of New York still survives, the Rev. John Shanahan, now at St. Peter's church, Barclay street.

Under the care of Bishop Connolly the Sisters of Charity began their labors in the city so long the home of Mother Seton; and, so far as his means permitted him to yield to his zeal, he increased the number of churches and congregations in his diocese.

After an episcopate of nearly ten years, the bishop was taken ill on his return from the funeral of his first ordained priest, and soon followed him to the grave. He died at No. 512 Broadway, on the 5th of February, 1825, and was buried under the cathedral, after having been exposed for two days in St. Peter's church. The ceremonial was imposing and attracted general attention, and the remarks of the papers of the day show the respect entertained for him by all classes of citizens.

The next bishop of New York was one well known in the country by his labors, especially by his successful exertions in giving the church in our republic a college and theological seminary suited to its wants—Mount St. Mary's College at Emmettsburg, Maryland. The life of the Rev. John Du Bois had been varied. Born in Paris, he was in college a fellow-student of Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins; but actuated by far different thoughts from those which filled the brains of such men, he devoted himself to the service of God. The revolution found him a laborious priest at Paris. Escaping in disguise from France during the Reign of Terror, through the connivance of his old fellow-collegian, Robespierre, he came to America, bearing letters of introduction from La Fayette to eminent personages in the United States.

On coming to his diocese after his consecration in Baltimore in October, 1826, he found three churches and four or six priests in New York City; a church and one priest at Brooklyn, Albany, and a few stations elsewhere. But the trustee system fettered the progress of Catholicity.

Long devoted to the cause of education for secular life or the service of the altar, Bishop Du Bois's fondest desire was to endow his diocese with another Mount St. Mary's, but all his efforts failed. A hospital was also one of his early projects; but these and other good works could spring up only when the way had been prepared by his trials, struggles, and sufferings.

During his administration the number of Catholics increased greatly, and new churches sprang up in the city and other parts of the diocese. Of these various foundations and the zealous priests of that day many interesting details are given, to which we can but refer—the erection of St. Mary's, Christ church, Transfiguration, St. Joseph's, St. Nicholas's, St. Paul's at Harlem. The services of the Very Rev. Doctor Power, of Rev. Felix Varela, of Rev. Messrs. Levins and Schueller, and other clergymen of that day are not yet forgotten.

The excitement caused by the Act of Catholic Emancipation in England had its counterpart here, stimulated too by jealousy at the influx of foreign labor. The church had had her day of penal laws and wild excitement; now war was to be made through the press. About 1835 it began in New York. The use of falsehood against Catholicity seems to be considered by some one of the higher virtues. Certainly there is a strange perversion of conscience on the point. The anti-Catholic literature of that period is a curiosity that must cause some cheeks to tingle if there is any manhood left. They took up Fulkes's Confutation of the Rhemish Testament, reprinted the text from it, and affixed to it a certificate of several clergymen that it was a reprint from the original published at Rheims. It was not. They caught up a poor creature from a Magdalen asylum in Montreal, and concocted a book, laying the scene in the Hôtel Dieu, commonly called the Convent of the Black Nuns, at Montreal. The book was so infamous that the Harpers issued it under the name of Howe & Bates. It was published daily in The Sun newspaper, and had an immense circulation. Colonel William L. Stone, a zealous Protestant, went to the[522] spot, and, there convinced of the fraud, published an exposure of the vile slanders. He was assailed in a satire called The Vision of Rubeta, and the pious Protestant community swallowed the filthy details. At last there arose a quarrel over the spoils. A triangular lawsuit between the Harpers, the Rev. Mr. Slocum, and Maria Monk in the court of chancery gave some strange disclosures, more startling than the fictitious ones of the book. Vice-Chancellor McCoun in disgust turned them out of his court, and told them to go before a jury; but none of them dared to face twelve honest men.

A paper called The Downfall of Babylon flourished for a time on this anti-Catholic feeling, reeking with lewdness and impurity. At last their heroine and tool, Maria Monk, cast off and scouted, ended her days on Blackwell's Island.

Among the curiosities of this period was a work of S. F. B. Morse, (we used in our younger days to think the initials stood for Savage Furious Bigot,) entitled Brutus, or a Foreign Conspiracy against the Liberties of the United States. The queen of France had given the Bishop of St. Louis some altar paintings, and herein was the conspiracy. We saw a picture the other day of Mr. Morse with the stars of several foreign orders of knighthood on his breast; he has received many, some from Catholic sovereigns, and, we believe, one from the pope. Brutus should certainly take him in hand; for some of these orders require knights to swear to things that would be rather awkward for a zealous Protestant to undertake. Et tu Brute!

The controversies of that day would furnish matter for an article in themselves. They were the topic of the day, and led to many curious scenes. Among the Catholic controvertists, the Rev. Mr. Levins was particularly incisive and effective; Rev. Mr. Varela dealt gentler but heavy blows, being keen in argument and sound in learning. A tract on the five different Bibles of the American Bible Society was one of those occasions where, departing from the defensive, the Catholic apologist assumed the offensive. And this time it was highly offensive. At that time the Bible Society published a Spanish Bible, and Testaments in French, Spanish, and Portuguese, all Catholic versions, merely omitting the notes of the Catholic translators. Appleton's Cyclopædia asserts that "the American Bible Society, made up of materials more thoroughly Puritanic, and less Lutheran and continental, ... has never published any other than the canonical (Protestant) books;" but this is not so. The Spanish Bible of 1824 contains the very books which in other editions they reject absolutely. It is true that in the edition of 1825 they left them out of the body of the book, but kept them in the list of books. After that they disappeared, while the title-page still falsely professed to give the Bible translated by Bishop Scio de San Miguel, without the slightest intimation that part of Bishop Scio's work was omitted. We once bought Bagster's edition of the Vulgate, and found ourselves the victim of a similar fraud.

Mr. Varela exposed the inconsistency of their publishing in one language as inspired what they rejected in another; of translating a passage in one sense in one volume, and in another in a Bible standing beside it. The subject caused a sensation. After deliberating on the matter, it was determined to suppress all these Catholic versions; they were accordingly withdrawn. The stereotype plates were melted up; and the printed copies were, as we were assured, committed[523] to the flames, although it took some time to effect this greatest Bible-burning ever witnessed in New York.

Meanwhile New York was not without its organs of Catholic sentiment. The Truth-Teller was for many years the vehicle of information and defence. The editor, William Denman, still survives to witness the progress made since that day when he battled almost alone among the press of the land. The Catholic Diary, and The Green Banner, and The Freeman's Journal followed.

While the controversy fever lasted, some curious scenes took place. Catholics, especially poor servant-girls, were annoyed at all times and in all places, in the street, at the pump—for those were not days of Croton water—and even in their kitchens. One Protestant clergyman of New York had quite a reputation for the gross indecency that characterized his valorous attacks of this kind. The servant of a lady in Beekman street—people in good circumstances lived there then—was a constant object of his zeal. One day, report said, after dining with the lady, he descended to the kitchen, and began twitting the girl about the confessional, and coupling this with the grossest charges against the Catholic clergy. The girl bore it for a time, and when ordering him out of her realm failed, she seized a poker and dealt her indecent assailant a blow on the head that sent him staggering to the stairs. While he groped his way bewildered to the parlor, the girl hastened to her room, bundled up her clothes, and left the house. The clergyman was long laid up from the consequence of his folly, and every attempt made to hush the matter up; but an eccentric Catholic of that day, Joseph Trench, got up a large caricature representing the scene, which went like wild-fire, attack being always popular, and an attack on the Protestant clergy being quite a novelty. Trivial as the whole affair was, it proved more effective than the soundest theological arguments, and Mary Ann Wiggins with her poker really closed the great controversial period.

It had its good effects, nevertheless, in making Catholics earnest in their faith. Their numbers were rapidly increasing, and with them churches and institutions. Besides the Orphan Asylum, an institution for those who had lost only one parent, the Half-Orphan Asylum, was commenced and long sustained, mainly by the zeal and means of Mr. Glover, a convert whose name should stand high in the memory of New York Catholics. This institution, now merged in the general Orphan Asylum, had in its separate existence a long career of usefulness under the care of the Sisters of Charity.

Bishop Du Bois was unremitting in his efforts to increase the number of his clergy and the institutions of his diocese. The progress was marked. Besides clergymen from abroad, he ordained, or had ordained, twenty-one who had been trained under his own supervision, and who completed their divinity studies chiefly at the honored institution which he had founded in Maryland; among these was Gregory B. Pardow, who was, if we mistake not, the first native of the city elevated to the priesthood. Five of these priests have since been promoted to the episcopacy, as well as two others ordained in his time by his coadjutor.

In manners, Bishop Du Bois was the polished French gentleman of the old régime; as a clergyman, learned and strict in his ideas, his administrative powers were always deemed great, but in their exercise in his diocese they were constantly thwarted[524] by the trustee system. But he was not one easily intimidated; and when the trustees of the cathedral, in order to force him to act contrary to the dictates of his own better judgment, if not his conscience, threatened to deprive him of his salary, he made them a reply that is historical, "Well, gentlemen, you may vote the salary or not, just as seems good to you. I do not need much; I can live in the basement or in the garret; but whether I come up from the basement, or down from the garret, I will still be your bishop."

He had passed the vigor of manhood when he was appointed to the see of New York, and the constant struggle aged him prematurely. It became necessary for him to call for a younger hand to assist. The position was one that required a singularly gifted priest. The future of Catholicity in New York depended on the selection of one who, combining the learning and zeal of the missionary priest with that donum famæ which gives a man influence over his fellow-men, and that skill in firm but almost imperceptible government which is the characteristic of a great ruler, could place Catholicity in New York on a firm, harmonious basis, instinct with the true spirit of life, that would insure its future success. Providence guided the choice. Surely no man more confessedly endowed with all these qualities could have been selected than the Rev. John Hughes, trained by Bishop Du Bois at Mount St. Mary's, and then a priest of the diocese of Philadelphia, where his dialectic skill had been evinced in a long and well-maintained controversy.

The final overthrow of the trustee system gave the church freedom, and new institutions of every kind which had been imperatively required sprang up. A college at Fordham, the forerunner of the several Catholic colleges of the State, was soon founded; a convent of Ladies of the Sacred Heart, for the education of young ladies; Sisters of Mercy with their various important labors came to help the good work. But now a large German Catholic immigration began. Bishop Hughes saw the want and the means; a development of the German churches, especially under the care of the Redemptorist fathers, soon followed.

The position of the Catholic children in regard to their participation in those educational advantages next attracted his care. The prevalent spirit in those institutions for which Catholics as well as Protestants were taxed was essentially anti-Catholic; the books used were often vile in their character, whenever Catholicity was touched upon. Think of Huntington's Geography with a picture at Asia of "Pagan Idolatry," and at Italy of "Roman Catholic Idolatry." Think of an arithmetic—Pike's, we believe—with a question like this, "If a pope can pray a soul out of purgatory in three days, a cardinal in four, and a bishop in six, how long would it take all three to pray them out?" A Catholic girl in the Rutgers Female Institute, when the geography was given to her, happened to open to Italy, and, outraged at the wanton insult to her feelings, threw the book on the floor, burst into tears, and left the school; but Rutgers Female Institute could use such books as they chose, and Catholics could send there or elsewhere. It was not a State creation, supported by taxes drawn from all; but did any right exist to force Catholics to the alternative of submitting to such degrading insults or keep aloof from schools which they were taxed to support? or rather, the question was, Could Catholics in the State of New York be compelled to support the Protestant church and aid in its extension?

Bishop Bayley sketches briefly the[525] other important acts of the administration of Bishop Hughes, and concludes,

And though we may now rate the number of Catholics in the city at four hundred thousand, the language is still applicable.

There are now, we may add, forty Catholic churches on the island, with parish schools educating twenty-one thousand children of both sexes; houses of Jesuits, Redemptorists, Fathers of Mercy, Paulists, Franciscans, Capucins, Dominicans; convents of the Sacred Heart, houses of Sisters of Charity, Sisters of the Good Shepherd, of Notre Dame, of the order of St. Dominic, of the Poor of St. Francis, and of the Third Order of St. Francis; several orphan asylums, two hospitals, reformatories for boys and girls, a house of protection for servants, a home for destitute children, a home for aged women, and a foundling asylum just begun. Yet it is but true that all this is little for the wants of four hundred thousand Catholics.

Glancing back to the early history, we see in all the work of the many. In comparison, we have had fewer men of wealth than those around us; but it must also be added that among those few there have been still fewer, in proportion, to identify their names with the great religious works. As we look around through the country, we see great institutions, churches, colleges, libraries, asylums, each the act of a single man of wealth; but we cannot show in New York a single such Catholic work. There are monuments in our great cemeteries, on each of which more money has been expended than would erect a church in some neglected part of New York. Which would be the nobler monument?

We trust that this work, full of interest as it is to all, will circulate widely among the Catholics of New York and bring home to all that respect to their predecessors, respect to themselves, requires of all to take in hand earnestly what yet remains to do to give us what are absolutely required for worship, for instruction, for the works of mercy.

CHRISTMAS HYMN.

THE TRUE ORIGIN OF GALLICANISM.[128]

A curious book has lately appeared in France. It is not so much the production of the pen as the result of the judicious industry of M. Gérin, judge of the civil tribunal of Paris. In his introduction to the work he says that it is not his intention to write a book, but to put together materials for history and for the better understanding of a vital question, which has agitated the French world especially for three hundred years—the infallibility of the sovereign pontiff and his superiority to a general council of bishops. It would be difficult to exaggerate the speculative value as well as the practical importance of this doctrine. M. Gérin has rendered an inestimable service to historic truth and to the church by showing the origin of the so-called Gallican doctrine, which denied the infallibility of the pontiff, contrary to the practice and opinion that had prevailed among Christians for fifteen or sixteen hundred years. It is not our intention to prove the possessive or prescriptive right of this doctrine. This has been amply done in our day in English by several authors, while the work of the brothers Ballerini [528]and Zaccharia's reply to Hontheim, the well-known Anti-Febronius, are open to the study of the learned. What we shall do will be to follow M. Gérin in showing the base origin of a teaching which no array of brilliant names can make legitimate.

At the outset we acknowledge the difficulty of the task. The work is so tersely and so logically compiled that one is at a loss how to break in upon so connected a recital, lest it should impair the effect of what he selects, by detaching it from its antecedents as well as from its consequents. But as all may not, at least for some time, have it in their power to read a translation of this interesting volume, we shall risk something for their information.

It has been commonly supposed that the Gallican doctrine was generally held by the French clergy during the reign of Louis XIV., and that in ordering it to be taught throughout his kingdom that sovereign only seconded the desire of his prelates and people. Never has a more unfounded idea been foisted upon credulity. No one ever heard of any such doctrine before the Chancellor Gerson at the Council of Constance hesitatingly broached it, in order to apply it, if possible, as a remedy and preventive of schism in the church. Like all opinions not well ventilated and examined, it found some who favored it, and at the schismatical assembly of Basle it acquired a number of followers. These, however, were soon obliged to yield; and in the Council of Florence a dogmatic decree was drawn up and adopted by the fathers, and confirmed by the sovereign pontiff, which declared the latter to be possessed of the full and supreme jurisdiction of Peter, and the doctor or teacher of the universal church—a phrase that implied the infallibility of the pope; for a teacher is rightly so called only when he possesses the principles of his branch in such a way as to impart the degree of certainty peculiar to it. The church possesses the assistance of Christ, and is, therefore, infallible; and the organ or teacher of that church must have that same assistance which shall make him infallible. Otherwise we would have the, to say the least, strange consequence that ordinarily the church is liable to be misled; extraordinarily only—for councils must from their nature be unusual—is she to be regarded as free from error. It should be borne in mind that this definition of the œcumenical synod, A.D. 1439, was made after due consultation; for when Eugenius IV. had caused his rights and prerogatives to be discussed before him by the Greek and Latin theologians, the Greeks, on leaving the presence of the pontiff, went to the emperor of Constantinople, then in Florence, and renewed before him the examination of the question. The result was, that they did not oppose the teaching of the papal doctors, but merely required two rights for their party: one, that no council should be called without the emperor; and the other, that in case of appeal the patriarchs should not be obliged to present themselves for judgment, but that legates should be sent into the province in question to try the cause. Not a word was said against the doctrines. The pope refused to grant these requests, and the emperor broke off negotiations. Still, through the mediation of influential prelates on both sides, they were resumed again immediately; and the Greek fathers acknowledged the Roman pontiff "locum gerentem et vicarium Christi, pastorem et doctorem omnium Christianorum, regentem et gubernantem Dei Ecclesiam"—to hold the place of Christ and to be his vicar, the pastor and doctor of all[529] Christians, the ruler and head of the church. A few days afterward, the formal dogmatic definition was given by the united fathers of both churches, confirmed by the pope, and subscribed by him, by the cardinals, the emperor John Palœologus, and the Greek and Latin fathers of the council, with the exception of one, Mark, Bishop of Ephesus, whose bad faith in quoting the Greek manuscripts was accidentally made known to the whole council. His servant had erased the wrong passage, which fact the bishop did not discover until he was reading the code in public. The words of the definition are these:

It was impossible for Gallican theologians to ignore the force of thesekat' hon eropon words. To elude it they had recourse to the last phrase, "as is contained in the acts of œcumenical councils and in the sacred canons," and appealed to tradition to explain the meaning of the fathers of Florence. Their meaning, however, is clear from what they determined on a few days before the decision. In their written declaration that phrase is not found. Moreover, the phrase itself is in corroboration of the decision; for in reality tradition bears out fully the doctrine it contains. The Greek text of Cardinal Bessarion has this phrase, κατ ὁν ερόπον—"according to the manner"—and it is this that the Gallic doctors thought favored them. This wording does not, however, alter the sense we have given. With regard to the phrase itself, learned men, and among them the author of Anti-Febronius, state that in the original document such an appendage had no existence whatsoever. With this decision before them, how did it happen that such teaching as at a later date obtained the ascendency in France, and in some other parts of Europe, could have met with favor? The work of M. Gérin answers this question clearly, and shows that intrigue and royal influence and power did the work.

The documents with which he opens his collection refer to the year 1663. They, for the most part, have hitherto been entirely unknown, and were found by M. Gérin among the MSS. of the time of Louis XIV. in the Bibliothèque Impériale—MSS. Colbert. At that time ill-humor existed between the French and Papal courts, growing out of a quarrel between the servants of the French ambassador at Rome. This was settled for the moment; but on the appointment of the Duc de Créqui, the feuds were renewed, owing to the disposition of that ambassador, whose pride had been wounded by his having been obliged to pay the first visits to the relatives of the pope, who were in the first places of the government. The retainers of the duke on the 12th of August, 1662, attacked and beat the Corsican guard in the service of the pope. The pope sent an envoy to visit the duke, who pretended that an attempt had been made on his life. Instead of receiving the messenger of the pontiff graciously, he threatened to throw him out of the window, and refused all apologies. This was a spark thrown into other inflammable matter that brought on an invasion of the papal territory, and other still worse disasters to the church. The king, as a consequence of his difficulties with the pope, became surrounded[530] with evilly-disposed counsellors, whom, to do him justice, he sometimes curbed. It was during this political trouble that the enemies of Rome sought to deal her a blow fatal to her influence. The Jansenist opinions had received a severe condemnation in the decrees of the sovereign pontiff and through the action of Louis XIV. Those who professed them were obliged to sign a formula of submission to the church, and receive the doctrine of Rome. There were many who, while they did so, still held to the erroneous teachings of their sect. Among these there was an Abbé Bourseis, a man of some ability, but of more tact in courtly life. In 1661, on the 12th of December, a bachelor of theology defended the following thesis:

About the same time, the Abbé Bourseis seized upon this opportunity and gained over the minister Colbert; while the son of the minister Letellier brought over his father. The thesis was represented as an attempt of the Jesuits against the government. About the same time, Drouet de Villeneuve, a bachelor of the College of Navarre, defended the same doctrine in substance. The advocate-general was instructed to proceed in the case. The parliament having been informed of what had occurred, issued a decree against the thesis, on the 22d of January, 1663, forbidding any one to write, hold, or teach such propositions under penalty of being proceeded against by the courts; and commanded this decree to be placed on the register of the said faculty of Paris. The parliament deputed two counsellors of the court, and Achille de Harlay, the substitute of the procureur-général, to have the decree registered. These persons repaired to the Sorbonne on the 31st January, 1663. "Despite the menaces addressed to the indocile doctors, by Talon, the advocate-general, and Harlay, the faculty refused to obey; and only agreed to take the matter into consideration."[129] M. de Mincé and M. de Breda, favorable to the government, said the faculty had not changed its sentiments and did not approve the thesis. No conclusion was come to; the discussion was adjourned to the 1st. Nothing, however, was done on the first nor on the 5th of February. On the 9th, the archbishops of Auch and of Paris were present. The first spoke against the decree and action of the parliament; the second said no opposition should be made to the decree, but that the faculty would be able to arrange things in a satisfactory manner if they discussed the matter amicably with the first president of the parliament. The Archbishop of Auch said that general councils were necessary only against schism; the rest, against heresy as well as schism, but for nothing else. No conclusion was reached. On the 15th of February, M. de Breda reported, and read the answer of the first president, and, hearing a great uproar, said he was astonished to see those present so excited against the parliament. M. Grandin, syndic of the faculty, to justify himself for having signed the thesis, spoke for a long time, and tried to give a good meaning to the thesis, and explained [531] the third proposition, touching the need of general councils, in the same way as the Archbishop of Auch. M. de Mincé wished the decree registered. M. Morel thought it ought not to be registered before the thesis had been censured. He quoted some text of St. Gregory Nazianzen, adding that, if it were registered, the faculty would be like the statue of Memnon. He was followed in his opinion by M. Amiot. The Rev. P. Nicolai, MM. Bail, Joisel, Chamillard, and all the doctors of St. Sulpice, and of the house of Chardonnet, were of the same opinion, and declaimed strongly against the harangue of the substitute, Achille de Harlay. M. Lestocq, professor of the Sorbonne, wished to prove the decree null both in matter and form. M. Chamillard the younger said the Council of Constance was not received, and that its doctrine was only probable; but the greater part of the doctors having risen against him, he was obliged to say it had been received in part. M. Bossuet [130] here made a feint of bringing forward a new project; upon which Leblond, professor of the Sorbonne, Bonst, also professor, Joisel and Blanger, of the Sorbonne, following the advice of the Père Nicolai, left their places in an indignant manner, saying that the harangue of the substitute ought to be censured. All the professors of the Sorbonne, without exception, the fathers Louvet and Hermant, Bernardines and professors in their house, spoke bitterly against the parliament; and when the Père Hermant undertook to prove the infallibility of the pope and his superiority over a council, he was followed by nearly all the monks.

On the 15th, MM. Pignay, Bail, Nicolai, Chaillon, dean of Beauvais, Joisel, and all the professors of the Sorbonne without exception, as also MM. Magnay and Charton, opposed the registering.

The chief instructor of the bachelor Villeneuve, the Abbé de Tilloy, who had signed the thesis, and M. Joisel wished the decree registered with the explanations of M. Grandin. M. Leblond, professor of the Sorbonne, and M. Lestocq concluded that it was agreed on that the registering should be accepted with these explanations. M. Guyard, of Navarre, said that to do so was to accuse the good faith of those who had drawn up the conclusion, which had passed by advice of MM. de Mincé and de Breda. The Rev. Fathers de la Barmondière and Leblanc, of St. Sulpice, accused the faculty of mortal sin, and the latter said it was through cowardice and fear of the temporal power that the decree was registered. M. Cornet, the head professor of Navarre, was not present at these assemblies.

At the end of this memoir are the list of doctors who took part in the discussions, and confidential notes regarding each of the members of the faculty.

The decree, says M. Gérin, was registered on the 4th of April; but on the same day a thesis similar to the one it condemned was maintained, with the approbation of the syndic of the faculty, in the college of the Bernardines, by the Frère Laurent Desplantes. On the 14th of April, in consequence of this being denounced by royal agents, the parliament cited before it M. Grandin, the syndic, the professor presiding at the thesis, the disputant, and the superiors of the Bernardines. Talon, the advocate-general, spoke with great warmth. "Strange," he said in his prosecution,—"strange, that, with unexampled rashness, they have dared to renew these evil propositions on the very day the decree was registered in the faculty." Grandin held out against the storm, and the parliament suspended him from his duties. This rigor frightened the timid, and some days afterward the court received a number of equivocal propositions, subscribed by sixty-six doctors only. The whole number was over seven hundred. M. Deslions, of the Sorbonne, in his MS. journal,[132] lets us into the secret of the way in which these six propositions were gotten up. They are as follows:

In confirmation of this, M. Gérin quotes a comment on these articles made by Pinsson, advocate of the parliament, by order of Colbert. He qualifies all the propositions as equivocal or captious. He says:

The offer, in the name of the faculty, of these propositions put a stop to the difficulty for the time, and the settlement of the question of redress so unjustifiably and tyrannically urged by Louis XIV. against the holy see brought with it an external appearance of peace, while it left a rankling wound that was to break out afresh in the contests concerning the regale, or so-styled "royal perquisite," seventeen years later.

"This question of the regale," says M. Gérin, "was of a date much anterior to the time of Louis XIV." It consisted in the vindication by the crown of a presumed title to the revenues of certain dioceses, and to the nomination of persons to hold benefices in the same, upon the death or removal of the bishop, and until the newly nominated bishop had taken the oath of fealty, and had registered it in the chancellor's chamber, this act being styled the closure of the royal right, or regale. The Council of Lyons had authorized this custom with regard to bishoprics in which it had been established as a condition in their foundation, or had existed as an ancient practice; while it expressly forbade its introduction with respect to those dioceses in which it had not been received.

That of 1670 presented a remonstrance to the king through the Archbishop of Embrun; but in 1673 and 1675, two royal declarations appeared to the effect that all the churches of the kingdom were subject to the right of royal perquisite; and that the archbishops and bishops who had not yet closed it by registering their oath should go through that formality within six months.

Caulet, Bishop of Pamiers, and Pavillon, Bishop of Alet, standing on their rights as secured by the custom of exemption, and by the canons of the general Council of Lyons, refused to obey. The result was a contest between the civil and ecclesiastical powers, in which Rome of necessity became engaged. Unheard-of harshness, and cruelty even, were used against the clergymen who opposed the government. One vicar-general was condemned to death. Unhappily, there were many ecclesiastics, who had been provided with benefices by the government, who not only took sides with it, but, being interested, were active in keeping up a quarrel the solution of which, in accordance with the views of Rome, would have proved ruinous to them. They sold Christ for a few pieces of money. The deputies of the clergy in 1680, in their regular quinquennial assembly, at the request of Louis XIV., wrote a flattering letter in favor of his claims and against the pope. This caused Madame de Sévigné to criticise them caustically. When speaking of the two prelates mentioned above, she says, after referring to the then Bishop of Alet, who had succeeded Pavillon, "But the shade of his saintly predecessor, and M. de Pamiers—have they signed that letter of flattery?"

But what were the means used to bring about the assembly of 1682, in which the four articles of which so much has been said were framed? That which we have recounted up to this was only the preparation of the soil; the seed was now to be sown, and fostered with all the care of royal interest. M. Gérin quotes from the Procès Verbaux du Clérgé, t. v.

It is humiliating to a Catholic to have to make the avowal, but it is well known that royal patronage had well-nigh ruined the French Church, and that not a few bishops unworthy of the name occupied high and influential places. This assembly, known as "the Little Assembly," (La Petite Assemblée,) met the day after the order was given. Fifty bishops, of whom the great majority ought to have been at their posts of duty, were basking in the sunshine of royal favor, and it was these Louis XIV. called on for advice. Racine has a sarcastic epigram on them, which M. Gérin quotes:

The advice these prelates gave was what might have been expected from the state of things at the time.

They indorsed the action of the government on four points of discussion with the holy see:

2. The book of the Abbé Gerbais, censured by Rome as schismatical, suspected of heresy, and injurious to the holy see; but which they found full of good doctrine and of deep learning.

3. In the affair of Charonne. This was a case of exemption from royal nomination in which the king had violated that right. The religious women of the convent of Charonne, near Paris, which belonged to the Augustinian rule, enjoyed the privilege, recognized by the civil power, of electing every three years their superior. Louis XIV., however, in 1676, named for their superior a Cistercian nun, whom the Archbishop of Paris, Harlay de Champvallon, acknowledged, and to whom he gave the position. The religious appealed to the sovereign pontiff, who, by a brief dated August 7th, 1680, annulled the act of the archbishop, and ordered them to proceed to the triennial election, and take for their superior one of their own number.

The action of this assembly was much criticised and was disapproved by the people, as can be seen, according to M. Gérin's statement, in the MSS. of St. Sulpice, i. ii. iii.; Bibl. Mazarine, MSS. 2392, 2398 fr. From these he makes several long and interesting extracts.

In consequence of this resolution of the Little Assembly, "the king, on the 16th of July, 1681, addressed letters of convocation to the agents of the clergy, through whom the archbishops of the territory subject to his majesty were charged to hold provincial assemblies and cause to be chosen two deputies of the first order and two of the second, for the general assembly assigned for the 1st of October, 1681."

Before entering upon a history of this body, M. Gérin gives a clear idea of the question at issue between the king and the pontiff, and shows that it was of the same nature as that which caused the struggle, in which the church was finally victorious, between Gregory VII. and the German emperor, Henry IV. The appointment of proper pastors for the flock was at stake. Rome sought likewise to put a stop to the abuse by which laymen were pensioned on dioceses, whose funds ought to have been devoted to supplying the spiritual wants of the people, and relieving the poor and orphans. The church was in imminent danger of servitude, spiritual and temporal, as Fleury himself states. So far had the usurpation of ecclesiastical jurisdiction gone that, when Louis XIV., at Strasburg, gave audience to the bishop of that place, the act of the king in putting his hand on the crozier of the prelate as he leant forward to hear him was interpreted as a resumption of investiture by the ring and crozier. Pelisson, however, the intimate friend of the king, tells us this was not the[536] case, as he heard him say afterward that such an idea had not occurred to him; but as the prelate spoke in a rather low tone, he bent toward him and leaned for support on the crozier.

The government of Louis had wished this assembly for its own ends; it was therefore determined that nothing should be left undone to secure a favorable result. The temper of all the members of the French hierarchy was known: there were some who were feared—these were to be passed by; some who were doubted—these were to be allured to compliance; others there were whose worldly spirit and indebtedness to the crown left no uncertainty as to their course—these were to be put forward, honored, and made the leaders in the movement against Rome. Colbert, ably seconded by the worldly Harlay de Champvallon, Archbishop of Paris, set about the work. His master was all-powerful; every thing but true virtue was to bend before him. Canonical forms were to be superseded if found to be trammels, and persons who contradicted were to be made to feel the weight of royal displeasure. The legislative bodies even had been reduced to a state of passive instrumentality, so that, in 1672, a conscientious bishop of Languedoc complained to Colbert that votes were given without discussion, and protested that explanations should be made in regard to the advantages or the necessity of the expenses the states were called on to vote. In this state of things, the Little Assembly had been convened and had acted the part we have seen. Before closing its sessions it named a commission under the presidency of Harlay, without whose bidding it was to do nothing. This commission drew up the project of procuration, and, by order of the king, no mention was made of the part he had had in it. On the 16th of June, 1681, Colbert writes to the archbishop:

M. Gérin gives us here the text of this plan of procuration; it is from a MS. annotated by the procureur-général De Harlay, brother of the archbishop. The deputies are

The government foresaw that the second order of the clergy, the simple priests, would make an attempt to vindicate their right to a voice. For this reason it determined to have a precedent by which to act. The Archbishop of Rheims, who was in the interest of the government, convoked his provincial assembly at Senlis; the second order protested; its voice was stifled, and the plan of procuration accepted. An account of the proceedings was made out and sent to the king, by whose command copies were immediately transmitted to the intendants of the kingdom with orders to instruct the archbishops to do the same in like cases.[135] As for the choice of deputies, that was to be made without any appearance or direct proof of royal intervention. But the names of the deputies show the pressure that must have been brought to bear by the court. M. Gérin quotes here a number of documents in which the royal interference is manifest. Thus Colbert writes to the Archbishop of Rouen:

From page 115 to 153 M. Gérin demonstrates this pressure unanswerably; and from page 153 to page 261, he shows from the character of the persons chosen, the nature of the assembly, and its obsequiousness to the sovereign. On page 260 he asks,

One of the most interesting features connected with the history of the assembly is the new phase put upon the part acted in it by the famous Bishop of Meaux—Bossuet. His position here contradicts what we have seen him do in the year 1663. But from all the documents M. Gérin brings forward, it is evident that he was drawn in against his will. In one place he writes:

It is true that the articles were drawn up by him; but it was because he saw that extreme opinions were about to prevail, to prevent which he took the propositions into his hands, and did the best he could under the circumstances. This, however, does not excuse him entirely; for there are times in which we should be ready to suffer for the cause of truth, and if necessary even to give our lives. The fault of Bossuet was, that he was weak, and could not resolve to forfeit royal favor for the glory of suffering[538] in a just cause. After a careful and thorough perusal of the chapter on Bossuet and the assembly, it is impossible to come to any milder conclusion than this. The articles were drawn up and passed by the assembly. It is not our purpose to go into an examination of these articles. It will suffice to state that their aim was to limit that fulness of power belonging to the sovereign pontiff which we have seen implied in the definition of the Council of Florence, without seeming to do or say any thing that could be noted as heretical or schismatical; and in the third article there is an indorsement of the decrees of the fourth and fifth Council of Constance, which it is well known were never approved by the sovereign pontiff, and have therefore no authority. These decrees proclaim the superiority of a general council of bishops over the pope, and strike a direct blow at his infallibility and supremacy. They were the very decrees that caused the decision of the Council of Florence, though the occasion of the definition was the union of the Greek and Latin churches. How were these articles received? On the 19th of March they were adopted by the assembly. On the 11th of April, Innocent XI. censured them in his brief. Louis XIV. was so much impressed by this act of the pope that he prevented the bishops of the assembly from sending a circular to the prelates of the kingdom, by way of protest. On the 9th of May, he suspended the sessions of the assembly; and on the 29th of June, he sent orders for its immediate dissolution, without allowing it to go through with the rest of its programme. Count de Maistre says of him, "He broke up the assembly unceremoniously, with so much wisdom and fitness, that one almost pardons him for having called it together."[136] He did not even allow the minutes of the sessions to be put in the archives of the clergy.[137] M. Gérin tells us that the people were opposed to this assembly from the outset; and when the members were about to depart, the following epigram sped them on their way,

The ministers of the king were very much irritated; they dared not then, as they did in 1688, appeal to a general council, because this would bring upon them the censures of the bull Execrabilis of Pius II. It was determined, therefore, by the king to permit the procureur-général to make a protest privately, in the hands of the greffier or keeper of the archives of the parliament, without the knowledge even of the first president. In the mean while the clergy, far from acquiescing in the decrees of a body which had falsely assumed to represent them, were giving evidence in a marked manner of their disapprobation. Like all those who try to compromise between right and wrong, between the service of God and the good-will of the world, the framers of the four articles had become unacceptable to both.

The parliament protested because the prelates had not gone far enough; the procureur-général, De Harlay, put in a formal declaration on this subject, and it was registered by permission of the king. But these men were not the clergy, not the people. M. Gérin gives us witnesses who testify to what these thought and said. The first is one above suspicion, a [539] man favorable to the court, the Abbé Le Gendre; he says,

The edict of the 30th of March ordered that the four articles should be registered in all the universities, and be taught by all the professors. If this doctrine, remarks M. Gérin, had been but generally received, it would have been hailed with rejoicing. What happened? It was opposed by the most numerous, the most learned, and the most pious portion of the clergy. The faculty of Paris was composed of seven hundred and fifty-three members, as appears from the MSS. Colbert, Mél. t. vii. Of these, one hundred and sixty-nine belonged to the Sorbonne. The "Plan for Reforming the Faculty," in 1683, (Pap. Harlay,) says,

As to the College of Navarre, the MSS. Colbert, t. 155, tell us that its principal, Professor Guyard, was entirely devoted to Rome, etc., and others prominent, Saussay, Ligny, Vinot, were of like opinion. In 1682, none of the professors except Doctor Lefèvre taught the maxims of the kingdom.[138]

Of St. Sulpice, St. Nicolas de Chardonnet, and the Missions Etrangères, we read,

The parliament, therefore, and the grand council had, by an abuse of power, decided that each one of the mendicant orders should have but two votes in the faculty, so that thirty-four Franciscans, thirty-eight Dominicans, thirty-three Augustinians, and nineteen Carmelites had only eight votes in the faculty.

That, besides being the most numerous, the opponents of the articles were the most learned, is evident from the details we have given; all the professors of Sorbonne, with the exception of Pirot, all the professors of Navarre, except one, Lefèvre, taught the ultramontane opinions. The MSS. Colbert prove this also beyond the possibility of doubt.

That the opponents of the declaration were also men most remarkable for their piety, is acknowledged by those who were engaged in giving information to Colbert.

To show the exactness of the facts given us here, M. Gérin quotes the words of a famous anonymous book, [540] La Tradition des Faits, that appeared in 1760, by the Gallican Abbé Chauvelin, clerical counsellor to the parliament of Paris. The abbé writes,

The facts given above, the testimony of witnesses above suspicion, of those whose interest it would have been to conceal what they say, the action of the parliament, and the petty ways adopted to coerce the professors, v. g., withholding their pay,[139] all evince that the maxims known as Gallican were forced upon the clergy and people of France. But not only is this the case, but so fully were the king and the bishops themselves convinced of their falsity that they retracted them. Before showing this, we will add a curious and precious document from the hands of the wily Achille de Harlay, procureur-général, addressed to Colbert on the 2d of June, 1682. After saying that the proposed visit of the parliament to the faculty would have been unfortunate, because it would have revealed to Rome the divergence between the latter and the government, he goes on to add that "of the assembly of the clergy, the greater part would change to-morrow, and willingly, if they were allowed to do so."[140]

The act of the assembly, as we have seen, drew from the sovereign pontiff an authoritative censure. This was not all; the pope refused the bulls of consecration for those who had taken part in it, unless they made their formal submission to his decision. The king, who at heart was a sincere Catholic, opened his eyes to the danger of the church. As we have said, he withheld the minutes of the proceedings in the first instance, although he allowed a private protest to be made. Later he revoked his decree ordering the doctrine of the four articles to be taught in the French schools. Page 454 has a letter of Louis to the sovereign pontiff, in which he informs his holiness of this, September 14th, 1693. A posthumous work of Daguesseau [141] says,

L'Abbé de Pradt, in his work, Les Quatre Concordats, speaks of the letter of Louis XIV., and says that Pius VII. had it with him—"an old scrap of paper," as Napoleon expressed it—and wished the emperor to sign it. This, however, Napoleon declined to do, until he could consult his theologians. On their advice he refused to sign it. He did more. The abbé says,

Montholon tells us in his Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de France, that Napoleon dictated to him these words concerning the book of the Abbé de Pradt,

With regard to the bishops who had taken part in the declaration, they had the good sense and virtue to submit to him whom Christ has named his vicar and the pastor of pastors. On the 14th of September, each one of them wrote to Innocent XII. in the following terms,

The following passages from MSS. and works of the day add confirmation to this letter.

A memoir on the liberties of the Gallican Church, composed by order of "Monseigneur Louis, Dauphin de France, Duc de Bourgoyne, mort en 1710," says,

Adrien Baillet, writing his Démêlé de Philippe le Bel avec Boniface VIII., tells us,

We have tried to give the substance of M. Gérin's work. We feel that we have given but a meagre idea of it. Still, this much is evident from what we have written, that the doctrine known as Gallican was not the doctrine of the French clergy. That it afterward became so, in great part was owing undoubtedly to the influence of the assembly of 1682, and of those who in high positions lent their aid to its propagation among the rising generation of students. They, early imbued with these maxims, were far less to blame than the men who first broached such principles. Let us hope that the comparatively few who hold to these opinions, seeing the origin of what they profess, will understand the worthlessness of them, and unite with the universal church in professing belief in the infallibility of the See of Peter.

PUTNAM'S DEFENCE.

Our readers will remember, we presume, that Putnam's Magazine for July last contained an article which attracted some attention, under the title of "Our Established Church," and to which we replied in our number for the August following; the same magazine for last month, in an article entitled "The Unestablished Church," comes out with its defence, of which we should be uncivil not to take some notice.

The July article, written in an unsuccessful vein of irony, was directed against the honor both of the church and the city and State of New York, and was designed to show that the church, grasping at wealth and power, and skilfully availing herself of political passions and party divisions, had obtained from the State and city governments endowments for herself and subventions for her educational and charitable institutions out of all proportion to any granted to similar Protestant institutions. We replied that the endowments are imaginary, for the church here is unendowed; that the subventions are greatly exaggerated; that several alleged had never been made, while others said to have been made to Catholic were in fact made to Protestant institutions; and that Catholics had never received a tithe of what was requisite to place them on an equality in regard to subventions from the public with non-Catholics. The Magazine, though with exceeding ill grace, concedes nearly all that we denied, abandons its assumption that ours is the established church, confesses that it is unestablished, and disputes us, except with sneers and exclamation-points, only in regard to two statements in our reply, one of which is of no importance, and the other is one in which it is decidedly, not to say maliciously wrong.

The two points disputed we proceed to dispose of. The Magazine charged the corporation of the city with granting leases of valuable sites for Catholic institutions for a long term of years at a merely nominal rent. We replied that only one such lease had been granted since 1847, which is not technically exact, and we overlooked the fact that the lease for the site of the Catholic Orphan Asylum between Fifty-first and Fifty-second streets bears the date of 1857; but by the Magazine's own showing, though technically a new lease, and so recorded, it was really only a change in the tenure of the old lease. Catholics had held and occupied the site under a lease from the city, and at the same rent as now, for years before 1847. So much for the first point.

The Magazine charged that the State paid out, in 1866, for benefactions under religious control $129,025.14, of which $124,174.14 went to the religious purposes of the Catholic Church. Not being able to find any proof of this, and regarding the unsupported statement of the writer as presumptive evidence of falsehood rather than of truth, we let the charge pass without any attempt at a specific refutation. The Magazine reiterates the statement, and refers to the report of the comptroller of the State. We have the comptroller's report before us; we have examined and reëxamined it; but we do not find the statement in it or any thing to warrant it; and it has[543] been more than once pronounced on the highest authority, and proved to be a forgery, as the Magazine well knows or is inexcusable for not knowing.

We did not meet this statement for the first time in Putnam's Magazine. It had been previously made, and we supposed sufficiently refuted in the journals, especially in the Utica Herald, whose editor, Mr. Roberts, had been a member of the Legislature and of the committee of ways and means in 1866. Mr. Roberts under his own name, pronounced it a forgery. For honest and fair-minded men this was conclusive. But the charge was embodied in an anonymous memorial, and laid on the desks of the members of the New York State Convention, held in 1867 and 1868, and was again pronounced in open debate a forgery, without a single voice being raised in its defence. The Hon. Mr. Cassidy, of the Albany Atlas and Argus, declared it false from beginning to end. The Hon. Mr. Alvord, the distinguished member from Onondaga County, did the same. The Hon. Erastus Brooks, member of the Convention from Richmond, and one of the editors of the New York Evening Express, would not go quite so far, but regarded it as an admirable example of one of the many ways of telling a lie. He exposed its disingenuous character, by showing that the $8000 stated in it to be appropriated to St. Mary's Hospital, Rochester, was expressly declared in the statute making the appropriation to be for the support of soldiers under the supervision of Dr. Backus, the surgeon of the post. The soldiers were supported and taken care of in St. Mary's Hospital, as the only proper place, in the judgment of the military authorities, that could be obtained. Mr. Brooks also gave, as another instance of the disingenuousness of the statement, its omission to count $25,000, appropriated to a Protestant institution in Elmira, we suppose for a similar purpose. Mr. Alvord not only pronounced it false from beginning to end, but, statute in hand, showed from the act of the Legislature itself, which he read, that instead of appropriating for charitable purposes nearly $130,000, it appropriated only $80,000, to be divided among the several counties according to their assessed valuation.[143] What has become of our friend, the Rev. Leonard W. Bacon, who sometimes writes for Putnam, and who has such delicate scruples about Protestants using forged documents against Catholics?

So much has been said about the partiality of the Legislature to the Catholic Church that it may be well to look at the conditions on which it grants and distributes its aid to charitable institutions. The act of 1866, so bitterly denounced, appropriates from the State treasury $80,000 for orphan asylums, to be apportioned to the several counties according to their assessed value, and distributed to the several asylums according to the number of inmates received and cared for in them respectively, without the slightest reference to the fact whether they were Catholic or Protestant. Nothing could be fairer, and if Catholic asylums received more of the benefaction than those under the charge of non-Catholics, it was simply because they received and cared for a larger number of orphans. We see no ground of complaint here against either the Legislature or the church. It is very possible that Catholics have a larger number of orphans in proportion to their population than have non-Catholics, and it [544] is not unlikely, also, that they are more ready to make sacrifices for their support.

In the list of benefactions of the State to Catholic institutions in 1866, the Magazine places the item of $78,000 to the Catholic Protectory. This was a special grant to enable the society to purchase a site and erect suitable buildings for its purpose. This protectory corresponds very nearly to the Protestant societies for the protection and reformation of juvenile delinquents, and which the State is accustomed to aid by its benefactions. The appropriations for its support are justified on the ground that it is of great public utility and protection of the public from a class of destitute children not unlikely, if not taken care of, to grow up vicious and criminal, to fill our alms-houses, our jails and penitentiaries. The community at large, rather than the church specially, is benefited, and there is no good reason why grants for its support should be objected to or regarded as made for special Catholic purposes. The only thing that a Protestant can object to, if any charitable institution is to receive aid from the State, is, that by aiding a Catholic protectorate to take care of and reform destitute children of Catholics without the loss of their Catholic faith, it so far fails to aid Protestants to bring them up in Protestantism, or, what is perhaps worse, in no religion.

As a matter of course, Putnam's Magazine dwells on the public grants to certain Catholic schools in this city. We do not deny those grants. We conceded and defended them in our former article, and the Magazine has in no respect invalidated our defence; it has only stared and sneered at it. Give us either schools to which we can send our children, or divide the schools equitably between Catholics and Protestants, and we will solicit no special grants of the sort. As it is, neither the city nor the State gives back by way of subvention to our schools more than a pittance of what it takes from us for the support of schools to which we cannot with our Catholic conscience send our children. If the State taxes the whole community alike for the support of public schools, it is bound to provide schools for Catholics as well as Protestants, and for both such as leave the conscience of each free, sacred, and inviolable. If it refuses to do so, the least that it can do is to make liberal grants to the schools Catholics are obliged to establish for themselves.

What we have thus far said disposes of the Magazine's statistics, and sufficiently relieves the State from the charge of discriminating in favor of Catholics, as well as the church from the charge of intriguing for special favors. She has never asked or received any special favors from the Legislature. The other matters in the article merit no special reply. The writer attempts to be witty, but succeeds only in being abusive. Wit does not appear to be his strong point, and his attempts at it only provoke a smile at his expense. His strong point is hatred of the church. He hates her with a hatred equal to that of the wicked Jews for our Lord whom they crucified between two thieves. Her very presence annoys him; her independence enrages him; and nothing appears able to appease him but her subjection to the state, and the subjection of the state to the intolerant Protestantism of which he is a mouth-piece.

The Magazine is hard to please. It condemned, in July last, the church as our established church; we made answer that she neither is nor wishes to be the established church. It now, in December, condemns her[545] no less as the unestablished church. It blames us both for opposing and for not opposing the common schools, for agreeing and for not agreeing with our own church, and for opposing and for not opposing religious liberty. Both the church, and we, personally, must be wrong anyhow. If its specific charges against her are false, then the contrary must be true and equally charges against her. If she is not the synagogue of Satan, she is the church of God, which is just as bad. Nothing can disconcert it or prove it in the wrong, since it sees no inconsistency in urging charges that refute each other. Yet it represents and speaks for the enlightened portion of mankind!

The Magazine labors at length to prove that the church opposes, and quotes the Syllabus to prove that she must oppose, the common school system as it is; and yet sees in this fact no reason why Catholics cannot, with a good conscience, send their children to them. We are opposed to the common schools as they are, because our church condemns them; that is, because founded on what we hold to be a false principle, and hostile alike to religion and society; but if Protestants want them for themselves, they can have them; for the church legislates only for Catholics, not for non-Catholics who reject her authority. Hence, we oppose the system as a system for Catholics, not as a system intended for Protestants. We do not approve the system even for them, any more than we do their heresy and schism, which we account "deadly sins;" but if they insist on having godless schools for their children, they can have them; we cannot hinder them. The system might be modified so that we could accept it; but it depends on them so to modify it or not, for they have the power.

The Magazine withdraws its false statement as to the millions of property held in fee-simple by the five bishops in the State, but blames the law of 1863, which incorporates the church in the several New York dioceses, as securing to her advantages of which the non-Catholic religious denominations are deprived. This is a mistake. It only secures to her the rights secured to these under the general law for creating, continuing, and reviving religious societies and parishes, and which are not secured to her under that general law. That law proceeds on the assumption that in ecclesiastical organizations the parish is the unit, which is not true with regard to the church. With us the unit is the diocese, and the bishop, not the parochus, is, strictly speaking, the pastor. To proceed on the contrary supposition would be to interfere with the internal constitution and discipline of the church, and to deprive her of that control over her own temporalities which is possessed by every Protestant denomination in the State. The law objected to only secures to the church equal rights with the sects—only it does it by another method made necessary by the fact that the diocese, not the parish, in her constitution, is the unit. The law only places the church on a footing of equality, before the state, with the Protestant sects, and no friend of religious liberty can reasonably object to it. It secures the public against abuses, the application of the property held to church purposes, and the church the free management of her own temporalities.

The Magazine complains that the law is no longer equal, because it is not the same for all religious denominations. Has it never occurred to it that one and the same law for all would operate unequally, for all have not the same internal constitution?[546] The law very proper and just for Presbyterians, whose organic unit is the parish, could in no manner secure the same rights to the church, whose organic unit is the diocese. Here is precisely where Protestants usually err in their legislation, and violate the equal rights they profess to approve. They overlook the fact that the same law can bear equally only on denominations that are organized after one and the same model, and that for the state to set up a model, and outlaw all denominations that do not, or in so far as they do not conform to it, is a violation of religious liberty and of equal rights. It is practically to establish one form of church organization and deny its protection to all churches that do not see proper to adopt it. Religious liberty requires that each denomination be left free, so far as the civil power is concerned, to adopt such form of church organization in relation to its own temporalities as well as spirituals as it chooses; and the equal rights of all require the state to respect and protect each in the full possession and enjoyment of its own particular form of organization. The law must not be simply the same for the Catholic and the Congregationalist, but must be so framed as to give each the same rights; to the church, with her constitution and discipline, all the freedom and protection that it does to the Congregationalist, with his congregational organization and discipline. This is what the law of this State enacted in 1863 attempts to secure, and partially, if not wholly, succeeds in doing. The Protestant, that is, the rabid Protestant, objects to that law, not because it discriminates in favor of Catholicity, but because it gives to the church the same legal protection that it does to non-Catholic churches, and does not discriminate in favor of Protestantism as all previous legislation on the subject had done, at least in its practical operation.

We are accused, because we say the church here desires no establishment by law—for she has what is better than such establishment—of contradicting the Syllabus, and going against the supreme pontiff. We accept the Syllabus without the slightest reserve, though probably not the Magazine's sense. The Syllabus condemns those who demand the separation of church and state in the sense of the European liberals; but not us for not requiring the church to be established by law as the state church. Those liberals mean by the separation of church and state the independence of the state, and its right to pursue its own policy irrespective of the rights and interests of religion. In that sense we also condemn the separation, and are continually warring against it as political atheism. But we deny that in that sense, or in the sense of the Syllabus, we do or ever have advocated the separation of church and state. That separation does not and ought not to exist in this country. This is not an infidel, a godless country, though it may be fast becoming so; and Christianity is, as it should be, the supreme law of the land, as it is part and parcel of the Common Law. An act of the Legislature of the State or the nation forbidding Christianity or authorizing acts directly against it would be null and void from the beginning, and be treated by the courts as would be a jus muncipium in violation of the jus gentium.

The rights of Christianity are by our civil institutions recognized as paramount to all others. They are called by us the rights of man, rights which are held not from the state, but immediately from the Creator, and therefore are more properly called[547] the rights of God than the rights of man. These rights limit the rights and authority of the state; for it is bound to respect them as sacred and inviolable, and to protect and defend them for each and every person within its jurisdiction to the full extent of its power. Among these rights is the right of conscience, which, in fact, is the chief, the very basis of all our so-called natural and inalienable rights. My right of conscience is the law for the state, and prohibits it from enacting any thing that violates it. My conscience is my church, the Catholic Church; and any restriction of her freedom, or any act in violation of her rights, violates or abridges my right or freedom of conscience, which, where equal rights are recognized, the state has no right to do in my case any more than in that of any other.

My church, the Catholic Church, is, by virtue of my citizenship and my right of conscience, the law of the state so far as her own freedom is concerned, and as is necessary to protect and defend her in the free and full enjoyment of her rights. The church is free in and to the full extent of my freedom of conscience; and though I have no right to impose my conscience on another, I have the right to protest against any and every act of the state that is repugnant to it or contrary to my church. The state is just as much bound to respect, protect, and defend the Catholic Church in her faith, her constitution, her discipline, and her worship, as if she were the only religious body in the nation. Other religious bodies exist and have, not before God, but before civil society, equal rights with her; and if the state can do nothing to violate their rights of conscience, it can do nothing to violate hers, as it in fact does in its legislation in regard to marriage and divorce, both here and in nearly all European states and empires. It cannot violate the Catholic conscience in order to conform to the Protestant conscience.

Here is the way in which we understand the separation of church and state, as it exists in this country, and we feel quite sure that we do not incur the censure of the Syllabus. We have here done nothing but set forth in its true light the religious liberty recognized by our American system of government, and which forms the basis of our civil liberty. Our church is here with all her freedom, in all her integrity, by right, not merely tolerated; and by a right which is not a civil grant and revocable at will, but by the irrevocable grant of God. Her full and entire freedom is recognized by the fundamental principle of the American state, and we demand that the civil law respect and protect her freedom against all gainsayers. So much we demand on the ground of equal rights and in the name of inviolable conscience. When we go farther and ask more from the state than equality with the sects, we give Putnam's Magazine full liberty to denounce us, and to condemn us as the enemies of religious liberty.

A POLISH PATRIOTIC HYMN.

In an obscure corner of the Mazarine Library, at Paris, was lately discovered by its director or librarian in chief, Mr. Philarète Chasles, a small black prayer-book; an oblong duodecimo, gilt-edged, although printed on poor gray paper. It was in the Polish tongue, with the exception of the vesper-hymns and some canticles of the church in Latin. No catalogue chronicled its existence, and it was, evidently, a despised waif, rejected as of too little importance to be entitled to a place in the dignified alcoves.

On examination, it was found to contain the following original Latin ode—a remarkable composition in many respects, touchingly beautiful in a simplicity at once tender and vigorous, and an exquisite combination of piety and patriotism.

It was doubtless sung in the churches of Poland about the year 1740, when Europe stood aloof in silent ingratitude to those who, following Sobieski's sword, had saved her from the Turk; when England was of course indifferent to the fate of a Catholic nation; when France was without sympathy for the faithful, and her kings proved then, more than ever, that Catholicity would have been better off without their aid; when Catharine of Russia gilded her cupidity with philosophical maxims, and Frederick of Prussia, called the Great, calumniated those he robbed.

As we read the hymn, we can well imagine the crowd in front of the altar, covered with flowers, in some rude, white-walled village church. They kneel before the infant Jesus in his mother's arms. Peasants in their national costume—a long, white blouse reaching to the knee, the curved sabre in the belt—children, soldiers, women, young girls. They chant one of those peculiarly wild Slavonic rhythms in ⁶⁄₈ or ³⁄₈. There, prostrate, with clasped hands, their weeping eyes on the infant Saviour, the child Liberator, they intone these beautiful Latin strophes, a rare specimen of spontaneous and popular poetry:

Barbarous and artificial strophes, perhaps you think? Yes, measured by Lucretius and Virgil, they may be; poor, thin, leonine verses like those of the twelfth century Benedictine monk who wrote,

singing verses without prosodial measure, their vehement and rapid rhyme[549] answering for every thing. And yet this learned barbarism, borrowed from the seventh century, from a poetry in ruins, gives life to the ardent flame and the tragic sorrow it expresses. It is a deep cry of anguish from the innermost depths of a stricken people's heart.

We hear the divine and child-like victim invoked in his feebleness by a vanquished nation, and appealed to in his shivering nakedness (et friges et taces) by the oppressed in tears, and these cries form a sad though sublime harmony. The unknown ecclesiastical minstrel—for the poetry is anonymous—continues:

This people's poet and clever Latinist is liberal of his diminutives, minusculum, duriusculus, and displays, withal, a curious affectation of rhyming richness, Turcam, furcam; lectus, pectus; laudi, audi; magnus, agnus. And yet there is deep emotion and profound lyric agitation compressed into the shortest possible strophes, all vigorously concise and eloquently expressive. We omit several beautiful verses:

How admirable the popular simplicity preserved here—an infantine tenderness, a Slavonian murmur, a solemn melody resembling the moaning sigh of weeping willows, an echo of those charming Lithuanian ballads finding voice in the grand old ecclesiastical Roman idiom.

THROUGH DEVIOUS WAYS.

CHAPTER I.

I was given to psychological studies in those days; was fond of attributing vagaries of disposition and eccentricities of temper to inherited perversions, insurmountable in themselves, and consequently the misfortunes—not faults—of their possessors. At that time I firmly believed in the mysterious attraction of soul to soul; in the mutual recognition of kindred spirits, and their sympathy with each other from behind the barriers of flesh and blood. I do not say I have quite abandoned the opinion now; but there is a reservation.

I had dipped a little into German mysticism; had sifted, as I thought, all creeds to the bottom—all save one. For Catholicity and its "superstitions" I had always entertained too profound a contempt to seek to acquire a further knowledge of its doctrines than any intelligent American can learn from the well-read (?) theologians who form its antipodes, and who launch forth anathemas against Rome on high-days and holidays when other subjects weary or grow flat. I flattered myself that my acquaintance with this particular form of idolatry was quite thorough for all practical purposes; the contamination extended no further; and yet I believe my case would represent that of nine tenths of the thinking, intelligent Protestants of this peculiarly-favored and grace-illumined country.

It was—for me—the first party of the season. January had almost danced itself away, and the fashionables were beginning to anticipate Lent; but until to-night I had persistently refused all invitations from friends and acquaintances. Of the former I had very few; I had grown tired of the world, of pleasure-seeking, of myself. What wonder, when, in the great city of New York, with its hundreds of thousands of throbbing hearts, there was not one to whom in solemn truth I could hold out the right hand of friendship; not one upon whose sympathies I could anchor, should the tide of fortune turn[551] and leave me, a rich man to-day, the sport of her cruel waves to-morrow?

I prided myself on being cynical, turning out of the way of all stepping-stones that might have led to a happier existence; there was little faith in human nature in my heart, no religion in my soul.

Dissatisfied with my own aimless life, I sought no mirror in the lives of others; self-sufficient and cold, I avoided kindness and sympathetic associations. I was just at that point when satiety and disgust render the world and its attributes almost unendurable.

On the evening before mentioned, I had been introduced to young ladies by the dozen; had mentally criticised, weighed, and found wanting each one upon whom I had inflicted the bane of my company through a dance. Tired and ill-humored, I was about going forward to take leave of the hostess, when a few words spoken just behind me made me pause and look around, curious to know who the "sweet singer" might be.

It was a woman's voice, clear and sweet, and the words were, "No, thank you; I never dance the round dances."

But a surging crowd of feverish waltzers drifted by me at the moment, as the delirious strains of Strauss's Zamora floated up from the balcony, and the face I would have scanned was lost amid the throng.

As I moved off a little from the dancers, and watched cheeks flush and bright eyes grow brighter at the call of voluptuous music, I could not but wonder at the inconsistency of fate and fortune that had brought into this ultra-fashionable gathering a lady, certainly young, and probably beautiful, who "did not dance the round dances."

I passed into the adjoining room. Several of the waltzers, tired and heated, had left the crowded salon before me; here and there a stray wall-flower tried to look unconscious and happy in the midst of desolation; but my eye psychological wandered in vain up and down, seeking a face that would seem to indicate the owner of the voice heard a few moments before. At length a very young girl issued from a group that had been standing near an open window, and, as I marked the expression of her faultless mouth and soft blue eyes, I said to myself, "That is the one." But at the moment a gay young West-Pointer stepped forward to meet her, and in another instant my Madonna was whirling through the giddy maze.

"Pshaw!" I ejaculated half aloud, disappointed to find my intuitiveness at fault, and turned as I did so to encounter an old friend, not seen for some time, who entered from the conservatory in company with a lady.

Surprise and pleasure caused us momentarily to forget politeness, so that several sentences were interchanged before Armitage recollected himself, and said, "Allow me, Helen. My friend, Mr. Moray, Miss Foster." I muttered something—the young lady bowed; that was all. The couple passed on; and I am bound to confess that I did not notice the color of the lady's eyes or hair, and never once thought of her expression, psychologist as I was.

I recognized no kinship of feeling or sympathy as we stood within the circle of each other's magnetism; and yet my "destiny" had come to me, and the soul within me, that was to have risen and grown conscious at the approach, stood mute and made no sign.

After that, Fred Armitage called at my rooms several times, and succeeded in winning me away from my exclusiveness, in so much that I promised to be at his disposal for New[552] Year's day, on condition that his visits of congratulation would be few and well chosen. He laughed at my conceit, as he was pleased to call it. "I don't fancy every body any more than you do, Ed," he said; "but one must make allowances and be sociable with the world. There's a difference between friends and acquaintances. One need not have the former if one doesn't wish; but the latter are indispensable, unless you give up the amenities of civilization at once." After which remark we sallied forth.

Toward evening, and when I had vowed for the fourth time that each successive call would be my last, Fred paused before a handsome house on Fifth Avenue.

"I am not going in," I said, almost savagely, as he announced his intention of entering.

"Only here," he answered, "and I promise I'll go home with you. I must call. I should have made this one first; but I wanted to save the best morsel for the last. Come; Helen would never forgive me if I neglected her to-day."

"And what claim has the young lady on your time and affections?" I asked, somewhat more quietly than before, "you are not in love, or engaged, or any thing of that kind?"

"Ni l'un ni l'autre; it is my cousin, Helen Foster. I introduced you at Mrs. Parry's."

I had not time to say more; for the door opened at this juncture, and we were ushered into a large and elegantly furnished parlor, where sat two ladies—one old, and very charming in her old age; the other young and beautiful. Not lovely; there was nothing airy or fragile about her; but radiant, with a fresh, bright color in her cheeks that made one think of long walks taken on wintry mornings; with large brown eyes, which, while they did not fall or fear as they looked into yours, yet had a shade of reticence, almost bashfulness, in their untroubled depths; with a wealth of rippling hair, golden brown, crowning the well-poised head and defining the delicate ear; with a hand that felt warm, soft, and friendly, as mine closed over it.

"We have met before, I believe," she said, as Armitage repeated my name; then, turning to the other lady, "Mr. Moray, grandmamma, a friend of Fred's." And the dear little figure in the arm-chair rose and greeted me most kindly.

"Has there been no one here to-day, Helen?" asked Fred; "you look as though you were quite fresh, and not at all fatigued from the exchange of compliments, hand-shaking, etc."

"Oh! yes, there have been some few," she said. "But grandmamma lives entirely at home, and you know I patronize society but seldom; consequently, we have been spared the dear five hundred particular friends, and flatter ourselves we feel quite as comfortable, notwithstanding. Isn't it so, grandmamma?" And she placed her hand affectionately on the old lady's arm. As the tones of her clear, well-modulated voice reached my ear, a vision of lights and flowers and flying feet rose before me, and I almost heard the bewildering waltz-music float through the air. And then, lifting my eyes to the face of the lady before me, I recognized my rara avis of that evening—the girl of the period who did not dance round dances.

To say that I was not interested in her from the first, would be to say an untruth. Her personality affected me pleasantly, and somewhat strangely. There was a freshness and elasticity about her that did not proceed from inexperience or unacquaintance with the world; for dignity and self-possession characterized her every movement, and yet she seemed entirely[553] unconscious of any claim to originality or naturalness; because she was so natural. Our call, that was to have been so short, lengthened itself into an hour. Fred and his cousin made themselves mutually agreeable. I addressed myself to the elder lady, now and then exchanging a few words with the others.

When Fred arose to take leave, I felt no disposition to join him, and very unaccountably and inconsistently reproached him in my own mind for being in a hurry.

For the first time in many months I had felt sociably disposed, and had endeavored to make myself agreeable; and I was reluctant to leave that quiet, home-like parlor and its occupants, both so different from the brilliant, giddy butterflies within the flutter of whose wings I had been vacillating all that day. As we passed out into the still, cold night, I looked up at the quiet stars with a kindly feeling. Fred talked in an unbroken stream until we reached my rooms. Arrived there, we spent the rest of the evening smoking and chatting. I expressed myself pleased with his cousin and her grandmother, whose only grandchild and sole heiress he informed me she was. The clock struck twelve as he rose to go. After I had come back to the fire, I remember the wholly strange, almost sorrowful feeling that possessed me. Gazing into the dying embers, I dreamed a half-waking dream, wherein the ghosts of other New Years dead and gone took form and shape, and with shadowy, reproachful gestures, seemed to beckon me away, back through old scenes and hopes and yearnings—faded—buried—vanished all for ever.

CHAPTER II.

One afternoon in early spring, I happened to pass the cathedral just as service was over. I had spent the previous evening with Miss Foster—an event of not unusual occurrence now, although I never called unless when accompanied by Armitage. The current of my thoughts flowed pleasantly as the crowd of devout worshippers issued forth from their devotions. A lady passed out of the gate, and I immediately recognized the figure as that of Miss Foster. "Eccentric, certainly," I thought; "just like what I would imagine she might do. Strange that some of our most intelligent and highly educated women can fancy this attending Catholic churches."

"Have you been at vespers, Mr. Moray?" she asked, as though it were the most natural thing in the world that I should have been there.

"Yes," she rejoined, "grandmamma will be scolding me, I am afraid. I went up-stairs to lie down after dinner, having a slight headache. But once in my room, I felt as though a walk would benefit me more, so I stole out."

"A crowded church is not the best place in the world in which to get rid of the headache," I responded.

"Mine has vanished, however," was the reply. "It had quite disappeared before I reached the church."

"Do you affect Catholic ceremonies generally, Miss Foster?" I asked; "or rather do you admire Catholicism in the abstract? Or is it the incense and music and wax tapers that possess charms for you?"

"All these collectively have attractions for me," she answered; "but not in the way you imagine. You are inclined to believe, no doubt, that it is some romantic and impressionable vein in my nature that sends[554] me within the influence of Catholic ceremonies and their accessories. But we are all liable to error; and you will not be deeply wounded, I hope, if I venture to advise you of your mistake in this instance. I am a Catholic, and hold all these things as a part of my faith."

"A Catholic!" I exclaimed in undisguised astonishment. "A Catholic! Not a Roman Catholic, Miss Foster? You mean that you are one in the true sense of the term?"

"I hope I do—I think that is what I mean. I am, by the grace of God, a Roman Catholic." And it seemed to me she spoke almost maliciously, as though deliberately to wound my dearest prejudices.

"You will the more readily excuse me for my inability to realize this information," I replied, "when I tell you that until now my acquaintance with members of your church has been very limited, and that those whom I have met have always belonged to the lowest classes of society. I find it difficult to convince myself that you can profess a belief whose tenets have always appeared to me to be a web of superstition. My associates have been altogether Protestant, and my prejudices, as you would call them, very decided wherever Rome was concerned. You may think me blunt, even impertinent; but allow me at the same time to acknowledge that I feel confident there must be something good and beautiful in a religion that one of your intelligence and refinement admires and professes."

"There is something good and beautiful in all religions," she answered, "or they would not be worthy of the name—mere attempts and half promises as most of them are. But in ours all is goodness and beauty. I can pardon, even understand your prejudices; for I shared them once. I was born and educated in the Presbyterian faith; a faith hard, cold, and unconsoling. I can remember the time when I regarded Catholicity as but another form of heathenism. For your estimate of my intelligence and refinement I can only thank you—all the more as you have never had opportunity to judge correctly of either; consequently I must take the verdict for what it is worth. But here I am at home, and the lamps are lighted. How late it must be. Thank you again, and good evening."

With a little rippling laugh she left my side, and almost before I had time to answer her parting salutation, she had tripped up the steps and entered the house.

A crowd of conflicting thoughts pursued each other in my mind as I continued my walk. A consciousness that I endeavored vainly to ignore grew stronger as I reflected on what had passed, and weighed more minutely all the circumstances of our meeting and acquaintance. And with it was mingled a feeling of disappointment, almost of vexation and pain, as though I had been touched and assailed by some detested enemy.

I grew restless; nothing satisfied me. People said I looked ill. No wonder, when I sat up half the night trying to divert my mind from the study of its own problems, to those of incomprehensible German philosophy. I reasoned with what I was pleased to term my weakness. But what could I do? I had kept out of the way of temptation; I had avoided assemblies where I knew she was likely to be; twenty times I had stood upon the threshold of her home, and as often turned and retraced my steps. One night I sat alone in my room, and almost vowed to put the thought of her from my mind at once and for ever. As I mused, Armitage entered unannounced.

"Desolate and melancholy as ever," he said cheerfully, and the sound of his happy voice made me desperate. Suddenly, involuntarily, I might say, I found myself answering him,

"I am tired of being desolate and melancholy though;" then carelessly, "What if we saunter down to Miss Foster's?"

Fred was all willingness, while surprised at my change of mood. We walked leisurely along. When we reached the house, Fred remarked that the shutters were closed, and that there was some probability of the young lady being out. I said nothing, but made a solemn compact with myself while we waited. "If she is not at home," I thought, "that vow shall be registered and kept; if she is, che sera sera."

Miss Helen was at home, the servant said. She reproached me for not having called in such a length of time, and wondered if the revelation made at our last meeting had not helped to keep me away. Then turning, to her cousin she said laughingly, "Mr. Moray was horrified the other day, to hear of my being a Catholic."

"The other day?" I answered. "It is fully three months ago, and I have not yet been able to reconcile my mind to the fact."

"It is a fact though, Ed," said Armitage; "and greatly as I deplored the calamity when it happened four years ago, I must confess that Helen has changed for the better in the interval. You see, she was most irrepressible, some time since—before her conversion, as she calls it—doing every thing by fits and starts, and holding every one under the severest of despotisms; but I actually believe this little devotion she has, this habit of confessing, has toned her down and made her the rational creature we see her. That's how you account for the change, isn't it, coz?"

"Fred, you are unconscionable. Mr. Moray knows you as well as I do, no doubt, and weighs your veracity proportionately. You don't admire Shelley, Mr. Moray?" interrogatively, as I turned over the pages of a richly bound edition of that author which lay upon a little table near me.

"No; and yet I do not look at him from the same point of view as you probably would. I think he was crazy. You, I suppose, would pass a more merciless judgment."

"Let us be charitable," she said, "and hope that he was insane. But unhappily his was a species of insanity of which there are but too many instances."

After that, the talk fell upon books generally. The hours slipped by, and eleven o'clock had struck before we took leave. Before I left her that night, I had thrown down the barriers crumbling so long; I had seen and recognized a true, womanly woman, and, all unknown to her, had accepted what I knew to be the inevitable.

After this I went often to the enchanted castle. My fairy princess was nearly always accessible, but so she was to the rest of the world as well. How could I hope to be the favored knight, when her smiles were bestowed on all so generously? She was invariably kind and cordial; sometimes slightly sarcastic and critical, but never moody or sad. I often wondered from what source she drew her abundant cheerfulness, and how she managed to preserve it.

Never by word or look had I intimated my own feelings toward her; something told me to linger at the gate of paradise, content to see the roses blooming without daring to venture in. I felt that a suspicion once aroused in her mind would change our relations completely; and I had not begun to hope.

As things stood, we grew to be excellent friends. Our views differed widely on many points, but religion was the only really sensitive topic. More than once I had noticed a look of pain in her face when I startled her with some of my materialistic views, and at last we tacitly avoided the subject altogether. While I admired her beautiful simplicity and faith, I could not understand then, as I do now, how any aspersion cast upon that faith could wound her as deeply as though it sought herself, and I had never wished to take it from her. In hopeful moments, few and far between, when I had dared to think of her as my wife, the thought of her religion and the absence of it in me had, strangely enough, never intruded itself upon me. Consequently, it was from no desire to weaken or alter her convictions in any particular that I became almost involuntarily instrumental in bringing matters to a crisis.

We had been reading French together, or, to speak more correctly, I had been reading it to her, one evening of every week, with the ostensible purpose of improving my pronunciation under her tutelage; for she spoke the language beautifully.

One day an old Parisian who lodged in the house with me, and who occasionally made my sitting-room the theatre of a homily on Victor Hugo, Sainte-Beuve, and their confrères, laid upon my table a copy of Renan's "grand succès."

I promised to do so. That evening I took it with me to Miss Foster's. As I walked leisurely along, the thought struck me that my "teacher" might probably not admire the "grand succès;" but it only lingered a moment, and troubled me but little. "No harm in bringing it, any how—the style is good," I soliloquized, and rang the bell in a happier frame of mind than I had known for weeks. Fred usually joined us on French evenings, but to-night another engagement claimed him. Helen was sitting alone when I entered the parlor.

"Grandmamma has a headache this evening, and will not be down," she said apologetically.

I sat down, made a few trifling remarks, to which she responded, and then arose to bring the book we had been reading.

"Wait, I have something else to-night," I said, taking the volume from the table where I had placed it.

"Renan's book," I replied confidently. "I thought I would bring it with me. He has an excellent style—unique and polished. He is the last sensation, you know."

"I'll read and you will listen," I answered. "That is the usual arrangement, is it not?"

"I will not listen;" she replied, and I saw by the angry flush mantling her forehead that I had committed a grave error; that she misunderstood my motives and was vexed.

"Pardon me," I said. "We will not read it, if you so desire; but at the same time there can be no harm in informing one's self on opposite views from our own. This is the spirit in which I should read the book, not fearing that it would bias my mind either one way or the other. Can you not be as liberal?"

She left her seat and began fingering in a nervous way the ornaments that lay upon the mantel.

"I have no wish to hear my God and my religion railed and blasphemed at either at first or second hand,"[557] she said. "It would be none the less painful coming from the lips of one whom I had almost learned to call friend; but who has to-night in a very few words shown me my mistake. For my religion I have long been aware that you cherish an undisguised contempt; for myself I had hoped you entertained no contemptuous feeling. Surely, I have never given you reason for your action of this evening."

While she was speaking I had shaped my course. Precipitate as it might be, there was nothing left me now but a declaration of my real sentiments, unless I would forfeit her esteem for ever. Fully conscious of the disadvantages of time and circumstance as I was, and without any presumption of success, I then and there resolved to tell her the whole truth. It was but a hastening to the end.

"Stop one moment," I replied; "a word with you. You have wronged me by intimating that I purposed aught of disrespect to you or your religion by what I have unthinkingly done this evening. I could do neither; for I love you. How deeply, I, who have struggled with that love for months, alone can know; how entirely and unselfishly, you perhaps might learn, could you find it in your heart to let me show you; how vainly, my own heart tells me while I watch your face. Surprised you may be—I have no doubt you are; displeased too, but I take no blame to myself for that. An honest man dares lift his eyes to a noble woman; and whatever be my faults, and they are many; wherever lie my errors, and they are thickly sown, I still can call myself an honest man."

She moved further away from where I stood, and once or twice, while I was speaking, made a movement as though to interrupt me. As I uttered the last words, I saw her eyes flash, and a half sarcastic smile wreathe itself about her lips.

"You call yourself an honest man," she said; "an honest man! What is your code, and who the lawgiver? Is it honest to leave untilled and brier-strewn the soil that has been given you in trust for an endless harvest-time; to waste the talents that have been bestowed on you with lavish hand; to spend days and months and years in pleasant idleness, as you have done, and as you do? Is it honest to wrap yourself in a mantle of false and hollow cynicism, lest your better nature might have opportunity to assert its capacities and prove its possibilities; to scoff at all creeds and professions of religion as so many shams and superstitions, because from the nature of the life you lead your own ideal must be both hypocrisy and sham? I am only a woman, and such men as you place but little confidence in a woman's judgment and far-sightedness. But I have read you deeper than you suppose. Evening after evening, while you sat here reading, talking to me, I have been studying you. I have recognized emotions that your pride would call weaknesses; thoughts that your worldly wisdom seeks to cover with a jest or smile; great capabilities of sacrifice that your every-day exterior conceals under dilettante tastes and careless ways. I have seen that in your eye, heard that in your voice, which has made me marvel how a soul like yours could be content with husks and bitterness. For you, yourself, I could have sympathy; but I scorn the evil spirit that is in you."

I had loved her before; but as she stood there taxing me with that to the consciousness of which I was but just awakening, my love gave one great bound and seemed to sit enthroned high above sight or sound of human passion, even while, with every word she uttered, the knowledge of its vain[558] endeavor fastened itself more firmly upon me. I was about to speak, but she interrupted me, and the words came more slowly now, and more kindly.

"I may have spoken harshly," she said. "Indeed, I am sure I have. But it was of yourself with regard to yourself, and in what I said there was no thought of my own connection with the subject. As to that part of it, I can have none; but I think, however much or little a woman esteems a man, there must be something especially tender in her dealings with one who has made her the offering of his love. You will believe me, then, when I say that I am pained, deeply pained, that you should have given yours to me, or deemed its acknowledgment necessary. Words are idle and superfluous here. I can and do appreciate it; I can be, I am your friend. Forgive me if I have been harsh; in calmer moments you will come to think of me as one whose words were quick and too impulsive, but who had your interest at heart. Now let me go. Do not speak further, I beg of you; it would only pain us both."

"But a few words," I said; "a very few. You have aimed surely, and struck deep. I do not blame you for my mistake, nor for that which you term harshness. I cannot, since I recognize its truth. The difference between you and most women is, that you are brave enough to speak that truth; for you are too free from vanity or falsity of any kind, I know, ever to speak other than your earnest thoughts. I may have scoffed at creeds; I have never scoffed at God; give me at least this merit. I have dreamed a dream—we all do at some time, I believe; may yours be happy realizations always. Good-by."

With a sudden glare the firelight flashed upon the wall, and the red glow shone full upon her face, paler than usual, but calm. There were tears in her eyes as they met mine; but what woman with a woman's heart could be unmoved at such a moment?

"Good-by," she answered, almost inaudibly. I paused to hear no more; the next moment the door closed behind me, and I was in the street.

CHAPTER III.

I went abroad, through the principal cities of the old world, and by quiet ways to unpretending places, where travellers seldom go. My heart sought rest and quiet; my soul was beginning to shake off the torpor that had enchained it; taking in, almost unconsciously, silent influences that pervaded my whole being. Truths forced themselves upon me unawares, and my ears did not refuse to hear them. Across the wide Atlantic some one was praying for me, although I did not know it while she prayed—one whose face I vainly strove to banish from my memory, whose voice ran through the current of my troubled dreams. And yet it was with no hope of winning her love in the future that I opened my heart and mind to the study of sacred things. That idea never came to me. The whole purpose of my life seemed changed. How often I thought of her denunciation of my aimless existence, my "dilettante tastes and careless ways." How often I thanked her that, all unconsciously though it were, she had opened to me new avenues of thought and action. "Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all," and so the work went on. Silently but surely my heart unclosed to the heavenly dews that fell upon it and renewed it. I remained some time in France and Italy, spent a few months in Germany, and then returned to England.[559] At the feet of one of the fathers of the Oratory in London I made my first confession, and tasted the ineffable sweetness of divine compassion.

Nearly two years had passed, and the dolce non far niente life, so natural once, grew wearisome now. At home there was work for me to do; there lay my field and my mission. I did not attempt to disguise from myself the pain and renewal of old wounds that must inevitably follow my return. However, I resolved to nerve myself for the ordeal, and promised my timidity the struggle would be short, and then the world lay before me. A world in which there were great things to be learned and conquered.

I had written to Armitage once after my departure, and received an immediate answer, asking me to continue the correspondence. To his letter I had not replied, and I was almost entirely ignorant of affairs at home.

I landed in New York one bright September day, and the first feeling of strangeness vanished as I walked through the crowded streets, and recognized the familiar faces of former acquaintances. My whilom landlady received me with open arms; my old quarters had just been vacated, and I was speedily reinstalled. I had not been in town two days, when Armitage rushed in one evening, glad to see me, and brimful of news.

"Strange freak of yours that, Ed," he said. "I came around here one night by appointment; old lady met me with the information that you had sailed that day. I couldn't believe it. Went to Helen's, to see if she knew any thing about it; but she didn't. Then I felt sure the whole thing was a joke. You and she were such friends that I could not think you'd have gone off in that way, without saying good-by. That solitary letter of yours was worse than none at all; provoking in you to relapse into silence again, when a fellow thought he had got on your track. How soon do you intend to be off again?"

"Not for a while yet," I answered. "I think I shall remain at home now. By the way, how is Miss Foster?—or is she Miss Foster yet?—and her grandmother?"

"The old lady died the winter after you left New York; but Helen is living in the homestead yet. A married sister of mine is domiciled there too, at present—Laura; you've heard me speak of her. She was living in Baltimore when you were one of us. Helen is not married; not for the want of suitors though; she has refused between ten and fifty splendid offers, to my certain knowledge."

"Pas du tout—a fine one I'd be; but I guess all these things. She is an odd girl. Not too pious, although a devout Catholic, but hard to please. By the way, I am due at Helen's to-night; won't you come? You can't expect her to call on you."

I made some excuse; and Fred went off without me, promising, however, to report me "safe and sound." Although I knew that, sooner or later, I should meet her, I could not face the ordeal as yet; and preferred that, when it did take place, the meeting should be accidental.

The next week I attended a concert at the Academy of Music. Directly in front of me two seats remained unoccupied until the prima donna had made her first bow to the audience, and was preluding her song with a few prefatory trills.

I turned my eyes from the stage to meet those of a lady who passed to one of the vacant chairs; and the next moment Fred Armitage was saying, "You here, Moray? I am glad[560] we are near you. He has changed, Nellie, don't you think?" as his companion extended her hand in silence. Then, as I greeted her, a single "welcome home" fell from her lips, and that was all.

No change in her. The same pure, truthful eyes; the old-time sweetness in her voice and smile; the old-time charm about her still. As I looked at her, and heard her speak, I realized how vain had been the delusion that prompted me to seek peace and disenchantment within the sphere of her influence. Once, during a pause in the music, she asked my opinion of the singer. I must have appeared constrained and awkward; for I have a half recollection of muttering some indistinct answer. I left before the performance was over. I did not care to court misery—my present situation was deplorable enough—and I was anxious to get away from Fred's pertinacity, which I knew would assert itself if we went in company from the music-hall.

Afterward I steadily resisted all solicitations from Armitage to call at his sister's; although he often expressed a desire to introduce me. However, having met him one day in company with his brother-in-law, I promised the latter gentleman to call at his residence. Not to have done so would have made my conduct appear eccentric and ridiculous. About dusk the next evening Fred came in.

"Come to Auvergne's with me to-night," he said. "Walter has gone to Baltimore on business, and Helen with him. She intends spending the winter with some relatives there. Laura is alone, and may be we could cheer her up. I am sorry Walter and Nellie are absent; but you'll get acquainted with the best little woman in the world."

There was no help for it. The present, too, afforded the best opportunity. I went, and received a cordial welcome from Mrs. Auvergne, who was all that her brother had described her, and more.

"So this is Mr. Moray," she said, as Fred introduced me. "I have heard of you so frequently that I know you already. And Helen has sometimes mentioned you."

The evening passed pleasantly. As we were about leaving, our hostess warmly invited me to renew the visit. "Come soon, and as often as you like," she said; "we shall be always pleased to see you."

Inconsistently enough, I departed from my proposed line of conduct in so far as to accept her invitation. It was lonely sitting in my bachelor abode those long winter evenings; and, after five or six weeks' acquaintance, I had called so frequently at Mrs. Auvergne's as to feel more at home there than anywhere else in New York. I did not think much of the future, of the difficulties that must arise when another member of the family should resume her place in the circle; or, if I did, I was wise or foolish enough not to anticipate them.

Meeting Mr. Auvergne near home one evening, he brought me nolens volens in to tea. We found his wife in the parlor, with her three charming little girls, who had become great friends of mine, and who knew me under the title of "Uncle Fred's brother."

"Something for you, Laura," said Paterfamilias, as he threw a letter into her lap.

"Yes; excuse me, Mr. Moray, while I glance over it. I always give Helen's letters two or three readings. She is growing quite dissipated. 'I have been to three parties this week,' she writes; 'much against my inclination, you will imagine. But Maud and Alice lead such gay lives that[561] one is kept in a perpetual round of sight-seeing and enjoyment—as the world goes. I could never be content to live this way; and feel dubious as to whether I can find it compatible with real duties at home to remain the promised time. You reproached me before I went away with being low-spirited, Laura. Your panacea has not proved beneficial. I am, if not melancholy, not half so cheerful in my mind, as Fred would say, as when I left you. So don't be surprised to see me any morning about breakfast time. Tell the children, Cousin Helen is glad they have found a new friend; but"—here the reader paused; and, after a hurried perusal of the remainder, replaced the missive in its envelope.

"Foolish Helen!" she said, as though talking to herself; then, supper being announced, there was nothing more said on the subject.

On Christmas eve I called with some presents for the children. I had promised them to enlist Santa Claus in their favor, and waited until I thought they would be asleep to bring what toys and trinkets they had told me confidentially would be acceptable. Ushered into the parlor, I did not at first perceive in the dim light that some one was standing near the window. The noise of the door closing caused the occupant of the room to look round, and, as she did so, I recognized Miss Foster.

"Excuse me," I managed to articulate in my surprise; "I did not know you had returned, or that you were expected."

"I was not expected," she answered smilingly. "But I grew homesick as Christmas approached, and astonished them all this morning at daylight. Will you sit down, Mr. Moray?" And she drew a chair forward.

"Thank you," I replied, "not this evening. I have merely brought some trifles for the little ones. We are great friends. I have become quite at home with them during your absence."

"So Laura tells me," she answered; "and they have not been silent either. They are very lovable children."

"I have found them so," I rejoined. "I suppose they are all three dreaming of Santa Claus at this moment. But I must be going. Be kind enough to present my compliments to Mrs. Auvergne, who is probably busy this evening. And allow me to wish you a very merry Christmas."

As I ceased speaking, the parlor door opened and the mistress of the house entered, bonneted and shawled for a walk, and accompanied by Fred, who announced himself a complete wreck from a frolic in the nursery.

"Good evening, Mr. Moray," said the little lady cordially. "These for the children? Thank you; you are very kind; they will be so delighted. You see our wanderer has returned. Is she not looking well? Sit down, you must not go yet. Rather late for a lady to go shopping, is it not? But I want something down-town, and Fred has volunteered to accompany me. We shall not be absent long; you must stay till we return. You and Helen are old friends, I know, and can manage to pass an hour pleasantly together."

I fancied Helen looked at me imploringly, as though to say, "Do go away," and I ventured to remonstrate.

"I am inexorable," was the reply. "You are to remain till we come back. Fred, take his gloves; and Helen, ring for lights."

There was no withstanding such importunity. Reluctantly, but with as good grace as I could summon, I allowed myself to succumb to the[562] force of circumstances. Seeing there was no help for it, my companion in distress took some fancy knitting from a table near her, and soon appeared lost in its intricacies. For fully five minutes after the door closed on Mrs. Auvergne and her brother we sat in embarrassing silence—silence that at length grew unendurable.

"You are sitting too far from the fire," I said, by way of endeavor to mend matters; "there must be some draught from that window too."

"I prefer being near the light," she answered, without looking up; "and I am not at all cold."

Another five minutes of silence. What should I say next? Could I sit there much longer? I did not think so. I felt as though I must make a desperate move and take my leave.

Suddenly, pealing out upon the silent night, I heard the sound of bells. She heard them too, I knew, for I saw her lift her head to listen.

"The Christmas chimes," I said; "how beautifully they sound. I have heard them in Rome and Naples; last year I was in England at this season; but home music has charms peculiar to itself, and dearer than all other—at least so it seems to me."

"You believe in Christmas, then, as an institution?" she answered smilingly, and with a touch of the old sarcasm in her voice.

"Surely," I replied gravely, "since I believe in Christ. Inasmuch as a Catholic believes and reverences all that his church teaches and believes."

I looked at her face to see what effect my words would have, but it evinced no emotion of surprise. She answered quietly and assuredly, as though our ways had never been separate,

"Yes, we who are Catholics enjoy the capacity of feeling and appreciating these things as none do beside. Especially converts such as you and I, who have known the experience of doubt and fear."

"No?" she replied. "I have known it some time, having seen you several times at Mass and Benediction. I do not believe you would make the sign of the cross unless you held it to be the sign of salvation. And you do make it, I think."

"No, it did not," she answered. "I did not think the change would be accomplished so soon, but I hoped great things for you."

"Even when you accused me most bitterly?" Why tread on dangerous ground; but the words were spoken, and I could not recall them.

"You are far-sighted, I perceive. Perhaps you may also have some idea of the manner in which this change was brought about. Perhaps I may have felt, may still feel, an indebtedness to some one, to whom it has been a matter of doubt with me as to whether I should acknowledge the obligation, or suffer it to go unpaid."

"I may have an idea," she replied, "yet not just such a one as that to which you make allusion. Some one may have been instrumental in awakening thought on the subject. But I have not been able to advance the idea further."

For a moment I sat silent. "Shall I tell her what she has done for me?" I asked myself; "shall I open the old wound and let it bleed afresh? Will it be any sacrifice of my manliness if I tell her what a few moments ago I held it my duty and purpose to conceal?"

I drew my gaze from the fire and directed it toward her. The ivory[563] needle flew in and out between her slender fingers; it seemed she had a task to do. My resolve was taken. But there was not the shadow of a hope in my soul when I spoke. Something impelled me—something, I knew not what; a desperate spirit, I thought it then; my good angel, I know now.

"There is a debt and an obligation," I began, "and an acknowledgment which I am proud to make, although the fact of its existence be almost death to me. A little more than two years ago, circumstances led to the revelation of that which but for those circumstances might have been unrevealed to-day. I offered you a love that had grown in my heart until it interpenetrated every fibre of my being. You rejected it; and that you did so, or why, I find no fault or blame. The folly was mine; I alone have borne the consequences. But while you disabused my mind of any wild hope it might have cherished in moments quite as wild, you told me some unpalatable truths. Until I met you I had lived a selfish, useless life. After I met you, the germs of something better in me stirred now and then, and impulses that I more than once fought down knocked at secret doors where the dust and cobwebs of the world had gathered. Then the dénouement came, and after it the change in me."

Still knitting, the soft wool flew through her fingers faster and faster, as though she bade defiance to my moan. She did not look up as I paused, but her lips were compressed and her cheek brightly flushed.

"I went away loving you. Far away from your visible influence, the thought of you followed me through all my journeyings. I passed through new scenes and experiences loving you; I come back loving you still. I am here to-night with no intent of pleading a lost cause, with no hope of drifting from desolate seas into pleasant waters, with no dream of Lethean draughts to be taken from your hands. As in the former instance, circumstances have forced it all upon me. To-morrow I shall wonder at the folly which prompts me to say what I am saying. But to-night, before I close the book for ever, let me thank you for what you have done for me; let me leave you with the knowledge that, while I have been rash and presumptuous, I have not offended you or caused you pain."

She had risen from her chair while I was speaking. Standing for a moment irresolute, with lips half parted and eyes downcast, she made a passionate gesture with her clasped hands, as though impatient with herself.

"I do not forget," she said, "any part of what I told you that night, two years ago. I was harsh—unnecessarily so. But it all came on me so suddenly that I hardly knew what I did say. I remember there was something about misused talents and a wasted life, of what you might be and were not, of great possibilities slighted and contemned. But," here her voice faltered and the words came slowly, "I do not remember telling you then or at any other time that I did not, could not love you. Do you remember it?" Looking up, her gaze met mine half smilingly, half tearfully.

"No, I do not remember it," I said; "but you sent me away from you, and I have not forgotten that there was nothing of encouragement for the future in your dismissal of me. Can it be—dare I hope that—that—?"

Somehow two warm, soft hands were clasped in mine, and the Christmas bells pealed out a tuneful chime, now softly low, now musically clear. And then she told me what I had never even fancied in my dreams: of the love that had dwelt in her heart[564] of hearts so long; of fears that had assailed her when she grew conscious of it; of a hope in the future and its unborn possibilities that had filled her soul when she seemed most indifferent and cold; of prayers that from their fervency had been heard and answered.

"I knew you would come back to me," she said; "I knew that God would do great things for you. And even if you had not come; if some one else had taken my place, or some ambition occupied your heart, it would have been the same in the end, or nearly so. I think I could be contented to love you silently all my life long, if I knew you to be in thought and purpose what I had so longed to have you; if I felt that my prayers for you were heard and answered."

O wonderful unselfishness of woman's love! O marvellous constancy of woman's faith! How often do ye burn and die away unheeded and unprized on hollow altars!

Three short bright years have passed, and it is Christmas eve. Outside I hear a group of merry boys, battling with the bitter wind and laughing at its fierceness. Frost glitters on the window-panes and chills the air to-night; and blazing fires roar up the chimneys, pouring forth a welcome as they go. Here, in this quiet room, there is an atmosphere of peace and calm content that almost fills me with a reverential fear lest the sweet spell should float away and leave me desolate.

I can watch her all unnoticed as she sits in the deep shadow of the firelight, the angel of my hearth and home. The face is perhaps a shade more thoughtful than of old; but the bright head, golden brown, has still the same graceful poise and movement; the truthful eyes are still as kind and tender as of yore.

And as she sits there musing, I lay down my busy pen, and my full heart throbs with gratitude and thankfulness, as I think how lonely life would be without her this happy Christmas Eve.

MISCELLANY.

The Council.—It is said that the Cardinals de Reisach and Cullen, and the Archbishops Manning and Spalding, have been appointed on the commission for treating with those Protestants who may come to the council for that purpose. Bishops and priests speaking twenty-eight different languages had applied to the cardinal vicar for permission to say mass, and confessionals for confessors speaking eighteen languages are provided in St. Peter's. The great variety of complexions and costumes now to be seen in Rome excites much remark in the letters of correspondents. The Archbishop of Lima, who is ninety-four years of age, being unable to attend the council, has sent to the Pope a pastoral staff of gold valued at two thousand pounds. The students of Quito University have sent him all their gold and silver medals of honor, and the President of the Republic of Ecuador has sent a jewelled medal given him by the state as an official decoration. An Italian priest, D. Mariano Matteini, has himself designed and made a small bell for the Pope's use during the council,[565] which is a perfect gem of artistic ornamentation. It bears the appropriate inscription,

The early date of going to press forbids our giving any notice of the solemn opening of the council in the great Basilica of St. Peter, which will have taken place before this number is published. We hope to have constant and authentic communications respecting the council, directly from Rome, in our ensuing numbers.

Abjuration of the Protestant Minister of Cordova.—Don Antonio Soler, an apostate priest, who has for the past nine years officiated as Protestant pastor at Cordova, in Spain, has publicly abjured his heresy in presence of the clergy, magistrates, and a large concourse of the people of the city.

Eastern Affairs.—The Civilta Cattolica gives a very interesting account of a council of bishops of the Latin rite, in the East, held at Smyrna last Pentecost. Mgr. Spaccapietra, Latin Archbishop of Smyrna, presided as apostolic delegate; three other archbishops, five bishops, and a deputy from the Latin church at Constantinople were present. The sessions were conducted with great splendor, and attended by vast crowds, both of Catholics and schismatics. A council of the Catholic hierarchy of the Armenian rite was celebrated at the Armenian cathedral of St. Mary, in Constantinople, on the seventeenth of July. The patriarch presided, and eighteen bishops were in attendance. On this occasion a large relic of St. Gregory the Illuminator, presented by Pius IX., was brought to the church in procession, and there deposited. The splendid procession of the bishops, accompanied by a large body of the clergy, was escorted by a detachment of Turkish soldiers, and witnessed by a vast concourse of people. Solemn mass was then celebrated by the patriarch, and the council inaugurated. This was the most open and splendid display of the Christian religion which has ever been made in Constantinople since it came under Mohammedan rule. Since that time, the same church has witnessed a ceremony of equal if not greater splendor and significance, on the occasion of the visit of the Empress Eugénie. At the close of the high mass, at which the empress assisted in state, she gave an illustrious example of that piety and Christian humility so frequent among royal personages in former times, but now so rare among the great. Rising from her throne to exchange the customary marks of respect and honor with the bishops who passed before her, when the patriarch bowed to her, and was about to move on, she requested him to pause a moment; bending over, she kissed his ring, and, descending from the dais of the throne, prostrated herself before him to receive his blessing. This was done in presence of her brilliant suite of French and Turkish officers, and of the élite of the Christians of Constantinople. We trust the example of the most illustrious lady of Christendom will not be lost on Christian women in a high social position throughout the world.

It appears from the Greek papers that Nilus, the so-called Patriarch of Alexandria, whose impertinent reply to the Pope's missive of summons to the council gave so much joy to our Episcopalian neighbors, was an intruder. This monk was for a time supported in his position as designated successor to the actual patriarch, and administrator, by the viceroy. Giving out that the patriarch was ill, and had intrusted him with delegated powers, he kept him as a prisoner in his palace. He was denounced by the Patriarch of Constantinople, and at length abandoned by the viceroy, and, as says the Byzantine Telegraph, "this vainglorious monk, not being able any longer to resist the popular outcry and contempt, abandoned by the government and by his few friends, succeeded in escaping the anger of the people by leaving Egypt."

A letter from the Patriarch of Constantinople to the Archbishop of Canterbury has been published, which is a[566] masterpiece of Greek irony. With a profusion of compliments, he acknowledges the receipt of a copy of the acts of the Pan-Anglican Synod, and of the Anglican Prayer-Book, and then proceeds to condemn the latter as heretical and insulting to the Eastern Church in a manner which cannot be very palatable to those who have sought to win from him a nod of recognition.

Hindostan.—Every one who has read the accounts published in the papers of the new Hindoo sect, under the direction of Baboo Chunder Sen, called the Brahmo Somaj, must have seen the great interest and importance of this movement. The Dublin Review furnishes us with a great deal of valuable information about this matter, and the relation generally of Hindooism to Christianity in India, accompanied by most curious extracts from publications of the party of Chunder Sen, written in very nervous but peculiar English. It is surprising to see with what force and keenness these educated Hindoos pierce and destroy the inconsistent fabric of Protestantism, which they call a system of "paper revelation and second-hand religion," whose untenable position is shown by the fact that it gives twenty different interpretations of the same t book. We are most happy to learn that Bishop Meurer, S.J., the Vicar Apostolic of Bombay, is about to recommence the missionary enterprise of De Nobili, so shamefully and stupidly thwarted by the enemies of the Jesuits. He intends to found a missionary college, whose pupils will be thoroughly instructed in Brahminical and Buddhist literature, and when they are sent out on missions, will enrol themselves in one of the high castes, adopting their dress and customs. In this way the Catholic religion will be brought in contact with the educated Hindoos, who at present know it only through the misrepresentations of Protestant missionaries.

M. Lecointre on the Passage of the Red Sea.—M. Lecointre, a graduate of the Polytechnic School and chief engineer of the iron works connected with the Suez Canal, has investigated, with the assistance of M. de Lesseps, the question of the place where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, and publishes his conclusions in the Etudes Religieuses of Paris, accompanied by a map. He gives, in the first place, a résumé of the events of the march out of Egypt. Pharaoh feared an immense conspiracy under the leadership of Moses, and, as Josephus relates, formed an army of 250,000 men, which was assembled at Memphis. The events related in Exodus forced him to give the denied permission to the Israelites to go into the wilderness to sacrifice. He well knew the real intention of Moses, which was no secret, either, to the people themselves, to quit Egypt for ever. The orders for preparing to celebrate the passover on the 14th of Nisan had been given by Moses through the chiefs of tribes some days before. These orders had the effect of arranging the people in little groups under a head, as the best organization for a sudden march; for which they were well prepared by a substantial meal and the enlivening effect of a festivity. The signal of departure was probably given by signal-fires previously arranged. The march to Palestine was not expected to occupy more than twenty or twenty-five days, by a route well known and provided with water, and the flocks and herds which they took with them assured them a plentiful subsistence. The main body left from Rameses, a city where a great proportion of them dwelt, the others starting from the other places of their residence and moving toward a common rendezvous. Their first halting-place was Succoth, where they waited for those who were behind to come up; the second at Etham, on the border of the desert, from whence they expected to go directly into the desert above the Red Sea, and to take a direct route for Palestine. But Moses changed his route, brought them back along the coast of the Red Sea, and encamped in the plain of Pi-hahiroth, between Magdal and the sea, where they were surprised by Pharaoh's army in a situation which rendered flight in any direction impossible. The miraculous events which followed are well known. The point of passage[567] is placed on the twentieth parallel of latitude, which nearly bisects the larger one of the Bitter Lakes, now separated from, but formerly forming a part of the Red Sea. The events related by Moses would then probably have occurred as follows. On the night of the 15th, the nucleus of the host made a short stage from Rameses to Succoth, waiting from the morning of the 15th to the morning of the 16th for the entire host to arrive. Distance travelled, five kilometres. Distance from Succoth to the most remote points of Gessen, where the Israelites lived, forty to fifty kilometres, easily travelled in twenty-four hours. Moses and Aaron could have made the journey from Memphis on the 15th on horseback, a distance of one hundred and twelve kilometres, in ten or twelve hours. On the 16th, from Succoth to Etham, twenty-two kilometres. On the 17th, from. Etham to Pi-hahiroth, twenty to twenty-two kilometres. From the evening of the 17th to the evening of the 20th, encampment at Pi-hahiroth. The change of route at Etham is supposed to have alarmed the Egyptian commander at that post, who sends a courier on the morning of the 17th to Memphis, one hundred and twenty-four kilometres, a distance which could be passed in twelve or fifteen hours by a swift horse or dromedary. On the 18th, the army marches from Memphis in a straight line for Beelsephon, a distance of one hundred and twelve kilometres. On the morning of the 20th, the advance-guard of cavalry, after a march of forty-eight hours, arrives on the heights of Beelsephon, cutting off the retreat of the Israelites. A heavy fog separates the two armies. The Egyptian infantry comes up on the 21st. During the night of the 20th, the Israelites pass the Red Sea, whose width was from ten to twelve kilometres; they are followed by the cavalry and chariots on the morning of the 21st, who traverse five or six kilometres, when they are overwhelmed by the returning waters, the main body witnessing the catastrophe from the heights behind. The march from Memphis requires for the cavalry two stages of fifty-six kilometres and for the infantry three of thirty-eight, which the author says is within the power of fresh, well-equipped troops.

Reform Movement among the Jews.—The recent convention of Jews at Philadelphia appears to have been the work of a party bent on radical and destructive reforms. The orthodox and conservative Jews condemn it wholly. We should be very sorry to see the synagogue converted into a poor imitation of the most radical Protestant sects, and this ancient, wonderfully preserved nation blended with the mass of other peoples. The ancient and venerable observances of Judaism, and the continued distinct existence of the people descended from the patriarchs, are a palpable, living witness to the divine origin of revelation, and the inspired truth of the writings of Moses and the prophets, the basis of Christianity. The reforming Jews are the successors of those who imitated the heathen in the reign of Antiochus and of the infidel Sadducees. Their approximation to Protestantism is not an approximation to Christianity but to infidelity, and, if carried out successfully, would destroy their nation. This cannot be done, however. We believe firmly that the nation is indestructible, is destined to be restored to the possession of Palestine, and to fulfil literally the predictions of the ancient prophets in such a manner as to furnish the most splendid proof of the truth of the divine religion handed down through Sem, Abraham, Moses, the Prophets, to the Messiah to whom shall be the expectation of nations. Alieni non transibunt per Jerusalem amplius; nam in illa die stillabunt montes dulcedinem, et colles fluent lac et mel, dicit Dominus. It is the infidel party among the Jews of Europe that is leagued with infidels of Christian origin in the war on the Catholic Church. Those who adhere strictly to their law have many principles in common with Catholics. Their law of marriage with those of their own nation exclusively harmonizes with that of the Catholic Church, which forbids intermarriage with them. Their genuine and ancient ritual bears witness to the antiquity of the liturgical and ceremonial[568] idea embodied in Catholic worship. Their principle that the education of the youth should be religious is identical with ours, and we hope they will insist on the right of having separate schools and their just quota of the funds raised by taxation for purposes of education. So long as they remain in exile from their proper home, and separated from us in religion, we cannot desire any thing else than to see them adhere to their ancient customs. They do not seek to proselyte; their prosperity is therefore in no way dangerous to the Catholic Church. The more splendid their synagogues and the observance of their traditional rites, the more brilliant is the testimony they give to those facts and events in sacred history denied by infidel Jews and infidel Christians alike.

The Education Question.—The New-Englander, as the organ of the venerable Yale University, has recently contained some admirable articles on the methods of promoting the higher education. It makes war upon bogus universities, colleges, and systems with calm but resolute force. Among the sound and sensible suggestions it makes, these are some of the chief ones: (1) The preparatory schools should be improved by a more thorough and extensive course of study in the classics, and in some of the modern languages. (2) The collegiate course should be correspondingly improved, and modified, by imitating in part the tutor system of the English universities; but, by no means, changed into the loose system of misnamed universities. (3) The university should be gradually formed as a sequence of the improved collegiate system, and should consist of the college proper, together with post-graduate courses of higher studies in all the branches of science. The necessity of religious instruction is unanswerably proved, and the especial fitness of clergymen for the work of education well defended and advocated. The necessity of having every college under the religious care of some one denomination is also satisfactorily shown. We wonder that the remarkably frank and candid writer in The New-Englander does not see, however, that he has proved this necessity as a pis aller, and indirectly furnished a terrible argument against his own sect and all Protestantism. He directly acknowledges that it is necessary to have sectarian teachers; that, nevertheless, sectarianism is too narrow a thing for a liberal university, and that the teachers must suppress their sectarianism and teach in a sort of catholic spirit. This is as clear a proof as we could wish to have that Protestantism is incompetent to the function of a religious teacher, and, therefore, that a perfect university cannot exist except in the Catholic Church. We hope, at all events, that the influence of New Haven will be thrown fully and consistently against godless schools of all sorts, and in favor of the right of parents to have schools where their children can be taught the religion which they themselves profess.

The Christian World on the Rev. H. Seymour.—This organ of the anti-Catholic crusade deserts Mr. Seymour and Mr. Bacon, in their attack on Catholic morality. The November number furnishes us with the following editorial remark, the last clause of which we would especially recommend to the attention of all our opponents, the editors of The Christian World included: "The interest awakened by the present discussion of this subject leads us to print the foregoing. There is much of force in Mr. Seymour's statements and reasonings respecting the matter of homicide, even though a double or treble percentage is allowed for Protestant England. But we are constrained to say, in the interest of fair dealing, that the remaining statistics of Mr. S. respecting illegitimacy seem to us to lack the precision and discrimination essential to a conclusive argument in that direction. Moreover, the force of these statistics is, to say the least, greatly counteracted by the admitted facts respecting fœticide charged against certain Protestant communities. In conducting the issue with Romanism it is wiser to avoid every questionable position."

Dr. Bellows threatening Civil War.—The Liberal Christian is proving itself the most illiberal of all our religious journals of late. It recently violated literary courtesy by charging upon the editor of this magazine a deliberate falsehood, without any other reason than an unauthorized and incorrect conjecture that he was the author of an article published in our columns entitled, "Free Religion." In its issue for November 20th, it publishes a most arrogant and inflammatory article, by Dr. Bellows, on "Romanism and Common Schools," which is quite in the spirit of several other utterances of that gentleman, who appears to have contracted a taste for civil war that was not satiated by our late one. Whoever seeks to disturb the civic peace existing between Catholics and Protestants in this country, to rouse their angry passions, to array them against each other as hostile political factions, is the greatest enemy of his country, and deserves to be classed with the men who endeavored to fire our hotels, and those who stirred up the mobs of Charleston, Philadelphia, and New-York. Happily, Dr. Bellows's fits of ill-humor are so well understood that they make but slight impression on any one.

Caricaturing as a Fine Art.—One of our popular magazines (Harper's) has recently sought to distinguish itself in this line, and has succeeded both in its articles on Catholic questions, and in its burlesque illustrations, in producing something strictly sui generis and far exceeding, in the strict exclusion of every other element except caricature, the feebler efforts of artists less skilled in the work of distortion. We may say without exaggeration that it has attained the ne plus ultra of caricaturing as a fine art.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

The Œcumenical Council and the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff: A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy, etc. By Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 151.

We have received within the past two months five or six dissertations on the question of the infallibility of the ex cathedrâ judgments of the sovereign pontiffs and other closely connected topics, written by some of the best theologians in Europe. They handle the subject with great learning and ability, and in a manner much more satisfactory and to the point than is usually found in treatises on the same topic in our theological text-books or popular expositions of doctrine. The reason is, that the controversy has been revived and assumed a new importance since the indiction of the council, and that the advocates of what is commonly called ultramontane doctrine have applied themselves intently to seize hold of and minutely analyze and refute the objections of the opposite party, who have themselves endeavored to bring up anew all these objections with as much force as possible. Archbishop Manning has given us one of these learned dissertations in the form of a pastoral letter, which makes a considerable pamphlet, divided into four chapters. The first chapter is on the effect of the council already felt in England and France. The second is on the opportuneness of defining the infallibility of the Roman pontiff, in which he discusses (1) The reasons against the definition; (2) answers to these reasons; (3) reasons for the definition. In the third chapter he makes a concise but very copious exposition of the tradition on the subject, tracing it backward from the Council of Constance to that[570] of Chalcedon, and afterward giving a history of the Gallican controversy since the time of the Council of Constance. The fourth chapter is on the effect which the council is certain to produce on the evidence and proposition of the faith, and on the relations of civil governments to the church. A postscript is added on the recent defence of Gallican doctrine by Mgr. Maret. The most noteworthy and distinctive feature of this very learned and lucidly written document is, the manner in which the reasons why the council should issue a clear and precise definition of the true doctrine held by the church are presented. The illustrious archbishop argues with great force that an omission to make such a definition will be interpreted as a tacit permission to hold and teach the Gallican opinions as sound and safe probable opinions. There can be no doubt that his views and those of prelates in equally eminent positions who have publicly expressed themselves in equivalent terms will receive that grave consideration from the bishops of the Catholic Church in council which they merit. Undoubtedly, also, those who may hold different opinions will have the most ample liberty of arguing their side of the question. The decision of the council must be accepted by all as final and infallible; and if such a decision is rendered, the controversy will be set at rest for ever; a consummation, in our opinion, devoutly to be wished.

We will venture to add a few words of our own to the point of the argument presented by the Archbishop of Westminster. The ultramontane doctrine has been almost universally held and taught in the Catholic Church in the United States. Nevertheless, the manner of handling the Protestant controversy in many English books, some of which are translations from French authors, has been such as to create an impression that the doctrine of the infallibility of the pope in definitions of faith is merely a pious opinion. This is supported by the fact that the opposite opinion has not been formally condemned, and that those who held it have been recognized as in full communion with the Roman Church, and even raised to eminent positions in the hierarchy. This same impression has been created in other countries as well as in our own, and exists to a very great extent in the mind of the Catholic laity as well as to some extent in that of the clergy. The real facts in the case are not fully known. It is not generally known that those who have carried the Gallican opinions so far, and reduced them to practice in so consistent a manner, as to refuse implicit obedience and unreserved interior submission to the pontifical decretals, or who have appealed from papal decisions to an œcumenical council, have been condemned under censure of excommunication, that the whole church has given their assent to this judgment, and that it is a point of the canon law. The truth is, that the holy see has always regarded the Gallican opinions as erroneous, although it has judged it wisest to tolerate them thus far, and to proceed by the way of instruction and inculcation in teaching the opposite doctrine, waiting until the complete discussion of the subject by theologians and the pastoral teaching of the bishops should have brought such a flood of light on the subject that the truth should gain over the intelligence of enlightened Catholics, before pronouncing a formal and definitive judgment. There is a great danger, however, that this cautious and indulgent treatment of those who have held Gallican opinions in good faith and with a practical submission to the supreme authority of the holy see, may give an advantage to bold and indocile spirits to make the toleration of these opinions a point d'appui for a resistance to the teaching of the sovereign pontiffs ex cathedrâ, having in it a schismatical and heretical tendency. The defenders and advocates of sound doctrines are placed at a disadvantage by the lack of a definitive judgment declaring the sense of the church in such a manner as to preclude all dispute or ambiguity of interpretation. There can be no question that the holy see, and the great body of bishops, including those of France with few exceptions, hold the doctrine of the papal infallibility to be a certainly revealed truth contained in Scripture[571] and tradition, and consequently regard the contrary opinion as an error which has only been for a time tolerated. The whole action of the church is regulated by this view, and will always be so regulated. There appears, therefore, to be a very strong reason why the present council should put the whole question at rest for ever by a final decision and a definition de fide. We can answer for the clergy and laity of the United States that they will welcome such a decision with the greatest joy. As for the objection that it will place an obstacle in the way of conversions, it is groundless. Those who are solidly converted from Protestantism in this country are converted to Catholicity pure and simple, and not to Catholicity with a Gallican reservation.

The Woman who Dared. By Epes Sargent. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1870. 18mo, pp. 210.

We have every disposition in the world to treat Mr. Epes Sargent with respect, and to speak well of this his latest poem; for he has a name in the literary world, and his poem is not without some artistic merit; but, unhappily, we can do neither with a good conscience. We cannot tolerate false doctrines, mischievous sophistry, and bad morals, because expressed in chaste language and attractive verse. Mr. Sargent has poetic feeling and talent; but we do not accept the doctrine that art is necessarily moral or religious. It may be used to embellish error as well as truth, vice as well as virtue, to corrupt as well as to purify and ennoble. In the poem before us the poet has used all his art, genius, and talent to seduce his readers to swallow as a wholesome Christian beverage a most poisonous compound of spiritism, free-lovism, woman's-rightsism, rationalism, and all sorts of radicalism.

No doubt we shall be told that the poet is sincere, and that he really believes that he is chanting a great truth, and laboring in downright earnest to develop and confirm a purer and higher civilization than the world has ever yet known. It is not unlikely that Eve thought as much when, seduced by the subtle reasonings and false promises of the serpent, she reached forth her hand, plucked and ate the forbidden fruit, and gave of the same to her husband; but this did not excuse her for violating the command of God, or save her from expulsion from paradise. Men who have no infallible criterion of truth and falsehood, no infallible standard of right and wrong, have no authority from God to teach, and no right to open their mouths on any subject that seriously affects the interests or the conduct of life. No one, on the strength of his own personal conviction alone, has the right to arraign and condemn what the common sense and experience of mankind in all ages and nations have sanctioned. It is no justification, no valid excuse even, for a man who promulgates and does his best to get accepted false and mischievous doctrines—doctrines which weaken the hold of religion on the conscience, pervert the moral sense, render the family impossible, and sap the very foundation of society—to say, "I am sincere; I really believe I am laboring for a true and much needed reform." Do you know it? Do you not know that you do not know it? Do you not know that all the presumptions are against you? Uncertain as you are and must be if you ever think, why attempt to teach at all? Who compels you? Men are accountable for the thoughts and intents of the heart no less than for outward acts, and God will bring every man into judgment for every thought and word as well as for every deed. Every man is bound to conform his thoughts, words, and deeds to the law of God, and to use with all diligence his faculties to ascertain that law and what it enjoins. Invincible ignorance excuses from sin, it is true, one in that whereof one is invincibly ignorant; but an ignorance that may be overcome by due diligence and the proper use of the means within one's reach, is not invincible, but vincible, and therefore no excuse. The man or the woman that can seriously entertain the doctrine and morals of Mr. Sargent's poem cannot plead invincible ignorance; but must be[572] under a delusion never possible in the case of the pure in heart, or to any but those who take pleasure in iniquity.

We have no intention of reopening the discussion of the woman question, or that of spiritists and spiritism; the questions of divorce and free religion have also been amply discussed, at least for the present, in this magazine. We can touch here only on two questions raised by the author—that of free-love and that of the right and propriety of female wooing. The aim of the author has been to defend the woman who dared woo openly and in plain words the man she wished to be her husband and the father of her child. He contends, in the smoothest and most seductive blank-verse he is master of, that this is proper, and woman's right; and that it is only the tyranny of a barbarous custom, created by male predominance, that requires the woman to wait till she is sought. Linda Percival, the bastard daughter of a bigamist, is for him the model woman. She dares break through this custom and proposes to a very respectable young gentleman; but gets at first the mitten, and succeeds finally only by buying him up for a hundred thousand dollars in hard cash, paid down to his swindled and bankrupt father. Yet Linda is a combination of incompatible qualities, an impossible woman, a monster in nature, and her conduct is no precedent for the sex. She is a man-woman, and the last in the world that a real man could love or marry. The woman who does not instinctively shrink from soliciting a man to marry her could appreciate no argument that would prove its impropriety or the gross immorality that would result from the practice, were it once held reputable. Mr. Sargent knows well enough, without our telling him, that nature has made woman strong for defence, but weak when acting on the offensive. When she solicits a man to be her husband and "the father of her child," she steps out from her strong fortress of modesty and reserve, throws off her defensive armor, and places herself at his mercy. Resistance afterward avails nothing. She has surrendered at discretion. No training on either side can protect her virtue, secure her respect, or belief in the purity of her intentions; for no education or training can reverse nature. The practice, if adopted and become general, would degrade woman to the lowest level, put an end to marriage, extinguish the family, and with it society and the race.

Mr. Sargent, whether he intends it or not, advocates free-love as he does free religion. Love, he says, must be free, and bound by no chain but its own silken cords. The least constraint kills it. The marriage is all in the mutual love; and when that leaves, the marriage is dissolved. To compel a couple who do not mutually love to come together, or, after the love is dead, to live together, as husband and wife—we beg pardon, as wife and husband—is downright tyranny, outrageous cruelty. This is the cant of nearly all female and much of male popular literature, which relies for its tragic interest on the obstacles thrown in the way of true love by an imperious mother, a despotic father, a hard-hearted old uncle, barbarous custom, or cruel and tyrannous marriage laws. This literature, the only literature except newspapers this restless, busy age reads, has already corrupted modern society, made away with parental authority, obliterated the love and reverence of children for their parents, and rendered a happy household well-nigh impossible.

This popular doctrine mistakes the love marriage demands as well as the nature and end of marriage itself. The love it extols is at best only a romantic sentiment, which in its own nature, like all sentiments, is capricious and evanescent. It can give no security to marriage, for it can neither control the senses nor be controlled by reason. Suppose it as pure and as lofty as that of the fabled knight of chivalry for his "ladie fair," to whom he devotes his sword and worships as a distant star pure and serene in the heavens above him, it cannot survive possession, and never does and never can exist between husband and wife. The reason why love matches are so seldom happy is, that they are formed with the expectation[573] that the chivalric and romantic love of the lovers will survive in the spouses. But this is never the case, and never should be; for it is incompatible with the duties of life. The love that makes marriage blessed and is its true basis must indeed be free from coercion; but, while unconstrained by power or external force, it must be constrained by duty and subject to laws. It must be a love that it depends on one's own will to give or to withhold.

Marriage requires the free assent of the parties; and when that free assent is refused by either party, there is no marriage, and we are aware of no law of church or state that treats it as a marriage, at least of any professedly Christian state. That the assent, when once given by the parties competent and free to give or withhold it, should be held to be irrevocable, is no hardship. The parties understand and intend—nay, desire—the contract in forming it to be during their natural life, or so long as both continue to live. The nature of the contract, the purposes for which it is entered into, require that it should be indissoluble, save by death only; and this, too, even without taking into the account its sacramental character. In extreme cases the law does not oblige the parties to live together, and grants a divorce a mensa et toro; but the Christian law allows never a divorce a vinculo; for the end of marriage is not primarily nor chiefly the happiness of the husband and wife, but the preservation of purity, the founding of the family, and the rearing and training of children, on which depend the continuance of the race and the existence of society. Even if the sentimental love be wanting, with good-will on each side and a diligent study of each to perform the duties of their state, which it depends on each to have and to do, and which neither is free to neglect, the little repugnances and incompatibilities of temper may be easily got over, a solid friendship spring up, and much genuine happiness after all be enjoyed. There may not be much romance; but romance and romantic love end always with marriage, and never survive, and ought not to be expected to survive, the "honeymoon." But happily, what is better for this work-day world, duty may take its place.

Mr. Sargent is mistaken in saying in his notes that the church does not regard marriage between Protestants as indissoluble. The case he cites is not in point; for the marriage he supposes was dissolved was no valid marriage in Brazil, in consequence of the disparitas cultus, which, where the discipline of the Council of Trent is in force, is an impedimentum dirimens. So also is he mistaken in his assertion that "up to the time of Charlemagne ... concubinage and polygamy were common among Christians, and countenanced by the church." The church has never countenanced either; and if either has ever been practised by Christians, it has been only in violation of her express laws. In point of fact, at no time has either been common; but some of the Merovingian kings wished to continue, after professing to be Christians, the old practice by the pagan German princes and higher nobles of polygamy, and the church, no doubt, had great difficulty in forcing them to conform to the Christian law. But it, as concubinage, was in the eyes of the church always illicit and sinful. On this subject the law or discipline of the church has never changed. The poet is not well qualified to speak of Catholic or Christian subjects.

The Pastor and his People; or, The Word of God and the Flock of Christ. By Rev. Thomas J. Potter. Dublin: James Duffy. New-York: Catholic Publication Society. 1869. Pp. 337.

Father Potter has written this volume to give pastors some practical hints in regard to the instruction of their people. The book is really the second volume of a work published some years since, under the title of Sacred Eloquence; or, The Theory and Practice of Preaching. That work set forth the great theoretical principles of pulpit oratory; this volume reduces those principles to practice.

The contents of the volume are arranged under three general heads: Holiday Preaching, Familiar Instruction, and Delivery. In the first of these divisions we find minute instruction concerning the material that should be used in what is known as the "set sermon." Not merely for sermons that are preached on holidays though, but for every occasion on which a formal discourse is suitable. A chapter in this portion of the work is well devoted to a defence of these elaborate sermons. Not that such preaching will be the most useful or the most expedient, as a general rule; but simply this, that there are occasions on which the faithful have a right to expect a carefully prepared sermon. These are called set sermons, because they are composed in conformity with the fixed rules of oratory. They suppose a chaste and elevated style; and, more than this, they suppose even that the subject should be treated grandly. At such a time the preacher, by the dignity of his manner, forces us to recognize him as truly the "ambassador of Christ." We feel that the divine word is treated, as it deserves to be, with the same respect as the body of Christ. But it is true that sermons such as these can only be preached on rare occasions, because they are expected to accomplish extraordinary results. Their frequent repetition would destroy the very effect that they are intended to produce. The people, habituated to these stirring appeals, would cease to be moved by them, until at length it would be impossible to rouse them even by the most fervent and skilfully planned discourse.

Father Potter does not give too prominent a place to this elevated and polished form of preaching. By far the largest portion of his work is taken up with the most valuable hints regarding the familiar instruction of our people. He tells us that it has been "his unvarying purpose to throw out substantial ideas, to suggest leading thoughts, and to indicate lines of study." Nowhere is this object accomplished more completely than in the section of the work which explains the nature and excellence of "Familiar Instruction." No part of the book has pleased us more than this. Simple, clear, suggestive, and practical in its suggestions, the zealous pastor will scarcely rise from reading the chapters on the Homily, on the Commandments, on the Sacrament, and on Prayer, without feeling a renewed desire to teach these elementary though essential truths which the Catholic people of a missionary country do not know, or at least only know in an extremely vague and indefinite way.

The Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac for the United States for the Year of Our Lord 1870. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 126 Nassau St. 1869.

An almanac for the family has long been an imperious American necessity. Judging from the success of the Catholic Publication Society's Almanac for the year now drawing to an end, a Catholic almanac was much needed and greatly desired by our Catholic population throughout the United States, and that it should have met with a large sale was not surprising when we remember that, in addition to all the useful information furnished by all well-prepared almanacs, The Catholic Family Almanac provided agreeable, edifying, and instructive literary matter profusely and admirably illustrated with superior engravings.

In size, amount of matter, illustrations, and literary merit, the Catholic Almanac for 1870, just published, is a decided improvement upon its predecessor, and must receive universal approbation.

The Life of Christopher Columbus. From authentic Spanish and Italian Documents. Compiled from the French of Rosselly de Lorgnes. By I. I. Barry, M.D. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1869.

The translator or compiler of this work states in his preface that he has had to condense the matter of some pages into almost as many lines. We[575] feel compelled to add that neither history nor literature would have suffered if he had gone on condensing indefinitely, even if, in the process, the book had been compressed to the vanishing point. Rosselly de Lorgnes, a veteran writer, the author of Le Christ devant le Siècle, and other works well known in Europe, is entitled to all respect and honor for his sincere and enthusiastic vindication of the memory of Columbus, and of his claims to veneration as a man of saintly character, over and above all his other well-known merits; but his work, in two volumes of nearly six hundred pages each, independently of other objections to it, sadly wants brevity and method.

The truth is that, notwithstanding the praiseworthy efforts of M. De Lorgnes, and of various authors who have preceded and followed him in this field, the life of Columbus is yet to be written. More than that, it can only be well written in Spain and with Spanish materials. When that country has a historian who is not afraid of telling the truth about the king of Spain who was the husband of the noble Isabella of Castile, and will use without fear or favor the writings of Columbus himself—for, after all, such a great soul is his own best interpreter—we shall have a life of Columbus, and not until then.

The Improvisatore. The Two Baronesses. Romances by Hans Christian Andersen. New York: Hurd & Houghton.

These two volumes, from the fascinating pen of the great Danish novelist, we recognize as old friends in new garments, and hasten to bid them welcome.

Andersen, who charms the little ones with the beauty and naturalness of his fairy tales, is equally a favorite with children of a larger growth.

His powers of description are surpassed by few writers in any language, and the places he has visited, Rome, Naples, Vesuvius, Venice, Copenhagen, with the islands nestling about Denmark, stand before the reader in living colors, glowing with light and truth. One feels that these graphic representations are not drawn from a highly-wrought imagination, but that they are living realities. The narratives of the ascent of Vesuvius, the Infiorata, the first impressions of Venice, are wonderful samples of this power of delineation.

High-toned morals and an utter freedom from maudlin sentimentality mark both these volumes; the tales are told with vigor, and the interest sustained to the end.

The Improvisatore, who is born and passes most of his years in Italy, tells his own story, and claims, as do most of the characters introduced, to belong to the Catholic Church; but we think a true Catholic would detect the fact that the kind-hearted, genial man who wrote the tale had not the happiness of being in the faith: though there is nothing harsh or unkind, or perhaps no intentional injustice, toward the church, yet there is here and there the slight touch of sarcasm concerning what the writer supposes to be a dogma of the faith, or a hit at some local Catholic custom, which would not have come from the pen of a loyal son of our holy Mother.

The scene of The Two Baronesses is laid in Denmark, and though not so captivating as the Improvisatore, the tale is well told, and hangs on the lovely motto "that there is an invisible thread in every person's life which shows that it belongs to God."

The binding of these volumes is in excellent taste, and the print clear, doing credit to the Riverside press.

These stories and parables commend themselves to the reader by their quaintness and brevity. The excellent moral which forms the essential part of many of them could hardly be presented in a more pleasing manner. The explanations given by the author are, in general, satisfactory. This book should be in in every Catholic household in the country.

Through Night to Light: A Novel. By Friedrich Spielhagen. New York: Leypoldt & Holt.

Were one of our first American novelists to put forth such a story as the above, it would be hissed by the voice of public opinion; but it seems we may receive from the German, and call poetic, ideal, and spirituelle, what would be considered coarse and immoral even in a penny journal.

We will give a specimen of the author's philosophy. Speaking of a married woman who had been in more cases than one unfaithful to her marriage relations, the author says,

To the corrupting influence of this style of literature we owe such scenes as the one which recently in this city shocked the public mind. The title of this book is a misnomer. It should be, not Through Night to Light, but Through Light to Night.

The Two Cottages. Showing how many more families may be comfortable and happy than are so. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1870.

Of this simple story of humble life we cannot speak too highly. It is as valuable for its suggestions as it is truthful in its delineations.

Mary and Mi-ka: A Tale of the Holy Childhood. With an account of the Institution. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1870.

This little volume, dedicated to the members of the Holy Childhood in the United States, will, no doubt, give increased publicity to that most admirable institution, and hence increase materially its sphere of usefulness. Full details of its aim, origin, and progress are given in the appendix, to which we would particularly direct attention.

The Lost Rosary; or, Our Irish Girls: Their Trials, Temptations, and Triumphs. By Con O'Leary. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1870.

The title of this volume is somewhat suggestive of its contents. In it the author graphically describes the various dangers and temptations to which the recently-arrived female emigrant is exposed, and also pays a well-merited tribute to the many virtues that distinguish the vast majority of Irish girls in America; virtues to which, in the face of many troubles and vexations, they have so heroically adhered.

The Life of Blessed Margaret Mary, (Alacoque.) With some Account of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart. By the Rev. George Tickell, S.J. London: Burns & Co. (For sale by the Catholic Publication Society.)

This life of a remarkable person, the chief instrument of establishing that devotion to the Sacred Heart so dear to all devout Catholics, which was one of the most efficacious weapons against the odious heresy of Jansenism, is much superior to any heretofore published. We are glad to see certain extravagant statements concerning the treatment of the saint in the convents of her order, which were discreditable to them and likely to give scandal, entirely discredited by the author of the present life. He is not only a copious and devout biographer; but what is equally important and less frequent, a judicious one. The book is published in elegant style, and we cordially recommend it to all our readers.

THE FUTURE OF PROTESTANTISM AND CATHOLICITY.[144]

The Abbé Martin divides his treatise into nine books, each of which he subdivides into several chapters. In the first book he labors to prove that Protestantism is imperishable; in the second, he discusses the Protestant revival and its effects; in the third, he treats of the Protestant propaganda, or Protestant missions and their results; in the fourth, of the wealth and well-being of Protestant as compared with Catholic nations; in the fifth, of Catholic and Protestant tolerance and intolerance; in the sixth, of liberty and its influence on the future of Protestantism; in the seventh, of religious liberty in its relations with Protestantism; in the eighth, of the decline of Catholic nations and governments, and the progressive march of Protestant nations and governments; and in the ninth and last, of the union or alliance of Protestantism with the revolution, or the revolutionary spirit so active in nearly all modern society.

In our former article we reviewed the subjects treated in the first, second, and part of the third books, and reserved for our present article two of the three causes the author assigns for the partial success of Protestant missions in old Catholic nations, namely, the prestige which Protestant nations enjoy of surpassing Catholic nations in wealth and well-being, and of having founded and sustained civil and religious liberty. But these two causes, though treated by the author in his third book, really embrace the subject of the remaining six books. We cannot say that the author has so digested and arranged his ample materials as to avoid repetitions, or so as to bring all that belongs to the same topic under one head; but treats it partly under one head and partly under another. A glance at the titles of the last six books will satisfy the reader as well as the reviewer, that the subjects treated fall under two general heads. First, civil and religious liberty; second, the comparative wealth and well-being of Catholic and Protestant nations; and under these two heads we shall arrange our summary of the[578] views of the author, and our own comments. We begin with the last.

I. The author assigns, as we have seen, as one of the causes of the success of Protestant missions in old Catholic nations, the prestige which Protestant nations enjoy of surpassing Catholic nations in material wealth and well-being. That this prestige attaches to Protestant nations is a fact not to be disputed; but is it well founded? The author seems to concede that it is, and maintains that "there is in Protestant nations and Protestant individuals a superior aptitude and a greater eagerness and tenacity in the pursuit and acquisition of the goods of this world" than there is in Catholic nations and individuals.

We are not prepared to make quite so large concessions. Protestants do not monopolize all the pleasant, rich, and fertile spots of the earth. The fact may be true of Switzerland, but it is not true of the Italian peninsula nor of the Iberian, in which are the richest and most fertile districts of Europe; nor, in point of climate, soil, and productions, does Protestant Germany surpass Catholic Germany. The preëstablished harmony alleged has no foundation in fact, and we have heard the contrary more than once maintained by well-informed Catholic prelates. Nor are we prepared to concede that, if you speak of the whole population, there is more comfort and well-being in Protestant than in Catholic nations. The peasantry of Italy, before the late political changes, had as much comfort and well-being as the peasantry of Denmark, Sweden, or Norway, or even Great Britain and Holland, and the peasantry of Austria proper are in the same respects better off than those of Prussia or Hanover. In no countries in the world is there to be found such squalid wretchedness as in those under the British crown, and governed by the head of the Protestant church. There may be more wealth in Great Britain than in France, but there is also more and far deeper poverty. France, by a war with all[579] Europe, was prostrated in 1815; her capital was held by foreign invaders, and she was forced to pay millions by way of indemnification to the invaders, and to support an allied army cantoned on her territory to compel her to keep the peace; and yet she met her extraordinary expenses, greatly reduced her national debt, reasserted her freedom of action and her position as a great European power, and extended her territory by the conquest of Algiers, in less than fifteen years, under the restoration and under a Catholic government. No nation under a Protestant government can be named that has ever carried so heavy a burden so easily, or done so much in so short a time to lighten it. We have seen nothing like it in England, the model Protestant nation. Since 1830, France has ceased to be a Catholic nation, under a Catholic government, and has to a great extent adopted the British industrial and commercial system. She has shown nothing since of that marvellous recuperative energy she showed under the Bourbons. She is burdened now with a constantly increasing national debt, her people are taxed for national and municipal expenses to the last cent they can bear, and there can be no doubt that she is relatively poorer and weaker to-day than she was during the last years of the Restoration.

Our experience in this country does not warrant the concessions of the author. Placed side by side and in equal conditions with Protestants, Catholics have shown themselves in no sense inferior to Protestants in their aptitude to get on in the world. Their progress here in wealth, in comfort, and ease has been relatively greater than that of the older Protestant population; for they started from an inferior worldly position, and with far inferior means. To be convinced of it, we need but look at the schools and colleges they have founded, at the costly and splendid churches they have erected, and at the large sums they have contributed for the support of Catholic charities and their friends in Ireland and other countries, from which the majority of them have emigrated. With an intense Protestant prejudice against them, they have, in a very few years, risen in the social scale, gained a respectable standing in the American community, carried away the first prizes in law and medicine, and secured their full share of public offices both civil and military.

The United States have proved themselves too powerful for the Mexicans, we concede, and they well might do so, with vastly greater resources and a population three times as large. The Mexicans are only about one in nine of pure Spanish blood; the rest are pure-blooded Indians, or a mixed race of whites and Indians, and of Indians and negroes. Yet if our officers who served in the Mexican war may be believed, braver, hardier, more enduring or energetic soldiers than the Mexicans cannot easily be found. The feebleness of Mexico is not due to her Catholicity, but to her lack of it; to her mad attempts to establish and maintain a republican form of government, for which her previous training, manners, and habits wholly unfitted her. Had she, on gaining her independence of Spain, established monarchical institutions, and not been influenced by our example and intrigues, and the insane theories of European revolutionists, she would not have fallen below her non-Catholic neighbor. No Protestant people surpass in bravery, boldness, enterprise, energy, national or individual, the Spaniards of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and they were far better Catholics[580] then than they or Spanish-Americans are now.

There is an important fact too often lost sight of in discussing the alleged superior aptitude of Protestants in relation to this world. We find nowhere braver soldiers, bolder sailors, more enterprising merchants, or more ingenious workmen than were the Venetians, the Genoese, the Florentines, and the Portuguese when in their best estate. A Portuguese sailor opened the way by the Cape of Good Hope to India; a Genoese discovered this western continent, which bears an Italian name; an Italian, also, was the discoverer of this northern half of the American continent; and it was a Catholic sovereign who aided the Anglo-American colonies to assert their independence. Yet Portugal, Venice, Genoa, Florence, when they were greatest, were Catholic, and their decline in later times is not owing to their Catholicity; for they were Catholic all the time that they were rising from their feeble beginnings, and at the period of their greatest power and splendor, more bigotedly so, as our liberals would say, than they are now; and what did not hinder their rise and growth could not be the cause of their decline. They have declined through other causes, and causes well known to the student of the rise and fall of nations.

It is, no doubt, true that in France, Belgium, and Italy, and perhaps in other old Catholic states, Catholics, even where they are the immense majority, permit the public offices to be filled, and themselves to be ruled by Protestants, Jews, infidels, and such secularized Catholics as hold the state should govern the church; and we have often felt not a little indignant to find it so; but modern society in all Catholic states recedes from the old aristocratic constitution of Europe, and tends to democracy; and democracy, as our American experience proves, elevates to power not the best men in the community, but often the worst, the least scrupulous, the most intriguing, selfish, and ambitious. The fact may also be explained by the false political education which the Catholic populations have received. Under Gallicanism they are not instructed to regard Catholicity as catholic, and are taught to look upon politics as exempted from the law of God as defined by the church. For them religion and politics are wholly disconnected, have no necessary relation one to the other, rest not on a common principle. Their political education relegates religion to private and domestic life, to the personal and domestic virtues, and has nothing to say in public affairs. Why then should not Protestants, Jews, infidels, or merely nominal Catholics, fill the public offices, and take the management of public affairs?

The French, and other Catholics, who see and deplore this, having received the same sort of education, make the evil worse by laboring not to bring politics up to Catholicity, but to bring the church down to the level of politics, thus lowering the one without elevating the other. They assume an attitude toward the government of distrust, if not of hostility, and exert their influence to Jacobinize the church instead of destroying her, as the revolution would do if it could. Practically, they are only Catholic instead of infidel Jacobins; and whatever their personal hopes and intentions, simply play into the hands of the revolution. It is not the church that needs liberalizing, but the state that needs Catholicizing. The evil, the political imbecility of Catholics in these old Catholic nations, results from the divorce of politics from religion, or the withdrawal of the political order[581] from its proper subordination and subserviency to the spiritual. It is the fruit of the so-called "Gallican liberties," and the remedy is not in the alliance of the church either with democracy or with monarchy, with Jacobinism or with absolutism; but in bringing the faithful to understand that the Catholic religion is catholic, and has the right from God to govern them alike in their public relations and in their private and personal relations; in their public and official life, and in their private and domestic life.

In all these old nations the predominant religion is Christian, but the politics are pagan; and Protestants take the lead in political affairs because they have succeeded in paganizing their own religion, and in eliminating all antagonism between it and their politics; while the Catholics are politically inefficient because, owing to the paganism of the state, they have not been able to Christianize their politics and bring them into harmony with their religion. They themselves sympathize politically with Protestants, but are less efficient than they, because more or less restrained by their religion. Eliminate, by Christianizing politics, all antagonism between politics and religion, which now renders Catholics politically indifferent or imbecile, and enable them to act with a united instead of a divided mind, and they will show even a greater aptitude for the affairs of this world than Protestants, because they will act from a higher plane, from profounder and more luminous principles, and with the energy and tenacity of an ever-present and living faith, instead of interest or expediency. But how can they do so when politics in every state in Europe are divorced from Catholic principle, are pagan, and at war with Christianity, and to take part in them they must sacrifice their religion and give up heaven for earth?

It is not Catholicity that renders the Catholics of old Catholic nations politically imbecile, and that permits a miserable minority of Protestants, Jews, and infidels to control the state, but the lack of it; not the fact that they are, but that they are not, thoroughly Catholic. It is the paganism that rules in the state, and is the basis of modern politics, that renders them timid and inefficient. In all Protestant nations religion itself is paganized, and there is as little conflict between religion and politics as there was in old pagan Greece or Rome. They are torn, distracted, weakened by no internal conflict between the two powers; for the first act of the Reformation was to subject the spiritual order to the secular. Hence, they can act politically with undivided mind and undivided strength and energy. They have conformed their religion to their politics. But in all Catholic nations the governments, and, therefore, politics are pagan, and really, if not avowedly, at war with their religion that remains Christian. Those nations are therefore distracted, divided, weakened by the irrepressible antagonism between pagan politics supported by the secular authorities, and the Christian religion sustained only by the church, crippled by being denied her freedom.

It is easy now to understand why Protestant missions in old Catholic nations should not be wholly barren of results. They are backed by the whole weight of Protestant nations, governments and people; they are aided by the real sympathies and tendencies of the so-called Catholic governments and the pagan politics of Catholics themselves. What is surprising is, that their successes are no greater. It is no mean proof of the life and power of the church, and of her[582] divine assistance, that she is able to retain so strong a hold as she does on so large a portion of the old Catholic populations, and to bear up against so many and such powerful enemies, enemies within as well as without the fortress.

The explanation offered by the author of the facts he concedes does not wholly satisfy us. He attributes them to the influence of the Catholic faith in inducing a renunciation of the world, producing in the minds and hearts of the faithful indifference to it, and a disposition to live only for piety and heaven.

That Catholicity has, and was designed to have this tendency, of course, we ourselves maintain; but we have studied the Gospel and Providence as manifested in human affairs to little effect if the renunciation of the world for Christ's sake is not the very way to secure it. They who give up all for Christ have even in this world the promise of a hundred-fold, and in the world to come life everlasting. "Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you." The true principle, both of political and domestic economy, is self-denial, renunciation. He who seeks the world and lives for it, shall lose it, since in so doing he violates the divine order, and takes as his end what at best is only a means. Other things being equal, then, we should expect a truly Catholic people to surpass in wealth and well-being, as in industry and virtue, a heathen, an infidel, or a Protestant people. Certainly, the inferiority of Catholic nations in material wealth and well-being is no argument against Catholicity; but it is, in our judgment, a proof that its government and people are not truly Catholic. We do not admit, to the extent the author does, the alleged superiority of Protestant nations, even as to the material goods of this life; but as far as they can claim any superiority over Catholic nations in this respect, we attribute it to what we have called paganism in politics, or to the fact that in no Catholic nation since the revival of pagan literature in the fifteenth century have politics been elevated to the Catholic standard and made to harmonize with the Christian religion.

The author concedes, also, that, during the last century and the present, Catholic nations have been steadily declining, and Protestant nations advancing. At the opening of the seventeenth century, the Catholic were the great and leading nations of the world. Italy, it is true, had begun to decline; Spain had attained its zenith; but the German empire was still the first power in Europe. France was succeeding to the rank of Spain, and Poland was regarded as the barrier of Catholicity against the North and the East, while England was weakened by revolution at home. Prussia was only a principality, though soon to become a kingdom, and the United States did not exist. At present, England is the undisputed mistress of the ocean, is a great Asiatic and a great American power, weighing heavily on continental Europe; Prussia is absorbing all Germany. The United States have the mastership of the new world, and are exerting a terrible pressure on the old; while, on the other hand, Portugal has become virtually a colony of England; Spain has lost a world, ceased to be a great power, and is worse than nothing to the Catholic cause; Poland is divided among her neighbors, and annihilated; Austria is expelled from Germany, and threatened with the fate of Poland; Italy, at war with the pope, throws her weight on the side of the Protestant nations. Russia and the new Greek empire that is to be are not Protestant; but, as schismatic[583] powers, will sustain the Protestant policy as against Catholicity. France, if she has not declined, has abandoned her mission as a great Catholic power, and is as little to be counted on to resist Anglo-Saxon ascendency as Russia or the revived Greek empire.

The excellent abbé, however, admonishes us that this decline on the one side, and growth and preponderance on the other, is political, not religious; and indicates no decline in Catholicity, or progress of Protestantism. The Latin races, except in France, have declined; but the church has gained more members than she has lost. Only the Anglo-Saxon race, the bulwark of Protestantism, has advanced. Denmark, Sweden, and Holland, considerable Protestant powers at the opening of the seventeenth century, have lost their political importance. Holland is half Catholic, and the Dutch Catholics are not less devoted to the church, less tenacious of their rights, nor less politically active and energetic than the Catholics of Ireland, and even less distracted by questions of national relief or national independence.

One third of the population of Prussia is Catholic, and a larger proportion will be if she, as is likely, absorbs Southern Germany. Not much reliance is to be placed on Prussia as a Protestant power. The future belongs to the Anglo-Saxon race—England and the United States—to be disputed only by schismatic Russia and the new schismatic Greek empire in the process of formation. This relieves the gloom of the picture a little.

But while we agree with the author that Britain and our own country are the principal supports of Protestantism and of Protestant politics, unless we except France, usually reckoned as a Catholic power, we do not believe that even the United States and Britain, acting in concert, are so formidable, in an anti-Catholic sense, as he represents them. The British crown has more Catholic than Protestant subjects, and its Catholic subjects are for the most part enfranchised, and beginning to exert a powerful and constantly increasing influence on the policy of the government. England is obliged to count with Ireland, not only as to Irish interests in Ireland, but, to some extent, as to Catholic interests throughout the empire. The Catholic population in the United States is rapidly growing in numbers, education, wealth, and influence, and is already too large to be oppressed with impunity, and large enough, when not misled by foreign passions and interests, to prevent the government from adopting a decidedly anti-Catholic policy either at home or abroad. Were the United States even to absorb the Catholic states on this continent, it would be advantageous, not detrimental, to Catholic interests. Mexican and Cuban, as well as Central and South American Catholics would gain much by being annexed to the Union, and brought under the direct action of the ecclesiastical authority, as are the Catholics of the United States. We see nothing reassuring, we own, to the so-called Latin races in the growth and preponderance of the Anglo-Saxon nations, but not much that is promising to Protestantism; for we cannot believe that Christianity has failed, or that the future of society belongs to paganism.

The abbé does not attribute the decline of the Latin races to any religious cause, but finds its explanation—1. In the law of growth and decay, to which nations as individuals are subjected; 2. In climate—the southern climate tends to soften and enervate, the northern to harden and[584] invigorate; 3. In geographical position; 4. In difference of temperaments; 5. Political constitutions; and 6. In accidental or providential causes, not to be foreseen and guarded against—the presence or absence of a great man, the defeat of a well-devised, or the success of a blundering policy, the gain of a battle that should have been lost, or the loss of a battle that should have been gained, etc. (Pp. 497-508.)

Most of these causes we examined and disposed of, some time ago, in a review of Professor Draper's works. The first and second we do not count. We do not believe that nations, like individuals, are subject to the law of growth, maturity, old age, and death. There are no facts or analogies from which such a law can be adduced, and a Catholic nation, if truly Catholic, has in its religion a fountain of perennial youth. Whatever disasters befall a Catholic nation, if not absorbed by another, it has always in itself a recuperative power. We believe just as little in the influence of climate as one of the causes of the decline of the Latin nations. The climate under which they have declined is the same under which they grew up and became the preponderating races. The extreme heat within the tropics is less unfavorable to mind or body than the extreme cold of the Arctic regions. The Latin races have lived both in their growth and in their decline under the finest, mildest, and healthiest climate within the temperate zone. The ablest men, as scholars, artists, statesmen, and generals, of France have belonged to her southern departments; and we found in our recent civil war that the men from the extreme Southern States, in their physical qualities, bravery, activity and vigor of body, and power of endurance, were not at all inferior to the men of the more Northern States. In fact, they could bear more fatigue, and suffer more privations, with less demoralization than the Northern man. We make just as little account of difference of temperament. The southern nations, with the same temperament, were once the preponderating nations of Europe, and the French are in no respect inferior to the English, and in many things superior. Spain in the sixteenth century not only surpassed what England then was, but even what she now is; and there was a time when it was said of Portugal, the sun never sets on her empire. We do not believe much in differences of race; for God hath made all nations of one blood.

Geographical position counts for something. The nations that have ports only on the Mediterranean, or access to the ocean only through that sea, have been unfavorably affected by the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, and of this western continent in the fifteenth century. These maritime discoveries, which have changed the routes of commerce as well as the character of commerce itself, have given the advantage to the nations that open on the Atlantic, and sufficiently account for the decline of the Italian republics. The canal across the Isthmus of Suez, just opened, will do something, no doubt, to revive the commerce of the Mediterranean, but cannot restore it, because the Indian trade is not now of the same relative importance that it was formerly. The American trade comes in for its share, rivals and even exceeds it, and this trade, whether a ship-canal be or be not opened across the Isthmus of Darien, will be chiefly in the hands of the United States and the western nations of Europe, for their geographical position enables them to command[585] it. The insular position of Great Britain has also given her some advantages.

Political constitutions also count for something; but in the beginning of the seventeenth century, the political constitutions of the several European states, except the Italian republics, the Swiss Cantons, and the United Netherlands, were essentially the same, that is, Roman monarchy engrafted on feudalism. Monarchy was as absolute in England under the Tudors and the Stuarts as it ever was in France or Spain, and the other estates counted for no more in her than in them. The Protestant states of Germany were not more popular in their constitution than the Catholic states, and Austria has never been so despotic as Prussia. We cannot, however, attribute much to this cause; for why have the Latin states been less successful in developing and ameliorating their political constitution than the Anglo-Saxon, if we assume that they have not been?

The accidental or providential causes, in the author's sense, being measurable by no rule and subject to no known law, cannot be very well discussed, and we are not inclined to attach much importance to them. A nation is already declining, or passed its zenith, if the loss of a single battle can ruin it; and on its ascending course, if the winning of one can secure it a permanent ascendency. Napoleon won many important battles, and yet he died a prisoner on the barren rock of St. Helena. A victory by Pompey at Pharsalia, or by Brutus and Cassius at Philippi, could not have restored the patrician republic or changed the fate of Rome. The republic was lost before Cæsar crossed the Rubicon. Great men play an important part, no doubt; but a nation that can be saved by the presence of a great man is in no serious danger, or that could be lost by his absence cannot be saved by his presence. Individuals count for less than hero-worshippers commonly imagine. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.

Except in the loss of the commercial supremacy of the Italian republics by the maritime discoveries of the fifteenth century, we regard, though not in the sense of Protestants, the chief causes of the decline of the Latin nations as religious, and the ascendency of Protestant nations as, in the main, the counterpart of the decline of Catholic nations. The Catholic nations have declined, not because they have been Catholic, but because they and their governments have not been truly Catholic. Something, indeed, is due to the fact that England completed her revolution a hundred years before that of the Latin nations began. She had passed through her principal internal struggles, established the basis of her constitution, settled her dynasty, and was in a position when the Latin revolutions broke out to turn them to her own advantage. She used the madness of French Jacobinism, and the o'er-vaulting ambition of the first Napoleon. Being earlier too, the English revolution was less democratic than that of the Latin nations, and did not so essentially weaken the nation by eliminating the aristocratic element. England is only just now entering upon the fearful struggle between aristocracy and democracy, and it is very possible that she will lose her ascendency before she gets through it. Still we find the principal cause of the deterioration of Catholic nations connected, at least, with religion.

Both the nations that became Protestant and those that remained Catholic were affected by the revival of Greek and Roman paganism in the fifteenth century. The northern nations, adopting it in politics, speedily[586] conformed their religion to it, subjected the spiritual to the secular, abandoned the church, made themselves Protestant, and harmonized their interior national life. The southern nations adhered to the church, for there were in them too many enlightened, earnest-minded, and devout Catholics to permit them to break wholly with the successor of Peter; but their governments, statesmen, and scholars, artists and upper classes, adopted pagan politics, literature, art, and manners, and thus created an antagonism between their religion and their whole secular life, which greatly impaired the influence of the church, and led to a fearful corruption of politics, manners, and morals. The cause of the deterioration of these nations is precisely in this antagonism, intensified by the so-called Renaissance, and which has continued, down to the present time, and will, most likely, continue yet longer.

The Council of Trent did something to check the evil, but could not eradicate it; for its cause was not in the church, nor in the abuses of ecclesiastical discipline or administration, but in the secular order, in which the secular powers would suffer no radical reforms either in facts or principles. They were willing the church should reform her own administration, but would not conform their own to the principles of which she was the appointed guardian. They would protect her against heretical powers; but only on their own terms, and only so far as she would consent to be made or they could use her as an instrument of their ambition. Charles V. would protect her only so far as he could without losing in his military projects the support of the Protestant princes of the empire; and when he wished to force the pope to his terms, he let loose his fanatical troops under the Constable Bourbon against Rome, who imprisoned him and spoiled and sacked the city for nine months; Philip II. would also serve the church and make a war of extermination on heretics in the Low Countries, but only in the hope of using her as an instrument in attaining to the universal monarchy at which he aimed. Louis XIV., and after him Napoleon I., attempted the same. They all thought they could use her to further their own ambition; but they failed—and failed miserably, shamefully. He to whom it belongs to give victory or defeat, who demands disinterested services, and who will not suffer his church to be used as an instrument of earthly ambition, touched them with his finger, and their strength failed, they withered as grass, and all their plans miscarried. It was better that her avowed enemies should triumph for a season than that she should be enslaved by her protectors, or smothered in the embraces of her friends. God is a jealous God, and his glory he will not give to another.

Here we see the cause. Paganism in the state corrupted the sovereigns, their courts, and the ruling classes in morals and manners, enfeebled character, debased society, in the Catholic states. The failure, through divine Providence, of the ambitious and selfish schemes of such professedly Catholic sovereigns as Philip II., Louis XIV., and Napoleon I., reduced the Latin races to the low estate in which we now find them, and gave, in the political, commercial, and industrial order, the ascendency to Protestant nations, as a chastisement to both, and a lesson to Catholics from which it is to be hoped they will profit. If the Catholic nations had been truly Catholic, if the educated and ruling classes had recognized and defended the church steadily from the first on Catholic principles, and unflinchingly[587] maintained her freedom and independence as the kingdom of God on earth, representing him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, these nations would have retained their preponderance, the church would have reformed the morals and manners of society, and the Protestant nations would never have existed, or would have speedily returned to the fold.

Yet we do not despair of these Latin races; for, though their governments have betrayed the faith, and the people have been alienated from the church by attributing to her the political faults of their rulers, from which she and they alike have suffered, they still retain Catholic tradition, and have in them large numbers of men and women, more than enough to have saved the cities of the plain, who are true believers, and who know and practise in sincerity and earnestness their faith. They have still a recuperative energy, and may yet re-ascend the scale they have descended. The present emperor of the French believed it possible, and his mission to recover the Latin races. He attempted it, and his plan, to human wisdom, seemed well devised and practicable. It was to break the alliance between England and Russia; to create an independent, confederated, or united Italy; to divide the Anglo-Saxon race in the United States, and to raise up and consolidate a Latin power in Mexico and Central America, while he extended the French power in North Africa, defeated English and Russian diplomatic preponderance in the East, opened a maritime canal across the Isthmus of Suez, and recovered the commerce of India for the Mediterranean powers. By these means he would give to France the protectorate of the Latin races, and guard alike against Anglo-Saxon and Russian preponderance. But his plan made no account, or a false account, of the moral and religious causes of the decline of Latin races, and sought to elevate them not as truly Catholic but as temporal powers, and to use the church for a secular end, instead of using the secular power he possessed for a spiritual and Catholic end. He committed over again the error of his uncle, Louis XIV., and Philip II., and has failed, as he might have foreseen if he had understood that the church must be served, if at all, for herself, and that she serves the secular only when the secular serves her for her own sake.

The result of Napoleon's policy has been not to elevate the Latin races and to bring them to gravitate around France as the great central Latin power, but to weaken the power of the church over them, to strengthen the antagonism between their faith and their politics, and to depress them still more in relation to the Teutonic and Slavonic races. The emperor of the French, whether he had or had not Catholic interests at heart, has done them great injury. He began by subordinating the spiritual to the secular, when he should have begun by subordinating the secular to the spiritual. He would then have secured the divine protection and assistance, and been invincible. He has, in reality, only defeated the end he aimed at, and left the Latin races in a more deplorable condition than that in which he found them. As a Catholic and as a Latin sovereign, he has not been a success. The Protestant and schismatical powers have grown only by the faults and blunders, the want of submission and fidelity of the professedly Catholic powers; not by any means, as they suppose, by the errors and abuses of the ecclesiastical administration, nor by any positive virtue, even for this world, in their heresy and schism. God, as we have just said, is a jealous God, and[588] his glory he will not give to another. The Latin races, so called, when in power sought not his glory but their own, and failed. But they may yet recover their former power and splendor, if not their commercial preponderance, by rejecting the subtle paganism which has enervated them, the infidel politics they have adopted; by restoring to the church her full freedom and independence as the spiritual order, and by subordinating the secular to the spiritual order; that is, by making themselves really and truly Catholic.

In France there was, at an early day, an attempt made to reconcile paganism in politics with Catholicity in religion, in what is called Gallicanism, which, however, only served to systematize the antagonism between church and state, and to render it all the more destructive to both. We look upon Gallicanism, as expressed in the four articles adopted at the dictation of the government by the assembly of the French clergy in 1682, and which had shown itself all along from Philip the Fair, the grandson of St. Louis, which broke out in great violence with Louis XII., and his petit council of five cardinals at Pisa, acted on by the politiques of Henry IV., and formulated by the great Bossuet under Louis XIV., as the most formidable as well as the most subtle enemy the church has ever had to contend with.

The essence, the real virus, so to speak, of Gallicanism is not, as so many suppose, in the assertion that the dogmatic definitions of the pope are not irreformible—though that is a grave error, in our judgment—but in the assertion of the independence of the state in face of the spiritual order. No doubt Bossuet's purpose in drawing up the four articles was to prevent the French government from going farther and carrying away the kingdom into open heresy and schism; but the Subtle secularism to which he gave his sanction, especially as sure to be practically understood and applied, is far harder to deal with than either heresy or schism, and it seems to us far more embarrassing to the church. It forbids the Catholic to be logical, to draw from his Catholic principles their proper consequences, or to give them their legitimate application; takes away from the defences of faith its outposts, and reduces them to the bare citadel, and proves an almost insurmountable obstacle to the church in her efforts to reach and subdue the world to the law of God. It withdraws the secular order from its rightful subjection to the spiritual order, and denies that religion is the supreme law for nations as well as for individuals, and for kings as well as for subjects.

The principal fault we find with the author, as may be gathered from what we have said, is that he appears to see in the antagonism between pagan politics and Christian, or in the original and inextinguishable dualism asserted by Gallicanism, no cause of the deterioration of Catholic nations, or of the partial success in old Catholic populations of Protestant missions in unmaking Catholics, if not in making Protestants. He seems to accept the one-sided asceticism which places the goods of this life in antagonism with the goods of the world to come, and, though he does not avow Gallicanism, originated by paganism in the state, he does not disavow it, or appear to be aware that it has any influence in detaching the people from the church, by making them Catholics only on one side of their minds, and leaving them pagan on the other.

The enemies of the church understand this matter far better, and they look upon a Gallican as being as[589] good as a Protestant. James I., the English Solomon, declared himself ready to accept the church, if allowed to do it on Gallican principles. Protestants have very little controversy with out-and-out Gallicanism. They feel instinctively that the Catholics who assert the independence, which means practically the supremacy, of the secular order, and bind the pope by the canons which the church herself makes, are near enough to them; and if they are not separated from the church, it is all the better, because they can better serve the Protestant cause in her communion than they could if out of it. It is the Papal, not the Gallican church they hate.

We do not agree, if we may be permitted to say so, with the author as to the superiority of Protestant nations, or that they are likely to retain for any great length of time the superiority they appear now to have, nor do we accept, as we have already intimated, the one-sided asceticism which supposes any necessary antagonism between this world and the next. The antagonism grows out of the error of placing this world as the end or supreme good, when it is, in fact, only a medium. We as Christians renounce it as the end we live for; but if we so renounce it, and live only in Christ for God, who is really our supreme good, we find this world in its true place with all its goods; and a really Catholic nation that holds the spiritual and eternal supreme, and subordinates the secular to it, will have a hundred-fold more of the really good things of this life, than a nation that subordinates the spiritual to the secular, and seeks only material goods. We believe, and the author proves it, that there is even now more real wealth and well-being in Catholic than in Protestant nations; though we agree with the author, that if it were not so, it would be no argument against the church.

The question of tolerance and intolerance, and of civil and religious liberty, as related to Catholic and Protestant nations respectively, will form the subject of a future article. In the mean time we commend again to our readers the work we are reviewing.

UNTYING GORDIAN KNOTS.

I.
LADY SACKVIL'S JOURNAL.

Venice, April 3d, 185-. Arrived this afternoon, and was received by Flora at the station in an embossed gondola with crimson awnings. Ah me! the delicious glow of a new sensation. By what blessed exception was Venice reserved to me for the thirty-first year of that stagnation we call life, and for the second year of dowagerhood? As we floated up to Beldoni Palace, the blood of nineteen flowed in my veins. But in the marble court, perfumed with orange-blossoms exhaling youth and hope, the twins rushed out upon me, crying, "Auntie!" Bah! I was again myself, smothered in crape and bombazine, with the heart of a jade-stone and the circulation of a crocodile.

As we stood beneath the fig-trees in the garden, Flora whispered, "Look at the middle window of the third story." I looked, and beheld a brown-haired woman, in a soft blue dress, pushing aside a mass of passion-vine, and watching us. A pretty picture enough, made warm and glowing in the last rays of sunset! "Who is it?" "Nicholas Vane's wife. I wrote you of his marriage two years ago. They have taken an apartment we do not use, and we are constantly together. You remember that George owes his success in life to Mr. Vane, and he has always been like an elder brother to Nicholas."

"George, George, George!" the point of every moral and adornment of every tale. George does not respect me immensely; but I am not sure that I value his opinion less for that reason—heaven help me!

Well, if Nicholas Vane makes his wife half as wretched as he made me ten years ago, I pity her. I have always wished for an éclaircissement with him on the subject of my marriage with Sackvil. Perhaps it may come now.

4th.—Created a revolution in the household to-day; persuaded Flora to have the Erard "grand" moved into a great old barn of a room seldom used, where one can write and practise without interruption. She had intended to give up one of her prettiest rooms to me; but I've taken a fancy to this one, which will be too desolate to tempt any one to share my solitude.

George is charmed to have me establish myself at such a distance from the rest of the family. He at once ordered in orange-trees and ivies to adorn my dungeon—a delightful thought; but the dreary waste is fast becoming a blossoming oasis. I am writing now by the jalousied window, half listening to the dip of oars as the gondolas go lazily by in the afternoon light.

A glorious piano-tuning this morning, much to Flora's disgust. "Let me send to Lupi's for a tuner, dear," she entreated, as I produced fork and key from the depths of a show work-basket. "It looks so masculine."

"It should be feminine to bring harmony out of discord," I answered. "No piano of mine shall be intrusted to a hireling."

I talked and tuned, tuned and talked—not simultaneously but in strata—and had possessed myself of the interior history of the Vane family by the time the piano answered my searching ears harmoniously.

Mary Terence was the daughter of a clever author, of some pretensions to literary fame, but better known in Boston as a brilliant talker. She was left an orphan at nineteen, poor and unprotected. Vane, who had been one of the habitués of her father's house, admired her sweet devotion to the crotchety old man. She was a Catholic, too; and though Nicholas never cared much for his religion himself, he was always fond of seeing other people practise it, as I remember painfully. But, however it happened, through religion or love, or caprice, or whatever, he married the young thing, and fancies there was never seen her equal.

The piano tuned, I betook myself to practising Variations Sérieuses, and Saran's variations in the same style, but founded on a theme far nobler than the one Mendelssohn has taken. Saran is capable of great things, but will probably fail to accomplish them, as this period of our century especially discourages development. To[591] excite hopes and disappoint them appears to be the summit of youthful ambition, at least in the musical world.

I was feeling very happy at the piano; keys cool and smooth; nerves impressionable but not impressed; my ivy-garnished dungeon excellent in its acoustic effects; Flora, in a senseless sort of way, a sympathetic listener. Now and then a servant came to her for orders, but her voice is one that harmonizes with stillness. Flora is surely the sweetest, calmest, most beautiful simpleton I have ever known.

Mendelssohn and Saran having tired me, Chopin came to the rescue—mazurkas, preludes, nocturnes. Why did I play so well? Why was that scherzo on the music-desk, and why do its leaves turn so inconveniently? As I came within two bars of the close of the third page, a hand turned it deftly. I knew the hand of old, and its rare faculty for turning music well. With difficulty I repressed a start of surprise, for I had thought myself alone with Flora. But the agony of recollection quivered in my nerves, impressed now as well as impressionable. I had not believed myself susceptible of such emotion, or capable of such repression of feeling, if once aroused.

The scherzo ended, I paused, but for a moment could not summon courage to break the silence that followed. At last I turned to leave the piano. Vane was sitting behind me on the right. His lips parted painfully in a smile as he greeted me. Strange! What was it to either of us but a glance into a past we would both destroy if that were possible; a furtive peep into a magic mirror we thought broken long ago.

The brown-haired nymph of the passion-vine was half reclining on a lounge with the happy, musing look of one who seldom muses. I had meant to take the initiative with her, accepting her as Flora's friend, and gradually admitting her to intimacy. To my surprise, I found myself responding gratefully to her pleasant welcome, and wishing in my hidden soul she might find something in me to like. Where lies her power? As yet I cannot tell. Vane is very little changed in ten years; lines deepened but not altered. There is evidently a charming relation between him and his wife. She is the stronger of the two in character, I fancy—a simple, genuine person, what more I do not yet know.

II.

Nicholas Vane's library overlooked the garden of Palazzo Beldoni. The dimensions of the room, the windows curtained with vines in the month of April, the glowing sunlight that forced its way in between swaying branches, all spoke of Italy; but New England comfort held a cozy reign within doors; husband and wife were occupied together before the great-study table covered with plans of fortifications; she in making extracts from books of reference, he in working out the minor details of a design.

"How odd that I should have forgotten!" Mary said suddenly, pausing in her work with a look of surprise and recollection. "Flora charged me to tell you that Lady Sackvil has written to say that she is coming here. She will arrive this afternoon in all probability, and I was to have told you of it yesterday. However," she added after a pause, "you don't seem to take much interest in my great piece of news, so the delay has done no harm."

"Amelia Grant is coming—Lady Sackvil, I mean!" Nicholas said slowly, but without pausing in his work. "Very well, I hope you will like her."

"It never occurred to me not to like her," Mary answered. "In the first place, she is Flora's sister; in the second place, she is a very fascinating woman; in the third place, she is a riddle I hope to solve; in the fourth place—"

"In the fourth place," exclaimed Vane, throwing down his pencil with one of those short laughs that quench enthusiasm and kindle wrath at the same moment; "in the fourth place, my beloved Œdipus, she is a sorceress who will read you at sight. Amelia Grant is the mirror of the person she is with; when you fancy you are deciphering her, you will be simply gazing at a reflection of yourself—no unpleasant sight, I acknowledge," he added kindly, seeing that his rough answer had brought the color to her cheeks; "but it will not solve you the riddle. Look here, child. I am sorry Lady Sackvil is coming here. She is a worldly, heartless woman; full of ability, full of attraction; but let me tell you this: if eating your little innocent heart could afford her an afternoon's entertainment, she would not hesitate to do it."

He paused, rose and went to the window. Mary remained at the table, making sketches upon the baize cover with her pen-handle.

"She must play for us, though," said Captain Vane, coming out of a brown study and returning to his seat. "She was the cleverest amateur I have ever heard; and they say Lord Sackvil indulged every whim and carried her from Leipsic to Weimar, and from Weimar to Berlin, as her fancy suggested. She went through a conservatory course at Leipsic, and graduated most creditably. Yes, she is astonishingly clever, beyond dispute, and capable of great self-devotion to her art. Of all the persons I have known, men or women, she is the most impressionable, mobile, sympathetic, dramatic." And again he merged into a reverie, while Mary continued the ungrateful task of drawing on the table-cover.

"I don't know—yes—probably—perhaps not. Just look at plan four, and give me the length of line A-Q."

"One inch—three inches—six feet. If you don't answer my question, I shall not answer yours," said Mary, laying her head down on the table.

"She was married at twenty, you goose; so it is not probable that she had many declared lovers."

"Lift up your head and go to work and I will tell you—there. Lord Sackvil was a clever, kindly man of about forty-five, rich but fond of diplomatic life. He came to Washington on a special mission. Amelia met him in society, mirrored his cleverness, and kindliness, and diplomacy, and married him after an engagement of three weeks."

"I don't know—I never asked—I don't care. Stop asking questions; I'm sick of the subject."

"I verily believe she has come. I hear voices in the garden," cried Mary, springing from her seat and running to the window. "Yes; it must be Lady Sackvil, talking with Flora under the trees. There, she turned and looked at me. Oh! do come here; she is very lovely."

"Mary, come here," said Vane sharply. "Don't stand staring at what does not concern you. There, I've upset the inkstand. Now you must come and help me."

"If you had upset the universe, I should leave you to wipe it up yourself. Why, my dear, I never expected[593] to know a live countess. I really must look at her."

She came slowly toward him, and stood looking up in his face with an expression half of fun, half of amazement.

"I had not supposed you capable of such babyish conduct," he said, the blood rushing to his face.

"I have been very silly," Mary said. "O Nicholas! you don't know how silly I have been. I will never, never behave so again—or think such thoughts again," she added, looking at him with an expression of absolute sincerity and trustfulness. "I will all my life trust you as you trust me."

"Do no such thing," he answered hastily. "I am a man like half the men in the world, and women like you are very rare. My darling," he said tenderly, "I love you; and I revere you too—words which should be very precious to a wife. Love may pass, but reverence never. You are my preserver in this world; you are my strength, my patience, my all, God help me! When I look into those sweet, truthful, innocent eyes, they give me all the strength I need for life. Mary, never distrust me—never, never distrust me, for I love and honor you."

"Thank God for that!" she answered softly. "But please don't place your dependence on me. If I had strength to give you, you should have it if my very life had to pay for the gift. But you cannot live vicariously. You cannot receive strength through me. I do not regret behaving so foolishly to-day merely because I have displeased you. If I am silly, you had better know it. But I am afraid you will think that confessing my faults does me so little good that you will be less than ever inclined to confess your own."

"Make yourself quite easy on that point," said Captain Vane, smiling. "I will not judge things good in themselves by your malpractices. But let me speak to you very seriously, my dear child. I love you tenderly, and I love no one else in the world; but if your suspicions had been correct, you took the worst means in the world to mend matters. Suspicions are excessively irritating to a man, and none the less so, you may be sure, when they are well-grounded. And now I freely forgive you all your sins toward me, real and imaginary, and I think if Angelo were to come and wash away that pool of ink on the parquet, all traces of this terrible passage of arms might be effaced."

III.
LADY SACKVIL'S JOURNAL.

Flora came into the room to-day, while Josephine was dressing my hair. My cap was lying on the dressing-table. She took it up and examined it thoughtfully. "Milly," she said at last, "do me a favor. Give up wearing caps. I cannot bear to have your lovely hair covered. Besides, the usual time for wearing close mourning is passed; and I am convinced that common rules of etiquette should be followed in these matters. If you continue to wear black beyond the usual period, you will lay it aside some day because your grief is diminished, and that is not a pleasant idea."

Flora is a wise woman, within a very narrow range. And so the caps are laid aside. I do it with a kind of regret. I remember fancying, when I first adopted them, that I had assumed unworldliness with them. I do not wish to make the smallest sacrifice to duty, but no one enjoys feeling good more than I do. My hair is beautiful. It looks so nicely[594] in great smooth rolls fastened with an ivory comb. I think I should go mad if I were ugly; if I were not sure of attracting any one I care to attract—except George Holston. But never mind his disapproval! It is pleasanter to be disliked than disregarded, at least to an egotist like myself. To-night we had good music. Only the Vanes were here, Flora, and I. It was interesting to introduce them to certain Schumann songs they had not seen; Franz songs of which they had never even heard; then Chopin, as the moonlight streamed in at the great window by the piano, making candles unnecessary. "More, more," said Mrs. Vane, when I paused. "No more of that kind," said Nicholas, laughing. "I need rebuilding at present." So we had glorious John Sebastian Bach, ending with an organ prelude and fugue arranged by Liszt. Vane listened, looking out of the window upon the canal. Mrs. Vane looked transfigured, like one who had found a great calmness and strength. I envied her, and yet what should I do with calmness and strength if I had them? Throw them into the great pool of life and watch the bubbles rise to the surface. Nothing can add to Flora's serenity. She rolled up her crochet work, laid it away in a blue velvet sarcophagus, and said, "Come into the other room and we will have chocolate." When we were alone, she asked, "Did you ever notice how beautifully Nicholas Vane's hair grows on his forehead? And he has the most expressive eye-lids I ever saw. You must look at them some time." I promised to do so.

I am arranging a Schumann quartette for the piano. I find that Mrs. Vane knows very little of his music. How enchanting transcription is! One finds in it, I am confident, some of the delights of creation. It is only eleven; I can have two good hours of work before going to bed.

IV.

"Nicholas, did you ever tell your wife of your engagement to Amelia Grant?" asked George Holston, abusing the occasion of a visit from his adopted brother by asking unpleasant questions.

"Because it was a disagreeable subject; because the matter was dead and buried years before I saw Mary; because I didn't choose to speak of it."

"I do; and I will tell you why, though you don't wish to hear. A man can't put too many barriers between himself and temptation. You are now brought unexpectedly into daily intercourse with Amelia. Long after actual love dies out, personal influence continues dangerous. If you had told your wife of your former connection, it would have acted as a useful check upon you, unconsciously, of course."

"I need no check," answered Vane in a tone of annoyance, "beyond my love for Mary, and my distrust of Lady Sackvil. Mary knows I had an old love affair, but does not know with whom. You need not disturb yourself. I know Amelia Grant of old."

"I doubt it. You exaggerate her faults. She is by no means deficient in good qualities, if she chose to use them. She is a woman ruined by bad training; educated systematically to selfishness, vanity, self-will. She is the most worldly woman of her years I have ever known; but her most dangerous trait, as accompanying so many faults, is the yearning for better things that makes her interesting. She thinks I dislike her. On the contrary, I find her very attractive, though I am determined to do nothing to[595] induce her to prolong her stay with us."

"I don't know any thing about her capacities for good," Vane remarked dryly. "I know that we had not been engaged twenty-four hours before she was receiving Lord Sackvil's attentions freely. At the end of three days of befooling, I put an end to the farce and left the coast clear for his lordship. Flora knows all about this, of course?"

"Evidently not. They were never together during their girlhood. Besides, Amelia never reveals any thing discreditable to herself, you may be sure. Keep out of her way, Vane; she has gifts which are especially attractive to you. But, by Jupiter! it is rather an insult to fancy that any one can fascinate you after your wife, who is nearer perfection than any woman I ever saw."

"Upon my word!" said Vane, glad of a diversion, "these are agreeable sentiments. I think if any body has ground for jealousy, it is poor me. I have not the slightest doubt that Mary will eventually be canonized, but I'll thank you to defer all sentiments of veneration until then."

At this moment a servant announced that Mrs. Holston and Lady Sackvil were in the gondola waiting for Captain Vane.

Nicholas took his hat and rose. "Keep your eyes and your wisdom to yourself, George," he said, in answer to Holston's glance of amusement. "It is a bad thing to be wiser than your day and generation."

"Lay her down by me, Debby," said Mrs. Vane to the comfortable-looking old body who was serving as nurse to a second generation. "Lay her beside her own little mamma. Was she very good? Did Padre Giulio think her lovely? Didn't she cry the least bit while he was pouring the water?"

"Just enough, mum, to let the old Adam out," answered Debby, tucking up mother and child energetically. "As for the Paddry, he thought she was a perfect pink; and he'd had the chill took off the water, thanks be to praise! It seems only yesterday," continued Debby contemplatively, "I was a holdin' Mr. Nicholas to be christened. He roared loud enough for two generations, I recollect, and now he's a cap'n in the army. Well, we're all agin'. Now, mum, I'll trust her with you a little while till I can get that gruel made. That Jovanny puts sorrel into it the minute my back's turned. Now you can take just as good care of baby, Miss Vane, as if I was here, and don't you go a tirin' yourself. Mr. Nicholas lays all the blame on me if your cheeks burn."

As the door closed behind the nurse, Mary nestled the baby close, and gave herself up to the ecstasy of her new joy. We will follow her thoughts as if they had been spoken. Happiness like hers seldom finds vent in words.

"I need no book of meditation with you beside me, baby. I gave you to God before your birth; I brought you into the world to be a saint, and, so help me heaven, I will never stand between you and Him, no matter what the struggle may cost me. O holy little head! glorified by the waters of baptism, with this kiss I offer you to God, that he may fill you with pure thoughts always tending to heaven. Sweet little mouth, speak comfort to every living creature. Sweetest eyes, look heavenward; and when you turn to earth, may you see it strewn with roses as it[596] has been to me. Tender, pure feet, may you never be stained with the world's clay; walk firmly, bravely, steadfastly, where the Infant Jesus trod before you—yes, sweet, though it should be on thorns, my tender, precious one. And O little lovely hands! work for God, work for his poor and suffering ones, work for neglected altars. O God! O God! it is too sweet, too sublime, the possession of this soul which I am to train for thee. Make me as unflinching as Queen Blanche, steadfast as St. Monica, wise as St. Paula. May my child and I revere each other, remembering the Child Jesus and his Mother! When I stand at thy judgment-seat, dear Lord, may this plead for me, that never by example or omission have I caused my child to desist from following thee."

Turning her head upon the pillow, Mary saw her husband standing by the bedside, looking at her and the child. His eyes were full of tears as he stooped and kissed her.

"This is the happiest day of my life," she said as he sat down by her; "the day of our baby's christening. And do you know that I chose for it the anniversary of the day when I found out that you loved me."

"No; I have come in her stead, as bearer of apologies. Giovanni has done or left undone something with regard to your dinner, I believe. And now for the day when you made that wonderful discovery. Come, I should think the time for blushing about it was over."

"It was the day before I was to leave Boston," Mary explained. "Almost every thing in the house had been sold at auction. Oh! it was so dismal! Only my room and the library were comparatively untouched. I was sitting on my trunk, counting the money that was left after poor papa's debts were paid."

"Just ten dollars. Enough to pay my fare to Drewsville and leave me within a few dollars of absolute dependence. I hated the idea of going to live with my Aunt Jane. But that was not what I was thinking of, nor my poverty, even while I counted my money."

Her cheek flushed brightly. "I had never loved any one before, you know, Nicholas," she said apologetically. "I did not know what it was, or perhaps I could have helped it. I knew there was a reason why it was agony for me to leave Boston, and I did not dare to try to find out what the reason was. I knew there was a pain within me harder to bear than the grief for my father's death, but that I must not even think of it. But oh! when they told me that you were in the library waiting to see me, then I knew what the pain was, then I knew what the agony was. Do you wonder that I chose the anniversary of that day? That day when we stood together in the old house beside the empty fireplace, and you asked me to leave solitude and dependence and homesickness, and be your wife."

"All, and more than all," she answered simply. And in his heart he protested that she should never be less happy in her love. As he left her with the nurse, his heart was full of wonder that so pure and true a creature had been intrusted to his keeping. Outside the door a note was handed to him, one of Mrs. Holston's perfumed, rose-colored billets, and he stepped back into his wife's room to read it.

"What is the matter?" she asked, seeing a look of annoyance or perplexity on his face. He handed her the note, and she read:

The reason for a refusal was simple enough. His going would leave his wife for a whole day to Debby's tender but garrulous mercies; but this was not for her to see or say. An undefined distrust of Lady Sackvil, which she believed to be quite groundless made her urge his acceptance of the invitation. He went to Torcello, and all day long, in and out of measure with the oars, these words rung in his ears:

Mrs. Holston required her husband's attendance, and Captain Vane must do the honors of the island to her sister. He was a man of artistic perceptions and of accurate knowledge; and Lady Sackvil's capacities were of precisely the kind to draw these out. Here was the great danger. Mary, though intelligent and sympathetic, could never be any thing more than a good listener; Amelia aroused every faculty within him to full life. The day at Torcello did more harm than many months could undo.

IN MEMORIAM OF THE REV. FRANCIS A. BAKER.

CHURCH MUSIC.

"I do not believe in giving the best music to the devil," said a friend while holding with us an amicable discussion on the subject which forms the heading of this paper.

"You quote John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist sect," we replied. "Nevertheless, we agree both with him and you. We do not believe in giving any music whatever to the devil."

"I would say," returned our friend, "that the best music ought to be given to God."

"I mean," our friend explained, "that in the public worship of God the best music should be used that can be obtained."

"You reëcho our own sentiments," we rejoined. "But will you please to define what you call the best?"

"Oh! nothing simpler," replied our friend. "That music is the best which is the most agreeable."

We murmured something about "de gustibus," when our friend prudently added, "to the occasion."

"Is divine worship," continued our friend. "Where the soul is instructed by the divine truths the holy offices of the Church impart, and inspired with sentiments now of prayer, now of praise, now of holy joy, now of penitence, now of lamentation, and so forth."

"Well said!" we exclaimed. "You have again spoken our own mind. But have you ever heard such music?"

"I have heard some very charming music in my time," answered our friend cautiously.

"We have been more fortunate than you," said we. "It has been our lot to hear very charming music, exactly answering to your definition."

Our friend honorably closed the discussion by reiterating his definition and regretting his lack of experience.

In a former article we endeavored to bring before our readers such proofs of the statement we made, that the use of modern music in the ritual service of the Church was both improper and illegal, as we thought a very slight examination of the subject would suggest. These proofs were, however, not requisite, since it is a patent fact that such music is an innovation on the universal traditionary use of the Gregorian chant; an innovation, to judge from the countries where it has crept in and supplanted the old ritual song, that is the result of a religious taste vitiated by the influences of a spirit which, if not precisely Protestant, is, to say the least, worldly, anti-Christian, and therefore anti-Catholic. If there be[599] any, then, who prefer music of this character to the authorized chant, it is necessary for them to show good reasons for the liberty they take in using it, or why an immediate return should not be made to what is, at any rate, lawful and ordained, if it be nothing more. In England, where the ancient Catholic spirit is again reviving, and a marked return to the old paths is observable both in and out of the Church, the subject of church music has received an attention and awakened an amount of investigation second only to that devoted to the dogmas of faith. And we may here remark that this recent study of the church chant is in no sense conducted in the spirit of simple antiquarian research—as it were, to bring to light buried fragments of a beautiful or useful institute characteristic of a former age, for the admiration of the curious—but in the express intent of reinstating the ancient church song to its rightful place in the holy sanctuaries of sacrifice and prayer.

That the Church has no notion of giving up the Gregorian chant, but, on the contrary, that she earnestly desires its complete restoration in those countries where it has fallen into disuse, we hold to be entirely beyond question. Whatever concessions to the poverty of resources, or to peculiar local circumstances, for the occasional use of modern music, the hierarchy may think it prudent to make, is a subject for the consideration of those who believe themselves to be in such a position as to need these concessions. What is certain is, that the Church by the mouth of her pastors has directed the universal use of the Gregorian chant, and as universally condemned the use of our modern music.

Knowing, however, that the healing of every sore takes time as well as medicine, we admit that in many places this much-needed reformation cannot be instantaneously made. With us in the United States, the clergy, as a body, have but a slight acquaintance, either theoretically or practically, with the church chant; and knowing, as we do from experience, what false and barbaric executions of it they have been condemned to suffer in the course of their ecclesiastical education, and from which they have been naturally led to form their judgments concerning it, we do not wonder at the wide-spread prejudice that exists against its use, and the opposition to its introduction that is met with, even at their hands. That our laity have never given expression to their own sentiments in its regard is simply due to their complete ignorance and total inexperience of the whole subject. All fears, therefore, of offending the people or of alienating them from the solemn offices of the Church, on account of the banishment of florid music and the introduction of plain chant, are, as yet, groundless.

Esteeming it as a matter of great moment, and urged by oft-repeated solicitations on the part of their hierarchy, the clergy in England and Ireland have, for several years past, been devoting their energies to carry out the wishes of their superiors, and devise some means to ameliorate the condition of church music, acknowledged to have, with them as with us, gradually degenerated since the Reformation of the sixteenth century.

As far back as 1849, an effort was made, with this end in view, to supply proper singers in the churches, at the head of which was the Cardinal, then Bishop Wiseman. The vicars-apostolic in synod had decreed, "Fœmineæ voces ne audiantur in choro," hoping to gradually induce a return to the established discipline[600] of the Church. The present Archbishop of Westminster, referring to this in a letter, says,

In a circular letter to his clergy, dated May 8th, 1869, the archbishop prohibits the employment of women singers in all choirs to be newly formed.

We can well understand the end had in view by this order for the exclusion of female voices from the choir. To us it is, in effect, an order for the exclusion of all figured music, and the restoration of plain chant. The archbishop, however, seems to allow the possibility of the composition of "masses which, while they admit the full compass and perfection of modern musical science, exclude all that is secular or theatrical, by retaining the gravity and majesty of our ecclesiastical and sacred tradition." This is, however, only a concession; for he had just before written, "When once tried by experience, the grave, sweet, majestic, intellectual music of the Church will win all who are now in favor of a less ecclesiastical style."

The hope expressed by Archbishop Manning, that masses would be composed for male voices only, and of sufficiently grave character to suit the services of the Church, was suggested, doubtless, by some quite respectable essays of this kind made on the Continent, and offered to the Congress of Malines at its late sessions, as well by the labors in this direction of the Rev. Canon Oakeley, to whom his letter on this subject was addressed. This reverend gentleman has been the rector of a London parish for eighteen years, and has never admitted a female into his choir, although the perfection of the musical department in his church has received many high encomiums. He supplies the soprano parts by boys' voices, to the cultivation of which he has devoted a great deal of energy. The character of his church music is as follows: At High Mass, whatever is de rigueur for the Sunday or festival is sung strictly according to the Roman Gradual, save those parts which may be ranged under the title of Ordinarium Missæ, namely, the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. These portions are not as a rule chosen from the Gregorian chant, but are morceaux of selected modern music. His Vesper and Compline service is wholly Gregorian, as given in the Vesperale Romanum. We believe that, encouraged by his success in this partial reformation, many priests in Great Britain have followed his example. We shall have occasion to speak of this matter and give in another paper some extracts of the canon's opinion of the feasibility and effectiveness of boy singers.

Taking the hint thrown out by his grace the Archbishop of Westminster, several skilled musicians have already published a number of masses, revised and corrected to suit the late "Instructions" given by the cardinal vicar to Roman composers and singers, with a view to restrain the attempts made even there to introduce modern music. We do not pretend to criticise these simplified masses in this place. All we desire to do is to call attention to the significance of the movement toward musical reformation. Whether second-rate musical compositions are better than the authorized chant, we think is questionable.

The original masses, composed in the same intent, which competed for the handsome prizes offered by the late Catholic Congress of Malines, possess much artistic merit; perhaps a little too much, if intended for popular use.

Wholly converted, as we are, in heart and mind, to the exclusive use of plain chant, we nevertheless commend these well-meant efforts. They are efforts in the right direction, and similar ones, we doubt not, must be made with us before the ancient discipline of the Church concerning her chant will prevail.

Something, at least, can be done, and without delay. We cannot see what possible excuse we have any longer to offer for not singing the Introit, the Gradual, Offertory, and Communion at High Mass. These parts of the Mass are quite as essential, in the mind of the Church, as the Kyrie, the Credo, the Sanctus, or the Agnus Dei. If we are able to procure the execution of most difficult compositions for these latter portions, we are surely quite as well able to procure the chanting of the former. It may be said that, if these now neglected parts be sung as they should be, and can only effectively be, in Gregorian chant, it is possible one of these different styles of music would suffer much by contrast with the other. To this we agree; but which one will be the sufferer, our objector and ourself might think differently. Such a mixture has, however, been considered, on the whole, preferable by some in England who have adopted it. Says a writer in The Dublin Review, "We may remark that if it be true that a constant recurrence of the same unison masses, Sunday after Sunday, would tax the patience of our people, so, on the other hand, that limited round of figured masses to which it has been the fashion to confine the choirs of almost all our churches, is found by experience to be, if any thing, more tiring still." The writer adds, "We ought to enlarge our stock of mass music." We think it were better to render passably the stock we already possess. He continues, "We consider that where success has attended the efforts of clergy and choirs, to render the services of the Church noble, edifying, and attractive, it has been by the combination we have described; and to take one instance—it is to this, and to the ecclesiastical feature of a choir of boys and men chanting Vespers, etc., in their proper place in church, that we attribute the fact that the church over which Canon Oakeley presides has become the centre of so much interest. And when we mention that solemn Vespers and Benediction are sung in this Church, on all days of devotion, with as much correctness and beauty as on Sundays, and that a considerable number of the faithful always assist on such occasions, we shall have given a specimen of the results which may be expected to follow elsewhere, if a like arrangement be adopted."

We know that there is always difficulty in changing one's customs, but it is the mark of Catholic zeal never to shrink before any cost or sacrifice where plain duty, the glory of God, and the honor of the Holy Church are in question. All must admit that the custom of omitting any ceremony or rite essential to the due celebration of High Mass, or any other function, is a bad custom—a custom to be discontinued the moment it is in our power to do so. The bishops assembled in the late Plenary Council of Baltimore made a special decree concerning the due performance of the Vesper service. What difficulty is there here in obeying this decree both in its letter and spirit? There are[602] enough books already published to supply the singers with the proper music for the entire service. Harmonized versions of the psalms, antiphons, and anthems have been made for the use of those singers and organists who are, as yet, ignorant of plain chant, and accustomed only to modern musical notation. If any thing be wanting in these, the demand for better and more convenient books would soon be met with the supply. Apart from their openly profane character, we do not see what possible plea can be put in for singing what is called "Musical Vespers"—for the most part, musical performances in which it would be wholly impossible to recognize the Vesper office, as strictly ordained and enjoined by the Church. The office of Vespers, according to the Roman rite, is what we are supposed to sing. We do not hesitate to say that no "Musical Vespers" ever sung in this country were in conformity to that rite. Were we to announce that fact to our music-loving Protestant friends, who frequent our churches at Vesper time, to enjoy the beautiful "Vesper service," it might possibly prove a little startling; and if they were at the pains to inquire of what character the service was which they saw and heard, what answer could we honestly make, but that it was a musical performance of garbled portions of the Vesper office, gotten up to answer for the same, with a view of pleasing the audience? Not only in High Mass, then, but also in Vespers, there is some amelioration possible to all, the results of which will not only bring our Church services more into conformity with the spirit of the Universal Church, and the decrees concerning the due celebration of divine worship issued by our hierarchy, but we are fully assured will prove most acceptable to the faithful, and contribute no little to their edification.

We have indulged in the foregoing somewhat desultory remarks before entering upon the special purpose of this paper, in hopes to direct the attention of our readers to the gravity of the subject in question, and to show that we are very far from being singular in its discussion. Whatever may be the merits of our modern music, and they certainly are of a very high order, when considered from the point of artistic combination, and the expression of certain sentiments of the soul, we hold, nevertheless, that the Gregorian chant is the true song of the Catholic Church. That it deserves this title on the score of authority, which has distinctly and universally sanctioned it, we think we have sufficiently proved; and as well that other music has been as distinctly condemned and rejected. We desire now to examine the character of the church chant, in its more intimate relations with the ritual, and its unrivalled religious expression, that its intrinsic merits may be more clearly understood and more heartily appreciated.

In the first place, the Church never enjoins any thing without good reason; and her reasons are grounded not only in the conclusions of human science, but in the perceptions of a divine inspiration. We do not hesitate to give the title of "divine" to her sacred Liturgy and Office, because we believe they were compiled with the assistance of the Holy Ghost. Is it unreasonable to suppose that her chant, proceeding, as it does, from the same source, the work of the same hands and hearts to whom she committed the labor of the composition and compilation of the words, and together accepted by her, should have had the same divine[603] aid? The question is well put by one who has devoted much time and thought to the subject of church music:

That the Gregorian chant is yet, as it was in former times, the true musical expression of her Divine Office, and of those portions of the liturgy of the Holy Mass, and various public functions, appointed to be sung, is plain from the fact that, in despite of all the development of the musica ficta in the hands and with the influence of its composers and lovers, the Church still obstinately adheres to those ancient melodies. What can we say but that, as the Church is the best judge of her own language of prayer and praise, so she must equally as well be of the form of its expression?

But, as we said before, the Church never acts without reason. If she accepts this form of chant in the first place, it is because such a form of melody is appropriate, and well becoming her inspired language of prayer. If she retains it through so many ages, and has no thought of changing it now, it is because the same reason still holds good.

One of the most remarkable points in the character of the Gregorian chant is the fact that it has partaken, possibly by association, of the "perennial freshness" which is so strongly marked in the celebration of the rites and ceremonies of the Church. To every people, of all ages and countries, these rites and ceremonies possess a dramatic power of the highest order. Ancient yet ever new, they never weary by repetition as fast and festival recur in the ecclesiastical year. On this an English writer says,

This is, to say the least, a very strong practical confirmation of the wisdom of the Holy Church in preserving a treasure so precious that even time does not waste it, or use tarnish its beauty.

A second reason assigned by the same writer, we give for what it is worth. It possesses, indeed, no little vraisemblance:

This is by no means a quaint conception of modern fancy. St. Paschasius Radpert, a monk of the abbey of Old Corby, who lived about the year 800, says,

To us, however, the Gregorian chant is the true song of the Church, chiefly because it is essentially choral in character; by which we mean that its melodies, so simple in construction, so massive in form, and its grave and majestic rhythm, fit it eminently for execution by large bodies of singers, called in church parlance the schola, or choir.

In the discipline of the early church it was supposed that all the congregation of the faithful present at the Holy Sacrifice responded to the salutations and solemn invitations of the priest at the altar to unite with him in prayer and acts of adoration. We have before us a very old reproduction of an ancient manuscript, entitled, Ἡ Φεὶα λειτουργία τοῦ ἁγιοῦ ἀποστόλου Πέτρου, Missa Apostolica; seu, Divinum Sacrificium S. Apostoli Petri, which purports, and on good authority, to be the Mass of St. Peter. At the close of the Offertory, we read as follows; we quote the Latin version given side by side with the Greek:

The priest continues to chant the preface. At the close of it the people sing the Sanctus, and answer Amen when the priest has pronounced the words of consecration. The entire Pater noster is given to the people, and they respond to the usual salutations made after the communion. A side rubrical note, referring to the parts assigned to the populus or people, says, "Populi vox est et cantorum."

This manner of celebrating High Mass will seem to many of our readers as strange and obsolete; but such is precisely the manner in which one can yet hear the Holy Sacrifice in many towns and villages on the continent of Europe, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-nine; and we need hardly say with what sublime and soul-stirring effect.

We do not think it at all probable that this old form of congregational accompaniment of the Mass ever can be universally revived. Yet it must[605] be acknowledged that no more complete, intelligent, or edifying expression of the Great Eucharistic Rite could possibly be desired.

Were this revival of congregational singing in the mind of the Church, there could be no question about the form of melody to be applied. No one would think of looking elsewhere than to plain chant as the only practical and fitting resource in that event.

But, as in past times there was always the select schola or choir to whom the choral selections of the divine offices were committed, so at the present day it would seem to be that which the Church aims mainly at preserving. Indeed, as Dr. Lootens well observes, the very architectural dispositions of our churches, when constructed according to the ritual, suppose such a body of singers, who, being the coadjutors of the sacred ministers, are supposed to possess a quasi-ecclesiastical character, and appear in the sanctuary properly vested as clerici, or clerks, and whose demeanor, as well as singing, is of that grave and decorous character which beseems the house of God and the presence of the Holy Sacrament. The learned prelate says:

We also might well say that when any Catholic from the Continent visits Protestant England and enters one of those ancient cathedrals, once the glory and pride of Catholic England, now fallen into the hands of strangers who know not their meaning nor sacred uses; and when he sees those mysteriously deep sanctuaries, whose stalls are no longer filled, as of yore, with the devout white-robed clerics, or it may be with cowled monks, chanting the divine hours of prayer, or responding to the sacrificing priest, but with a few fashionably dressed ladies and gentlemen looking at each other across the once consecrated place, hallowed by the footsteps of saints, and praying to be delivered "from all error, heresy, and schism," (save the mark!) what an indescribable pain must wring his soul; how involuntarily the plaintive words of the Psalmist must rise upon his lips, "Super flumina Babylonis, illic sedimus, et flevimus, cum recordaremur Sion!"

Yet, let him come to our land and visit our Catholic churches—but we anticipate; it is not of the proper place for the choir, but of the choir itself we wish to speak.

A select choir of clerks, or singers vested in cassock and surplice, who, ranged in the sanctuary, chant in chorus the Asperges, the Introit, Kyrie, Gloria, Gradual, Credo, Offertory, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, Communion, and the responses of High Mass, and the antiphons, psalms, versicles, etc., at Vespers, is what the ritual supposes and expressly demands. A choir of mixed voices gathered in a gallery at the extreme end of the church, either hidden behind curtains or exposed to view, has neither been ever supposed or sanctioned by the ritual, much less the omission of nearly one half of what is ordered to be sung. When we look at the actual state of things as they are in vogue amongst us, and honestly look the ritual of the Holy Church in the face, does not our memory sometimes remind us of the reproach of Almighty God to the negligent priests of the old law?—"Non servastis præcepta sanctuarii mei;" a reflection which is not ours, but very pertinently made by the zealous American bishop whose words we have already quoted.

If, as has been well said, "Our present defective knowledge and appreciation of the liturgy is one of the indications of an enfeebled faith among a Catholic people," so we do not hesitate to affirm that a reasonable knowledge of, and constant participation in the divine offices of the Church is practically necessary to an intelligent faith in the great mysteries of religion, and the only means of keeping alive and nourishing true Catholic devotion. Prayer said in union with the Church is both the light of the understanding and the fire of divine love for the heart.

One of the directors of the seminary of St. Sulpice, in Paris, in a recent publication, entitled, Le Saint Office considéré au point de Vue de la Piété, significantly remarks:

The slightest examination of the offices of the Church will show how well they are adapted to instruction in doctrine, and for the illustration of the Gospel record and the historic acts and interior life of Christianity. We have not the time in this place, nor is it necessary, to adduce proofs of this. They whose interest in this matter we aim at arousing have a daily reminder of its truth.

That these holy offices are the fountain-head of solid, popular devotion is equally indisputable. We have nothing to replace them, nor do we care to have. We have plenty of so-called "popular devotions," admirably adapted for their special purposes; but it must be confessed that popular devotion is far below that standard of spirituality which the Church aims at inspiring; and which it is not only possible to attain, but which in ages gone by, whose grade of refinement and intellectual culture we affect to despise, was the normal standard of Catholic piety. From whence did the people draw this strong and healthy nourishment of the spiritual life? The answer will be found in the fact that the people were educated from childhood in the liturgy, and they were not, as now, for the most part spectators, but participators at the celebration of the solemn,[607] instructive, and devout offices of the Church.

The accomplished author of the remarkable work on Christian Schools and Scholars thus writes:

The last words of this most interesting extract will spare us the trouble of insisting at any great length upon the point chiefly in question. The sacred offices of the Church, to whose due celebration and to their intelligent participation in them the faith and piety of our ancestors is in great measure to be ascribed, and the peculiar and inimitable melodies, yet, happily, undivorced from their language [608] of prayer, ever formed one inseparable whole.

A revival of those offices in the spirit of their ancient fidelity to the ritual is, as all must allow, a revival of Gregorian chant. The project of substituting in its place a selection of solos, duets, etc., either culled from threadbare compositions of the two last centuries, notorious for their sensuousness of style and over-wrought "word-painting," or such melodies of the modern schools as our present masters are able to produce, would be unhesitatingly ridiculed on all sides.

Far be it from us to be guilty of the presumption of questioning the wisdom of the Church in permitting to the clergy the individual and private recitation of the Divine Office; but it is beyond dispute that so much of it as is enjoined to be performed publicly, in choir, on Sundays and festivals, is not absolved by the bravura singing of some "choice musical selections" in an organ-gallery, and the private recitation of the real office meanwhile by a lonely celebrant in the sanctuary. Moreover, the people are thereby greatly hindered in their devotions and deprived utterly of the spiritual fruit the sacred office so abundantly affords. If we gave the people a chance, we would very soon see how joyfully they would sing their Credo, and heartily chant their Dixit Dominus, as of old. "I do not like the Vespers in —— street," a well-instructed servant was lately overheard to say; "it is nothing but a concert of four opera-singers, and I'm all astray while it's going on. Nobody seems to make it out but the Protestant ladies and gentlemen, who do nothing but talk about it all the time. Give me the singing at Father ——'s church, where all the clergy sing, and where I can sing in the Tantum Ergo myself at benediction, if I like."

What we are arguing for is a strict, rubrical celebration of High Mass and Vespers, the two public offices enjoined upon the clergy in this country. When the rubrics for these offices are observed to the letter, we shall have no fear for the fate of plain chant, which has proved itself by the experience of so many centuries to be the only adequate and satisfying expression of the spirit of prayer that breathes through all the solemn ritual service of the Holy Church.

The words of the pious and erudite Benedictine monk, Dom Gueranger, Abbot of Solesmes, are again ringing in our ears. We cannot refrain from closing our article with a quotation from the preface to his Liturgical Year, the beauty of which will be a sufficient apology for its length:

HINTS ON HOUSEKEEPING

To one who has long been accustomed to a retired and solitary life, an occasional glimpse of the busy world and its ways, a peep "through the loopholes of the retreat," has a relish and an interest scarcely to be appreciated by the actual participants in the turmoil and bustle of those scenes.

In the quiet routine of rural life, undisturbed by great excitements, and to a great measure removed from the influences of stirring events, it is almost impossible to keep pace with the changes that are constantly taking place in the great outer world. I think this must be more especially true of our American society than of any other nation. We are such a restless race, so impatient of monotony, so eager for excitement and variety, that what is most in vogue to-day is forgotten to-morrow, and the most earnest pursuits of the present are liable to be rapidly superseded by others of a widely different nature.

After an absence of only a few months from the social circle with which it is my delight occasionally to mingle, I often find myself much in the predicament of poor Rip Van Winkle, after his long repose in "Sleepy Hollow," and dare not, upon my reappearance, open my lips until I have listened long enough to catch the key-note, as it were, of the topics at present engaging attention, lest my remarks and inquiries may appear as ill-timed and excite as much surprise as did those of that redoubtable victim of vagrancy and the broomstick.

Among all the changes that have come over our American world, since we who are now grandmothers could call ourselves young, there are none more utterly astounding—perhaps because, having long claimed our careful attention, they are more familiar and interesting to us—than those embraced in the household and home economy. Now, although I am not disposed to undervalue the improvements[611] of modern times, or to decry the advance of modern ideas in other departments, I am wholly unwilling to yield the palm to modern housekeeping. In spite of every advantage furnished by the superior appliances of these days, and every facility offered by the inventive genius of our people in labor-saving machinery adapted to each department of domestic life, I insist that our housekeepers are inferior in all the qualities that contribute to the comfort of home to their mothers, and that their mothers were less efficient than their grandmothers. There has been a gradual but steady decline in the art of housekeeping, and a more rapid but equally constant increase in the expense thereof. Indeed, this last item looms up in dimensions and glares upon us with an aspect nothing less than appalling to dames like myself, who cherish antiquated notions on these subjects.

"Henry, why in the world do you not marry?" I said the other day to a highly-esteemed young friend, whom I had known from his childhood, and who is richly endowed, as I well know, with every quality necessary to make a home happy. "Why in the world do you not marry? It is a positive wrong to society, that so much domestic virtue as you possess should remain unappropriated. You are now well established in business, with every prospect of success, and you really ought to be thinking of making a home for yourself."

"I wish I dare indulge such an aspiration," he replied with something very like a regretful sigh; "but, to tell you the truth, such a step as taking a wife to myself under my present circumstances would be ruinous. My business is indeed, as you say, well established, and—within certain, not very extensive, limits—prosperous. By close attention and strict fidelity to its interests, diligent industry, and careful economy, I realize annually a very comfortable income; not large, but, under these conditions, quite sure; as years advance, this will probably increase slowly and surely. Now, if I were to marry, just imagine what a load of expense would be incurred at once! You know as well as I the manner of life I should be required to adopt, by any young lady of the class among whom I should look for a wife; and I really am not in a position to incur such a burden now, nor can I hope to be for a long time to come."

This was said in a tone of despondency and deep feeling, and I could not but sympathize with my young friend, compelled thus reluctantly to suppress the dearest aspirations of youth; nor could I avoid deploring the exigencies that constrain the greater portion of worthy young men in our country, to relinquish the hope of a happy home of their own, which would be their strongest stimulant to exertion and their best shield against temptation.

It is long since I have been in the habit of witnessing the gambols of the gay world; but I happened not long since to peep in upon a sort of fandango at the house of one of my friends, and, bless my heart, what costumes! My surprise would beggar description. I happened to be standing near the mistress of the house, and remarked to her that I was not aware this was to be a fancy party.

"But you do not mean to tell me," I exclaimed in dismay, "that these are the ordinary costumes for full dress at parties?"

I ventured no further remark or inquiry, but retired with my own quiet[612] cogitations into a silent corner. Presently a sprightly young lady of whom I am very fond, and who is foolish enough to cherish a great fancy for me, came tripping up to my retreat, her face all shining with gayety and goodness. "Tell me, my dear," said I, "why you young ladies wear your pockets outside your dress, and in such an inconvenient place, and why you wear your skirts pinned up at a party, just as we used to wear them when about our housework?"

"Oh! those are not our pockets; they are paniers; and it is the present style to loop up the skirts this way."

"But, my child, can you tell me how many superfluous yards of silk are required to make skirts in this way, and to furnish these festoons?"

"We do not count by yards," said she, laughing; "but this is not an expensive dress. It cost only eighty dollars, the making and all!" And she glided away to join her young companions. So much for the philosophy of a young girl in a simple country village!

Now here was this dear girl—lovely, accomplished, beautiful, intelligent, and fascinating—a perfect charm in society, after her fashion; but a wife? Why a man might as well marry a butterfly!

There is certainly something sadly "out of joint" in the times. The jarring and jolting of domestic machinery betrays loose screws, if not more fatal defects, somewhere in its construction. The subject is attracting general attention, eliciting general complaint, and calling forth the best energies of many minds in its discussion. Much talent has been engaged in the consideration of evils and defects, which it is asserted pervade every branch of domestic economy and every part of society. Remedial measures which have recently been proposed are also attracting much notice.

Not long ago a learned judge, lamenting the modern defects in female education, concluded with the consoling remark, "Yes, our girls are badly educated; but our boys will never find it out!"

Ah my learned friend! you see our young Henrys, though they may not detect the cause, are fully alive to the consequences.

WORK FOR WOMEN.

Now, it seems to me that every mother who is blessed with a daughter should begin with the first dawn of reason to instil into that daughter's mind the consciousness that she has something to do—that there is work awaiting every step of her advancing progress from childhood to youth, from youth to womanhood, and from womanhood to old age.

The patronage of boarding-houses, which are entirely antagonistic to the first idea of a home, should be discarded. The daughter should be required to participate daily with her mother in household cares and duties, even while pursuing her studies.

Herein lies the difference between "modern ideas" and the antique régime. Here is the fault of the "century," so deplorable in its results, so widely lamented; and here—by the most culpable neglect to rear our daughters in a manner to fit them for the high responsibilities and duties of home—has the equilibrium between the "producer and consumer," so much talked of, been lost.

Education, like charity, should begin, be carried on, and be perfected at home, or it can be nothing elsewhere. The duties of women as "producers," in modern times, are identical with[613] those of their grandmothers; and it is only in the family, within the dear and sheltered nook of home, that they can find profitable and legitimate exercise.

Under the ancient system—and it certainly could show as noble results as the modern mode has been able to achieve—the wife was the queen of a little kingdom, and her highest ambition was to rule within its sacred precincts wisely and well. If the resources and revenues were scanty, her study was so to manage the expenditures as to leave a margin on the credit side for future emergencies, or for increase of capital. If God gave her children, she accepted the inestimable boon with heartfelt thanksgivings, took up the holy office with all its tender cares and duties, as the crown of her glory, and presided with matronly dignity over the best and highest interests of the young immortals committed to her keeping, training her little ones diligently "in the way in which they should walk." She welcomed gracefully whatever adjuncts were furnished by schools and books, but never dreamed of abating her maternal vigilance, or trusting to these as substitutes for home culture. Her children were daily questioned, their proficiencies praised, their deficiencies or indolence in their studies reproved. Consequently she did not fall into that other dream, too common in these days, of going out from home to find something to do, because schools and systems had taken her children off her hands, and removed them beyond the scope of her jurisdiction.

Schools did not release her from the duty of watching over the development of their intellects. Sewing-machines did not stitch their garments; trained servants in every department were not at hand to perform the housework indifferently well. Verily, between one interest and another, our grandmothers had work enough to do!

WAS IT PROFITABLE?

We think any young wife and mother who will ask this question with sincerity and thoughtfulness, arousing the energies of her mind to the importance of considering it well and arriving at a true conclusion, will give an affirmative reply. There is no sphere in which a woman can be so profitable a "producer" as at home, and that simply by practising the old-fashioned virtues of "looking well to the ways of her household, and eating not the bread of idleness." By regulating carefully the consumption, she becomes the most efficient and lucrative "producer."

When every woman will accept this truth in its widest sense, and act accordingly, then, and not before, will the balance-sheet between "producers and consumers" be adjusted. Then will the toiling husband be matched by the industrious and frugal wife. Then will he return after the toils of the day, not to a palace glittering in cold splendor, and rivalling in the chilly magnificence of gew-gaws and trinkets a jeweller's show-window, but to a cozy and cheerful home, where "books that are books" abound, where the smile of an intelligent companion greets his return, and a sympathizing friend is ever ready to enter into all his cares and perplexities, to assist with wise counsels, and encourage with brave words.

It is certain that there is great need of a thorough change in the domestic discipline of the homes in our country, if a tithe of what is predicated as to existing evils be true. If our young women have really, as a general rule, become so frivolous in their characters, so fond of their ease, and so expensive in their habits, that our prudent young men dare not assume the[614] burden of a family, or, in doing so, can have no assurance that they are providing for themselves the comforts and the blessings which should be embraced in the sacred inclosure of home, the consequences to society must be utterly ruinous. The family is the foundation of society, and only in well-ordered and happy homes can its well-being and stability be established and sustained.

NIL DESPERANDUM.

Deplorable as are the pictures which are drawn, discouraging as are the statements we daily hear of domestic confusion and misery, it is not to be admitted or believed that our American women are so swallowed up in a vortex of fashion and folly, or so enfeebled by habits of indolence, that they cannot be awakened from their fatal dream.

There is really in our national character too much intelligence, though it may be slumbering; too much energy, though it may be dormant through apathy, to permit us to sink hopelessly and helplessly into social chaos. It is only necessary to awaken the public mind to the importance of the subject, and to arouse American women to united and persevering efforts to retrieve the past, and bring about a better state of affairs in the future, and the work of reform is on the sure road to accomplishment. This is the only "coöperative" agency from which we may hope for beneficial results. No new plans or patent machinery will enable the wife, the mother, the housekeeper, to shirk her duty or transfer the irksome task to other shoulders. She must simply "seek out the old paths, and walk therein," humbly, diligently, at whatever sacrifice of her own ease or endurance of painful trials, which must always be the heritage of the true woman, but which, met and endured in the true womanly spirit, are richer than earthly treasures, and will secure rewards more unfailing than earthly glories.

A CONVERT'S PRAYER.

"Too late have I known thee, O ancient truth! Too long have I wandered from thee, O ancient beauty!"

ANGELA.

CHAPTER VIII.
AVOWALS.

In the same deep valley where the brook rippled over the pebbles in its bed, where the mountain sides rose up abruptly, where the moss hung from the old oaks, where Klingenberg plucked the tender beard of the young professor of history, took place the meditated attack of the doctor on the poison of materialism which was destroying the body and soul of Richard.

Slowly and carefully the doctor advanced, as against an enemy who will defend his position to the last. But how was he astonished when, upon being attacked, Frank showed no disposition to defend that most highly-vaunted doctrine of modern science—materialism. This was almost as puzzling to the doctor as the eternity of matter. Tired of skirmishing, the doctor set to work to close with the enemy and strike him down.

"I have looked only cursorily at the writings of the materialists; you have studied them carefully; and you will oblige me much if you would give me the foundation on which the whole structure of materialism rests."

"The materialistic system is very simple," answered Frank. "Materialists reject all existence that is not sensibly perceptible. They deny the existence of invisible and supersensible things. There is no spirit in man or anywhere else. Matter alone exists, because matter alone manifests its existence."

"I understand. The materialist will only be convinced by seeing and feeling. As a spirit is neither spiritual nor tangible, then there is none. Is it not so, friend Richard?"

"You have included in one sentence the whole of materialism," said Frank coolly.

"I cannot understand," said Klingenberg hesitatingly, "how the materialists can make assertions which are untenable to the commonest understandings. Why, thought can neither be seen nor felt; yet it is an existence."

"Then it is incomprehensible how the sensible can beget the supersensible. How matter—the brain—can produce the immaterial, the spiritual."

"At every step in materialism I meet insurmountable difficulties," continued the doctor. "I know perfectly the organization of the human body, as well as the function and purpose of each part. The physician knows the purpose of the lungs, heart, kidneys, and stomach, and all the noble and ignoble parts of the body. But no physician knows the origin of the activity of the organism. The blood stops, the pulse no longer beats, the lungs, kidneys, nerves, and all the rest cease their functions. The man is dead. Why? Because the activity, the movement, the force is gone. What then is this vivifying force? In what does it consist? What color, what taste, what form has it? No physician knows. The vivifying principle is invisible, intangible, perfectly immaterial. Yet it exists. Therefore the fundamental dogma of materialism[618] is false. There are existences which can neither be felt, tasted, nor seen."

"Certainly; and in them also intangible and mysterious. Materialism cannot even stand before animal life; for even there the vivifying principle is an immaterial existence."

"The materialist stumbles at the existence of human spirit, because he cannot get a conception of it."

"How could this be possible?" cried the doctor. "The conception is a picture in the mind, an apprehension of the senses. Spiritual being is as unapproachable by the senses as the vivifying principle, of which also man can form no conception. To deny existence because you cannot have a conception of it, is foolish. The blind would have the same right to deny the existence of colors, or the deaf that of music. And who can have a conception of good, of eternity, of justice, of virtue? No one. These are existences that do not fall under the senses. To be logical, the materialist must conclude that there is nothing good, nothing noble, no justice; for we have not yet seen nor felt nor smelt these things. Virtuous actions we can, of course, see; but these actions are not the cause but the consequence, not the thing working but the thing wrought. As these actions will convince every thinking man of the existence of virtue and justice, so must the workings of the spirit prove its existence."

"Precisely," replied Frank. "Materialism only surprises and captivates one like a dream of the night. It vanishes the moment it is seen. I read the works of Vogt and Büchner only for diversion; my object was perfectly gained."

"Have you secrets that I, your old friend and well-meaning adviser, should not know?"

Frank was confused; but his great respect for the doctor forced him to be candid.

"You know my views of women. When I tell you that Angela, the well-known Angel of Salingen, has torn these opinions up by the roots, you will not need further explanation."

"You found Angela what I told you? I am glad," said Klingenberg. And his disputative countenance changed to a pleasant expression. "I suspected that the Angel of Salingen made a deep impression on you. I did not guess; I read it in large characters on your cheeks. Have you made an avowal?"

"Why not? Are you ashamed to confess that you love a beautiful young lady? That is childish and simple. There is no place here for shame. You want a noble, virtuous wife. You have Angela in view. Woo her; do not be a bashful boy."

"Bashfulness might be overcome, but not the conviction that I am unworthy of her."

"Unworthy! Why, then? Shall I praise you? Shall I exhibit your noble qualities, and convince you why you are worth more than any young man that I know? You have not Angela's religious tone; but the strong influence of the wife on the husband is well known. In two or three years I shall not recognize in the ultramontane Richard Frank the former materialist." And the doctor laughed heartily.

"It is questionable," said the young man, "whether Angela's inclination corresponds to mine."

"The talk of every true lover," said the doctor pleasantly. "Pluck[619] the stars of Bethlehem, like Faust's Grethe, with the refrain, 'She loves, she loves not—she loves.' But you are no bashful maiden; you are a man. Propose to her. Angela's answer will show you clearly how she feels."

"All as you foretold," said Klingenberg. "Your son is cured of his hatred of women by Angela. The materialistic studies were not in earnest; they were only a shield held up against the coming passion. The love question is so absorbing, and the sentiment so strong, that Richard left me near Frankenhöhe to hasten over there. I expect from your sound sense that you will place no obstacles in the way of your son's happiness."

"I regret," said Frank coldly, "that I cannot be of the same opinion with you and Richard in this affair."

"Make your son unhappy?" said Klingenberg. "Do you consider the possible consequences of your opposition?"

"Melancholy, madness, suicide, frequently come from this. I leave to-morrow, and I hope to take with me the assurance that you will sacrifice your prejudice to the happiness of Richard."

Among the numerous inhabitants of Siegwart's yard was a hen with a hopeful progeny. The little chicks were very lively. They ran about after insects till the call of the happy mother brought them to her. Escaped from the shell some few days before, they had instead of feathers delicate white down, so that the pretty little creatures looked as though they had been rolled in cotton. They had black, quick eyes, and yellow feet and bills. If a hawk flew in the air and the mother gave a cry, the little ones knew exactly what it meant, and ran under the protecting wings of the mother from the hawk, although they had never seen one—had never studied in natural history the danger of the enemy. If danger were near, she called, and immediately they were under her wings. The whole brood now stopped under the lindens. The little ones rested comfortably near the warm body of the mother. Now here, now there, their little heads would pop out between the feathers. One smart little chirper, whose ambition indicated that he would be the future cock of the walk, undertook to stand on the back of the hen and pick the heads of the others as they appeared through the feathers.

Angela came under the lindens, carrying a vessel of water and some crumbs in her apron for the little ones. She strewed the crumbs on the ground, and the old hen announced dinner. The little ones set to work very awkwardly. The old hen had to break the crumbs smaller between her bill. Angela took one of the chickens in her hand and fondled it, and carried it into the house. The hen went to the vessel to drink and the whole brood followed. It happened that the one that stood on her back fell into the water, and cried loudly; for it found that it had got into a strange element of which it had no more idea than Vogt and Büchner of the form of a spirit. At this critical moment Frank came through the yard. He saw it fluttering about in the water, and stopped. The old hen went clucking anxiously about the vessel. And although she could without difficulty have taken the chicken out with her bill, yet she did not do it. Richard observed this with great interest; but showed no desire to save the little creature, which[620] at the last gasp floated like a bunch of cotton on the water.

Angela may have heard the noise of the hen, for she appeared at the door. She saw Frank standing near the lindens looking into the vessel. At the same time she noticed the danger of one of her little darlings, and hastened out. She took the body from the water and held it sadly in her hands.

"It is dead, the little dear," said she sadly. "You could have saved it, Herr Frank, and you did not do it." She looked at Frank, and forgot immediately, on seeing him, the object of her regrets. The young man stood before her so dejected, so depressed and sad, that it touched her heart. She knew what darkened his soul. She knew his painful struggle, his great danger, and she could have given her life to save him. She was moved, tears came into her eyes, and she hastened into the house.

Siegwart was reading the paper when his daughter hastened in such an unusual way through the room and disappeared.

"I can give you some curious news of the assessor," said the proprietor after some careless conversation. "The man is terribly enraged against me and full of bad designs. The reason of this anger is known to you." And he added, "Angela is in the next room, and she must know nothing of his proposal."

"About ten paces from the last house in Salingen," continued Siegwart, "I have had a pile of dirt thrown up. It was now and then sprinkled with slops, to make manure of it. Herr Hamm has made the discovery that the slops smell bad; that it annoys the inhabitants of the next house; and he has ordered it to be removed."

"Perhaps Herr Hamm will come to the conclusion that, in the interest of the noses, all like piles must be removed from Salingen."

"But that is not all," said Siegwart. "It has been discovered that the common good forbids my keeping fowls, because my residence is surrounded by fields and vineyards, where the fowls do great damage. The Herr Assessor has had the goodness, accompanied by the guards, to examine personally the amount of destruction. So I have got instructions either to keep my fowls confined or to make away with them."

Angela came into the room. Her countenance was smiling and clear as ever; but her swollen eyes did not escape Richard's observation. She greeted the guest, and sat down in her accustomed place near the window. Scarcely had she done this, when Frank stood up, went toward her, and knelt down before the astonished girl.

Siegwart looked on in surprise—now at his daughter, who was perplexed; now at the kneeling young man.

"For God's sake! Herr Frank, arise," said the confused Angela. She was about to leave the seat, but he caught her hand and gently replaced her.

"If I may approach so near to you, my present position is the proper one. Hear me! I have deeply offended you. I could with ease have saved a creature that was dear to you,[621] and I did not do it. My conduct has brought tears to your eyes—hurt your feelings. When you went away to regain your composure, and to show your offender a serene, reconciled countenance, it made my fault more distressing. Forgive me; do not consider me hard and heartless, but see in me an unfortunate who forgets himself in musing."

She looked into Frank's handsome face as he knelt before her, in such sadness, lowering his eyes like a guilty boy, and smiled sweetly.

"The condition is, that you burn those godless books that make you doubt about the noblest things in man, and that you buy no more."

"I vow fulfilment, and assure you that the design of those books, which you rightly call godless, is recognized by me as a crime against the dignity of man—and condemned."

"But, my dear neighbor, how did this singular affair happen?" said the proprietor.

"The love of the hen for her chickens is remarkable. She protects them with her wings and warns them of danger, which she knows by instinct. How easy would it have been for the hen to have taken the young one from the water with her bill—the same bill with which she broke their food and gave it to them. But she did not do it, because it is strange to her nature. This case is another striking proof that animals act neither with understanding nor reflection. Acts beyond their instinct are impossible to them. This would not be the case, if they had souls."

The old servant stood with an empty basket before the library of the son, as he had stood before that of the father. Büchner, Vogt, and Czolbe fell into the fire. Jacob shook his head and regretted the beautiful binding; but the evil spirits between the covers he willingly consigned to the flames.

Again the cars stopped at the station; again the two gentlemen stood at the open window of the car to receive their returning friends. The travellers took a carriage and drove through the street.

"Baron Linden has indeed gone headlong into misery," said Lutz humorously. "Eight days ago the young pair swore eternal fidelity. It was signed and sealed. Until to-day no one could know that they were on the brink of misery."

Richard remembered his remark on the former occasion, and wondered at his sudden change of opinion.

"Amen!" answered Lutz. "Richard, however, considers happiness in matrimony possible. So we may hope that he will not always remain a bachelor. How is the Angel of Salingen? Have you seen her since that encounter with the steer?"

"Thereby I understand the unmarried daughter of Herr Siegwart, of Salingen, named Angela, who richly deserves to be called the 'Angel of Salingen.'"

"Ah! you did not tell me anything of that," said the father, turning to Frank. "An act of such great courage deserves to be mentioned."

The carriage passed into the court of a stately mansion. The servant sprang from his seat and opened the carriage-door. The professor looked at his watch.

"Herr Frank, will you allow your coachman to drive me to the university? I must be at my post in ten minutes. I cannot go on foot in that time."

"Come, if possible. The evening promises great amusement, for the celebrated Santinilli dances."

The accustomed routine of business began for Richard. He sat in the counting-room and worked with his habitual punctuality. Nevertheless invidious spirits lured him toward Salingen, so that the figures danced before his eyes, words had no meaning, and he was often lost in day-dreams. The watchful father had observed this, and was perplexed.

Richard's plan of studies also underwent a change. He left the house regularly at half-past five and returned at half-past six. The father, desiring to know what this meant, set the faithful Jacob on the watch.

"So, so!" he hummed. "The ultramontanes understand proselytizing. They have turned the head of my son. If I live long enough, I may yet see him turn Capuchin, build a cloister, and go about begging."

When Herr Frank entered the counting-room, he found his son busy at work. He stood up and greeted his father.

"I have observed, Richard," he began after a time, "that you go out early every morning. What does it mean?"

"From the conviction that religion is no empty idea, but a power that can give peace and consolation in all conditions of life."

"It is evident that you have breathed ultramontane air. This church-going is not forbidden—but no trifling or fanatical nonsense."

"I am rejoiced at this, my son; but I must observe that a certain gloomy, reserved manner of yours disturbs me. Your conduct is exemplary, your industry praiseworthy, your habits regular; but you keep yourself too much shut up; you do not give evening parties any more. You do not visit the concert-hall or theatre. This is wrong; we should enjoy life, and not move about like dreamers."

"I have no taste for amusements," answered Richard. "However, if you think a change would be good, I beg you to permit me to take a run out to Frankenhöhe for a couple of days."

"I have planted a small vineyard, as you know, and I would like to see how the Burgundies thrive."

Herr Frank was not in a hurry to[623] give the permission. He thought and drummed.

Herr Siegwart had remarked the same symptoms in his daughter that Herr Frank had in his son; but Angela did not give way to discontent. She was always the same obedient daughter. The poor and sick of Salingen could not complain of neglect. But she was frequently absent-minded, gave wrong answers to questions, and sought solitude. If Frank was mentioned, she revived; the least circumstance connected with him was interesting to her. Her sharp-sighted father soon discovered the inmost thoughts and feelings of his daughter. He thought of Herr Frank's ill-humor toward him, and was disposed to regret the hour that Richard entered his house.

The Burgundies at Frankenhöhe were scarcely looked at. The young man hastened to Salingen. He found the landscape changed in a few weeks. The fields had clothed themselves in yellow. The wheat-stalks bent gracefully under their load. Everywhere industrious crowds were in the fields. The stalks fell beneath the reapers. Men bound the sheaves. Wagons stood here and there. The sheaves were raised into picturesque stacks. The sun beamed down hot, and the sweltering weather wrote on the foreheads of the men, "Adam, in the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread."

In the proprietor's house all was still. The old cook sat beneath the lindens, and with spectacles on her nose tried to mend a stocking which she held in her hand. She arose and smiled on Richard's approach.

"They are all in the fields. We have much work, Herr Frank. The grain is ripe, and we have already gathered fifty wagon-loads. I am glad to see you looking so much better. The family will also be glad. They think a great deal of you—particularly Herr Siegwart."

"Off so soon? Will you not say good-day to Miss Angela? She is in the garden. Shall I call her?"

After unlatching the gate, he would have turned back, for he became nervous and embarrassed.

Angela sat in the arbor; her embroidery-frame leaned against the table, and she was busily working. As she heard the creaking of footsteps on the walk, she looked up and blushed. Frank raised his hat, and when the young woman stood up before him in beauty and loveliness, his nervousness increased, and he would gladly have escaped; but his spirit was in the fetters of a strange power, and necessity supplied him with a few appropriate remarks.

"I heard that the family were absent; but I did not wish to go away without saluting you, Miss Angela."

She observed the bashful manner of the young man, and said kindly, "I am glad to see you again, Herr Frank," and invited him to sit down. He looked about for a seat; but as there was none, he had to sit on the same bench with her.

"Only to-day and to-morrow. Work requires dispatch, and old custom has so bound me to my occupation that the knowledge of work to be done makes me feel uneasy."

"I am punctual to the hours, for the work demands regularity and order. There are every day some hours for recreation."

"Music and painting. I like them the best. But of late," he added hesitatingly, "unavoidable thoughts press on me, and many hours of recreation pass in useless dreaming."

"Now, you have promised me," she said softly, "to forget all those things in those bad books that disturbed your mind."

"The fulfilment of no duty was lighter or more pleasant to me than to keep my promise to you, Angela."

His voice trembled. She leaned over her work and her cheeks glowed. The delicate fingers went astray; but Frank did not notice that the colors in the embroidery were getting into confusion. There was a long pause. Then Frank remembered the doctor's final admonition, "Be not like a bashful boy; put aside all false shame and speak your mind;" and he took courage.

"I have no right to ask what disturbs and depresses you," said she, in a scarcely audible voice and without moving her head.

"It is you who have the best right, Angela! You have not only saved my life, but also my better convictions. You have purified my views, and influenced my course of life. I was deeply in error, and you have shown me the only way that leads to peace. This I see more clearly every day. The church is no longer a strange, but an attractive place to me. All this you have done without design. I tell you this because I think you sympathize with me."

"You have not deceived yourself as to my sympathy," she answered. "The discovery that one so insignificant as myself has any influence with you makes me glad."

"O Angela! you are not insignificant in my eyes. You are more than all else on earth to me!" he cried. "You are the object of my love, of my waking dreams. If you could give me your hand before the altar in fidelity and love, my dearest wishes would be realized."

She slowly raised her head, her modest countenance glowed in a virginal blush, and her eyes, which met Richard's anxious look, were filled with tears. She lowered her head, and laid her hand in that of the young man. He folded her in his arms, pressed her to his heart, and kissed her forehead. The swallows flew about the arbor, twittered noisily, and threatened the robber who was trying to take away their friend. The sparrows, through the leaves of the vines, looked with wonder at the table where Angela's head rested on the breast of her affianced.

"We cannot keep this from our parents, Richard. My parents esteem you. Their blessing will not be wanting to our union."

Suddenly she paused, and stood silent and pale, as though filled with a sudden fear. Richard anxiously inquired the cause.

"Do not be troubled about that. Father will not object to my arrangements. But even if he does, I am of age, and no power shall separate me from you."

"No, Richard; no! I love you as[625] my life; but without your father's consent, our union wants a great blessing. Speak to him in love; beg him, beseech him, but do not annoy him on account of your selfishness."

"So it shall be. Your advice is good and noble. As long as this difficulty exists, I am uneasy. I will therefore go back. Speak to your parents; give them my kind greeting, and tell them how proud I shall feel to be acknowledged as their son." He again folded her in his arms and hastened away.

The old cook still sat under the lindens, and the stocking lost many a stitch as Frank, with a joyous countenance, passed her without speaking, without having noticed her. She shook wonderingly her old gray head.

Angela sat in the arbor. Her work lay idly on the table. With a countenance full of sweetness she went to her room, and knelt and prayed.

Herr Frank looked up astonished, as Richard, late in the evening, entered his chamber.

"Excuse me, father," said he joyfully and earnestly; "something has happened of great importance to me, and of great interest to you. I could not delay an explanation, even at the risk of depriving you of an hour's sleep."

"Well, well! I am really interested," said Herr Frank, as he threw himself back on the sofa. "Your explanation must be something extraordinary, for I have never seen you thus before. What is it, then?"

"For a right understanding of my position, it is necessary to go back to that May-day on which we went to Frankenhöhe. Your displeasure at my well-grounded aversion to women you will remember."

With childish simplicity he related the whole course of his inner life and trials at Frankenhöhe. He described the deep impression Angela had made upon him. He took out his diary and read his observations, his stubborn adherence to his prejudices, and the victory of a virtuous maiden over them. The father listened with the greatest attention. He admired the depth of his son's mind and the noble struggle of conviction against the powerful influence of error. But when Richard made known what had passed between himself and Angela, Herr Frank's countenance changed.

"I have told you all," said Richard, "with that openness which a son owes to his father. From the disposition and character of Angela, as you have heard them, you must have learned to respect her, and have been convinced that she and I will be happy. Therefore, father, I beg your consent and blessing on our union."

"Slowly, my son. With the exception of what happened to-day, I am pleased with your conduct. You have convinced yourself of the injustice of your opinion of women. You have found a noble woman. I am willing to believe that Angela is a magnificent and faultless creature, although she have an ultramontane father. But my consent to your union with Siegwart's daughter you will never receive. Now, Richard, you can without trouble find a woman that will suit you, and who is as beautiful and as noble-minded as the Angel of Salingen."

"There are many reasons. First, I do not like the ultramontane spirit of the Siegwart family. Angela is educated in this spirit. You would be bound to a wife whose narrow views would be an intolerable burden."

"Pardon, father! The extracts[626] from my diary informed you that I have examined this ultramontane spirit very carefully, and that I was forced at last to correct my opinions of the ultramontanes—to reject an unjust prejudice."

"The stained glass of passion has beguiled you into ultramontane sentiments; and further, remember that Siegwart is personally objectionable to me." And he spoke of the failure of the factory through Angela's father.

"Herr Siegwart has told me of that enterprise, and, at the same time, gave me the reasons that induced him to prevent its realization. He showed the demoralizing effects of factories. He showed that the inhabitants of that neighborhood support themselves by farming; that the religious sentiment of the country people is endangered by Sunday labor and other evil influences that accompany manufacturing."

"Siegwart's conduct is free from narrow-mindedness. You yourself have often said that faith and religion had much to fear from modern manufactories. If Siegwart has made great sacrifices, if he has interfered against his own interest in favor of faith and morality, he deserves great respect for it."

"Has it gone so far? Do you openly take part with the ultramontane against your father?"

"The views of father and son are very different, and we may thank your intercourse with the ultramontanes for it."

"Your acquaintance, father, with that excellent family is very desirable. You would soon be convinced that you ought to respect them."

"I do not desire their acquaintance. It is near midnight; go to rest, and forget the hasty step of to-day."

"I will never regret what has taken place with forethought and reflection," answered Richard firmly. "I again ask your consent to the happiness of your son."

The son became excited. He was about to fly into a passion, and to show his father that he was not going to follow blind authority like an inexperienced child, when he thought of what Angela said, "Speak to your father in love;" and his rising anger subsided.

"You know, father," he said hesitatingly, "that my age permits me to choose a wife without reference to your will. As the consent is withheld without valid reasons, I might do without it. But Angela has urgently requested me not to act against your will, and I have promised to comply with her wishes."

"Angela appears to have more sense than you. So she requested this promise from you? I esteem the young lady for this sentiment, although she be a child of Siegwart, who shall never have my son for a son-in-law."

"It only remains for me to declare," said he calmly, "that to Angela, and to her alone, shall I ever belong in love and fidelity. If you persevere in your refusal, I here tell you, on my honor, I shall never choose another wife."

He made a bow and left the room. It was long past midnight, and Herr Frank was still sitting on the sofa, drumming on his knees and shaking his head.

"An accursed piece of business!" said he. "I know he will not break his word of honor under any circumstances.[627] I know his stubborn head. But this Siegwart, this clerical ultramontane fellow—it is incompatible; mental progress and middle-age darkness, spiritual enlightenment and stark confessionalism—it won't do. Angela certainly is not her father. She is an innocent country creature; does not wear crinoline, dresses in blue like a bluebell, has not a dainty stomach, and has no toilette nonsense. The nuns, together with perverted views of the world, may, perhaps, have taught her many principles that adorn an honorable woman; but—but—" And Herr Frank threw himself back grumbling on the sofa.

On the following day Richard wrote Angela a warm, impassioned letter. The vow of eternal love and fidelity was repeated. In conclusion, he spoke of his father's refusal, but assured her that his consent would yet be given.

Many weeks passed. The letters of the lovers came and went regularly and without interruption. She wrote that her parents had not hesitated a moment to give their consent. In her letters Richard admired her tender feeling, her dove-like innocence and pure love. He was firm in his conviction that she would make him happy, would be his loadstar through life. He read her letters hundreds of times, and these readings were his only recreation. He spoke not another word about the matter to his father. He kept away from all society. He devoted himself to his calling, and endeavored to purify his heart in the spirit of religion, that he might approach nearer to an equality with Angela. The father observed him carefully, and was daily more and more convinced that a spiritual change was coming over his son. Murmuringly he endured the church-going, and vexedly he shook his head at Richard's composure and perseverance, which he knew time would not change. The more quietly the son endured, the more disquieted Herr Frank became. "Sacrifice your prejudices to your son's happiness," he heard the doctor saying; and he felt ashamed when he thought of this advice.

"What cannot be cured must be endured," he was accustomed to say for some days, as often as he went into his room. "The queer fellow makes it uncomfortable for me; this cannot continue; days and years pass away. I am growing old, and the house of Frank must not die out."

One morning he gave Richard charge of the establishment. "I have important business," said he. "I will be back to-morrow."

The father smiled significantly as he said this. Richard heard from the coachman that Herr Frank took a ticket for the station near Frankenhöhe. He knew the great importance to him of this visit, and prayed God earnestly to move his father's heart favorably. His uneasiness increased hourly, and rendered all work impossible. He walked up and down the counting-room like a man who feared bankruptcy, and expected every moment the decision on which depended his happiness for life. He went into the hall where the desks of the clerks stood in long rows. He went to the desks, looked at the writing of the clerks, and knew not what he did, where he went, or where he stood.

The next day Herr Frank returned. Richard was called to the library, where his father received him with a face never more happy or contented.

"I have visited your bride," he began, "because I had a curiosity to know personally the one who has converted my son to sound views of womankind. I am perfectly satisfied with your taste, and also with myself; for I have become reconciled[628] with Siegwart, and find that he is as willing to live with his neighbors in harmony as in discord. You now have my blessing on your union. The marriage can take place when you please; only it would please me if it came off as soon as possible."

Richard stood speechless with emotion, which so overcame him that tears burst from his eyes. He embraced his father, kissed him tenderly, and murmured his thanks.

"That will do, Richard," said Herr Frank, much affected. "Your happiness moves me. May it last long. And I do not doubt it will; for Angela is truly a woman the like of whom I have never met. Her character is as clear and transparent as crystal; and her eyes possess such power, and her smile such loveliness, that I fear for my freedom when she is once in the house."

Crisp, cold weather. The December winds sweep gustily through the streets of the city, driving the well-clad wanderer before them and sporting with the weather-vanes. A carriage stops before the door of the Director Schlagbein. Professor Lutz steps out and directs the driver to await him.

Emil Schlagbein, Richard's unhappy married friend, had moved his easy-chair near the stove and leaned his head against its back. He looked as though despair had seized him and thrown him into it. Hasty steps were heard in the ante-room, and Lutz stood before him.

"Still in your working-clothes, Emil? Up! the tea-table of the Angel of Salingen awaits us."

"War—always war; never peace!" said Lutz. "I fear, Emil, that all the fault is not with your wife. You are too sensitive, too particular about principles. Man must tolerate, and not be niggardly in compliance. Take old Frank as a model. With Angela entered ultramontanism into his house. Frank lives in peace with this spirit—even on friendly terms. Angela reads him pious stories from the legends of the saints. He goes with her to church, where he listens with attention to the word of God. He hears mass as devoutly as a Capuchin; not to say any thing of Richard, who runs a race with Angela for the prize of piety. Could you not also make some sacrifice to the whims of your wife?"

"Angela and Ida—day and night!" said the director bitterly. "The two Franks make no sacrifice to female whims. They appreciate her exalted views, they admire her purity, her unspeakable modesty, her shining virtues. The two Franks acted reasonably when they adopted the principles that produced such a woman. Angela never speaks to her husband in defiance and bad temper. If clouds gather in the matrimonial heaven, she dissipates them with the breath of love. Is the sacrifice of a wish wanted? Angela makes it. Is her pure feeling offended by Richard's faults? She kisses them away and raises him to her level. My wife—is she not just the opposite in every thing? Is she not quick-tempered, bitter, loveless, extravagant, and stiff-necked? Has she a look—I will not say of love—but even of respect for me? Do not all her thoughts and acts look to the pleasures of the toilette, the opera, balls, and concerts? O my poor children! who grow up without a mother, in the hands of domestics. How is any concession possible here? Must not my position, my self-respect, the last remnant of manly dignity go to the wall?"

"Your case is lamentable, friend! Your principles and those of your[629] wife do not agree. Concession to the utmost point of duty, joined with prudent reform in many things, may, perhaps, bring back harmony and a good understanding between you. You praise Angela: follow her example. She abominates the air of the theatre. The opera-glasses of the young men levelled at her offend her deeply, and bring to her angelic countenance the blush of shame. Her fine religious feeling is offended at many words, gestures, and dances which a pious Christian woman should not hear and see. Yet she goes to the opera because Richard wishes it. Her husband will at last observe this heroism of love, and sacrifice the opera to it. What Angela cannot obtain by prayers and representations, she gains by the all-conquering weapons of love. In like manner and for a like object yield to your wife. She is, at least, not a firebrand. Love must overcome her stubbornness."

"A father cannot do what is inconsistent with paternal duty," said he. "Shall I join in the course of my wife? Whither does this course lead? To the destruction of all family ties, to financial bankruptcy—to dishonor. For home my wife has no mind, no understanding. My means she throws carelessly into the bottomless pit of pleasure-seeking and love of dress. She does not think of the future of her children. Every day brings to her new desires for prodigality. If her wishes are fulfilled, ruin is unavoidable. If they are not fulfilled, she sits ill-humored and obstinate in her room, and leaves the care of the house to her domestics, and the children to the nurses. How often have I consented to her vain desire for show, only to see her extravagant wishes thereby increased. She is without reason."

The unfortunate man's head sunk upon his breast. Lutz stood still without uttering a word.

"Yes, Angela is a noble woman," continued Emil, "she is the spirit of order, the angel of peace and love. Just hear Richard's father. He revels in enthusiasm about her. 'My Richard is the happiest man in the world,' said he to me lately. 'I myself must be thankful to him for his prudent choice. Abounding in every thing, my house was empty and desolate before Angela came; but now every thing shines in the sun of her orderly housekeeping, of her tender care. Although served with fidelity, I have been until the present almost neglected. But now that the angel hovers over me, observes my every want, and with her smile lights my old age, I am perfectly happy.' Has my wife a single characteristic of this noble woman?"

"Angela is unapproachable in the little arts that win the heart and drive away melancholy," said Lutz. "A few weeks ago, Herr Frank came home one day from the counting-room all out of sorts. He sat silently in his easy-chair drumming on his knee. Angela noticed his ill-humor. She sought to dissipate it—to cheer him; but she did not succeed. She then arose, and, going to him, said with unspeakable affection, 'Father, may I play and sing for you the "Lied der Kapelle?"' Herr Frank looked in her face, and smiled as he replied, 'Yes, my angel.' When her sweet voice resounded in the next room in beautiful accord with the accompaniment, which she played most feelingly, the old man revived and joined in her song with his trembling bass."

"How often we have twitted Richard with his views of modern women," said Emil. "It was his cool judgment, perhaps, that saved him from a misfortune like mine."

Just then a carriage stopped before[630] the house. Emil went uneasily to the window, and Lutz followed him. Bandboxes and trunks were taken from the house. The professor looked inquiringly at his friend, whose hand appeared to tremble as it rested on the window-glass.

"My wife is going to her aunt's for an indefinite time. She leaves me to enjoy the pleasures of Christmas alone. The children also remain here; they might be in her way."

"Emil," said he, almost angrily, "it is for you to determine how a man should act in regard to the freaks and caprices of his wife. But you should not steep yourself in gall, even though your wife turn into a river of bitterness. Drive away sadness and be happy. Do not let your present humor rob you of every thing. Forget what you cannot change."

A beautiful woman approached the carriage. Schlagbein turned away from the sight. Lutz observed the departing wife and mother. She did not look up at the window where her husband was. She got into the carriage without even saying farewell. She sat in the midst of bandboxes, surrounded by finery and tinsel; and as the wheels rolled over the pavement, the director groaned in his chair.

"A happy journey to you, Xantippe!" cried the angry professor. "Emil, be a man. Dress yourself; forget at the Angel of Salingen's your domestic devil."

"What have the wretched to do in the home of the happy? There I shall only see more clearly that I suffer and am miserable."

Lutz, out of humor, threw himself into the carriage. With knitted brows he buried himself in one of its corners. That professional head was perplexed with a question which ordinary men would have quickly seen through, and settled. Frank's happiness and Schlagbein's misery stood as two irrefutable facts before the mind of the professor. Now came the question, Why this happiness, why this misery? The dashing Ida he had known for years; also her enlightened views of life, and her flexible principles, perfectly conformable to the spirit of progress. Whence, then, the dissoluteness of her desires, the bitterness of her humor, the heartlessness of the wife, the callousness of the mother?

The professor continued his musing. He gave a scrutinizing glance at the marriages of all his acquaintances. Everywhere he found a clouded sky, and, in the semi-darkness, lightning and thunder. Only one marriage stood before him bright and clear in the sunlight of happiness, in the raiment of peace, and that was ultramontane. That ultramontane principles had produced this happiness and peace, the professor's industrious mind saw with clearness. He raised his head and said solemnly, "Marriage is an image of religion. It proceeds from the lips of God, and is perfected at the altar. The marriage duties are children of the religious sentiment, fetters of the divine law. Ida was faithful and true so long as it agreed with the longings of her heart. But with the cooling of affection died love and fidelity. She recognizes no religious duty, because she has progressed to liberty and independence. From this follows with striking clearness the incompatibility of Christian marriage with the spirit of the age. Marriage will be a thing of the past as soon as intellectual maturity conquers in the contest with religion. Sound sense, liberty of emotion and[631] inclination will supplant the terrible marriage yoke."

The professor paused and examined his conclusion. It smiled upon him like a true child of nature. It clothed itself in motley flesh, and passed through green meadows and shady forests. It pointed encouragingly to the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, long in possession of intellectual maturity. Sensual marriages, intended to last only for weeks or months, danced around the professor. Cannibal hordes, who extended to him their brotherly paws and claws, pressed about him. In astonishment, he contemplated his conclusion; it made beastly grimaces, knavish and jeering, and he dashed into fragments the provoking mockery.

In strong contrast to the animal kingdom, stood before him again the Christian marriage. He cunningly tried to give his new conclusion human shape; but here the carriage stopped, and the speculation vanished before the clear light in the house of the "Angel of Salingen."

THE LETTER OF MR. E. S. FFOULKES.

The religious controversies of the last three centuries have given birth to many new and strange things, but scarcely to any thing more wonderful than the letter of Mr. E. S. Ffoulkes to Archbishop Manning, entitled The Church's Creed or the Crown's Creed. It is hard to discern the precise mental condition of the author, or the temper with which he writes; while the whole letter is a bundle of misstatements and misunderstandings, calculated to produce an impression only upon the ignorant or prejudiced reader. It has been used in this country as an argument against the Catholic Church by the advance-guard of Episcopalians, whose sparse ranks are daily depleted by conversions to Rome. It has more than once happened that individuals even in high position have proved unfaithful, and we know of one or two converts to the church for whom the yoke of Christ proved too heavy. Nothing is more natural than to hold up these examples to the doubtful and the wavering as warnings. "Here is one who has tried the Roman communion and found it oppressive to his heart, or irreconcilable with his views of Christianity. Hesitate long before you take the step which he found occasion to regret." Such a warning is not without effect upon minds so tempted and anxious as are those of Protestants, when, called by conscience, they forsake the associations of childhood and accept for the first time, in the spirit of obedience, a religion which God has revealed to faith alone. We have known some to be deterred from the great step by such warnings, which are purely personal, and hardly merit the name of arguments. For surely individual experiences are not to be taken as the basis of any reasoning. They are good only as far as the person concerned may be deemed an infallible criterion of right or wrong. Every one is liable to mistake or positive error, and while there have been a few dissatisfied Catholics, and a very[632] few concerts who have regretted the step they took, there have been many more who have daily found new cause to thank God for the peace they have experienced in the old faith. If the testimony of individuals is to be taken, we have the preponderance of argument in our favor. Defections from our ranks will never even approximate to an equality in moral weight with the accessions, nor ever furnish any plausible objection against the invincible demonstration of the authority of the church. We do not deny that difficulties may be raised which it may require time and patience to remove, nor that there are oftentimes trials which prove the sincerity of every individual believer. But there are no logical objections to the claims of an authority which professes to be divine, and gives to the honest mind just grounds for its high pretensions. The defection of Mr. E. S. Ffoulkes, or of many others like him, is in itself no argument whatever, and cannot be taken as any thing conclusive against us, any more than can the treason of Judas Iscariot. If he, or any other adversary, will try in a manly way to confute the arguments by which we substantiate our position, let us listen with patience and candor, and give to his reasonings the attention which they merit. Has Mr. Ffoulkes done this in the letter before us, and what answer shall Catholics make to his attack? The full and complete replies which have been made to his pamphlet in England may not have reached many here whom his assertions have surprised, and therefore it may be well to give room in these pages to a brief discussion of the charges which he makes against the Catholic Church.

1. The pope allowed the civil power to make an alteration in the creed—a thing distinctly forbidden by the Fourth General Council.

3. He made use of the forged Isidorian decretals to build up a power which he did not possess in earlier ages.

4. He even inspired the Crusades for the purpose of putting down the patriarchal sees of the east and exalting his own dignity, thus showing himself to be a man of blood.

5. The fruits of faith, on the testimony of Mr. Ffoulkes's experience, are greater in the Anglican Church than they are in the Catholic communion; therefore the former is more truly a church than the latter.

The inferences to be drawn from these charges, if they could be substantiated, would be, that the pope has been very wicked, and has made himself liable to excommunication, and that the see of Rome is to blame for all the divisions of the church. This produces a sad ecclesiastical dilemma; for if the supreme pontiff be excommunicated, who will take his place, and where shall we find the true body of Christ?

Let us examine these fearful charges, one by one, and then perhaps we may have time to notice some singular assertions which are scattered through the letter, though they have nothing to do with the main argument.

1. "The Fourth General Council set forth a creed in which the perfect doctrine was taught concerning the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Then it decreed that it was lawful for nobody to propose or teach others another faith. Those who should dare to do it, if bishops or clergy, were to[633] be deposed; if laymen, to be anathematized." Now, in violation of this canon, one King Reccared, in Spain, in the year 589, did ignorantly or wilfully put the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son into the Nicene Creed, and sing the addition in his private chapel. After him it appears that Charlemagne committed the same offence, and the pope, though he objected to the proceeding, did not stop it. The conclusion, therefore, is that, even though this doctrine be true, the civil power, or "the crown in council," defined it; and secondly, that the Roman pontiff is worthy of deposition because he winked at this disobedience to a decree of the œcumenical council. We consider this whole charge as rather trivial, and as already answered by the words of Mr. Ffoulkes himself. He admits that the popes, while always defending the doctrine as true, did not approve the addition to the creed in the way in which it took place. It was, however, an expression of an orthodox dogma which came spontaneously from the people and bishops, in which they were seconded by their rulers. The papal objection to the movement was manifestly on the ground that additions to the creed should come from the proper authority, and that the precedent of Reccared was dangerous in practice. To say that the civil power was the tribunal which settled this doctrine, is to say something supremely ridiculous, when the very words of the objector show that the whole movement came from the ecclesiastical body. Catholics believe that the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son was always a part of the deposit of faith, and that its expression in the symbols of the church was only the confession of a dogma ever at least implicitly professed. When the head of the church by his supreme authority placed this doctrine in the creed—which he had, according to our belief, an undoubted right to do—he did not sanction the action of Reccared or Charlemagne, although he certainly gave his infallible approval to the dogma. We think this proceeding of the "crown in council" a very harmless one. Would that Elizabeth had been as innocent in regard to the church which she established!

It seems, then, that the pope did not allow the thing of which our objector complains, and so charge the first falls to the ground.

2. "The Roman pontiff, however, did himself alter the creed, and thus break the canon of the Council of Ephesus." We admit the gravamen of this accusation. The pope did, in answer to the wish of the great majority of the Christian world, place the "Filioque" in the Nicene symbol, or sanction its insertion. But three questions arise, the reply to which will settle very clearly the whole difficulty. What is the true meaning of the Ephesine canon to which Mr. Ffoulkes so often refers? Is the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son a true doctrine? Did the pontiff go beyond his authority in allowing its introduction into the creed?

In the first place, we find that our objector has put a singular and most impossible construction upon the seventh canon of the Council of Ephesus, which forms the one string upon which he harps with such a dissonant monotony. He interprets that canon to forbid any after definitions of faith, and to altogether abdicate the infallibility of the church. In his view the Council of Chalcedon takes up the same theme, and virtually renounces for all time the power which Christ left on earth to teach and decide in questions of doctrine. It is evident to any sane person that the church could not have thus renounced its[634] own gifts, and practically voted itself out of existence. And facts beyond all question prove that such an idea never entered into the heads of the fathers of Ephesus or Chalcedon. The Roman pontiff, as the head of the Catholic Church, and the councils which have been assembled under his direction, have ever dealt with heresy as did the first five councils, and have even made, as time rendered it necessary, fresh definitions of faith. By Mr. Ffoulkes's construction of the canons, the popes and all the western bishops have been deposed and excommunicated since the Fifth General Council.[147]

The simple truth is, that the Ephesine canon only forbade any one to bring in a faith contrary to the one already defined, and never dreamed of denying the office of the church to do for future ages what the Ecclesia docens was then doing for its own times. The words of the council are, "It shall be lawful for no one to put forth another faith than that defined by the Fathers of Nice," "Alteram fidem nemini licere proferre, præter definitam a Sanctis Patribus qui in Nicæâ cum Sancto Spiritu congregati fuerunt." Any person not bewildered by religious eccentricities can easily see that this canon, in the first place, only refers to any denial of the creed of Nice; and, secondly, that it has in view the actions of private individuals, and in no way that of the church collectively or its supreme ruler. Mr. Ffoulkes then harps upon the creations of his own fancy, and the legitimate consequence of his conclusions is the annihilation of the whole ecclesiastical body, and the reductio ad absurdum.

But is the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son true or false, according to authorities which even our objector considers adequate? Those who are best acquainted with patristic theology tell us that this doctrine was always taught by both eastern and western fathers, though the mode of expression might differ. The Greeks afterward misunderstood the Latin "Filioque" as if in the act of spiration the Father and the Son were as two distinct principles. The Latins, however, objected to the preposition "per," as if in the eternal act the Son were only an instrument or canal. The dogma that the Holy Ghost proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son as from one principle, and in one action, was unquestionably the belief of the early church. Pope Hormisdas, A.D. 521, seventy years before the conversion of Reccared, thus writes to the emperor, "It is known to all that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son under one substance of the Deity." The same doctrine is clearly stated in the synodical epistle of St. Cyril of Alexandria. There is no necessity in this place to refer to other authorities, which are very numerous. The Roman pontiff, acting, as Catholics believe, in his capacity as the head of the church, allowed this dogma to be confessed in the Constantinopolitan creed; and afterward the Synod of Florence, at which Greek bishops were present, solemnly defined it. The action in this matter of the holy see is very simply stated. It is hard to say at what precise time the "Filioque" was first inserted in the symbol of faith. It seems to have been used in Spain in the time of Reccared, and thence to have passed into Germany, Gaul, and Italy. The objection of the pope to its introduction in the first instance was, that it was done by private individuals and without authority. Thus, St.[635] Leo III., while commanding the doctrine to be taught, orders its ejection from the creed only on this ground. So much is taught us by Mr. Ffoulkes himself. At last, when its use became general and was demanded by the consent of all, Benedict VIII. gave to it his supreme sanction.

The question now arises, if the Roman pontiff exceeded his authority in this action? By the testimony of fathers and councils, we are certain that he only sanctioned the confession of a doctrine received by the early church, and solemnly defined by later days as a part of the original deposit of faith, and as contained in the revelation of the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Had he the right thus to act in controversies of faith? If he had not, then not in this instance alone, but in many others has he gone beyond the bounds of his authority, and objectors might as well find fault with every pope from St. Peter down as to weary themselves over a single fact of history. The popes have always claimed the right thus to act, and the Christian world has yielded it to them, and Catholics believe that they have it from Christ. According to the Catholic doctrine, the papacy is essential to the constitution of the church. There could no more be a church without the pope than a man without ahead. Writers like Mr. Ffoulkes do not seem to comprehend this, and so, taking for granted that which should be proved, indulge in much self-complacency. We pass on, then, to examine whether the Roman pontiffs owe any of the power which they exercised to the forged decretals of Isidore.

3. It is now pretty well settled that the Isidorian collection of canons had their origin in France, and not at Rome, and that they were framed not in the interest of the holy see, whose powers were unquestioned, but in the interest of the bishops. The decretals of the popes and of the œcumenical councils formed the canon law of the church; and the first code of canons which received any kind of official sanction at Rome was that of Dionysius in the sixth century. Whenever the need of a new rule was felt, the pontiffs legislated by their decretals, the originals of which were preserved in the papal archives. That these decretals had full authority, appears by the epistles of Celestine I. and Leo the Great, and from the preface of Dionysius to his collection. The false decretals of Isidore began to be circulated about the year 853, and at first attracted little attention. Pope Nicholas I., in a letter to Hincmar of Rheims, A.D. 863, commanded that "no one should dare to pronounce a judgment except in accordance with the canons of Nicæa, and of the other councils, and in agreement with the decrees of the Roman pontiffs Siricius, Innocent, Zosimus, Celestine, Boniface, Leo, Hilary, Gregory, and others, saving in all things the rights of the apostolic see."

He makes no reference to the decretals of Isidore, which were then gaining acceptance, and certainly never thought of basing his authority upon them. These decretals may be reduced to three classes: first, the genuine canons or decrees of popes; second, those which were substantially genuine; third, those which were wholly spurious. "This last class," says the American Cyclopædia, "only contained what already existed. The evil done by this forgery was to history and erudition, and not to the discipline of the church." They were in accordance with the recognized ecclesiastical system, and good counterfeits of the true decretals. It was not wonderful, therefore, that they should have gradually come into use, as a genuine collection of[636] the early code of the church. For two centuries after their first appearance, they remained neglected by the popes, and apparently unknown to them. With the exception of one or two quotations by Hadrian II. and Stephen IV., no one of the pontiffs referred to them before the middle of the eleventh century. After this period, when they were generally received, and no doubt was entertained of their authenticity, the popes began to quote them with the same freedom as was used in the case of the Hadrianic collection.

We remark, therefore, that the forgery was neither favored nor patronized by the Roman pontiffs; and secondly, that the false decretals gave to the pope no power which he did not already possess, and that by universal consent. For the proof of the latter assertion we need only cite one or two authorities.

In the first place, one must be endowed with a marvellous credulity to believe that a private collection of canons could have had the power to convert the bishop of Rome from a pastor of a particular city or country into the ruler of the whole church, the possessor of prerogatives before unknown to the Christian world. And the marvel is increased when we consider that this great change must have taken place without any protest by the patriarchs or councils who were thus called upon to pay obedience to a new ecclesiastical superior. He that can believe this can believe any thing, no matter how absurd it may be. The truth is, that the false decretals could not have obtained so easy acceptance and universal recognition if they had not been in accordance with the received doctrine and constitution of the church.

In the second place, the careful study of the earlier œcumenical councils will persuade any honest mind that the papal supremacy was firmly established in the heart of Christendom. The Synod of Sardica solemnly acknowledged the supreme authority of the Roman pontiff; and in so doing it did not constitute any new order of things, but simply recognized a fact of divine institution. No council ever pretended to give any power to the apostolic see, but simply to enunciate, as belonging to the very constitution of the church, the rights and dignity given to St. Peter and his successors from Christ. Four hundred years before the forgery of the decretals, Innocent I. writes, in accordance with the canon law of his age, "If weighty matters come to be discussed, (causæ majores,) they are to be referred to the apostolic see after the judgment of the bishops, according as the synod has established and the holy custom requires." In thus claiming the prerogatives of the Roman see the pontiffs are all of one accord from the earliest day. The code of Justinian declares, "We do not allow that any thing which concerns the affairs of the church should pass unreferred to his blessedness the Roman pontiff, for he is the head of all the holy priests of God." Thus, Gelasius in his decree at the Council of Rome, 494, says, "The holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church was placed over all the churches by no synod, but obtained the primacy by the voice of our Lord and Saviour himself." "No one ever," says Boniface I., "attempted to lift up his hand against the apostolic greatness, from whose judgment there is no appeal whatever." The Eighth General Council (869) defined the supremacy of the Roman see in the strongest terms, and the formula of Pope Hormisdas was signed by the Greek bishops and patriarchs. In this formula it is distinctly stated that "in the apostolic see the true faith is ever preserved immaculate,"[637] and that "they who consent not to this see are separate from the communion of the Catholic Church." The formula also quotes the words of our Lord, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church." The Greek schism, however, required the reassertion of this doctrine, and it was accordingly defined as of faith in the Fourth Lateran Council, a.d. 1215; again in the second of Lyons, A.D. 1274, and again in the Council of Florence, A.D. 1439. The language of this latter synod is,

In this definition the Greeks, who were represented at this synod, fully concurred.[148] The year following, the Patriarch Metrophanes, by an evangelical letter, announced to the whole oriental world the reunion of the Greek and Latin churches, mentioning at the same time the doctrines defined in the decree of reconciliation. The singular charges made by Mr. Ffoulkes against the Council of Florence and Pope Eugenius merit perhaps a brief notice. He denies the regularity of the council, and accuses the pope of every kind of duplicity to control and beguile the Greek bishops. In reply to these accusations it may be well to state what we admit and what we deny. We admit that the act of the twenty-fifth session of Basle, which named Florence as the place of assembly, was not passed by the majority of the votes, but by the minority. We admit that the pope chose an Italian city, and that he guaranteed to the eastern bishops a safe-conduct home. We deny that he exceeded the bounds of his authority or acted with any cunning or duplicity toward the Greeks, who were anxious to promote a reunion, and especially desirous to meet the Latin bishops at the very place which the papal legates designated. The minority of the Council of Basle comprised the best and most influential prelates, while the majority was composed chiefly of simple country priests, and of servants of the bishops, who had been admitted into the congregations with the right of voting. It is also Catholic doctrine that the pope, who alone has the power to call an œcumenical council, has the right to transfer it, when called, from one place to another. The reason why Florence was chosen is evident enough to any honest reader of history. There was no "barter of temporal and spiritual gains" between the pope and the emperor. The eastern bishops signed the decrees with perfect willingness, and no constraint was used with them. Even before the interview between them at the council many of them had pressed the emperor to act in this matter of reunion, and went so far as to declare that, should he refuse to take part, they would assume the responsibility themselves. There is nothing which Eugenius did which any pontiff would not have done, who, under the circumstances which surrounded him, felt called to seek the peace and salvation of the eastern churches. All attempts to injure the credit or authority of the Council of Florence prove unavailing to any one who receives facts as they are, without color of prejudice.

4. It is, however, time to notice[638] what Mr. Ffoulkes asserts in regard to the Crusades. The pontiff who, according to him, had built up an authority upon forged decretals, sought by means of the Crusades to "complete by force the ecclesiastical aggrandizement of the papacy." "He attempted to subjugate the churches of the east to that of Rome in the way opposed to the canons, and this was exactly what he completed on the capture of Constantinople." The answer to this charge, as far as the animus of the pope was concerned, has already been made. We have shown how Innocent III. had no need to build up a power which he already possessed, and which his predecessors for centuries had claimed and exercised. Then it is simply untrue that the popes had any idea of subjugating the eastern churches in the encouragement which they gave to the Crusades. Let Mr. Ffoulkes refute himself. In his Christendom's Divisions he acknowledges that "for two hundred years the east had been calling upon the west for assistance, and that the principal actors in these wars advocated a great cause, and one of the holiest struggles ever undertaken in self-defence." There was only one reason why the Christian arms were turned against Constantinople, and that was the necessity of protecting the Crusaders against treachery and destruction by Greek perfidy. "There was a growing feeling in Europe," says Mr. Ffoulkes, "that the Greeks were at the bottom of all the misfortunes of the Latins in the east." Of Conrad's army sixty thousand fell beneath the swords of the Mussulmans through the treason of the Greek guides. The emperor made every effort to ensnare the formidable army of Louis VII., and forced the third Crusade, at great loss, to get to the Holy Land by sea. Barbarossa could hardly save his soldiers from the insidious artifices which were plotted against him. But let the historian Gibbon, whose judgment is certainly not partial to the Latins, decide the matter:

As far as Innocent III. is concerned, it is evident from his letters that he was wholly averse to the capture of Constantinople, and that he accepted the establishment of the new empire only as a means of securing the soil which had been hallowed by the footsteps of our Lord. And when he appointed Thomas Morosini in the place of John Lamater, who had deserted his see, he only used his supreme authority as the head of the church.

We think our objector must have been driven for argument, and somewhat demented, when he sought the Crusades for witnesses against the authority and conceded rights of the Roman pontiff.

5. Now comes the conclusion, which is not contained in the premises, but which, as the ex cathedra assertion of Mr. E. S. Ffoulkes, has all the value of his personal experience. He joined the Catholic Church some years ago, and has not yet formally renounced it, as far as we know, although he has incurred an ipso facto excommunication by obstinately sustaining heretical propositions and refusing submission to the judgment of the holy see. He went often to confession and communion until he was refused permission to receive the sacraments. He does not tell the world that he purposes to leave us, though he does say that he ought never to have abandoned the English Church, whose memories still expand his heart. He charges the pope with being an usurper by many means of fraud, and he even seems to deny any patriarchal jurisdiction in England. Being a judge of the operations of the Holy Spirit, he finds that converts do not become any more pious by their submission to Rome, and to his mind the Protestant parsonage is "the perfect ideal of practical Christianity." To illustrate what a peculiar mind he has, we will only add, as a piece of curious information, that he draws conclusions from what the Council of Trent did not do. "Luther was excommunicated, but the Confession of Augsburg has not been yet anathematized." "Queen Elizabeth was deposed, but the council deliberately abstained from affirming that the bishops consecrated in her reign were no bishops." "Even the Thirty-nine Articles escaped censure." "Anglican orders, if they have not been recognized in practice, have never been declared invalid; still less have the grounds of their invalidity been set forth." Our readers who know any thing of ecclesiastical history may judge whether Mr. Ffoulkes is sane or not. What else did the Council of Trent do but condemn the peculiar tenets of Augsburg, and the doctrines contained in the Thirty-nine Articles? Can any thing be plainer than this? How have Anglican orders been passed over in silence, or even delicately handled? Every child who reads the Catholic catechism knows that holy order is a sacrament that cannot be reiterated without sacrilege. Yet in every instance where an Anglican minister has been advanced to any order of the clergy, ordination has been given, as to a mere layman, and that without any condition whatever. Such has been the invariable practice of the church, and this upon the highest authority, so that it has passed into a universal rule. "Anglican orders," he says, "have never been declared invalid; still less have the grounds of their invalidity been set forth." We will quote him a decision of the Holy Office and a decree of the pope, bearing date April 17th, 1704. As he has found so many things which are substantially untrue, why did he not find this decree before he ventured to publish his letter? We give as nearly a literal translation as possible:

Dr. Gordon was the Anglican bishop of Galloway. He went to Rome, and was there received into the communion of the church. The whole question of his orders was carefully examined, and the above is the conclusion of the supreme authority of the Roman pontiff. "The grounds of the invalidity of English orders have never been set forth," says Mr. Ffoulkes. Let us still further quote the petition in the case of Dr. Gordon:

We presume the argument in this case will have little weight with our objector or his friends; but we trust no one will say again that Rome has never pronounced a judgment on the question of Anglican orders. Still, after the letter we are reviewing, as well as many things we have seen and heard in the ritualistic quarter, we can never be taken by surprise again. Should they tell us that the pope is excommunicated by his own decree, it will not ruffle our peace; for in the Protestant religion each man is an infallible pontiff, whose decisions go beyond the domain of faith, and rule in the field of history and science. "If facts are not to our liking in the past, let us rewrite them, and make a history to suit ourselves," is the language of their acts.

We are not disposed to battle with the personalities of Mr. Ffoulkes. Perhaps he has an improper standard by which to determine the degrees of sanctity; and this is likely to be the case if the "English parsonage with its surroundings" is the norm of perfection. Where men are as mere men, we put one against another, and set forth the hundreds of converts in our own day with their experience against Mr. E. S. Ffoulkes and one or two others. Hundreds can testify that they have seen more of real piety and true devotion in the Catholic Church than they had ever dreamed possible before they knew the only mother of saints. Words are of little value, and assertions can be bandied about from one mouth to another. Deeds are the test—deeds of self-denial, patience, and unselfish charity.

As for the sincerity of those who are seeking the truth, and are in fervor at the first sight of the Catholic faith, we have only to say that so long as they are obedient to the heavenly voice which calls every honest heart to the one home of holiness, it is well with their souls. When the crisis comes, and the hour when action must decide the forward or backward march of the intellect, moved and enlightened by grace, then is God chosen for ever, or renounced. Then grace may linger around the heart which it loved, and only slowly withdraw, leaving still the attractions of nature, and the good gifts which are only for time, and bear no fruit in eternity. We would not dare to judge where grace ends and nature begins, for both orders are singularly blended in[641] this scene of probation. But one thing we do know—God is true, though every man be a liar. He cannot fail us; his revelation cannot pass away into a fable. "The pillar and ground of the truth" standeth firm. And notwithstanding Mr. Ffoulkes's convictions, we are not afraid to trust our good works to the judgment of mankind. Tares are mixed with the wheat; the net of Peter incloses good and bad fishes, and scandals must be found even in the house of God; but nevertheless, in quiet and unostentatious beauty the true spouse of Christ is ever bringing forth fruits which, though unappreciated on earth, shall bloom beyond the skies in the sunlight of God's presence. Sacrifice is a law of Catholic piety which takes its type from Calvary and its inspiration from the Sacred Heart. We live in a different atmosphere from our Protestant brethren, and self-denial is second nature to us; self-denial practised so spontaneously that the effort and the trial are hidden in the graciousness of the Christian life. No sect, and no individuals, with some rare exceptions, have caught the spirit of our religion, which makes heroic virtue easy, and hides real sanctity in many hearts that beat only for God. If Mr. Ffoulkes did not find that perfect rest for his intellect and his heart which he expected in the Catholic Church, the reason of this is, that he never submitted himself unreservedly to her supreme and infallible authority and guidance. Humility and obedience are the touchstone of true Catholic virtue, and in both these qualities his writings and conduct show him to be singularly wanting. We wish for him a better mind, and the grace of a genuine conversion, and we trust that he may yet repair the grievous wrong he has done to religion by his unfilial and rebellious conduct toward our holy mother the Catholic Church.

THE HISTORY OF THE IRISH LAND TENURE.

Those who are not well acquainted with the condition of things in Ireland might easily suppose that the existence of the odious Established Church was the main cause of the dissatisfaction of the Irish people, and that they would, consequently, be satisfied with its disestablishment. This, however, is an error. The main grievance of the Irish people remains unredressed. There is still in the relation of landlord and tenant in that country a very prolific source of future difficulty. So far only as the payment of tithes subtracted from the scant earnings of the peasantry, the church establishment could be called an infringement on the rights of property; but its existence was looked upon rather as an encroachment upon abstract justice than as a source of material oppression. The evils of the land tenure, however, which had their origin many centuries ago, and which time has somewhat modified, but not obliterated, are of a far more serious and practical nature. The landlord, by every test which can be applied, has a legal right to his estates; yet the situation weighs heavily upon the tenant, and prostrates the country. Laws which should[642] compel a proprietor to dispose of his property would be regarded as tending to agrarianism, and as an infringement upon private rights; but no country can be prosperous, or its people happy, while the great body of the population is dependent upon the power and caprice of a few landed monopolists. As the record of the past in this connection is an interesting one—a long story, dating still further back than the reign of Henry II., and the latter part of the twelfth century—we will review it briefly for the benefit of those who have never studied carefully or have forgotten the great wrong which for centuries has oppressed the Irish race.

In ancient times, in addition to the four grand divisions of Leinster, Munster, Ulster, and Connaught, there was another, the property of the paramount sovereign. As there does not appear to have been any rule of precedence, however, among the four kings, except that of their ability to repress their rivals by force of arms, the territory must have been very frequently in debate. These several kingdoms were subdivided into a large number of principalities, each inhabited by a distinct sept, and governed by its own chieftain, called a carfinny, or toparch. These petty chiefs were in their own dominions independent; they created laws, administered justice, made war or peace, and so long as they did not encroach upon the privileges of their superior sovereign, were unmolested and unquestioned. They were elective too; and in this respect the primitive institutions of Ireland were founded upon that execrable system which has distracted and destroyed every kingdom in which it has been attempted. The choice of toparchs was limited, however, by the laws of tanistry to noble families; and the tanist was always selected upon the accession and during the lifetime of the ruling toparch. Under such a system intrigue and conflict between the septs, and between individuals of the same sept, must have been perpetual; and it is easy to see that the conditions were prepared which would make eventual subjugation by foreign arms an easy task.

But we now come to a still more obnoxious feature of the institutions of Ireland under the Milesian rule; and it will be no relief to the miseries entailed upon this unfortunate island, that the same peculiarity, modified in other countries, existed very generally during the feudal ages. The property in each district was regarded as the common possession of the entire sept, but the distribution of the shares was intrusted to the toparch. The people themselves had absolutely no property in the soil; that right belonged exclusively to the chief, and tenants were removed whenever it suited his convenience or caprice. There were many causes that could lead to change. The death of the old toparch and the accession of a new one, the addition of new members to the sept, or the death of those already in the occupancy of a piece of soil, were some of the many causes that made the land tenure very precarious; and the custom of inheritance by gavelkind, which differed from the system of England and Wales, is thought to have perpetuated the evil. Females were excluded, and no distinction was made between legitimate and illegitimate children. The common people were divided into freemen and betages. The former had the privilege of changing their sept; but the latter were common property with the soil, and transferred with it in every deed or sale. Under a liberal government, and by the aid of a good administration, the people of Ireland might have been, in the[643] course of seven hundred years, completely extricated from this situation; but, as we shall see in the sequel, it has been the policy of the Norman nobility in that country, if not of the English government itself, to maintain as far as possible the original condition of things. Such were the institutions of Ireland at the beginning of the ninth century, when the Danish monarch Turgesius overran the entire island, and subjugated the inhabitants to his authority. His dominion was of short duration, however; for at the battle of Clontarf, fought on Good-Friday, A.D. 1014, the celebrated Brien Boiroimhe gave him a permanent leave of absence from the five provinces, and a limited monarchy in the seaports. But the factions inherent in the Irish system of government at that time placed the national independence at the mercy of a foreign aggressor, and the ambition of the Norman element in England soon marked the island as a prize worthy an adventure at arms.

The immediate cause of the invasion was the act of young Dermod McMurchaid, King of Leinster, who ran off with the beautiful Devorghal, wife of O'Rourke, and princess of Breffny. Having, by reason of this outrage, been driven from his kingdom, he invited Richard Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, and Robert Fitzstephen, to his assistance. Thus the dissensions among the Irish princes opened the way for the adventure of the Norman noblemen. A few hundred Norman cavaliers, followed by comparatively a handful of infantry, were sufficient to secure a permanent footing, an event most singular when we take into consideration the military record which those people have made since that period. But the Irish have always shown a capacity to fight better in any other cause than their own. True, the Norman adventurers from England did not succeed immediately in the subjugation of the entire island. Their dominion was limited to a small area; but they found and used those elements of discord among the native rulers which made their situation impregnable against those who still cherished the idea of freedom and independence. The Irish were worsted in every considerable conflict; not so much, perhaps, through the superiority of their adversaries as by reason of their own disunion.

The new rulers endeavored only to consolidate their power, and made no effort for the reformation of existing institutions. If they found a large proportion of the inhabitants in a condition akin to serfdom, there was certainly no motive why they should desire to change the situation. It only gave them more personal consideration and power. Hence, we find that Strongbow and his associates had hardly established themselves in their new dominions before they strove to perpetuate the old customs of tenure and descent. The distinction between the new settlers and the natives was carefully preserved; and the benefit of English laws permitted only to Normans, to the citizens of seaport towns,—who were still, it is to be presumed, in great part Danes—and to a few who had received charters of denization as a matter of personal favor. Five septs only, say the historians, were received within the English pale, and the rest were all accounted aliens or enemies, who, even down to the reign of Elizabeth, had no rights which an Englishman was bound to respect.

The Great Charter, wrested from King John, and confirmed by Henry III., did not benefit Ireland. English laws and jurisprudence were extended over those portions of the island known as the English pale, and[644] during the reign of King John the lands subject to the crown were divided into counties, sheriffs appointed, and supreme courts of law established in Dublin. But these improvements were made rather as a convenience for the English than for the protection of the native inhabitants. During the reign of Edward I., we read that Lord De Clare, connected by marriage with the Geraldines, then the most powerful Norman house in Ireland, was granted extensive domains in Thomond. No regard was paid to the rights of native possessors in this transfer, and though a war, in which the new proprietor was defeated by O'Brien, an Irish chieftain, was the result, no considerable advantages seem to have been derived from the conflict. At the close of the century, we are told that all hopes of independence were resigned, and eight thousand marks offered to the king for the rights of British subjects. No doubt the cupidity of the monarch would have been gratified by so profitable a disposal of privileges, but the favor was not granted by reason of the opposition of the local aristocracy. At the first constitutional parliament, summoned in 1295 by Sir John Wogan, several judicious acts are said to have been passed; but we are unable to see in what manner they operated in favor of the native inhabitants. After the war caused by the invasion of Ireland by Edward Bruce, in the year 1315, the exaction of "coyne and livery" by the impoverished barons first appears, and the method of supporting an army by quartering it on the people was instituted. During a period of active hostilities, and upon the territory of an enemy, such an expedient may be pardonable; but in a country regulated by what was nominally a domestic government it would be hard to perpetrate an act of grosser tyranny.

To afford an idea of the situation of the native inhabitants at this period, we will instance the statute of Kilkenny, passed in the year 1367, by a parliament summoned by the Duke of Clarence. This precious bit of legal wisdom provides that marriage, fosterage, or gossipred with the Irish, or submission to the Irish law, should be regarded as high treason, and punished accordingly. This fosterage or gossipred, of which the English legislators were so fearful, was the practice, traditional among the Irish, of allowing the children of the nobility to be nursed by the wives of the peasantry; and the custom was thought to encourage a sentiment of reciprocal kindness between the lower and the higher orders of the population. The statute also declared that if any man of English descent should adopt an Irish name, be guilty of speaking the Irish language, or follow any of the customs of the country, he should forfeit his estate, or give security for better conduct. It made penal the act of presenting an Irishman to any benefice, or his reception into any monastery. It also forbade the entertainment of any native bard, minstrel, or story-teller; or the granting of permission for an Irish horse to graze in the pasture of a loyal English subject. To such a degree had risen the follies of the dominant race in Ireland in the last half of the fourteenth century.

During the reign of Henry VII. we begin to witness that struggle between the Anglo-Irish nobility and the crown which, in the end, without improving the condition of the masses, was the means of breaking down many noble houses, and still further adding to the distresses of the country. In the parliament of 1494, the act known as Poyning's law was passed. Its enactment was secured by Sir Edward Poyning, lord-deputy[645] of the island, and its purpose was to prevent the assembling of an Irish parliament without the consent of the king. It is easy to see in such an act, however wise it might have been considered, the dawn of fresh conflicts of authority.

During the life of Queen Mary, we have an instance of what fearful infamy could be perpetrated under the system of the Irish land tenure. The septs of O'More and O'Carroll, two chiefs who, under a previous reign, had been arrested, thrown into prison, and left there to perish, claimed that their lands could not be justly forfeited through the offence of their toparchs; but that the ground was the property of the clans, and inalienable save through their own acts. An army was the only response to this reasonable claim, and the inhabitants were forcibly ejected. But not this only. The butcheries that signalized the act were such as to make the event infamous in history; and, in the language of a native historian, "the fires of the burning huts were slaked in the blood of the inhabitants." O'Fally and Leix, the territory occupied by the unfortunate septs, were converted into King's and Queen's counties, and the principal towns were called Philipstown and Maryborough, in commemoration of the queen and her husband. This transaction was one of the first fruits of the coming supremacy of the crown over the local aristocracy.

We now come to the reign of Elizabeth, a woman celebrated alike for her capacity and her vices; and such was her force of character, and the consummate ability of her rule, that she has impressed her policy upon the history of Ireland more deeply than any other sovereign. We have not the space to attempt to follow the incidents of this turbulent period; but must be satisfied with a short statement of the policy of Elizabeth as it seems to have been developed in her measures. When the queen was cautioned against the turbulent and designing character of O'Neill, an Irish chief, and Earl of Tyrone, she is said to have replied that she did not care for his rebellion, as it would give her possession of more lands with which to reward her faithful servants. Historians have endeavored to explain away the meaning of this expression, by attributing it to a desire to silence the enemies of the Irish nobleman; but since, from the beginning to the end of her reign, the history of Ireland proves that she acted as though determined to better the instruction, we have to conclude that in a spirit of levity she had inadvertently unmasked her deliberate policy. From first to last it is only a story of rebellions provoked for the purpose of destroying some Irish nobleman, that an English sycophant might be put in possession of his estates.

The reign of James I., which began in 1603, is regarded by English historians as favorable to Ireland; but how, it is difficult to understand. In some respects the regulations of this king were perhaps advantageous. The introduction of English law over the entire island, the abolition of tanistry and gavelkind, and the more general institution of courts of justice, had public sentiment been healthy, might have eventuated in great advantages; but the spirit of religious persecution, which was now becoming implacable, served to keep alive the animosity of the races, and all improvement was more theoretic than real. Previous to this time, patents for English tenure had been granted only to great lords and chieftains; while their vassals, still retaining their own laws and customs, owed no direct allegiance to the crown. Under the new regulation, estates were to[646] descend by the course of common law, and the people were placed within its operation; but they had really no more interest in the soil than formerly. The king was merely substituted for the toparchs, and while the chiefs were humiliated, their subjects were not made more independent. The land held in demesne by the chieftain was all that was left under his absolute control, but his tenants were subject to an annual rent.

Another project, which originated in the fertile brain of Queen Elizabeth, we believe, but which was not successfully executed until the reign of James I., deserves especial notice. This was a plan for driving out the native settlers, that their places might be filled by adventurers from England. Six counties out of the thirty-two into which Ireland was then divided were appropriated for carrying out the experiment, and cut up into portions of one thousand, fifteen hundred, and two thousand acres each. The largest of these estates were for undertakers and servitors of the crown, consisting of great officers of state, and rich adventurers from England; those of the second-class were for servants of the crown in Ireland, and might be peopled by either English or Irish tenants; and those of the third were for natives of the province, when it suited the undertakers to permit them to cultivate the soil. This scheme of cruelty was followed by another, of a still more atrocious character—the search after defective titles. In the long period of civil commotions which preceded the reign of James I., it is to be presumed that many were occupying lands for which they could not show a very clear claim. If the crown could get possession of property through the simple loss of the proof on the part of the occupant that he was entitled to his inheritance, a source of great public profit would be opened out. Eighty-two thousand five hundred acres were by this means apportioned to English settlers, and the national exchequer was correspondingly enriched. Yet in spite of such transactions as these, the reign of King James has been pronounced a happy one for Ireland!

At the time of the accession of Charles I., Ireland was treated simply as a conquered province, not as an integral portion of the British empire, and its inhabitants still looked upon as aliens and enemies. They had no rights which the officers sent by royal authority, and controlled by cupidity, were obliged to respect, and the very desire for the possession of a piece of land inherited by a proprietor of native descent was sufficient reason for an act of attainder for treason or a search after defective titles. To such an extent was this latter species of iniquity carried that, during the first years of the reign of Charles I., and under the administration of Stafford as lord-deputy, more than a quarter of a million of acres were wrested from the real proprietors, and transferred to the hands of English adventurers. Even jurors who sat upon the causes in dispute were imprisoned, and excessive fines imposed, if they refused compliance with the wishes of the king's lieutenant.

Under these circumstances, it was only natural that the Irish should look about for some means of redress. Property was becoming daily less secure; for the successful practice of this species of plunder was a continual encouragement to fresh outrage; and there was no estimate of the degree to which the injury might be carried. But the remedies proposed in the beginning were peaceful. The lords and gentry met together and drew up a bill of rights, and offered to pay a large sum of money for the royal assent. This measure,[647] known as the Charter of Graces, by one of its provisions proposed to limit the title of the king in lands to sixty years. Changes also were asked in the penal code, and a clause was inserted forbidding the lord-deputy, during his term of office, from coming in possession of land either by purchase or confiscation. The demands were in every respect temperate, and nothing more was asked than a reasonable security for private property, and such privileges as the dignity and self-respect of the subject would require. The king, when the charter was first presented for his signature, was inclined to look upon its provisions with favor; but through the influence, it is said, of Lord Strafford, he was induced to withhold his approval. But while this subject was agitating with alternate hopes and fears the minds of the Irish people, a new measure, or rather an extension of the old system, was planned by the lord-deputy. The success of the English colonization scheme, undertaken in Ulster during the reign of James I., had opened the way for still another attempt at dispossessing the native population of their lands; and Connaught was selected as the next field for operations. This second experiment would probably have proved as successful as the first, if the inevitable fruit of so much tyranny had not come to its maturity.

The uprising of the Irish population in 1641 occurred under more favorable auspices than any previous one, and had they made a united effort for absolute independence, England could not have resisted the forces which were brought into the field against her. But the confederates, as the Irish party was called, were composed of elements too much at variance among themselves to meet with permanent success. The Anglo-Irish inhabitants, or those of English descent, who were looking simply to the security of their property, and exemption from the tyranny of local officers, had no bond of union with the native Irish, who sought the complete recovery of their lost liberties and the rehabilitation of their ancient institutions. Here was a cause for faction which their enemies readily understood, and by which they as readily profited. The Anglo-Irish were afraid of the resumption of power by the descendants of the native chieftains, and it was natural that they should seek to avoid such a result. Nevertheless, led by officers whose exile from their country in former years had been the means of raising them to eminence in the armies of France, Spain, and Germany, the confederates were very successful, and obtained possession of almost the entire island. The peasantry came down from the mountains, whither they had been driven years before to give place to the English colonists, and, without bloodshed, again took peaceable possession of their lost domains. Owen O'Niel, an officer who had done eminent service on the continent, was the ruling spirit of the movement, and it was through his management and address that the confederacy was enabled to maintain such formidable proportions. But the various incidents of that struggle, prolonged through several years, and ending finally during the dictatorship of Cromwell, belong rather to history than to such an article as this, and we must restrict our attention to the results that followed upon the triumph of the English arms.

The troops that Cromwell had brought into Ireland were the most puritanical of his entire army. He had probably at this period begun to indulge in regal aspirations; and hence he desired the removal from[648] England of the more ultra republican and radical of his followers. It is likewise probable that he selected this class of men because their religious fanaticism would make them more zealous in the cause. In the final settlement of the country, as Ulster and Connaught were already the property of the colonists, and not subject to confiscation, the two remaining provinces of Munster and Leinster had to satisfy the claims of the army, and were accordingly portioned out to the followers of Cromwell. The property of the lords and gentry who had joined the confederation was ruthlessly confiscated. The peasantry who had survived the long war were reduced to a state akin to slavery, and many indeed, by order of Cromwell, were sold in the Barbadoes, and in other dependencies of Great Britain. About 200,000 people in all, it is estimated, left the island, of whom 40,000 entered the various armies of continental Europe. These comprised all classes; as to the peasantry who remained, some estimate may be formed of their privileges when we state that they were forbidden to leave their parishes, or to assemble together for public worship, or for any other purpose whatever. The Cromwellian soldiers of every grade, from privates to commanding officers, had taken possession of the estates; and these were the new lords to whom allegiance was due, and by whom it was most rigidly exacted.

But the commonwealth was already crumbling to pieces. The death of Cromwell, and the dissatisfaction caused by a government which was aristocratic and despotic without being regal, soon paved the way for the accession of Charles II., and revived the hopes of those who had been unjustly deprived of their estates at the close of the war. From first to last the Anglo-Irish portion of the confederates claimed that they had been contending for Charles I., and only against his enemies and the parliament. Of the fact that they had desired simply protection, and had been more loyal than disloyal to the throne, there was abundant evidence; and it was to be presumed that the new king would look with more favor upon their claims than upon those of their opponents. To the end of recovering their property, therefore, they began to petition the king in great numbers. That there might be a semblance of justice, a court of claims was established for the ostensible purpose of adjudication. But it was soon evident that there was no intention of dispossessing the new proprietors; and when it was found that, without the most gross and palpable violations of right, it would be impossible frequently not to decide in favor of the former occupants of the confiscated estates, the court was adjourned, and was never allowed to hold another session. Many thousands, by this act, were irretrievably ruined. The Duke of Ormond, prominent throughout the rebellion, played an important part, to the disadvantage of his countrymen, in these transactions, and added enormously to his own estates. At the beginning of the rebellion his property had been about nine tenths encumbered; but by securing an act transferring all encumbrances to the king, and then obtaining a release from his obligations in that quarter, he freed himself from all his difficulties.

When James II. ascended the English throne, about two thirds of the private property of Ireland appears to have been in dispute. The dispossessed proprietors were still clamoring for their rights, and the Cromwellian settlers and the colonists were as sturdily adhering to their claims, and ready at any time to defend[649] their new possessions by either legitimate or illegitimate means. The reign of James from the beginning was weak. The trifling rebellions in Scotland and England which disturbed the first years of his authority were easily quelled, it is true; but he seems to have been intoxicated by his success, and led to the support of measures which were not advised by either prudence or good judgment. The spirit of religious intolerance was at this time most active and implacable. It had been many years since the separation of the English Church from the Catholic authority, and the time might have been thought propitious for something like a recognition of equality between religious bodies; but James endeavored to promote the interest of Catholicity with a zeal that was not to be tolerated by the Protestant bigotry of the day, and many of his acts gave great offence. Of this character was the appointment of the Earl of Tyrconnel, a Roman Catholic, first to the command of the Irish army, and afterward to the government of Ireland itself. The Protestant inhabitants of that country, who knew by what a doubtful claim they held their estates, could not fail of taking the alarm and looking forward to the day when there would be an attempt made to dispossess them of the disputed property. The event proved, indeed, that their fears were not groundless. The act of settlement, the measure upon which the Protestant proprietors depended for the possession of their lands, became immediately the subject in debate; and it was soon evident that its repeal was intended. To comprehend fully the magnitude of such an undertaking, it will be necessary to glance at the situation of the island at this period, and see to what an extent the inhabitants of the country had been plundered of their property. The whole number of acres of land in Ireland was estimated at above 10,400,000, and of this amount 3,000,000 acres were unproductive. This would leave about 7,000,000 acres of arable and pasture land, and 5,000,000 of these, during the reign of Charles I., were still in the hands of Catholic proprietors. Then followed the revolution with the irruption of Cromwell's followers. The situation became greatly changed. At the time of the passage of the act of settlement, only about 800,000 acres remained in the hands of Catholic proprietors. Of the remainder, 800,000 acres were under the control of the government, but leased to Protestants, and 3,300,000 had gone to reward the prowess of the Protector's soldiers. This property had now been in the hands of its present occupants, or absentee landlords, for nearly forty years. To repeal the act which settled all this broad inheritance upon the adventurers was undoubtedly the intention of James; and although this was not the only charge which the British aristocracy and people made against their unpopular sovereign, it was a powerful influence in the train of events that seated the Prince of Orange on the English throne.

Exiled from London, the unfortunate James fled to Dublin. The Irish parliament of 1689, which was summoned by his authority, besides repudiating the jurisdiction of the English courts of law and of the English parliament, and proclaiming the independence of the Irish legislature, repealed the act of settlement; but, as the event proved, these acts were the mere mockery of regal and legislative enactments, and were not productive of even a temporary advantage to his adherents. The Prince of Orange, now recognized as King William of England, came in person[650] to Ireland, and the two kings confronted each other at the battle of the Boyne. History has told the story of the discomfiture and inglorious flight of James, and of the prolonged and desperate struggle which the Irish afterward maintained against their adversaries; until finally the treaty of Limerick confirmed and strengthened the English in their possessions. Some concessions were made to the Irish, it is true, but they were of a character that affected religion more than the tenure of property; and at the final settlement, we are told, only 233,106 acres of land remained in the hands of Catholic proprietors.

This was the last great event that influenced to a considerable degree the tenure of property in Ireland. After a struggle of about five hundred years, we find the island completely at the feet of the conquerors, and the descendants of the native inhabitants with no inheritance, or next to none, upon their own territory. We might have heightened the picture by recounting the assassinations and butcheries of the various wars, the outrages of military government, and the refined cruelties of religious persecution; but these things did not enter into the purpose of this article, and we have confined ourselves to simple statements of facts in their relation to the tenure of property. We have endeavored to trace the means by which the great bulk of the real estate on the island has been transferred from those whose descent entitled them to a proprietary interest in the soil to a class of foreign and frequently absentee landlords, who manifest no interest in the country or the people save by the annual collection of their tenant dues. It cannot have failed to impress the reader that the purpose of the English government, from the beginning, has been to crush out and destroy as far as practicable the native inhabitants, and to supply their place with a foreign population. To this end only could have been designed the various colonization schemes that distinguished the reigns of James I. and Charles II.; the different edicts of expulsion, and the readiness with which the English government has always advanced the wishes of those who contemplated a voluntary expatriation from their native country. But in despite of all this, the proportional native population of the island has steadily increased, while in both Great Britain and America the Irish people have become a formidable power. Their complaints and demands for redress of grievances can no longer be passed by in silent contempt. The land question must be settled upon some basis that will not merely place the Irish peasantry upon the footing of an independent tenantry, but will enable every laborer to look forward to the eventual possession of a portion of the soil, that thus a fitting stimulus and reward may be offered to thrift and industry.

AT THE CHURCH DOOR.

A lovely afternoon in September was drawing to its close; the shadows were long upon the pavement, and a gentle breeze brought the fragrance of heliotrope and late roses over the wall from a garden adjoining a handsome house in the old and well-known town of N——. The hall-door opened and shut behind a young woman who walked rather wearily down the steps and along the street. It was evident that she was not thinking of the sun, nor the breeze, nor the sweet breath of the flowers; she looked neither to the right nor to the left, and yet her steps seemed listless and without an aim.

Her dress was plain, plain almost to poverty, and without the slightest attempt at ornament, yet it would have been impossible to pass her without notice. She was tall and graceful, and her features were very handsome; but that was not what would have attracted your attention; there was a something which told she was a lady—not perhaps in the truest meaning of the word, as it may be applied to a servant-girl or an apple-woman whose instincts are refined and Christian; but you felt that she was well-born and well-bred, and that her tastes were such as would not well accord with her coarse dress and shabby bonnet. True, if you had been a close observer, you might have seen that her boots were very pretty, her gloves of the best kid, very fresh and unworn at the finger-tips, and it might have surprised you to see that on her ungloved hand sparkled a splendid ruby. But enough for exterior description; the face, though so fair, was clouded and preoccupied, and as she walked she drew a letter from her pocket and glanced at its contents.

"He appoints seven o'clock to meet me," she said to herself, "on the stone seat outside the Catholic church. A strange place to choose! I wish it had been somewhere else! Yet why should I care? What is that church to me more than another? And soon I shall give my promise that it shall be less than every other. It is a kind offer, a generous offer; but I will not exchange you"—here she gave a contemptuous twitch to her dress—"for a better till my wedding day. He and every one shall see that I consider myself his equal, even in these shabby clothes. O dear me! how tired I am! How that wretched child insisted on playing discords with the pedal! I will not go home, it is so far; but rest somewhere, and think how I can accept him most graciously. I might as well sit on the stone seat here outside the church; the shade of that tree looks inviting."

Agnes—for that was the name of the girl whose reverie we have put into words for the benefit of our readers—had come to the pretty church where Mr. Redfern had appointed to meet her. She sat down on the bench outside, and we will take this opportunity to tell who she was and why she waited there.

Agnes Deblois was the only child of Catholic parents; they were wealthy, and as she was their idol, she was surrounded with friends, comforts, and pleasures; with every thing, in short, that makes life bright and beautiful. She had been carefully instructed and trained in her religion by her excellent and fond mother; and it was a great[652] misfortune to her when this pious lady died, leaving her daughter, at the age of seventeen, to the care of a father who was a negligent and unpractical Catholic. Agnes was devoted to her father, and, influenced by his example and by the ridicule of her worldly friends, she allowed herself gradually to abandon her habits of piety and the duties of her religion. After three years, during which Agnes had been engrossed by the engagements and excitements of life "in society," her father also died; when it was discovered not only that he had lived beyond his means, but that he was even largely in debt. By selling house, silver, and estate, Agnes was enabled to satisfy all the creditors, and, finding herself almost without a dollar, she looked around for her friends, whose protestations of devotion she recalled, and to whose sympathy she naturally turned. But she was shocked at the change she found even in those of whose fidelity she had felt sure.

She was offered assistance, it was true, and even a home, yet with a coldness and constraint which showed she was considered in the light of a burden. From being almost crushed by the grief of her bereavement, her spirit rose as the bitterness of her situation became apparent, and she very soon resolved to be indebted to no one either for home or for bread. Her education had been thorough and superior; for music she had a rare talent, and she found it easy to obtain as many pupils as her strength would allow her to attend to. She threw herself into her new duties with an ardor which arose from wounded pride, but which was destined to grow cool as the irksomeness of the daily routine and unloveliness of the continual presence of poverty wore upon her. It was hateful to her to be poor; to wear clothes which, however neat and even pretty she might make them, must still be plain and cheap. So she gave up all attempt at ornament, and took a bitter pleasure in wearing what was coarsest and most unattractive for her dress, though allowing herself, as she was able, what was best in such small articles as gloves, and still wearing the handsome jewels she had preserved from her former life. For this she was greatly blamed, and even reproved by those who called themselves her friends, and who were scandalized at the bad taste of wearing dresses which a beggar might despise with ornaments which, it must be confessed, were handsomer than their own; but Agnes paid no attention, and went on her own difficult and joyless path.

Formerly she had neglected her religion from carelessness and human respect; now she kept away from church because she was always tired and always sad, and because she no longer cared for the faith of her mother and of her own happy childhood. But now a wonderful thing had happened to her. She had come to this beautiful and fashionable place in the summer because her pupils were there, and because, as she took pleasure in saying, she wanted their money, and at the house of the richest and proudest of them all she had seen Mr. Redfern, a man of immense wealth, who had noticed her, found opportunities of paying her attentions, and now had asked her to marry him. She had his letter in her pocket, and she took it out once more as she sat outside the church, and read a passage from it:

"A needless request," she said, and laughed as she said it, while her heart gave a leap as she thought of herself at the head of Mr. Redfern's handsome house, sitting in state behind his[653] high-stepping grays, or receiving the keys from the hands of the obsequious housekeeper.

A very old woman passed her and entered the church, bowing herself low as she crossed the sacred threshold. Agnes watched her.

"I wonder if it is a pretty church inside? I think I have heard that it is pretty."

Feeling impatient at the slowly passing time, she rose and walked through the door, and up the middle aisle. There were no doors to the pews, and seeing one that was cushioned, she entered it, sat down, and leaning back, looked carelessly round her.

It was indeed a pretty church; the softened sunbeams streamed through the stained glass of the Gothic windows, and fell in purple and gold lights on the stone floor, flickering as the old elms outside moved gently to and fro in the west wind. She saw the old woman she had before noticed, kneeling before a picture, then leaving it with many bows and courtesies, and going to another. What was she about? Oh! she was saying the stations. Agnes remembered the stations—those fourteen grievous steps in the Passion of our Lord from his trial in Pilate's house to his burial in the sepulchre, at the close of his three hours' agony on the cross.

"Poor old thing! how her back must ache. Why does she do it? Why, she is crying, wiping her eyes with her apron, and lifting her hands to heaven! Is that for her own sorrows, or those of her Saviour?"

"There are two little children coming up the aisle. Do see them bob up and down and cross themselves! Oh! now they are saying their prayers."

Why should Agnes see them indistinctly? Why impatiently brush something from her eyes? Ah! the picture of her childish days rose before her, and she was for a moment once more a little child....

What nonsense! She had other things to think of now. She would have a purple satin dress just the color of that pretty light on the floor. It was fading away; it must be near sunset. At that moment came from a choir of sweet young voices:

She turned and saw the children practising for their Sunday-school Mass, led by an excellent tenor; and leaning her head on her hand, she listened; for so she thought the angelic choirs must sound.

She knew what those words meant. Had she not often sung them herself in days long past? Those dear old days!

Disturbed by a slight noise, Agnes glanced around; she saw an old and venerable-looking man with gray hair, whose long black dress fell to his feet, come up the side aisle and enter a confessional, round which silently gathered a few women, kneeling till their turns should come. A vague fear took possession of her heart, and she quickly rose to leave the church; but something stopped her, and she stood as if riveted to the earth.

What was it? Only a light, a feeble flame, which shone in a vase hanging before the high altar. She had not noticed it before, the sun had been so bright; but it was there all the time, and would be there when she had turned her back upon it. Whose presence did the light reveal? Who was it that waited day and night upon that holy altar? Alone, unknown, forgotten—yes, and betrayed.

She uttered no sound; but her heart gave a great cry as she fell upon her knees.

"Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison!" Those innocent voices still prolonged the hymn, though what was their need of mercy compared with hers? But the thought came to her that perhaps those invocations of God's mercy by the little lambs of his fold would ascend in his sight not for them, but for her, for the strayed sheep; and thinking thus, she felt herself comforted. Kneeling motionless with her head bowed on her hands, she did not pray, nor weep, but only saw.

She saw herself a little child robed in white, one of a band of many little ones, with her shining veil, a true marriage garment, receiving at the altar for the first time her God and Saviour.

She saw herself again, still a child, but older, kneeling again to receive the bishop's hand on her forehead, and hearing the sacred words, Signo te signo crucis. Confirmo te chrismate salutis.[149]

She saw her mother lying pale and faint, but with eyes full of light and peace, and heard those dying words, "My only child, remember that he who is ashamed of the Son of Man here, of him will He be ashamed before His Father in heaven. Remember that, and remember your best Friend." Who was that Friend?

She saw herself not once, but many, many times, blushing at the name of her faith, hearing it despised and turned into ridicule; at last denying it and becoming a scoffer herself. Whom had she denied and despised?

She thought of the friends who had deserted her, and the answer came, "Because I have deserted my best Friend."

She remembered her weary labors and thankless efforts, and a voice replied, "But my yoke is sweet, and my burden light."

She said to herself, "But there is one who has offered me enough to pay for all I have lost;" and once more the Holy Ghost spoke to her heart, "Come unto me, you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you."

That was meant for her; that was what she wanted for her weary, troubled soul. "For the life is more than the meat, and the body more than the raiment."

The voices of the children were silent as she once more rose and looked about her. There was no one kneeling at the altar now; shadows had fallen deeply upon the pavement; she was alone in the church. No! for yonder at the window stood the priest, holding his breviary up high to catch the fading light. What was he waiting for? Who was it that waited long, long hours in that holy tribunal of penance for the straying, lost sheep to come back to the fold? Her every question was answered, and, urged by an impulse she could not resist, she rose and hurried to the confessional, thinking as she cast an imploring glance toward the priest, "Will he see me? Will he come and save me?"

She knelt trembling, scarcely daring to breathe, till she heard his step approaching, and in a moment the long unheard, yet strangely familiar words, "Dominus sit in corde tuo et in labiis tuis, ut rite confitearis omnia peccata tua."[150]

Well may we let the curtain drop, not to penetrate that sacred confidence. O poor soul! thou art safe. There are hymns of joy and thanksgiving ascending to the eternal Father; [655]for we know "there is joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance."

Half an hour later, as the clock struck seven, Mr. Redfern stood at the church door, and asked an old woman whom, with beads in hand, he met hobbling out, if she had seen a young lady waiting there.

"No," she answered readily; "but there was a beautiful lady inside, on her knees before the holy Mother of God. Bless her sweet face!"

With a terrible fear in his heart, he entered the church, and stood beside a form bowed before the altar dedicated to the Immaculate Mother. He touched her arm, and Agnes raised her face, suffused with happy tears, yet smiling. She looked at him bewildered—for she had forgotten all about him—as he said, in a whisper,

She rose obediently and followed him to the door. The tall tree-tops waved in the breeze, and the young moon stood in the sky. She was still silent, motionless, and he said in a hoarse voice, that trembled in spite of his efforts to control it, "Are you coming with me?"

She made a strong effort, and replied, "Yes, I read it; but I have found peace and my faith again, and I forgot that you were coming. O Mr. Redfern! for years I have been ashamed of the Son of God; but I did not remember, till to-day, that he would be ashamed of me before his Father. How could I bear that? But now he has forgiven me, and made me happy, oh! so happy. I must go back to him." And she looked at the door.

Mr. Redfern stood speechless for a moment. "I could not have a papist wife," he said slowly. "So this is my answer, is it?"

But Agnes had already turned away, and in a moment more was kneeling again beneath that faithful light, forgetting all but her love and gratitude; and as the lamps were lighted in the choir, the children's glad and rapturous voices chanted,

THE CHAPEL.

THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE SPECIES.[151]

No alleged factor of evolution is so capable of arresting the attention of a physiologist as correlation of growth. To this law we have before often incidentally alluded. But as we conceive that it furnishes strong confirmation of our views, it behooves us to extend to it a somewhat more lengthy treatment.

The current impression is, that every authenticated instance of variation is so much added to the probabilities of the evolution of the species; and that the refutation of Darwinism is rendered difficult just in proportion to the number of proofs of variability. It is natural, then, that Darwin should accord prominence to those factors which play a part in inducing modification. Conspicuous among these factors is correlation, [657] the nearest approximation to a law of all the colligations of facts involved in Darwinism.

Correlation is a bond, nexus, or connection subsisting between different growths. Owing to it, a modification seldom arises in any portion of the organism without involving a corresponding change in another part. It is often not a little difficult to determine which part first varies and induces the modification of the other. Frequently, characters simultaneously vary, and are apparently affected by some distinct cause. Correlation is an important subject for Darwin; for, owing to its operation, varieties seldom differ from each other by a single character alone. He declares that "all the parts of the organism are, to a certain extent, connected or correlated together," and that "of all the laws governing variability, that of correlation is the most important." Parts, however, differ greatly with respect to the strength of their connection. In some parts, the tie is ever manifesting itself; in others, it is seldom traceable. Each character, when developed, tends to stimulate the development of others. But, owing to adversity of conditions, or to being systematically suppressed by man, these correlated growths lose all ability to respond to this stimulus, and, in consequence, fail to develop.

We intended to adduce quite a number of facts from Darwin, in order to enable our readers clearly to understand the precise nature of correlation. But want of space forces us to change our mind. We do this with less reluctance, when we consider that those for whom this article is more especially written have already familiarized themselves with those facts.

All the phenomena of correlation show increase of growth corresponding to increase, and decrease corresponding to decrease. Now, the antithesis to correlation is compensation or balancement of growth. This alleged law, as applied to species under nature, was propounded by Goethe and Geoffroy St. Hilaire. It implies that the development of any one part is attended with the reduction or starvation of some other part. Not a little diversity of opinion exists respecting the validity of this law. Darwin inclines to believe that compensation occasionally occurs, but conceives that its importance has been overestimated.

We, however, are of opinion that there is really no such law. That correlation obtains, there is not the slightest doubt. The instances of correlation are innumerable; and every one of them is a disproof of the doctrine of compensation of growth. For the law of correlation is totally incompatible with the law of economy of growth. The latter, according to the hypothesis, makes decrease correspond to increase, and increase to decrease. The former entails the reverse. Both laws, then, cannot stand. One must, of necessity, fall. One must negative the other. Unquestionably, the stronger law is correlation. This law none can invalidate. It follows thence that there is no such law as that of compensation of growth.

The reader is now naturally desirous to know how we explain away the alleged cases of economy of growth. The explanation is, that they are merely manifestations of correlation. The reduction of the given parts is consequent, not, as alleged, upon the building up of some other parts, but upon the suppression or reduction of correlated parts. Strong confirmation of this view is given by the fact that seeming compensation of growth is more observable under nature than under domestication. As development[658] under nature is slow and occasional, we would expect to find, upon the theory of Goethe and St. Hilaire, very few instances of apparent balancement of growth. On the contrary, the instances are most numerous; which fact is strictly in accordance with our hypothesis. For where we find the conditions entailing the reduction of many parts, there must we also find the reduction of other parts, induced by correlation. These parts, then, being in close proximity with characters which neither the conditions nor correlation have affected, their suppression is naturally referred to compensation of growth. Under domestication, however, development is carried on rapidly and to a great extent. A very large number of characters is selected and developed. Here, then, we should look for the most striking manifestations of compensation of growth. But it is a fact, of which the significance is at once apparent, that, instead of meeting with the fulfilment of our expectations, the converse thrusts itself most obtrusively upon our attention. Nature here is most prodigal; giving growth for growth, and meeting the development of one feature with the corresponding development of another. The cases illustrating apparent balancement of growth are here exceptional. They bear a very insignificant proportion to those under nature. Hence we conclude that the law of compensation of growth never obtains, that its apparent manifestations are really due to the operation of the law of correlation.

But there are two classes of cases of which correlation is not an interpretation. The first is the instances in which the tie of correlation is in a measure broken by man's selection of one part, and by his systematic suppression of another. Darwin refers to these when he declares it "scarcely possible in most cases to distinguish between the supposed effects of such compensation of growth, and the effects of long-continued selection, which may at the same time lead to the augmentation of one part and the diminution of another."

The following is an example of the second class of cases: The Polish fowl is distinguished by the possession of a crest of feathers on the head. In consequence of its development, there arises a protuberance on the skull. This is due to correlation. But in the cock, the skull is so perforated with small holes that at any point a pin may be sunk to the brain. This is adduced as an instance of compensation of growth. But a rational explanation may readily be assigned. Darwin has shown that the crest of feathers is abnormal in the male, that it normally belongs to the female. The feature has been gained by the male by the somewhat mysterious law of the transmission of secondary sexual characters. The economy of growth may then be considered as abnormal, and may reasonably be attributed to the character not completely harmonizing with its fellows.

The facts of correlation meet with an exhaustive treatment at the hands of Darwin. Herbert Spencer, however, almost totally ignores them. Although they are seemingly most striking exemplifications of evolution, he passes with only an occasional incidental notice. What we conceive to be Mr. Spencer's reason for thus ignoring them, we will venture to give further on. But, while Darwin extends to the facts of correlation a full recognition, he is by no means over-desirous to ascertain their cause. Correlation is another of those laws which it pleases Darwin to consider as ultimate.

Now, the supposition that the correlated part has arisen by evolution,[659] involves the absurd conclusion that a centre of growth normally preëxists without a relative arrangement of parts. And on the evolution hypothesis, we are forced to believe that an evolved part is correlated to another part not yet in existence; that all the parts of the organism anticipate, as it were, the birth of the new feature, and so adjust themselves as to become immediately susceptible to its influence; and that, while the previous coördination of parts is destroyed, owing to the influence of the new-born feature ramifying throughout the whole organization, the organism is capable of immediately effecting a re-coördination. To assume for any organism such powers as these, is virtual hylozoism. The only escape for him who admits the evolution of variations, is to adopt the explanation furnished by the Duke of Argyll—that correlations are the direct manifestations of design.

This interpretation of the teleologist precludes all further argument. We, of course, concur in design. But we do not deem ourselves therefore bound to take for granted the validity of every argument adduced in proof thereof. We conceive that design can be proved by incontrovertible evidence, and that it can be shown to manifest itself in conformity to laws not merely empirical.

As for the ultra-evolutionist, if he were to cease regarding correlation as an ultimate fact, and if he were to employ himself in placing an interpretation upon it, he would perceive that the tie of correlation is strongly suggestive of reversion, and that its phenomena completely negative the hypothesis of evolution.

On the hypothesis of reversion, correlation is perfectly explicable. The supposition of reversion necessarily involves the conclusion that all the features of the species coexisted in each individual, saving, of course, the characters peculiar to the opposite sex. The perfect organism, then, is a balance of all the parts. The parts are correlated to each other with respect to centres, and these centres are correlated to each other with respect to the axis or the aggregate. All the parts are mutually dependent. When a part is reduced, it tends to involve the reduction of its corresponding part. The centre of the parts is then weakened, and this weakening entails the weakening of the other centres, to which this center is correlated. The loss or suppression of even one part, then, manifestly disturbs the physiological balance—destroys the coördination of the parts. Under nature, many parts have been lost or reduced, and these have entailed the loss or reduction of others. When, under domestication, characters develop, owing to selection and favorable conditions, they concur with the different centres of growth to effect a return to the balance, and, in consequence, the correlated parts arise and assume their primordial relations to their correlatives and to the aggregate. When all the parts are developed, by correlation and otherwise, there result an equilibrium and a consequent perfect coördination. Correlation is the inseparable concomitant of coördination. Each implies the other. And this is the reason, we apprehend, why correlation is barely noticed by Mr. Spencer. He feared, we surmise, that a lengthy philosophical treatment of the subject would suggest the conception that correlated growth necessarily implied previously imperfect coördination.

In order to facilitate the reader's conception of our meaning, it may be well to adduce an analogy. Analogies between organic and inorganic nature, the advocates of evolution ever delight in. And as that of the[660] crystal has found especial favor in their sight, we will venture to use it. As we conceive that there are laws governing the organism, which are sui generis, we would request our readers to regard the analogy only as an illustration of our views, and not in the light of an argument.

In crystallization, the initial force involved in the deposition of the first molecule determines the form and shape of the crystal. This molecule is correlated, as it were, to the aggregate to be formed. It controls the whole formative process, with a view to the shape eventually to be attained. Otherwise, how are we to account for the due tempering and modification of the forces implied in the deposition of each of the atoms of the accretion? From the first, there must of necessity be but one normal process. But this correlation between the first molecule and the aggregate is not the correlation which we wish particularly to illustrate. The crystal having been fully formed, a couple of edges are truncated. The crystal is then placed in a solution similar to that in which it was formed. Now, the absence of these edges implies an abnormal distribution of the forces. This is manifest; for correlation, directly with the corresponding edges and indirectly with the aggregate, leads to the reproduction of the lost parts—a fact manifestly implying previously imperfect coördination, and a present equilibrium of all the parts, or due coördination. The parts reproduced assume their previous relations, and effect a return to the balance impaired by their truncation. It is hence clear that correlation implies coördination, and that coördination implies correlation. Correlation, then, is a necessary corollary from the hypothesis of due coördination, or proportionate development. It will be seen that, while it receives a clear, consistent, and rational interpretation upon the theory of reversion, it carries with it implications at variance with the hypothesis of evolution.

As our knowledge of crystallography is that of an amateur, these views respecting crystallization may be open to modification; though we are assured that they are not so in essentials.

The analogy of the crystal most happily illustrates our views of correlation. With equal felicity it illustrates the opposing views of the evolutionist and the reversionist, respecting the main points in the controversy.

Suppose three crystals, similar in shape, to have been formed in a solution. The truncation of six of the edges of each has, in some manner or other, been effected. With these edges thus reduced, the crystals are found by a person anxious to prove the theory of evolution. He places them in solutions similar to those in which they were formed. The development of the lost edges then ensues. But, instead of allowing them all to develop, only a single edge in each crystal is suffered to reproduce itself; and this edge is in each crystal a different one. This is done in order to render the crystals as unlike as possible. Practically, however, this would be not a little difficult to effect. Our friend, imbued with the inquiring spirit of the age, now seeks to ascertain the cause of the growth of the edges. In his observation of the phenomena of crystallization, he has noticed that the growth of an edge is often due to reproduction. But this fact he now finds it convenient to forget. He at last affects to believe himself forced to conclude that the growth of the edges is an ultimate fact; and, at the same time, refers the phenomenon to evolution, an explanation which has the strong recommendation of being a mere re-statement[661] of the phenomenon to be explained. He next observes that, in each crystal, a new angle develops in correspondence with the angle first developed. This gives him two characters peculiar to each crystal. Recognizing a new factor in the induced development of the last angle, he propounds the law of correlation, and affirms that it concurs with and subserves evolution. The three crystals, originally alike, are now widely distinct. These varieties of crystals, exclaims our friend with the proud and patronizing smile of conscious superiority, present differences almost equally great with those displayed by species. Given, then, an indefinite number of hours and the requisite conditions, and all the species of crystals can be shown to evolve one from another. You cannot assume a limit to the development of parts, otherwise than gratuitously. There cannot possibly be any such thing as the immutability of the species; for individuals vary, and the species is composed of those individuals. This argument of our friend cannot be invalidated, if we concede that the growth of the edges forming the peculiarities of the varieties is new growth, is evolution, and that it is not reproduction. But it is obvious that it is reproduction, or reversion back to the state which existed previous to the truncation of the edges. It is equally obvious that correlation, or the growth of the last edge in correspondence with that of the former, is merely a return to more perfect coördination. It is also manifest to every physicist, that the absence from each crystal of the four edges which constitute the peculiar characters of the other varieties implies an imperfect coördination of the remaining parts. In other words, their absence involves a departure from a state of chemical integrity. For there can be a normal distribution of the forces of a crystal only when all the angles and parts are present, and proportionately developed. The views of the evolutionist are therefore wholly erroneous. For the principles of physics preclude the possibility of the normal existence of more than one variety. The existence of a plurality of varieties of a species implies disproportionate development of some of the parts. With crystals, however, varieties may normally exist when their differences are merely those of size. But the only way in which the relations of the parts can normally be changed is by a totally new distribution of the forces; which would involve complete dissolution, a modification of the force originally implied in the deposition of the first molecule, and reintegration. Now, just as, in a crystal, the loss of any part involves a departure from a state of chemical integrity, so, in an organism, the reduction, suppression, or disproportionate development of any part involves a departure from a state of physiological integrity. In the perfect type alone are the relations of the different parts perfect. The only way in which these relations could be normally changed, is by complete dissolution and new creation.

Not a little prejudice exists against a perfect type. This prejudice is, in a measure, justifiable, owing to the vague and gratuitous manner in which the perfect type has been assumed. But it cannot reasonably be extended to the perfect type which we here assume. This, of ours, is an individual in which all the characters of the species are fully and proportionately developed. It is no Platonic idea; we assume it to prove it; and it is no more metaphysical than the assumption for a crystal of a specific shape, which, owing to perturbations of the forces of the solution,[662] it has been incapable of attaining.

In "A Theory of Population," propounded in The Westminster Review for April, 1852, Mr. Herbert Spencer defines life as "the coördination of actions." This definition is, equally with his others, exceedingly felicitous in every respect but one. It is not a definition of life, as it purports to be, but merely a definition of the conditions of life. In a note on page 74 of his Principles of Biology, wherein he repels the imputation of being a disciple of Comte, he declares that the conditions constitute existence. Recognizing the fact that the onus probandi rests upon him, he presents phenomena in an aspect which at first gives not a little plausibility to his view. But these phenomena derive all their significance from the circumstance that Mr. Spencer's readers concur in the conception of the evolution of variations. When this conception is demurred to, his arguments lose all their force. The theory of reversion negatives the validity of his premises; and the hypothesis of the conditions constituting existence is then sustained by no proof greater than that of gratuitous assertion.

But, whatever may be the diversity of opinion respecting the truth of Mr. Spencer's definition of life, there is none, at least between him and us, on the subject that "the coördination of actions" is a definition of the conditions of life. On this point both he and we are fully agreed. His belief that the definition is more than that which we concede, is a matter immaterial in connection with the argument immediately to be adduced. We wish now to observe which theory consists more with the definition, the theory of evolution or that of reversion.

The coördination of actions is the attribute which characterizes all organisms. All the parts of each organism must work in concert. "If one of them does too much or too little—that is, if the coördination be imperfect—the life is disturbed; and if one of them ceases to act—that is, if the coördination be destroyed—the life is destroyed." These remarks of Mr. Spencer more particularly refer to the vegetative system; but, as he shows, they are, with little modification, applicable to the animal system. He says:

On page 61 of his Principles of Biology, he further assures us "that arrest of coördination is death, and that imperfect coördination is disease."

A superficial view of Mr. Spencer's definition would involve the inference that, upon the evolution hypothesis, only one of two things is possible. Either there is an ever-continuing imperfect coördination, or there is an always perfect coördination. As parts subserve actions, the perfect coördination of the latter must be dependent upon the perfect coördination of the former. Now, evolution implies a constant change. In fact, according to the hypothesis, constant change[663] is the only normal state. The variation of parts, then, would entail their imperfect coördination, and, consequently, the imperfect coördination of their actions; for the only conceivable way in which the imperfect coördination of actions is possible, is by a change in the parts subserving those actions. As variations, then, are ever occurring, imperfect coördination must always exist.

The following is the alternative view. The evolutionist might assume an ability in each organism to effect, on the occurrence of each variation, a re-coördination. This view manifestly admits only of perfect coördination. But the advocate of evolution may avoid these absurd conclusions by affirming, as he has tacitly done, that, while the organism is capable of coördinating any number of characters, imperfect coördination may ensue by a too sudden change in any part or parts. This is the issue which we desired to produce, the decision of which will, we conceive, legitimately preclude further argument. The question is, Is the organism capable of coördinating any number of characters? or, are all the characters of the species alone susceptible of coördination? The reader will perceive that the latter is a mere recurrence of our proposition that the proportionate development of all the parts is necessary to perfection, and that the absence of any part is deleterious to the organism. If we prove this, we shall have completely disproved the evolution hypothesis.

There is a fact adduced by Darwin which places the validity of our theory beyond all doubt, and which is, at the same time, grossly at variance with the conception of evolution. The fact to which we allude is, that good results from crossing. Observing this result, Darwin propounds a general law of nature, that all organic beings are benefited by an occasional cross. This law he employs as a somewhat important factor of evolution, and essays to harmonize it with his theory. In this attempt he succeeds. But mere congruity with a law is no proof of the validity of a theory, where that law is only an empirical one. Of this every person conversant with science is aware. It is equally well known, however, that when a theory is shown to accord with a law; to furnish an explanation of it; and to resolve it into a higher law, thus changing it from an empirical into a derivative law; proof conclusive and incontrovertible has been adduced. If the reader has not already mentally anticipated our argument, it remains for us to prove that the theory of reversion fulfils these requirements.

Our theory manifestly implies that the more proportionate the development, the greater is the approach to perfection. It also implies that the more characters of the species there are in each variety, the nearer is the approximation to perfect coördination. It is apparent at a glance, then, that crossing furnishes a crucial test of the truth of our views. For most varieties are distinguished from each other by the possession of positive features. The presence of the peculiar character of one variety, of course, implies its absence in the others. Each variety possesses a character or characters which the others lack, and lacks what the others peculiarly possess. When, then, two such varieties cross, good must of necessity accrue to their offspring. For, in the formation of the latter, each variety supplies a deficiency of the other. Could a reason be more obvious? or could proof of a view be more conclusive? So conclusive is it, we conceive, that were[664] any other result consequent on crossing, such a circumstance would be at variance with our theory.

Of the fact that good results from crossing, not a doubt can reasonably be entertained. Darwin, so far from questioning the fact, is its most strenuous advocate. But upon his conception, it is crossing per se which produces the favorable effects. In other words, this is another of Darwin's ultimate laws. Being purely empirical, the general law of nature which he assumes, fails utterly to explain the cause of the variations in the quantity of the effects. The crossing of pigeons, for instance, is attended by the greatest gain in constitutional vigor, while comparatively little good results from the crossing of the varieties of the horse, sheep, or cow. On our doctrine, the explanation is clear. The many widely distinct varieties of the pigeon necessarily imply great disproportionate development of each. They are, then, extremely susceptible of improvement. The races of the horse, sheep, and cow, on the other hand, approximate, as we have seen, to proportionate development. There is, therefore, much less room for improvement. Strikingly in harmony with this interpretation is the fact that, with pigeons, the more highly bred the crossed varieties are, the greater is the gain from a cross. Equally congruous is the fact that the more highly bred the breeds of the horse, cow, and sheep are, the less is the gain. The reason is, careful and select breeding produces increased divergence of character with pigeons; but with horses, sheep, and cattle it induces increased convergence. The former become widely distinct, while the latter converge in character. All the characters are developed in each variety of the latter; but in the former different characters are developed in different varieties. While, then, coördination in the horse, sheep, and cow advances toward perfection, coördination in the pigeon is rendered more imperfect by careful breeding. Each variety of the pigeon possesses a character which, when joined with those of another variety, will entail a great advance toward due coördination. This concurrence is effected by crossing, and the result is, as one would be led to expect upon our doctrine, great beneficial effects. With the horse, sheep, and cow the effects of a cross between varieties are less marked, owing to less imperfect previous coördination.

In noting the advantage accruing to crossed offspring, we have particularly referred to gain in constitutional vigor. We have occasion now to speak of gain in fertility. Seeing that hybrids—the product of a cross between species—are invariably sterile, it is clear that, if the conception that varieties are incipient species is a valid one, we are bound to expect that the more marked, distinct, and widely divergent varieties are, the greater will be their sterility. The mere circumstance that such an effect is not observable, goes far to invalidate the conception. What, then, must the inference be when an effect diametrically opposite to that necessitated by the conception is shown to result—when increased fertility is seen to follow crossing, and when this increased fertility is observed to be directly proportionate to divergence of character? Such results would, we apprehend, negative completely the hypothesis of evolution, and would conclusively confirm our view, that the beneficial effects are owing to the disproportionate development which a multiplicity of widely distinct varieties necessarily implies. These results we have, and they are indisputable. For the fact that crossing induces increased fertility, and[665] that this increased fertility is directly proportionate to divergence of character, is so well known that it is scarcely necessary to adduce proofs from Darwin in support of it. But that the least shadow of a doubt may not remain, we will quote a few of Darwin's remarks on the subject.

Constant reference to crossing may be found in any portion of his late work. But a somewhat lengthy chapter is devoted exclusively to this subject and to close interbreeding. In the conclusion of this chapter (p. 142, vol. ii.) he says:

On page 174, he reiterates these statements, which place the subject of increased fertility beyond all doubt.

Now, it is clear that Darwin's being necessitated particularly to note that the rule that advantage results from crossing obtains even in the cases of cattle and sheep, implies that comparatively little good accrues to the offspring from the crossing of the breeds of either of those animals. This shows, as the varieties of the sheep and cow are convergent in character, that the less divergent the varieties the less is the good attendant on crossing. The converse, that the more divergent the varieties the greater the good, is plainly seen in the case of the pigeon, of which the varieties are manifestly and confessedly the most divergent. The following assertions are unequivocal proof of our view:

Mere mention of crossing in connection with our theory would, we conceive, suffice. But if any doubts have been entertained of the conclusiveness of the proofs furnished by the law, or of the competency of the theory of reversion to account for the good resulting from crossing, they are now surely dissipated by the evidence adduced from Darwin. The law of crossing which we propound is no ultimate law. It fulfils every requirement of a derivative law. The good which flows from crossing varies in degree in different animals, as is well known. This is quite explicable upon our theory; and the amount of good accruing to the offspring from the union of two given varieties, is even susceptible of prevision. Crossing per se does not produce the increased good; it is attributable to the lack of full[666] and proportionate development. Of course, for increased good to result, each of the crossed animals must contribute to the formation of the offspring a part or parts which the other lacks. We have, then, given what Darwin's law, being purely empirical, is utterly incompetent to do—a rational and consistent interpretation of the variations in the quantity of the effects. Logic requires no greater proofs of a theory than those which we have here adduced.

Darwin has informed us, in his late invaluable work, that crossing induces the appearance of new characters. Great stress is laid upon this fact by several writers, and some of them, among whom Pallas is conspicuous, have even gone so far as to ascribe variability exclusively to crossing. The theory of reversion furnishes a rational explanation of the appearance of these characters. We do not allude merely to the fact that their reversion is more probable than their evolution; for Darwin inclines to this opinion rather than to the contrary one. On page 264, vol. ii., after demurring to the conception that variability is solely induced by crossing, he says:

But there is another factor subserving evolution, to which we particularly allude. This is correlation, which we have seen reason to conclude exists, not only between different growths, but also between different centres of growth. Now, when a cross ensues, the offspring generally acquires from each parent a character or characters which the other lacks. The union of these characters strengthens the centres to which they are joined, and also all the centres of which the related parts are developed. By correlation, the centre to which these centres are most closely allied becomes more firmly established. The more firm establishment of this centre, then, induces the development of its formerly connected parts. These parts are the characters consequent upon crossing.

If, as we maintain, the proofs furnished by crossing are conclusive, then the phenomena of close interbreeding must be proofs amounting to demonstration. For the law of close interbreeding, which is the converse of that of crossing, also holds good; is, if possible, more in accordance with the theory of reversion; is also susceptible of resolution into the law of proportionate development; and, being a derivative law upon our theory, fully accounts for all the variations in the quantity of the effects. The different data, moreover, esteemed so mutually inconsistent, of those who concur in and of those who demur to Darwin's law of close interbreeding, can be shown, by the light furnished by the hypothesis of proportionate development, to be perfectly congruous. If we can prove, then, that our law of close interbreeding, founded upon the facts furnished by Darwin, is capable of all this, we shall have fulfilled our promise to place our theory beyond the reach of cavil.

As has been more than once asserted, our views necessitate the conclusion that a multiplicity of divergent varieties implies the loss in each of[667] what constitute the peculiar characteristics of the others. The circumstance that some few varieties are distinguished by the possession of negative features, but slightly modifies this conclusion. Now, it is clear to the comprehension of every one who is likely to have followed us this far, that, as the loss of any part or character is deleterious, the pairing of the members of a variety would tend to aggravate the evil consequent on the absence of the peculiar characters of the other varieties.

Quite in harmony with this view is the following assertion, one of a vast number of a similar kind made by Darwin: "The consequences of close interbreeding, carried on for too long a time, are, as is generally believed, loss of size, constitutional vigor, and fertility, sometimes accompanied by a tendency to malformation." (Page 115, vol. ii.)

Now, according to our theory, the evil effects of close interbreeding must be proportionate to the divergence of character; or, rather, to the disproportionate development which divergence involves. Darwin admits that different species of animals are differently affected by the same degree of interbreeding. Among species of which the varieties are divergent, the pigeon and fowl are preëminently conspicuous. Here, then, we must look for the greatest evil effects from the interbreeding of the members of the varieties. The facts fail not to realize our anticipations. No writers have expressed so strong a conviction of the impossibility of long-continued interbreeding as Sir J. Sebright and Andrew Knight, who have paid the most attention to the breeding of the fowl and pigeon. Darwin gives us, as the result of his wide experience and extensive research, the following opinion:

And again, on page 125, he says: "With pigeons, breeders are unanimous, as previously stated, that it is absolutely indispensable, notwithstanding the trouble and expense thus caused, occasionally to cross their much-prized birds with individuals of another strain, but belonging, of course, to the same variety." He then dwells at some length upon the great delicacy of constitution entailed by the close interbreeding of nearly-related pigeons, and mentions a circumstance for which the reason is at once obvious upon our theory. He says, "It deserves notice that, when large size is one of the desired characters, as with pouters, the evil effects of close interbreeding are much sooner perceived than when small birds, such as short-faced tumblers, are desired."

"In the case of the fowl," says Darwin, "a whole array of authorities could be given against too close interbreeding." (P. 124, vol. ii.) Following this assertion is mention of the great sterility of bantams, induced by close interbreeding. He assures us that he has seen silver bantams almost as barren as hybrids. The Sebright bantam is destitute of hackles and sickle tail-feathers. This involves[668] disproportionate development; and that the evil is attributable to this, Darwin virtually admits when he says, on page 101, that the loss of fertility is to be ascribed "either to long-continued, close interbreeding, or to an innate tendency to sterility correlated with the absence of hackles and sickle tail-feathers."

Of all the phenomena attendant upon close interbreeding, we know of none which so strikingly confirms our view as the following curious case. It is a most delicate exemplification of our doctrine. "Mr. Hewitt says that with these bantams the sterility of the male stands, with rare exceptions, in the closest relation with their loss of certain secondary male characters;" he adds, "I have noticed, as a general rule, that even the slightest deviation from feminine character in the tail of the male Sebright—say the elongation by only half an inch of the two principal tail-feathers—brings with it improved probability of increased fertility." (Pp. 124.) The full significance of this singular fact the reader will at once appreciate. For the cause of the phenomenon is obvious. The increased probability of fertility, consequent on the growth of the secondary sexual characters, is owing to the induced return to proportionate development.

Darwin says, "There is reason to believe, and this was the opinion of that most experienced observer, Sir J. Sebright, that the evil effects of close interbreeding may be checked by the related individuals being separated during a few generations and exposed to different conditions of life." (Pp. 115.) Now, different conditions are, as we have seen, favorable to the development of different parts. Exposure, then, to conditions other than those to which their brothers are subjected, would lead to the growth or strengthening of certain parts in the separated animals. Interbreeding between members of the two lots of animals would, in consequence, be equivalent to crossing. The check to the evil effects is to be attributed to a slight dissimilarity of structure.

These quotations from Darwin place beyond doubt the fact that the greatest evil effects flow from the close interbreeding of fowls and pigeons. It now remains for us to show that, in animals which are comparatively proportionately developed, the evil effects are very small. It must be observed that it does not rest with us to show a total absence of evil. For no animals are, in all respects, proportionately developed. Our very ability to discriminate between different breeds necessarily implies the disproportionate development of all but one of them; that is, when their differences are not merely those of size. With cows, want of proportion is often caused by blind conformity in certain breeds to certain standards. Thus, when a breed acquires a reputation, all its points are faithfully preserved, as if the preservation intact of the existing condition of all the features was a sine qua non of the animal's good quality; and this occurs even when some of the features are shockingly out of proportion, or greatly reduced. If one breed were fully and proportionately developed, the others could be distinguished from it only by negative features.

This last phenomenon is doubtless due to correlation between the legs and the small development of the horns.

Now, these remarks of Mr. Darwin unequivocally show that extremely long-continued close interbreeding is possible with cattle. They also acquaint us with the fact that, although this may long be carried on, evil at length begins to manifest itself. This is easily explained. A small want of proportion in the animals interbred entails evil, but evil too small in amount to be capable of manifesting itself at once. But continued exacerbations, consequent on frequent pairing with related individuals possessing an evil identical in kind, so augments the evil as eventually to involve its display.

If further proof of the possibility of the long-continued interbreeding of cattle is needed, it may be found on page 44 of The Westminster Review for July, 1863. This review is the stronghold of Darwinism. The writer of the article to which we refer says, that "Dr. Child gives the pedigree of the celebrated bull Comet and of some other animals, bred with a degree of closeness such as no one who has not studied the subject would believe possible. In one of these cases, the same animal appears as the sire in four successive generations." So striking is the pedigree of Comet, that the writer cannot refrain from inserting it.

The sheep is another animal in which there is an approximation to proportionate development. Let us see, then, if our doctrine equally obtains in this case. Before going further, we may request the reader to call to mind Darwin's assurance that his remark, "that extremely close interbreeding may be long carried on with cattle," is equally applicable to sheep.

Of all animals, the horse is manifestly the most proportionately developed. In him all the parts maintain, to a great extent, the due proportions. Our doctrine, then, leads us to expect that, in this case, little evil results from close interbreeding. We would be greatly surprised that the horse was not the most striking instance of the possibility of long-continued in-and-in breeding, were we not conscious of the fact that a great portion of the evil eventually resulting from close interbreeding is attributable to augmentation of the diseases to which the horse is singularly susceptible. The following is the only evidence we shall adduce in the case of the horse; but it "is clear and decisive":

The mention of "good form" is a fact of significance; for the current conception of symmetry is, in the case of the horse, a safer criterion of proportionate development than in the case of any other animal.

In all the discussions on close interbreeding, no case meets with such frequent mention as that of the pig. Those who endeavor to gainsay the conclusion that evil is attendant on in-and-in breeding, signally fail to invalidate the fact that pigs die out altogether after being bred in-and-in for several generations. Those persons are the exceptions, however, who consider the fact as questionable. On page 121, vol. ii., Darwin says, "With pigs there is more unanimity among breeders on the evil effects of close interbreeding than, perhaps, with any other large animal." He then gives quite a number of facts, which we will not quote, as they are indisputable.

Close interbreeding being attended, in pigs, by evil effects is, at first sight, at variance with our doctrine. For, not only does utility guide the selection of pigs, but they are, as Darwin has informed us, the most striking instance of convergence of character.[671] We have seen the greatest evil effects of in-and-in breeding in those species in which selection is guided by fancy, and of which the varieties were the most divergent in character. A superficial consideration, then, would lead one to expect that, where the converse obtained—where utility was the motive in selection, and where the varieties were convergent in character—interbreeding would entail little or no evil effects. But the incongruity between the facts and the doctrine is only apparent, not real. There is presence of evil effects, because, in this case, the motive of utility and convergence of character also involve disproportionate development. Disproportionate development is the only never-failing criterion. In our last article we showed that, while divergence of character is solely caused by disproportionate development, convergence of character may be induced by either proportionate or disproportionate development. We further showed that the pig's convergence of character is caused by disproportionate development, and that the pig has many characters either wholly or partially suppressed. Its coat of bristles is greatly diminished, and its tusks are wholly reduced. Owing to a misguided policy, its legs are of the smallest possible size, and, by correlation, the front of the head is remarkably short and concave. Being, then, thus disproportionately developed, the pig, of all large animals, must be, upon our doctrine, the most susceptible of evil from close interbreeding. Allow the legs to be of proportionate size, and a marked decrease in the evil entailed by interbreeding will be observable. So impressed are we with the idea of the truth of our doctrine, that we will stake its validity upon the result, confident that, in doing so, we venture nothing.

That the cause assigned for the lessened fertility and delicacy of constitution of pigs is a true one, is placed beyond all doubt by the fact that, with those members of the species of which but little care is taken, there is comparatively very little evil entailed by close interbreeding. The reason lies in the circumstance that, in these animals, the legs are far more proportionately developed than in well-bred pigs; and that there is absent the shortness and concavity of the front of the head. The more well-bred the animals, the greater are the injurious effects of in-and-in breeding. This fact needs not proof; it is too well known. Care in breeding pigs almost invariably induces the small development of the legs and of the front of the head. A case somewhat analogous is presented by the fowl and pigeon. With them, the more careful the selection, the greater are the evil effects of interbreeding. With cattle, sheep, and horses, however, good breeding is a condition sine qua non of their exemption from the evil generally consequent on close interbreeding. Why care should be attended by different results in different species, is at first not clear. But this is the explanation. In fowls and pigeons, care in the formation of varieties induces greater disproportionate development by augmenting the divergence of character. In cattle, sheep, and horses, on the contrary, care, by inducing greater convergence, causes increased proportionate development. This convergence, be it remembered, is attributable to a cause other than that which creates the convergence of character of the breeds of well-bred pigs.

We incline to believe that the extremely small amount of evil attendant on reduced size never manifests itself by close interbreeding. That some evil, though inappreciably small, does result from reduced size, may[672] reasonably be inferred from the fact that, where animals disproportionately developed are crossed, increase in size follows, and that, where those animals are closely interbred, decrease in size results.

We are assured that there are cases in which crossing, instead of resulting in good, induces evil effects. Darwin says he has not met with any well-established case, with animals, in which this occurs. Now, our theory contemplates such evil effects under the following circumstances. The varieties crossed must each be distinguished from other varieties by a negative feature. In addition to this, they must lack features in common. The evil resulting would then be attributable to the same cause which induces the evil consequent on close interbreeding.

It is now clear that these phenomena of crossing and close interbreeding tell a tale the direct converse and refutation of that which Darwin would have us believe. They are manifestly, grossly, absolutely, and irreconcilably at variance with the doctrine of evolution. They show conclusively that no divergence of character is normally possible; that all the characters of the species are alone susceptible of perfect coördination; that the exclusive possession of any positive character by any variety is to the detriment of the other varieties; that the possession of any negative feature is deleterious to the organism; and that there can normally exist but one variety—the perfect type, that variety in which all the positive features are fully and proportionately developed. These conclusions cannot be gainsaid; for they irresistibly force themselves upon one by observation of the phenomena of crossing and close interbreeding, furnished by Darwin.

We have now propounded a counter-theory and a refutation of Darwinism. In doing so, we have introduced no new factors. We have used only those with which Darwin has furnished us. There are, however, three factors recognized by Darwin which we have eliminated. These are an innate tendency in organisms to vary, evolution, and the law of compensation of growth. Of these, the first is confessedly unscientific; the second, irrespective of the well-founded doubt as to whether it obtains or not, must share in the same discredit which is accorded to the first; and the third is viewed with distrust even by Darwin himself. The factors, however, which we have retained must be conceded to be immeasurably more amenable to the canons of scientific research, upon the theory of reversion, than when they are adduced to subserve the hypothesis of evolution. In our treatment of them they have fulfilled the highest requirements of logic. Take, for example, the four principal laws involved in the controversy—variation, correlation, crossing, and close interbreeding. These we found ultimate or empirical laws, and left them derivative laws. The law of variation we resolved into the law of reversion; and the laws of correlation, crossing, and close interbreeding we resolved into the law of proportionate development. Now, it is not possible for a theory to be capable of all this, and yet to be false. If the laws upon which we based our theory were merely empirical, a doubt of its validity might reasonably be entertained. But, as the case stands, it cannot.

But—may exclaim a tyro who affects a love for science, and whose conception of biology is limited to protoplasm and cells—assuming that the hypothesis of reversion is vastly more conformable to the phenomena of variation than the hypothesis of evolution, yet your theory fails to supply[673] the greatest requirement of biologic science. It fails to satisfy our yearnings after a knowledge of the development of the species. Darwin starts with cells, the lowest congregations of organic matter. Because he does this his theory is, at least philosophically, the more scientific.

But, even in this respect, our theory is more philosophical than that of Darwin. Darwin assumes three or four cells, and intrusts spontaneity or chance with the development of the species. We assume, not "a myriad supernatural impulses" going to the formation of each species, not the creation of each species in its maturity, but one cell alone for each species, (or, perhaps, one cell for each sex of each species.) For evidence of the fact that the assumption of a multiplicity of cells is more philosophical than the assumption of only three or four, we appeal to an article in the North American Review for October, 1868, entitled "Philosophical Biology," of which the writer is a professed Darwinian, and to G. H. Lewes's articles in the Fortnightly Review. Given, then, these cells, we intrust the development of the species, not to spontaneity or chance, but to the operation of laws similar to those obtaining in the crystal. The forces implied in the creation, formation, or existence of each cell determine, as in the case of the crystal, the whole form and structure of the species. The process of development is that predetermined, from which no departure is normally possible. Time, however, is an unimportant element. This kind of evolution of the species we concede. That which we deny is the evolution of the species one from another.

In conclusion, we cannot refrain from stating that our views are quite consistent with a high admiration of the great ingenuity and vast research displayed by Mr. Darwin. His desire to be frank and candid none can gainsay. For the ability of Mr. Spencer, who is somewhat less candid, but immeasurably more so than the petty retailers of his conceptions, we have the deepest respect. His exquisitely constructed mind we ever delight to study. Both Mr. Darwin and Mr. Spencer have rendered great services to the cause of science. And we must in candor admit that the British "infidels" generally present their theories in a form which admits of their eventual confirmation, or their eventual refutation. As we are confident that their refutation will follow whenever they are really at variance with religion, we anticipate with pleasure many a warm but amicable controversy within the next half-century.

BRITISH PREMIERS IN RELATION TO BRITISH CATHOLICS.

The English parliament having lately occupied itself in discussing a measure of the utmost importance to the Catholics of the United Kingdom, and to Irish Catholics in particular—the abolition of the Established Church supremacy, the time seems very opportune for reviewing the conduct of British premiers for the last century and a half in reference to Catholics. The subject, we think, cannot fail to interest our readers, whether they be natives of this soil of freedom, or whether they have emigrated from an isle where freedom was, during long ages, unknown, and have sought on this side of the Atlantic that liberty, prosperity, and peace from which in Ireland they were cruelly debarred.

Though the revolution of 1688 filled the breasts of Catholics with dismay, and the ruin of their cause seemed complete, when the arms of William of Orange prevailed at the Boyne and at Limerick, yet their situation was not so forlorn nor were their prospects so hopeless as might have been expected. Many circumstances alleviated their misery; and, stormy as was the landscape spread before their eyes, glimpses were ever and anon afforded them of that tranquil and sunny horizon into which, after so many toils and conflicts, wounds and tears, they now seem to be entering. Every premier since the revolution down to the present time has done something, directly or indirectly, conducive to their interests, and calculated to raise them to equal privileges with the rest of their fellow-countrymen, if not to restore them to their long lost ascendency.

William III. was decidedly averse to persecution, and whether from coldness or kindness of disposition, he could never be induced by any of his counsellors to trample on the liberty of one portion of his subjects in order merely to please another portion. There was, indeed, one act of his reign,[152] of which we shall speak more particularly when we arrive at Lord North's ministry, that pressed very heavily on English and Irish Catholics; but of this act, which was never carried fully into execution, the nation became weary in eighty years, and William's consent to it was given very unwillingly. The known moderation of his own views was probably one reason why the pope (Alexander VIII.) did not disdain to give him his moral support in the league against France, and to be secretly, though not openly, one of the alliance formed against ambition and encroachments which the states of Europe in general felt to be intolerable. When his approval of the Declaration of Indulgence was sought by James II., in 1687, he had answered that he and the princess must protest against it, as exceeding the king's lawful prerogative, and as being dangerous to the Protestant ascendency, because it admitted Catholics to offices of trust; but he added that "they were not persecutors. They should with pleasure see Roman Catholics as well as Protestant dissenters relieved, in a proper manner, from all penal statutes. They should with pleasure see Protestant dissenters admitted [675] in a proper manner to civil office. But at that point their highnesses must stop."[153] Such being William's sentiments, it is much to be regretted that he did not firmly resist the persecutive act which disgraces his reign, and which, far from mitigating the penal statutes in force against Catholics, made them more severe, and stood in direct contrast to his well-known and often expressed convictions.

[154] But not only was King William himself favorable to Catholic liberties, nearly one half of the Lords, the Commons, and the people in general, were Jacobites, or inclined to Jacobitism. Many of the great measures which decided the course of the English government in a Protestant and anti-Stuart direction were passed by extremely small majorities, and not a few of those who held offices of the highest trust in William's government, who commanded his armies and fleets, and sat by him at the council-board, were privately negotiating with King James and receiving the nightly visits of messengers from St. Germain. Such were Russell, Godolphin, and Marlborough; and when men so high in the state were thus striving to serve two masters, those Catholics who became aware of their intrigues could not but cherish bright hopes that the day of their own redemption was drawing nigh. During the reign of Queen Anne these hopes rose yet higher. She had a brother who claimed the throne of England, and she desired that he might be her successor. There were few at the time who knew the inmost thoughts of her heart; but it was evident to all that she leaned to the Jacobites; and when statesmen like Oxford and Bolingbroke, and a bishop like Atterbury, stood high in her favor, it was manifest to Catholics that her royal mind turned wistfully toward the Catholic dynasty. The rigorous measures which had been passed against Catholics in her predecessor's reign remained, for the most part, a dead letter during hers. Anne herself was no bigot; and if the country had not been kept in constant alarm by a threatened Stuart rising, the Catholic population would have enjoyed great tranquillity and considerable freedom. In 1714, we find Lord Bolingbroke writing that the Catholics enjoy as much quiet as any others of the queen's subjects.[155] But this assertion, it must be admitted, loses part of its credit when we remember that the oppressive measures enacted at various times under William and Mary were followed by several fresh refinements of cruelty in the reign of Anne.[156]

When the peaceful accession of the Elector of Hanover to the throne of England darkened the prospects of the Jacobites, and suggested to them the adoption of desperate steps as the only remedy for their disappointment, the government was sorely tempted to subject all Catholics to rigorous laws, and to render existing statutes still more severe. To this temptation, however, happily, it did not yield except in one or two instances. The mind of Sir Robert Walpole was neither persecutive nor narrow. He had, shortly before Queen Anne's demise, opposed the odious Schism Act, by which every tutor and schoolmaster in Great Britain was compelled to receive the sacrament in the Established Church, obtain a license from the Protestant bishop, and pledge himself in writing to conform to the state religion.[157] In speaking, as he did, against this measure, Walpole was battling for [676] the religious liberty of Catholics as well as of other dissenters from the Anglican communion, and was doing all that lay in his power to promote education among them.

His associate in and out of office, General, afterward Earl, Stanhope, who also became premier in his turn, was a man of most honorable feelings and enlarged views. During his tenure of power he not merely endeavored to repeal the Schism Bill, the Test Act, and the Bill against Occasional Conformity, but he had designs of a higher order. Though Catholics had favored the Scottish insurrection in 1715, though Protestant antipathy to them was at its height, though the popes and the Catholic courts of Europe in general supported the designs of the Stuarts, though "Papists" were proscribed by common consent, and even the genius and very moderate Catholicism of Pope could scarce save him from opprobrium on account of his religion, Lord Stanhope, to his immortal honor, undertook the cause of the persecuted remnant, and formed the design of repealing, or at least greatly mitigating, the penal laws in force against them. A paper which he wrote on the subject was placed in the hands of leading English Catholics. The Duke of Norfolk and Lord Waldegrave were disposed to accept the conditions, provided they obtained the sanction of the pope.[158] But a variety of causes prevented the scheme from being carried into effect; and premature death carried off the only man who would, at that period, have had the least chance of success in a matter so difficult, unpopular, and benevolent. Lord Stanhope's offer of indulgence to Catholics, on condition only of their swearing allegiance to the reigning family, was an admirable precedent, and his descendant, the historian of England from the Peace of Utrecht to 1783, calls it, very properly, the earliest germ of Roman Catholic emancipation.

The Earl of Sunderland also, who was premier in 1718, concurred with Stanhope in his schemes for religious liberty, though he was not equally sanguine in his hopes. He believed that any attempt to get rid of the Test Act—in other words, to admit dissenters and Catholics to places under government—would be ruinous to all their liberal designs. He therefore prevailed on Stanhope to abate some of his demands, and a bill for the relief of non-conformists was carried by the ministry through both houses, after several important clauses had been struck out. Sir Robert Walpole unfortunately opposed the bill which, on a former occasion, he had supported in principle. Though a great man, a sound statesman, a true patriot, he had his littlenesses. He did not rise above his age. He was one thing in office, and another out of office. He had a passion for governing, and was not over-scrupulous in the means he took for attaining power. Expediency was often his law, and principle was set aside. Hence, when Sunderland and Stanhope were dead, and he once more took the helm of the ship of state, he laid a heavy tax on the estates of Catholics, on the ground of their having cost the nation so much by fomenting the rebellion of 1715.[159] The disaffection they then manifested was the cause also why, in 1716, they were forbidden, under pain of punishment, to enlist in the king's service.

But these enactments were of a temporary nature, called forth by a special circumstance, and not of sufficient moment to disprove the assertion that, under the prime ministers of George I., the political and social [677] condition of English Catholics was rendered more hopeful. Yet in saying this we do not forget that the statute-book remained unpurged,[160] and exhibited even some additional defilement. But it is not always by law-books that we can judge of a nation's condition. Its acts are often better than its laws, and it mends its ways long before it improves its statutes. It was so for a long period with Great Britain as regards her dealings with Catholics, and if it had been otherwise, scarcely a remnant of the chosen people would have remained to bear witness to the ancient faith. Sir Robert Walpole inclined in his heart to lenient measures, and would have done more to promote religious liberty if he had not fallen among a stiff-necked generation, to whom retaliation and oppression came as things of course. His efforts to relieve the Quakers from prosecution and imprisonment for refusing to pay tithes and church rates, and to substitute for these a levy by distress on their goods, sufficiently proves his aversion to the oppressive policy which Gibson, the Bishop of London, and many of his lawn-sleeved brethren, wished to pursue.

Little alteration took place in the condition of Catholics during the premierships of Carteret, Pelham, and Newcastle. They were few in number, except in the southern and western provinces of Ireland, where they comprised the great body of the laboring classes. In England, on the contrary, they had scarcely any hold on the lower orders, but numbered among their people many peers, country gentlemen, and other educated persons. The alarm they occasioned was incredible, considering the poverty of their chapels, and the scanty numbers by whom these were frequented. The most wicked and absurd doctrines were ascribed to them, nor was any falsehood respecting them too glaring to obtain credit with the prejudiced multitude. The rising of 1745 brought them more than ever into disrepute, and their enemies saw with fierce joy their bones whitening on Temple Bar and Tower Hill. The butchery of the Duke of Cumberland was accounted lenient when exercised against Catholics; and if the government had drenched the scaffolds with more blood of Highland chiefs, it would probably have been applauded by a crowd of Protestant zealots. But Pelham and his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, were neither cruel nor fanatical; and the effort made by the former to ameliorate the condition of the Jews, though frustrated by the intolerance of the times, proved that his leanings, at least, were in favor of religious and political equality. Deserted as he was in this matter by his timid and shuffling brother, hooted at and cried down as an enemy of Christianity because he was averse to persecuting the forlorn and helpless Jews, we may judge how hopeless would have been any attempt to plead the rights of Catholics, and how prudence itself demanded that the redress of their wrongs should be postponed to a more convenient season. The Whigs of George II.'s reign did what they could in their favor, and it was little indeed, by paving the way for future concessions.

While Chatham, with his fiery genius, was holding the reins of government, in concert successively with the dukes of Devonshire, of Newcastle, and of Grafton; while Bute enjoyed the favor of his sovereign, and incurred in an equal degree the odium of the people; while Grenville goaded the American colonists into revolt, and Rockingham vainly endeavored[678] to heal the wounds which his predecessor had inflicted on them; little was thought, and still less was said, in parliament about the emancipation of Catholics. Yet many of the events which occurred, many of the political gladiators who acquired for themselves such renown in the arena of public life, were preparing the way for this happy consummation in the fulness of time. Every blow that was struck for freedom was a gain to the Catholic cause; every check that was put on the arbitrary power of the king or the parliament was in effect a loosening of their bonds. When Chatham declaimed against the use of general warrants, and Wilkes waged war single-handed with the crown, the cabinet, and the commons; when Burke and Rockingham, no less than Chatham, denounced the injustice of the Stamp Act, and the fratricidal cruelty of the war by which it was in principle to be enforced, the arguments by which they clove down menaces, boasts, and blatant sophistry availed more or less against every thing that could be pleaded in support of the bondage and degradation to which Catholics were subjected. Edmund Burke was the burning and shining light of the Rockingham administration. It was scarcely possible for the premier to overrate his importance as an ally. He had the most philosophical mind of any statesman of his age; and the fact of his being chattered against as a wild Irishman and a concealed papist by the Duke of Newcastle, proved that the despised and the detested Catholics of Ireland were likely to find a friend in him. He was more than a great man; he represented a principle. He never shifted his ground, though he sometimes changed his front. He always pleaded for order, and "a manly, moral, regulated liberty." In the outset of his political career, the tide of human thought was setting in new directions. America was declaring her independence; the Wealth of Nations was laying the foundation of political economy; Wesley and Whitefield were stirring up a dormant spirit of sincere though misguided religion in mines, factories, fields, and wolds; Hargreaves's spinning-jenny was well at work; Arkwright's patent had been issued some years; Crompton's mule was seen coming into play; Brindley's canal from the Trent to the Mersey was being cut; and Watt was preparing his third model of the steam-engine. Powerful solvents of old systems were applied, and active germs of new ones sprang up on every side. It was a time, therefore, when thoughtful men were accessible to new ideas, when they would listen to arguments so new, so strange, so extravagant, (for such they had once thought them,) as those which Burke advanced in favor of religious toleration, and of the persecuted Irish. Year after year his convictions gathered strength, till at last "the god within him" burst forth, and he denounced the penal code of Protestant England as "A system full of coherence and consistency; well digested and well composed in all its parts, a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man."[161] As the secretary, the friend, the adviser and colleague of Lord Rockingham, Edmund Burke had some influence in abating the rigor of enactments against "papists;" and though the Rev. James Talbot, brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury, was tried for his life at the Old [679] Bailey for saying mass, so late as the year 1769, yet the spirit of persecution sensibly declined after the fifth year of George III.'s reign. It was rarely, and at long intervals, that it ventured to display itself in the English parliament; and in 1774, the first decided step toward toleration was taken by that prejudiced body. The Catholics of Canada were allowed by law to enjoy free exercise of their religion, subject to the king's supremacy.[162]

Only four years passed before this concession was followed by another of far greater importance and extent.

It was under the ministry of Lord North, and with his concurrence, that Sir George Savile, in 1788, introduced a bill to repeal the atrocious enactments extorted from William of Orange by a relentless parliament. The bigots of his day had often repeated the false reports of Jacobites, who affirmed that William was in secret a favorer of their religion; but now that eighty years had rolled by, the representatives of the nation in parliament, though not the people themselves, were sensible of the injustice their forefathers had wrought, and were willing to make reparation for it. It was already a marvellous change that had come over the minds of the thinking part of the nation; and it is pleasing to reflect that Sir George Savile's healing measure encountered little opposition. The penal statutes which his bill repealed had not, generally speaking, been put into execution, but in some instances they had; and Sir George declared himself cognizant of cases in which Catholics were not merely living in terror, but were obliged to bribe informers not to betray them, in consequence of the powers which the law conferred. Thurlow, the attorney-general, supported the bill, and so did Dundas, the lord-advocate of Scotland. The only whisper of opposition came from a Whig bishop of Peterborough, named Hinchcliffe. By this repeal the priests were secured from persecution, schoolmasters were permitted to teach, Catholics were enabled to purchase and to inherit estates, and many other happy exemptions from pain and penalty were granted to them.[163] Horace Walpole, in one of his letters,[164] called the repeal "the restoration of popery," and "expected soon to see Capuchins trampling about, and Jesuits in high places."

It is needless to recount the excesses which followed this measure. The Lord George Gordon riots are too well known even here to require more than an allusion to be made to them. Gibbon, the historian, was an eye-witness of the scene, and he says, in memorable words, that "the month of June, 1780, will ever be marked by a dark and diabolical fanaticism, which I supposed to be extinct, but which actually subsists in Great Britain perhaps beyond any other country in Europe." Impelled by these frantic disturbances, the parliament condescended to explain Sir George Savile's bill to the people, and to show that, though intended to relieve "papists," it was not meant to encourage "popery."

The coalition ministry, under the Duke of Portland, did not last long enough for Fox, its most distinguished and philanthropic member, to propose measures for the relief of Catholics. But his great rival, Pitt, during his long tenure of office, had means of befriending them which he did not altogether neglect. The Toleration Act [165] received the royal assent in 1791, and many of its provisions did [680] credit to William Pitt's wisdom and humanity. It removed penalties still attached by law to the celebration of Catholic worship, and relieved tutors, schoolmasters, barristers, and peers from some degrading restrictions. Pitt would willingly have gone further, much further. He would gladly have fulfilled the promises made to some of the leaders of the Irish people, and would have cemented the union of England and Ireland by admitting Catholics to a share of political power and by providing a state endowment of the Catholic priesthood. He even resigned his post as premier in 1801 because he found it impossible to obtain the consent of the purblind, bigoted old king to the measures he had planned for the peace of Ireland. It would have been better for his fame if he had persevered in his good intentions. That he did not do so, is a stain on his memory which posterity, however lenient, cannot wash out. His honor was involved in completing the union with Ireland by Catholic emancipation. This he not only failed to do, but, out of regard to his sovereign, he promised in writing that he would never again moot the question, and that he would oppose its being agitated to the day of his death. This was carrying loyalty too far. It prevailed against justice. It cancelled personal honor. An engagement is sacred; and if Pitt had observed his, he would have stood higher in the esteem of thinking men, without driving George III. into lunacy or to Hanover. Considering all the circumstances, we cannot feel surprised at his setting it aside; but we regret that he did not hold to it firmly. Faith in political leaders would then have been more easy, and public virtue less a sham. When the strength of Pitt superseded the weakness of Addington, and the great statesman found himself again prime minister, his tongue was tied in reference to Catholic claims. Nay, even his rival, Fox, when he came once more into office, refrained from advocating emancipation out of deference to the king's weakness and tendency to madness. Indeed, the Grenville ministry, called usually "All the Talents," broke up at last on the question of removing Catholic disabilities, as that of Pitt had done in the year 1801. A puny and pitiable concession had been made to Irish Catholic soldiers in 1793. They had been allowed by law to rise in the army to the rank of colonel, in case of their serving in Ireland. Lord Sidmouth and Chancellor Erskine were opposed to Catholic emancipation, yet even they were willing in their boundless generosity to extend this privilege to officers serving in England. The king was alarmed at the proposal, and wrote to Lord Spenser, declaring that it should never gain his consent. It would remove a restriction on Roman Catholics, and it was only part of a system to which he was unchangeably averse. But when two days had passed, his majesty thought better of it. He would not thwart his ministers for such a trifle. He yielded the point, and then discovered than he had been deceived by the liberal members of the cabinet, and that they actually intended to put Catholics and dissenters on exactly the same footing as members of the Anglican church in the army, and to exact from them merely an oath of allegiance. The bill for the purpose had, in fact, been submitted to him, but, being blind, he had let it pass without proper scrutiny. His ministers always affirmed that, if he had been misled, it was not through their fault or intention. The afflicted old man was greatly disturbed by what he heard on the subject from Lord[681] Sidmouth, and he became still more indignant when the bill was fathered on him, introduced into parliament by Lord Howick, (afterward Lord Grey,) opposed stoutly by Mr. Perceval, and read for the first time. He resolved in secret to rid himself of ministers whom he regarded as dangerous and false. He informed them that the bill in question would never be signed by him, that it must be withdrawn, and that he should be satisfied with nothing less than an explicit assurance and promise that no such measures in future should be proposed. This "All the Talents" refused to give, and the king, on hearing that their answer was final, said, "Then I must look about me."[166]

Though the Duke of Portland became prime minister in 1807 with the express intention of defending the sovereign against importunity in favor of Catholics, it is worthy of remark that the College of Maynooth was endowed during his premiership; and this is only one illustration of the remarkable fact which we are endeavoring to exhibit—that the Catholic cause in England has progressed in England under every government since the revolution of 1688, in spite of penal statutes, obstacles, and resistance of king, lords, commons or people.

Mr. Perceval, who succeeded the Duke of Portland in 1809, is described by Madden as "a stupid lawyer, without character or practice, noted only for his bigotry."

There was little done for Catholics in his time; but about two months after he had been shot in the lobby of the House of Commons, Lord Wellesley moved that the Catholic claims should be considered.

The cabinet of Lord Liverpool was formed on the basis of neutrality as regards the Catholic question; in other words, its members were allowed to advocate or oppose emancipation, just as they thought fit. Canning and Castlereagh were its friends; Lord Eldon was its bitterest opponent. The premier himself invariably spoke against it, but he was not virulent. His hostility to it arose from the conviction that Protestant ascendency was the real and proper basis of the British constitution, as revised under William III. To alter that basis was, in his eyes, to effect a revolution; and he predicted, in 1812 and in 1825, that if emancipation were granted, either the Protestant church in Ireland would be disestablished or the Roman Catholic Church there would be established by law. Events have proved, happily, that he was not altogether wrong.

The period of the Liverpool administration was, of course, a dreary one for Catholics. The efforts of Grattan, Wellesley, Sir Henry Parnell, Plunkett, and Canning to obtain for them some redress, ended for the most part in cruel disappointment. Yet in 1817 the government introduced a bill, which passed both houses, opening to them the army and navy, and thus generously bestowed on them the privilege of shedding their blood in the service of their oppressors. By annual acts of indemnity, also, Catholic officers were relieved from the penalty of not taking the oaths of supremacy.

In 1824, Lord Liverpool had so far relaxed his opposition to Catholic claims that he spoke in favor of Lord Lansdowne's two bills for giving the elective franchise to English as it had been given to Irish Catholics, and for throwing open to them magistracies and other inferior offices, besides allowing the Duke of Norfolk to execute his hereditary office of earl marshal. The bills were rejected, but the duke's claim was allowed. In[682] 1826, just two years before his death, Lord Liverpool submitted to the king an important paper, in which he reminded his majesty that the cabinet he had framed in 1812 regarded emancipation from the first as an open question, and declared that he could not now be a party to any other arrangement. He humbly suggested that the king should advert to the actual state of the opinions of public men in the two houses of parliament, particularly of those in the House of Commons, upon the Roman Catholic question, and that he should seriously consider whether it would not be at least as impracticable as in 1812 to form an administration upon the exclusively Protestant principle. Thus Lord Liverpool himself, and his neutral or divided cabinet, prepared the way for emancipation in the year after his death.

Canning succeeded Lord Liverpool in 1827. He had long advocated the redress of Catholic wrongs. It was not his fault that Ireland was duped by the union. It had been his desire and intention that emancipation should seal and complete that measure. He could scarcely venture to speak of it, however, except in vague terms; for the smallest allusion to it on his part would have been sure to call down upon him the vengeance of the treasury benches. Yet he did allude to it in January and April, 1799, and thirteen years after, when, speaking of the Catholic claims, he declared that "expectations had been held out, the disappointment of which involved the moral guilt of an absolute breach of faith."

"Does history," asks Goldwin Smith, in discussing the wrongs of Ireland—"does history afford a parallel to that agony of seven centuries which has not yet reached its close? But England is the favorite of Heaven; and when she commits oppression, it will not recoil on the oppressor!"

If Canning's life had been spared, there is no doubt that he would have signalized his tenure of office by the completion, in some measure at least, of the designs of the Catholic Association. This body, formed by O'Connell in 1823, had infused new life and hope into Irish patriotism. Disappointed and betrayed as the people of Ireland had been by one statesman after another, they could not but expect something from Canning's hands, especially when they saw him rise in April, 1822, and move for leave to bring in a bill which should relieve Roman Catholic peers from the disabilities imposed on them by the Act 30 of Charles II., with regard to the right of sitting and voting in the House of Peers. His brilliant and beautiful speech was crowned with a certain success. His motion was carried by a majority of five; but Peel opposed the measure, and the Lords rejected it by a majority of forty-two. Their policy in such matters has always been one of obstruction. They declined to let noblemen so noble and so pacific, and of families so ancient, as the Dukes of Norfolk, the Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord Petre, and Lord Stourton, sit beside them in their chambers as peers of the realm.

After this failure, Canning's zeal in the Catholic cause is said to have declined; but he doubtless felt his impotence, and waited only till a more favorable opportunity of serving the Catholic interests should arrive.

CHESS.

It is rather difficult for the spectator at a game of chess (who is not himself a player) to comprehend the pleasure of it, and to believe that those two grave, silent individuals are not only seeking but actually finding amusement and recreation.

Yet no game is more beautiful in its appointments; beautiful in the mathematical precision of its moves; beautiful in its colored, carved, and varied pieces; intellectually beautiful in its very quietude—in the power with which it represses every manifestation of hope or disappointment, in its wordless intensity of thought.

Other games come in some degree within the scope of the most humble capacity; but chess, royal chess, loftier in its requirements, demands the most noble. It has attractions all-absorbing and fascinating as well as profitable unto wisdom; but they stand fully revealed to him only who can widely plan and steadily execute; whose circumspection is never beguiled and whose caution never sleepeth; who is elated not overmuch by success nor despondent under disasters; who keepeth his own counsel and can baffle an opponent's penetration; whose well-schooled eye gives no clue, by a glance, to his intended victim, and whose well-trained finger never hovers in irresolution. Behold the requirements of chess!

It has been justly called in olden English The Royalle Game; for not only is a king its hero, but it has afforded amusement to kings and warriors through many a past age, and in countries widely distant from each other.

The origin of the game of chess is still an unsettled question. Like some of the oriental monarchs, it might write itself "brother to the sun and moon"—so ancient is its pedigree. Some writers have proved, to their own satisfaction at least, that it was chess which enlivened the tedium of the Greeks encamped about the walls of Troy, and that its inventor was Palamedes, son of Nauplius, King of Eubœa. Who can doubt the inventive genius of Palamedes after all the tales told of him?—tales we learn once and then forget. I repeat one. When the Greek heroes were gathering for the mighty Trojan conflict, Palamedes, himself a warrior, was sent to Ithaca, to summon Achilles and Odysseus to join them. The latter, desirous of evading the call, feigned himself insane, and Palamedes, to test his truthfulness, seized his infant child and laid it before him in a furrow which he was ploughing. Odysseus paused, raised the child, and removed it, thus giving evidence of his sanity. Who after this can doubt the inventive powers of Palamedes or his historian, and who can say that either might not have invented chess?

In a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the Harleian collection, in the British Museum, is a drawing in which two warriors are represented, evidently Greeks, with a chess-board between them, engaged in play. The author of the MS. traces the game back to Odysseus, and concludes that one of these chiefs is intended for him.

In the great Egyptian collection of the British Museum, specimens are preserved of a kind of chess-men taken from a tomb of one of the Pharaohs, which prove that they had a game[684] similar if not identical with our chess; and some hieroglyphics on the ruins of Luxor, Thebes, and Palmyra have been interpreted as indicating such a game.

Caxton, who printed a Boke of Chesse in 1474, quoting from some other writers, gives a wonderful story, showing that it was devised in the reign of Evil-Merodach, King of Babylon, by a philosopher "whyche was named in Caldee Exerses, and in Greke Philemetor." The Greek cognomen of the philosopher leads somewhat to the belief of such a possibility.

Chaucer, without any proof, gives us in rhyme another candidate for the glory—Athalus. He describes, in a sort of dream, a visionary opponent, Fortune—

A repetition of half the assertions and conjectures on this subject would fill volumes; indeed, volumes have been written on it; for no other thing of pure amusement has ever enlisted in its cause so many learned commentators of all tongues and nations, who unite, however, upon two points—its remote antiquity and its mighty renown.

The most reliable account of the origin of the game is, without doubt, that given by Sir William Jones. His high official rank for many years under the English government in India, and his familiarity with oriental languages, gave him opportunities for oriental research beyond almost any other writer. He asserts, as the result of his inquiries, that it was invented by the Hindoos, and from them (according to a universal Persian tradition) it was brought, in the sixth century, to Persia. Its next step was to Arabia, and from thence it was carried by the Saracenic conquest of Spain to western Europe. He found no mention of it in the classic writings of the Brahmins, although (he continues) they say confidently that Sanscrit books on chess exist.

Who the gifted individual was from whose brain emanated such an ingenious complication of mathematics and strategy, disguised under the mask of amusement, we shall perhaps never know. He might well have exclaimed with Horace,

But alas! the name of the builder is lost; or perhaps a future Layard, in exhuming the splendors of some ancient city, may find a record on some crumbling stone of the inventor of chess.

To an indefinite number of persons the honor is at present ascribed, evidently in mere conjecture, as in the following extract translated from a Chinese annal on chess; but it has an interest, in showing the antiquity of the game and the high esteem in which it was held:

It is more likely that Hansing only taught the soldiers what he had himself learned elsewhere; but Shense is still the name of a northern province of China, and Chinese soldiers still play chess.

For the name of the game also, as well as its origin, we rely most on Sir W. Jones, who traced it to Chaturlinga, signifying in eastern dialect certain parts of an army; and in his time the Malays still called it Chatur.

The whole vocabulary of chess—the only sound which breaks the monotonous silence of the game, is the little word check; and it is a singular fact, remarked by Mr. F. W. Cronhelm, that, however varied the names of the pieces in different languages, yet the Italians, French, English, Danes, Icelanders, Germans, Poles, and Russians all give the king warning in the same word—check! Somebody traces it to sheik, the title of a high ruler in the Arabian dynasty, and supposes that they so named the principal piece, which we call king; hence when the adversary placed him in danger, he called out to him "sheik!" or, as we say, "check!" This is certainly plausible; for mat in Arabic, as also in some dialects of Persia and India, signifies to kill, to slay; hence comes "sheik-mat," king-slain, or the modern "check-mate."

II.

It may be supposed, then, following the dates of Sir W. Jones, that the game of chess made its entrance into Arabia in her most glorious era; and it is easy to believe that a recreation so purely intellectual, so entirely reliant on skill and removed from chance, and which called into action all the higher powers of mind, would speedily find favor with the refined and cultivated Arabians in the golden days of her history. It is easy to picture Haroun-al-Raschid, who "never built a mosque without attaching to it a school," and who taught his subjects that "the most noble homage of a creature is to cultivate the faculties bestowed on him by his Creator"—it is easy to imagine him seeking relaxation from the cares of government in a game of chess; and not he alone—but that, from the universal diffusion of learning and refinement among the people, under him and his immediate successors, it would meet universal acceptance, and be engrafted, as it were, on their nationality. And thus we find it was; and so entirely adopted that it was the most cherished pleasure which they carried with them to (what was to them) the far-off land of Spain.

To the Arabians then, the west of Europe, at least, if not the whole of it, is indebted for chess; and it is pleasant to believe that its present perfections may have been wrought out by some modifications of it, in those famous old universities and schools of learning which history tells us were scattered over every land where the Arabians held sway, but more especially over Arabia proper.

Chess, looked upon in this connection, wears a mantle of romance; there is a spell upon it of that departed glory! It is redolent of orange-groves, and jasmines, and thickets of roses; of sculptured halls, and gorgeous tapestry, and marble pavements; of learned men and beautiful women. All around it in that land breathed an impassioned poetry and an enchaining eloquence; the language of passion, and inspired thoughts, and bold imagery, of whose power to sway mankind our rule-bound brains can form no conception.

It speaks to us of the days when Bagdad was the gathering-place, under Al-Mamoun, (Mahomet-aben-Amer,) of the wise men of all nations; when her universities and schools of science were the boast of her rulers; when long trains of camels were daily seen entering her gates laden with precious manuscripts for her libraries; when medicine, law, mathematics,[686] astronomy, counted among her citizens their most renowned professors, and when all these sciences were made accessible to the people by colleges and academies in every town. Nor were Bassora, Kaffa, Samarcand, and numerous other cities much less famous; Alexandria possessed more than twenty schools for philosophy alone; and Fez and Larace held in their immense libraries works of rare value nowhere else to be found. In every department of science and art they seem to have labored with success. They had dictionaries, geographical, critical, and biographical; the universal history of the world by Aboul-Feda, and the great historical dictionary of Prince Abdel Malek. Al-Assacher wrote commentaries on the first inventors of the arts; and Al-Gazel, a learned work on Arabian antiquities. Nor were their researches confined to the schools; after forty years of travel in studying mineralogy, Abou-ryan-al-Byrony produced his treatise on precious stones—rich in facts and observations. With equal zeal, at a later period, Aben-al-Beither traversed the mountains and plains of Europe, the sands of Africa, and the most remote countries of Asia, to gather every thing rare and worthy of record in the vegetable and animal world. Chemistry they applied to the arts of life; and Al-Farabi, who spoke seventy languages, spent his life in making a compend of all known sciences in one immense encyclopædia.

They had invented gunpowder although the honor is often falsely given to a German chemist—and they were familiar with the compass, long before either was named in Europe; and our sciences of calculation are indebted to them for numerals. The mass of their poetry and fiction exceeds that of all other nations put together. One, at least, we all know; for who cannot recall many—yes, how many happy hours of boyhood, beguiled with the gorgeous impossibilities of Arabian Nights?

Amidst all these royal students, these accomplished scholars, the chess-board had its place; it was the pleasure, the recreation—the field whereon wit encountered wit in sharp and pleasant tilt. And while from all that land the light of science has departed; while the glories of the past are, with the mass of its people, not even a tradition, travellers tell us that, after the day's journeying is done, the dusky Arab "spreads out on the ground a checkered cloth, and plays on it a game similar to our chess."

III.

Although Spain, and the adjacent nations through her, received chess from Arabia, the game not only existed but was wide-spread in the north of Europe at a period so early (and under a slight modification) that we are led to believe they derived it from some other source. Indeed, nothing would seem more likely than that some of the many tribes who were constantly migrating thither from Asia would carry it with them. Major C. F. de Jaenish, a Russian writer, is of opinion that Russia received it direct from the east through her ancient conquerors, the Moguls; and in proof of this, he notes two pieces changed in the chess of southern Europe, but retained in their original form in Russia. These are, first, the commander of the army, or biser, called in Persia ferz; and second, the elephant, called in Russia, Slone. But it doubtless existed in Russia long before the Moguls held sway, which was not until the thirteenth century; and long before that time there are records of it as an amusement among the Northmen of the neighboring kingdoms. Besides this, in the ninth century the[687] descendants of Ruric the Norman, who then ruled Russia, had extended their conquests to the Black Sea, and, in the language of the old historian, "greatly infested its waters;" one of them had even married the sister of the Greek emperor. It is, therefore, more than probable that through some of these channels chess was introduced into the northern part of Europe at a very early date.

It may have been carried thither by those maritime marauders, called the sea-kings, even before it was heard of in Spain. The first movement of the Arabians against Spain is generally fixed in the year seven hundred and ten; when Taric-ben-Zeyed, with some galleys disguised as merchantmen, cruised along the coasts of Andalusia and Lusitania, to see what temptation the Christian land offered to the followers of the prophet. That his survey was satisfactory, we know by what followed. But long before this, the Northmen in their ships had made themselves famous and feared. An Icelandic chronicle tells us "they were on every sea, and more numerous on water than on land." In the eighth and ninth centuries, they were to be found not only repeatedly ravaging England, Scotland, and Ireland, but sailing up the Somme, the Seine, the Loire, the Garonne, and the Rhone; they had pillaged and burnt Paris, Amiens, Orleans, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Nantes, and Tours; and laid waste Provence and Dauphiny. More than once they landed in Spain; and they had coasted the Mediterranean, to the terror of Greece and Italy. These expeditions were always predatory; and they may not only have acquired in their Mediterranean voyages some hints of the game of chess, but chess-men and chess-boards may have made a trifle in the booty with which they always returned laden to their northern homes.

Mons. Mallet, the antiquarian, in seeking to account for the great quantity of foreign coin found about that time in the northern kingdoms, thinks it less probable that it was the honest gains of commerce than "relics of the plunder collected by these ravagers." In like manner, perhaps, they appropriated chess. In whatever way obtained, it must have been to them particularly attractive; for what was it but that for which they lived—battle and victory? Nothing could have been better adapted, in the long nights of their northern winters, both to divert them from that restlessness which seems to have possessed the whole of their existence not spent in the tumults of war and the chase, or in preparations for them—and also as a pastime at their frequent and magnificent feasts; occasions upon which they infused into it their own fierce and vindictive spirit, for we know that their chess games ended very frequently not in the check-mate of the king, but in breaking each other's heads with the chess-board. Some such instances on record are tragic and revolting. Similar manners extended along the middle ages. An old writer thus explains the feud which existed between Charlemagne and Ogier the Dane:

King John of England, in his youth, at the court of his father Henry II., played sometimes with Fulk Fitz Warine, a lad like himself, and as often it ended in a quarrel. A curious old history of the Fitz Warines gives the following story:

His majesty bestowed upon him little sympathy, for he punished him for being quarrelsome. Considering that John began the affray, this might pass for justice; but he did not forget the matter when he came to the throne. Fulk was the famous outlaw.

In many old manuscripts incidental mention is made of chess as a favorite amusement for heroes. When Regner Lodbrog, the warrior-poet, was killed, the messenger who carried the news to his sons found two of them—Sigued (snake-eye) and Hurtish (the bold)—playing chess; the third one, Biorn, was mending his lance. Regner Lodbrog died about the close of the eighth century.

Snorro Sturleson relates that, in 1028, Canute, King of Denmark, rode to Roskild to visit Earl Ulft, the husband of his sister. The king was very dull and scarcely spoke, and to enliven him, Earl Ulft proposed a game of chess. So they sat down to it, and played until Ulft took a knight; this the king would not allow.

"You did not call me coward when I shielded you in battle," replied the earl; but for this reminder he lost his head.

An early metrical romance tells us that when Witikind, king of the pagan Saxons, received information that Charlemagne was marching on his dominions, the messenger found him in his palace at Tremoigne, playing chess with Escorsaus de Lutise; and his queen, Sebile, who also understood the game, was looking on. Witikind was so indignant at the news that he "seized the chess-board and smashed it to pieces, and his face grew as red as a cherry."

There is a droll story told of a kindred spirit of more modern date. A choleric Scottish nobleman, a former Earl of Stair, frequently played with a friend of his, Colonel Stewart. Not contented with bestowing very expressive invectives on the colonel's occasional superior play, he sometimes, when goaded by a check-mate, flung at his head any object possible within reach; so at last the colonel, for prudence' sake, when about to make his last move, always rose hastily and retreating behind some door, called out, "Check-mate, my lord!"

While the general manners of an age are gathered from its grave historians, we can learn them more in detail from its romances. In all the early romances left to us, wherever chess is mentioned—and it is constantly introduced as a pastime of knights, princes, and courtly dames—it is almost always an occasion or implement of some fierce dispute.

In the romance of Quatre fils d'Aymon, the agents of Regnault go to arrest Richard, Duke of Normandy, and find him playing chess. The result is thus quaintly told in an old English version, printed by Copeland.

In the romance of Parise la Duchesse, her young son, brought up at the court of Hungary, becomes an object of jealousy to some of the nobles, and four of them conspire to murder him. In order to accomplish their object with safety to themselves, they invite him to play chess with them in a retired cellar. "Hughes," said they, "will you come with us to play at chess? For you can teach us chess and dice; for certainly you know the games better than we do." Hughes seemed suspicious of their advances, and it was not until they promised him to avoid all disputes that he accepted their invitation. He began to play with the son of Duke Granier; but while he in kindness was about showing them in what manner to move, they drew their knives upon him, and outrageously insulted him. He killed the foremost of them with a blow of his fist, and seizing the chess-board for a weapon, for he was unarmed, he "brained the other three with it."

In Spain and Italy, about the same time, the game is mentioned under more gentle guise. An interesting letter is preserved, written by Damianus, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, to Pope Alexander II., who was elected pope in 1061. Damianus tells the pope how he was travelling with a bishop of Florence, when,

It is safe to conclude from this that the cardinal himself was not familiar with the game.

Females are represented on many illuminated manuscripts, as well as in early romances, as playing chess together or with knights. In one called Blonde of Oxford, Jean, a young French nobleman, comes to England and enters the household service of the Earl of Oxford. It was a part of Jean's duty to attend on the Lady Blonde, daughter of the earl, and serve her at table; after dinner, he goes hawking and hunting with them, and also teaches the ladies French. "Then he entertains the Ladye Blonde, and teaches her chess, and he often says check and mate to her."

Such examples might be multiplied to tediousness; but one more notice of it among the Northmen is worth giving, because it is found in one of the grandest of modern epics, by the Swedish poet, Tegner, founded on events in the life of one of their most renowned heroes—The Legend of Frithiof.

The fortunes of the valiant Frithiof, who was the son of a thane, seem to have been ruled by his love for the fair Ingeborn, daughter of a king, and the scorn with which her two brothers spurned his proposal for her hand. A day of retaliation, however, soon came. Helgé and Halfdan, the brothers, were threatened by a neighboring foe, and sent to Frithiof—certainly with a sublime forgetfulness of what had passed—to ask his aid. When the messenger arrived, he was playing chess with his friend, Bjorn, the Bear. Frithiof refuses very decidedly. His heart still pines for Ingeborn; and, like a true Viking, he betakes himself for consolation to the sea, which he vows shall be "his home in life and his grave in death." The chess-board beside which Frithiof doubtless forgot his griefs for a brief space is described as magnificent—

Perhaps some reader will be glad to learn that, after a few years, "he is weary of sea-fights and of hewing men in twain," and returns home to marry Ingeborn.

IV.

It is remarkable in the history of chess how very trifling the variations which have ever been made in it. The lapse of time, which has swept away cities and their inhabitants, which has so blotted from human speech the words of those who once held converse around it that their inscriptions on stone are unintelligible, has left it almost unaltered.

Coming close to that domestic life of nations of which chess made one pleasure, what has not changed? Modes of dress, construction of dwellings, fashions of entertainment—all have had their mutations. Yet the game, as far back as the earliest accounts of it, has been almost literally such as we see it. One feature has always marked it, chess; there has always been a sovereign to be attacked and defended, and inferior pieces to accomplish these ends in combination, yet by different means. The board of sixty-four squares has also almost invariably been maintained.

Two pieces were modified when it passed from Arabia to Spain, or rather, from the Saracen to the Christian. In Arabia and Persia, there was no female on the board; what we call "queen" was, with them, "vizier or counsellor," and called pherz, ferz, or fers. This was retained in Europe until about the eleventh century, when it was supplanted by our queen. But wherefore a queen? We shall see.

Several events combined to make this period the age of poetry and of a peculiar deference to womankind. It will be remembered that in the eleventh century, 1095, was preached the first Crusade, a thing of romance and poetry itself. However different the motives which actuated that crowd of nobles and warriors who joined in creating the mighty army whose advance-guard was led by the monk Peter, to all appearance each one was a hero. Country and kingdom, home and love, happiness of wife or maiden, was the sacrifice professedly offered at the shrine of a holy enthusiasm[691] enkindled by faith. Every earthly interest, every tie of affection, all consideration of self, was to be accounted nothing, compared with the sacred obligations involved in the expedition.

The means of expressing all these delicate sentiments and deep emotions, and furthermore of expressing them in poetry, was happily opened to them at this era in the language of the troubadours—the Langue d'Oc. The polish which poetry had received from the Arabians in Spain had elevated it to an art, and made it so attractive to the more refined classes that the highest born, even kings and princes, did not think it beneath them to cultivate it; and he added greatly to his renown who had qualified himself to express in it the two ruling passions of his soul—his martial ardor and his devotion to his ladye-love. Every knight, almost, was a troubadour, and the homage rendered to woman seems almost fabulous. A French writer says of this period:

Woman was not slow in extending her influence to more prosaic matters than Les Cours d'Amour and the inspirations of poetry; and history furnishes an abundance of examples where female interference was permitted and female decision respected in the gravest affairs of life. After Alphonso VI. of Castile had driven the Moors from Toledo, he granted to such of them as chose to return the use of a cathedral to serve as a mosque; but, says history, "he soon broke his promise, and deprived them of it, at the instigation of and in order to please his wife."

Who, then, but a woman could have routed the grand-vizier from the chess-board and taken his place?

The other piece altered is the bishop, which of course was not so called by the orientals. This piece with the Arabians and Persians was represented by an elephant, and named pil or phil. In southern Europe, the name was modified into alfil and aufin, and is found so in old writers; but at a very early period the bishop seems to have been generally adopted. In northern Europe, it was not so; the Russians and Swedes still retain the elephant. What we now call castle, and sometimes rook, was also called by the Saracens roc, and by the Persians rokh, signifying champion or foot-soldier, and shaped accordingly. This form is seen in some ancient chess-men in the British Museum, supposed to be of Icelandic manufacture; the Icelanders called this piece hrokr. These chess-men, many in number and carved in ivory—that is, the tusk of the walrus—were found in the year 1831, on the coast of the Isle of Lewes, and are referred by antiquaries back to the twelfth century. They are the remnants of seven or eight distinct sets, and are therefore supposed to have belonged to some dealer who was shipwrecked there. The carving on them, and the costumes, bear traces of being Scandinavian. The king is in a sitting posture, crowned, and has a sword in his hand, which he rests crossing his lap; the queen also is crowned, and holds a drinking-horn, such as the northern women used in serving mead and ale to their guests; one of them represents a[692] bishop with mitre and crozier; the knights are on horseback, and are covered with armor; and here is the roc of the Saracens in its original form, a kind of foot-soldier, in place of the castle—which, however, is yet called rook. The remainder are pawns. Thus they are nearly identical with any set of modern chess-men, although fabricated more than seven hundred years ago.

The largest king in this collection, in his sitting posture, is more than four inches in height and near seven in circumference. The other pieces are smaller, but correspond. The chess-board which accommodated such pieces must have been a formidable weapon in a strong hand, and quite likely to "break heads and scatter brains."

Many old books are to be found in public and private libraries which contain descriptions of chess-men, rules for playing, etc. In the twelfth century, such a manual was composed by some devotee of the game in Latin verse. A little later, a volume was written in Latin by Jacques de Cessolas; it was translated into French by Jean de Vigny, and entitled Moralization of Chess. It may be seen in English in Caxton's Boke of Chesse, published in London, 1474.

Damiano, a Portuguese, in the fifteenth century compiled a book of directions for playing, with examples of eighty-eight games.

A little volume, very amusing in its quaint old English, was published in London in the reign of Elizabeth; it is dedicated to Lord Robert Dudley, afterward the celebrated Earl of Leicester. It is entitled, The Pleasaunt and Wittie Playe of the Cheasts, reviewed with Instructions both to Learn it Easily and to Play it Well. Lately translated out of Italian into French, and now set forthe in Englishe by James Rowbotham.

Such has chess been through times past; it numbers still among its votaries the noble and the learned; and it is advocated by some of them with an enthusiasm surely never surpassed in the days long, long gone by in its oriental home.

It has floated down to us from those days like a leaf on some broad stream beneath whose waves mightier things have sunk.

THE FIRST ŒCUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.

The nineteenth century is still adding to the catalogue of important events, for which it will be memorable in future histories. Men still live who looked on Fulton's first steamboat on the Hudson, who ventured on the first railway train, and who smiled incredulously at the folly of Morse stretching iron wires on poles along the country between cities a day's journey apart, and pretending thus to transmit messages between them with the velocity of electricity. The humble river steamboat has developed into the gigantic ocean steamer, that heeds not the winds and bids defiance to the waves. Lines of railway intersect continents, and cross from ocean to ocean. Telegraph wires spread their network over every civilized land, and, boldly plunging into ocean depths, aim to girdle the earth. The cotton-gin has revolutionized the habits of nations and the commerce of the world, and the sewing-machine is bringing the change into every household. This wondrous increase of travel and commerce among nations has given birth to international exhibitions of art and industry as gorgeous as the visions of the Arabian story-teller. In the Suez Canal, this century has succeeded where antiquity failed; and in the Mont Cenis tunnel, soon to be finished, it is accomplishing what past ages never dreamed of attempting.

Science, too, contributes her wonders. The sun and the stars and the nebulæ are yielding their secrets; chemistry boasts of her unexpected conquests; and the earth is giving forth its pages of geological lore, fragmentary as yet, and somewhat confused, ofttimes undecipherable, often wrongly read by men, but still presenting to us a kingdom of knowledge unknown a century ago.

In the political and social sphere this century has been equally marked. Vast wars and bloody revolutions ushered it in. Wars and revolutions have marked every decade of its progress. Empires and kingdoms have been thrown down. Others have been established instead, and have perished in their turn. The strong have grown weak, and the weak have become powerful. And to-day, the nations of the civilized world feel that they stand on the thin crust of a volcano, that trembles under our feet, and that may at any time burst forth, in other revolutions and wars, in which arms of precision, titanic artillery, and iron-clad vessels shall play a part never yet witnessed by men.

In the moral and religious world, too, there is equal excitement and confusion. Novel principles are proposed, advocated, and pushed to their extreme and most violent consequences. Nothing in government, in morals, or in religion is left unassailed. There is an incessant war against God, against truth and virtue, and against every principle that would withstand the passions, or the interests, or the caprices of men. And the press, which in its wondrous development has kept full pace with every other art, is ever busy bringing to every household, to old and young alike, sometimes words of truth and goodness, but a thousand times oftener and more actively lessons of immorality, discontent, disorder, and irreligion.

In looking at the world, as it is now, so rapidly moving on, with its vast energies and untiring activity, its ever-increasing commerce, its intense worship of luxury, its oblivion of principle, its grasping after wealth, its restlessness and craving for change for change's sake, one feels like the traveller who crosses the Alps by that late feat of modern engineering, the Mont Cenis Fell Railway. The wondrous scenery of mountain and valley charms you. You are amazed at the boldness which conceived, and the skill which executed the work. You rejoice, as you are borne rapidly on, in the luxuriously-cushioned seat and well-warmed railway compartment, over the steep road you remember[694] well to have travelled, years ago, so slowly and painfully. But amid all this pleasure, you cannot shut out the thought that perhaps the very rumbling and jarring of the train may set in motion the vast field of freshly-fallen snow that lies so lightly on the steep side of the peak rising above you, on the right or the left, and bring it down as an irresistible avalanche, overwhelming road and train, and casting the shattered cars and mangled passengers down to the masses of rock and ice that lie in the gorge a thousand yards below.

We glory in our rapid advance in arts, science, and civilization. We feel ourselves borne rapidly and joyously forward in a career of progress. But we cannot shut out entirely a sense of danger. In many countries, society is mined by revolutionary combinations, active and vigilant, watching for any favorable opportunity, and ever ready to take advantage of it. In the universal questioning of every thing and of every principle, the minds of the masses have become excited, have lost in great part, or are fast losing, those fixed and hallowed principles of justice and truth which are absolutely necessary for correct judgment and prudent action. They are ripe for any plan to be proposed, even if its only attraction be its novelty. And they may easily become a mighty engine of brute, unthinking power, in the hands of any one bold enough to seize the control, and skilful enough to guide them for a time. Might now makes right. The world is ruled on the theory of accomplished facts. Peace itself must stand armed cap-à-pie. No one knows into what horrors the death of one individual might, any month, throw hundreds of millions of men.

Has all sense of right and justice faded from the minds of men? Must our progress be marred by this ever-increasing danger. Is there no voice to be raised, no authority to come forth to meet this emergency of the world?

God gave revelation to mankind, teaching the world truth and justice, charity and every virtue, and imparting to man, in his weakness, strength to struggle against and overcome his own passions and the temptations from without. To his church, the pillar and ground of truth, Christ committed the duty of teaching all nations all things whatsoever he had taught, and promised to be with her, in the discharge of this duty, all days even to the consummation of the world. In its fulfilment she must meet opposition, trials, scandals, and difficulties of every sort. But the gates of hell shall never prevail against her.

Many a struggle has she gone through, in the eighteen centuries of her existence; and incalculable are the benefits the world owes to her, even by the confession of her enemies.

While she ever and always teaches the unchangeable truths and precepts given by her Divine Founder, she is ready to accept and bless what she finds of good among men, and labors to eliminate what is evil. From Greece she took what was pure in poetry and the fine arts, and true in philosophy. From Rome she gathered what was just and good in her admirable jurisprudence. Yet, even in the face of bitter persecution, she failed not to denounce immorality, however decked in classic verse; atheism and impiety, however clothed in words of seeming intellectual wisdom; and cruel tyranny, however upheld by power and authority, or made sacred by antiquity and the prejudices or manners of a people. In after times, under the debauched and luxurious rule of the Byzantine emperors, and still later, When the northern barbarians had overrun western Europe and destroyed all government, her powerful influence was felt. Hers was the only voice which could reach and in some measure control the fierce men who sat on thrones they had built with the sword, or could bring peace and the consolations of religion to the hovel of the poor and oppressed. She checked immorality and injustice and taught obedience to law. No one will now contest the truth, that it is to her the modern world owes what knowledge we have of the olden classic civilization. But for her, it would be as dead to us as that of Assyria is to the wild Arabs who pitch their tents on the mounds of Kouyunjik and Khorsabad. To her it owes those grand principles[695] of law and justice, of stable government and individual rights, of holy marriage, and of arts and science, which go to constitute civilization. The church of Christ cannot be wanting in any emergency of men. It is her office to establish order where else chaos would reign.

Hence it is that in this present crisis, this time of so much good and so much evil, so many hopes and such great danger, she renews and increases her efforts, as of old, that what is good may be increased and confirmed, what is evil may be diminished or eliminated. She devotes to the work her most solemn and effective mode of action—an œcumenical council.

Assuredly no more remarkable event has occurred in this nineteenth century than the meeting of this Œcumenical Council of the Vatican, formally opened in Rome on December 8th last, the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The civilized world seems conscious of its importance. Catholics and Protestants, believers and infidels, all treat of it, some with full faith and earnest hope, some with a dim sense of reverence, some with curiosity, and some with hatred. But none can ignore or despise it. The books that have been published, the stream of pamphlets in every language that is flooding Europe, the countless articles of every character in countless newspapers of every hue—all bear witness to the universal interest in an assembly so extraordinary in its character, and destined to wield so great a moral influence.

Men are struck with wonder at this singular and hitherto unprecedented representation of the whole world. The number of members is in itself large. There were present at the opening session, 5 cardinal bishops, 36 cardinal priests, 8 cardinal deacons, 9 patriarchs, 4 primates, 124 archbishops, 481 bishops, 6 abbots with quasi-episcopal jurisdiction, 22 mitred abbots, and 29 superiors of religious orders; in all, 719 of the 1050, or thereabouts, who would have the right to enter. Many dioceses in the world are vacant, the venerable bishops of others are too aged to travel so far, some are detained by illness and will come later, and some, to their regret, are detained by the special circumstances of their own dioceses. None of those under the Czar of Russia have come. His Tartar policy threw them into dungeons, where some died. Those that lived he sent to Siberia, some for their religion, some for being Poles. But among the bishops here every other nation of Europe has a full and strong representation. Besides all these, there are also forty-nine from the United States, eighteen or twenty from Canada and the British possessions of North America, and over forty from Mexico and the various states of South America. The eastern and the western shores of Africa have sent several; two have come from British Africa, at the south, and quite a number—among them a Coptic bishop from Egypt—represent the dioceses along the Mediterranean shores of Africa. All the ancient oriental rites of the church have patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops in the council; India, Thibet, China, Japan itself, Australia, New Zealand, and the isles of the Pacific are fully represented. Never before in the history of the world was there seen such a gathering of prelates from the uttermost parts of the earth. And the members who compose the council deserve individually special attention. They are chosen men, holding in their several homes posts of dignity, responsibility, and authority. The Catholic Church is in one aspect eminently democratic. She will take into the roll of her clergy men of every rank and station. She asks not what was their condition or their lineage. If a clergyman possess piety, learning, zeal, and administrative ability, the door is open for his preferment, even to her highest offices. If Pius IX. is noble born, his predecessor, Gregory XVI., was the son of a poor village baker, and owed his earliest education, and his entrance into the sanctuary, to the gratuitous kindness of a good monk, who was attracted by the bright eyes and intelligent look of the modest little boy, as he used to carry around to customers the loaves his father had baked. So too of these bishops. Some may be of lordly, or noble, or princely lineage. Others were born in humble, thatched cottages.[696] Here they are equal. Some have doffed the ermine, some have quitted the bar, others left the army, where their names are still mentioned with praise and soldierly pride by their old companions in arms. Some have given up to younger brothers wealth and titles, that they might freely devote themselves to God's holy work. Some, filled with apostolic zeal, have given up friends and home and country to go to distant lands to preach Christ and him crucified; and some have been honored with chains and imprisonment and stripes for Christ's sake. They all pursued a long career of preparatory studies, they were afterward tried by long years of practice in the ministry, and have finally been chosen as qualified for their important and responsible positions. Differing, as they do, in language and nationalities and human feelings and prejudices, they have all the same faith, the same zeal, and have all come together at the summons of their common father. They all gather around the chair of Peter.

Well may the world look with wonder at such an assembly as this, containing so much of learning, such strength of character, such personal worth, wielding so much power over the minds and consciences of men, possessing such an intimate, practical knowledge of the whole world, of the good and the bad in it, and of the needs of men—an assembly every member of which has learned, by years of ministerial duty, to read, as no others can, the heart of man, and where all have come together with the same earnest purpose, and in the same singleness of heart, to confer candidly and frankly with each other, in order, with the aid and light of heavenly grace, to determine on such measures as shall best promote the glory of God, the interests of religion, and the spread of truth and virtue among men. Even to the man of the world, not to say to the Christian, can any thing be nobler or more worthy of respect than such a meeting? Must not every honest heart rejoice in the effort they will make, and wish them success?

But to the Catholic this œcumenical council has a higher character. We know that the church was founded not by man, but by Christ himself; that she stands, not by human learning or human wisdom and prudence, but by the power of God; that Christ is ever with her, that he has sent his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, to abide with her for ever, to teach her all truth, to recall to her mind all things whatsoever he taught, and that so she is to us the pillar and ground of truth. We look back and see that in all the great emergencies of Christian truth, or rather emergencies of the world, it has been her custom to call together her bishops in councils like this. Thus, when Arianism arose, and the minds of simple men were thrown into confusion and perplexity concerning the divinity of the Saviour by the wily quotations of Scripture and the plausible teachings of error, the Council of Nice declared clearly and emphatically the original doctrine of the divinity of the Son; and guarded it by establishing the consecrated terms in which thenceforth Christian lips should express it. So, too, when Nestorius and Eutyches, and other later heresiarchs arose, other councils were held, solemnly setting forth the original doctrines received and held by the church, and pointing out and condemning the opposite errors. So, too, in the sixteenth century the Council of Trent met and gave to the world a full and clear statement of the Catholic doctrine of justification, so violently assailed by Luther and his followers and companions—a doctrine, by the way, which no small portion of those non-Catholics who still retain a belief in an actual divine revelation, now receive substantially and admit to be the only doctrine on that head reconcilable with reason and common sense.

So, too, in this nineteenth century, amid the confusing uncertainties of men, and the discordant clashing of opinions in the world, we turn with reverent hope, with fullest confidence in the words of the Saviour, and with grateful hearts and willing minds, to this first Œcumenical Council of the Vatican. We recognize in it the same authority which spoke at Nice, at Ephesus, and at Chalcedon, at Constantinople, at Lyons, and at the Lateran, and in Trent. We await the[697] words of its teaching and its precepts of discipline. For it will speak with authority. "It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us."

Our readers are no doubt familiar with the chief antecedents of the council. It was in his address to the bishops assembled in Rome in June, 1867, to celebrate the centenary of St. Peter's martyrdom, that the Holy Father made the first public and official announcement of what had been for a short time before mooted and considered in private. It was his desire, at as early a day as circumstances would allow, to convene the bishops of the Catholic world in an œcumenical council. The prelates present, about five hundred in number, expressed their gratification and cordial assent. The attacks of the Garibaldians in November, 1867, if successful, would probably have frustrated the design. But under divine Providence it signally failed. Some thought that the bull of convocation would appear in December, 1867. But it was not published until the midsummer of 1868, and the council was summoned for December 8th, 1869. It was a solemn work. All felt that a most important day was approaching in the history of the church. Throughout the world, ever since, in every church and religious house, as often as the priest ascended the altar to celebrate the divine mysteries, or those vowed to the Lord assembled to sing his praises, petitions were offered unceasingly that God would bless the council, and give to the prelates such light and grace as would lead them to speak and act for his greater glory and the welfare of souls. As months rolled on and the time approached, clergy and faithful throughout the world united with redoubled fervor in triduums, novenas, and suitable religious exercises to obtain this special favor from Heaven.

In order that when the prelates should come, they might not be detained too long from their dioceses attending the council—as was the case at Trent—it was deemed advisable to establish preparatory committees of chosen theologians to study maturely such questions as it was thought would probably come up or be proposed in the council. In Rome, the centre of theological learning, there were eminent theologians in abundance from whom to choose. But it was felt that something more was needed. To erudition must be added an intimate knowledge of the modes of thought and the practical needs of the various nations; something which books alone cannot give. Hence, eminent theologians from France, Germany, England, Ireland, and other countries were invited, and sent to Rome as representative men of their respective countries. From the United States, the Very Rev. Dr. Corcoran, of Charleston, South Carolina, whom our bishops had learned to appreciate as secretary to our Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, was chosen for this purpose, and came to Rome fifteen months ago. The choice was a most happy one. He has won the esteem and respect of all by his simple and quiet dignity of manner, the vastness of his learning, and, more than all, by his sound judgment and practical good sense. I believe he stands in the council as one of the theologians to the pope. Five committees, thus formed of Roman and foreign theologians, each under the presidency of a cardinal, have for nearly a year and a half been engaged in an exhaustive study of the subjects most likely to come up. Their dissertations and essays on such points have been printed for the private use of the bishops, and being up to the day, must be of great use, and will naturally aid much in expediting business.

Other material preparations were necessary. The sessions of the council were to be held in the north arm of the Transept of St. Peter's—that which stretches toward the Vatican Palace. The place assigned had to be fitted up with appropriate decorations and suitable furniture. Other places were to be prepared for the general congregations—committees of the whole, as they would be termed in the United States—and for particular congregations, or special committees. Beyond this, many of the bishops who would desire to attend would be too poor to pay the exorbitant rates which landlords here and elsewhere know how to ask when a city is[698] crowded—as Rome would be—perhaps might be too poor to pay any thing. Such should be the guests of the Holy Father. He would provide for them. This was obviously the case with many of the Italian bishops. The kingdom of Italy has seized and turned over to the national treasury all ecclesiastical property, promising, as a partial compensation instead, to pay the clergy a stated stipend from the government. As might be expected from persons capable of committing such wholesale and barefaced robbery, the promise, in too many instances, has never been kept. I apprehend that the vast majority of the clergy of Italy are now managing to feed, clothe, and lodge themselves on an average of twenty cents a day. The number of such bishops from Italy, with others from the East, and from distant and very poor missions, may amount to one hundred and fifty or two hundred.

All this would cost money, and the pope himself, stripped of four fifths of the territory of the States of the Church, but not stripped, as yet, of the old public debt, the interest of which he is struggling to meet punctually, is poor. The earnest Catholics of every country knew his condition and poured in contributions for this purpose. Last autumn the papers announced that all due preparations were being actively pushed forward.

In October, bishops began to arrive. The first comers were from the East, who had set out early. In their countries men travel slowly, and time is not so precious. Perhaps, too, some thought they might be as long on the journey as their records and traditions said their predecessors had been four hundred years ago, when they came to the Council of Florence. The European and western bishops were better acquainted with the speed of railways and steamers, and began to pour in only in the latter portion of November. By the 1st of December, fully five hundred had arrived, and the week that followed saw two hundred more come in. Every courtesy was shown them. As a train crossed the frontier into the Pontifical States, an officer ascertained the names of all the bishops, telegraphed the information to Rome, and, on their arrival, they found other officials ready to welcome them, and to escort them in carriages to their several destinations. Their baggage, too, was exempt from custom-house inspection. This, however, was a favor scarcely confined to the Pontifical States. In more than one instance, bishops have passed from the United States, through England, France, and (strange contrast to 1867) even through Northern Italy, without having their trunks once opened. It were to be wished that the annoying and now useless system of passports were done away with. It has scarcely any advantage save that of giving fees to consuls and employees.

On December 2d, the Holy Father delivered to the bishops then in Rome, assembled in the Sixtine chapel, an allocution in preparation for the council; and they received printed copies of an apostolical letter, dated November 27th, settling some matters for the good order of the council, and the dispatch of business. Chapter i. reiterates the laws of the church, and enjoins on all the duty of living piously, and of carefully maintaining an exemplary demeanor. Chapter ii. declares the full liberty of each bishop to propose any matter which he thinks of importance. But that all things may be done in order, and without unnecessary confusion, and consequent delay of other matters, such propositions must be submitted in writing, must be supported by some show of reason, must be of a character to concern more than one or two dioceses only, and must not run counter to the constant sense and inviolable traditions of the church. A special committee shall be appointed by the pope to receive such propositions, and to consider whether they fulfil the required conditions, to report to the pope. The committee has since been appointed. The Archbishop of Baltimore is a member of it. Chapter iii. charges all to keep silence on the matters under discussion. The council will hardly be as leaky as Congress, and our readers will do well to pay little or no attention[699] to the thousand and one reports that will be circulated in the newspapers.[170]

Chapter iv. declares that the seats shall be occupied according to grades of the hierarchy, and seniority of promotion. Other chapters set forth the officials, secretaries, notaries, masters of ceremonies, etc.—a matter of obvious necessity under the circumstances; establish six general committees, the members of which are to be elected by ballot; and make known some points of order to be observed in the religious exercises of the public sessions and the general congregations; and finally enjoin on the bishops attending the council to remain until the close of it, forbidding any one to depart before such close, save with regular leave of absence, duly applied for and obtained.

With a copy of this letter the bishops also received pamphlets containing the forms of prayers to be used, and a detailed account of the ceremonial to be followed, all based on or extracted from the ceremonial of the ancient councils.

For the people little preparation had been made, or indeed could be made in the church. St. Peter's has no pews; you will not find even benches or chairs. On grand occasions, when the pope is celebrant, seats are placed in the arms of the transept, capable of holding six or eight thousand persons, who are admitted by ticket, and must come in the proper costume. They are chiefly occupied by ladies. But on this occasion one half of this space was required for the council. On the other hand, Rome would be full, and it was felt that not one twentieth of those who would desire, and indeed who would ordinarily be entitled to receive tickets for such reserved seats, could be accommodated. The gordian knot was cut by dispensing with reserved seats altogether, and leaving full play to the democratic principle of first come, first served.

On Tuesday, Rome was in commotion, and given over to the mercies of free-trade in lodgings. Householders were waylaying strangers, striving to let their apartments at the highest possible rates. Strangers were wandering about seeking apartments which they might obtain on the lowest possible terms. Purchases were briskly made in preparation for the morrow. Everywhere, all day long, in carriages and on foot, and in all the different costumes of their several nations, might be seen bishops and priests passing to and fro, visiting the churches and the shrines of martyrs, or seeking out some friend of their youth, whom they had not seen, perhaps, for twenty-five or forty years, but who, they were told, had just arrived in Rome.

At noon precisely, the booming of the great bell of St. Peter's came over the Campus Martius and the seven hills of Rome. Instantly the thousand bells of the three hundred churches of the Eternal City answered in one united clamorous peal; and the cannon of St. Angelo, and the heavier metal of the new Aventine Fort, chimed in with the deep bass of a grand national salute. And thus, for an hour, was heralded the near approach of the great day. Again at nightfall the salute was repeated.

The morning of December 8th dawned—the Festival of the Immaculate Conception, and the day fixed for opening the council. A third repetition of the uproarious yet thrilling salutation awaked the sluggards, if there were any. We say if there were any; for although the clouds were hanging low and heavy, and the air was filled with mist, and at times the rain poured down, all Rome was[700] astir. By five A.M., the murmur of voices and the tramping of pedestrians filled every street, and soon the rolling of carriages over the hard pavements sounded like distant thunder. By six A.M., tens of thousands were wending their way, despite the weather, to St. Peter's; and by seven, every eligible portion of the floor of the vast basilica was crowded. At half-past seven, the cardinals, archbishops, and bishops began to gather in the Vatican Palace, where they robed, putting on white copes and mitres, and then passed to the great hall at the front, and immediately over the vestibule of St. Peter's. Here the masters of ceremony assigned to each one his proper place, and they awaited the coming of the sovereign pontiff.

Punctual to the moment, he appeared. All knelt in prayer. In a clear and sonorous voice he intoned the Veni Creator Spiritus. The choir took up the strain, the bishops arose, and commenced to move in procession back to the Vatican Palace, through the ducal hall, down the unequalled Scala Regia, and into the vestibule of St. Peter's. Along the line the voice of chanting was heard. Without, the air was filled again with the sound of bells and the booming of cannon.

It was not like the grand processions on which Rome delights to look every year. The young orphan boys, with their snow-white dresses and angel faces, the various religious orders, Capuchins, Franciscans, Minor Observantists, Conventuals, Carmelites, Augustinians, Cistercians, Benedictines, Dominicans, and Canons Regular, in their varied and picturesque dresses, did not walk in it. There were no confraternities with their huge crosses, no groups of clergy from the many parish churches, no chapters of the ancient basilicas with their tent-like canopies and tolling bells. These appeared not in the ranks; but delegates from all of them formed lines on either side, between which, as guards, the prelates marched two and two, each one attended by his chaplain. It was a procession such as the world has seen but once before, and that six hundred years ago, at the Second Council of Lyons. First came the cross, surrounded with burning lights and clouds of incense from the censers, and a group of ecclesiastics attached to the Vatican and to St. Peter's. On came the long white line of mitred abbots, bishops, archbishops, primates, patriarchs, and cardinals, slowly moving, joining in the chanted hymn, or else with subdued voices reciting psalms and prayers. The hall, the grand stairway, and the vestibule were packed by thousands who despaired of being able to enter the church, and hoped at least to look on the procession. All eyes seemed to scrutinize the line of prelates with reverent curiosity. Some in the line had not yet lost the smoothness of their cheeks. They had not yet closed their eighth lustre. The great majority had passed the half-century of life. Labors, cares, and study had brought furrows to many a brow and many a cheek; gray hairs had come, often prematurely; but the firm step told of still unexhausted strength. Their faces, full of intellect and decision, told of long and sturdy labor in the vineyard; you felt they could still bear the heat of the day and the brunt of labor. Many of them, too, far more than the younger ones, were aged and venerable prelates, who, like the rest, had come at the summons of the chief pastor. But when they should have borne their testimony to the faith in this council, they would soon say, Nunc dimittis.

It was a glorious line. The spectators, of every nation, looked to recognize the bishops each of his own land. They pointed out and whispered to each other the names of those who had won for themselves a world-wide reputation in the church, and looked with special attention on the oriental prelates, scattered here and there through the line, robed, not like those of the Latin rite, in unadorned white copes and white linen mitres, but in richly ornamented chasubles or copes of oriental fashion, glittering with gold and precious stones and bright colors, and wearing on their heads tiaras radiant with gems. On they passed, Italians, Greeks, Germans, Persians, Syrians, Hungarians, Spanish and Copt, Irish and French, Scotch and Brazilian, Mexican and English,[701] American and Chinese, Canadian and South American and Australian; abbots, bishops, archbishops, primates, and patriarchs.

Next came the cardinals—the senate of the church. If before you saw the strength of the church, here you looked on the embodiment of intelligence and wisdom, in the most venerable body in the world. Spotless purity of life, brilliant talents, long study, a longer experience of men and affairs in a series of responsible offices worthily filled—a thorough devotion of all their powers to the interests of religion, have led them to this dignity—Antonelli, Bilio, Bonnechose, Cullen, Schwartzenberg, Hohenlohe, Barnabo, Pitra, Patrizi—every one seemed worthy of, and to receive, special homage as they slowly moved on.

But even they were forgotten as the Holy Father approached. Surrounded by his chaplains and attendants, by Swiss guards in their picturesque costume, designed, it is said, with an eye to effect, by Michael Angelo himself, and by the Roman noble guard in their richest uniforms, he came borne, according to the old Roman custom which has come down from the times of the republic, in a curule chair, such as ediles and senators were borne in; such as that which the convert Senator Pudens appropriated to the Apostle St. Peter, which he and many of his successors used, and which is still preserved with care and veneration in St. Peter's. Pius IX. is, we believe, really eighty-one years of age. He is still robust, wonderfully so for that age. His countenance beams still with that paternal benevolence which has such power to charm. None ever looked on him without feeling it. No one, Catholic or Protestant, Israelite, Turk, or infidel, ever left his presence without carrying away a sense of reverence, and sweet memories of a blessing received. All knelt as he was borne by, blessing them on either side. In his train followed other attendants and the superiors of religious orders, who enter the council, but are not privileged to wear mitres. Conspicuous among them was the thin, ascetic, fleshless form of the superior-general of the Jesuits, in black—the little black pope, as they call him in Rome.

Meanwhile the head of the procession has long since reached the grand portals of the Basilica. From the door to the central line of the transept is about four hundred feet, and the nave of the church is about ninety-five feet wide. All this space is crowded with people standing so jammed together that there is not room to kneel, if one wished. Back on either side, under the broad arches, and into the side aisles, the vast mass of humanity extends. The bases of the columns and piers are seen to rise to the level of their heads, and, guided by this measure, the eye, for once, catches at a glance the immense proportions of this gigantic building. The partition which cuts off a portion of the transept for the special use of the council is not seen from the nave, and the church stands before you in all the grandeur of its architecture, unchanged for better or for worse by those vast masses of drapery and those lines of galloon, and the hundreds of immense chandeliers which sometimes are placed here to adorn it. To the Roman eye, familiar with every detail of the building, such an adornment may be pleasing as a change. But strangers love to see St. Peter's as they see it now, in its own native beauty and majesty. The eye loves to pass from the noble columns and the statues of pure Carrara to the unfading mosaics, the variegated marbles of the walls and piers, the ornaments in sculptured relief, the richly-wrought capitals, the vast line of cornice of classic accuracy, and the lofty arched ceiling, one hundred and fifty feet and more overhead, profusely decorated with panelling, roses, and richest gilding. It travels on to the main altar with its hundred ever-burning lamps around the tomb of the great apostle of Rome, and the spiral columns and canopy of bronze which rise full ninety feet above it. And hundreds of feet further away, in the western apsis, you catch a view of the bronze statues of the four great doctors of the church, who support the identical chair of St. Peter, and of the circular window of stained glass through which the Holy[702] Dove seems to pour in a stream of golden light, giving life and heavenly beauty to that other flood which pours down into the church from the lofty dome.

Guards had kept free for the procession a passage-way through the crowd, from the door to the main altar. Up this lane the bishops walked with uncovered heads, for the blessed sacrament was exposed on the altar. Kneeling a moment in adoration, they arose, and, turning to the right, passed into the space set aside and prepared for the council hall. To each one, as he entered, his proper place was assigned by the masters of ceremony. The greater part were so placed, when a fuller burst of the choir told us that the Holy Father had reached the portals of the church, had been received by the chapter of canons, and was entering. He left the curule chair and doffed his mitre; for a greater than he is here enthroned, and even the pope must walk with uncovered head. He, and the cardinals with him, knelt at the main altar as the bishops had done, and waited until the last strophe of the hymn, Veni Sancte Spiritus, was finished by the choir. He arose, chanted the versicle and prayer to the Holy Ghost, and then, preceded by the cardinals, also entered the council hall. They passed each to his proper place, the pontiff to a prie Dieu prepared for him in the middle, to await the commencement of the high mass.

We have said that this council hall occupies nearly all of the northern arm of the great transept. That arm alone is over two hundred feet long, and ninety-five feet broad. Its northern extremity is a semi-circular apsis, and midway of its length it is crossed by the northern aisle of the church, which opens into it by a lofty and wide arch on either side. These arches are now closed at the top by temporary partition walls. In front—that is, on the south, toward the main altar and nave—another partition wall, perhaps fifty feet high, shuts the hall off from the main body of the building. All these walls are exquisitely colored, so as to correspond even in minute details with the decorations and color of the marbles of the church. In the last-named wall is a large doorway, fully twenty feet wide, through which the prelates and cardinals and the pontiff have passed in. It is open now, (though when necessary it can be closed,) and you may look in and see the interior arrangement. In the further extremity, the semi-circular apsis, a number of steps rise to a platform, in the middle of which other steps lead to the throne of the pontiff, surmounted by a canopy with hanging drapery. On either hand, elevated one step less, are placed the cardinals, before each one a kneeling-stand, which may be changed into a writing-desk. Before the cardinals, and a little lower, sit the patriarchs. Down either side of the hall, for the full length, run seven rows of benches with high backs. The front row is on the floor, the others rising as they recede, so that the last one next the wall is about the same level with the platform. In the middle, about one fifth of the way from the door, with its face toward the pope and the bishops, and its back toward the door stands a temporary altar prepared for the mass, with which every public session and every general congregation will commence. Here and there, on the floor, are seats and tables for the use of the secretaries, notaries, stenographers, and other officials. Of the altar we need not speak. It is simple though rich in materials, and without accessory ornamentation, which would take up space and impede the view. The platform is covered, as is the floor, with Brussels carpeting. The seats of the cardinals are covered with red damask; those of the patriarchs with purple. The seats of the bishops are covered with Brussels tapestry of a greenish hue. They are roomy. Each bishop uses the back of the seat before him as a prie Dieu when he kneels. Should he at other times wish to write, there is a table hinged to it in front of him, which he may raise up and render firm by a movable support. When he is done, he simply moves back the support and lets down the table to its former position. All is simple, yet very satisfactory. There is, near at hand, a refreshment room, and, indeed, every convenience that is needed. The artistic decorations[703] of the hall also deserve attention. They are not many, but are excellent and appropriate, and were prepared, of course, for this occasion. Over the doorway, as you are about to enter from the church, there is a majestic painting of the Saviour enthroned in the clouds, holding the Gospel open in his left hand, while the right is stretched forth in command to the apostles. Underneath is the inscription, "Go, teach all nations. I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." In the interior of the hall, over the seat of the pope, is a painting of the Descent of the Holy Ghost. On either side are the Council of the Apostles at Jerusalem, and the Councils of Nice, of Ephesus, and of Trent. Higher up are large medallion paintings of the twenty-two popes who called or presided personally or by legates over the various œcumenical councils of the church; while higher still are colossal figures of the four great doctors of the church, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and St. John Chrysostom. All the seats we have mentioned are for the prelates and officials. There are several galleries opening through the wall rather than projecting forward. On the left of the pope, as he is seated, is one for the singers of the Sistine chapel. On his right is another, to be occupied by sovereigns and members of royal families. The Empress of Austria, the Queen of Würtemberg, and the King of Naples were present at the opening. Another much larger one, on the side of the singers, is for the diplomatic corps. It was filled with ambassadors in their state uniforms, with full display of jewelled decorations. Two other similar galleries are for the theologians.

The council hall, as we have described it, is about two hundred feet long and nearly one hundred feet broad. The ceiling above is that of the transept; like that of the nave, arched, panelled, and decorated with gilding, and is one hundred and fifty feet above you. The seemingly low partition wall in front shuts out the view of the lower portions of the church, but you have a full view of the upper half of the columns and piers, with their statues and decorations, and of the cornice and lofty-arched ceiling, and above all, of the magnificent dome, with its mosaics of the evangelists and the angelic host. You see and feel all the time that you are in St. Peter's. But there are drawbacks. The size of the hall, the height of the ceiling, and, perhaps more than either, this want of disconnection from the church, render it impossible for any but the strongest voices with eminently clear enunciation to fill it and be understood. Weak, and even moderate voices, are simply inaudible to the majority. As things are now arranged, discussion would seem impossible, and already there is talk of changes which may have to be indicated in our next article. But let us return to the pope and the bishops, whom we left awaiting the commencement of the pontifical high mass. This should have been celebrated by Cardinal Mattei, the dean of the body. But his age and infirmities are too great to permit so great an exertion. Accordingly, the next in rank, Cardinal Patrizi, took his place, and was the celebrant. The pontiff approached the altar with him, recited the Judica and the Confiteor, and then retired to his own seat, and the cardinal ascended to the altar and continued the mass. The music was that of Palestrina, executed by the papal choir as they alone can sing, and without any instrumental accompaniment. Such voices as theirs need none. Just before the last gospel, a portable pulpit was brought out near the altar; Mgr. Passavalli, Archbishop of Iconium, ascended it, wearing cope and mitre, and preached the introductory sermon. It was in Latin—the language of the council—and occupied just forty minutes. It has since been published, and the reader will not fail to recognize and admire the eloquence and fervor of his thoughts and the elegance of his Latinity. But no pages can give an idea of the clear, ringing voice, the musical Italian intonations, and the dignified and impressive, almost impassioned gesture of the truly eloquent Capuchin. The sermon over, the pope gave the solemn blessing, the Gospel of St. John was recited, and the mass was over.

The altar being now clear, the attendants brought in a rich, throne-like stand, and placed it on the altar in the centre. Monsignor Fessler, secretary of the council, attended by his assistant, brought in procession a large book of the Gospels, elegantly bound, and reverently placed it on the throne. It was the place due to the inspired record of the life and teachings of our divine Lord—a ceremony touching and most appropriate at the opening of a council of his followers, assembled in his name, to declare and vindicate his teaching, and promote and carry out the commission he gave them.

The Holy Father then assumed his full pontifical robes. The cardinals and all the prelates, in their proper order, then approached, one by one, to pay him homage, kissing his hand or the stole he wore. Their numbers made it a long ceremony. It told of the union of all with the head of the church.

This over, all knelt while the pontiff chanted the sublime prayer, Adsumus, Domine. Solemn and subdued were the chanted amens of the entire assembly.

Four chanters next intoned the litany of the saints in the well-known varying minor strains of Gregorian chant. Most impressive were the responses made by the united voices of the fathers. But when, at the proper time, the pope rose to his feet, and, holding the cross of his authority in his left hand, replaced the chanters, and raising his streaming eyes to heaven, and in his own majestic and sonorous tones, trembling just enough to tell how deeply his great heart was moved, thrice prayed our divine Lord to bless, to preserve, to consecrate this council, tears flowed from many an eye. All were intensely moved, and not bishops alone, but the crowds of clergy outside, and thousands of the laity, joined, again and again, in the response, Te rogamus, audi nos. Then, if never before, St. Peter's was filled with the mighty volume of sound. Back it came to us from arch and chapel, from aisle and lofty nave and transept, Te rogamus, audi nos. We seemed to hear it murmured even from the aerial dome, as if the angels repeated the words as they bore the petition to heaven, Te rogamus, audi nos.

The chanters resumed, the litany was terminated, and the pope recited the prayers that follow it. Cardinal Borromeo then, acting as deacon, chanted the Gospel taken from Luke x., narrating the mission of the disciples. He used the volume that had been enthroned on the altar. When he concluded, the volume was carried back as before, and reverently replaced on the throne. The assembly were seated, and the Holy Father, himself seated and wearing his mitre, delivered a discourse or allocution full, as all his discourses are, of unction, and replete with the thoughts and words of divine inspiration.

At the conclusion of this discourse all knelt, and the Holy Father again intoned the Veni Creator Spiritus. The choir took it up, and the members of the council responded in the alternate strophes. The pope sang the versicles and prayer that follow it, and all again were seated.

The secretary now mounted the pulpit and read aloud the first proposed decree, "That this Holy Vatican Council be, and is now opened." The fathers all answered, Placet; the pope gave his sanction; the formal decree was passed and proclaimed, and the notaries instructed to make an official record of it.

A second decree was similarly proposed, voted, and sanctioned, fixing the second public session for the festival of the Epiphany, January 6th, 1870. The first general congregation was announced for Friday, December 10th, in the same hall of the council.

This closed the proceedings of the first public session, which necessarily were purely formal. The Holy Father arose and intoned the solemn Te Deum of thanksgiving. The choir—the unrivalled one of the Sixtine chapel—took up the strain, intertwining the melody with subdued but artistic harmonies. The assembled bishops, the clergy without, thousands of the laity, familiar from childhood with the varying strains of its Gregorian chant, responded with one accord, in the second verse of the grand old Ambrosian hymn. The choir sang the third verse as before, the crowd responded[705] with the fourth, and so on they alternated to the end. It is impossible to tell in words the thrilling power of such a union of voices. It moved, overcame, subdued one. It was impossible to resist it if you would. Tears came unbidden to the eye, and the lip quivered as you instinctively united your voice to that of the multitude. No one sought to make himself heard, all united in those subdued, thrilling tones in which the heart speaks. Catholic and Protestant all felt it. Even the infidel for the time believed, and, bowing his head, joined in this praise and thanksgiving to God.

At half-past two, the Te Deum was finished, and the services closed. The Holy Father unrobed, and withdrew with his attendants. But it was past three ere all the bishops could issue from the hall and leave the church. The crowds looked on as they slowly departed, their own numbers long remaining seemingly undiminished. Many could not tear themselves away from the hallowed spot. The shades of evening found hundreds still lingering there, contemplating the place where they had seen the hierarchy of the church gathered around the chief pastor, or kneeling in prayer at the tomb of the great apostle to whom our Lord said, "On this rock I will build my church."

Since the day of the opening session, two general congregations have been held. The chief work has been to organize and elect members for the various committees. Where all are desirous of having the best men on these committees, the bishops seem to consider it well to proceed slowly, until they gain an acquaintance with each other, which will enable them to act with greater knowledge. Meanwhile they are evidently studying up the matters before them. What those subjects are, no one outside their body appears as yet to know. They are remarkably reticent, and so far have not been "interviewed" by newspaper reporters.

It is thought the council must last several months. But at the present stage not even the prelates themselves can form more than a vague conjecture on this head. It may be that a month will throw light on the subject. In that case, we may be able to speak more definitely in our next article on the council.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

The renowned Captain Dugald Dalgetty, that redoubtable man of war, orthodoxy, and provant, firmly held and was known occasionally to express the opinion that Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, was the Lion of the North and the bulwark of Protestantism. In so far as the 'bulwark' was concerned, that clever soldado merely reflected the estimate of the Swedish hero held by the contemporary Protestant world—an estimate still clung to by the same world of the nineteenth century. That opinion and that estimate have lately received fatal injury in the house of their friends. For thus has it come about. Catholic historians have never hesitated to state that the facts bore them out in claiming that the governing motive of Gustavus Adolphus in taking the important part he did in the Thirty Years' War, was not religious enthusiasm, nor even a religious motive; but on the contrary one that was far from possessing any greater elevation than self-interest and political advantage. So thought and wrote Hurter and other Catholic authors. Of course these authors were not listened to in the Protestant world any more than were vindications of Mary, Queen of Scots, until they began to come from Protestant pens. But in the course of[706] a few succeeding years no less than four distinguished Protestant historians—Klopp, Barthold, Leo, and Gfrörer, (who afterward became a Catholic,) fully confirmed all that Hurter had advanced. And now, within the past three months we have a new historical work on Gustavus Adolphus, from the pen of another Protestant—Professor G. Droysen—an eminent name in German literature—which certainly appears to place the question of motive on the part of the king of Sweden beyond further controversy. Professor Droysen's work is written not so much as a biography as with special reference to the political necessities and ambition of the Swedish king when he interfered in the German struggle, and is written, also, mainly with materials from the Swedish archives. The result of Professor Droysen's research is not only to more than confirm the position assumed by Hurter, but to leave no room for serious discussion. Professor Droysen expressly denies that the interference of Gustavus Adolphus in the affairs of Germany was in favor of the liberty of conscience and religion, and he quite as explicitly asserts that motives purely political decided and even forced him to put forward those pretexts.

Aux Incrédules et aux Croyants. L'Athée redevenu Chrétien. Ouvrage posthume de M. Delauro Dubez, Conseiller à la Cour de Montpellier. Paris, 1869. The author was judge of the court of appeals at Montpellier, and until his sixty-fourth year lived an irreligious life. His conversion was the result of reflection, and he wrote this book solely for the sake of one of his relatives who had refused to read any thing favorable to Christianity. The work is preceded by an opinion of Rev. M. Foulquier, Superior of the Seminary of Rodez, and by a letter from a Polish officer brought back to the Catholic faith by its perusal.

A late number of the Theologisches Literaturblatt, published at Bonn, contains an excellent review by Professor Aberle of Tübingen of a remarkable work on the year of our Saviour's birth—Das Geburtsjahr Christi. Geschichtlich-Chronologische Untersuchungen von A. M. Zumpt. The same number also has an admirable notice, by Professor Hefele, of Kampschulte's new work on Calvin, Johann Calvin. Seine Kirche und sein Staat in Genf.

San Tommaso, Aristotele, e Dante, ovvexo della prima filosofia Italiana. Firenze, 1869. In 4to. The Marquis Palermo in this work shows philosophy and science traversing the middle ages under the protection of the clergy, and particularly of St. Thomas. He specially dwells upon the purely Christian character of the philosophy set forth by Dante in his divine comedy.

Le Monde et l'Homme Primitif selon la Bible, par Monseigneur Meignan, Evêque de Chalons sur Marne. The right reverend author expresses the opinion that, in our day, one of the causes of the weakening of faith in divine revelation is certainly the false idea formed of the Bible in connection with the sciences. In this respect times have greatly changed, and opinion has passed from one extreme to the other. Formerly, no important discovery was made without seeking to confirm its truth by Scripture testimony. The support of a text, of a word, was then necessary, even if they had to be slightly wrested from their received acceptation. Galileo undertook to prove his theory by Bible texts badly interpreted. But the contrary course now prevails to such an extent that there exists almost an affectation of contradicting the Scriptures. The author takes up the six days of the Mosaic account of the creation, the six days being six indeterminate periods of time—illustrating each day with modern scientific views of the unity of the human race, the primitive unity of language, Chaldean and Egyptian chronology, etc. On the unity of the human race the right reverend author insists with some emphasis—as indeed he well may, recognizing in it, as we all must, the well-established doctrine of the Catholic Church—and takes occasion to address himself specially to Americans of the[707] United States on the subject of the man of dusky hue. "Let us not forget," he says, "that he is a child of the same God, a descendant of Adam, having the same faculties, the same soul, the same heart; that the unity of the human species has made him our equal, and the Gospel our brother." The work evidences great research and learning, especially on the subject of the primitive unity of language, where the author shows entire familiarity with all the results of modern treatise and investigation from Bopp down to Ewald and Delitsch.

We are aware that Bohemian and Hungarian literature has but few attractions for the very great majority of readers in the United States. Nevertheless, it may not be uninteresting to note that in Bohemia, as in Hungary, there exists a general awakening of interest in their respective national literatures. In both these countries many talented authors are coming into notice, who confine their literary labors to their mother tongue. Palacky in Bohemia has lately won high praise as a historian, even in Germany and France. Besides his History of Bohemia, he has lately written several works on the historical period of John Huss.

Of these the most important is Palacky's Documenta mag. Joannis Hus vitam, doctrinam, causam spectantia. Divided into four parts, the first includes all the letters of Huss in Latin and in Tcheck, the latter accompanied by a Latin translation by Professor Kviezala; the second part gives the trial of Huss; the third, an account of his trial and death by a contemporary, Peter Mladenowicz; and the fourth, the largest, all the documents relative to the religious controversies of Bohemia from 1403 to 1418. In all cases the Tcheck documents are accompanied by Latin translations. While on the subject of Bohemian literature, it may be well to mention that the best general work upon it is that of M. Hanusch,[171] late librarian of the University of Prague. For the bibliography of the literature, the most complete work is that of Jungmann, written in Tcheck. For literature proper, the best is perhaps that of Sabina, which, however, only comes down to the seventeenth century. Sabina's work may be said to be completed by that of M. Sembera—Histoire de la langue et de la littérature Tcheque, the third edition of which is lately published at Vienna.

On the subject of baptism, or baptismal water, Dr. Heino Pfaffenschmid publishes a work [172] in which he undertakes to show that baptism was a custom of both Jewish and pagan rites before the introduction of Christianity.

We see announced a work by Dr. J. H. Tomassen on the age of the human race, Enthüllungen aus der Urgeschichte; oder, Existirt das Menschengeschlecht nur 6000 Jahre? There is a slight dash of charlatanism in the title, calculated to make one suspicious of the book.

Professor Döllinger, of Munich, has in press a new work, entitled, The Religious Sects of the Middle Ages.

The Chronology of the Roman Pontiffs during the last three Centuries, by Professor Lipsius, of Kiel, is announced as nearly ready for publication.

Volumes xiii. xiv. and xv. of the reprint of the continuation of the Histoire Littéraire de France, commenced by the Benedictines, are lately published by Palmé, Paris.

The following important works are announced as soon to appear: Volume xviii. of the reprint of the Annales Ecclesiastici of Cardinal Baronius, issued under the direction of Father Theiner. The first volume of a magnificent edition of the Bible, printed at Rome, at the expense of the Propaganda. This edition reproduces textually, with a fac-simile, the famous Codex Vaticanus. The present volume contains the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua. The [708] fifth volume, containing the New Testament, was printed last year.

The work of Cardinal Jacobatius, entitled De Concilio, is also in press at Rome, and will be printed as an introduction to the great work forming a collection of all the councils.

A decided success in historic literature is the latest work on Calvin and his times,[173] by F. W. Kampschulte, professor of history at the University of Bonn. The first of its three volumes has appeared, and meets with almost universal approbation. The author appears to have spared no labor, and has brought to light fresh and valuable authorities. The manuscripts, mostly for the first time used, far out-number the printed works referred to. Heretofore, the archives of Geneva have been considered sufficient to furnish material for a life of Calvin. But Professor Kampschulte rightly judged that, in view of the intimate connection between Geneva and Berne during Calvin's life, the archives of the latter city must be rich in documents for his purpose. A similar reason induced him to visit Strasburg, and both places yielded largely in fresh and important matter. For Calvin's correspondence, previous historians have contented themselves with Beza's edition of the Epistolæ et Responsa Calvini, or with Bonnet's collection. Professor Kampschulte, with indefatigable research, has succeeded in gathering a large number of Calvin's letters, heretofore unpublished, which he found scattered in every direction. In this he was greatly aided by MM. Reuss, Cunitz, and Baum, of Strasburg, who for many years past have been making a collection of the letters of Calvin for a new edition of the Epistolæ in the Corpus Reformatorum. With a liberality deserving all praise, these scholars generously placed all this valuable material at Professor Kampschulte's disposition.

Dr. J. B. Abbeloos, professor at the Seminary of Mechlin, assisted by Canon Lamy, professor of Oriental languages at the University of Louvain, is preparing for publication an important historical and literary monument, of which a small portion only has heretofore been printed. It is the great Syriac chronicle of Bar Hebreus, Primate of the Oriental Jacobites. The first part of this work was edited in 1788 at Leipsic, by two well-known oriental scholars, Brusis and Kirsch. The second and third parts contain the Ecclesiastical History, and present, as to the beginnings of Christianity in the East and on the history of the first four ages of the church, a number of valuable details not elsewhere to be found. The distinguished Assemanni (Oriental Bible, vol. ii. p. 312) says that the ecclesiastical history of Bar Hebreus admirably sets forth the religious history of the Nestorians and of the Jacobites, which is entirely unknown to the Greeks and Latins.

Ever since the period of the fatal and futile attempt of certain unbelieving astronomers to foist the Zodiac of Denderah upon the Christian scientific world, infidel and rationalistic writers have never allowed an occasion to pass to seek to elevate or praise old pagan manners and systems of morality. The more remote their field of disquisition, the more positive are they. This attempted rehabilitation of ancient systems most remarkable for their profound immorality is thoroughly defeated by M. François Lenormant in his lately published Manuel d'histoire Ancienne de l'Orient, 3 vols., avec un atlas de 24 cartes. His exposition of ancient paganism is thorough and learned. M. Lenormant's father was a co-laborer of Champollion, and he has a European reputation as an oriental scholar. The work here announced was, in the form of an essay, previously crowned by the French Academy.

The third and last volume of Möhler's History of the Church, edited by the Rev. Father Gams, has appeared in Germany, and a French translation of the same by the Abbé Belot at Paris. Wherever it was practicable, F. Gams[709] has filled voids left by Möhler with review articles, written by Möhler on the same subject. Möhler has given special attention to the study of Protestantism, and is convinced that the "judgments passed on the condition of the church during the century anterior to the reform itself, greatly need reforming." He refutes with great force the erroneous opinions of men, either ignorant of the past or willingly blind, who have attributed to Luther the honor of bringing the Bible to the light of day. Nothing can be more false. Immense works on the Bible were produced during the middle ages, and, rapidly following the discovery of printing, numerous translations made their appearance. From 1460 to the first version of Luther in 1521 there were printed in Germany at least sixteen Bibles in High German and five in Low German. Up to 1524, there were nine editions in France, not counting those of Italy, the first of which appeared in 1471.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

The Roman Index and its late Proceedings. A Second Letter, etc. By E. S. Ffoulkes. American edition. Pott & Amery.

After the publication of Mr. Ffoulkes's letter, entitled, The Church's Creed or the Crown's Creed? he was refused the sacraments, as it was perfectly plain he must be according to the certain rules of moral theology by which priests are guided. Archbishop Manning submitted the letter to the examination of four theologians, who, separately and without mutual consultation, gave in their opinion that it was heretical. The archbishop, with the greatest delicacy and kindness, began to treat with Mr. Ffoulkes, for the purpose of inducing him to make a sufficient retractation, in order that he might repair the scandal he had given and be restored to the enjoyment of his privileges as a member of the church. On the 22d of March, 1869, Mr. Ffoulkes submitted the following letter to the archbishop:

On the 18th of December, 1868, a work, entitled Christendom's Divisions, by the same author, had been placed on the Index, and, on the 26th of March, the letter was placed there likewise. The archbishop made some further suggestions to Mr. Ffoulkes on the 2d of May, which he accepted, and, on the 4th, wrote to Mr. F., "I have received with sincere pleasure the declaration as last amended, and I trust it will complete what I have daily prayed may be accomplished." On the 17th of May, Mr. F. wrote to a clergyman of the Church of England, "I would be excommunicated a dozen times a day sooner than retract my pamphlet; and Archbishop Manning, to his credit let it be said, never proposed any such thing. What he proposed, however, I rejected; and substituted for it a declaration of my own, which is merely justificatory.[174] This, slightly altered, he has since accepted; so that my part is over." This letter was made known by the person who received it, and came to the knowledge of Archbishop Manning, who requested Mr. F. to obtain the letter and hand it over to him, a request which the latter gentleman considered as insulting to his "English feelings," and refused. He himself writes to the archbishop, and to the public also, (p. 43,) "Your grace was apprehensive lest this loose statement of a well-known tale-bearer, duly reported to Rome, should give rise to your being inhibited from accepting my declaration. Though I thought this extremely probable, I contented myself with assuring your grace, by letter, that, if the individual in question had reported me to have said, 'I would rather be excommunicated than retract, (sic,)'[175] he had either misrepresented me wilfully, or stated what was not the fact. My English feelings would not allow me to do more." The archbishop may certainly be excused for not accepting this statement, since the Anglican clergyman had read the first paragraph of the letter to the person designated, we hope unjustly, as a "well-known busybody," and had communicated its contents to several other persons "in strict confidence." The archbishop had communicated Mr. F.'s retractation or justification to the Congregation of the Index, and, on the 6th of August, a letter from Mgr. Nardi to the archbishop was read to Mr. F., in which his document was pronounced insufficient, particularly because not containing an expression of submission to the decree of the sacred congregation. A general form of retractation of every thing which the congregation had condemned in his writings, and of submission to its judgment, was sketched out for his guidance in preparing a proper statement, and he was informed that when such a declaration had been sent to Rome and accepted, no public notice would be taken of it except to append to the censure in the Index the words, auctor laudabiliter se subjecit—the author has submitted in a laudable manner. Mr. F. refused to [711] make this submission, and was, accordingly, notified by the archbishop that he could not be admitted to the sacraments. Mr. F. also notified his grace that if any official sentence was pronounced upon him, he should appeal to the civil tribunal. At the conclusion of his pamphlet he says, respecting the "arbitrary sentence of a foreign court," "Please God, I shall live to contribute my quota toward being the death of the system from which it proceeds.... Please God, one of two things—for which I shall continue to labor through life—either that Christianity and Rome may become convertible terms, which it is my sincere wish that they should be; or else that fresh halting-places for sober, ordinary Christians, between Rome and infidelity, maybe developed amongst us, and new life be vouchsafed to those which exist already." Finally says Mr. F., in his last paragraph, "All we of the west are lying under more than one solemn anathema of more than one pope, speaking as head of the church—if popes have ever spoken as heads of the church—for having changed a syllable in the creed authorized by the Fourth Council."

This is Mr. F.'s case. It is evident that he became a member of the Catholic Church under a great misapprehension of her doctrine and law, and has never been any thing more than an Anglican. He is disposed to blame those who received him; but it is plain that they had no reason for suspecting that his misconception of the obvious meaning of the profession he made of submission to the Roman Church was so fundamental, and that he has only his own confused state of mind to blame for it. He has never really believed in the ever-living, supreme, infallible authority of the church, or had any other principle than the Protestant one to guide him. Hence, he has bewildered and lost himself in a maze of historical difficulties which he is unable to understand or remove. His letters are the most conclusive proof possible that the bogus Catholicity of unionists is fit only to complicate instead of solving the controversies among Christians. It shows the necessity of the most explicit teaching of the principle of infallible authority in all its practical applications, and proves that it is only by fully understanding and submitting to the doctrinal supremacy of the Roman pontiff as the vicar of Christ we can have any sufficient and certain criterion by which to distinguish genuine from spurious Catholicity.

One other point remains to be noticed. Mr. F.'s complaint that the sacred congregation violated its own rule, by failing to give him notice of the errors in his writings and the opportunity of explaining himself and making corrections. This is a mistake on his part. When erroneous statements are found in the works of a Catholic author of high repute for learning and orthodoxy, he receives this notification, and, in any case, when a book is placed on the Index merely on account of some particular errors, the phrase donec corrigatur is added. Mr. F. is not an author of high repute for learning and orthodoxy. His writings are thoroughly unsound and mischievous. There was no occasion to cite him for a formal hearing or defence of himself, since the whole question was in reference to his writings, which speak for themselves. The only thing necessary for a judgment was an examination of his books, and that they were not hastily condemned is evident from the fact that the censure was pronounced three years after they were published. M. Renan has just as much reason to demand a hearing as Mr. Ffoulkes.

Across America and Asia. By Raphael Pumpelly, Professor in Harvard University, and sometime Mining Engineer in the service of the Chinese and Japanese Governments. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 1870.

Mr. Pumpelly has given in this volume an account, some parts of which are interesting even to fascination, of a five years' journey round the world, by way of Arizona, California, Japan, China, Tartary, and Siberia, whence he returned across Europe and the Atlantic to New York. His accounts of what fell immediately under his own[712] observation during his travels are no doubt accurate, and give an excellent idea of the natural features of the regions and people through which he passed—particularly of the former; for the author's profession and tastes made him observe nature closely, and detect and describe things which an ordinary traveller would have left unnoticed. His description of the plateau of Central Asia is specially striking and valuable, and the strictly scientific information contained in this as in the other parts of his work important; but he has, of course, treated purely professional subjects more fully elsewhere.

The work is interspersed with historical sketches and political essays, some of which perhaps are not without value; but the egregious blunders made in the account of the expulsion of Christianity from Japan, on page 97, would lead one to suspect that the author has not always been duly careful in collecting his information. He seems to profess to be a Christian, as he speaks in one place of "our Lord's sermon on the mount;" but was evidently much impressed by what he saw of Buddhism, from the practices of which he wisely says that "western ritualism, and much of the superstition on which it is based," (p. 166,) is derived. The same idea is brought in on page 383. Other forms of heathenism also impressed him favorably, and he thinks well of the Mohammedans, judging from what he says of those at Kazan; but this admiration for, and fascination by every thing except the truth is not unusual among men without faith.

He could not, of course, avoid noticing the failure of Protestant missions, whose converts he regards as hypocrites, influenced solely by the hope of soup, and frequently shows an appreciation of the genius, devotedness, and success of Catholic missionaries.

The author appears to be a man of undaunted courage, great humanity, and a high sense of both honor and morality. His exposure of the villainous conduct of white men toward the Indians in our own country, and the dark races of Asia, deserves our cordial thanks. His remarks on the question of the effect of Sclavonian advancement in the old world and Chinese immigration in the new, on the destinies of the coming age, are fitted to awaken many deep and anxious thoughts. The chapter on Japanese art by Mr. John La Farge is worthy of that accomplished artist. On the whole, with the exceptions above noted, this is one of the best books which has appeared from the American press.

The Pope and the Council. By Janus. Authorized translation from the German. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1870.

This is not a book which can be reviewed as to its contents in a critical notice, or in any thing less than a volume. It goes over the entire field of the relation of the papacy to the church, considered historically, and is a work of some show of learning. We cannot, therefore, touch on the question of its intrinsic truth or falsity at present, but simply on the point of its orthodoxy, as judged by the criterion according to which doctrine is to be judged by the canons actually making the law of the Catholic Church at the present moment. According to this criterion, it is heretical, and therefore to be rejected by every Catholic, as much as Dr. Pusey's Eirenicon, or Guettée's Papacy Schismatic. The review of this last-named book in The Catholic World for July and August, 1867, written by one of the ablest of our contributors, will furnish ad interim a sufficient refutation of the anti-Catholic principles on which it rests. We cite a few passages in proof of the statement we have made. In the preface it is stated that the book is "a protest, based on history, against a menacing future, against the programme of a powerful coalition." This "programme" means the whole preparatory work of the body of theologians summoned to Rome by the pope to prepare for the council. Again, that "a great and searching reformation of the church is necessary and inevitable." Speaking of those who follow the teaching of the supreme pontiff in all things as their[713] authoritative rule, the authors say, "While in outward communion with them, we are inwardly separated by a great gulf from those," etc. "The papacy, such as it has become, presents the appearance of a disfiguring, sickly, and choking excrescence on the organization of the church, hindering and decomposing the action of its vital powers, and bringing manifold diseases in its train." They say that there has been a development "of the primacy into the papacy, a transformation more than a development, the consequences of which have been the splitting up of the previously united church into three great ecclesiastical bodies, divided and at enmity with each other." These extracts prove the attitude of open rebellion against the pontifical authority assumed by the authors. The following shows their utter defiance of the authority of the Council of the Vatican:

Such is the harsh, dissonant cry of discord which interrupts the harmonious accord of voices from all the world, rising in responsive welcome to the call of the vicar of Christ, summoning together the whole church around the tomb of the apostles. Naturally, it gives great delight to the enemies of the church, who see no hope for their cause except in dissension among her own rulers and members, and who welcome these faithless Catholics, applaud them, and disseminate their writings, as allies of their own within our camp. Their rejoicing, however, is premature. The number banded together in this clique is extremely small. Neither Mgr. Maret, Mgr. Dupanloup, or the so-called Liberal Catholics, represented by Le Correspondant, hold the extreme opinions of Janus, which has been placed on the Index in company with Mr. Ffoulkes's productions. Gallicans and liberals acknowledge the supreme authority of the Council of the Vatican, and will readily give up any private opinions which may be condemned by its judgment. Although the disciples of Bossuet's school maintain that the papal decretals do not become irreformible until they have received the at least tacit assent of the bishops, yet they admit their binding and obligatory force over all the faithful and over each bishop, taken singly, as soon as legally promulgated. All the pontifical decretals which are proposed as dogmatic judgments by the Roman Church have received at least the tacit assent of the bishops, and are, therefore, now irreformible, even by a council, on Gallican principles.

Janus is in open rebellion against the authority of these decretals, and against the Council of the Vatican itself. The persons concerned in its publication, and all ecclesiastics who share their sentiments, will be interdicted from all exercise of sacerdotal functions in the church, and excluded from her communion, unless they retract their heresy and submit to the authority of the council, or else hide themselves under the cloak of anonymous secrecy. The only importance which brochures of this sort have, comes from the supposed fact that[714] their authors maintain a tenable position in the Catholic Church. When they are cut off from her communion, as they certainly will be if they prove contumacious, they mix with the great mass of unbelievers, and are of no account. We have had a succession of these traitors, from Judas to Gavazzi, and it is quite probable that the Council of the Vatican will prove the occasion of a certain number of apostasies. The departure from her outward communion of those who have already lost the faith is, however, an advantage rather than an injury to the church, and the places of these deserters will be better filled by the new converts who will be gained.

Life of Daniel Webster. By George Ticknor Curtis, one of his literary executors. Volume I. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 90, 92, and 94 Grand street. 1870.

Among the numerous regrets caused by the death of Edward Everett, many felt a disappointment because he had not added to our literature and to his own memoir of Mr. Webster a complete biography of that distinguished statesman. As far as we can judge from the present volume of Mr. Curtis's work, there is little cause, however, to regret that the task of writing it should have devolved on him. Its typography and paper deserve special praise; while the elegant yet modest appearance of the book is in harmony with the dignity of its subject, the style of the author, and the taste of that portion of the community who will constitute its most attentive readers.

The story of Mr. Webster's rustic boyhood, of the fireside legends of Indian and British warfare, whence he drew the patriotism of his riper years, the history of his struggle with poverty, and of the warm ties which bound him to his elder brother, are all told in a vividly interesting manner, and will recall similar scenes to the mind of many a reader. The successful career at school and college of the poorly-clad, sensitive lad, developing gradually into his splendid manhood and growing daily in the esteem of all is also graphically portrayed. In his habits of toil and deep study we see the foundations of that solidity of character, that grasp of intellect, which gave to his eloquence its commanding force, and to many of his forensic efforts their present character of legal authority.

The rising generation will admire the record of Mr. Webster's entrance into public life, and the independence, integrity, and loyalty which marked his course therein. From his youth he seemed to know of no other policy than right. Though party lines are nowadays more sharply defined than in his time, we think this broad and true American spirit is still the surest guide to lasting political influence. And the young politician who will place patriotism and devotion to principle before private ambition will secure the highest triumph for both, and need never fear the lash of party despotism.

In the present state of political affairs, which proves in so many ways and on so many points the correctness of Mr. Webster's views, and the deep, far-seeing genius of his statesmanship, we heartily approve the moderation and historical calmness with which Mr. Curtis records the exciting scenes of the "nullification" and "expunging" times, and also Mr. Webster's views on the hushing up of discussion on the abolition petitions of '36 and '37.

We have evidences, in portions of his correspondence brought into the work, of the true place which Mr. Webster assigned to principles, and of his contempt for openly immoral men. Writing to Mr. Ticknor in 1830, he says of a certain eminent literary character, whose sins have not been left to disappear with his ashes:

On the whole, there are few biographies of public men more healthful to the moral system of the reader than that[715] of Mr. Webster. We see his acknowledgment of true principles, and if in his private life he at any time afterward lost sight of them, this weakness has not the sanction of his genius, but stands condemned by it.

As an orator, his natural powers rank him with Demosthenes, with Chatham, with O'Connell. The legal profession will look upon him as one of its lights and ornaments. And all who love America will honor in him one whose heart beat in unison with the mighty pulse of this nation. We venture to hope that the rest of the work will equal the present volume, and that it will be read by every intelligent young man in the United States.

Missale Romanum. Tours Edition. Royal quarto. 1869. New York and Cincinnati: Benziger Bros.

This is a very fine edition of the Roman Missal. It is carefully bound in morocco, tastefully ornamented, and opens easily. The page is pleasant to the eye, the type being large and clear, and the paper very good. All the recent masses will be found at their proper places in this edition, which is in itself both a convenience and recommendation. At the commencement of the canon there is a very good steel-plate engraving of the Crucifixion. We recommend this missal to the notice of the reverend clergy and members of altar societies.

The History of Rome. By Theodor Mommsen. Translated by the Rev. W. P. Dickson, D.D. With a preface by Dr. Leonhard Schmitz. New edition, in four volumes. Vol. I. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870.

This is a philosophical history. It is difficult to do justice to the depth and accuracy of the erudition it displays. The style is also singularly happy—especially for a translation. We accept the author's facts, but not all his theories. Some of the latter would account for certain religious beliefs and practices by ignoring, on the one hand, primitive tradition, and attributing, on the other, to peoples but just emerging from barbarism the sublimest poesy and the keenest wisdom. Rationalism will never succeed in accounting for what was true in the religions of Greece and Rome, any more than for Christianity. The great philosophical historian of our age is Professor Leo, of Halle, whose account of Rome is especially admirable. Those who read German will probably find in Leo and Mommsen, together with Niebuhr, all they need to know of the principles, constitution, origin, and historical development of pagan Rome. For a correct and condensed narrative of events, Cantu's Universal History is the best.

Women's Suffrage: a Reform Against Nature. By Horace Bushnell. New York: Scribner & Co. 1869. 12mo, pp. 184.

We agree with Dr. Bushnell, as our readers are aware, in opposing female suffrage and eligibility as repugnant to the law of God, the natural relations of the sexes, and the interests of the family, of society, and indeed of woman herself; but in the course of his essay he uses so many weak arguments, and concedes so much to the women's rights folks, that his conclusions, though just, are not well sustained, and are not likely to carry conviction to the minds of those women who aspire to be men. We do not believe the lot of woman in society as it is can be truly said to be harder than that of men. The curse of our age is its femineity, its want of manliness, its sentimentalism, and its pruriency; and it could only be aggravated by female suffrage and eligibility. "The reigns of queens," said a queen of France to a duchess of Burgundy, "are conceded to be more successful than those of kings." "True," responded the duchess; "but it is because queens follow the counsel of men, and kings the counsel of women." The age, or what is called the age, needs reforming, we grant; for it has been[716] formed by Protestantism, which is simply in principle a resuscitation of gentilism; but not more for woman than for man, and reformed it cannot be without faith in the doctrine and obedience to the commands of the church of God.

The modern economical and industrial system, which enriches the few at the expense of the many, and which is boasted as the grand achievement of modern progress, is the source of most of the evils which our political and social reformers seek to redress. This system, which sees in man only an instrument of producing, distributing, and consuming the material goods of this life, and takes no account of the divine sovereignty, or of man's moral and spiritual wants, we are quite willing to concede is a natural product of the Reformation. It creates wants beyond its power to satisfy, tastes and habits of life which demand for their gratification great wealth, and great wealth can be the lot of only the few. It creates a large class of men and women, especially of women, for whom it does and can make no provision, and who suffer just in proportion to their cultivated and refined habits and tastes. The system is in fault, is based on the false principle that the more wants you can stimulate or develop in a man or a woman the better. Hence, it creates a large class who are ill at ease, misplaced, discontented, and maddened by wants that they cannot satisfy, and prepared to be not reformers, but revolutionists.

There is no way of curing the evil, which was as great in ancient Greece and Rome as it is in modern Britain or America, but by returning to the Christian principle of self-denial, and following the admonition of our Lord, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all things shall be added unto you." Would you make a man happy, study not to increase his possessions, but to diminish his desires. While material riches are held up as the supreme good, and poverty is treated as a disgrace, if not as a crime, there is no remedy for individual, domestic, or social evils, as the history of all heathen nations amply proves. Let the poor be held in honor as our Lord and his church held them, let voluntary poverty for Christ's sake be counted highly meritorious, and the evils our radicals feel, and our women's rights people complain of, will soon disappear, and woman will find her proper place, and man his. No political or social revolution is needed; none will do any good; all that is needed is to substitute the Christian economy for the pagan that now governs modern society.

A beautiful allegorical story, the moral of which is that riches and knowledge are worthless if not accompanied by the love of your neighbor. Brotherly love is the great lesson of this little volume, without which no one can be happy, and with which every one may be happy, even though one's home be only a cabin. It is the best book of the kind we have read in a long time, and should be placed in the hands of the ambitious youth of our country, whose God seems to be riches and unlimited power.

Bible Animals: Being a Description of every living Creature mentioned in the Scriptures, from the Ape to the Coral. By the Rev. J. G. Wood, M.A., F.L.S., etc. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870. Pp. 652.

This book merits unqualified praise. It is so complete that it will probably become the standard authority upon this branch of biblical literature. Indeed, it appears almost to exhaust the subject; so that, although the work was written more especially to aid biblical students, yet the scientific exactness of Mr. Wood's explanations and descriptions will make the volume extremely valuable to all who are interested in natural history. The identification of the animals and birds mentioned in Leviticus and Deuteronomy is particularly useful. Many of the words used in the ordinary translations[717] do not really designate the creatures that are intended. Mr. Wood seems to have brought good sense and great fairness to this difficult portion of his task. Where he is unable to decide with probability, he is not ashamed to say that he "is lost in uncertainty, and at the best can only offer conjectures." But this uncertainty refers principally to the smaller and less conspicuous species. The larger animals and birds are nearly all identified with tolerable certainty. The illustrations of the volume are numerous and finely executed. They are mostly taken from living animals, while the accessory details have been obtained from Egyptian and Assyrian monuments, and from the photographs and drawings of modern travellers. In every respect the book offers a rich and varied treat to those who feel an interest in knowing something of the land and the people which our divine Saviour chose for his own.

Art Thoughts: The Experiences and Observations of an American Amateur in Europe. By James Jackson Jarves. 12mo, pp. 379. New York: Hurd & Houghton.

Mr. Jarves is one of the few American writers on art whose works are worth reading and preserving. He has devoted to the subject the study and travel of many years, and has gathered one of the finest collections of genuine masters ever brought to this country. To a certain extent, his verdict upon painting and sculpture is entitled to the greatest weight; for it is founded upon intelligent study and a natural artistic appreciation. For the antique and the modern schools we may cheerfully accept him as a guide; but in the great realm of Christian art, which lies glorious and beautiful between these two extremes, he is but a blind leader of the blind—a pagan of the nineteenth century, unable to comprehend true religious inspiration, or to feel the artistic value of religious symbolism; and for whom much of the sublimity of the Renaissance, as well as the ruder but sincere and often eloquent art of the earlier Christian period, is therefore covered with an impenetrable veil. It is one of the canons of Mr. Jarves's criticism that every species of asceticism, either in life or in art, is a violation of nature and of truth. That is false art, therefore, which deals with representations of physical suffering, and the Apollo is a nobler subject than the crucified Saviour. What a wealth of spiritual beauty is shut out by this sensual conception, we need not stop to say. It is no wonder that, with such views, Mr. Jarves, while he admires the enraptured saints of Fra Angelico, cannot feel the divine pathos and sublimity of Michael Angelo's "Pieta." It is no wonder that he believes that "every religion in the form of a creed restricts and narrows art;" that he hates the Roman Church for its inculcation of the virtue of self-mortification; denounces our worship as rank idolatry of the most degrading kind; and can hardly speak with decent moderation his contempt for the crucifix and his detestation of the uncomfortable doctrine of eternal punishment. To Catholics, indeed, almost every page of his book conveys offence, and the blasphemy of some passages is too horrible for quotation.

The book is manufactured with due regard to magnificence of exterior, and many typographical niceties appropriate to a work on the fine arts. There is so much care, in fact, evident in its print and binding that we have a right to complain of there not being a little more, and especially to protest against the constant disfigurement of proper names—partly through the fault of the author, and partly through insufficient proof-reading. "Giusti," for instance, is printed "Guisti," "Giuliano" appears as "Guliano" and "Giulano," never, we believe, in its proper form. We have also "Guliana," and "Lucca" della Robbia uniformly, instead of "Luca." St. Simeon Stylites is called sometimes "St. Stylus," (which is nonsense,) and sometimes "St. Simone;" and sometimes, we may add, "that filthy fanatic." The union of Italian forms of common Christian names, like Simone and Francesco, with the English[718] prefix "St.," is another common fault. For the words "King Caudaules," "Soubriquet," and "Casa" as the Italian for "thing," we must hold the proof-readers alone to blame.

Among the Trees: A Journal of Walks in the Woods, and Flower-Hunting through Field and by Brook. By Mary Lorimer. Sq. 8vo, pp. 153. New York: Hurd & Houghton.

This is a pleasant, readable, feminine sort of book, written by an ardent and intelligent lover of nature, and quite equal to inspiring almost any body with more or less enthusiasm for the pursuit to which it is devoted. The writer catalogues minutely the botanical charms of all the different seasons—midwinter as well as the depth of summer; describes the flowers of each month, and tells where to look for them; and gives practical instructions for making miniature conservatories of wild flowers, and doing various other pretty things such as young ladies delight in. The book is written for the latitude of New York. Excellent wood-cuts accompany the text, and the paper and binding are suitable for the holiday season.

Christ and the Church. Lectures delivered during Advent, by the Rev. Thomas S. Preston. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 126 Nassau Street. 1870.

This volume is by far the most original and the best in every respect of several excellent volumes by the reverend author. The style and method of treating the subject remind us of Archbishop Manning. The discourses here published were preached to overflowing congregations, on the Sunday evenings during the last Advent. They develop a most important and interesting line of argument, not frequently handled, but likely to be most useful to the best class of Protestants. They are intended to show how those doctrines of the church and sacraments which are distinctively Catholic flow necessarily from the doctrines of original justice, the fall, the incarnation and redemption. They address, therefore, directly, and in the most conclusive manner, those Protestants who are called orthodox or evangelical, in common parlance. They cannot be too strongly recommended to those persons who believe in the true divinity of Jesus Christ and seek to know his doctrine and law. Pious Catholics, also, will derive great instruction and edification from this volume. It is published in the neatest and most attractive form, and is especially to be welcomed at a moment when so much glittering but counterfeit coin is in circulation.

Sadlier's Catholic Directory, Almanac, and Ordo, for the year of our Lord, 1870. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1870.

We are pleased to see that our suggestion of last year, with regard to the binding of the Almanac, has been acted upon this year; and we now have a work we can at least open without tearing it to pieces. We would suggest other improvements—in the matter of better paper, more margin on the page, less advertisements, and a little more correctness in names and places in next year's issue—all of which would be a great improvement on the present volume, which is in some points superior to former ones.

History of the Church in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. By K. R. Hagenbach, D.D. Translated by the Rev. I. F. Hurst, D.D. 2 vols. New York: Scribner.

This author, who is a moderately orthodox Protestant, is well acquainted with German Protestantism, and his work will therefore be useful to those who wish to study the phases of that rapidly dissolving view of Christianity.

The Life, Passion, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Being an Abridged Harmony of the Four Gospels in the Words of the Sacred Text. Edited by the Rev. Henry Formby. With an entirely new series of engravings on wood, from designs by C. Clasen, D. Nolen, and others. New York: Catholic Publication Society. 1870.

Fr. Formby is well known as a writer of great taste and remarkable skill in preparing books for children and grown people who require reading that is easily understood. His pictorial series has long been popular in England, and will now be republished, with the author's permission, by the Catholic Publication Society. The present volume is the first of the series. It is a continuous narrative taken from all the four Gospels, according to the Rhemish version, judiciously compiled according to the best harmonies, and abridged in such a way as to simplify without curtailing in any important respect the history. The illustrations are numerous and spirited, and, with one or two exceptions, are pleasing. The book is a charming one, as well as one most useful and important for children. Nothing can be more suitable, also, for good, plain Catholics, who ought by all means to be familiar with the Gospel history, and who will find this arrangement of it much better for their use than the Gospels themselves read separately. This book ought to be in every Catholic family, day-school, and Sunday-school, and to be circulated by the ten thousand.

This series is mainly composed of tales, etc., already before the public in manifold guises. Hence an enumeration of the titles of the several volumes, or a review of their contents, would be to our readers "a thrice-told tale." We will only say that, in our opinion, although they are admirably adapted for the perusal of children, the temper, at least of the juvenile reader, in search of "fresh fields and pastures new," will not be improved by the discovery that, in expending his pocket-money for the Library of Good Example, he has, for the third time, in some instances, purchased the same book. In one respect, however, this series is an improvement on its predecessors—it is not illustrated.

This part of the learned bishop's great work is especially interesting at the present moment, on account of the pretence raised by a certain number of persons that the Council of Constance was, in all its sessions, œcumenical. It is, besides this temporary interest, of lasting and intrinsic importance, for reasons well known to every scholar. Dr. Hefele not only gives us a learned and accurate historical work, but also a graphic picture of the intensely exciting and interesting events of the great Council of Constance. We cite the author's concluding sentence on the authority of the decrees of the council: "That (Eugenius IV.) intended to exclude the decrees of Constance respecting the superiority of general councils over the pope from his approbation is indubitable. In accordance with this, and according to modern law, which declares the papal approbation of general councils necessary in order to make them such, there can be no doubt that (a) all the decrees of Constance, which are not prejudicial to the papacy, are to be considered œcumenical; on the other hand, that (b) all which infringe against the jus, the dignitas, and præeminentia of the apostolic see, are to be considered as reprobated." This is in harmony with the sentiment of all the soundest canonists and theologians, namely, that which excludes the Council of Constance from the number of the councils strictly called œcumenical, and relegates it to a second class of general councils[720] some of whose decrees are rejected and others approved.

The Status of the Catholic Clergy in the United States. Bishop McQuaid!—Father O'Flaherty!—The Imbroglio in the Diocess of Rochester.

This vile anonymous pamphlet, printed without any publisher's name and signed, "Priests of the Diocese of Rochester," is a disgrace to its authors, especially if they are really priests. A publication of this kind, which is in itself a grievous offence, cannot claim even a hearing for any thing it may contain. If any priests of the diocese of Rochester have so far lost all sense of sacerdotal duty as to put forth this pamphlet, taking advantage of their bishop's absence, it is evident that a little more application of ecclesiastical discipline in that diocese will prove salutary.

Sally Cavanagh; or, The Untenanted Graves. A Tale of Tipperary. By Charles J. Kickham. Boston: Patrick Donahoe.

The foul wrongs to which the existing laws between landlord and tenant expose the peasantry of Ireland are made the ground-work of both these stories of Irish life. While these wrongs are familiar to all, so also are their sad effects, as narrated in the volumes before us. Of these, the former is undoubtedly more racy of the soil; though the latter, we think, will leave a more pleasing impression on the reader. The great fault with Miss Nolan is a talent for exaggeration; her favorites are always right; their enemies are ever harsh in word, cruel in act, and villainous in appearance. The landlord's victims are almost too ethereal for humanity—only a little less than angels; he and his myrmidons too diabolical for fiends.

Great Mysteries and Little Plagues. By John Neal. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1870.

The author proves that he has fully studied his subject, and that his title-page, though rather mysterious, is still most expressive and true. He shows by nearly three hundred anecdotes that children are really great mysteries and little plagues. His fairy story of "Goody Gracious! and the Forget-me-not" is the very model of a fairy story—plenty of imagination without going into the impossible and improbable.

Acta ex iis decerpta quæ apud Sanctam Sedem geruntur, etc. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet.

This is a fac-simile reprint of the Roman edition. It is a work of the greatest utility to ecclesiastics. We noticed some errors of the press, which suggests the remark that the proofs should invariably be carefully revised by a clergyman.

P. Donahoe, Boston, announces for early publication, Life Pictures of the Passion of Christ, translated from the German of Dr. Veith, by Rev. Father Noethen; The Our Father, translated from the German of the same author; The Monks of the West, by the Count Montalembert, and a Life of Pius IX.

CIVIL AND POLITICAL LIBERTY.[176]

That evangelical romancer, M. Merle d'Aubigné, not long since published a discourse having for title, Jean Calvin, un des Fondateurs des Libertés Modernes, or "John Calvin, one of the Founders of Modern Liberty." The discourse, as the Abbé Martin says, is of no importance; but the title is significant. It claims for the Genevan reformer the merit of being one of the founders of liberty in modern society. Mr. Bancroft in his History of the United States does the same. A Lutheran might with equal truth claim as much for Luther, a Scottish Presbyterian as much for John Knox, and an Anglican as much for Henry VIII. and the Virgin Queen Elizabeth. Nearly all Protestant and anti-Catholic writers assume, as an indisputable maxim, that liberty was born of the Reformation. All your Protestant and liberal journals assert it, and the ignorant multitude believe it. Whoever contradicts it is denounced as an ultramontanist, a tool of the clergy, or a Jesuit, and, of course, is silenced. Protestant nations enjoy, even with many Catholics, the prestige of being free nations; and all Catholic nations are set down as despotic, and, owing to the influence of the church, as deadly hostile to every kind of liberty, religious, political, civil, and individual. Protestantism and liberty, or Catholicity and despotism, is adopted as the formula of the convictions of this enlightened age.

This alleged connection of Protestantism and liberty, and of Catholicity and despotism, the Abbé Martin maintains, is what gives to Protestant missions in old Catholic nations the principal part of their success in unmaking Catholics. The Protestant missionaries, seconded by all the liberal journals, proclaim their Protestantism as the liberator of nations, as that which emancipates the people from political despotism, and the mind from spiritual thraldom. The great argument used in this country against the church is her alleged hostility to liberty, and the certainty, if she once gained the ascendency here, she would destroy our free institutions, and reduce the nation to political and spiritual slavery. Such is the allegation; such the argument.

Now, every man who knows anything of history knows that the reverse of what is here alleged is true. The church has, undoubtedly, always opposed lawlessness, and set her face against revolutions for either king or people; but she has never favored slavery or despotism, and has always favored that orderly liberty, the only true liberty, which consists in the reign of law, instead of passion, caprice, or arbitrary will. She has always and everywhere insisted that the laws should be just and supreme, alike for ruler and ruled. She has sometimes submitted to despotic authority, but she has never approved it, or recognized it as legitimate; and when a courtier monk preached before Philip II. of Spain that the king is absolute, and may do whatever he wills, the Spanish Inquisition arraigned him for his false doctrine, and compelled him to retract it publicly from the same pulpit from which he had preached it.

The fact is, not that liberty was born of or with the Reformation, but that the Reformation itself was born of absolute monarchy, despotism, or Cæsarism, revived and confirmed at the epoch of its birth. Prior to the Reformation, which marked the triumph of Cæsarism over feudalism, there was, no doubt, much barbarism in Christian Europe; but there was no absolutism. A reminiscence of Græco-Roman imperialism remained, indeed, and was cherished by the civil lawyers or legists, whose maxim was, Quod placuit principi, legis habet vigorem; but absolutism never succeeded in getting itself established. The German emperors, especially the Hohenstauffen, Cæsarists in principle as well as in name, attempted to revive the Roman empire, but did not succeed. Power was divided. There were free cities and communes that governed themselves as veritable republics under the guardianship, nominal rather than real, of a suzerain. The royal power was limited by the great vassals of the crown, and the authority of these in turn was limited by the lesser nobles, by the estates, and by the laws, and usages which had the force of laws. What characterizes the middle ages is the spirit of liberty. Few men in our time have better understood the middle ages, save as to the action of the church, than Sir Walter Scott, who, if a romancer, was also something more and better. He says in his Anne of Geierstein:

The fault Sir Walter mentions was not peculiar to the middle ages, and is not less in European countries to-day than it was then. The representatives or delegates of the cities and communes constituted the third estate, and sat in the assembly of the estates as early as the reign of Philip the Fair. If the rural population were not represented in the estates, they were not forgotten. The church had received that population as either slaves or serfs. She had succeeded in completely abolishing slavery in all continental Europe before the fifteenth century, and had made much progress toward putting an end to serfage. The enslaved populations were emancipated in nearly all Catholic Europe before the Reformation,[723] and in the early part of the seventeenth century the French courts decided that "a slave could not breathe the air of France." The maxim of the English courts was plagiarized from the French judges. There may be a question whether the European peasant has gained much since the middle ages; whether his increased wants have not more than kept pace with his increased means of supply; and as for protection, they who most need it never find it under any political régime. The most cruel and heartless landlords could not have been more cruel and heartless than are your cotton-mills and mammoth moneyed corporations, especially when Mammon was not exclusively worshipped.

But be all this as it may, this much is certain: that during the feudal ages there was, under the influence and untiring exertions of the pope and the monastic orders, a constant social amelioration of society going on, and the whole tendency of those marvellous ages, so little understood, and so foully belied, was toward the establishment in every nation of a well-ordered liberty, under the safeguard of the church, and of Christian or Christianized traditions and manners. The fifteenth century came, and brought with it not only the revival of pagan literature, but of pagan politics, which gave to the secular order a predominance over the spiritual, as we have explained in previous articles. The unhappy residence of the popes at Avignon, that "Babylonian captivity," as it has been called, and the great schism of the west, which followed it, in the fourteenth century, had served much to diminish the splendor and to weaken the political power of the papacy. This, coupled with the secular development of the age, and the pagan revival, gave a chance for Cæsarism to raise its head, and for the sovereigns to declare themselves absolute, and responsible to God alone for their exercise of power. The feudal constitution of Europe was crushed, and the pagan empire took its place. Not only the emperor and the mightiest kings, but the pettiest sovereign duke or count became a Cæsar in his own dominions.

At this moment, just as Cæsarism was on the point of winning the victory, the Reformation broke out, not in behalf of the old liberties, but to help abolish them and secure to Cæsar his triumph. So far from founding or even aiding liberty, it interrupted its progress, and gave the movement in its favor, which had from the seventh century been going on, a false and fatal direction. The originators of the Reformation may have been simply heterodox theologians; but they could not sustain themselves without the aid of the princes, and that aid could be obtained only by ministering to their love of power, and submitting to their supremacy alike in spirituals and temporals. The princes that favored the Reformation became each in his own principality absolute prince and pontifex maximus. The prince protects the reformers, and uses his civil and military power to crush their enemies, and to extirpate the old religion from his dominions. Dependent on him, and sustained only as upheld by him, the Reformation was impotent to restrain his arbitrary power. The reformed religion, like gentilism, of which it was in fact only a revival, assumed at once the character of a national religion; and the reformed church was absorbed by the state, and became one of its functions, an instrument of police, which must always be the fate of a national religion.

But the Protestant nations not only helped on Cæsarism, which was the spirit of the age, but they gave up or were despoiled of their old liberties, which they had long possessed and[724] enjoyed under the benign protection of the church. England saw her parliament practically annulled, and the prince governing, under Henry VIII., his daughter Elizabeth, and the first two Stuarts, as a Byzantine Basileus or an oriental despot; and it cost her a century of insurrections, revolutions, and civil wars to recover some portion of the political and civil freedom of which the Reformation had despoiled her. Even the Abbé Martin seems to forget that from 1639 to 1746 England was in a state as unsettled as France has been since 1789. She has not even yet recovered all her old liberties. She has, indeed, depressed the crown to exalt the aristocracy of birth or wealth, and is now entering upon a fearful struggle between aristocracy and democracy, most likely to end either in reviving the pagan republic, or in establishing once more the absolute authority of the crown.

The author very justly maintains that Protestantism has not created liberty, and that it has arrested or falsified it. He recalls that,

The author is too lenient toward Calvinism. It had, indeed, no partiality for monarchy, and just as little for democracy. What it aimed at was an aristocracy of the saints. Only those in grace could be freemen or exercise any authority in the community. The church was composed of the saints alone; and hence, in the colony of Massachusetts, only church members could be selectmen, or magistrates, or vote in elections. Church members had equal rights indeed; but those who were not church members had no rights at all, political, civil, or individual, and no social standing. The church members themselves covenanted to watch over each other, which meant, practically, that every member was to act as a spy upon every other member; and hence that cautiousness in speech, that fear of a mouchard in every neighbor, and that obsequiousness to public opinion, which marks not a few of the descendants of the New England Puritans even to this day. The rights of man in relation to his brother man were undreamed of, and for individual liberty there was no respect whatever. The individual was subject to the congregation, ruled by the pastor and elders or deacons, themselves ruled by two or three venerable spinsters. Calvinism sought, in fact, to govern society, minus celibacy, as a monastery, by converting the evangelical counsels into inflexible laws, and without the assistance of the grace of vocation. We shall never forget the odious tyranny to which Calvinism subjected our own boyhood. Life for us was stern, gloomy, hedged round with terror. We did not dare listen to the joyous song of a bird, nor to inhale the fragrance of an opening flower. Whatever gave pleasure was to be eschewed, and the most innocent pleasures were to be accounted deadly sins. We cannot even now, in our old age, think of our own Calvinistic childhood, which was by no means exceptional, without a shudder.

Thus far the author has spoken of individual liberty, which is the most essential of all, and without which civil and political liberty is a vain mockery. He asserts and proves, as we have seen, that Protestantism has not given to individual liberty a new development, but has arrested it. Well, was it more favorable to political liberty? We have answered this question already, but we cannot forbear citing the author's own reply:

We remark here that the Christian monarchy of which the learned abbé speaks existed in the doctrines of the theologians and in the efforts of the church, rather than in the actual order. There were Christian monarchs or sovereigns, like St. Henry of Germany, St. Ferdinand of Spain, and St. Louis of France; but there was nowhere, that we have been able to discover, a Christian monarchy. The feudal monarchy was of barbarian origin, and was a development of the chief of the tribe or clan. Side by side with this, constantly struggling with it for the mastership of society, was Græco-Roman imperialism, or briefly, Cæsarism, favored by the whole body of the legists, and always opposed by the church, though not always by churchmen become statesmen and courtiers. This pagan Cæsarism, which concentrates in the hands of the prince absolute authority in both temporals and spirituals, survived the fall of the Roman empire, and never for a moment ceased to struggle to recover the mastership; and it was it that was in question in the long struggle between the pope and the emperor. Defeated in the last of the Hohenstauffen, it revived in every petty prince in Christendom. It drove the popes from Rome into the exile of Avignon, and caused the great western schism. Still, the church was for a time able to prevent its complete success. But in 1453 came the taking of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks, the dispersion of the Greek scholars through the west; and the revival of pagan politics and literature served to reinforce Cæsarism, to weaken the influence of the church, and to give birth to the Protestant Reformation—at bottom nothing more nor less than a revival of the pagan order, against which the church from her birth had struggled.

The movement of which Protestantism was one of the results dates from a period before Luther, Melancthon, and Calvin, from the revival in the fifteenth century, and the successful struggle of Cæsarism against feudalism and the church. Protestantism may have prevented the development of a Christian monarchy; but it was itself a child of Cæsarism. The movement against feudalism, and for the concentration of power in the hands of the monarch, as well as for great centralized states, preceded the birth of Protestantism. Louis XI. in France, Maximilian I. in Germany, Henry VII. of England, the Cardinal Ximenes in Spain, and the de' Medici in Italy, all labored for the centralization of power, and paved the way for[727] the revival and triumph in their respective countries of pagan Cæsarism. The Abbé Martin's statements are correct only in case we count Protestantism, under its social and political aspects, as the continuation and development of the movement in behalf of Cæsarism, or the centralization of power, and against the liberties secured by feudalism.

We are no admirers of feudalism; but we hold it better than the Græco-Roman imperialism it supplanted, or the absolute monarchy which succeeded it in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of which Bossuet was a conspicuous defender. The Reformation aided the movement in behalf of Cæsarism, by bringing to its support an open rebellion against the papal authority and the faith of the church, and secured it the victory. Cæsarism followed it immediately, not only in the nations that accepted the new religion, but also, to a great extent, in the nations that remained Catholic. On the first point the author asks:

We have already spoken of the effects of the introduction of Protestantism into England and Scotland. Calvinism, the author considers, caused less grave and less durable damage to liberty; yet it was not less tyrannical by nature, only it was less monarchical. "At Geneva it confiscated all the ancient franchises to the profit of the oligarchy it established, and it was not owing to it that in Holland the stadtholder did not become absolute."[728] Protestant historians are perfectly well aware of these facts, and from time to time they concede them; and yet the best of them continue to assert the impudent falsehood, that Protestantism has created and sustained modern liberty, individual, civil, and political—not, indeed, because it has done so, but because they think it would have been much in its favor if it had.

The other point, that Protestantism is in great measure responsible for the establishment or partial establishment of the pagan monarchy, or Cæsarism, in Catholic nations, we have shown in our previous articles on the work before us; yet we cite the following from the author:

Unhappily, Protestants will pay little heed to the fact that the loss of liberty in Catholic nations was due either to Protestantism or to the movement of which Protestantism was simply a development. There can be no reasonable doubt that but for Protestantism the church would have been able to check and roll back the powerful movement for the revival of Cæsarism, which had commenced in the fifteenth century, and have prevented the growth of absolute monarchy in a single Catholic state. The Protestant rebellion so weakened her external power, and detached from her so large a portion of the populations of Europe, that she was no longer able to restrain the absolutist tendencies of all European sovereigns. The sovereigns themselves, almost without exception, were inclined to the movement—were, in fact, its chief supporters; and if they did not all join it, it was because they were held back by their people, whose faith in the old religion was too strong to be given up at the pleasure of their princes, not because they had personally any devotion or attachment to her faith. The French court and most of the higher French nobility openly or secretly favored Protestantism till the conversion of Henry IV.; and even that monarch had formed a league with the Protestant princes, and was preparing for a war against the Catholic powers of Europe, at the very moment he was assassinated. His policy was adopted and carried out under his successors by Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, who repressed Protestantism in the interior, but supported it everywhere else. That France remained Catholic, was owing to the concessions made by the pope to her sovereigns, and to the firmness of the French people under the lead of the noble Guises, so calumniated by almost all modern French writers.

Yet the abbé expresses himself too strongly. The triumph of absolutism was never so complete in Catholic as in Protestant nations. In Protestant nations, the sovereigns united both the political and the spiritual powers, as under Greek and Roman gentilism, absorbed the church, and made religion a function of the state. In Catholic nations, although royalty interfered beyond measure in ecclesiastical affairs, the two powers remained distinct, and the church retained, at least in principle, her autonomy, however circumscribed and circumvented in its exercise. This is evident from the concordats she conceded to the sovereigns, and the diplomatic relations of Catholic powers with the holy see. Throughout all her humiliations, the church asserted and maintained, in principle, her independence. In all Protestant countries, the state legislated for the Protestant church; it nowhere treated with it as a separate power, and held, and could hold, no diplomatic relations with it. In all Protestant nations, the church became national and local; but in all Catholic nations she continued to be Catholic, and was always and everywhere some restraint on the absolute power of the sovereign, as both Louis XIV. and Napoleon I. learned by experience, and hence their discreditable quarrels with the holy see, and the imprisonment of the holy father by[730] the latter. Lord Molesworth remarked in 1792, as cited by the author from Döllinger's Church and Churches, that, "in the Roman Catholic religion, with the supreme head of the church at Rome, there is a principle of opposition to unlimited political power. It is not the same with the Lutheran [he might have added the Anglican] clergy, who depend on the crown as their spiritual and temporal superior." This principle opposes the unlimited power of the people no less than of the monarch, and hence the sects all agree, now that the age tends to democratic absolutism, in opposing the church in the name of the people; for Protestantism has the same absolutist instincts always and everywhere.

The author, we think, exaggerates the adoption by the Catholic clergy, even in France, of absolutism in politics. Bossuet, who was a French courtier as well as a Catholic bishop, as tutor to the dauphin, went, no doubt, as far in asserting the divine right of kings, and passive obedience, as the Anglican divines under the Stuarts; and some of the clergy, yielding to court influence and the spirit of the age, followed him; but the noble Fénélon, in no respect his inferior as a theologian, differed from him, held, with the great body of Catholic theologians in all ages, that power is a trust for the public good, and that kings are responsible to the nation for their exercise of it. It was his anti-absolutist doctrine, not his few inaccurate expressions on the doctrine of pure love, in his Maxims of the Saints, that caused him to be stripped of his charges at court, and exiled to his diocese of Cambray. Nor is it true, as the abbé insinuates, that the pope sanctioned the absolutist doctrines which prevailed in France or elsewhere in the seventeenth century. The four articles, dictated by the government, slightly modified by Bossuet, and accepted by a small minority of the French bishops, which contain the very essence of absolutism, were no sooner published by order of the king, and commanded to be taught in all the theological seminaries, and to be conformed to by all the professors and clergy of the realm, than the pope condemned them, annulled the order of the king, and finally compelled him to withdraw it, or at least to pledge himself that he would do so. The pope never failed to assert, and, as far as he could, to cause to be respected, the rights of the church—that is to say, the rights of God, which are the only solid basis of the rights of man.

Every theologian knows that, prior to the rise of Protestantism, and even for a considerable time afterward, Catholic political theology bears no trace of the absolutism taught by Bossuet, and which he had borrowed from contemporary Protestantism. It is worthy of remark that nowhere were the first acts of the French Revolution hailed with more joy than at Rome with the pope and cardinals, and it found no warmer, firmer, or more disinterested supporters than the French clergy as a body, whose representatives were the first to join the Tiers-Etats. Afterward, when the revolution run into horrible excesses, put forth doctrines subversive of all religion, and even of society itself, assumed the right to legislate on spiritual matters, and showed that it only transferred absolutism from the king to the mob, there was undoubtedly a reaction against it in the minds of the pope and clergy, as there was in the minds of all men not incapable of profiting by experience, and who could not prefer license to orderly liberty. The salvation of religion and society made it the duty of the church to sustain with all her power the sovereigns in their efforts to repress the[731] revolutionary spirit, and to restore and maintain social peace and order.

It is this fact, stripped of its reasons, and its real nature misunderstood or misrepresented, that has given rise to the pretence that the church opposes, while Protestantism, which is leagued, if not identical, with the revolution, favors liberty. Protestants never, that we are aware, put forth any pretence of the sort prior to 1792. Up to the moment of this reaction against the French revolution, the contrary charge had been made, and the church condemned for being hostile to the rights of sovereigns, and it was in reply to the speech of Cardinal Duperron, in the states-general in France in 1614, in favor of the rights of the nation and the church against the irresponsibility of the crown, that James I. of England wrote his Remonstrance for the Divine Right of Kings. History as written by Protestants is composed of disjointed facts, misplaced and misrepresented, whenever it is not pure invention.

The author is not quite exact in saying absolutism reigned everywhere at the breaking out of the French revolution, except in England, Holland, and the Swiss cantons. The United States had won their independence and adopted their federal constitution before that event, and certainly the American republic was not founded on the principle of the omnipotence of the state or of the people. It revived neither pagan imperialism nor pagan republicanism, and was in its fundamental principles more nearly a Christian republic than the world had hitherto seen.

It would seem, as the great mass of the American people were Protestants, and the more influential portion of them intensely Protestant, of the Calvinistic type, that the American republic should be held as an exception to the assertion that Protestantism resulted everywhere in the establishment of absolutism. But it is in reality no exception. It had no existence at the epoch of the Reformation, and Protestantism had no hand in founding it. It was founded by Providence, and the principles which form its basis were derived by the English colonists, not from Protestantism, but from the old constitution of England in Catholic times, and which, though suppressed by the ruling classes, never ceased to live in the traditions of the English people. The revolution in the seventeenth century in England was the struggle of the English people to recover their old rights, of which Protestant royalty and nobility had deprived them. Royalty and nobility did not emigrate; they remained at home, and there were in the Anglo-American colonies no materials from which either could be constructed. The great principle of the Puritans, that the church is independent of the state and superior to it, or that the state has no authority to legislate in religious matters, not even in non-essentials, was a Catholic principle, for which the popes, in their long struggles with the secular power, had uniformly contended. It is the vital principle of liberty; for it interposes the rights of God, represented by the church, as the limits of the rights of the state. The Puritans had asserted this principle in their own defence against the Protestant king and parliament of England, which assumed plenary authority in spirituals as well as in temporals. It was not Protestantism that developed this great principle of all just liberty, and opposed to all absolutism; it was the old Catholic principle, always and everywhere asserted by the Catholic Church.

But taking the Bible, especially the Old Testament, interpreted by a fallible authority, as their criterion of the[732] rights of God, as represented by their Puritan church, the Puritans failed not in asserting, but in applying the principle, and established, in practice, as we have seen, a most odious tyranny. They misapplied the principle, which can be rightly applied only by the Catholic Church. Their Protestantism misled them, and perverted the truth they retained, as was universally the case with Calvinists. It is easy to see now why Protestantism deserves no credit for founding American liberty. It was not of Protestant origin, and we may add Protestantism is busy at work to destroy it, or at least shows itself impotent to sustain it.

The true basis of American liberty is in the assertion of the rights of God, represented by the church, or by religion, as bounding or limiting the power of the state, whether imperial or popular. But under Protestant influences, the rights of God are resolved into the rights of man, and the Christian republic becomes simply a humanitarian republic, which can offer no solid foundation for liberty of any sort. The rights of man are no more sacred and inviolable than the rights of the prince or the state. It is only when the rights of man are resolved into the rights of God in and over man, that they are sacred and inviolable, or inalienable. But the American people have ceased so to resolve them, if, indeed, they ever did it, and recognize no more ultimate basis for liberty than humanity itself. If, as many of them do, they insist on religion as necessary to the maintenance of liberty, it is only as an external prop or support, not as its logical basis, or root, out of which it grows, and from which it derives all its sap and vigor.

No humanitarian republic is or can be a free republic, because, though it recognizes the people as the state, and establishes universal suffrage and eligibility, it has nothing but humanity, nothing above the people, to limit or restrict their power as the state. The people are humanity in the concrete, and a humanitarian republic therefore simply transfers the absolutism from the monarch to the people, and substitutes democratic Cæsarism for monarchical Cæsarism, the pagan republic for the pagan empire. Absolutism is absolutism, whether predicated of the one or of the many. We in the United States are rapidly losing sight of the Catholic principle retained by the Puritans, and rushing into democratic absolutism; we assert the omnipotence of the will of the people, and treat constitutions as simply self-imposed restrictions, which bind no longer than the people will. Demagogues, politicians, and statesmen tell the people that their will is supreme; and vainly would he seek their suffrages who should deny it. The opposition to the extension of the church in this country grows precisely out of the well-known fact, that she does not emanate from the people, is not subject to the will of the people, and would restrict their omnipotence—an opposition that proves that she, not Protestantism, is the defender of liberty. Certainly, if she were to become predominant here, she would soon put an end to the absolutism of the state, sustained by all our leading journals, and reëstablish the Christian republic, in place of the humanitarian or pagan republic, to which we are pushed by the Protestant spirit of the age, the veritable Welt-Geist, or prince of this world, as all Protestant movements amply prove.

The abbé shows a strict alliance between contemporary Protestantism and the revolution, or revolutionary movements in all European nations. With these revolutionary movements[733] we have the authority of the chief magistrate of the Union for saying the American people generally sympathize. We lend, at least, all our moral support to these movements wherever we see them. They owe their origin, in fact, to Protestantism; and, so far at least as they are confined to Catholic nations, are fomented and encouraged by Protestant emissaries and Protestant associations and contributions; yet these movements are, under the name of liberty, purely humanitarian, and their success would simply substitute the absolutism of the people for the absolutism of the monarch—democratic Cæsarism, or rather, demagogic Cæsarism, for imperial Cæsarism. In the sixteenth century, the sovereigns embraced or inclined to the Reformation, because it removed the restraints that the church imposed on their absolute power and arbitrary will; demagogues and revolutionists in the nineteenth century glorify it, because it removes all restrictions on the will of the people as the state. In each case the church is opposed to it, and for the same reason, because she asserts the rights of God as the basis of the rights of man; and, as their divinely constituted guardian and representative, interposes them as a limit to the absolute power of the state, whether monarchical or democratic, the only security possible for the reign of justice, of just laws, and therefore of real liberty, individual, civil, and political.

There is no doubt that Protestantism, since the culmination of monarchical absolutism in the seventeenth century, has agitated for the revival of what it calls liberty, but what we call the humanitarian or pagan republic. The people moved by it have, no doubt, supposed they were marching toward real liberty; but they have nowhere gained it, and have only removed the day of its acquisition. Under its influence we have smothered the principle of liberty, and lost most of the guarantees which Providence gave us in the outset. We have lost not only the principle of liberty, but also its correlative, the principle of authority; and have no basis for either freedom or government, for the basis of neither can be found in humanity. Great Britain, to a certain extent, has popularized her administration; but through all her changes of dynasties and constitutions, she has never ceased to assert the omnipotence of the state as the state, supreme in spirituals as in temporals. On the continent, the revolution, attempted in the name of humanity, has nowhere founded liberty. Its momentary success in France from 1792 to 1795, inclusive, is universally recognized as the Reign of Terror, when religion was suppressed and virtue was punished as a crime. France, after a century of revolutions, is not as free to-day as she was even under her old monarchical institutions. The French are just now trying anew the experiment of parliamentary government which the Anglo-maniacs consider only as another name for liberty; but whether the experiment succeeds or fails, liberty will gain nothing; for the parliamentary government is as absolute as the personal government of Napoleon III., and most likely will have even less regard for the rights of God. The one no more than the other will recognize the spiritual power as a restriction on the power of the temporal.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the spirit of the age was for the revival of pagan imperialism; the spirit of the age is now, and has been since the middle of the last century, the pagan republic; but there is just as little liberty under the one as under the other, or, if any difference, there is less under pagan republicanism[734] than under pagan imperialism; for the Roman empire was really an improvement on the Roman republic. Under the one the monarch is the state; under the other the people or the ruling classes are the state; and under both the state is alike supreme, and acknowledges no limit to its power. The republican party is now, here and in all Europe, as hostile to the church as were the sovereigns in the sixteenth century, and for the same reason. The party knows perfectly well that it is impossible for her to approve any form of absolutism in the state. Having decided that the humanitarian republic it seeks to establish, and to which the spirit of the age tends, is liberty, it holds, and public opinion sustains it, that its success depends on sweeping her away, and destroying all religion that does not emanate from the people, or that claims to be a power independent of the state, and authorized to declare the law for the people instead of receiving it from them. Because she resists the madmen of this party, and seeks to save herself and society, they denounce her as opposed to liberty, as the upholder of despots and despotism, as at war with the spirit of the age, and the bitter enemy of modern civilization. "If," said the accusers of our Lord to the Roman procurator, "thou lettest this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend." "If," said the reformers in the sixteenth century, "thou sparest the pope or the church, thou art no friend, but a traitor to the king;" "if," say their children in this nineteenth century, "thou upholdest the church, thou art no friend, but a traitor to the sovereign people, and false to liberty;" and the nineteenth century believeth them. We disbelieve them, and believe the Lord, who hath bought us with his own precious blood and made us free.

These madmen are animated and carried away by the spirit of the age, and suppose all the time that they are battling for liberty against its most dangerous enemies. They carry the people with them, and induce them to crucify their God as a malefactor. What is to restrain them? The strong arm of power? That were only to establish the reign of force. Reason? What can reason do with madmen, or against the multitude blinded by false lights and moved onward by an unreasoning passion? The intelligence of the age? Are they not carried away by the age, and is it not from the very madness of the age that they need to be saved? When the very light in the age is darkness, how great must be its darkness! It is only a power that draws its light from a source of light above the light of the age, and acts with a wisdom and strength that is above the people, above the world, that can restrain them and convert them into freemen.

If there is any truth in history, or any reliance to be placed on the inductions of reason, the author has amply proved, in opposition to the pretensions of Protestants and revolutionists, that society under the direction and influences of the Catholic Church marches steadily toward a true and regular liberty—a liberty which is grounded in the rights of God, and therefore secures the rights of man. He has also proved conclusively, as experience itself proves, that just in proportion as the influence of the church in society is weakened, liberty disappears, and absolutism, either of king or people, advances. He has shown that the Reformation, instead of founding or aiding liberty, has interrupted it, and prevented the development of the germs of free institutions deposited in society during the much-maligned and little-understood middle ages. Protestantism, even when, as in our[735] own time, professing to labor for liberty, only falsifies it, and interposes insurmountable obstacles to its realization. Protestantism—and we have studied it both as a Protestant and as a Catholic—is made up of false pretences; is, as Carlyle would say, an unveracity, and loses not only the eternal world, but also this present world. The Divine Thought after which the universe is created and governed is one and catholic, and the law by which we gain our final end is one and holy; and without obedience to it there is no good possible, here or hereafter, either for society or for the individual. The present can have its fulfilment only in the future, and the temporal has its origin, medium, and end only in the spiritual, and finds its true support as its true law only in the one eternal law of God, the universal Lawgiver, declared and applied by the one Holy Catholic Church, which he himself has instituted for that purpose, and which is his body, which he animates, and in which he dwells, teaches, and governs.

It remains for us to consider the respective relations of Protestantism and Catholicity to religious liberty, or the freedom of conscience.

UNTYING GORDIAN KNOTS.

VI.

George Holston was wandering thoughtfully back and forward in his writing-room, in a listless way, unusual in a man of his active temperament. An ardent sight-seer, a student of the politics of all countries, a visitor of every kind of institution for the amelioration of every kind of difficulty he gave little time to lounging. Pausing at last before one of the windows looking out on the garden, his attention became fixed, and an expression at once of displeasure and of amusement came over his face.

Under the tree sat Lady Sackvil, half reclining on a garden chair; before her stood Vane, answering her indifferent words with eager interest, his expressive face full of enthusiasm. Whatever his arguments were, they took effect, to judge by the change which gradually mastered her; rousing her from the careless posture to one of attention, drawing her eyes from the flower she had been idly pulling to pieces, to meet his earnest gaze. Whatever the question might be, he had conquered, and was gazing at her beautiful upturned face with a look of enchantment.

"Confound it!" muttered George. "What would I give to banish her to the coast of Guinea this very moment! Enough to evangelize the natives, if money would do it." He resumed his desultory walk and his meditations. "That idiot is going to destruction for the lack of something to do. No more in love with her than I am; just idleness and a love of excitement."

Going to his desk, he took out a letter written in copying-ink, and bearing date of three weeks back.

"I've scotched the snake, at least, with this," he said aloud, and sat down to a re-perusal of the epistle. It was as follows:

"If I had asked his leave before doing this, he would have been too weak to grant it, hampered as he is by this renewal of old associations. By the time the appointment gets here, he will be thankful to find some way of escape from his own folly open to him. A fool he is—a traitor he is not."

Then, casting a glance out of the window, as he passed before it to take down a volume from a bookcase, he said softly, "Poor Mary! the truest, noblest woman that ever married an idiot!"

George Holston might well say "poor Mary!" He had not been the only witness of the interview in the garden. This was the day of Mrs. Vane's first visit to the primo piano since her illness. She had come in a young mother's glory, bringing little Georgina in her christening dress to see her godmother. While Mrs. Holston was tending the baby, Mary stood at the window, playing with a curtain-tassel and watching her husband and Lady Sackvil. She saw him give Amelia the oleander she pulled to pieces, saw her grow eager and interested as he talked to her, stood transfixed to see the intensity with which he followed up his advantage; and then, suddenly recollecting herself, turned away, thinking bitterly, "I will not spy upon him."

"What is the matter, dear?" asked Mrs. Holston anxiously. "You were looking so well when you came in, and now you are as white as a handkerchief. Are you faint? Debby, ring the bell, and I will send for some wine."

"Oh! please not," said Mary, putting her hand to her head. "I'm well enough, only so very tired. This is my first visit, you know," she added, laughing faintly, "and the excitement is too much for me. I will leave the baby with you, and nurse can bring her to me when you are tired of her. No, don't come, Debby; I shall be better for resting a little while."

And lying quietly on the couch in her own room, the bitter conviction came to her, that what she had seen that day stung her so deeply only because it confirmed doubts crushed out of sight. Doubts? Certainty it[737] was now, that she was no longer her husband's chosen companion. Startled by his anger when her first groundless jealousy betrayed itself on the day of Lady Sackvil's arrival, she had smothered every succeeding pang. Her uneasiness had come from no lack of kindness on her husband's part. He had been, if possible, more attentive during her illness than she had expected. But to her, who had been his exclusive confidant, the one chosen sympathizer in all hopes and projects, the charm had gone. It was evident that he needed more excitement than her companionship afforded, that he came to her from a sense of duty, not for pleasure. She had been too loyal to question or doubt until this afternoon, when an accident had given the proofs she would have refused to seek. Now she was too clear-sighted to withhold belief. Lady Sackvil stood between her and her husband.

She was too completely stunned, too grieved and wounded, to look beyond the present shock, to question the hopelessness of her situation. Above the couch hung an ivory crucifix yellow with age. Nicholas had found it in some curiosity-shop near the Rialto, and brought it to her. She took it down and looked at it, not only reverently but curiously, wondering whose agony it had soothed; if ever any one had pressed it to a heart so wronged and tortured as hers; if it were yellowed by the tears shed upon it, as well as by age. "You will be yellow as gold before my eyes have cried themselves out," she thought, and longed for the relief of tears. Her thoughts were so thick, so hopelessly thick and inextricable! Afraid of revealing her sufferings if she should go to dinner, she went to bed with a furious headache. The baby, sharing its mother's discomposure, wept and wailed, as babies always do when quiet is most desirable. Nicholas dined alone, spent an hour in his wife's room in the kindest manner, putting cold water on her head, and ice to her heart at the same moment. At last, believing her to be asleep, he went down to spend the evening with the Holstons; leaving her to be regaled with distant sounds of playing and singing, and to be racked by the conviction that a trial had fallen upon her with which she was utterly incapable of coping.

A night-light burned in the corner of the room, giving a faint suggestion of surrounding objects. Through the half-open nursery-door came the sound of Deborah lulling the baby to sleep with old songs and moral axioms. There was something soothing in the half-light and subdued tones which tended to restore the quivering nerves to their balance. Mary sat up in bed and tried to collect her ideas. What was the first thing to be done? The exact reverse of what she had done that evening, at all events. She had made the baby fretful, and driven Nicholas into the very temptation she most dreaded for him.

The first and immediate step to be taken was to conquer the nervous prostration which bound her. All was now quiet in the nursery. She rang her hand-bell softly, bringing Deborah to the nursery-door with the inseparable roll of violet-perfumed flannel in her arms.

Then she lay down to contemplate the baby and let the sedative work. Her thoughts turned to a few words of fatherly advice from her old friend, Padre Giulio, when she had mentioned with bitter self-upbraiding in confession, two months before, her momentary paroxysm of jealousy. "In five cases out of ten," he had said,[738] "an injured wife holds her fate in her own hands. She must prove to her husband that she is better worth loving than any other woman in the world. She should speak of her wrongs to no one if she can possibly bear them in silence. Each confidant of these delicate matters may become a new obstacle to reconciliation. Loyalty is most important between married persons. So much for jealous wives, my daughter; and God grant that you may never have occasion to remember what I have said!" And now the occasion had come!

"O God!" she prayed, "make me very lovely in his eyes. I don't ask it for vanity's sake, but for his honor and mine. I thank you, from the depths of my heart, that it is best for him and for me, and for your divine glory, that he should love me more than any other creature. But accomplish this, dear Lord, by making him love you best of all." Then she fell asleep, lulled by the soft breathing of the sleeping infant.

"I am sorry I roused you," he said. "But I longed to know if you were relieved."

"I am much better," she answered cordially. "Thank you for coming to inquire. Have you had a pleasant evening?"

"Only just at first. I got through the evening very comfortably, and expect to be bright and well by to-morrow. Kiss me, darling."

When he had left her, she took the ancient crucifix again in her hands, and kissed the five wounds silently. There is no better prayer. It is the prayer of conquered self; the acceptance of our sufferings in union with those of Christ.

Vane spent half the night in studying and reading. Once he said out loud, "God help me through it!" Then came the thought, "How dare I ask for help, when I myself have sought temptation? Oh! if Mary would only get well and be my better self once more. What did she say once about the inefficacy of vicarious goodness?"

VII.

"By all means. I am going to play something for George and Flossy that will fascinate your maternal fancy." And with the little boy and girl on either side, she played the Scenes from Childhood, with little paraphrases of explanation full of merriment or pathos, as the case might be. The children were bewitched. Mary looked at her lovely face, her tasteful dress, her graceful though rather large hands, moving on the piano as in a native element; she listened to her exquisitely sympathetic playing, to her charming talk with the children, and a sense of despair came over her.

"How can I win him back?" she thought. "O God! it is so hard to bear, just because I am not handsome or clever. Surely my love, my fidelity must be more beautiful than her beauty, if he could only see clearly. It is useless for me to compete with this exquisite creature on any natural grounds. And yet, how strange it all is! I don't suppose he is the most attractive man in existence; and yet, it would no more occur to me to measure him with other men than if he were an archangel."

Lady Sackvil was singing now—little songs for children, by Taubert, cradle songs, and Volkslieder. George and Flossy were twins, and this was their birthday. "Aunt Milly" was as much bent on fascinating her juvenile audience as any prima donna in a royal theatre. She had not much voice; but her singing had the same sympathetic quality which made her playing delight every one, learned or unlearned. Those who were incapable of appreciating her sound musical training, her clever interpretation of the best compositions, her freedom from mannerism, whether pedantry or sentimentality, could derive pleasure from her delicious touch and the indefinable grace of her playing.

After a while Mrs. Holston and Captain Vane joined the audience. Mary glanced involuntarily at Lady Sackvil, and saw a rosy flush suffuse cheek and brow and neck. She passed on from song to song without leaving the piano; but she was singing for grown people now, and the children felt it. Mary made a sign to them to come to her, and gave them the presents she had prepared for the great day so long anticipated. Mere trifles they were—a suit of doll's furs for Flossy, a box of colored crayons for George—but it was quite enough to restore the birthday equanimity.

Vane had noticed the little scene, and Mary saw his eyes rest upon her with a tenderness she had missed for many weeks. When Lady Sackvil stopped singing, he rose rather abruptly and returned her greeting with a certain coldness. Then turning to his wife, he said, "I have been looking for you everywhere. Can you come up-stairs with me now?"

Mary was nearer happiness than she had thought to be again. At least he was trying to do right.

VIII.
LADY SACKVIL'S JOURNAL.

I wonder what sin is? Some people would say I ought to know; but I do not. We are born with inclinations, affections, passions which disappear or develop according to circumstances. We are not to be praised if they disappear; we are not to be blamed if they develop. Religionists make sins and virtues to suit themselves, and form thereon a moral code. If they really believe in a merciful, thoughtful Creator, a tender Redeemer, who has lived to exemplify these virtues and died to atone for these sins, of course they do right to bow to his will. I do not believe there is a God who interests himself in our virtues or vices, so-called. I know that I myself am the creature of necessity, and I mean to prove this for my own satisfaction by a review of my career.

I was educated by my poor Aunt Louisa, who taught me to call myself a Catholic and behave like a pagan. Was that my fault? She never, to my knowledge, acted from a disinterested motive. She never taught me to obey any thing but my own will—except hers, when our wills crossed. This was very seldom; for we, both of us, wanted simply the greatest amount of worldly enjoyment that was to be had, for asking, in my case, and scheming, in hers. Was that my fault? I loved Nicholas Vane, who was a tyrant. Just when his tyranny weighed too heavily to be borne, Lord Sackvil appeared. He suited me. His position corresponded to the dreams my aunt had nursed in me from childhood. Circumstances conquered me. Vane accused me of flirting, and broke off our private engagement. Aunt Louisa besought me to accept an offer which would realize her fondest[740] hopes for me. I yielded, and married Sackvil, and never dreamed of regretting the step. He was the kindest and most indulgent of husbands, and sympathized with all my tastes. But here again any religious tendencies I might have had remained unnourished. Educated a Catholic, he never practised his religion. People think me obstinate; on the contrary, I am led completely by others—when it suits me. What of that? How could it be otherwise, with my training? I am the victim of circumstances. As I had no children, Sackvil House passed to a distant relation of my husband. I was left singularly alone in the world. My one near relative living in Venice, I naturally came to her, after leading a wandering life in Germany for two years. Who should be living in the same house and on terms of closest intimacy with my sister's family but Captain Vane? Was that my fault? I did not know the fact. Flora knows nothing of our engagement; indeed, no one knew of it except Aunt Louisa, and, probably, George Holston. I fully intended to cultivate Mrs. Vane intimately. In the first place, however, she is not inclined to intimacy. Though very young, she has a reserve and independence of character which would make friendship a matter of slow growth with her. In the second place, she has been ill or ailing ever since I came here. Is that my fault? Is it my fault that at thirty I am prettier than ever before in my life; that I have a trick of fascinating people; that I play and sing like—like—like a fallen angel? This is conceit, or pride, or vanity, I suppose. No, it is not. It is a recognition of facts. If I were ugly or unattractive, I should recognize the fact and poison myself. Is it my fault that Vane is morally weak, as the term goes? That is to say, that his personal wishes weigh more heavily upon him than the force of tradition? Is it my fault that, with the energy, the ambition, and the intellectual tastes of a man, I am bound by worldly maxims within limits which restrict all growth except spiritual growth?

I wonder what would make a Christian of me? This one experience—hypothetical, of course: the sight, the close, intimate perception of a purely disinterested soul; of one who, tested in the sorest manner, should act according to principles formed in a time of peace and security. I am a pagan from having seen people behave like pagans, no matter what they professed. The antidote must be adapted to the poison. Is a cure to be desired? I imagine not. A Christian life would entail great discomfort; for be it known that if ever I am a Christian I will be a genuine one. My difficulties are not metaphysical. I could just as easily believe one thing as another; indeed, the more the better, if there is any believing to be done. I am inclined to suppose that the Catholic Church will have the honor to reclaim me, if ever I am reclaimed. It is the oldest, widest, strongest, and it demands more of its adherents than any other church. Besides, if ever I find my disinterested Christian, it will probably be in the Catholic Church—a soul bred upon works of supererogation and a thirst after perfection.

IX.

Mary was reading in her morning room when Lady Sackvil was announced. "Ask her to come in here," she said with her lips; and in her heart prayed, "Help me to do and say the right thing."

Lady Sackvil came in very softly, seeing the little basket-cradle with drawn curtains beside the mother's[741] chair, and said in a low tone, "Thank you very much for admitting me to your own room."

"We need not speak low," Mary said; "poor little Georgina has had to learn to sleep under all circumstances. I knew it was useless to try to make Captain Vane whisper, and I wanted him to come here freely when the child was with me; so I have made her a philosopher early in life, superior to outward influences."

"She will be the first person that ever was superior to circumstances, I fancy," remarked Lady Sackvil; and added after a moment's pause, "my belief is, that our characters are completely controlled by outward influences. They have regulated mine, I know."

Mary took up a stole she was embroidering in bullion, and arranged the sewing materials accurately before answering. Amelia's mere presence irritated her, and the off-hand manner in which her ladyship settled questions aroused in her a spirit of opposition. It was in an unruffled tone, however, that she answered, "Of course they have a great deal to do with the formation of character; but not every thing. I used to hear a good deal of talk on the subject in my father's library. An intimate friend of his was a necessitarian—that's the term, is it not?—and used to bring forward many clever arguments in support of his theory."

"Not at all. He worried me a good deal at first. I remember that he generally chose Sunday evenings for the discussion, and Sunday evening has ever since been uncomfortably associated in my mind with necessity and free-will."

"I cannot fancy on what grounds his opinion could be combated," said Lady Sackvil.

"Neither did I at first. It is easier to argue in favor of necessity than of free-will. The theory rests upon tangible facts, evident even to superficial observers. The truth rests largely upon supernatural facts, too subtle to be fully appreciated except through personal experience."

"May I ask how you satisfied yourself?" asked Amelia with the faintest shade of contempt in her voice. She was feeling "out of sorts," and controversy suited the mood of the moment better than ordinary conversation.

Mary renewed the gold thread in her needle and the patience in her soul, and then answered, "By reading the lives of the saints, and especially of holy penitents. I became satisfied that even if ordinary souls are controlled by circumstances, (though even that point I did not concede,) the development of the saints has often been not only independent of circumstances, but inconsistent with them. Women, enslaved by vanity or passion, breaking through every bond and trampling on temptation to embrace a life of penance at which flesh trembles! Men, enthralled by false philosophy, becoming little children in faith and simplicity! I knew that this could not be the result of circumstances. Then carrying the investigation into my own moral experience, I found that even I could be noble under the same circumstances where I had been petty. I do not attempt to speak philosophically. I argue from practical facts."

"If I placed much faith in the lives of saints, perhaps we might think alike," answered Amelia; "but most of them are quite mythical, no doubt."

"The lives of St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and many more are as well authenticated as the Norman conquest," Mary said; "and those whose[742] careers are most mysterious experienced nothing which is incomprehensible to any one who studies interior life, and knows the capacities of his own soul for receiving supernatural graces."

"The capacities of my soul are extremely limited, I think," replied Lady Sackvil. "Like you, I found my impressions on practical facts, not on metaphysics; so that our argument is at an end, I suppose."

"Apparently," said Mary good-humoredly. "I've not heard the piano lately. Why is that?"

"I am tired to death of playing," said Lady Sackvil; "at times it is an unutterable bore. For a composer it is, of course, different. The exercise of the creative faculty must be simply rapture; but mere interpretation palls frightfully at times."

"Very seldom. I am familiar with the whole range of musical literature. Don't look at me as if I were a wonder. It's no great thing for a well-trained musician to say. Musical literature, as compared with the world of books, is very limited. The present age is idle and unproductive; and so there come times when I shut the piano and feel that my 'occupation's gone.'"

She rose, and going gently to the cradle, knelt down beside it to watch the sleeping child. A tenderness came over her face, before so full of weariness and pain.

"I would have been a different woman if I had been a mother," she said, looking up at Mary with tears in her eyes. "Love of children and vanity are the only traits I have," she added, smiling sadly.

Mary made no answer, but looked at the tossed, selfish, whimsical being before her with an interest she had not felt hitherto.

"Isn't it heavenly sweet to have a child?" asked Amelia; "to hold that creature close to you, and feel that it is your own as your heart is your own?"

"Yes, it is heavenly sweet," answered Mary, bending over the baby, who just then opened her violet eyes. The mother took the little creature into her arms and kissed her softly. "It is heavenly sweet," she repeated.

Lady Sackvil drew down her veil and rose to go. "Good-by," she said huskily. "Don't think that I usually make such eccentric morning calls." And was gone before Mary could ring for a servant to open the door.

CHURCH MUSIC.

We have one question to ask of such of our readers who have taken the trouble to read our former articles on the subject of church music. Is it not a false tradition that the music in our churches exhibits the character of a musical concert performed during Mass, or replacing the office of Vespers? One thing is certain—it is a Protestant tradition, an Anglo-Saxon Protestant tradition. Although we owe the "classical masses" chiefly to German and Italian composers, the style of the performance, the matériel of the choir, and the choir-gallery are the offspring of the "chapel" and the "conventicle." It has doubtless been observed that we have been arguing for a twofold reform in this matter: firstly, in the music, and secondly, in its performance. We use the word reform in its proper sense, and desire by our remarks to call our brethren back to the old paths of the Holy Church, not to introduce some new fashion in doctrine or devotion. We would renovate, not innovate. We have been too long deprived of that spiritual food which is so abundantly supplied by the sacred offices of the Church. Protestantism has given us nothing but husks to eat, and we confess to being hungry. By the defection of England and the greater part of Germany, we were robbed of our holy sanctuaries, and in our poverty have been forced to content ourselves with buildings to which, indeed, we give the name of churches, but which are nothing better than convenient shelters for an altar crowded to its very steps by the people. The new-fangled doctrine drove out our monks, and perverted the devout clerics who once filled the stalls of real choirs, and whose duty and glory it was to sing the divine office. When the novel worship that replaced the Holy Sacrifice built new tabernacles for its meagre and unmeaning rites, it invented the singing-gallery and the modern choir, all-sufficing, we acknowledge, for the Anglican "common prayer," and "worship" after the Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and other such modes, but wholly out of place in a Catholic church, and totally inadequate for the holy offices of our religion.

Surely there is no one who will not heartily agree with us that we need a thorough reform, in this respect, in our church architecture. We build chapels, but not churches. The place for the altar is in the Choir, an inclosure specially set apart for the sacred ministers and the singers, who at the public functions form one officiating body. We have followed the example of Protestants, and made use of the pencil of the Protestant architect; and the result is, that if the gates of hell ever incited another "glorious reformation," like that of the sixteenth century, the new reformers would have the advantage over the first in finding churches not only ready made, but admirably adapted to their requirements, the change of altar into pulpit, should the new doctrine need such an appurtenance in its meeting-houses, being a matter of small expense. They would not be put to their wits to know what to do with our choirs "of mysterious depth," as of yore, but would find an appropriate[744] gallery for their hired singers, already fitted up, with its abominable rood-screen of green curtains over the doorways. We have heard our holy rites and ceremonies nicknamed as the "rags of popery." What has Protestantism done but to rend the "rags" into tatters?

Nor are we ready to admit the poverty of our resources as a full justification of our imitation of Protestant service in the style of our sacred music and its performance. Throughout the continent of Europe, where Protestant influences have not been at work, there are countless country churches of small size, but not one is without its sanctuary choir; and the people would as soon think of putting their robed priests into dress-coat and pantaloons as of banishing their surpliced chanters from the sanctuary, and erecting a choir-gallery behind their backs. We bring no railing accusation. We deprecate that style of argument which is successful only in provoking opposition; but are endeavoring, with no end in view save the glory of God and the honor of religion, to put in a plain light the causes of our departure from the common authorized usages of the church; usages to which the want of conformity will always be the measure of the loss of faith and devotion.

Our controversialists have been arguing against the false doctrines of Protestantism, and have done their work in a masterly and effective manner. If ever there was a dead doctrine awaiting burial, it is Protestantism. Now let us turn our attention to its false traditions, possessing more vitality because they have obtained a sort of parasitical subsistence through our partial admission of their encroachments. We mean that the "choir-gallery" is, both in its entity and object, a parasite of Protestant tradition clinging to our holy temples, disfiguring their fair proportions and spiritually cramping the growth of liturgical devotion, destroying its charm, and stifling its inspirations.

We propose to get rid of this piece of uncatholic tradition; to locate the singers in the place prescribed by the ritual, and abolish the musical concert. We desire to see the distinct decrees of the Church carried out to the letter, which require the divine office to be sung, as well as the Mass to be said, in the sanctuary, before the people, and not behind them. We have already alluded to the efforts made in England to bring this matter into perfect conformity with the ritual. His Grace the Archbishop of Westminster has forbidden any new church to be opened unless there is provision made for a sanctuary choir; and the cardinal vicar, in his instruction of November 18th, 1856, after administering a severe reprimand for the want of observance of regulations made in former instructions, prescribes, among other things, that galleries for singers shall not be placed over the doors of churches. Evidently the good cardinal has not only studied rubrics, but the science of acoustics as well. An elevated gallery near the ceiling is a wretched place for singers, and not much better for an organ. Ask any organ-builder whether he would not much prefer placing his instrument on the floor of the church, to hiding it away in some loft or second-story alcove in a tower. The impropriety is so glaring, and the arrangement is at once so incongruous and unartistic, that we deem further discussion on this point useless. The able writer in The Dublin Review, whom we have already quoted, very pertinently remarks:

Have we any objections to urge against coming into harmony with ecclesiastical tradition and practice in this matter? A friend at our side urges one, doubtless in the mind of many of our readers: Then you would banish all female voices from our choirs?

We will allow a much better authority than ourselves to answer for us. The following extract is from a decree of the Provincial Synod of Holland, held at Utrecht, and highly commended by the Holy Father:

The argument of the very reverend canon, to which his grace alludes, contains much that would interest our readers, but our space does not permit us to give it entire. We cannot refrain, however, from making a short quotation:

It will be observed that our judgment about the influences of Protestant tradition upon our church music has not been made unadvisedly.

In Germany, female singers were introduced into the churches for no better reason, that we can discover, than to exhibit the musical talent of its great masters. These compositions were not written to supply any want for such music felt in the churches, but at the instance and under the patronage of nobles and princes, who vied with each other in giving grand sacred musical feasts in their private chapels, as gourmands pride themselves on giving costly and recherché dinners to show off the science of their chef de cuisine. If we imagine that these musical masses were gotten up to excite greater devotion in the gay and worldly courtiers, we are much mistaken. It was, in fact, a nice little bit of cheap luxury, it being less expensive to keep a private chapel and entertain a private chaplain, than to support an opera-house with its company of artists, scene-shifters, and hangers-on.

Composers themselves have sought to obtain at least a general permission for the singing of their masses from the ecclesiastical authorities, but have invariably been met with a polite expression of regret that such application had been presented, as it was entirely out of the power, etc., etc. Rossini petitioned the present pope for permission to include females in church choirs, but of course without success. The report of his own funeral obsequies shows that more thought was given to enjoy a rare musical entertainment than to pray for his soul:

If we might venture to offer a word in justification of the wisdom of the Church in thus wholly excluding women from the ritual offices of religion, we would say that she "knows what is in man;" she perfectly well understands all the effects of exterior influences upon the human mind and heart; that the female voice, when highly cultivated or sweet-toned, is alluring and sensual, (we do not mean in a bad sense,) and when naturally poor or passé, is equally repelling and disagreeable. The first cannot be said of the voices of men; nor the second, unless it be in attempts to execute music beyond their compass, or when they distort its sense or expression by vanity or affectation.

Having made up our minds to tear down our Protestant singing-gallery, and to make use only of male voices in the singing of Mass and Vespers, we shall not fear for the decision of the question, What kind of music is to be selected? The Gregorian chant, that "grave, sweet, majestic, intellectual music of the Church," will defy all competition. When half the labor and expense has been bestowed upon the true music of the sanctuary as is now lavished on our florid concert music, then will be said to-day what Pope Benedict XIV. said so long ago, "The titillation of figured music is held very cheaply by men of religious mind, in comparison with the sweetness of the church chant."

But the other question, and a very practical one, yet remains: How shall we procure and hold proper singers for such music as is proposed, and for such a place as the sacred inclosure about the altar? We answer, in the first place, we have already some men singers with voices of good compass and power, who at present sing up-stairs beside the organ.

"What!" exclaims the friend at our elbow; "bring our present choir down into the sanctuary? How many priests, do you think, would do that?"

We reply to him, that, if the present choir-singers are fit and proper persons to be associated with the sacred ministers in the celebration of the divine mysteries, they are just as worthy at one end of the church as at the other; and if they are unworthy for any reason, they ought not to be allowed to take that part, or exercise that office of dignity in any nook or corner of our sacred temples. This capital point, the personal worthiness as well as the vocal capabilities of our choir-singers, has, it must be confessed, not been so rigidly insisted on in general as it might have been. Nothing appears to our minds more shockingly incongruous than a mixed chorus of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews singing the Credo. We remember hearing a fine Tantum Ergo sung as a solo at benediction by a Jewess. Think of it, a Jewess singing,

and, in the presence of what she believed[748] to be only a piece of bread, adding,

We like the language of the Bishop of Langres. In a late pastoral on this subject, he says,

If we adhered to the character of the music desired by the Church, we should never be obliged to look elsewhere than to Catholics—to those who will sing from the heart as well as with the lips—for worthy auxiliaries of the priest in this devout and sacred office.

This leads us to consider the selection and the training of competent and worthy singers. We are aware that the destruction of the Protestant singing-gallery, the restoration of the choir, and adoption of the Gregorian music is not so simple a matter of choice with the pastors of churches that it can be effected at once by an order issued to the organist, and the provision of cassocks and surplices for as many men as can be paid to wear them and sing the music which befits such clerically-habited chanters. Such singers as we ought to have for our holy offices are not to be had to-morrow, even for money. Nor, even supposing such worthy persons, possessing proper vocal acquirements, were to be had by paying for them, would they be able to sing our sacred music in a style that would be even tolerable. Gregorian chant is not easy of execution, as some imagine. It needs not only good vocal culture to render its musical phrases with precision, but also no small amount of intellectual and moral training to give its true expression.

We say, good vocal culture. By which we must not be understood to mean that finished vocalization which distinguishes the professional opera-singer, or those few amateurs whose voices of natural sweetness and power have received first-class cultivation. All Gregorian music is included within an octave and a half, with rare exceptions. Great compass is therefore not required. The first requisite is the ability to modulate the different phrases with distinctness and facility. There are few men or boys who could not be taught in a short time to acquire this primary qualification of the choir-singer. On this head there is little or no difficulty. But as every one who can read English is not able to give a proper reading of Shakespeare, so not every one who can sing the gamut or its intervals is able to sing the phrases of Gregorian chant. The reader of Shakespeare needs practice in tone, in inflection, in the art of speaking with sublimity, with pathos, with joy, etc. Then he must study the works of the great poet, must master his style, and with much painstaking and oft-repeated rehearsals learn to imitate the various characters, their mode of behavior, and peculiarity of utterance. The holy melodies of the Church possess an admirable variety of religious expression, and share with all her rites and ceremonies in that sacred dramatic form which clothes them with such remarkable spiritual power and beauty.[749] It is plain, therefore, that the singer must not only understand what he is singing, but must make a study of the different phrases, in order to discover their true expression.

But besides all this intellectual attention to and appreciation of the chant, the slightest reflection will show one that a certain degree of moral training is equally requisite. The capital point always to be kept in mind is that the music of the Church is her divine prayer. The devout soul, though endowed with a voice of only medium capacity, will render these prayerful melodies with far greater effect than a first-class artist who sings only from the lips, while his heart remains unmoved by the words and the song. We are all conscious of the different effect produced upon us by the chanting of the Preface and the Pater by different priests. As a few simple words preached to us by a priest of an interior and devout life will go deeper into our souls, and bring forth greater spiritual fruit, than the most brilliant oratory from one of less religious mind, so a devout singer will give to his song a nameless charm, and edify those who listen to him far more than one who is his superior in musical attainments, but inferior to him in piety. It is Father Lallemant, we think, who said, "An interior man will make more impression on hearts by a single word animated by the Spirit of God, than another by a whole discourse which has cost him much labor, and in which he has exhausted all his powers of reasoning."

Our argument, therefore, for the restoration of the church music, and the banishment of concert music, implies the restoration, as well, of the church singer, and the close of our engagement with the concert artists, or the more wretched substitute of concert amateurs. We are sure that in every congregation in this country it would be possible to find a sufficient number of men and boys, possessing all the necessary qualifications, intellectual, moral, and vocal, for the decent and edifying singing of the church offices, who might be prepared after a few weeks' instruction for the duties of the chorister. We may be permitted to add, that our opinion is not mere theory, but based upon the observation and experience of many years in the practical duties of the ministry, during which the direction of the music has generally fallen to our care. If we are not able to refer our readers to a practical illustration of what we assert, it is simply because we also, as we said before, have been straitened and hampered by this incubus of Protestant tradition. Until we can get rid of this, we can do nothing. Until the people, at present profoundly ignorant on this head, learn what constitutes a Catholic choir and where it ought to be located in the church, we shall never be able to get any thing but concert music. They must learn that the present order of things prevalent among us is abnormal, unrecognized by the ritual, and quite as foreign to the Catholic standard as would be the preaching of a priest from the pulpit in a citizen's dress. We may be obedient to the strict law of the Church which forbids female singers in choir, and find a sufficient number of men and boys to take their places, who will scramble into the organ-gallery, and, under cover of the curtains, talk, laugh, chew tobacco, eat candy, draw caricatures on the walls and on the covers of the singing-books, and sit with crossed legs and chairs tilted backward even during the elevation and benediction—all this we will get as of old; but, until the gallery comes down, until the singers are properly vested, and marched with proper ecclesiastical[750] decorum into the sanctuary, or to such a place as near to it as the present inconvenient arrangement of our modern churches will permit, we shall never get a church choir.

This is our first point: let us have male singers who will understand from the dress and deportment they assume, for the time being, as well as from the position they occupy in the church, that their office as a church singer is a sacred one, of high character, and worthy of special respect as being associated officially with the priestly celebrations at the altar. No sooner shall we have succeeded in teaching the people this true Catholic tradition, than our youth will at once look upon the function of choir-singer as an enviable position, and the effort to make themselves worthy to be thus associated with the clergy in the divine offices will necessarily do much toward elevating their moral tone, and inspiring a devout Catholic spirit. We shall, very probably, not obtain all we desire at a first trial. Many of those whom we may select will likely disappoint us. This is in the nature of things. It is not every one who is selected as a student for the priesthood that proves to have a vocation. For ourselves, we apprehend little difficulty if our own purpose be well determined, and we give to the whole subject of church music a little serious study and reflection.

As to the source from which our churches are to obtain a regular supply of choristers, we frankly speak our mind, and say that the Catholic choir system would appear to involve necessarily the formation of what is known in France as the maitrise, or choir-school, in which are admitted boys of good moral character possessing sufficient vocal capability, and of a grade of intelligence to render it worth while to bestow upon them a more refined education than they might obtain in the ordinary school. This special education given in the choir-school tends not only to improve and elevate the character of the boys, but fits them as well to attain a better position in life than they could have hoped for without it. But this is a subject we can afford to defer to future consideration.

Supposing that we have come to the determination to conform our church music at once to the true standard, how shall we procure the necessary choristers? Let us see what we need. For large churches, or what are large churches to us, there should be at least four trained voices of men—two tenors and two baritones; and not less than twelve boys. These, equally divided on either side of the sanctuary, would make a better double chorus than might at first be supposed. The boys can be had for the asking; but the four men will not easily be obtained without a reasonable salary. The advertisement for them should, of course, conclude with the warning, "None but practical Catholics need apply." We do not propose to put the cassock and surplice upon persons whose very appearance in that garb would disedify the people.

For this choir we need a competent teacher. Advertise for him, and it is not unlikely we shall find such a one, or one who will quickly fit himself for that office, in one of the four hired singers. We do not hesitate to say that, even in this great city of New York, there are at present very few music teachers who are fully competent to teach the proper method of chanting the Vesper psalms alone, not to speak of those other important portions of the divine offices whose expression is more difficult to render. But there is no want that is not quickly met with the supply. If we want such a teacher, and are willing[751] to pay him, then the subject of the church chant will at once engage the attention and study of professors of music whose business it is to teach. At this moment it is generally understood (and not without reason) by all organists and directors of choirs that our Catholic churches need performers and teachers who can come recommended as well versed in "the masses," as they are called.

As a consequence, these gentlemen devote all their energies to the study and practice of such compositions, and to the science of directing a mixed chorus. We do the musical profession the justice of believing its taste to be quite at variance with the taste of the public it serves; and, although we are prepared to see our choir-director shrug his shoulders and return us a wondering look when we propose our reformation to him, still, when we shall have given him to understand that we ourselves know what we want, and are prepared to count the cost, we feel assured that he will readily come into our views, and enter upon this new field of musical culture with more zest than he has hitherto shown in the conduct of music, for the most part, despicable even in his own eyes. We will engage him to produce church music in first-class church style. We will aid him by causing an organ of sufficient size to be erected near the choristers in the vicinity of the sanctuary. Should he crave for a larger chorus, we will seek out a number of young men, from eighteen to twenty-five years of age, whom we have in our eye, whose interest will not fail of being excited in this subject to which we give our pastoral solicitude, and whose social and moral character we feel assured will be benefited by being associated with our regular choir as volunteers. If we might be permitted the use of an expressive vulgarism, we would say that our young men, as a class, are "spoiling" for some church work. How many would not feel both honored and gratified by an invitation to labor with us in renovating and restoring the grand offices of the Church to their pristine order and sublime harmony! We manage to associate together a few of our young men in various confraternities and associations, and drive a few more into the ranks of the society of St. Vincent de Paul; but the greater number, upon whom depend the future esprit of our church in this country, and upon whose attachment to all that concerns the dignity and devout character of our religious services hang the fortunes of our faith, are left unnoticed and unemployed. We propose this subject of the reformation of church music to them as a labor of love and true Catholic devotion, worthy of their hearty coöperation, and tending to their own intellectual refinement and moral elevation. We are not wholly unacquainted with the souls of this class of our brethren in the faith, and will answer for the response that will be made to our sentiments by any Catholic young man whose eye may chance to fall on these lines.

Now as to the matter of proper church music-books. Speaking as one who has been made wise through suffering, we rejoice at the prospect of seeing all our "Catholic choir-books," "Morning and Evening services," and such trash, bundled up and sent to the paper-makers. We are at liberty to state that, while the present Œcumenical Council may allude only incidentally to the subject of church music, by confirming the ancient canons made in regard to it, the Congregation of Rites is already preparing an authorized version of the Roman Gradual and Vesperal, and that his Holiness will issue a brief in[752] which he will strongly exhort all the bishops to adopt it. As soon as this desire of the head of the Church shall have been brought home to us in the proper way, those whose hands are waiting direction will lose no time in preparing an edition of this work in musical notation, and harmonized for the use of organists, an imperative need for the great majority of our players and singers, to whom the learning of the plain chant scale and clefs would be a labor equal to that of acquiring the knowledge of a foreign language. Our choir-boys, and the generation of choristers who shall succeed them, can be taught the plain chant notation from the first, and will find it much simpler, and more expressive in typography, than the modern musical scale, with its varied keys in flats and sharps.

A word as to the comparative cost of the authorized church music and the concert music which now replaces it. It will be seen that we have advised the engagement of four professional singers, and the services of a special teacher both for them and the chorus of boys. This teacher, in most cases, would be one of the four salaried choristers or the organist. It will be seen at once, by those interested, that even in the beginning we shall not be put to any greater expense than we are already at for our music. In the matter of music-books there will be an immense saving for those churches which possess a large chorus. We ourselves own a musical library which has cost us several thousands of dollars; and to tell the honest truth, not one half of it is of the least practical use even with the present liberty we enjoy (?) of singing what we please. A set of Graduals and Vesperals, with a suitably harmonized version for the use of the organist, will suffice under our new and better régime.

We cannot close this portion of our remarks without calling attention to the great boon which this wholesome musical reform will prove to country churches. In our large cities, we have been able to perform in our churches music which is a tolerable imitation of the same style of harmony as given at the opera and on the boards of the concert-hall to paying audiences. As a rule, we have not charged any price of admission to our ecclesiastical concert offices, and our second-rate performances have therefore been justly treated with great leniency by the critics. But as you leave the city and enter churches in our small towns and country villages, you hear an imitation of the city fashion which is no longer tolerable. One must have advanced far into the spiritual ways of devout contemplation to endure the horrible cacophony without suffering indescribable tortures of soul. Then again, there are numberless village churches where never a sound of music, profane or religious, is heard. Yet, if these muse-abandoned people were disabused of their ignorant belief that our popular florid music is the only music possible or fit for the Catholic Church, and learned that, even if too poor to purchase an organ, they could have with a little study and practice all the music for the divine offices executed in a devout and decent style, it would not be long until the invariable low Mass on all Sundays and festivals, and the recitation of the Rosary in lieu of Vespers, would be a rare exception, instead of being, as it is now, not far from the rule. As an example, we confess extraordinary, of the gross ignorance of our country people concerning church music, we remember being told by a Catholic woman who had never been out of her own little village, that one reason why she was certain of the falsehood[753] of the Protestant religion was because they had music and singing in their churches!

We do not expect to see our suggestions or opinions accepted without question or criticism. We are fully aware that we have been arguing in the face of inexperience and deep-seated prejudice. We console ourselves, however, with the thought that what we have decried as abnormal, irregular, and inadequate for the music of the Church, is in itself so inconsistent, incomplete, and disordered, that it does not deserve even the name of a system. Based upon a false principle, the amusement of an audience, it will ever fail of recognition or encouragement at the hands of the holy Church, whose sole object proposed in all her divine functions is prayer. The faithful come to church to pray. A church ought by its very form and interior dispositions surround the worshippers with an atmosphere of prayer. It ought to feel like a holy place; and nothing about it should smack of the theatre, or the halls of assembly for secular purposes. All that is presented to the gaze of the faithful in these sanctuaries of God, whether it be the ceremonies associated with the Holy Sacrifice and other offices, or the statues, pictures, and decorations which meet the eye, ought to be of such a character as to excite the spirit of prayer. All this we understand full well. Why, then, are we so dull of hearing that we cannot also distinguish the accents of prayer from the sounds which speak of war, of love, of the dance, of jocularity, and, for those who have ears to hear, of the grossest sensuality? Let us disabuse ourselves of the notion that our people wish to hear what is popularly styled "fine music" in church. It is a very great mistake. They not only frequent the church services in the special intention to pass the time there in prayer, but also heartily desire to have their weary, world-tossed souls helped by decorously performed ceremonies, by good, earnest preaching, and by devout, prayerful music, in awakening in their hearts true religious emotion and thoughts of heavenly things.

This is our sole plea for reform in our music, it being, without doubt, also the "mind" of the Church. She is in no sense opposed to secular music, any more than she is to secular painting, sculpture, and architecture, unless they be debased and made to minister to base passions. She who sanctifies all that is true and noble in human nature is far from discouraging or condemning the legitimate expression of those arts which can exert so much power in the instruction, elevation, and refinement of the intellect and heart. But none so wise as she to detect their weakness, and warn society against the moral evils which result from their prostitution to the service of the devil. One of the destructive faults justly charged against modern art, and notably of music, is its misapplication. A want of harmony in the relation of an art to the nature and object of the thing to be expressed or illustrated by it, is the signal for its own enervation and the corruption of what it should purify and strengthen; which is the teaching alike of philosophy and experience.

"A tale out of time," says the wise man, "is like music in mourning;" and the converse of the proverb, is equally true—

Whence our conclusion. In the house of God, whose "house shall be called the house of prayer," no other song must be heard but the song of prayer, that melody consecrated to all[754] that we have that is highest and holiest, which lifts the soul above the frivolities and sensualities of this world and of time, and transports it in spirit into the regions of the heavenly, and before the throne of the majesty of the Eternal.

THE IRON MASK.

This subject, so inexhaustible, so interesting on account of the unfathomable mystery that surrounds it, has again been brought to our notice by some recent discoveries. Whether they amount to any thing or not, remains to be seen; but they are at least singular, and may stimulate the curiosity of the erudite, and even that of simple amateurs.

A young writer, M. Maurice Topin, so says a contemporary French paper, who has obtained a prize of six hundred dollars from the French Academy for his beautiful book, entitled, L'Europe et les Bourbons sous Louis XIV., has been diving into old papers among the public archives, and says he has at last found out the true name of the unfortunate prisoner of the Iron Mask.

Following the advice of his uncle, M. Mignet, he has addressed a letter to the President of the Academy of Moral and Political Science, in which he incloses his secret—sealed, however—and says it must not be unsealed without his order.

So some day soon, perhaps, we shall solve the enigma that has perplexed the world for over two centuries.

A monk has lately died, too, somewhere in a French monastery, leaving papers testifying that he was the true Iron Mask. Some say he was deranged. Perhaps so; and perhaps we would rather such might have been the case. A real bona fide, two-hundred-year-old mystery must not succumb to this practical age of would-be common sense. We could never find such another, so we must content ourselves with reviving old facts and eliciting further researches.

He who was called, under the reign of Louis XIV., The Man with the Iron Mask, was not permitted to wear so pretty a covering as that which preserved the complexion of the Empress Poppée; and the painters who have represented him with a sort of lowered visor, a rampart of iron on his face, have made a great mistake.

The unknown prisoner, to whom nobody approached, and nobody spoke, wore a mask of velvet.

The question is not decided upon what he wore on his way from the Isle Ste. Marguerite to the Bastille. Some say his chin was inclosed in a network of steel, to permit him to eat, while the upper part of his face was concealed in the mask of iron.

He had been incarcerated a long time at Pignerol, the château of which had served for a prison of state, and since 1632 had belonged to France. The inhabitants still show a large dismantled tower that overlooks the town, and give the tradition concerning[755] the Iron Mask and Fouquet, who were here confined.

After the taking of the Bastille, indications of the Iron Mask were sought for among the registers of this place of detention; but the largest book of records was sadly torn, and the folio numbered one hundred and twenty, coinciding with the year 1698, the epoch of the incarceration of the prisoner, had been taken away.

Later, a leaf was discovered among the papers of a former governor, and here it is, as historians have given it to us:

The date of the entrance of the Iron Mask into the Bastille is preserved at present in the library of the arsenal; and we read:

Here let me state that Du Junca was not a surname given to the prisoner, but the name of the lieutenant of the king at the Bastille. The prisoner was called Marchiali.

The young historian who pretends to have discovered the true name of the Iron Mask has, without doubt, studied all the evidences up to the time of Voltaire, who also knew more than he was willing to impart.

He knew the story of the silver plate connected with the Isle Ste. Marguerite, whose governor was charged by Louis XIV. in person not to permit the prisoner to communicate with any one.

St. Mars waited on him himself, and took the dishes from the cooks at the door of the apartment, so that no one ever saw the face of the captive.

One day the Iron Mask threw a silver plate out of the window into the water-course beneath. A fisherman picked it up and brought it back to the governor.

"Have you read what is written on the bottom of this silver plate?" asked the governor.

This reply saved the poor man, who doubtless would have paid with his liberty, and even his life, for the possession of the terrible secret, if he had been sufficiently educated to have discovered it.

Another historian, the Abbé Papon, does not believe that the governor said to the fisherman, "Go; you are happy in not being able to read!" He states that, instead of a silver plate, the mysterious prisoner used a white shirt, covered from one end to the other with the written history of his life.

It is said that the Regent of Orleans left the secret of the name of the Iron Mask with his daughter. We give what he related to her, this authority being a pretended governor of the interesting captive. His account may be found in the archives of the English government:

Actors have for many years studied carefully the costume of The Man with the Iron Mask and he who played in the drama by this name, M. Lockroy, is still alive. He personated the prisoner, and was clothed in black velvet, with black stockings and buckled shoes. He wore the double mask of velvet with steel springs over his lips.

In this piece, that all Paris went to see, Chilly represented Louis XIII.; Delaistre, M. de St. Mars; and Ligier, who was afterward the Duke of Gloucester and the Louis XI. of Casimir Delavigne, took the part of the protector of the unfortunate recluse.

Again, under another name—The Prisoner of the Bastille—the same story has been dramatized, and fresh interest added by an imaginary conversation between the captive and Louis XIV.

It is easily seen that the most general opinion of the Iron Mask considered him the twin-brother of Louis XIV., kept out of the way for fear of future trouble and collision in the government of France.

Some authors affirm, too, that he must have been deformed, his face distorted, or with some physical infirmity that it was necessary to conceal.

Others have thought that the brother of Louis XIV., being born the last, was the elder by right, if the opinion of physicians and legislators is to be consulted; and that the tenderness inspired by the first born of the two brothers occasioned the act of ostracism, which history has sought in vain for a hundred years to elucidate.

In 1837, there appeared a remarkable dissertation on the Iron Mask, by M. Paul Lacroix. He says that he who bore the name of Marchiali during his lifetime was not the twin-brother[757] of Louis XIV., and not even a son born clandestinely of the queen, but the superintendent, Fouquet himself.

But the Iron Mask has in turn been believed to be Fouquet, Marchiali, Arwediks, and other people who disappeared about that time.

He, however, who was called Marchiali, and who entered the Bastille the 18th of September, 1698, died there suddenly the 19th of November, 1703.

The body and face were mutilated, and every thing composing his furniture was burned; even the doors and windows of his bedroom. The silver he used was melted. The walls of his apartment were scraped and re-whitened.

He was buried the 20th of November, 1703, in the Church of St. Paul, under the name of Marchiali.

Time has not given the answer to this lugubrious enigma, and we fear M. Maurice Topin has failed to solve it.

But let us give him his meed of praise for having consecrated his nights to seeking for documents, comparing dates, and confronting the evidence of the most celebrated writers on the subject.

Honor to the brave historian whom the night of time does not intimidate, and who is willing to grope among the shades of the past for what is hidden, and above all a secret of the state!

Among all the victims of the old régimes, The Man with the Iron Mask was the most interesting.

If he had lived until 1789, would it have been a pretender to the crown, or simply a suspected prisoner, that the people would have delivered?

ON A PICTURE OF NAZARETH.

THE GREEK SCHISM

The Eastern Church has for the Catholic an attraction which centuries of separation have not been able to overcome. We look on its glories as our own, and we deplore its misfortunes as of our own household. We have a common faith, the same sacraments, the same sacrifice, essentially the same devotional practices. Between us stands the barrier of a schism which has lasted for centuries. It is of this schism, its origin, its history, that we propose to treat in this article.

To understand clearly the causes that precipitated so large and flourishing a portion of the church into a deadly schism, it is necessary to consider the relations of the bishops of Constantinople to Rome and the other great patriarchal sees, from the time when Constantine the Great placed the capital of his empire on the shores of the Bosphorus. The Bishop of Byzantium was then a suffragan of the Metropolitan of Heraclea. But when, with the presence of the emperor, the splendor and the reality of the capital had been transferred to the new Rome, the bishops of Byzantium became very important personages. They were, in fact, the ordinary medium of communication between the emperor and the other prelates of the Eastern Church. Not content with the great influence naturally arising from their vicinity to the court, they desired a style and title suitable, as they thought, to the dignity of the city of their residence. The second general council (A.D. 381) gratified their wishes by a canon which decreed that the bishops of Constantinople, because it was the new Rome, should have precedence over all other prelates, after the Bishop of[759] Rome. But this council has been held to be general only in its dogmatic definitions, since, as St. Gregory the Great [177] says, "The Roman Church neither has received nor accepted of its decrees or acts, with the exception of its definitions against Macedonius." In point of fact, it was a local synod, neither convoked nor presided over by the holy see, and has been called œcumenical only on account of the subsequent approbation of its dogmatic decrees by the same supreme authority. Its canon about the dignity of the Bishop of Constantinople thus fell to the ground. Pope Boniface I. (A.D. 418-422) insisted on the observance of the order of dignity between the great sees established by the Council of Nice, according to which Alexandria held the second, and Antioch the third place. The same rule was adopted by Xystus III. and other pontiffs. However, the powerful prelates of the imperial city did not relinquish their ambitious views. The general council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) passed two canons, by which it permitted any cleric who felt himself aggrieved to appeal to the see of "the imperial city, Constantinople;" and besides, enacted the celebrated twenty-eighth canon in which the unfortunate principle that afterward led to schism was more openly avowed. Having cited the canon of the first council of Constantinople, it reaffirms it. "Since the fathers have justly granted privileges to the see of ancient Rome, because it was the imperial city, for the same reason the fathers of the second general council granted equal privileges to the episcopal throne of new Rome, rightly judging that the city which is honored by the imperial presence and the senate, and enjoys equal privileges with old Rome, should in ecclesiastical matters also be equally distinguished, retaining, however, the second place;" and then confers ecclesiastical jurisdiction on the Bishop of Constantinople over the dioceses in Pontus, Asia Minor, and Thrace, and those that might afterward be "erected among the barbarians." The fathers, however, petitioned St. Leo the Great for the approval of this regulation, alleging the good of religion as their motive. But that great pontiff promptly "annulled their action by the authority of St. Peter," as contrary to the canon of Nice, remarking at the same time that ecclesiastical questions were not regulated on the same plan as secular affairs, and that the Bishop of Constantinople ought to be satisfied with the imperial privileges of his city, without disturbing church discipline, and invading the long-acknowledged rights of others. The obnoxious canon is not to be found in the most ancient and best collections, though, in practice, the bishops of Constantinople always availed themselves of the privileges it attempted to grant them.

This uncanonical usurpation gave rise to a serious controversy toward the end of the century. Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople, relying on the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon, interfered in the election and consecration of the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch. He was also accused and convicted of favoring the Eutychian heretics. For these causes he was condemned and deposed by Pope Felix III. (A.D. 484.) The oriental bishops continued, however, to retain his name in the commemoration at mass, (sacris diptychis,) and the popes, on this account, refused to communicate with them, until the pontificate of Hormisdas, when they submitted to the holy see, erased the obnoxious name from the sacred records, and subscribed a formula of faith, in which they professed their[760] agreement with the synods of Ephesus and Chalcedon, condemned Acacius and others by name, acknowledged all the dogmatic epistles of St. Leo, and declared that in the apostolic see is to be found "the true and entire fulness of the Christian religion," and that those "who did not agree with the apostolic see were separated from the communion of the Catholic Church."

After this happy termination, with one exception, no serious difficulty on disciplinary questions occurred between the two sees until the time of Photius. Heresies, indeed, arose in the Eastern Church; but both parties appealed to Rome, and the Catholic prelates and people always accepted her judgment as final. The exception to which we allude occurred under the pontificate of Pelagius II. and St. Gregory the Great, and affords a striking instance of the different spirit that animated old and new Rome. In the year of our Lord 583, John, surnamed The Faster, was called to the see of Constantinople. Gregory, patriarch of Antioch, being accused of grave crimes, the Bishop of Constantinople convoked a synod of the whole east, and in his letters of convocation assumed the title of œcumenical, or universal, patriarch. Pope Pelagius II. promptly condemned both the usurpation of jurisdiction over the see of Antioch and the newly-assumed title, especially as John pretended to convoke a general council, thus trenching upon the rights of the apostolic see. The controversy continued under St. Gregory the Great, who exhorted the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch to resist this invasion of the rightful dignity of their sees. He refused for himself the high-sounding title, though it had been given to his predecessors by the great council of Chalcedon, choosing the humbler designation of servant of the servants of God, which has ever since been used by the Roman pontiffs in their official documents. Cyriacus, the immediate successor of The Faster, continued to claim the obnoxious title, until he was prohibited to do so by the Emperor Phocas. But, as all Phocas's decrees were annulled by Heraclius, the bishops of Constantinople resumed the offensive usage. It is to be remarked, however, that they always gave an explanation of the title, which showed that they did not intend to infringe on the primatial rights of the Roman see. They disclaimed any really universal jurisdiction, claiming, at most, authority over the whole east. Insufficient as such an explanation was justly held to be by the popes, it shows that even the ambitious prelates of Constantinople, greedy as they were of high titles and extended jurisdiction, never, in the early ages, dared to place themselves on an equality with the bishops of old Rome, the successors of St. Peter in the government of the universal church.

From these facts, it is also evident that the real cause of dissensions between Rome and Constantinople was not, as alleged by Protestant historians, following the lead of Mosheim, the ambition of the pontiffs of Rome, who were striving for mastery over the whole church, while the bishops of Constantinople were contending for the rightful independence of the eastern portion thereof. The supremacy of the Roman see was recognized by every general council before the election of Photius, and all of them were held in the east, composed of eastern bishops, and guided by eastern ideas and influence. The very canons which attempted to give high dignity to Constantinople, acknowledged the primacy of Rome, and asked only the second place for the capital of the eastern empire[761] while that of Chalcedon was formally submitted to St. Leo, and his approbation asked for it. When the most illustrious prelate that ever governed New Rome, St. John Chrysostom, was unjustly treated, he appealed as a matter of right to Pope Innocent I., and his appeal was sustained. When heresy arose in the east, the orthodox bishops of Constantinople always submitted to the judgment of the holy see, and sat in councils over which its legates presided. The history of the Nestorian, Eutychian, Monothelite, and Iconoclast heresies affords the most indubitable proofs that the Eastern Church, including that of Constantinople, always admitted the supreme teaching and governing authority of the see of St. Peter.

At the same time, it is plain that a spirit was growing up which a bold, ambitious man might easily use to divide the unity of the church. The second general council affirmed a fatal principle when it wished to give Constantinople the second place among the great sees, because it was the new Rome. This principle was more fully and offensively developed in the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon. It appeared to imply that the secular dignity of Rome was the cause of its ecclesiastical primacy, which should, consequently, follow the imperial court. Not, indeed, that the fathers of either council would have admitted such a consequence. They recognized the divinely established primacy of the Roman see; but they wished to gratify the emperor of the day, and to second the desires of the powerful prelates of the imperial city, to whom many of them were doubtless indebted for substantial favors. But, unwittingly, they planted the germ of schism, which at the appointed time produced its terrible fruit. This is the reason why the pontiffs always opposed the uncanonical pretensions of the prelates of Constantinople; they defended not their own, for they were not attacked, but the rights of the sees of Alexandria and Antioch, and jealously guarded against encroachments, which they saw too well were only the forerunners of greater and more fatal usurpations. The result, deplorable as it has been, only confirms the accuracy of their foresight, and justifies their honest, fearless, incorruptible resistance.

The responsibility of the fatal step to formal schism rests upon the celebrated Photius. In the year 857, St. Ignatius had been Patriarch of Constantinople for a little more than a decade. Of austere virtue and firm character, he detested vice, and feared not to denounce it even in high places. The then reigning emperor, Michael III., is compared by Gibbon to Nero and Heliogabalus. "Like Nero, he delighted in the amusements of the theatre, and sighed to be surpassed in the accomplishments in which he should have blushed to excel.... The most skilful charioteers obtained the first place in his confidence and esteem; their merit was profusely rewarded; the emperor feasted in their houses, and presented their children at the baptismal font; and, while he applauded his own popularity, he affected to blame the cold and stately reserve of his predecessors." After saying that he was intemperate, licentious, and sanguinary, the historian adds: "But the most extraordinary feature in the character of Michael is the profane mockery of the religion of his country.... A buffoon of the court was invested in the robes of the patriarch; his twelve metropolitans, among whom the emperor was ranked, assumed their ecclesiastical garments; they used or abused the sacred vessels of the altar; and, in their bacchanalian feasts,[762] the holy communion was administered in a nauseous compound of vinegar and mustard. Nor were these impious spectacles concealed from the city. On the day of a solemn festival, the emperor, with his bishops or buffoons, rode on asses through the streets, encountered the true patriarch at the head of his clergy, and, by their licentious shouts and obscene gestures, disordered the gravity of the Christian procession." While this promising youth was thus enjoying himself with sumptuous banquets, fast horses, and degrading shows, his uncle, the Cæsar Bardas, was the real emperor. He, too, though a man of talents and application to business, was of depraved morals, and was at length excommunicated by St. Ignatius, because he had dismissed his wife, and attempted to marry his own daughter-in-law. From that moment the licentious Cæsar determined on the ruin of the patriarch. Toward the end of the year 857, the holy man was sent into exile and imprisoned in a monastery, where he positively refused to resign his episcopal dignity. A synod of bishops was held, who, through either fear or favor, deposed Ignatius, and elected Photius in his stead.[178]

If unhallowed ambition had not induced Photius to usurp high ecclesiastical dignity, his abilities, industry, learning, and hitherto blameless life might have obtained for him one of the most honorable places in the history of the Byzantine empire. But from the day when, disregarding all idea of right and of canonical restrictions, he forced himself into the sanctuary, his whole career was one of chicanery, fraud, injustice, and finally open schism. Even had the see of Constantinople been vacant, his election was null, because he was a layman, and it was strictly prohibited by the canons to elect laymen to the episcopal dignity. He himself reënacted these very canons, thereby practically condemning his own election. He held a high position in the imperial court, was captain of the guards, and principal secretary of the emperor, and his energy and acknowledged abilities might have obtained for him still higher honors. But he was dazzled by the splendor of the patriarchal throne, and ascended it by an irregular ordination. Within six days he received all the orders of the church, being consecrated bishop on Christmas day, A.D. 857. This hasty conferring of sacred orders was also against the canons. His consecrator was Gregory, Bishop of Syracuse, who had been tried by St. Ignatius, found guilty of various grave crimes, and regularly deposed in a legitimate synod. It would be difficult to find an episcopal election and ordination marred by greater or more numerous irregularities.

Almost the first act of Photius was to recognize the primacy of the holy see. He sent legates to Pope Nicholas I., who were charged to inform the pontiff that Ignatius, worn out by age and disease, had voluntarily renounced the episcopal dignity, and retired to a monastery; and that Photius had been elected by all the metropolitans and the entire clergy, and forced by the emperor to accept the dignity; he also sent an orthodox profession of faith, hoping thus to deceive the pontiff. The emperor, too, sent his representative with a letter requesting the pope to send legates to Constantinople to restore discipline, and finally root out the Iconoclasts. But St. Nicholas was too clear-sighted to be caught by the wiles of the crafty Greek. He did, indeed, send legates; but charged them merely to examine into the case of Ignatius, report fully thereon to the apostolic see, and meanwhile to admit[763] Photius to only lay communion. His objections to the proceedings at Constantinople were, first, that the deposition of St. Ignatius was one of the greater causes, which could not be determined unless by the supreme judgment of the holy see; and, secondly, that, at all events, the election of Photius, he having been at the time a mere layman, was uncanonical, and his consecration irregular. On both points he was fully sustained by ancient canons admitted in the eastern as well as in the western church. But he did not give a final judgment; he merely ordered his legates to make thorough inquiry into the facts, and report thereon to himself.

They, however, proved unfaithful to their high trust. As soon as they arrived at their destination, they were kept in honorable imprisonment for the space of one hundred days, during which they were allowed to see no one but the friends of Photius. Influenced partly by threats, partly by gifts, they at last consented to favor the cause of the usurper. He then called together a synod, (A.D. 861,) at which the legates presided. Photius read what he called the letters of the pope, but which were really documents mutilated and interpolated by his crafty hand. St. Ignatius was then brought before the synod, clad in the garb of a monk. He refused to be judged by men all in the interest of Photius, declared that he appealed to the pope, and quoted in his favor the fourth canon of the Council of Sardica, which especially recognizes the right of such appeal, and the precedent of St. John Chrysostom. But appeals to justice and law are lost on a packed synod as well as on a packed jury. False witnesses were introduced, who swore that he had not been legitimately elected, but owed his elevation to intrusion by the secular power; and on this charge, true enough as against Photius, he was deposed. One prelate spoke in his behalf, Theodulus of Ancyra, who was immediately wounded by a ruffian, and thus enabled with his blood to give testimony to the right. The ceremony of degradation then ensued; the venerable patriarch was clothed with the insignia of his order and dignity, and one by one these were taken off him by a deposed subdeacon who, at each act, exclaimed aloud, Indignus, (unworthy,) a word reëchoed by all present, even the legates of the apostolic see. He was then thrown into the sepulchral vault of Constantine Copronymus, tormented there in a most terrible manner, nearly starved to death, till, after two weeks, when he was more dead than alive, a minion of Photius, seizing his hand, forced him to scratch a cross on a sheet of paper. Over this cross the usurper wrote a formal acknowledgment of the justice of the sentence of the synod, and sent it to the emperor as the voluntary act of his victim. One result of this fraud was the liberation of the holy man, leave having been accorded to him to retire to his mother's property; but as he had reason to fear more violence, he left Constantinople in disguise, and took refuge in the islands of the Propontis, where he succeeded in baffling the pursuit of his heartless and unscrupulous enemies.

Meanwhile, he sent a trustworthy messenger to Rome to inform the supreme pontiff of the terrible injustice and indignities to which he had been subjected in the presence and with the approval of the legates of the holy see. These worthies returned, and informed the pope that Ignatius had been canonically deposed and Photius canonically installed. Photius also wrote a letter remarkable[764] both for craftiness and elegance. It contained neither an offence against good style nor a word of truth. He regretted his elevation, deplored the burden imposed on his weak shoulders, expressed his desire to conform to the Roman discipline, and to govern with ecclesiastical firmness, and blended not unskilfully the arts of flattery and sophistry. But Nicholas was not to be deceived. He examined the acts of the false synod, found the fraud that had been committed, and, calling a council at Rome, restored Ignatius, deposed Photius, and one of the traitor legates, who publicly acknowledged his crime. As the other was absent, his case was put off until he could be heard in his defence. The pontiff wrote also to the emperor and Photius, announcing his action in the premises, addressing the latter merely as a layman. In a later synod, (A.D. 863,) having heard from the representative of St. Ignatius a full and well-authenticated account of all the iniquity of Photius, the pope deposed him from every grade of the sacred ministry, and interdicted him, under anathema, from which he was not to be absolved unless at the moment of death, from ever exercising any act of the same, or from in any way disturbing the legitimate patriarch, Ignatius. He also deposed all those who had been promoted by the usurper, as well as the second legate, who, by not appearing when cited, had added to his other crimes that of contumacy.

On hearing this news, Photius proceeded to the dire act of formal schism. He called a council, and formally excommunicated Pope Nicholas. Only one-and-twenty bishops followed him in his impious course. The rest cried out, "It is not just to pronounce sentence against the supreme and first pontiff, especially when it is an inferior who pronounces it." To support his action, he published a circular letter to the patriarchs and bishops of the East, in which he accused the Roman see and the Western Church of the following crimes: 1. that they abstained from flesh on Saturday; 2. that, during the first week of Lent, they used milk and cheese; 3. that the clergy in sacred orders observed celibacy; 4. that they reserved the right of conferring confirmation to bishops; 5. that, by a change in the symbol, they pretended that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Son as well as from the Father. No sensible reader but will smile at the first four charges; in relation to the fifth, we shall only observe here that, as first made by Photius, it did not allege a mere breach of discipline, it involved the crime of heresy. As thus proffered it cannot be, as it is not, now sustained by any orthodox Christian.

But the vices of the Emperor Michael brought upon him that punishment which has so often visited licentious sovereigns. A conspiracy was formed against him, and he was assassinated in his own palace, (A.D. 867.) The chief of the conspirators, Basil the Macedonian, ascended the vacant throne. No one can defend the crime of assassination; but the character of the new emperor has been painted in bright colors by the historian. Of course, Photius fell with his patron, and St. Ignatius was restored to his see. Both the emperor and patriarch hastened to notify St. Nicholas of this happy event. But that great and courageous pontiff had already been called to his reward. The messengers from Constantinople found Adrian II. in the chair of Peter. He congratulated them on the turn events had taken, and, in order fully to heal the schism of Photius, thought well to have a general council held at Constantinople. The emperor consented and made the necessary dispositions.[765] The council was opened in the church of St. Sophia, on Oct. 5th, 869, held ten sessions, and ended on the last day of February following. The legates of the pope, Donatus, Bishop of Ostia, Stephen, Bishop of Nepè, and Marinus, deacon of the Roman Church, presided. Their names and legatine authority are always mentioned first in the acts. A high place of honor was given to the emperor, as protector of the church. The action of the council was in entire conformity with the instruction of the pope to his legates. Ignatius was declared legitimate patriarch, and Photius for ever deposed from any clerical order. He was, however, offered lay communion, on condition that he should retract and condemn, in writing, all the iniquitous acts of his usurpation. Proper measures were taken to remedy the confusion created by his long intrusion, and a profession of faith was published, as well as twenty-seven disciplinary canons. Photius was invited to appear in person; but he refused, denying the competency of the synod to try him. To say the least, it was as competent to try him as the one he had called to try Ignatius. The acts of the synod were subsequently confirmed by Pope Adrian, and it has always been admitted as universal by the church.

Thus, for the seventh time in the history of the church had a general council been held in the East, composed of eastern bishops, presided over by the legates of the apostolic see. At the first audience given by the emperor to the legates of Adrian II., the former said, "In the name of God, we beg that the work be strenuously carried on, that the scandals caused by the wickedness of Photius be dispelled, so that the long-wished-for unity and tranquillity be restored according to the decree of the most holy Pope Nicholas." To which they made answer, "For this have we come hither; for this purpose have we been sent hither; but we cannot receive any one of your eastern bishops into our council unless we shall have received from them a writing, according to a formula which we have taken from the archives of the apostolic see." And in the first session their demands were complied with. So that at the very time when we are told by Protestant writers that Photius was fighting for the rightful independence of the see of Constantinople, the supremacy of the see of Rome was admitted in a general synod by every eastern bishop that was not a creature of Photius.

The attempted schism had thus been vigorously repressed, and Photius lived ten years in exile. But he succeeded in gaining the esteem and the favor of the monarch by an expedient which has often before and since met with the same reward. Basil was of ignoble descent; Photius made out a genealogy by which he showed the family of the emperor to be an offshoot of the Arsacides, "the rivals of Rome, who had possessed the sceptre of the east for four hundred years." The acknowledged erudition of the author lent probability to the forgery; the pride of the monarch was flattered, and his gratitude awakened. On the death of St. Ignatius, (A.D. 877,) Photius was recalled to the see of Constantinople, and the emperor immediately sent ambassadors to Rome, begging the pontiff to acquiesce in the election. He declared that Photius had seen the error of his ways, that his present elevation would restore peace to the church, and that all the bishops, even those who had adhered to Ignatius, petitioned for his confirmation. John VIII., who then occupied the Roman see, judged it expedient to gratify this universal desire. He required, however,[766] that Photius should in a public synod acknowledge the decrees of Popes Nicholas and Adrian, and the general council, beg pardon for the faults he had committed and the scandals he had given, be absolved from censure, and then, and not till then, be acknowledged as Bishop of Constantinople. He sent legates to execute this decree of mercy. But the pride of Photius would not brook submission, and he resorted to his old arts. Again the apostolic legates were corrupted or intimidated; again Photius mutilated the pope's letters; received in a numerous synod, from the legates themselves, the insignia of the patriarchal dignity; and without any opposition from them, if not with their consent, the eighth council was abrogated, and the acts of Popes Nicholas and Adrian condemned.

On their return to Rome, the legates, of course, reported that the injunctions of the pontiff had been strictly observed; but the pride of Photius betrayed them. In his letter he said he had fulfilled all the conditions save that of begging pardon, because he had done nothing to require pardon. This led John to an investigation which revealed to him how shamefully he had been disobeyed. He accordingly sent to Constantinople the same Marinus, who had been one of the legates to the general council, ordering him to rescind every thing that had been done against his mandate. This brave and intelligent man fully and faithfully performed his duty, and was imprisoned for thirty days; but as his constancy could not be overcome, he was allowed to return to Rome. Whereupon Pope John, "ascending the pulpit, taking the Gospel in his hands, in the hearing of the whole congregation, thus spake, 'Whoever doth not hold Photius condemned by the sentence of God, as the holy Popes Nicholas and Adrian, my predecessors, left him, let him be anathema.'" Photius, however, remained in possession as long as Basil lived. His son and successor, Leo the Philosopher, albeit educated by Photius, caused the sentence of the pontiffs to be executed. As the newly-elected prelate, Stephan, had been ordained deacon by Photius, a circumstance which rendered him irregular, a dispensation was prayed for from Rome. This was granted by Pope Formosus, with a saving clause that it should not be interpreted against the condemnation of Photius. Thus the schism was healed for a time. Photius died in a monastery, A.D. 891.

We have entered into these details to show on what grounds the origin of the Greek schism rests. It was not, we repeat it, a contest for supremacy. New Rome had never even claimed equality with the see of Peter. Its bishops had never asked but the second place. Could Photius have obtained the confirmation of his election from the pope, it is probable he never would have rushed into schism. It has been said that St. Nicholas was too harsh with him. But had the pontiff neglected to do justice to St. Ignatius, the very writers who now criticise him for severity, would have blamed him with culpable weakness. Indeed, John VIII. has met with such censure. But how did Photius repay his kindness? By fraud, by the grossest insult to his predecessors, and to an œcumenical council. It is useless to speak of the erudition of the usurper, or of his services to literature. These, great though they be, cannot palliate his crimes. The popes defended oppressed virtue and the canons of the church; Photius, having failed to deceive, seduce, or intimidate them, was driven to the desperate resort of schism. A sceptic like Gibbon may indeed scoff at the[767] whole dispute; but he who believes that Christ established a church and appointed a certain form of government, must shudder as he reads of the fatal action of one man, who, to gratify his unhallowed ambition, began a schism which has ended in the ruin of some of the fairest portions of Christendom. It is all very well in the nineteenth century to talk of independent national churches; the idea was unheard of in the ninth. Else why did Photius so persistently endeavor to obtain the confirmation of his election from the pope? His own action condemns him; the whole history of the Greek Church condemns him; and the modern Greeks, who are such sticklers for antiquity, stand equally condemned.

The question of jurisdiction over Bulgaria has been magnified by some writers into a cause of the schism. But the fact that Ignatius is revered as a saint by the church, though up to the time of his death he defended the supposed rights of his see in this regard, shows that, important though the controversy doubtless was, it could not have caused a separation. The popes would, at most, have contented themselves with protesting against the usurpation, as they had done in other cases. The ancient Illyricum, of which Bulgaria is a part, undoubtedly belonged to the Roman patriarchate. So did Achaia. Both were transferred to that of Constantinople by a decree of the Iconoclast emperor, Leo the Isaurian, in revenge for the condemnation of his heresy by the holy see. And these historical facts have been alleged by the schismatic bishops of modern Greece to justify their forming themselves into a national church, independent of the patriarch of Constantinople. Says one of their defenders, "An heretical emperor took away these dioceses from an orthodox pope to give them to a patriarch who was a heretic like himself."[179] The Bulgarian monarch sent, almost at the same time, ambassadors to the pope and to the Byzantine emperor, asking for missionaries to instruct himself and his people in the Christian faith. Those sent from Rome arrived first on the ground; but the secular influence of Constantinople was too great for them, and they were sent back. Of course, the popes protested against this outrage against—be it carefully observed—not their primatial, but their patriarchal rights; but there is no reason to suppose the controversy could have given rise to schism. The moderation of the pontiffs on such questions, recorded on every page of their history, is our warrant for this assertion. It was only when some primary law of the church was violated, some gross injustice against innocent persons committed, or their own supremacy defied, that they felt themselves obliged to resort to measures of the last severity.

Photius was finally deposed in the year 866. From that event for more than a century there was peace between old and new Rome. At length one of the family of the usurper, Sergius, was elevated to the see of Constantinople, (A.D. 988.) He held a council, excommunicated the popes, and erased their names from the sacred records. This outrage must never have reached the ears of the holy see. At least, we find no vestige of any action taken by the popes concerning it. Sergius was succeeded, in 1018, by Eustachius, who applied to Pope John XIX. for permission to adopt the title of œcumenical patriarch. The request being refused by the pontiff, his name was omitted from the diptychs by the indignant [768] prelate. He was succeeded by Alexius, about whose attitude to the holy see we can discover nothing in the records of the age. In the year 1034, Michael Cerularius was made bishop of New Rome. Profane as well as sacred historians represent him as a proud, ambitious, and turbulent person. He determined formally to revive the schism inaugurated by Photius. His principal accomplices were Leo of Acrida, Metropolitan of Bulgaria, and one Nicholas, a monk. They issued a letter directed to John, Bishop of Trani, in southern Italy, giving their reasons why they no longer wished to hold communion with the Western Church, and addressed a letter of similar import to the patriarchs of the east. Most of these reasons are so puerile that in reading them one would be tempted to smile, were it not for the thought that they were used to create a deadly schism. Such were the charges: that the Latins used unleavened bread in the holy sacrifice; that they did not abstain from "strangled things and blood;" that their monks ate swine flesh; that their priests shaved off their beards; that they did not sing Alleluia during Lent; that they gave the pax before the communion at mass; that their bishops wore a ring. In the long arraignment there is but one accusation that the most prejudiced enemy of the holy see can call serious, namely, that of the addition of the filioque to the symbol. As to this, we shall content ourselves by relating afterward how it was met, and the controversy about it settled, in the Council of Florence.

St. Leo IX., who then occupied the holy see, having been made acquainted with the contents of the letter of Cerularius, wrote a long and able answer, in which he offered peace to all who were really lovers of peace, based, however, on the unity of the church and the primacy of the Roman see. Cerularius asked him to send legates to Constantinople to settle the pending difficulties. The pope acquiesced, and sent two cardinals, Humbert and Frederic, and the Archbishop of Amalfi. Cerularius not only refused to meet them, but endeavored to prevent them from celebrating the sacred mysteries in any of the churches of Constantinople. The legates having repeatedly warned him, were obliged to excommunicate him in the church of St. Sophia. He, in turn, excommunicated the Roman pontiff, and wrote letters to the patriarchs of the great eastern sees with the object of drawing them into the schism. The answer of the Patriarch of Antioch alone has been preserved. He defends the Latins from many of the charges raised by Cerularius, while he admits some to be true; but he refuses to join the wrong-headed bishop of New Rome in his schism.

Most historians date from this period the definitive separation of the Greek Church from that of Rome. It would be easy, however, to show that communication was occasionally kept up during the rest of the eleventh and a portion of the twelfth centuries. Practically, however, it may be said that Cerularius separated new and old Rome, especially as the Greeks ever after held to two points he had raised against the Western Church—the addition of filioque to the symbol, and the use of unleavened bread in the holy sacrifice.

There were, doubtless, other causes than these which rendered this great schism so easy of accomplishment. The ambition of the bishops of Constantinople led them to be always on the lookout for a plausible pretext for a quarrel with Rome. Then the Greeks felt deeply two great changes in Europe—the loss of their dominion in Italy, and the reëstablishment, as it[769] is called, of the empire of the west, for both of which they chiefly blamed the popes. This feeling made them support without any very close examination the cause of the bishops of the imperial city. Then the memory of Photius was revered as one of the great names of New Rome. We must add, in conclusion, the universal effeminacy and corruption which has left an indelible stain upon the unworthy successors of Constantine and Theodosius, and given to their government the opprobrious but emphatic name of the Low Empire.

But no honest man, much less no churchman, can find in these causes any excuse or palliation for schism. Nor can such cause be found in the personal relations of either Photius or Cerularius with the holy see, much less in the earlier history of the church of Constantinople, as the facts collected from authentic documents related in these pages, we think, sufficiently show.

The popular hatred of the Greeks against the Latins was doubtless aggravated by the establishment of the Latin empire of Constantinople. Yet it was the first sovereign of the restored Greek empire that opened negotiations for a reunion of the churches. It is not for us to decide whether Michael Palæologus was influenced by motives of interest or of religion; probably both had their weight with him. In answer to his application, Pope Clement IV. sent a profession of faith according to the ancient formula, promising to call a general council to cement the union, provided the Greeks would consent beforehand to accept and sign this profession. Gregory X. did call the council, (A.D. 1272) for the triple purpose of the union of the churches, aid to the Christians struggling in the Holy Land, and the reformation of discipline. He sent nuncios to the Greek emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople, inviting them to the synod, and received a favorable answer from the former. The council was opened at Lyons on May 7th, 1274. There were five hundred bishops present; the pontiff presided in person. It lasted three months, and six sessions were held. At the third, the Greek representatives appeared. Solemn high mass was celebrated by the pope, at which the Credo was sung in Latin and Greek, the Greeks repeating thrice the words, "Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son." At the next session were read the letters of the Greek emperor and prelates. Both contained most satisfactory statements of their faith in the primacy of the holy see by divine right over the whole church. The prelates, moreover, informed his holiness that, as the Patriarch Joseph had opposed the union, they had requested him to withdraw into a monastery, to await the result of the council, and that, if he should refuse to accept it, they would depose him and elect another patriarch. Then the representatives of the emperor, and those of the prelates, in the name of their principals, solemnly abjured the schism, acknowledged the supremacy of the Roman see, and took an oath never again to infringe on it. A synodical decree was passed defining the Catholic doctrine on the procession of the Holy Ghost, condemning those who deny that he proceeds from the Father and the Son, as well as those who assert that he proceeds from them as from two principles, not one principle. The Greeks were then dismissed with great honor, carrying with them congratulatory letters to the emperor and the prelates.

But this union did not last long. Palæologus did indeed cause Joseph to be deposed, and John Veccus to be elected to the see of Constantinople.[770] He also endeavored to enforce the decree of union by severe penalties against the recusants, and a synod was celebrated by the patriarch, in which the union was accepted. But the clergy and the people obstinately opposed any communion with the Latins; the same feeling prevailed in the emperor's household; and at last he abandoned what he appears to have considered a hopeless task. He was excommunicated in 1281, by Pope Martin IV., for favoring heresy and schism. He, however, protested his sincerity, and on his death was refused Christian burial by his son and successor, Andronicus, for the part he had taken in the union of the churches. The schism was thus reopened, and the work of the Council of Lyons produced no further fruit.

But when the Turks had reduced the domain of the empire almost to the walls of Constantinople, the wily and faithless Greeks again turned their eyes westward, and offered reunion in the hope of obtaining succor. It were foreign to our purpose to trace the history of the controversy between Pope Eugenius IV. and the Council of Bâle. Suffice it to say, that, to facilitate the coming of the Greeks, who wished to meet in a city near the Adriatic, he transferred the council to Ferrara. On February 7th, 1438, the eastern fleet arrived at Venice, bearing the Emperor John Palæologus, Joseph, Patriarch of Constantinople, the proctors of the other eastern patriarchs, the Metropolitan of Russia, and a great number of metropolitans, bishops, abbots, and other dignitaries of the Greek Church. They were received with extraordinary pomp and splendor. Thence they went to Ferrara, where they arrived in the beginning of March. The council opened on April 9th. A delay of four months was agreed on, to enable the bishops of the Western Church to take part in the proceedings. Meanwhile, informal conferences were held on the questions of purgatory, and the beatitude of the saints before the final day of judgment. It was easily shown that the differences between the two churches were merely verbal, and did not affect the dogma. The first solemn session was held on October 8th, which was followed by fifteen others in regular order. In December, the council was transferred to Florence, on account of the appearance of the plague at Ferrara. Nine sessions were held at Florence, at the end of which the act of union was solemnly adopted and promulgated.

There is scarcely any thing more interesting in the history of general councils than the records of the discussions so long and so ably carried on in this synod. It is a common supposition that the Latins resorted to bribery and threats, the Greeks to chicanery and bad faith, and thus an understanding was arrived at. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the acts of the synod prove. Point after point was discussed with marked ability on both sides, and with peculiar skill and pertinacity on the part of the Greeks. At last, all, with the exception of Mark, Archbishop of Ephesus, yielded either to unanswerable arguments or to clear explanations, and then, all difficulties being removed, the union was agreed to. It is, of course, impossible in the brief space of an article to relate these discussions in detail. We shall briefly refer to the principal point in dispute.

This was the addition of filioque in the creed. The Latins insisted on separating from the beginning the two distinct points of dogma and discipline. They asked the Greeks, first, if they believed that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son, as from one principle of spiration.[771] They showed them that the fathers of the Greek, as well as those of the Latin church, had always taught this doctrine. There was a great deal of finessing on the part of the Greeks; they examined their own copies of the fathers, and found that they had been correctly quoted by the other side; and, at last, confessed that they had been wrong in accusing the Western Church of error. The disciplinary question was argued with a great deal of vigor. The Greeks, of course, alleged the celebrated canon of the Council of Ephesus, prohibiting any addition to the symbol. The Latin answer may be summed up thus: This canon prohibits any addition by private authority. But filioque was added by the authority of the head of the church. Again, the canon prohibits any addition contrary to the doctrine of the symbol; but this addition is an explanation and a complement of the doctrine of Nice, and the very words (and from the Son) have been taken from orthodox fathers. Lastly, the addition was not made lightly or without cause; but a real necessity existed for it. Finally, all the Greeks, but Mark of Ephesus, returned this answer: "We consent that you recite the addition to the symbol, and that it has been taken from the holy fathers; and we approve it, and are united with you; and we say that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, as from one principle and cause."

This point being satisfactorily settled, the other mooted questions were soon adjusted, and on July 6th, 1439, the act of union was read in solemn session, in Latin by Cardinal Julian, and in Greek by Bessarion, Archbishop of Nice, who had been the leaders on either side in the discussion. It is in the name of "Eugenius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, with the consent of the most serene emperor, and of the other patriarchs." The pope, "with the approbation of the sacred universal Council of Florence," defines, first, the dogma of the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost from Father and Son, as from one principle, and by one spiration; secondly, "that the explanatory words, and from the Son, were lawfully and reasonably added to the symbol, for the sake of declaring the truth, and by reason of imminent necessity;" thirdly, that both leavened and unleavened bread is lawful matter for the eucharist, and that priests must follow the rite of their own church—those of the western, that of the western; those of the eastern, that of the eastern; fourthly, the question of the different states of souls after death was settled according to the received doctrine which is now professed in the Catholic Church. We give the fifth section entire: "That the holy apostolic see and the Roman pontiff doth hold primacy over the whole earth, and that he is the successor of the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, and true vicar of Christ, and head of the whole church, and is the father and teacher of all Christians; and that to him, in the person of the blessed Peter, hath been delivered, by our Lord Jesus Christ, the full power of feeding, ruling, and governing the universal church, as is contained in the acts of œcumenical councils and in the sacred canons." Lastly, the decree reorganizing the canonical order of patriarchs assigns the second place, after the Roman pontiff, to the patriarch of Constantinople, the third to the patriarch of Alexandria, the fourth to the patriarch of Antioch. A few more questions of minor importance were then proposed to the Greeks, to most of which they gave satisfactory replies, and soon afterward the emperor and his prelates returned home by way of Venice.

The difficulty about filioque has just been renewed by Mr. Ffoulkes, of England, in defence of some notion of his about a hybrid united, not one church. We scarcely think he will succeed in making good an objection which Bessarion and Mark of Ephesus failed to sustain. Any how, his thesis appears to be, not that any one "branch" of the church is entirely in the right, but that they are all partly in the wrong. Perhaps he thinks that to him, not to F. Hyacinthe, has the Lord given these sticks, to warm in his bosom, purify, and finally reunite. We must leave them to settle the question between themselves. But they ought to remember, with St. Jerome, that he who gathereth not with the pope, scattereth.

Great hopes were entertained that the union perfected after such long and free discussions would be lasting. But these were all disappointed. Of all the obscure questions connected with the Greek schism, the most obscure is how and when the compact of Florence was first violated in the east. It is certain that Metrophanes, elected Patriarch of Constantinople on the return of the Greek prelates, (as the Patriarch Joseph had died at Florence,) solemnly published the act of union.[180] His successor, Gregory, was equally devoted to the council, and before his elevation, defended its action against the attacks of Mark of Ephesus. This proud and turbulent man did not remain quiet under his defeat, but addressed most inflammatory letters to the orientals, making the vilest and most unfounded accusations, not only against the pope and the Latin bishops, but against his own colleagues. Though these were refuted by Gregory before mentioned, and by Joseph, Bishop of Mothon, they no doubt made a great impression on the prejudiced, nay, jaundiced oriental mind. Mark, however, did not dare to publish his attacks until after the death of John Palæologus, (A.D. 1448.)[181] A most extraordinary and shameful political intrigue appears to have come to the aid of the schismatical party. The Turk at this period was making his arrangements for the final attack on Constantinople. The only hope for the doomed city was in aid from the west. To prevent the sending of this seasonable aid, it was the obvious policy of the Mussulman to render void the union of Florence. Hence, in 1443, just ten years before the fall of New Rome, a synod was held at Jerusalem, composed entirely of bishops of sees under Turkish domination, among whom are numbered the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, in which the act of union was declared impious. Metrophanes was adjudged to be an intruder into the see of Constantinople, and all ecclesiastics ordained by him were deposed, full power being given to the Metropolitan of Cæsarea to enforce this sentence in all dioceses under the jurisdiction of the council—that is, wherever the crescent had supplanted the cross.[182] Is it any wonder that, ten years after, the Turks were masters of the city of Constantine?

No one, not even a modern Greek, would attempt to maintain that the assemblage at Jerusalem was a legitimate council. The schismatics, however, allege a council said to have been held at Constantinople a year and a half after the Council of Florence, and after the death of John Palæologus, in which Metrophanes was deposed and the union rescinded. But there are two unfortunate anachronisms in this account. Metrophanes was certainly patriarch for [773] three years after the council, and John Palæologus did not die until 1448, nine years after the act of union. One of the last acts of the expiring Greek empire was to send an ambassador to Pope Nicholas V. promising the exact and speedy fulfilment of the agreement entered into at Florence. We do not pretend to say that the greater portion of the clergy and people of Constantinople were not schismatics at heart; but this we can aver, that they were bound by the action of their bishops, in the free, open Council of Florence, and that this action has never been formally retracted by any legitimate council held in the East. And we commend this consideration to those Anglicans who sometimes, in their desire for a false union, seek to associate with Greek schismatics. These are condemned by the action of their fathers, an action never formally retracted, but merely opposed with a sullenness and hardness of heart not unlike that with which God visited Jerusalem before its destruction. While the Greeks were calling the Latins Azymites, and other opprobrious names, the minister of God's vengeance was approaching their gates; New Rome fell into infidel hands; and from the turret of St. Sophia, whose dome had so often resounded with excommunications of the vicar of Christ, the muezzin now invites the Moslem to prayer in the name of the false prophet. Photius and Cerularius aimed at making New Rome the spiritual superior of the city of Peter; instead, it has become the chief city of the deadly enemy of the Christian name.

This is a sad, sad story, and it is not in exultation or triumph that we pen these lines. While Mohammed II. was advancing his last lines, Pope Nicholas V. was making most strenuous efforts to succor the "fair but false" Greeks, and his successors never gave up their efforts to regain the city of Constantine until it was evident that there was no possibility of success.

The policy of Mohammed II. led him to spare a remnant of the inhabitants of the conquered city, and to permit to them the free exercise of their religion. But even in religious matters, he claimed the prerogatives of the sovereigns whom he had displaced.

And this degrading ceremony is continued to this day, each "œcumenical patriarch of New Rome" receiving solemn investiture at the hands of the Ottoman padisha.

The fall of Constantinople rendered certain the success of the schismatical party. The sultans detested the name, as they feared the influence, of the Roman pontiff; and it was plausibly argued that to avow union with him would be to insure their own destruction. The Catholic element, thus reduced to silence, gradually dwindled away; and the schism, though its abjuration at Florence remains in full force, again blighted the Greek Church.

As to hopes of reunion at the present day, "it is not for us to know the times or moments which the Father hath put in his own power." We can only hope and pray that light may at length dispel the darkness which has so long hung over the [774] Eastern Church. Ottoman policy no longer requires the prolongation of the schism; its only real supporter is Russia. All the Greeks would have to do would be to sign the act of union of Florence. They can have no difficulty about the Council of Trent; for they have always condemned the errors it condemns. Protestantism has never found favor in their eyes. If the Council of the Vatican do not succeed in reuniting them, it will, it is confidently expected, at least renew the missionary spirit, and inaugurate a work which, respecting eastern susceptibilities, may bring the church of Athanasius, Basil, the Gregories, Chrysostom, and so many other great saints and doctors out of "darkness and the shadow of death," and put an end to a schism which commenced with the lawless ambition of Photius, was renewed by the satanic pride of Cerularius, and has had for chief support the perfidious policy, first of the degenerate Christian emperors, then of the victorious anti-Christian sultans of Constantinople.

THE CHRIST OF AUSFELDT.

We live in a sceptical age that laughs at what it calls the superstitions of the olden time; superstitions, if you will, but often most beautiful, particularly when viewed through the mists of time and change. It is a relief to come upon some living legend, so to speak, while travelling over the hard macadamized thoroughfare of our practical lives, and I shall never forget the pleasure I experienced in listening to the recital of a story of the olden time, told me by my gracious hostess at the village inn where I had been stopping for a few days while making a pedestrian tour through the southern part of Germany.

It stood, weather-beaten and worn, just where the solid piers set their mighty feet into the river; an old stone crucifix that seemed to have battled the storms of hundreds of years.

While pausing in my morning walk to gaze on it with a traveller's curiosity, something in the general characteristics of the figure attracted my attention; and examining it more closely, I immediately saw that it displayed greater evidence of artistic skill and execution than is generally manifested in wayside images. Too often they are but caricatures of that semblance which is the most holy and sacred of Christianity; but in the face of the Christ that looked down upon me from the stained and battered cross, I read an expression of patient suffering and God-like endurance that would have borne noble testimony to any sculptor.

Returning to the inn, a desire to discover something of the history rather of the sculptor than of the image prompted me to make inquiry of my good-natured landlady, who sat in the twilight just outside of the house door, knitting as only a German woman can.

From that "Ach, mein Herr!" I knew a story was coming; and knowing,[775] likewise, that Frau Gretchen was a very princess in story-telling, I lighted my pipe, and, stretching myself on the wooden bench before the door, prepared to be either saddened, amused, or delighted, as the case might be.

Frau Gretchen laid down her stocking for a moment, smoothed the whitest of white aprons, and having looked toward the river, and then at the ruined castle that surmounted the hill beyond, resumed her knitting, and, heaving a gentle sigh began:

"More than three hundred years ago, and for hundreds of years before that time, there dwelt in that old castle yonder the noble lords of Ausfeldt. They were great warriors; mighty in stature and strength, and for generations on generations had been feared and hated by their vassals; for they were wicked as they were violent, and cruel as they were brave. Now, the women were all fair and gentle; for such was the power of the lords of Ausfeldt that it was ever given them to wed the flowers of the land; and it seemed that the good God made for them angel wives, so pure, and meek, and pious, and charitable were the ladies of Ausfeldt through centuries and centuries of time.

"Now, it fell out that Berthold, the reigning count, had been rescued from drowning by Arnold, a wood-carver of the town, whose skill in his craft was well known and much sought even from Alspach and Brauen. It was on a Good-Friday, and the grateful lord registered a vow to Heaven that he would commemorate his preservation by erecting an image of the Saviour crucified nigh to the spot where the waters had so nearly closed over him for ever.

"For in those days, mein Herr, although the great and mighty were fierce and cruel, faith was not dead in their hearts, as it is in these evil times of ours.

"Old Arnold of Ausfeldt, at his own beseeching, was deputed to essay his skill upon the Christ, and so well did he execute the task that his fame travelled far and wide. A large sum of money was promised him; but Berthold the master went off to the wars, and forgot, as men often do, his deliverer. Soon afterward old Arnold died and left all alone in the world his beautiful daughter, so fair and spotless that she was called 'the Lily of Ausfeldt.'

"As I said before, mein Herr, the dames of this haughty house were gentle and good, and when poor Bertha was left desolate, the Countess Barbara sent for her to the castle, and placed her among her own daughters as a sort of companion and teacher; for she had inherited from her mother great dexterity in the use of the needle, and from her father not a little artistic skill.

"For a time all went well. But alas! to every day, however bright, there comes an ending; and thus the morning of Bertha's happiness faded and deepened into night.

"There arrived from a long journey in the East the eldest son of the house, the young Rupert; none handsomer, none wittier, none more courtly than he. Unlike his father and most of his progenitors, he possessed a winning tongue and beguiling air; he had loitered in ladies' bowers, and they had taught him well.

"Into the pure blue eyes of the Lily of Ausfeldt he looked as would the serpent into the eyes of a trembling dove. But the blue depths, though they quivered, grew no darker nor deeper; there was no guile in the heart, and it knew not the presence of sin. Close to the innocent cheek of the maiden the tempter breathed his poisonous breath; but the guardian[776] angel of purity folded his wings about her, and wafted a fold of his misty veil between that hot breath and her unsoiled innocence, until, man of the world though he was, Count Rupert shrank into himself abashed, and loved for the first time in his reckless life with a pure, deep, passionate love.

"Day after day he sought her side, night after night they wandered together by the river; her soul all full of faith, and hope, and beauty; his racked by fears of his father's anger; for in his heart of hearts he knew that his father would sooner slay him with his own hand than bend the lofty pride of Ausfeldt to a union with a simple burgher maiden.

"Ach, ach, Herr Karl! love is a pleasant thing, and a delicious thing, and a holy thing; for it is heaven-born: but woman's faith is still more beautiful and heavenly; and man's fickleness and perfidy the story of every day. It has been the same all the world over since time began, and so it will be to the end.

"They parted at last—war called him away; but he left her with a vow upon his lips that was broken ere the birds sang the advent of another summer. There came rumors of a marriage with a great heiress of the north; but Bertha knew no fears, for her own heart was pure and true, and she did not dream that his could be faithless. Alas! there are many like her in the world, mein Herr, even in our day, when most people are forgetting what love means.

"Soon the castle was astir with unusual bustle and preparation, and then there was no secret made of the fact that the young Lord Rupert would soon bring home a bride. Whether he was weak or wicked, who can tell? God has judged and meted him his portion long ere this; but in her heart poor Bertha never blamed him. Yet she grew pale and thin; but no one noticed it; and that she spent long nights of weary weeping none knew save her guardian angel.

"It was a still, starry midnight. All alone in her little chamber, Bertha leaned forth from the casement; but she did not weep. Suddenly, as by an irresistible impulse, she hurried from the room, down the winding stairs, through the long garden, down, down the steep hill, till she stood on the brink of the river.

"Beneath her its waters flowed dark and rippling, and they were cold, oh! so cold, and her head burned and throbbed so wildly.

"One plunge, and her woes would be over for ever—thus whispered the fiend beside her—one step, and the cool waves would receive her! 'What is life to thee now?' said a mocking voice in her ear. 'What eternity of woe canst thou suffer more terrible than this? There is no eternity, naught but oblivion. Nearer and nearer thy faithless lover hastens with his beautiful bride; how canst thou bear day after day to meet him, to dwell under the same roof with thy rival. Have courage, plunge boldly! the waves, more merciful than the world, will receive thee, and to-morrow thou wilt float on their broad bosom, far away to the sea.'

"As the maiden lifted her hands from her eyes, as though to take a last look on the world ere she left it, something white gleamed in the moonlight; it was the stone crucifix at whose feet she had so often knelt in days of happiness and innocence, the cross her father had fashioned with hands and heart consecrated to heaven.

"Trembling in every limb, she dragged her weary feet to the spot; and as she threw herself upon her knees before the image, bitter sobs burst from her bosom.

"The sad face of the dead Christ[777] looked down upon her with eyes of divine compassion, and brought to her memory and to her heart a vision of the dear departed who had wrought this labor of love, and of that father's affection, and of his pure and holy teachings, which she had so nearly forgotten for evermore.

"With a wild cry she clasped the nail-pierced feet, and her whole soul poured itself forth in one deep, wailing supplication.

"'My God, my God!' she moaned, 'why hast thou forsaken me? Take me out of this weary world, as I lie here penitent and fearful, lest the evil one come again to tempt me, and I yield in my weakness and brokenness of heart. The river is black and pitiless, my Saviour; but not so black and pitiless as the world. Save me, oh! save me from myself. How shall I know that thou hast not deserted me? How shall I hope that thou wilt pardon, that thou wilt hear my prayer?'

"The moon, which had shrunk behind a cloud, came softly forth and bathed the image and the shrinking figure at its feet in holy light; while, as the maiden knelt, there passed into her stricken heart a quiet, hopeful feeling, and, looking up half timidly, she pushed back her loosened hair to meet once more the sad, pitying glance above her.

"And then she clasped her trembling hands together, and bent her weary head low down to the very earth; for around the brow of the dead Christ there shone a heavenly halo, blood trickled from the thorny crown and reddened the outstretched hands, and from the soft, compassionate eyes great tears were falling.

"Twenty years afterward, the holy Abbess of Ausfeldt lay upon her death-bed; and the good sisters gathered around her, and even the choristers and little serving-boys; for they all loved her well: and there came into her eyes a light, and to her voice a strength, neither had known for many a day; and just as I tell it to you, mein Herr, she told them the story of the Christ of Ausfeldt. For her name had been Bertha, and it was her own story.

"And she begged that no Christian might ever pass the sacred spot without breathing a prayer for her soul. Ah! mein Herr, many a time have I passed the holy image and almost fancied it smiled upon me as I went."

Silently Frau Gretchen folded up her knitting, and with a sigh toward the river, and another toward the ruined castle, stepped slowly down the garden path, humming dreamily as she walked Schiller's song of "The Mill":

Catching her thought, I murmured the plaintive words as I passed out of the gateway and down the old, shadowy street. They had "vanished long ago"—the great inheritors and the noble line, the faithless lover and the pure "Lily of Ausfeldt." But the bright, silvery moonlight made clear and distinct the sculptured image I had come to seek. The legend had invested it with an almost living interest, and as I paused before it, with as reverential a feeling as I have ever known in the contemplation of earth's grandest Raphaels or Murillos, I said half aloud, as I lingered for a moment near the quiet river, "O beautiful old German legends! may you live in your purity and holiness in the hearts of the German people as long as the Rhine flows through the pleasant courses and by the fruitful vineyards its wandering spirit loves."

MRS. SETON.[184]

Elizabeth Ann Bayley, the foundress of the Sisterhood of Charity in the United States, was born in the city of New York, on the 28th of August, 1774. Her father, Dr. Richard Bayley, was a physician of good family and distinguished position, a member of the Church of England, and a man of many natural virtues; but he cared very little about religion, and wherever his daughter may have got the pious inclinations which distinguished her in girlhood, she certainly did not get them from him. Her mother, whose maiden name was Charlton, died while Elizabeth was a child. Under the care of her father, however, Miss Bayley was well educated and trained in domestic duties. At the age of nineteen she married Mr. William Magee Seton, eldest son of a prosperous New York merchant, and descendant of an ancient Scottish patrician family, whose head is the Earl of Winton. Their married life was eminently happy, and for six or seven years fortune smiled upon them. Commercial disasters at last swept away their property. Dr. Bayley died suddenly of a malignant fever contracted in the discharge of his duty as health officer of the port; Mr. Seton's health failed, and in 1803 the husband and wife determined to make a voyage to Italy. They suffered a long and painful quarantine at Leghorn, and a week after their release Mr. Seton died, leaving his wife in a strange land with her eldest child, a girl of nine years. Mrs. Seton was not, however, without comfort and protection. Two estimable Italian gentlemen, Philip and Anthony Filicchi, personal friends and business correspondents of the Setons, took her to their home and treated her with most brotherly kindness. Under the influence of the devout household of which they were the heads, the religious sentiments of the young widow were gradually developed into a strong attraction toward the Catholic Church. She went with the Filicchis to mass; she visited the chapels; she learned devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Early in February, 1804, about six weeks after Mr. Seton's death, she sailed for home. But it was not the purpose of Providence that she should be withdrawn so soon from associations which were to influence remarkably her future life. In a severe storm the vessel in which she had taken passage was so much injured as to be driven back to port. Before another was ready to sail, Mrs. Seton's child was taken sick. Close upon the recovery of the child, followed the sickness of the mother; and when, in April, they were ready again to embark, one of the Filicchi brothers, Anthony, offered to bear them company. During the long voyage of nearly two months, Mrs. Seton made frequent opportunities to talk with her friend upon religion, and before the vessel reached New York she was virtually a convert. The last step cost her much suffering and perplexity. It is a step which hardly ever is taken without pain. In her case there was not only the dread of estrangement from affectionate relatives, but she could not face with composure the inevitable rupture with a clergyman of the Protestant[779] Episcopal Church who had exercised a great deal of influence upon her character and her earlier life. This was the amiable John Henry Hobart, afterward Bishop of New York, a man who was deeply and deservedly beloved, and for whom Mrs. Seton in particular cherished a filial regard. By Mr. Filicchi's advice, she exposed her difficulties to Mr. Hobart. He made an elaborate reply to them. He talked with her frequently. He used all his talent, all his scholarship, all his personal influence to keep her in the denomination in which she had been born. Between Mr. Hobart and her family, on the one hand, and the letters of Philip Filicchi and personal interviews with Anthony, on the other, her perplexity became painful to the last degree. At last, on Ash-Wednesday, 1805, she was received into the church by Father O'Brien, at St. Peter's, in Barclay street. Her soul was now at peace, but her temporal troubles had only begun. Old friends and nearest relatives turned away horrified and angry, and when soon afterward her sister-in-law Cecilia was likewise baptized a Catholic, the indignation of the family knew no bounds. She was without fortune, and when she tried to earn a support by teaching, she found the good Protestants of New York afraid to intrust the education of their children to an emissary of the pope, perhaps a female Jesuit in disguise. The kindness of her excellent Italian friends again came to her relief. They charged themselves with the education of her children, placed the two sons at Georgetown College, gave her an allowance of $400 a year, and begged Mrs. Seton to draw upon them for whatever money she wanted. We believe she was not obliged, however, to avail herself of this generous offer.

Mrs. Seton seems to have formed, at an early period of her widowhood, the project of devoting herself to God in the service of a religious order, and her first plan was to go to Canada and join some sisterhood there. It was a part of this scheme, however, that her children should enter a house of education at Montreal, where she could still give them the maternal care which their tender years required. Providential obstacles defeated this design, and thus she was reserved for the establishment in her own country of the noble institute with which her name will always be connected. We shall quote from Dr. White's Life the story of how she began the great work of her career:

She did wait patiently nearly two years. At the end of that time her pecuniary affairs became so embarrassing, and the inconveniences of her situation in New York pressed upon her so severely, that she was again driven to turn her thoughts toward Canada, not so much as a refuge from her own troubles, but as an asylum where her children might be saved from the dangers which threatened their faith in the Protestant society of New York. But about this time she met Mr. Dubourg again, and, in answer to his inquiries, gave him an exact account of her situation. He contemplated the establishment of a Catholic school for girls in Baltimore, and invited her to come and take charge of it. Her two boys he offered to admit into St. Mary's College, free of expense. The school was to be started in a small way, in a two-story hired house; and afterward, if God prospered the undertaking, a proper building for the institution was to be erected on ground belonging to the college. Of course, Mrs. Seton accepted the proposition with joy. On the 9th of June, 1808, she embarked for Baltimore in a packet, accompanied by her three daughters. It was a voyage,[781] in those times, of between six and seven days. She landed on the morning of the 16th, the feast of Corpus Christi, and drove at once from the wharf to St. Mary's chapel to hear mass.

It is almost impossible to describe the happiness which beams from her letters written in her new home to her friends in Italy, her favorite sisters-in-law, Cecilia and Harriet Seton, (the latter of whom was, at this time, strongly attracted toward the church, while the other, as we have already mentioned, was a fervent convert,) and her spiritual advisers. United with her children, in a comfortable little home close to the seminary and college, where she found in the chapel services an unfailing source of delight, she had all that her domestic affections and pious desires could wish. The relatives of Mr. Dubourg and other Catholics of the city treated her with great cordiality, and from many distinguished Protestant families she received marked social attentions. The school was opened in September. Mrs. Seton had not thought, so far, of adopting any thing like a conventual rule of life, except perhaps at some remote period; but her daily life was regulated with reference to the consecration of all her powers to God, and she mingled no further in society than a regard for good breeding and gratitude to her friends absolutely required. The development of her religious schemes was gradual, and the foundation of the new sisterhood appears, from a human point of view, the result of accident and curious coincidence, rather than the fruit of direct labor. The first step toward it was the arrival at Mrs. Seton's Baltimore establishment of a young lady from Philadelphia, named Cecilia O'Conway. The Rev. Mr. Babade, the spiritual director of the school, found this young lady on the point of going to Europe to enter a convent. He told her of Mrs. Seton's plans, and she determined to go to Baltimore instead. In December, 1808, Miss O'Conway accordingly became an assistant in the school.

Mr. Filicchi had made an offering of one thousand dollars toward the realization of Mrs. Seton's plans; but now came, in a most unexpected manner, a new benefactor, whose liberality gave the enterprise a different character and vastly enlarged scope. Among the students of theology at St. Mary's Seminary, was Mr. Samuel Cooper, a gentleman of fortune, a Virginian, and formerly well known in fashionable society. His conversion from Protestantism and determination to study for the priesthood had caused quite as great a sensation as the conversion of Mrs. Seton. He now purposed distributing his property among the poor, (before his death, we may here add, that he literally gave away all he possessed,) and one morning he spoke to Mr. Dubourg about doing something for the instruction of poor children. He had never spoken upon the subject with Mrs. Seton, but he suggested at this interview that possibly she might undertake the work, if he gave the money. It is a very remarkable fact that at this same moment Mrs. Seton was thinking of the same thing. That morning after communion she felt a strong desire arise within her to dedicate herself to the care and instruction of poor girls. She went at once to Mr. Dubourg. "This morning," she said, "in my communion, I thought, 'Dearest Saviour, if you would but give me the care of poor little children, no matter how poor!' and Mr. Cooper being directly before me at his thanksgiving, I thought, 'He has money: if he would but give it for the bringing up of poor little children to know and love you!'" The[782] result of this extraordinary, or we ought rather to say, providential coincidence, was, that Mr. Cooper gave eight thousand dollars for the establishment of the proposed institution, and fixed upon Emmettsburg as the place; and there a farm with a very small stone house upon it was bought, in the names of the Rev. William V. Dubourg, Mr. Samuel Cooper, and the Rev. John Dubois, who was then pastor of several congregations in that part of Maryland, and director at the same time of the small school near Emmettsburg, out of which soon afterward grew Mount St. Mary's College. With the college and its illustrious founder the fortunes of Mrs. Seton's institute became intimately connected.

While these arrangements were in progress, the new community was gradually and quietly forming at the little house in Baltimore. A second associate, Miss Maria Murphy, of Philadelphia, joined Mrs. Seton in April, 1809. In May, two more presented themselves, Miss Mary Ann Butler, of Philadelphia, and Miss Susan Clossy, of New York. It was not without a painful sense of unfitness that, in obedience to the directions of her bishop and spiritual advisers, Mrs. Seton undertook the government of this religious household. On the evening of the day when the task was definitely laid upon her "she was seized," says Dr. White,

On the 1st of June they assumed a religious habit, and the next day—Corpus Christi—appeared in it for the first time at church. It was not a regular nun's garb, but an imitation of the dress which Mrs. Seton had worn ever since the death of her husband. It consisted of a black gown with a short cape, similar to a costume she had seen in some Italian sisterhood, a white muslin cap with a crimped border, and a black band around the head, fastened under the chin. A regular order of daily life was established, and Mrs. Seton privately, in the presence of Bishop Carroll, took the ordinary vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience for the period of one year. Her associates, however, did not as yet make any vows, nor was any special religious institute adopted for their organization. They merely styled themselves "Sisters of St. Joseph." Mr. Dubourg was appointed their ecclesiastical superior.

About this time Miss Cecilia Seton fell dangerously ill, and was advised by her physicians to make a visit to Baltimore. Harriet accompanied her, and with these two beloved relatives, one of her daughters, and one member of the sisterhood, Mrs. Seton removed to Emmettsburg on the 21st of June, finding shelter at first in a little log hut on the mountain, as their own house on the farm was not yet ready for use. Her happy union with Cecilia and Harriet was for a few months only. Harriet became a[783] Catholic; but in the first fervor of her devotion was seized with a fever, and died on the 22d of December. Cecilia grew better for a short time, and even joined the community; but she failed gradually, and died in Baltimore in April. During the first autumn and winter at Emmettsburg the institution was little better than a hospital. The farm-house, into which the whole community, then numbering ten, moved in the course of the summer, consisted of nothing but two rooms on the ground floor and two in the attic, and these had to afford accommodations not only for the ten sisters, but for Mrs. Seton's three daughters, her sister-in-law Harriet, and two pupils who followed her from Baltimore. Added to the discomfort of their narrow quarters was a state of poverty so extreme that they sometimes knew not where to look for their next meal. For coffee they substituted a beverage made of carrots and sweetened with molasses. Their bread was of rye and of the coarsest description. At Christmas they thought themselves fortunate in having for dinner smoked herrings and a spoonful of molasses apiece. In the course of the winter, however, a two-story log house of convenient size was put up for their use, and now they were able to open a day-school and take more boarding-pupils, and so provide at least for their daily expenses. The debt incurred in making these improvements was, nevertheless, a severe burden for them, and at one time it seemed inevitable that they should sell out and disperse; but charitable friends came to their relief at the last moment, and, little by little, with many fluctuations of fortune, they got out of their difficulties.

When they determined, about the time of coming to Emmettsburg, to adopt the rule of St. Vincent of Paul, they sent to France and begged some of the sisters of the society to come over and place themselves at the head of the new American community. The invitation was accepted; but the French government would not allow the sisters to sail, so the most that Mrs. Seton could get was a copy of the rules and a kind letter of encouragement. These rules, modified to meet the peculiar wants of the new institution, by permitting it to receive pay-scholars in connection with its labors of charity, and with special provisions to allow Mrs. Seton to devote the necessary care to her young children, were approved by Bishop Carroll as the rule for the "Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph," and so the community which has done such a noble work in the United States came into existence with Mrs. Seton for its first mother superior.

We have no intention of sketching in this brief paper the rise and development of that sisterhood. The log house in "St. Joseph's Valley," at the foot of Mount St. Mary, has a renown in the history of the American church upon which many able pens have enlarged, and branch communities have gone out from it, filling remote parts of the United States with good works and pious example. Our purpose has been merely to sketch the foundation of the illustrious community, and tell our readers something of the trials and sorrows under which Mrs. Seton achieved her great work. The rest of her life, though it was blessed with the consolation of success in her undertaking, was torn with afflictions not less severe than those she had suffered already. Her eldest and her youngest daughters were both taken from her as they were just entering upon a beautiful womanhood, the eldest, Anna, being already a member of the community. The deaths among her earliest associates were many, and she had also to mourn the loss of one[784] of the excellent Italian friends who contributed so much to the success of her enterprise. But in all her sorrows she preserved the calmness of divine resignation, the charm of her personal presence, and the kind, unselfish interest in others which made her so generally beloved. She died on the 4th of January, 1821; and on the wall of the humble chamber where she expired, the following memento is now shown:

The two works whose titles we have placed at the head of this article are very much alike in the general character of their contents, having both been prepared from the same materials. Dr. White's Life has been many years before the public, and has been much commended for its devotional spirit and appreciative judgment of Mrs. Seton's labors. The larger work, just issued in two handsome volumes, and printed and bound with considerable elegance, has been prepared by Mrs. Seton's grandson. It has apparently been for the editor a labor of love. He has drawn freely from the family records which Dr. White used before him, and has quoted much more of Mrs. Seton's letters than his predecessor did, so that the work is almost equivalent to an autobiography of the foundress of St. Joseph's, illustrated with abundant explanatory notes, and with only so much narrative as seemed necessary to bind the whole together. It is not only an interesting memorial of a very interesting woman, but an important contribution to the materials which we hope the coming historian will some day reduce into a comprehensive history of the American church.

VIEWS OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT.

If we consider the existing industrial nations with the eye of political economy or of political philosophy, we cannot help giving attention to the deep and wide-spread disagreements which have broken open between the laboring man and his employers. In France, Switzerland, Germany, England, and the United States, the question of the relative rights of labor and capital are presented in many ways, so as to compel investigation and action. Trades-unions, coöperative societies, industrial congresses, and lastly, that herculean infant, the Labor Reform Party, are extending themselves all over the countries we have just named, and particularly over the United States. They are daily gaining strength and influence. Politicians are thinking how to obtain the favor of this party, at the least cost to their popularity among other partisans. The larger parties already offer to compromise with it, and to give it a plank in their great platforms. It is evident that, if the working-men were to move with unanimity to form a labor party, it would be a most formidable rival to the others.

The mere fact of the advent of a[785] new party is not at all startling to an American; for since the independence of this country, several parties have come into existence, and have been swept away by the advent or success of others; but the working-men's party proposes to carry into our legislation and into the administration of the government tendencies and principles so diametrically opposite to and destructive of any precedent course or system of politics, that the prospect of these tendencies being powerfully reënforced excites vehement emotions of anxiety or satisfaction, according to the previous bias of the observer. Just think of it: the question is no longer to be only what ought to be the policy of the nation, regarded as an unit, toward other nations or toward itself, nor what are the interests and rights of territorial integers; but what ought to be the action of one great component element upon the other essential elements of the body politic. The people are called upon to consider not only the questions relative to tariffs, taxation, banks, currency, national debt, bonds, State rights, or the like; but to answer the complaint of the bone and sinew of the country against its veins and blood. The brain claims the right to decide; and it appears there is a possibility of there being a preponderance of brain on the side of the complainants. The spread of education produces astonishing consequences; and among the rest this: science is becoming so common that the great cannot monopolize it all, and much of it is going to take service among the poor. Hence, able and eloquent speakers and writers are now contending that labor does not receive its full and merited reward, and that the laborer is oppressed by his employers and the laws. Hence, too, a great number and variety of novel measures and institutions are ingeniously contrived and plausibly advocated for the avowed purpose of overthrowing some of the most venerated doctrines of orthodox political economy.

As in other cases, this movement develops every grade of opinion and feeling. A rich philanthropist thinks more education and better lodging-houses, at less cost, will be a good and sufficient remedy; while among the poor the most violent measures are sometimes preferred. Even agrarianism is proposed, and incendiarism attempted, in order to redress whatever wrongs the toiler really suffers, or imagines he suffers, unjustly. Between the two, we have mild and harmless contrivances, such as mutual aid societies, and coöperative shops and stores, intended to diminish the causes of pauperism or alleviate its bad effects.

All the plans, of course, differ, according to the idea the proposers have formed of the nature of the causes of the social malady. Some regard the miseries of the laboring classes as the accumulated effects of many mere accidents, principally personal imprudence and vice; and, since they think there is no radical cause, refuse to hear of a radical remedy. Others admit radical causes, such as (1) a bad form of government, or (2) the selfish, the uncharitable, the unchristian spirit of the world, or (3) the too rapid increase and local crowding of population, or (4) the progressive individualization of capital, or (5) popular ignorance, or (6) the onerous obligations of marriage and parentage, or (7) what they call the slavery of woman, or (8) the present land-ownership system, or some other prevalent mode of acquiring property, such as (9) usury, (10) monopoly, (11) rents, (12) heirships, (13) tariffs, (14) banking, (15) speculation, and the like. Above all these looms the fact, whatever may be the cause, that capital is[786] becoming less and less in the hands of those who produce it, and is growing larger and larger in the hands of cunning or lucky exploiters.

The variety of opinions with regard to what the remedy should be has produced correspondingly various institutions, parties, and laws. So we have (1) poor laws, vagrant laws, work-houses and reformatory prisons, for juvenile delinquents and others; (2) charity hospitals, asylums for the widows, the orphans, the deaf and dumb, the blind, the crippled, the aged, the infirm, or the insane; warming-houses, lying-in hospitals, poor mothers' cradle-houses, gratuitous sleeping-halls, soup-houses, asylums for unruly or destitute children of both sexes, gratuitous dispensaries of medicines, Magdalen reformatory houses, Sisters of Charity, Brothers of Mercy, Little Sisters of the Poor, Christian Brothers' schools, public schools, etc.; (3) visiting confraternities to bring succor home to the poor, such as fuel-giving, furnishing provisions or nursing, and prison-visiting societies; (4) organizations to support charitable institutions by means of fairs, lotteries, concerts, spectacles, picnics, tournaments, and other amusements; (5) labor-protective unions, workmen's guilds and fellowships, trades-unions and labor combinations, savings banks, coöperative factories, coöperative stores, mutual aid societies, burial societies, labor reform party; (6) Shaker, Rappist, Moravian, and Ballouite communities; (7) Owenite Harmonias, Cabetite Familisteries, Fourierite Phalansterias, women's rights societies, Mormon harems, and artistic brothels of complex association.

Every one who reads this list will find in it the mention of some institution he believes to be either useless or pernicious. The objections would be curiously heterogeneous. An infidel would suppress all those having their root or support in religion. A political economist will protest against working-men's combinations to raise the price of labor. A Christian deplores the attempts of socialists to establish institutions from which God is excluded. A sectarian sees with pain the success of charities founded by other congregations. The Roman Catholic (as such) must also have his opinions of the relative merits of the corporations that appear to him to rise sometimes out of the sea of sin, and sometimes out of the waters of life. We, for ourselves, have some peculiar ideas, gathered from this point of view.

It would be vain obduracy on the part of a Catholic to close his eyes to the deep and wide-spread clamor of the voices, great and small, that are now discussing "social science," and proposing solutions of the "labor question." These matters, in every imaginable manner, are obtruding themselves upon the attention of the manufacturer, politician, and legislator; and must soon command that of the farmer and merchant; and by and by, even the solicitude of the church. Indeed, we should not say "by and by;" for already, while the world is agitated by the strikes and the labor congresses, while the parliament of Great Britain, through its committees, is carrying on the minutest investigations of the eight-hour and higher wages movements, our holy father at Rome has pronounced public allocutions against socialism.

Very certainly society, the state, and the church will soon deeply feel the effects of the agitation of mind and feeling going on among the working people. The allocution of his holiness shows that this consequence has not escaped his penetrating intellect. He sees clearly that the agitation will be injurious or produce beneficial results according to the principles, Christian or anti-christian, that shall prevail within it.[787] To avoid or prevent the fermentation and its products is impossible. It must take place; and the question is, how to make it yield clear and palatable wine. To think that the church can ignore it, and go on as if nothing were shaking the body politic, and disturbing the souls of the people, would be to stultify ourselves. The issue raised is too important, and the tendency to revolution too powerfully pressed to be disregarded and treated with contempt. See the great number of societies the workmen have formed in every Northern State. These societies have already drawn a majority of the skilled operatives, and there is a prospect of their finally absorbing all the working-people. The agricultural laborers already give signs of sympathy with the movement.

Of course, we understand that it matters not to the church what economic or political party governs the state. The controversies between Democrat and Republican, free-trade and protection, labor and capital, are mere worldly matters, and do not concern the church; but the coming issue has a deeper cause than a mere question of temporal expediency. In the midst of the unanimous demand for a change the men of labor are making, we can also perceive, not only that the wished-for changes are fundamental and revolutionary, but also that the leaders are actuated by very different principles, and aim at different ultimates, and that these relate to the very origin, basis, and end of private and public morality and religion. Some move by the light of Christianity, some by that of natural reason as exhibited by the modern infidel schools of philosophy—naturalism, rationalism, individualism, positivism, and evolutionism. Very different motives and very different hopes move the principal agitators, though they now act with great unanimity. The working multitude, who complain of wrong, and seek a practical remedy, have not yet looked beyond the surface of the speeches, or into the details of the plans of their principal men. It suffices that these say they have found the proper remedy. They have gained the confidence of followers merely from evincing a knowledge of the grounds of complaint, and giving eloquent expression to their sympathy. The working-men hardly discuss the merits of the particular methods of reform proposed; and they will follow one or the other class of leaders as it happens that either succeeds in captivating them by the arts of ambition. The difference in the possible consequences is immense; but first the leaders, each with his followers, will act together to break up the customs, laws, and institutions by which the interests of the laboring men are injuriously affected; and not till they accomplish this against the common enemy shall we know (unless we prepare the way) whether the counsels of infidelity or of Christianity will be followed in the reconstruction.

The work of determining the tendency one way or the other is going on even now. If we scrutinize societies, institutions, and parties formed for the purpose of relieving the evils that poverty causes among the people, we shall find it easy to class them under discordant heads. (1) Those founded by Christian charity, wholly innocent of any political purpose—works of disinterested mercy and brotherly love. (2) Those invented by political economists and lawyers, merely as a means of favoring capitalists and the personal accumulation of property, or to suppress pauperism and vagrancy, such as monopolies, poor-houses, and the like. (3) Those contrived from motives of private prudence and economy only, such as mutual aid societies, coöperative stores,[788] etc. (4) Those proceeding on the ground that the laboring classes will never get their just portion of worldly goods and enjoyments otherwise than through political action, as, for instance, the national labor reform party. (5) The Utopias and secret societies imagined by infidels.

It is this last-mentioned class whose theories, acts, and progress compel us to consider them from a religious point of view. They are the offspring of Campanella, of Nicolas of Munster, and of Giordano Bruno. From these sprang Bolingbroke, Voltaire, Rousseau, D'Holbach, and a host of mere sceptics and speculators like them. Then came the chiefs of the French revolution, Marat and Robespierre. Next, in 1797, Babœuf opposed even Robespierre as being too backward and aristocratic, and formed a conspiracy to massacre the rich, and proclaim sumptuary laws from a mountain of the slain. After him appeared Owen, trying to realize the insane idea of conciliating atheism with charity. He was followed by St. Simon, who sought to create another contradiction, that of an aristocracy of philanthropists; governors and princes of equality, who, however, never found any subjects. Contemporaneously, Fourier invented a wonderful scheme for procuring in labor association the most luxurious pleasures and licentious indulgences. Close at his heels came Cabet, continuing Owen's method on less offensive conditions. Last of all, Noyes is trying to conceal the wolf of beastly promiscuousness under the robe of the pure lamb of Christian love. These are the most notorious of those who may be denounced as the anti-Christian agitators of the labor question. Socialism is the name they have inscribed on their banner; and hence, since all these inventors and champions have also been unanimous in waging war, directly or indirectly, against Christianity, their socialism itself should be opposed by all good Christians.

But, unfortunately, socialism, while opposing or seeking to undermine Christianity, succeeds in seducing many by the promises of sensual enjoyments she makes. Indeed, the rationale of every sect or party concerned in the labor movement begins with the main proposition which makes them and even infidel socialism acceptable to multitudes, namely, that society or the state is under obligation to relieve the miseries of the poor, and if possible to eradicate pauperism itself. If any deny that society or the law has done any injustice to labor—if, for instance, the legislator who framed the poor laws thought the pauper had nobody but himself to blame—he nevertheless admits that pauperism is not merely a personal misfortune, but a public one; that pauperism must be regarded as a social malady or sore, which, though it may not be radically cured, must and ought to be treated at least with palliatives, so as to prevent it from becoming fatal to the body politic. Thus, while attempting to exonerate the state, even the orthodox politician admits that the body politic is deeply afflicted by the virus of pauperism, and therefore himself posits the very question he would fain ignore. The poor join issue with him, and argue that from the day England and North Germany wrested the care of the poor from the monasteries, the state assumed the responsibility of their distress, and is bound to make such laws as will radically cure all misery. The contest is now raging in every direction, not only on the question of Who shall take care of the poor, but How shall they be cared for, and What are the rights and remedies they are entitled to?

The origin and object of the controversy is agreed on by every one. The dissent is upon what shall be the principle and the method according to which the desired relief shall be gained. Infidelity, under the name of socialism, would have it done without God, on grounds of naked natural equity or rational justice. It would act independently of religion, Christian faith and Christian charity. It would push the church aside, and presume to finish in another name the work our Lord Jesus Christ commenced more than eighteen centuries ago.

Hence, unless one prefers to hide his head in the sand, with the vain notion that the immense flood roaring and rising round us does not exist, because he does not see or hear it, it is time for him, if he is a Catholic, to consider from the point of view of his faith what stand he should take, and what is his duty toward the poor and toward society in the crisis the struggles of laborers for power in the state will soon bring on in this country of universal suffrage. It is not merely a question of giving and distributing alms and assistance that is to be solved, but great problems of social organization and rights are put before us. We must decide, (1) what there is in the labor movement that religion approves and encourages; (2) what there is in it religion condemns; and (3) what it contains that is merely temporal or indifferent to the church.

In any way the matter is approached it presents a religious as well as a political question to be solved, a religious as well as a political duty to be performed; for it involves the rights of the poor on us, and our duty to them as Christians. What if the demands of the laborers were just, and that, notwithstanding this, we should oppose them? While socialism, as a whole, should be opposed, it is admitted that the present poor-laws and charitable institutions are insufficient, and some more thorough system of relief must be adopted. The working-men insist that this shall be done, and for this purpose claim to elect those who are to govern the state, and make the laws. Religion cannot neglect to interfere without leaving multitudes of souls of the poor to be seduced into the naturalism, sensualism, and infidelity the socialists purpose as the consummation of the movement. Nor does the question of our religious duty toward the poor in this crisis cease to demand an answer upon a mere refutation of socialistic theories. It does not suffice to show that the Utopias of Babœuf, Owen, Cabet, St. Simon, Fourier, and Noyes are abominable, but the just principle of economic distribution must be found and applied under penalty of eternal anarchy. The negation of one medicine as unfit does not dispense from finding another that will cure, when, indeed, a disease exists; and we take it for granted that no Christian who has heard or read of the successive burdens and hardships of the poor operatives and peasants of Europe will say that there is no disease to be cured, or who is heartless enough to abandon the case on the ground that it is incurable. Certain it is that the hard-working poor will not concede that they suffer no injustice—will not cease to demand permanent relief; and if religion ignores, denies, or abandons the sick, they will resort to philosophical quacks, who will lead them to their moral and religious ruin. Worse; as foreseen by his holiness Pius IX., they will repeat the apostasy of the French revolution, and with the same sacrilegious and despotic spirit, but with more cunning and method, prohibit religion itself.

Their main lever in accomplishing this will be the labor movement, if they succeed in controlling it. Hence, what we shall do with it, is a question of vital importance.

At the outset the Catholic must give a negative answer to all propositions and plans for disturbing vested rights or violently resisting the laws, or lawful authority, under pretence of establishing justice. This proposition needs no argument to show its wisdom and conformity with divine law.

Next, the Catholic will oppose agrarianism, which is the forcible taking of all property to distribute it in equal portions among the people. This is forced equality; a very different thing from associated labor.

Finally, the Catholic will also even oppose association when she would organize corruption and irreligion under the guise of philanthropy and fraternity.

No doubt these are the features of the labor movement his holiness Pius IX. designated under the general title of socialism when, on the 17th of June last, in his allocution to the cardinals, he said:

The plain duty of lopping off socialism, and of casting it aside, being performed, there remains, (1) reform through just legislation; (2) legal contracts for mutual relief; (3) coöperation or association of work-fellows; and (4) the realization of perfect Christian charity.

We think we could prove that all the purely secular remedies—such as coöoperation, mutuality, and the like—are delusive, and in themselves inadequate; but it is not our present purpose to examine this branch of the subject. A volume would not suffice. It is only necessary to remark, en passant, that there is nothing in the organizations included under the general name of coöperation contrary to religion; but at the same time there is nothing in coöperation that springs from religion; it is a mere economic contrivance. It is not a religious solution of the problem of social distress; and since we have argued that religion must be able to give a temporal as well as a spiritual answer to the complaints of the poor, we will pass by all minor and transitional questions, and consider only what the earthly Utopia of faith and charity would be; and inquire what method might now be adopted to inaugurate the practical reign of Christian fellowship, in which the laborer would necessarily reap the reward he is justly entitled to.

Yes, religion has also its earthly new Eden, that will give full satisfaction to the over-burdened and under-paid workman. Let us try to picture it in our imagination, in order to judge from a study of the ideal whether it would be possible to make it a reality. To do this, we should begin by stating the principles on which this ideal should be founded; and we should also mention such historical facts as may serve to enlighten us on the practical application of those principles.

The Scriptures and the church teach that there are degrees of merit, beginning with that minimum of righteousness sufficient to save us from damnation. From that point the degrees rise one above the other till they ascend beyond the regions of prohibition and precept to the realms of counsel and perfection. There is the man who is willing to obey God so far only as to refrain from violating the[791] ten commandments. Then there are those who, besides this, give alms and do other works of mercy for Christ's sake; and finally, there are those who, seeking for the Holy Spirit, labor for and do works necessary to attain perfection.

Excuse this positing of doctrines familiar to us all. They are stated as parts of our argument.

Among the immediate disciples of Christ there were not only shepherds, mechanics, fishermen, physicians, and farmers; but also tradesmen, and even lawyers and soldiers. Some were rich, and nevertheless were regarded as having merited heaven. Zaccheus is an instance of this class; to please God, he gave as much as half of his goods to the poor. He went only half-way in perfection. It is clear that if people generally refrained from committing any of the offences mentioned in the ten commandments, justice would reign, and therefore many social grievances of the worst kind would disappear. True, this would not suffice to give affirmative happiness, but it would be the negation of positive moral woe. Works of mercy are necessary to dry all tears; and charity has the genial warmth that makes the smile bloom again on the countenances of those who have wept. Now, charity is first pity and sympathy; and then it is sacrifice. It has beautiful demonstrations of love in words and demeanor, but it fully realizes itself in sacrifices; and these sacrifices are of every extent. Some are small but cheerfully offered, as the widow's mite. Some are proportionately large, as the apportionment Zaccheus made; but some are unlimited, as the triple vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience of the regular clergy.

Jesus said to him, If thou wilt be PERFECT, go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor; and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, and follow me. (Matt. xix. 21.) Blessed are ye (willingly) poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. (Luke vi. 20; Matt. v. 3.) Where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also. (Matt. vi. 21.) You cannot serve God and Mammon. (Matt. vi. 24.) He who hath left house, etc., ... for my sake and for the gospel, ... shall ... receive a hundred times as much, now in this time; ... and in the world to come life everlasting. (Mark x. 29, 30.)

From these and numerous similar speeches of our Lord, and from a spirit of gratitude, his disciples were inspired with the desire of attaining perfection. Those who remained steadfast notwithstanding the crucifixion, or rather because of the crucifixion, gathered around the apostles and pronounced the vow of poverty. "All they that believed were together, and had all things in common." (Acts ii. 44.)

This is the first instance of real communism that ever occurred in the world, and it was the logical product of the teachings of our Lord and his apostles. That it was the logical product, could be easily shown by argument on the language of Scripture; but it suffices that it was approved by Peter and the other apostles. They knew best; and, indeed, gave example by becoming members of the community. That it was the first instance of real communism, we assert without forgetting the Essenes, the Lacedemonians, and the like, from whose systems it is easy to distinguish the apostolic community of goods.

And here we ask particular attention to the grand and glorious trait which distinguishes Christian reductionism[185] from socialism, agrarianism, coöperation, and all other worldly plans of association.

The object of worldly association is merely to benefit its own members in secular welfare. It has no outflowing. It is a partnership for distribution of products, profits, pleasure, or knowledge among the members, contributors, or coöperators only. Thus it was with the Essenes. The principle and purpose of their community of goods was not the extension of its benefits to the neighbor. They had and enjoyed their wealth among themselves exclusively. Their associations were just as selfish as any individual; the only difference being that in one case it is a single person and in the other a company that is selfish, and clannishly withholds its own from the rest of the world. They did not practise true charity, that charity which goes beyond home. The communication of the Essenes began and ended at home. It did not, therefore, resemble the Christian charity described by St. Paul; they had no idea of it. Modern society has many examples of participation like that of the Essenes. The free-masons and other mutual aid societies are of this kind.

Of course, reciprocity or coöperation existed in the apostolic community; but this was only incidental and secondary. One of the main elements of charity is its universality, and therefore it extends far beyond mere mutuality. It gives—it is not a contract of exchange or insurance. Associations of the Christian kind do not limit themselves to themselves. Besides mutual help, they give help to any and all men. Indeed, most frequently Christian charitable institutions entirely lose sight of any mutuality. The members, as it were, forget themselves individually, think of no restitution, and have their whole attention and sentiments, with those of the company, fixed beyond their own wants and upon the alleviation of the burdens and pains of the poor in general. Every reader knows of many illustrations of this difference. We need not mention particular cases.

Indeed, the very nature of Christian charity precludes the limiting of benefits to the members of a society. Therefore, the moment any company resolves to contribute or work for the purpose of a division among its own members exclusively, it can have no claim to be acting on the principle of charity. Charity ignores any such distinction; she tends toward all men indiscriminately; she feels for them all alike, as brethren and neighbors; she sympathizes with all; she is spontaneous, she is expansive, she radiates. She loves; and her love overflows: then runs in diverging rills to every door.

Association recommends itself to the Christian from other considerations than those of economy, security against want, multiplication of productions, and increase of wealth. He enters into association to increase his power with God, to attract grace, to set up a common defence against sin, to have the strength of union against Satan, to have more time and opportunity to do good, and to do it more efficiently. The fundamental motive of the Christian throughout is love of God and man, piety and mercy. It is the spirit of sacrifice; it is actuated by no prospect of self-advantage; or, at worst, it expects personal advantage only through and under the universal good. This was the absolute self-abnegation and exuberance of love out of which the apostolic community spontaneously sprang.

It is an error to suppose that the primitive Christians abandoned their community of things upon their first dispersion or flight from persecution. (Acts viii. 1.) It continued long afterward, as we learn from the fathers of the church. Justin Martyr, (Apol. c. 2,)[793] describing Christian society as it was in his time, (A.D. 150,) says,

It needs no argument to make a Catholic see how the solemn vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience must be a development or consequence of the manners and customs of the primitive Christians. Even in Justin's time, community of goods was the prevailing practice among Christians; but as the faith spread itself widely, and as whole nations were converted, the great majority were incapable of that intense zeal and of those aspiring sentiments that may achieve perfection. Those who aimed so high were in a small minority when counted apart from the total population; and they found it necessary to seek freedom and escape persecution by resorting to solitude, or to fortify themselves against the general lukewarmness by solemn vows, or to resist the influence of the world by separate association. Hence, at first, those who sought to attain perfection fled to the desert, imitating the ancient prophets. They were the Theban hermits or anchorites. Then appeared companionship in mortification in the unital homes of the cenobites and monks. Then, long afterward, came the companies of militant charity: the Jesuits, Sisters of Charity, Lazarists, and many others.

Persons who wish to rise above the ordinary degree of piety, above the common level of Catholic practice, generally attempt full perfection. Animated by the spirit of self-sacrifice and an ardent desire to imitate our Lord, they not only devote themselves to poverty and obedience, but also to chastity. They are not content with less than the three vows, the fulness of perfection.

Just here, we wish the reader's attention to an important point, through which we expect to arrive at a solution of the questions propounded in the beginning of this article. It is that, though generally we see the "three vows" practised together, we would be in error if we supposed that they are inseparable, and that Catholicity admits only of the two extremes—the common level or triple perfection. On the contrary, among the wonders and beauties of Catholicity there is the wonder and the beauty of her myri-multiform adaptability to the holy wants of all dispositions, tastes, and nationalities. The plasticity with which Catholicity suits herself (without deterioration and with always an upward tendency) to every degree and variety, of practical virtue, is marvellous. She is, indeed, all things to all men without ceasing to be the spouse of Christ. Hence, within her fold there are, besides the common law of faith and discipline, multitudes of approved forms of devotion, giving egress and exteriority to every peculiarity of good impulse the soul may experience. There are saints of every trade, occupation, habitude, and condition to be imitated. There are many kinds of confraternities, sodalities, societies, and orders—both lay and clerical—formed to accomplish every good work. The number of these ways, rules, methods, forms, and associations is so great, a description of them all fills volumes.

Sometimes a number of laymen combine to do a charitable work without forming any vow. Often they make only simple vows; but many engage themselves by solemn vows. In some cases the counsel of chastity is followed[794] without that of poverty; the secular priesthood is an example of this kind. Sometimes the vow of poverty has been made without that of celibacy, as in the case of Ananias and Saphira.

St. Barnabas, in the first century; Saints Justin, Julian, and Lucian, in the second century; Saint Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and St. Cyprien, in the third century; and Arnobius and Lactantius, in the fourth century, say (Bergier, vol. i. p. 380) that between Christians all things were in common; but we easily gather from other statements and allusions in their works that they did not mean a community by virtue of any positive RIGHT or precept. They meant the generous liberality, the voluntary self-sacrifice, that characterized the manners and customs of the Christians. None asserted conjoint ownership or other title to their neighbor's property, nor did any pretend to demand authoritatively, as the obligation of a contract, a participation or use exigible by virtue of the membership of Christ; but all, actuated by Christian fellow-feeling, gave spontaneously and freely, so that none were allowed to suffer from want of subsistence. The effect was the same, or better, than if all things were in common by virtue of a legal obligation or contract. It was the same as if all Christians had made a solemn vow to deprive themselves, in order to be able to relieve all cases of suffering poverty they knew of. The vow of poverty has no other temporal object. Its theory is the doctrine of charity, not that of any natural social right.

Gradually this unmeasured charity appeared to diminish; for the whole empire being theoretically though not practically converted to Christianity, the Christians at heart were lost in the immense crowd of merely nominal believers, and were but partially able to know each other and communicate. At the same time, so widely and deeply corrupt were the people, even the poor, that charity herself was forced to be cautious. In fact, the number of sincere Christians, and therefore of charitable persons, had not diminished; but was so small in proportion to the number of the distressed, that even by bestowing their all they could produce no sensible diminution of the general misery.

The situation was almost identical with that of the present time; and the plainest remedy would have been then, as it would be now, a great augmentation of the number of Christians imbued with the spirit of charity and disposed to self-sacrifice.

The Catholic Church made many glorious efforts to effect this cure by increasing the number of the faithful and true, and by organizing her charitable agencies. She gave birth to those missions and institutions by which the spiritual nature and intention of Christianity was preserved, perpetuated, and disseminated, even through barbarian conquest and feudal oppression. To be able to devote themselves to promoting their own and their neighbor's salvation, and to help the sick, the oppressed, and the poor, the members of the monastic and chivalric orders generally bound themselves by "three vows;" and if they ever omitted any one of the three, it was the vow of poverty. The holy knights, for instance, frequently vowed themselves to chastity and obedience; but not always to poverty. Chastity and obedience are not considerably thwarted by the possession of worldly riches; and they may without very serious detriment dispense with the restraints of poverty: but poverty is very difficult without chastity; for the hardships of poverty are grievously multiplied by the necessity of providing[795] for a family. Hence, even in the remotest times, the orders have added the vow of chastity to that of poverty.

Doubtless there have been, since apostolic times, many isolated instances of the vow of poverty being made by an entire FAMILY. Among the tertiary or lay brethren of the regular orders, cases of such a combination might easily have happened. We take it for granted that if a husband and wife make the vow of poverty, they would (if otherwise correct) be accepted as a tertiary or lay brother and sister of any regular order bound by the three vows, such as the Franciscans, Jesuits, etc. We know, however, of only one recorded instance of there having existed, since apostolic times, a distinctly and duly organized congregation, sodality, company, or community of married Catholics living under the obligations of a solemn or even simple vow of poverty. The schismatics or heretics cannot even adduce a single instance; for, as already noted, their societies are not willingly poor, but the object of their association is comfort and wealth.

Yet, long before the beautiful results obtained by the Jesuit fathers in Paraguay, the good such establishments might do had been clearly foreseen by excellent and learned Catholics. That confessor of the faith, Sir Thomas More, who was beheaded by Henry VIII. for refusing the oath of supremacy, wrote the first Utopia, founded on the idea of a community of goods among a whole people. Since that day the idea has fermented, and will not allow the world to rest until it is practically fulfilled by a Christian people; for it is a Christian idea, based only on Christian motives, and wholly impracticable outside of the Christian religion. It was to emulate the example set by the Jesuits that several Christian, though schismatic or heretical, societies have been partially successful in realizing this idea. These are the Moravians, Rappists, Shakers, and Ballouists; but we are satisfied the work of realization must be resumed by Catholic hands, and with Catholic motives, and on Catholic grounds, before it can be permanently and beautifully successful.

1. What are the distinctive motives and grounds of an apostolic reduction to the rule of community?

2. What essential Catholic conditions should the organic rule of such an establishment embody?

3. Would such establishments tend to disseminate the faith and strengthen the church?

4. Are the times propitious, and do surrounding circumstances demand missionary attention to this matter?

5. Is there place in the economy of the church militant for the operation of communities of families having property in common?

We fear that the editor would not allow the space necessary for an elaborate answer to these questions. We will therefore endeavor to be very brief.

1. A socialist would say that the only motive for association is a desire to better our worldly condition; that, therefore, association is recommendable only so far as it facilitates increased production, thorough economy, equitable distribution, and greater security; and that it is only by convincing men of these tangible advantages that they will be induced to give up individualism for combinism. So their phalansteries and familisteries are nothing but contrivances to save and gain time, labor, and money for the benefit of the company, and in rivalry with, and exclusive of, every other[796] company and the remainder of mankind. It is only the old principle of self-interest, covetousness, greed of gain, love of money, exercised by partnerships or corporations instead of single persons. Thus, some of these companies will get very rich, while others, though burning with covetousness and discontent, will fall into great poverty. But besides selfish motives moving men, there are others more powerful and certainly more Christian. For instance, a catholic community of goods would rest on directly the opposite of self-interest, and be induced by charity counteracting the excess of egoism. True, as in the other case, association would be only a means, and also a guarantee of safety, economy, and increase; but how different the ulterior object! The final causes of a catholic "reduction" to community of goods would be: (1) to live apart from the evil example of the world; (2) to sustain and encourage one another in the faith and its practices; (3) to secure the rearing of children in the practice of religion; (4) to be able to hear mass oftener, and indulge more frequently and expansively in prayer and other sweet and consoling devotions; (5) to save and increase wealth indeed, though not for self, not for the company and its members beyond the absolute necessities of life, but for external charity—distribution among the poor neighbors, or the establishment of similar companies; (6) the "reductionists" (We venture to generalize the name they had in Paraguay) would work in a spirit of self-sacrifice to please God; (7) they would offer up their voluntary privations as acts of love, penance, and prayer; (8) they would be actuated by aspirations to merit grace and attain perfection; (9) be moved by a desire to display faith before the world, and to concentrate its light so that it might radiate far and wide; and finally, (10,) they would cherish the thought that their zeal might be efficient in strengthening the influence, facilitating the operations, and increasing the glory of the church. What an immense difference between reductionism and socialism!

2. The essential conditions of such an association would be the vows of poverty and obedience, under such sanctions and guarantees and inspired by such hopes as only the Catholic Church can give; and, since the society would admit persons living in marriage, and since the church teaches the indissolubility of the marriage-tie, the unity of the consent of husband and wife to the acceptance of these vows previous to admission. The vow of poverty would be a sine qua non, since without it the society would be liable to the precariousness of all secular enterprises; and since, also, without this vow the society would not have the mark, the trait, the essential quality that distinguishes disinterested reductionism from riches-and-comfort-seeking socialism. The vow of obedience to a superior authority, such as a clerical director or a bishop, is also indispensable. Those who have had opportunity of observing the interior operation of a socialist or Protestant association must be fully sensible of the importance of this condition. They are distracted by divided counsels, inconsistencies of purpose, obstinacy and pride of opinions, rival ambitions, and the like. The end is generally ruin. They only succeed in proportion to such modicum of humility and obedience as they have contrived to incorporate in their rules and intention. Sometimes it is only the acknowledged superiority and energy of character of a founder or leader that preserves the organization. As soon as this personage dies, his creature goes also into dissolution.[797] Hence, we say the vital conditions of a "reduction" are, (1) Christian fervor; (2) Christian humility; (3) Christian marriage; (4) Christian poverty, and (5) Catholic obedience.

3. We have before us an account of the Paraguay missions, from which we copy the following passage, (p. 52),

This extract answers the question whether such a company would tend to disseminate the faith and strengthen the church. The process of increase would be in geometrical proportion. Each reduction would have several offspring, and these, in turn, would also each evolve several others. This was the case in Paraguay. There, in a few years, the reductions became so numerous that they lined the banks of the Parana and Uruguay, extended far into the interior, and, in the words of an historian, formed "a Christian republic, where, far from the dwellings and evil designs of the colonists, the spirit of the primitive church revived." Alas! that this caused the envy and jealousy of the world of avarice and ambition. In one more generation, if the Jesuit fathers had not been banished, the Christian republic would have been permanently established. The glorious example they set should not remain fruitless. There is a possibility of similar work and similar results in the midst of the moral desert of civilization. It is time that the shepherds should gather their lambs into visible and safer folds. The lambs should not be left to straggle among the wolves of this moral wilderness. Surely the fact of these straggling members of the flock being married should be no objection to their being provided with a refuge when the couple seek it with unity of will, and would fain find in it the opportunity of serving God. Surely, the fructification of such a work would be wonderful; for its beneficence and Christian spirit would be so apparent that thousands of poor Catholics would eagerly join it, and tens of thousands of lost sheep would be reconverted so as to follow the religious and beautiful life thus made practically possible. This power of multiplying themselves, this productiveness by thirty, seventy, and a hundred fold, is a peculiarity of this kind of association; for, while socialistic and coöperative societies are concentric, a Christian association or reduction, by virtue of its voluntary self-privation and consequent making of a disposable surplus, and by virtue of its desire to bestow in charity this surplus, is evolutive and prolific.

4. Surrounding circumstances in these times not only demand the attention of the church to the subject of association, but the world now offers facilities which, though very different from those that existed in Paraguay, are far more favorable and congenial. In Paraguay, the reverend fathers found people capable of discipline, but barbarous, ignorant, and suspicious. In civilization to-day, instead of savage ignorance, we see foolish infidelity and moral corruption; but, at the same time, a belief in the benefits of association is spreading itself continually. This belief evinces itself in every direction. It resolves and attempts a great many forms of combination. The conviction that good will flow from the industrial association of those who labor is becoming more and more intense.[798] Several secular efforts, based on mere worldly advantage or mutuality, have proved seriously successful. The tendency of work and business is toward the organization of corporations. The capitalists have set the example by their monster companies and monopolies. The plain deduction is, that this tendency affords a favorable opportunity for forming reductions. To neglect it would be to neglect making all things work together unto good to such as, according to God's purpose, are called to be saints. (Rom. viii. 28.)

5. To say that there is no place for communities of families in the economy of the church, would be to deny her beautiful adaptability to all grades and varieties of virtue and good works. That she should reject and oppose socialism, with its cortége of free love, heresy, blasphemy, covetousness, naturalism, and woman's dispersion, let us loudly declare; but to say that there should be in the system of the church a place only for such apostolic communities as are composed of celibates, would be to condemn her history, which tells us of the community at Jerusalem, and of the reductions of Paraguay. We cannot suppose there is a grade or kind of real perfection that the church would reject, if, indeed, that grade or kind be in conformity with evangelical counsel. It is said that keeping the vow of poverty would be too hard for married people, who are naturally impelled to seek riches for the sake of their children. It is said that parental bias, solicitude, and duty would create great obstacles, hard to be overcome. Supposing this, still we say, all things are possible with God. The merit of those who, with God, could conciliate these two obligations, and accomplish both, would only be greater in the eyes of the church. Certainly, no Catholic will say that the counsels in regard to voluntary poverty are meant only for celibates, and that only celibates are entitled to gain the consequent blessings. "Blessed are the" willingly "poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Certainly, a man and wife are entitled to earn the benefits of this willing poverty as well as any monk or nun. The married poor are entitled to make the same sacrifice and take part in the same work to enhance the glory of the church, and to merit the same reward. Association makes the sacrifice and the work possible to the celibate. It creates a similar possibility for married people. The wondrous powers of combined labor and economy are well known. The fields in that direction are wide and free, and ready for good seed. Instead of thinking that associations of married people are in any wise incompatible with Catholic doctrine and discipline, a little reflection will convince us that it is, on the contrary, the long-neglected link that completes the circle of good works. Infidels would fain seize the position, and try to adapt it to naturalism and cupidity; but their attempts have been simply ridiculous. The reason is obvious: the vow of poverty and all its consequences is possible only in and through the motives inspired by the Christian religion. They cannot exist and cannot be imitated outside. True association, that which is productive of moral good and social happiness, that which springs from charity, belongs to Christianity, and it is impossible to separate it from her. It was practised by the primitive disciples, it was praised and taught by the fathers of the church, it was and still is fulfilled by the celibates in the monasteries, it was successfully applied in the reductions to a whole people; and we conclude that the place once occupied by saintly tribes and families under the wing of the church is still vacant and open to their return and reëstablishment.

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF POLAND.

America owes a debt of gratitude to the Polish nation. In the darkest days of our struggle for independence many brave Poles came to our assistance. The name of Pulaski stands among the most honored names of the Revolution. To-day we are on a most friendly footing and possess much influence with Russia. She is crushing Poland to the earth in a manner which is a disgrace to the nineteenth century. Shall we be silent when our voice might bring aid to a noble but unfortunate people, who generously assisted us in the hour of need? Justice and gratitude both forbid.

The unprecedented and truly pitiful condition to which the former Polish provinces have been reduced by Muscovite tyranny makes it a duty, which we owe likewise to our common humanity, to direct attention to that ill-used country, and to illustrate somewhat in detail the intolerable religious, political, and social chaos into which it has been precipitated. The idea of restoring the ancient Sarmatian monarchy to its territorial integrity might justly be deemed Utopian; but we have still the right to insist, in the name of every recognized principle of moral and public law, that the inconsequence and barbarity with which Russian Poland, and especially Congress Poland, is now being treated, should cease. No one capable of appreciating the extent of the evil can fail to perceive that such an anomalous state of things as there obtains is absolutely insufferable, and that even Muscovite brutality cannot much longer expect to avert another revolution. The eventualities of the Polish question demand, therefore, for this reason alone, the serious and early interference of the great powers.

To enable the reader to arrive at a thorough understanding of the question, it is necessary that we should commence by casting a brief glance at the present religious condition of the country. It is well known that the Roman Catholic Church, which is professed by six sevenths of the Christian and five sevenths of the total population of the kingdom—the church which has the deepest and strongest hold upon the social and historical life, the customs and character of the nation—has, during the last six years, been systematically degraded, both de facto and officially, to the rank of a mere schism. The Archbishop of Poland, expressly selected for the primacy by the Emperor Alexander on account of his probity and virtues, was deposed after a twelve months' incumbency without charges, trial, or sentence. The sole excuse for this harsh treatment was that he presumed to remonstrate against the extreme severity with which the most trivial political offences of his countrymen were punished. The venerable prelate is now a close prisoner of state in the interior of Russia. His place in the archiepiscopal palace is filled by a Russian, Tschinownik, of the Greek orthodox stamp, who wields absolute sway over the "sectarian" churches—as the Roman Catholic and the evangelic are called—and entertains a select circle of friends with Russo-French amateur theatricals in the apartments in which Tijalewski and Felinski once meditated and prayed.

The treatment meted out to the other patriotic bishops has been marked by a similarly brutal and vindictive[800] spirit. Some of them are prisoners in Siberia; some, like Bishop Lubinski, have died on the way out; some languish in foreign exile. Their dioceses have been conferred on ecclesiastics who are in the interest of Russia, and therefore execrated and despised as traitors by their own countrymen. All intercourse and dealings between the Catholic hierarchy in Poland and the see of Rome have been interdicted and rendered almost impossible. With a view of preserving appearances, a Catholic synod has, by force and threats, been convened under the auspices of the imperial government at St. Petersburg. The members of this body have been clothed with jurisdiction in all ecclesiastical affairs. The lower clergy, stripped of their revenues and endowments, have been made dependent on a state subsidy, which may be withdrawn at discretion by the temporal authorities. Laymen, without properly defined duties and powers, completely ignorant of the wants and aims of the church, preside over the priesthood and prescribe the ritual and the ecclesiastical discipline. The majority of the convents and religious houses, as well as the schools connected with them, have been closed, and the superintendence which the religious formerly exercised over the education and training of youth has been entirely taken away. A number of the finest Roman Catholic church edifices has been appropriated for the use of the Greek Orthodox Church, which has in addition been endowed out of the property and funds of the former. The concordat with Rome has been abrogated, and though the St. Petersburg cabinet denies that M. de Meyendorff, its ambassador to the holy see, told the supreme pontiff to his face that "Catholicism is synonymous with revolution," yet the treatment of the Catholic Church of Poland has been exactly in accordance with such a theory. The United Greek Church, previously on the most cordial terms with her Roman relative and the Polish nationality, has been entirely estranged from Rome, and placed under the influence of anti-Polish, Russo-maniac Ruthenians, expressly imported with this view from Galizia. With such spiritual guides to direct them, it was expected that many would be gradually brought over to the Greek Church, as had indeed been attempted once before, but with rather indifferent success, in Lithuania, during the reign of the Emperor Nicholas. But we need not enlarge on this theme. Whole volumes might be filled with accounts of the persecutions to which the national church and her servants have been subjected by the Russian government. Who does not still remember the heart-rending scenes enacted at Warsaw during the revolutionary years, when the Cossacks forced their way into the sanctuaries and dragged thousands of worshippers from the steps of the altar to the dungeons of the citadel, or the still more recent attempt to compel the Catholic clergy to perform divine service in the Russian language? These specimens of Muscovite tyranny in times of peace have sent a thrill of horror and loathing throughout the entire Christian world, and are still too fresh in the memory of the living to be forgotten.

Passing from the spiritual administration of the kingdom to the temporal, we find it intrusted to a class of men who are as hostile and foreign to the nation as to every established theory of good government. This is especially the case in the provinces, where all the authority rests in the hands of Stock-Russians, natives of a country whose political and economical systems, whose physical and historical life, whose character, customs, laws, views, ideas, etc., are in every[801] respect the very opposite to those of Poland. Selected almost exclusively from among the subalterns of the army, their profession has taught them to laugh at civil and constitutional guarantees, to disregard the delicately adjusted and carefully balanced interests of the community, and it is therefore not surprising that their misgovernment should exceed all belief. Of the wisdom, moderation, and forbearance which the peculiar state of affairs in Poland demands, there is no trace. It matters very little that Field-Marshal Count Berg, the viceroy of the kingdom, and some of the generals who preside over certain branches of the administration, should personally be honest, conscientious, well-meaning, and just men. The training, antecedents, principles, and habits of their subordinates are such as unfit them for civil positions. Yet this deplorable want of all administrative talent and experience in the colonels, captains, and lieutenants who are appointed to govern the provinces, does not constitute the greatest and most serious objection to them. Besides the very small amount of intelligence possessed by the average Russian subaltern, he is noted for some far more offensive traits. This class is proverbial for its rapacity, dishonesty, venality, intemperance, and immorality; and as every Russian looks upon himself in the light of a conqueror among a treacherous, rebellious people, he naturally regards all Poles, and especially the refined and educated among them, as his personal enemies, whom he only refrains from plundering and oppressing so long as he is bribed.

Before the insurrection of 1863, the administration of the kingdom was in all essential features autonomic and distinct from that of the Russian empire, a privilege which Finland still enjoys at this day. A minister for Polish affairs had a place in the St. Petersburg cabinet, and through his hands passed all the public business which the conquered country transacted with the imperial government and the sovereign himself. At Warsaw sat an administrative council, a kind of Polish ministry, over whose deliberations the viceroy presided in person. The members of the Warsaw administration were also the chiefs of the several public departments, such as that of the interior, of justice, of education, of religion, etc. Within the last four years the management of these departments has, however, been transferred to St. Petersburg, while the viceroy, in spite of his title as the representative of majesty, now only retains a mere nominal authority. Instead of the administrative council, an administrative and even legislative inquisition, which interferes arbitrarily with the different branches of the public service, and completely neutralizes the viceregal influence, has been established. This overshadowing power, the so-called Committee of Organization—named thus because it was originally created to arrange the differences between the landlords and serfs which arose out of the emancipation ukase of 1864—has usurped supreme legislative, judicial, and executive functions, so that without its coöperation the viceroy is absolutely powerless. Under the unassuming title of a corresponding member of the committee, the celebrated Panslavist, Solowjeff, is the real leader of the Russian government at Warsaw, while Count Berg, the viceroy, has become the bearer of an empty dignity, and is only saved from the unpleasant position of a puppet by his rank as a marshal of the empire, and commander-in-chief of the forces in the Warsaw district.

It may well be doubted whether the civilized world has ever seen such[802] military-bureaucratic anarchy as modern Poland now presents. Those who witness this state of things from a distance must find it impossible to form an adequate conception of the semi-barbaric, semi-refined confusion which is its chief characteristic. And yet, all the wrong, all the injustice, all the inconsistency of this administrative chaos, with its long train of social, political, and religious embarrassments and entanglements, is outdone by the interference with a most holy and inalienable right of not only every citizen, but of every human being. That right is the sacred right of education and instruction, with which the Russian government has meddled in a most unwarranted and despotic manner. The moral violence to which it has resorted in this matter outrages every thing that the human race considers peculiarly sacred and dear. All the atrocities committed by heathen tyrants, which history records, appear insignificant by the side of the infamous system, deliberately devised and enforced under a monarch who advocates progress at home, while in the affairs of Poland he is ruled by a terroristic faction that labors with fanatic zeal for the moral dismemberment, emasculation, and degradation of the rising generation of a vigorous, living, Christian people, who have shared for more than ten centuries in the blessings of western culture.

This language may appear too strong, but it is more than justified by the provocation and offence. No other government but the Russian has, within historical times, been known to prohibit, under severe penalties, private instruction in the elementary branches and religion in the national tongue. There is no instance on record of a civilized state whose rulers have devoted all their energies to the suppression and reduction of the number of existing educational establishments, or to the discouragement of attendance at school by raising the cost of tuition, the price of school-books, and by generally resorting to other equally disreputable expedients for the purpose of rendering the means of education inaccessible to an oppressed and impoverished population.[186] It is only in Poland that entire faculties—which contained many foreign professors invited to the country with assurances of permanent positions—have been suddenly ordered to adopt a strange language insufficiently developed for scientific purposes; and no government but the czar's would have dared to make non-compliance with such a preposterous demand a cause for summary dismissal without compensation. In no other land would the public schools have been placed under the control of individuals notoriously incompetent in a scientific, educational, social, and moral point of view for this grave responsibility; men so little superior in intellect and manners to the semi-civilized, non-commissioned officers under them, that they have frequently been known to assail the professors in the presence of their scholars with the foulest abuse, and even with blows. Where else, save in Russia, would public functionaries have overlooked gross breaches of discipline in the students, for the sake of tempting them to disgrace themselves by demonstrations against the land of their birth? Where else, save there, could have originated the monstrous idea [803] of perverting the compositions of school children so that they appeared to reflect the darker sides of the national character; or where else would these juvenile emanations have been published to the world as evidences of the degradation of a whole people? What other Christian and civilized government would have stooped to the incredible infamy of turning the seminaries for the education of the future wives and daughters of the land into schools for coquetry and places for promiscuous intercourse between the sexes, in the hope of thus debauching and demoralizing both the present and the next generation?

Yet all this, and all that a fiendish ingenuity could possibly invent or suggest in the same direction, has actually been done, openly and in the broad light of day, by the Russian government in Poland, more especially since the middle of the present decade. To make this tyranny still more oppressive and hideous, the Polish child is not allowed to be educated in its native tongue, but in one instinctively repulsive to it, difficult to acquire by reason of its peculiar characters, and far less adapted to intellectual uses than the Polish. Not even religious consolation and instruction—though they address themselves to the holiest feelings of our nature—are permitted to reach the oppressed people in any language but the abhorred Russian. A terrorism like this acts with the effects of poisonous dew upon excitable temperaments, and explains how the most exemplary piety and the fiercest thirst for vengeance may dwell side by side in the national heart. To crown, as it were, these wrongs and insults, the Russian authorities have lately forbidden the pupils of the public schools to speak their own language even during the hours allotted for play. The design, of course, is to completely Russianize the young Polish generation. It is for the same reason that the pupils of the public schools are compelled to wear a Russian uniform, and to salute, after the fashion of private soldiers, every military officer whom they may happen to encounter in-doors or out. That no Polish father or mother may easily evade the pernicious effects which such an education as the public schools afford must exert upon their offspring, the refined absolutism of Russia has taken care to discourage by all means in its power the employment of private tutors and attendance at foreign institutions of learning. First, no government appointment, not even the most petty and least remunerative post, can be obtained unless the candidate understands Russian; and, as there is a great dearth of private tutors, who are either natives of Russia or who have mastered its language, a large majority of the Polish children are indirectly compelled to go to the public schools, where the only branch of study thoroughly cultivated is the Russian literature and language. Then every conceivable obstacle has been placed in the way of the employment of private instructors, either natives or foreigners, even by those families who could otherwise afford the expense. Under the reign of Nicholas, foreign professors and teachers were almost banished from the country, and those who had not the official influence necessary to evade the law, were obliged to bring them across the frontier in the disguise of servants after having bribed the police and the custom-house officials. This rule has been made still more stringent of late. No private instructor is allowed to follow his calling until he has first submitted to an examination in the Russian language—the sole test of proficiency and qualification—before a government board expressly instituted[804] for this purpose; and the result is, that hundreds of foreigners have resigned their places and left the country. The surveillance of the police is carried to an extent which can hardly be credited abroad, and their espionage makes any evasion of the interdict difficult, if not impossible. To keep the children of all save the wealthiest parents from being sent abroad for an education, the price of passports has been raised to a figure which virtually amounts to a total prohibition of foreign residence and travel.

These few unvarnished facts may suffice to give the reader a faint conception of the present state of domestic and social life in Poland. The child, bred from infancy in accordance with certain specific national customs and habits, in disposition, speech, thought, sentiment, and expression, moulded in a decidedly Polish, Roman Catholic, West-European form, is, upon its admission to school, forced not merely to reject all it has imbibed with its mother's milk, but to accept the very opposite of what nature and duty have taught it to hold sacred at home. With the Russian school uniform—the badge of degradation and slavery—the Polish boy is expected to put on a manner and speech hostile to his nationality and religion; for upon his doing so depends both his own success in life and the safety of his parents. Must not all piety and loyalty, under such an accursed system, all manhood and morality, be destroyed, and the character of the entire people deteriorate? After ten years or more of this training and preparation, the boy becomes a man. Two roads through life now open before him: he either enters the service of the state, in which case he becomes so thoroughly Russianized that he continues in all essential features to live up to the system of the school, and hardens gradually into a genuine Tschinownik; or he returns home to ripen into a conspirator and plotter. Is it then surprising that such a course of education should have made the number of shipwrecked Catilinian existences so much larger in Poland than in any other land? Is it strange that under such a government the national prosperity, which might otherwise be susceptible of great development, should steadily decline, and be replaced by an augmenting wretchedness?

Did we not know that at any time violent political catastrophes may occur and impart to the current of things a direction different to that which a majority of professional and non-professional politicians anticipate, we might easily predict to what such a state of society must inevitably lead. But irrespective of the possibility, even the probability, of great political complications, which would prevent the coöperation of the three-partite powers hereafter, there lies, despite its weaknesses and faults, a vitality and capacity of resistance in the Polish nationality that spurns unconditionally the supposition of such an extermination as the one attempted by Russia; and this it will be well to consider in every attempt for the reconstruction of the country. When a nation is to disappear and be absorbed by another, this task can only be accomplished when it is fused with a nation physically and mentally its superior. Such is, however, far from being the case in the present instance. The Russian nationality, as its colonization experiments in Lithuania have sufficiently demonstrated, can send only smaller, never larger masses into Poland, and the assimilative capacities of the Polish nationality are, in spite of its political subjection, so preponderating, by reason of a superior culture, that the Russians will much[805] sooner become Poles, than the Poles will become Russians. All the ukases, all the religious and educational tyranny and injustice, all the bayonet rule and oppression of the latter can never bridge the gulf between the two peoples. The Russification of Poland is, and must always remain, a physical and moral impossibility which no Murawieffs, Katkoffs, or Solowieffs, can hope to bring about. An imperfect, hastily-prepared insurrection, commanded by inexperienced leaders, nearly destitute of arms and resources, defied the Russian colossus nearly a year and a half. And even for this tardy victory over a country of five millions of inhabitants, who had been for more than a decade governed by martial law, Russia was chiefly indebted to the passive attitude of the neighboring states; for, had either Austria or Prussia abandoned their neutrality, the insurrection would yet be alive. The alleged right and mission of the czars to govern the Poles are actually and morally as unfounded as they are politically and legally an insult to the age and to the law of civilized nations.

FRIEDEMANN BACH.

PART FIRST.

On New Year's eve of the year 1736, a brilliant company was assembled in the salons of the Count von Bruhl, lord premier to the Elector of Saxony. The mansion, opposite the castle in Dresden, was illuminated so brightly that the whole street in front was light as day. In a shadow of the castle wall stood a man wrapped in a cloak, gazing up at the windows, behind which could be seen the gay confusion of guests. Presently one—a lady splendidly dressed—came close to one of the windows, opened it, and stepped out upon the balcony. The light gleamed on the jewels in her coronet. She stood but an instant in the air, being called back; the window was closed, and she was lost in the throng.

The solitary watcher outside, with a deeply-drawn sigh, turned to depart. His hand was seized as he did so by a passer-by—a man in the dress of the court pages.

"Good evening!" cried a cheery voice. "How glad I am to find you at last! What were you doing here?"

The other laughed, evading an answer, and, drawing his cloak about him, complained of the cold.

The two walked on to the celebrated Italian restaurant near the old market. The scene there was as brilliant as at the premier's. A gay company was assembled in the largest room, where the new-comers took seats at the table. As they threw off their hats and cloaks, the page was seen to be a man of about forty years of age, with a face deeply lined with the marks of free living. His eyes were bright and merry, and his mouth was liberal in smiles. His companion was a strikingly handsome man of twenty-five, with a pale and haughty countenance, and a form well proportioned[806] and majestic. His expression was grave, and a satirical curl was in his lip when he spoke; his large, dark eyes were now fiercely flashing, now dreamy and melancholy, and they were often downcast and shaded by long, heavy lashes.

"You are dull to-night, mon ami!" cried the jovial page, whose name was Von Scherbitz. "Banish your gloom; it is no time for it."

"Have patience with me," said the young man in a low tone, and with an attempt at a laugh. "I cannot always keep even with you. I have served but a two years' brotherhood, you know."

"In our club, yes; yet one year has spread your fame in music over all Europe! Friedemann Bach has but one rival in renown—the admirable Sebastian!"

"Call him not a rival!" he exclaimed. "I have to thank my father for all I have ever done; and I feel my own insignificance beside his greatness. I feel, too, how unworthy I am of his love."

"Nonsense!" cried Scherbitz. "Your good father is strict, perhaps; pourquoi? he is old; you are young and impetuous; you have your liberal ideas and your adventures, and keep them from his knowledge, to spare him chagrin. Where is the harm in this?"

Friedemann was leaning his head on his hand, which he passed slowly across his forehead, as if waving away the trouble of discussing the point. The punch was placed before them, and the tankards were filled. The guests at the round table drank, as they did; and others came in; among them military officers, painters, and musicians. As a party of distinguished-looking persons entered, the page rose to greet one of them, calling him "Signor Hasse." The gentleman glanced around the company, but declined a seat at the table, retreating to a distant corner. Here he bade the waiter remove the light from a small table in front of him, and bring him supper by himself.

The page called Friedemann's attention to the solitude and gloom chosen by the famous musician. Yet he was well known to be fond of good company, and was universally respected.

"Exactly; the brilliant Faustina Hasse, the admired singer, the idolized of all Dresden. They do not live happily."

"You cannot help seeing," observed Friedemann, "that strength is wanting in his character—it is wanting in his compositions. They have softness and melody; but how little of manly power!"

More guests came in, and the general merriment waxed loud. The glasses were rapidly filled and emptied. The conversation among the younger part of the company was that of jovial revellers, intent on as much amusement as they could obtain out of a gayly-dressed officer of the elector's guard, and a chamberlain he had brought in to serve as a butt for their jokes. Friedemann observed them with haughty gravity, stealing a glance now and then at Signor Hasse in his corner.

The chamberlain was flippant with tales of court scandal, at which there were uproarious bursts of laughter. Presently, half-drunk, he was reciting some verses; and at the close he filled his glass and toasted Signora Hasse.

"Gentlemen," he said with dignity, "I have the honor to wish you all a good evening, and farewell. To-morrow morning I leave Dresden."

The company knew by his tone that he meant not to return. There was a moment's deep silence, and then an officer asked:

"Commend me to your father, Monsieur Bach," he said warmly. "Tell him he shall yet hear something good of Scarlatti's disciple."

There was a faltering in his tone as he spoke these last words, and turning away, he left the room. Friedemann sighed deeply as he looked after him, and pushed away his glass, which Scherbitz had just filled.

The merry company was again convulsed with the sallies of the intoxicated chamberlain; and loud applause, cries of "bravo!" and toast after toast urged him on. When he fell back, helplessly drunk, the young men pulled off his court dress, put on a dark one, carried him out, and gave him to the watch as a drunken vagabond to be taken to the guard-house. Then they laughed to think of his consternation at finding himself in the cold cell, on New Year's morning.

Midnight struck in the midst of this boisterous revelry; the last hour of the dying year. There was a wild storm without, and clamorous shouting and singing within. The revellers reeled homeward; young Bach, the only one whose gait was steady, though he had drunk as deeply and as madly as the rest.

When he rose on the following morning, he saw a letter on his table, in a well-known hand, which he quietly opened and read with deep emotion. Then he began to pace up and down the room, till the door was abruptly opened and Scherbitz came in, wishing him the compliments of the season. He read the letter Friedemann handed him in silence.

"A charming old gentleman is that good papa of yours," he said as he gave it back. "His heart is full of kindness. May his life be long and happy! But look not so woe-begone, mon ami! How is it possible for you to satisfy the claims of such exalted, old-fashioned virtue? The time will come when we, madcaps as we are, shall be pointed out as models of propriety for our juniors. Let the wheel of time roll on."

"Look at me—a page forty years old! I have no fear of reverse as long as I serve my lord faithfully. I might have stood up heroically against the all-powerful minister, and I should have been hailed as one of her deliverers by my country; but I kept my place and pension, and remain a page in comfortable quarters."

"Nor shall I be the last. Why should I despair? Come, be reasonable, mon ami! you are too self-condemnatory. Have you forgotten Handel, whom you welcomed here three years since?"

"Yet Handel is unlike your father. His fantasy is more powerful, his force more developed; he soars like an eagle, while Sebastian Bach sails over the calm waters like a majestic swan. Bach's activity is calm, silent—the offspring of concentrated thought. Handel reaches his aim amid storm and tumult—through strife to victory. Can you blame him for the difference?[808] His path is your own. En avant, mon ami!"

"Handel has had, indeed, a restless and stormy life," replied Friedemann; "but he has never lost himself."

"Had he been born in the present century, instead of the last, his views might have been more liberal. Before he was of your age, he did as others do. Faustina Hasse could tell you some wild tales—"

"It was not worth while. Now, my good fellow, do not flatter yourself you can deceive a page forty years old. Your so-called profligacy and keen self-reproach have another cause than that you choose to assign. You dread the unmasking of what you term your hypocrisy less than the discovery of another secret!"

Friedemann started to his feet, and his face glowed like fire. The page laughed.

"You must govern your eyes better, mon ami, if you want to keep your secret when you hear the name of 'Natalie.' I did not need to witness your behavior last night opposite the minister's palace, to show me the truth!"

Friedemann was now pale as death. With a violent effort he mastered his feelings, and said,

"As the grave—assuredly! Only be cautious before others. No more! I am going to the guard-house to release the victim chamberlain. Now go to church, and afterward come to Seconda's to breakfast. Au revoir!" And Scherbitz went out.

Friedemann Bach had been organist of the church of St. Sophia since the elector, at the solicitation of his father that he would befriend his boy, had given him the appointment. He hurried to his post, and splendidly performed his part in the imposing service. As the last tones of the organ died along the vast arches, he arose, closed the instrument, and descended from the choir. At the door a pair of vigorous arms were flung around him, and, with a joyful cry, he embraced his father.

The old man pronounced a solemn blessing as he pressed his son to his heart, and warmly praised his morning's work. He had entered the church alone, to enjoy the music of his dearest pupil, whom he now declared his best.

"To your lodgings now, Master Court-organist!" he cried. "Philip is there, and unpacking. We shall stay a week with you." He took his son's arm, and walked on, talking pleasantly all the time.

Philip Emmanuel Bach had grown a stately youth and a ripe scholar in his art since Friedemann had left the paternal home at Leipzig, three years before. They chatted of the old times, when their mother in her snowy cap and apron smiled on their boyish sport; when they roasted apples on the stove of Dutch tiles, and their young sisters chid them, and the little Christopher laughed at them from his mother's lap. Philip had been lonely at school, and was delighted at these reminiscences. The two sons sympathized with the triumph of the good Sebastian when he told them again of his first summons to Dresden, of the note that had come to him from the Minister von Bruhl, on the part of the Elector Augustus of Saxony and Poland: an invitation to play at the church in Dresden. The rector in Leipzig had opposed the departure of the organist of St. Thomas's school; but the elector's own carriage stood at Bach's door to fetch him, and he saw future good for both his sons. He felt that through[809] them the lovers of Hasse should hear music more sublime than the voluptuous melodies of Italy. Then the reception at Dresden; the entrance of the elector into the choir to greet Bach; his words, "O master! if I might hear you play thus at the hour of my death"—all the scene was lived over by the grateful old man. Philip, then a stripling, remembered how a beautiful lady—the famous Faustina Hasse—had rushed in, and, weeping, had kissed his father's hand; Hasse's greeting too, he remembered; and the elector's bidding to ask any favor at his hands.

These recollections and the conversation were interrupted by the entrance of a servant in a rich livery, who presented a note to Friedemann. The young man blushed as he took the note, which he opened and read hastily.

"The note came from his niece, the Countess Natalie," answered Friedemann, in a confusion which he could not conceal.

"She is my pupil in music. She has sent for me to arrange a concert, which she is to give on her aunt's birthday."

"I can't well avoid the commission; and such things help one's reputation," faltered the young man. "As to M. Hasse, he has left Dresden."

The good, pious composer was grieved to hear of his unhappiness. Then, changing the subject, he began innocently to advise his son as to the polished manners necessary in the house of the premier. Friedemann pressed his hand and thanked his unsuspecting monitor.

When the elder Bach asked what he had done lately in music, Friedemann replied that what he had done did not satisfy him. His father put aside his plea that the highest and best could alone avail in art.

"We have not reached that," he said; "yet we can rejoice in the success granted us. There is much that I like in your Fughetten."

From music he passed to other questions; and asked, smiling, how long the court-organist meant to remain unmarried.

"Surely, and not to be taken precipitately; but, dear son, let it not be long. If my first grandchild is a boy, I will teach him music. Ay, marriage is a serious matter! I have toiled hard to give bread to my boys and girls, and brought you all up—have I not?—to be good men and skilful artists. From my great-grandfather, all the Bachs have had musical talent. I was once ambitious, my boy, to write something that might win enduring fame. Now, I have but one wish. It is—that all the Bachs may meet in the kingdom of heaven, and join in singing to the glory of God, among the hallelujahs of the angels! Friedemann, child of my heart, let me not miss you there!"

With a sob of anguish, Friedemann sank at his father's feet. Sebastian[810] laid both hands on his head, saying devoutly,

Unable to control his agitation—which his pious father thought a burst of filial emotion—Friedemann left the room. Closing the door softly, he rushed through the hall, out of the house, and through the streets to the open country, where he flung himself on the frozen earth and wept aloud.

At dinner the father conversed with his two sons, and much was said of the splendors of the Polish-Saxon court under the administration of the luxurious and prodigal Count von Bruhl. It was then time for Friedemann to go to the minister's palace. He changed his dress and hastened there.

As he passed into the hall, the door of one of the side-rooms opened, and the premier came out. He was a small man, with marked and expressive features, and keen, clear blue eyes. He was sumptuously dressed, and wore a star on his breast. Friedemann stopped and bowed to him.

"Good day, M. Bach, and a happy new year!" said the minister in bland, soft tones. "My niece has sent for you. I am pleased with your promptness. I am grateful for your readiness to meet our wishes at all times, and shall remember it. The countess expects you!"

He nodded, smiled graciously, and walked lightly out of the front door, entering his carriage, which presently drove away.

"What does this mean?" he murmured. "The smile of that man ever bodes disaster. Let it be so! What can make me more miserable than I am?"

A female servant stood at the door of the ante-room of the countess's cabinet. She opened the door of the inner room, and Bach entered.

A young girl of about twenty, in a costume coquettishly pretty, reclined on a sofa. Her form and her face were both beautiful; a nose slightly aquiline, and well-defined eye-brows, gave her features a character of pride and decision, contradicted by the soft tenderness of the full, rosy lips, and the languishing, violet eyes, shaded by their long lashes. Her hair floated in golden curls over her neck. A faint rose-tint came to her pale cheeks as she rose to receive Friedemann.

The young man stood still, and did not raise his eyes. The countess came nearer, laid her little white hand on his shoulder, and said, almost tenderly,

One glance Friedemann darted from his flashing eyes into her own, but made no other answer.

"I saw you plainly," said Natalie, "as I stepped out on the balcony. You were leaning against the castle wall. Were you waiting for any one? Tell me."

The young man shivered with the violent emotion that shook his whole frame. After a pause, he said with forced calmness,

"You sent for me, most gracious countess, to honor me with your commands respecting the arrangement of a concert."

"These are my thanks, proud man, for my trust, for my love. Out upon ingratitude!" she cried.

"What can I say?" he answered in a deep, hoarse voice, full of the wild agony he was vainly striving to repress. "Look at me, and enjoy your triumph![811] You have made me wretched. Leave me the only consolation that remains—the conviction that I suffer alone!"

"Friedemann," said the countess, shocked to see him thus, "compose yourself, I entreat you! Spare me!"

"I will not spare you!" burst forth Friedemann, unable longer to master his agitation. "You have torn open my bleeding heart-wounds in cruel sport! I will not spare you! I have bought the right to speak with my happiness here and hereafter. I gave you all, Natalie—truth for falsehood, pure, faithful love for frivolous, heartless mockery!"

"No; by my soul, no! Nothing shall part us if you love me! But, I must be convinced of that. If you have not—if you do not—I ask you, why did you tempt the free-hearted youth, who lived but for his art, with encouraging looks and flattering words?"

Friedemann's burst of grief was convulsive, and he covered his face with his hands.

"You loved me not then, and you do not love me now. If you love me, how can you bear to think of becoming the wife of another?"

"My affection is still yours. I shall never love another. Will not that content you?"

Natalie protested against his injustice. She reminded him of her history: her noble birth and orphaned condition; the state and splendor with which her uncle had surrounded her; her scorn of mere pomp and luxury; her isolation in the midst of flatterers and smiling fools; her discernment of the manhood in him—her lover.

"You will not? You will marry the creature of your uncle, whom you regard with aversion?"

"You know, Friedemann, I do not take this step from interest, but a sense of duty."

"Yourself! I could never be happy, nor make you happy, as your wife. You are a great artist; but you can never rise to my sphere. And should I sacrifice all for you, would not my incensed uncle pursue us with his vengeance? If we found shelter in solitude, how long would you or I bear this concealment?"

"We could not be happy," resumed the countess. "All I can do is to keep my heart for you. You can live for your art and me."

"You shall not! The woman for whose sake I am miserable, for whom I have deceived father, brother, friends, shall never know the world's scorn. Farewell, Natalie! We never meet again. Be unlike your future husband—be noble and true. Crushed as I am, you shall yet esteem me,[812] knowing that all virtuous resolution has not left my heart!"

"O Friedemann! how I honor and admire you," exclaimed the weeping girl, as she flung her arms around his neck.

"Ha! M. Bach," said the count, as he came in. "I am delighted to see you again."

"Charming, charming! Madame von Bruhl will be enchanted, M. Bach. You will certainly arrange all for the best. Come very often to visit us; very often. I assure you, my highest esteem is yours."

Friedemann, somewhat bewildered, bowed his thanks, and took leave. The minister looked after him, while he took a pinch from his jewelled snuff-box.

"He has great, very great talent," he said musingly; and added other praises. Then he chatted a little on other subjects, and, looking at his watch, touched the white forehead of his niece with his lips, suffered her to kiss his hand, and retired from the room.

Friedemann left the house with confused thoughts. Suddenly M. Scherbitz ran round the corner, and seized his hand.

"Sacré bleu! Come to Faustina's with me, or you are to-night on the road to Königstein. The lord minister knows all!"

All that afternoon Sebastian had spent in reading the latest exercises and compositions of his son Friedemann, handing sheet after sheet, when he had read it, to Philip. They called for lights as dusk came on. At length Sebastian asked his younger son what he thought of his brother.

"I admire Friedemann," he said. "His works move me. I seem at times to be reading your music, father; then comes something strange and different. I feel disturbed—I can not tell why. I like these compositions; but they give me not untroubled pleasure."

"You are right, Philip," said Sebastian, with a grave and thoughtful smile. "His works have something in them strange and paradoxical. I find this in his sketches more than in his elaborate compositions. But I am not disturbed thereby: I rejoice."

"Your own light, glad spirit, Philip, accords not with the earnest, oft gloomy character of Friedemann's works. He is not yet settled. There is something great in him, hardly yet developed; the form of expression is not defined. Friedemann seeks a new path to the goal. Every strong spirit has done so. Art ever advances, and her temple is not yet finished. The perfect dwells not on earth."

Philip suggested that his brother's imagination, supplying nobler images than his industry had produced, still soared beyond the reach of practical achievement, and thus left him unsatisfied.

There was a loud knock at the door; two men entered, asked for the court-organist, and, hearing that he was expected every moment, sat down to wait for him. Sebastian tried to[813] enter into conversation with them; but their gruff monosyllables repelled him, and an awkward silence ensued. In about fifteen minutes the door was opened unceremoniously, and M. von Scherbitz entered. He saluted the elder Bach and looked keenly at the two strangers. He then announced his name to the astonished Sebastian, and said he was Friedemann's friend.

"He will soon return," said the father; "these gentlemen, also his friends, are waiting for him."

"Friends!" echoed the page; and placing himself in front of the two men, he gazed at them searchingly. After a while he said,

"Messieurs, his excellency has lost no time in sending you, I perceive; but you are too late. Give the lord minister the compliments of the page, M. von Scherbitz, and tell him he will find the court-organist, M. Bach, at the house of Signora Hasse. I have just had the honor of leaving him there. He will see the elector."

The two men started up without speaking, and hastily left the room. The page threw himself into a chair and laughed long and loudly. The father and son stood in blank surprise, not knowing what to make of the scene.

At last Scherbitz recovered his composure. He addressed Sebastian, and said he had something to communicate to him in private.

Philip was sent out of the room. Sebastian seated himself, and with dignity inquired what the gentleman who called himself Friedemann's friend had to communicate.

"I am his friend," replied the page, "and have proved it not for the first time to-day."

The page went on to tell his story, the bold levity of his manner somewhat subdued before the dignity of the excellent old man, who sat with his clear, searching eyes fastened upon him. He began with a preamble about the strict manner in which Sebastian had brought up his sons, and the difference between Friedemann and his brothers. "You are too innocent of knowing the world," he continued, "to be able to shield him against all the dangers that beset the path of youth. Till he came to Dresden, your son knew nothing of life beyond the paternal dwelling and the church of St. Thomas. He has been received here as the son of an illustrious artist; he has won a proud distinction for himself. Can you wonder that applause and flattery have turned his head a little? He might have got over that; but, as ill-luck would have it, the Countess Von Bruhl employed him as her music-master. He fell in love with her."

"Friedemann's first thought afterward was of his father. His union with the girl he loved was impossible; equally so his voluntary separation from her society. Her uncle bade her receive a rich and noble suitor. Compelled to give up hope, the victim of the wildest remorse and anguish, Friedemann fled to dissipation for relief. I strove in vain to help him; but his grief was too new, too fierce and consuming; I looked to time only for the cure. In wild company only could he find diversion from maddening thoughts, and I feared the worst if that resource were denied him. Now he has taken a prudent[814] step. He has broken off his acquaintance with the countess."

"But her uncle, the minister, had discovered their intimacy. He has sworn the destruction of your son. I have been fortunate enough to baffle him. But Friedemann must instantly leave Dresden."

"He shall!" cried Sebastian. "My poor son needs comfort; he can find it only at home."

"Could a father repel his unhappy child? I know, alas! his fiery soul, his need of sympathy. Bring him to his loving father's arms."

He left the room and the house, promising soon to return. Sebastian sat long in a mournful reverie. Then seating himself at the piano, he played a soft prelude, and sang a beautiful melody by Paul Gerhard. The music swelled into majestic harmony, and many a passer-by in the street stopped to listen, drinking in peace and consolation from the heavenly sounds.

Faustina Hasse, the most beautiful woman in Dresden, and the greatest dramatic singer not only of her own, but perhaps of all times, was reclining on a sofa in a luxuriously-furnished room in her palace. Flowers stood on a table beside her, and several costly trifles were thrown about; but she was simply dressed in white muslin, with a necklace and bracelets of pearls. Her little foot in its satin slipper beat impatiently the footstool on which it rested; there was a tint of painful excitement on her cheek; and a touch of melancholy about her mouth softened the pride that usually masked her lovely features.

The maid retired and ushered in the Count von Bruhl, who made a low and courtly obeisance. The signora bent her head slightly, and motioned the count to a seat.

"You are surprised at a visit so late in the evening, signora?" the minister asked gently, after an embarrassed silence.

"Easily explained," with a bland smile. "I am known for a fond husband; in a fortnight I shall give a fête for my wife's birthday. It will surpass all other fêtes in splendor, if the Signora Hasse will favor it with her presence. May I hope that she will do so?"

"The signora has misunderstood my humble petition. Even the elector, whose admiration of the signora's genius is well known, would not venture to solicit such a favor."

"Signora, my gratitude is unbounded!" He raised her hand to his lips, and retired with a low bow.

The minister started visibly, but suppressed all sign of emotion. With a courtly smile he endeavored to evade reply.

"Oh! he needs discipline. The whole parish is disgusted at the scandalous life led by their court-organist. He edifies the devotional with his organ-playing on Sunday morning; but joins his fellow-rioters in the wildest orgies at Seconda's, on Sunday night."

"And pass uncensured. Very fair, my lord minister! But you are mistaken. Bach is not on the road to Königstein. He has just had an interview with his highness, here, in my house. I am known to have some influence with the elector; and have used it."

"What have you done, signora?" exclaimed the minister, shocked into a real expression of his feelings.

"Silence!" said Faustina haughtily. "His highness knows all; knows why you have persecuted the unhappy youth, why you would bring misery on the whole family—such a family! Heartless courtier! What can you know of the worth of such a man? Friedemann leaves Dresden; but you must provide him with another place, and one worthy of his genius. The elector wills it so."

She passed out of the room. The count walked to the window, looked out into the dark night, and drummed on the pane in some embarrassment. There was a storm in his breast, but it was necessary to suppress all agitation. Presently he turned around, and saw Friedemann Bach and the page, Von Scherbitz, standing in the room. The minister walked toward them, and said in a gentle tone,

"Monsieur Bach, I am concerned that you must leave us; but it is necessary. You will go as soon as possible to Merseburg. The place of organist in that cathedral is vacant, and I have appointed you to it. I wish you a pleasant journey."

"Bravissimo, mon comte!" cried the page, laughing heartily. "Roscius was a bungling actor to him. Come now, mon ami," turning to Friedemann—"to your father. He knows all."

Friedemann followed him out with a look of despair. It was a clear, starry winter night. As they came to Bach's house, they heard the hymn Sebastian was singing. As they entered the room, he rose and bade his son welcome.

"No," said Friedemann resolutely; "I will not go home till I am again worthy to be received there."

"My life henceforward shall show that I am true to you, father. I will strive to overcome the anguish and remorse that have wrecked me. If I succeed, all will be well. If I fail in the struggle—"

The next morning Sebastian and Philip returned to Leipzig, while Friedemann set out on his journey to Merseburg.

PART SECOND.

Madam Anna Bach, the wife of Sebastian, was at home in Leipzig with her daughters and her youngest son, Christian, waiting for the father to join them after he had dismissed his pupils for the day. Thirteen years had elapsed since the occurrences related.

Johann Sebastian Bach came in presently. He was still a stately and handsome man, bright-eyed, and steady in his carriage; but the once smooth forehead was furrowed with care; his cheeks had fallen in, and their livid hue betrayed internal disease.

"You seem exhausted to-day," Madame Bach remarked. "I am glad the lessons are over."

"I have strength left," he said, "to make good scholars; and so long as I can work, none shall find me remiss. You look so pleased; what have you there?"

"Ho! ho!" cried Sebastian joyfully; "has the scapegrace at last found time to write to his old father? I have sometimes thought he has forgotten how to write since he has been concert-master in the service of his Majesty of Prussia! Well, what says he?" And he opened and read the letter.

It was a dutiful but rather stiff epistle from a young man unused to literary composition. He described life in Berlin, and the concerts given at court two or three times a week, with the private musical entertainments the king had in his cabinet, where Philip Emmanuel accompanied on the piano his majesty's performance on the flute. The king, he wrote, played the flute surprisingly; but was capricious as to time, following the notes less than his own will and pleasure.

"He always," the letter concluded, "inquires after my esteemed father; and often says, 'Will not your papa come once more to Berlin?' I can promise that if my dear and esteemed father will visit us, he will be received with joy and honors by all. Be pleased to pardon my hasty writing; convey my best love and duty to my most honored mother, my beloved brothers and sisters, and make me happy with a speedy answer.

As Sebastian refolded the letter, his wife asked what he thought of another visit to Berlin.

"It would do me good," said Sebastian. "I would gladly see the king once more. Twice in my life have I believed there was something good in me: the first time was in the year 1717, when my contest was appointed with M. Marchand, and he took himself quietly off the evening before it; the second time was three years ago, when the great King of Prussia came into the antechamber to welcome me, and when some rude chamberlains laughed at my expressions of duty and homage, his majesty chid them with, 'Messieurs, voyez vous, c'est le vieux Bach.' That pleased Friedemann so much!"

"If I can get leave of absence, and if I find a small overplus of money in the purse. Strange, that in my old days I should be seized with a roving propensity! I had nothing of it in youth. Well, let us go in to dinner."

It was near the close of day, and Sebastian sat outside the door of his dwelling, surrounded by his family, under the stately lindens that shaded the avenue leading to the old Thomas's school. The mother and[817] her daughters were occupied in needlework and knitting; the younger sons were listening to their father's anecdotes of the old organist, Reinecken, his instructor in Hamburg. The setting sun shone on a lovely picture.

Caroline, who had her eyes turned toward the corner of Cloister street and Thomas's churchyard, suddenly uttered a cry of joy, and sprang to her feet.

The others rose and asked what was the matter; the venerable father alone kept his seat. A tall figure was seen crossing the churchyard; and now Sebastian rose, for he recognized his son Friedemann.

The father stretched out his arms and warmly embraced his son. The others crowded round him, bidding him a joyous welcome. Nearly an hour passed in the delightful confusion of such a reunion.

Later in the evening, Sebastian was alone with his son, and asked what had brought him home so suddenly.

Friedemann had overmastered the sorrow that had crushed his spirit thirteen years before. But a thousand difficulties were in his way, and the struggle preyed on his mind. He began to despair of ever doing any thing truly great in art. He had wished to strike out a new path; the motive of his efforts was pure, and he did not design to neglect the excellent old school.

"But I have been slandered, insulted!" he exclaimed bitterly. "My aim has been ridiculed, my endeavors have been maliciously criticised, my merits decried."

Friedemann colored as he answered, "I know I am wrong to be disturbed by the malignity of a shallow fool; but I cannot help it. There is a critic in Halle, one schoolmaster Kniffe, who passes for a luminary in the musical horizon, and writes reviews."

"I have seen them; they are absurd," said Sebastian. "He must cause some sport in Halle."

"On the contrary, he is dreaded on account of his malice; and his base libels please the ill-natured and envious."

"And know you not," asked his father, "that only the base and evil array themselves against the good? Is there a more certain proof of elevated worth than the impotent rage and opposition of the vicious? I never taught you to look with pride or arrogance on your equals or inferiors; but to be calm and self-possessed, and to maintain your ground in reliance on Him to whom alone you are accountable. Do that, Friedemann, and no stupid or malicious critic can make you dissatisfied with yourself."

Here Caroline came in, announcing that a stranger wished to speak with her father.

"Bon soir, mon cher papa!" and the stranger entered and took the old man's hand. "Do you not know me?"

"Ha! our ex-court-organist. The same ill-boding frown between the brows as in 1737! You are little changed in thirteen years. And I, at fifty-three, am grown to be a first lieutenant."

"You proved a friend to my son in his danger," said Sebastian, "and are therefore welcome to me and mine. To what lucky chance am I indebted for this visit to my quiet home?"

"To the most unlucky, my dear sir! I was so careless, at the prime[818] minister's last court, as to tread on the left fore paw of his lady consort's lapdog. The beast cried out; the countess demanded satisfaction; and in punishment for my misdeed I am marched as first lieutenant to Poland in the body-guard of his excellency."

Sebastian felt a horror creep over him at the sarcastic, misanthropic wit of his visitor, and sought to change the conversation. But Scherbitz went on jesting in his bitter way about his tragical destiny, concluding with the information that he had come over to Leipzig simply to see Papa Bach once more in his life; for, on the word of a first lieutenant, he had loved and honored him since the first time he had seen him thirteen years ago.

The next morning Scherbitz walked in the little garden behind Thomas's school, bounded by its high wall. He saw Caroline fastening a vine to an espalier, and came to assist her. In a conversation with her, he learned that none of the daughters of Bach had any talent for music. The charming singing he had heard early in the morning was by Madam Bach. But Caroline had a poetic taste, and was Friedemann's favorite sister.

In talking with Friedemann, his friend could not fail to discover the morbid state of his mind. Scherbitz thought it came from thinking too deeply.

"Not the will," he said, "but action removes mountains. We are but philosophers, and the slaves of circumstances. Had not the minister played the spy on you and his pretty niece, had not I stepped on the lapdog's foot, we might both have been at this moment sitting quietly in Dresden; you beside Natalie, witching the world with music; I as a merry page of fifty-three, jesting and enduring."

"Do you know," said Friedemann, and as he spoke his countenance altered strangely, "I have often prayed that I might be mad, for a time—not for ever!" In a quick, vehement tone, "Oh! no—no—not for ever; but mad enough to forget. And yet, the memory of what I have suffered would even then cling to me!"

"You must not talk so wildly," said the lieutenant soothingly. "You are yet young, and can accomplish much."

"What can I do?" cried Friedemann with harrowing laughter. "Nothing, nothing! At eight and thirty all is dead with me; I am older than you! Ha! mark you not where madness lurks yonder behind the door, making ready to spring upon my neck as I go out? He dares not seize on me when my father is near; he shrinks up till he is little, and hides himself in a spider's web over the window. But he shall not get hold of me! Ha, ha, ha! I am cunning. I will not leave the chamber without my father. Look you, old page, I understand a feint as well as you!"

"Mon ami! mon ami! what is the matter?" cried the lieutenant, and, seizing his friend by the shoulders, he shook him violently. "Friedemann Bach! do you not hear me?"

Friedemann stared at him vacantly. At length his face lost its unnatural expression; his eyes became like living eyes, and he asked softly what M. von Scherbitz wanted.

"You take a jest deeply," he said. "And you really believe that I am sometimes mad? Not yet, friend! I am more rational than ever."

"Well, mon ami, it was your jest; but one should not paint the devil on[819] the wall. Sit down, and play me something till I get over my fright. You acted your part so naturally!"

"I did not dream of this," muttered the lieutenant; while Friedemann, after playing half an hour, suddenly let his hands drop, sank back, and fell fast asleep.

On the morning of the 21st of July, 1750, the church-bells were ringing a solemn yet cheerful peal, inviting the pious to the house of God. The sun shone brightly; the old man's heart was renewed in love and devotion, and even Friedemann's gloomy breast was penetrated with the beam of comfort, joy, and love. He had spent a part of the night in studying a masterpiece of his father's, the great Passion music. Full of the grandeur of the work, his face animated, he was walking to and fro in his father's chamber, pondering a similar work which he thought of undertaking.

Sebastian sat in his arm-chair, with folded arms, dressed ready for church. He followed with his eyes, smiling affectionately, the movements of his son. After a while, he said,

"I am glad the Passion music pleases you so well. I have a work of quite another kind, finished, the first idea of which I got from your Fughetten. And you are the first, after me, that shall see it."

He went to his desk, opened it, took out a sealed packet, and gave it to his son. It was inscribed, "To my son Friedemann."

"I meant it for you, in case of my death before I saw you," said the old man. "You may break the seal."

Friedemann opened the packet. It contained that nobly conceived, admirably executed work which from the day of its appearance has commanded the reverent admiration of all the initiated—The Art of Fugues, by Johann Sebastian Bach.

"And my poor attempt," he cried, "has suggested a work destined to immortalize its author! I have not lived in vain. O my father! thanks. You have made me a noble present."

"While you labor to deserve the appreciation of your equals," he said, "strive to instruct those who cannot thus repay you. It is for man only to show to the best that he belongs to the best. Let your light shine—else you lower yourself, and rebel against your Master."

The chime of the bells, that had ceased, now recommenced; and Madam Bach came in with her daughters, young Christian, and the lieutenant. All were ready for church. Madam Bach gave her husband his prayer-book and a bunch of flowers; Caroline brought his hat.

Sebastian rose, gave his arm to his wife, and walked to the door. Turning back an instant, he glanced at the window shaded with vine-leaves glistening in the sunlight, and said,

As he went out of the room, he stopped suddenly, and let fall the flowers and the prayer-book. The women screamed with fright. The old man struggled for a few moments, then sank back lifeless into the arms of his son.

Three years had passed. The wealthy Baron von Globig celebrated the feast of the vintage at his magnificent[820] villa not far from Dresden. Gilded gondolas, with long and many-colored pennants, were gliding to and fro over the bosom of the Elbe, landing the distinguished guests. The profuse splendor that marked all the preparations was worthy of the favorite of the Count von Bruhl. Nothing the most fastidious taste could suggest was wanting.

Few in the aristocratic company seemed to notice the host; but his lovely wife was the observed of all. She was dignified and courteous, but appeared to take little interest in any thing.

As twilight came on, colored lamps were lighted in the gardens, and gorgeous illuminations were displayed. Bands of musicians played alternately; stately men and beautiful women moved in the merry dance, and general hilarity prevailed.

When the company returned to the great drawing-room, the Prussian ambassador presented to the lady of the house a distinguished-looking man as Philip Emmanuel, the second son of the great Sebastian Bach.

The baroness colored, and gave a furtive glance around her. After a few words of conversation, she asked Bach, in a careless tone, where was his elder brother.

"We do not know," answered Philip sadly. "None of us has seen Friedemann since the day of our father's death, when he suddenly quitted Leipzig."

"Nothing—except that he had been at times before subject to fits of melancholy, which threatened his reason. We fear the worst."

The baroness turned away in silence. The baron came up, and presented a petition for a little piece of music from the celebrated Monsieur Bach.

"We are to have some variety," he added; "a bit of fun, by way of enhancing the effect of your divine playing. A poor, half-crazy musician from the Prague choir, who plays dances in the villages, will be permitted to give us a tune in the antechamber. The doors may be opened; but he must not come into the light, for his dress is shabby and disordered."

The music sounded from the ante-room. A servant threw open the doors, and in the imperfect light the guests saw a meanly-dressed man sitting at the piano, his back toward them. They had expected a joke; the baron having told many of them what a surprise he had in store. But when they heard the playing—the wonderful, entrancing melody, now towering into passion, now sinking to a harmonious plaint, which the poor, unknown musician drew from the instrument—all were deeply touched. The baroness and Philip stood, pale as death, looking inquiringly yet doubtingly upon each other. At a bold turn in the music, the baroness leaned toward him, whispering,

The musician turned, sprang up, and rushed into Philip's arms. At sight of the baroness, he started back with the exclamation—"Natalie!"

The baroness sank back in a swoon. Friedemann tore himself from Philip's arms, forced his way through the crowd, and rushed from the house. The shock had brought on another attack of his awful malady.

An old man, past three score and ten, sat in a room in the upper story of a house in one of the suburbs of Berlin. He was reading a pile of music that lay on the table, making notes on the margin with a pencil.[821] The room was poorly furnished, and lighted by a single lamp that flared in the currents of air, flinging fitful shadows on the wall. The storm raging without shook the loose panes in the window, and twisted the weather-cocks on the roof till they creaked as they swung. The cold had penetrated the chamber, and the fire in the grate was scanty. It was the last night of the year.

But all absorbed sat the old man, and heeded not cold or tempest as he read the music. His form was tall and emaciated; his pale face showed the ravages of age and disease. His thin, white locks fell back from his temples; but his large eyes had the brightness of youthful enthusiasm.

The bell struck midnight. The sounds of festal music, singing, and shouting came from the streets; and faintly on the wind came the swell of the Te Deum chanted in a neighboring church.

The old man looked up from his reading, and listened attentively. There was a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes.

The door opened, and a young man, with a pale and melancholy face, and a form more meagre than the other's, came into the room.

"I do not need sleep. Look, I have been reading this legacy of my father. Ah! if you, poor Theodore, could have had such a father. What year has just begun?"

"You did not ask me the day I first saw you; when I found a madman just about to take his own life. I pulled away the weapon; I bade you live!"

"No. I suffer a great deal; I feel that my hours are numbered. But why not tell me your name?"

"He who composed that noble work," said the old man, pointing to the music, "was my father."

"The name was on the first leaf, with the title of the music, and you have torn it out! I do not understand music, you know. Tell me, old friend, what to call you?"

"So the few who know you in this great city always call you. But your other name?"

"Wine, too; the best of Johannisberger! You have tasted no wine lately; drink to the new year."

The old man turned away; for bitter recollections came up, associated with the season.

Theodore took two glasses from the buffet, drew up a chair, sat down, and uncorked the flask. He filled the old man's glass and his own with the wine, which diffused a rich fragrance.

"Those sketches cost me seven years of more than labor: all I have thought, lived, suffered; the early dreams of youth; the stern repose after the struggle with fate! I sacrificed all. I spared not even the glimmering spark of life; and thought when the work was finished the laurel would deck my brow in death. All fancies! Wherever I offered my work, I was repulsed. The publishers thought the undertaking too expensive. Some advised me to paint scenes from the Seven Years' War; others called my sketches wild and fantastic."

"Ay, ay!" murmured the old man. "Lessing, who died three years ago, said to me rightly, 'All the artist accomplishes beyond the appreciation of the multitude, brings him neither profit nor honor! The highest must grovel with the worm.'"

"As long as I can remember, old friend, I have had but one passion—for my art. Yet must I degrade art to the rabble; must paint apish faces, while visions of divine loveliness float before me; must feel the genius within me comprehended by none; must be driven to despair of myself! With all my gifts, I must ask myself, at five and twenty, Wherefore have I lived?"

"Has it come to you? Had I gained the prize, I might have been like Raphael; you, like some great master of your art. Success was not for us; and we are doomed to insignificance."

"Silence!" cried the old man; "that leads to madness. I know the horror of madness. They tell me I was a long time so."

"No fear of that, old friend. We are both too near a sure harbor. Come, fill up your glass! Hark to the music and shouting in the streets. Here we sit, like the gods on the summit of Olympus, sipping nectar, and laughing at the fools below us. Drink as I do. No more? Well, yonder is your bed, and here is mine. Good-night to you."

They retired to rest. The storm ceased to beat on the window-panes; but the bell-ringing and music continued throughout the night.

The bright sunshine of morning flooded the chamber. The old man arose and went to the window. It was a clear, cold morning; the air was keen, the sky cloudless; the frost had wrought delicate tracery on the panes.

The old man threw his cloak over his shoulders, and stood some time at the window. Then he went to awaken his young friend.

He touched the hand that lay outside the bed-covering; it was cold and stiff! Poor Theodore had fainted in the struggle with destiny. Long the prey of heart-disease, he had died in the night.

The old man stood as if paralyzed, gazing on the face of his dead friend. His last stay was broken!

Sitting down by the body, he remained motionless the whole day. Late in the afternoon, the woman who kept the house came in with a message to Theodore, and found the old man exhausted and shivering with the cold. She led him into a warm room, and gave him nourishment.

When Theodore was buried, the gold he left was given to the old man, with whom he had lived two years, supplying the wants of both by his scanty earnings as a portrait-painter[823] and the sale of a drawing now and then. Now that he had no resource for the future, the people of the house advised the old man to go to the overseer of the poor-house. He shook his head, saying, "No; I will go to Hamburg."

"To Hamburg!" echoed the housekeeper. "Hamburg is a long way from Berlin; you could not bear such a journey."

But the old man soon forgot his purpose. He resumed his wanderings through the streets of Berlin—his practice before he met with Theodore—stopping to listen whenever he heard music. He would sometimes go into the houses where concerts were given; and all who remembered him were glad to see "the Old Musician" once more.

One evening as he walked about the streets, he stopped to listen to music sounding from the windows of an illuminated palace. He went up the steps and was going in; but the porter, a Swiss, pushed him rudely back. So he stood without in the cold and cutting night wind, and listened, his whole soul absorbed in the music.

A servant in livery came out, and ran against him. "Ha!" he exclaimed in surprise; "is that you, Old Musician? How long it is since I have seen you. Why do you stand there shaking in the cold?"

"Monsieur Swiss is an idiot! Come in with me, old friend; you shall thaw your old limbs, and have some refreshment. My lord gives a grand concert." To the porter he said, "You must always let in the Old Musician; my lord has given orders that it shall be so. He comes to enjoy the music."

He led the old man to a seat near the fire in one of the ante-rooms, and drew a folding screen before him. "You are out of view here," he said; "but you can hear every thing. I will bring you a glass of wine."

All that evening the old man listened to music that thrilled his inmost heart. It was late when the concert ended. Then the man who had brought him in, came and told him it was time to go, offering to send a boy home with him.

"It was," replied the servant. "All you heard was composed by the same master, who is staying with my lord at present."

"Who is the Old Musician?" he asked. The man could not tell. He had been known by that name for years in Berlin, and was thought to be partially insane at times. But he was said to have a thorough knowledge of music.

"Bring him in," said Naumann. The old man entered the room. He had a dignity of mien that inspired respect, in spite of his poor apparel; and Naumann rose and advanced to meet him.

"You are welcome, my good friend, though I know not your name—welcome as a lover of our noble art. Take this chair."

The old man, still standing, answered, "I come to thank you, sir, for the pleasure of hearing your concert last evening. I was a listener,[824] privately, and understood that your latest compositions were performed. I will not conceal my name from you. I am Friedemann Bach."

Naumann stood petrified with astonishment. "Friedemann Bach!" at length he repeated; "the great son of the great Sebastian. How strange, indeed! I saw your brother Philip at Hamburg, only last year. The excellent old man mourns you as dead."

"I would be dead to all who knew me in better days," was the melancholy reply. "It would grieve them to know how sad a failure my life has been. Even in Berlin none know that Friedemann Bach yet lives; not even Mendelssohn, the friend of Lessing. While he lived, I had no fear of starving."

Naumann was deeply affected. Philip had told him his brother's history; his sorrows, his disappointments, his terrible suffering for years. "What can I do for you?" he asked mournfully.

"Nothing," answered Bach. "You have done every thing in showing me what I could and should have done. You know how I failed; how my life was wasted; how I fell short in all my bold and burning schemes. I fainted, and did not reap. But you need not the warning of my history. You walk securely and cheerfully in the right path. I can only thank you for your magnificent works. The blessing of God be with you! I feel now that I have nothing more to do in this world."

He turned away, and was gone before Naumann could recover from the emotion his words called forth. He called the servant to ask where he could be found; but no one could tell him. The boy who had escorted the old man home had not been suffered to go to his door. At length he met with Moses Mendelssohn, and told him what had happened.

Mendelssohn was astonished to learn that Friedemann Bach yet lived, and in Berlin. The only clue he had was his knowledge of Lessing's old dwelling, where the old musician lived some time before.

The next morning the two went to the Friedrichstadt, and found Lessing's house. The housekeeper opened the door.

The woman shook her head, lifting the corner of her apron at the same time to wipe her eyes.

"Pardon me," she cried; "but I cannot help it! Just at this time yesterday they carried away my poor friend, the Old Musician. He died three weeks after his young friend, the painter."

ON ST. PETER DELIVERED FROM PRISON.

"IT'S WRONG!"

BRITISH PREMIERS IN RELATION TO BRITISH CATHOLICS.

Every step toward emancipation, however halting and feeble, was of great consequence, since it established a precedent—and precedents in England have often the force of law. Thus, the act fifth, George IV., chapter seventy-nine, permitted persons to hold office in the receipt of customs, without taking any oath but that of allegiance. This was a gain, trivial in itself, yet, under the circumstances, not to be despised. The same thing was true of Mr. George Bankes's bill, relieving English Catholics from penalty of double assessment of land-tax. It was introduced and passed in 1828. While recording Canning's services to the cause which Catholics had at heart, we must not forget to show how ready he was, on the other hand, to combine with his colleagues when Ireland had to be oppressed and persecuted. In 1825, they agreed, with one mind, to put down the Irish Catholic Association, because they saw how powerful an instrument it would become, in O'Connell's hands, for the attainment of freedom. The bill by which they suppressed it was called, by the Liberator, "the Algerine Bill." But in the same year an attempt was made, with very doubtful sincerity, to modify the maddening effect of this suppression by conferences with O'Connell, Sheil, and other lay Catholics of influence, by inducing them to assent to a proposal, made by way of compensation, for the pensioning of the Catholic clergy, and the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders.[187] These were to be "the two wings" of a Catholic relief bill, and to this offer O'Connell was induced to adhere. The measure was introduced by Sir Francis Burdett, in April, 1825. It passed the Commons by a considerable majority; and was then, as might have been expected, thrown out by the Lords, who were fortified in their opposition by the Duke of York. Thus the great work of emancipation was again postponed. Though there had been points in Canning's conduct which were displeasing to Catholics; though, with strange inconsistency, he resisted the repeal of the test and corporation acts, which by relieving dissenters would have relieved Catholics also; though he was sharply attacked by Brougham, and charged with pleading their cause without the smallest idea of success, and with betraying those whom he appeared to befriend, yet they listened with delight to his speech in behalf of their claims a few months before his death. They placed their confidence in him, and looked forward to his premiership as the season of their deliverance. But as Pitt had resigned office in consequence [827] of his attachment to the Catholic cause, so it was Canning's fate also to taste the bitter fruits of befriending an oppressed and hated communion. The frowns of royalty, the fury of Tories, and the perfidy of Whigs, combined with the insidious growth of disease to bring him down to the grave harassed and worn.

A recess government followed. Lord Goderich had been a supporter of the Catholic claims; but mediocrity such as his could not be expected to hold its place long at the head of affairs, and still less to conduct a momentous and vital question to a happy issue. That question, like all others of equal magnitude, had to be settled out of parliament before it could be carried within its walls. The monster meetings assembled in Ireland at the call of O'Connell brought the matter to a crisis, and convinced all reasonable men that concession could not long be delayed. Yet the Duke of Wellington, who succeeded Lord Goderich in 1828, and Sir Robert Peel still ranged themselves on the side of the opponents of emancipation. The Lords, in the month of June, rejected a motion pledging them to a favorable consideration of the measure. Vesey Fitzgerald, however, an Irish liberal, was made president of the Board of Trade, and required, according to English law, to be reelected as member of parliament before he could hold his office in the government. It was a glorious opportunity for the Irish, and they embraced it manfully. At the suggestion of Sir David Roos, an Orangeman,[188] and of an intimate friend named Fitzpatrick, O'Connell proposed himself as a candidate for Clare, in opposition to the protégé of the government, Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald. In such a conflict the odds were all but desperate; yet O'Connell was victorious, although legally ineligible. He was declared duly returned; and he was the first Catholic elected by an Irish constituency since the reign of James II.

That election was, in effect, the triumph of emancipation. It sunk deep into the minds of the chiefs of the opposition. The greatest statesmen had long been wavering in secret. Lord Liverpool had been convinced some time before his death that the time for yielding the point was drawing nigh, and that he would soon have to support the Catholic claims, if not as a premier, at least as a peer. Sir Robert Peel had, in 1825, requested Lord Liverpool to relieve him of office on the ground that emancipation could no longer be deferred. Three years later, he announced to the Duke of Wellington his resolution to support the claims he had so long resisted, and declared that, in pursuit of that "great object," he was ready to sacrifice "consistency and friendship." Little did the majority, either of his friends or foes, imagine how deep a change his mind had really undergone.

It would hardly be too much to say the same of the duke. He was the only man in England who could carry emancipation, and the only man who did do it. He was that power in the state which the circumstance required. He accomplished in England, though with far different aims and feelings, what the lyre of Thomas Moore effected in Irish homes, and the eloquence of O'Connell on the fields of Tara and Clontarf. The test and corporation act being repealed, his way was cleared. Persons holding office under the crown were no longer obliged to qualify themselves by receiving the Lord's Supper in the Established Church. He began, therefore, by[828] speaking on the Catholic claims with studied ambiguity. Though he declared that his opinions on this subject were as decided as those of any one in the house, he added that he should oppose emancipation until he should see a great change in the question. That change was fast coming over it. He knew that the Commons would then pass no very arbitrary laws; that they would not require candidates for a seat in parliament to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy on the hustings; that without emancipation it would be impossible to disfranchise the forty-shilling freeholders; that others would be elected besides O'Connell; and that they could not be prevented from taking their seats and representing their constituents without a civil war. The duke, though a great general, was not a man of blood. He was not an impracticable man, though a Tory. He knew how to "take occasion by the hand," and to do that of which St. Philip Neri says there is not a finer thing on earth—make a virtue of necessity. He was influenced in the matter by no abstract principle of justice, no enthusiasm in favor of the oppressed, no sympathy with a proscribed faith; but he sincerely loved his country, and he came by degrees to feel convinced that her interests were consulted best by altering the basis of her constitution in church and state. He sought, indeed, securities from those whom he proposed to relieve, and he purchased at their hands the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders in Ireland; but, on the other hand, he was willing to endow the Catholic Church in the sister isle, and to apply three hundred thousand pounds per annum toward the payment of the priests. To this part of his plan Peel could not be induced to consent, and it was subsequently abandoned. Great as Wellington was in war, he was greater in peace—greater in his victory over Protestant prejudices, and as the champion of the rights of an injured people and a persecuted creed.

On the 5th of March, 1829, Sir Robert Peel (then Mr. Peel) brought forward a bill for the relief of Catholics. It was the bill long desired, clamored for, dreaded; which was to alter fundamentally the character of English law, and change the destinies both of England and Ireland. It was preceded by a bill finally suppressing the Catholic Association, at the very time when that association was being dissolved of its own accord. The mind of Peel had been long and anxiously engaged in the study of the question as regarded Ireland. Night and day he had been examining evidence, pondering the difficulties to be overcome, and the chances of success. It was the nature of his mind to work in secret, and to manifest the result only when it became absolutely necessary. During the period of transition he voted against Catholic emancipation, but did so with manifest repugnance. Whatever decision the house might come to, he said, he should give it his best acquiescence; and if the measure should be carried, he should use his earnest endeavors to reconcile Protestants to it. When it was proposed to admit Catholic lords into the upper house, he offered but slight opposition to the bill, nor did he object to granting English Catholics the same electoral rights as were enjoyed by their brethren in Ireland. His Tory friends were offended by his moderation; for they loved "the falsehood of extremes," and they could not comprehend his anxiety to promote education among the Catholic as well as among the Protestant part of the population. They would not recollect how many indications he had given of a possible[829] change in his future conduct in reference to emancipation. They knew not, or they affected to forget, that two years before Canning died, he had expressed to Lord Liverpool his conviction that emancipation must pass, and had offered to resign. So long ago as 1821, he had declared, in reply to Plunket, that even if his own views prevailed, "their prevalence must be mingled with regret at the disappointment which he knew the success of such opinions must entail upon a great portion of his fellow-subjects." He should, he said, "cordially rejoice if his predictions proved unfounded, and his arguments groundless."

There were those who perceived the current his thoughts were taking, and among them was the Duke of Clarence, afterward William IV. One of the duke's sons told Cardinal Acton that, when he returned home one night from a very late division in the House of Commons, of which he was a member, he went to his father's dressing-room, and was asked by the duke how the division on emancipation had gone; and when he was told that the bill had been lost, the duke said,

"That rascal, Peel, will adopt emancipation, will carry it, and take the glory from us who have fought for it all our lives."[189]

No less remarkable were the words used by the Duke of Clarence when, at last, Wellington and Peel introduced, with all the weight of government recommendation, the great bill for Catholic relief. He wished, he said, that the ministers had been as united in 1825 as they proved in 1829. "It will be forty-six years next month," he added, "since I first sat in this house; and I have never given a vote of which, thank God! I have been ashamed; and never one with so much pleasure as the vote I shall give in favor of Catholic emancipation."

It would be foreign to our purpose in this place to relate the circumstances attending the passing of the bill, and the admission of O'Connell into the House of Commons. We are concerned, not so much with these events, as with the premiers who brought them about. Peel did not acquire the confidence of the Irish whom he had emancipated. O'Connell regarded him with implacable aversion, and nothing could exceed the hatred and distrust with which he was treated by the Tories who had once been his friends. It was nothing to them that the change of his politics had been the result of long and arduous study; that he had taken nothing for granted, but required proof of every statement made by those who sought to convert him to their side. They had not seen what we possess—the posthumous volumes edited by Peel's trustees, Lord Stanhope and Mr. Cardwell—and they could not, therefore, judge of the laborious and conscientious search by which he arrived at his conclusions; and even if they had seen them, it is probable that they would have reproached him for investigating the subject in a hesitating frame of mind, and for beating out for himself and many of his followers a path of apostasy.

Eighteen years passed by before any other measure of importance affecting Catholic interests was laid before the houses of parliament. The influence of emancipation in a liberal direction was felt deeply in the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, which but for that previous act of justice would have been impossible. The Duke of Wellington prepared the way for Lord Grey, just as Grey and his colleagues, by shaking the power of the aristocracy and[830] destroying the rotten boroughs, led in the issue to the more extended reform bill carried by the late Lord Derby, to the extension of the suffrage to all householders and a large proportion of lodgers, and to the passage of the Irish Church bill. During the premierships of Lord Melbourne and of Sir Robert Peel the questions of free-trade and the abolition of the corn-laws absorbed public attention, and the Catholic topic was all but set aside. The paltry grant to Maynooth was made a yearly subject of hot debate, and a few thousands per annum were grudgingly bestowed on an Irish college for the education of priests, while the Protestant establishment in that island continued to be the most richly endowed in the world in proportion to the number of its members. The public mind, however, was attracted and agitated by a spectacle in which parliament was not concerned, and which in all the course of legislation in favor of Catholics had never been contemplated. This was the extraordinary progress of Catholic ideas, doctrines, and practices in the University of Oxford, and among the clergy of the establishment. The excitement which this produced had reached its height when, in February, 1847, a bill intended to supplement the emancipation of 1829 was introduced by Mr. Watson, Lord John Manners, and Mr. Escott. At that time Lord John Russell was premier, with Grey, Palmerston, Macaulay, and Granville among his colleagues. They were little inclined to favor Catholicity, though in matters of politics they usually adopted a liberal line; and, considering that in 1829 there had been 2521 petitions presented to the Lords against emancipation, and only 1014 in support of it—2013 to the Commons against it, and only 955 in its favor—considering that of 238 newspapers in the United Kingdom in 1829, though 107 had been in its favor, 87 had been against it and 4 neutral—it was not surprising that the relief bill of Lord John Manners did not find as many strong supporters as it deserved. The country was alarmed at the spread of "popery," and the bill in question seemed designed to quicken its pace and widen its conquests. It would, if it had been carried, have removed some remaining disabilities; but the loss of the bill did not in reality affect in any very great degree the freedom of Catholics or the progress of their religion. The premier, Lord John Russell, in the same year—1847—when discussing the question of national education, stated that, if a desire were entertained to have schools for Catholics, and for such only, he would be in favor of it; but he reminded his hearers that "of all the half-million which had been already spent under the direction of the treasury, and in accordance with the minutes of the council on education, not one shilling was given in aid of the Roman Catholic schools;" and in the issue Catholic children were excluded from all participation in the grant of £100,000 a year which formed part of the government scheme of education brought forward by the prime minister. This is enough to prove how lukewarm Lord John Russell was in his wish to promote education among Catholics; and it is enough, also, to lessen our surprise at that monstrous display of intolerance and bad statesmanship with which he signalized his ministry in 1851.

It was two months after the close of the session in 1850, that a papal rescript establishing a regular hierarchy in England, and parcelling out the country into dioceses, was published by the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, and produced a commotion altogether disproportioned to[831] the cause. The document was simple and ordinary in its character, and if issued in reference to any other country but England, would probably have attracted no attention, and certainly have excited no surprise, terror, indignation, and wrath. Among the English it was received like the news of a French invasion. It was denounced as a "papal aggression," and the prime minister, instead of allaying the storm, which he might easily have done, lashed the waves to fury by his letter to the Bishop of Durham. He affected to be taken by surprise, whereas the holy father had himself shown the brief to Lord Minto, Lord John Russell's father-in-law, who had been residing in Rome in a diplomatic capacity. Lord Minto had raised no objection to the publication of the document, nor offered any suggestion as to the mode of procedure. It was Cardinal Wiseman, therefore, and the Catholics of England and Ireland, who were taken by surprise when the premier, who had spent his life in promoting "civil and religious liberty," suddenly effaced the inscription from his banner, and stood forward as the most prominent assailant of Catholics in the kingdom. It was the more inconsistent and absurd in him to act thus, because the right of the Catholic bishops to designate themselves by the titles of their sees was recognized by common usage, by the servants of the government, and in one act, at least, of parliament. Lord John's inflammatory letter to the Bishop of Durham was followed by a speech from the throne, couched in very high-flown and pompous language about the necessity of maintaining unimpaired the "religious liberty" which no one had sought to invade except the premier and his friends.

The queen's speech was followed in due time by a bill for preventing the "assumption of any title, not only from any diocese now existing, but from any territory or place in any part of the United Kingdom, and to restrain parties from obtaining by virtue of such titles any control over trust property." Never was a more foolish measure carried through parliament; firstly, because it made not the smallest change in the existing state of things—it did not prevent a single bishop from using on proper occasion the title of his see, as conferred on him by papal authority; secondly, it was not even intended to be carried into effect. Lord John Russell and his colleagues never dreamed of summoning bishop after bishop into court, and compelling them to pay the fine of £100 each, or go to prison. Such a proceeding would have enlisted popular feeling immediately on their side. All the wisest heads in parliament—men like Lord Aberdeen, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Gladstone—warned the premier of the folly he was committing in pandering to the wishes of an illiberal and panic-stricken multitude.

The opposition offered to the measure by Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Gladstone is all the more to our purpose because both these statesmen became at a late period prime ministers. Lord Aberdeen was one of those whose minds had undergone a great change on many important subjects, and there can be no doubt that he had yielded his to the plastic influence of Sir Robert Peel. Having taken part in the ministry of the Duke of Wellington, he had, in 1829, contributed to the success of the emancipation bill; and when Peel was driven from office, after abolishing the corn-laws, by the resentment of the protectionists, he had followed his master into retirement, and declined a place in the cabinet which was offered to him by Lord John Russell. It[832] was not likely, therefore, that he would in 1851 betray the principles which he held sacred, and aid in swelling an insensate cry. He saw clearly that the ecclesiastical titles bill had the double defect of being persecutive if carried into operation, and contemptible if passed only to lie dormant. He accordingly resisted it with all the more dignity because he knew that resistance was, for the time being, fruitless.

Mr. Gladstone has not been consistent in his politico-religious career. In 1838, he appeared in print as the resolute champion of "church and state," recommending the exclusion of all persons not of the Established Church from participation in the advantage of subsidies granted for religious purposes. In 1839 and 1840, he opposed the admission of Jews into parliament, and the assistance afforded by the state to dissenters for the education of their children. He upheld that unjust establishment in Ireland which he has since overthrown; and in 1845 he resigned his place in the cabinet in order that he might be perfectly free to vote as he pleased on the grants to Maynooth and the endowment of Peel's colleges in Ireland. When out of office, he supported both these measures, and rendered himself very obnoxious to many of his supporters at Oxford by the growing affection he manifested for liberal measures. The year 1847 saw him pleading for diplomatic relations with Rome, and complaining that the government had not communicated with the holy see before establishing the queen's colleges in Ireland. In accordance with these generous and enlightened views, Mr. Gladstone saw with disgust the intemperate conduct of the premier and the parliament in the case of the ecclesiastical titles bill. He contended that the influence of the Protestant church in England could never be maintained and extended by temporal enactments; that the papal rescript for assigning sees and titles to Roman Catholic bishops did not interfere in any way with the political rights of Englishmen; and ought not to be made the occasion of a hostile, oppressive, and impotent act of parliament.

Events have proved how completely his words were true. The ecclesiastical titles bill is now regarded with scorn, and treated with ridicule. Earl Russell has confessed his mistake, and Catholics, whom it was intended to humiliate, are quite indifferent to a prohibitory measure which was never meant to be enforced. The reform bill carried through both houses by Disraeli and Lord Derby made the disestablishment of the Irish Church possible; the nation, freely represented, pronounced in its favor; and the measure was passed. A sense of justice, if not a feeling of repentance, has come over the public mind; and a brief space of time has sufficed to dispel prejudices that were the growth of ages. Mr. Gladstone, as leader of the liberal party, has been chiefly instrumental in producing this change; but it would be unfair not to specify Mr. Bright as another most powerful agent in bringing about the result. So long ago as 1852, the former gentleman declared his opinion that if Mr. Spooner's annual motion against the Maynooth grant should ever succeed, and "the endowment were withdrawn, the parliament which withdrew it must be prepared to enter[833] upon the whole subject of the reconstruction of the ecclesiastical arrangements in Ireland." These words were considered remarkable at the time, and appear even more so when viewed by the light of recent events. They plainly foreshadowed that sweeping measure which we have recently seen him triumphantly carry. They pointed to a radical alteration in the existing unfair and anomalous relations between the church of the many and the church of the few in the sister isle. They left it, indeed, undecided whether "levelling up" or "levelling down" should be tried; whether the several churches, Roman, Anglican, and Presbyterian, should be all reduced to the voluntary systems, as in the United States, or whether the Roman Catholic clergy should be raised by the state to equal privileges and emoluments with those enjoyed by the Protestant pastors.

In the year 1868, it became manifest that the conservative and the liberal parties alike were agreed as to the necessity of doing something with the Irish Church. It also became apparent that the leading men in each party favored respectively the two plans just alluded to—the "levelling up" and the "levelling down" process. Lord Derby, with his son Lord Stanley, Mr. Disraeli, and other conservatives, were inclined to make the Catholic clergy in Ireland stipendiaries of the state; but they did not boldly and honestly propose any such measure for the consideration of parliament. The difficulties which faced them were greater than they could hope to overcome. The Catholic bishops of Ireland had distinctly refused to close with any offer of stipend for the priests. They asked for impartial legislation, but not for pay. This difficulty amounted almost to an impossibility; for of what avail was it to vote emoluments to those who would not accept them? But there was another obstacle of almost equal magnitude, which consisted in the unwillingness of the English people to endow "popery" in any shape. One half of the electors under the new reform bill were persons not in communion with the Church of England; and these, together with many Anglicans, approved the voluntary system in preference to national state churches of any kind. Lord Mayo, therefore, the Secretary of State for Ireland, was studiedly ambiguous in setting forth the intentions of the government in regard to Irish ecclesiastical matters. They were willing to establish and endow a Catholic university in Dublin, and to do something (no one could discover exactly what) in the way of "levelling up." Mr. Gladstone instantly exposed the absurdity of these crude and vague intimations. He declared in the most emphatic manner that the Irish Church must cease to exist as an establishment, and it soon became apparent that the liberal party were determined to aid him to the utmost in accomplishing his design. It was an extraordinary climax. The most popular man in the kingdom—a Protestant representing a Protestant constituency, and the premier-to-be of a Protestant queen and a Protestant cabinet—was willing and eager, in the name of the people, to disestablish and disendow that church in Ireland which had for three centuries been the pledge of Protestant ascendency and the main support of English and Protestant landlordism in that island.

His foremost opponents were the late Lord Derby and Disraeli, each of them prime ministers at different periods. Their opposition was the less formidable because they were both men of mixed politics. Lord Derby had been by turns the friend and the foe of Catholic liberty and equality. He defended[834] the Irish establishment against Joseph Hume in 1824; but he supported, under the régime of Earl Grey, the cause of emancipation in 1832. He aided in relieving the Irish Catholics from the payment of tithes, and he helped to strike off the chains of the negro by presenting a bill for their liberation; but, on the other hand, he resisted with all his might the appropriation clause in an Irish Church bill of 1834, and even quitted office because he would not give it his countenance. To sequestrate any part of the property of the Irish establishment and apply it to secular purposes was, in his eyes, to commit a sacrilege and to violate a common right. To this feeling he continued to adhere, and to the last opposed the Irish Church bill intended to disestablish and disendow the Protestant Church in Ireland. He intimated, however, to the peers who were of his party, that he did not think it their absolute duty to oppose the bill as he had done. For the sake of consistency he voted against it, while not a few of them did otherwise, seeing how many evils might arise from their resistance to the will of the Commons and the majority of the electors. Yet it was he and Mr. Disraeli who made the passing of this bill possible and inevitable. It was the reform bill which they introduced, and which extended the suffrage to all householders and many lodgers, that made the liberal party stronger, and the abolition of the Irish establishment necessary. It is strange, indeed, that Lord Derby, who offered so dogged a resistance to free-trade and the abolition of the corn-laws, who, with Lord George Bentinck and Mr. Disraeli, headed the forces of the protectionists, should have been the means of developing the democratic element in the British constitution to a degree previously unknown and unsought, even by the liberals. It is strange, passing strange, that he should thus have brought about indirectly the measures he most wished to avert; and the fact of his having so acted is sufficient to stamp him as a second-rate statesman, and hardly worthy of a philosopher's name.

It would, we believe, be scarcely unjust to apply the same remark to Disraeli, notwithstanding his literary fame. He is too crotchety ever to be the great leader of a great party. What Willis said of him was true: "In a great crisis, with the nation in a tempest, Disraeli would flash across the darkness very finely; but he will never do for the calm right hand of a premier." His literary reputation preceded his political celebrity, and will outlast it. His mixed politics—his dubious radical-toryism or tory-radicalism—like the plus and minus in an equation, cancelled each other, neutralized his influence, and confounded his arguments by mutual disagreement. He discarded triennial parliaments and vote by ballot, defected to the Tories after coquetting with the radicals, and thus laid himself open to O'Connell's keenest abuse. "His life," the Liberator said, "was a living lie. There were miscreants among the chosen people of God, and it must certainly have been from one of these that Disraeli descended. He possesses just the qualities of the impenitent thief who died upon the cross, whose name, I verily believe, must have been Disraeli." Certain it is, that even the friends and admirers of Mr. Disraeli repose in him little confidence. They never feel sure as to what he really is, or what he may become. He is an enigma and a sphinx. He has often embraced principles to make himself a name, and he has often sustained them in spite of unpopularity. "It is quite a mistake," he said on one occasion,[835] "to suppose I ever hated Peel. On the contrary, he is the only man under whom I should like to have served. But I saw very clearly he was the only man it would 'make' me to attack, and I attacked him." Here is a key to Disraeli's character. The only premier he would like to have served under was one whose ruling principle was expediency; yet even this premier he was willing to oppose in order to rise in the political and social scale. So he, at the head of "Young England," denounced free trade in corn, and applied the system of protection to the state religion. He was, like Lord Derby, intensely opposed to the disestablishment and disendowment of the Protestant Church in Ireland; but he was willing to endow Catholicity in Ireland to a certain extent, and thus make the state to be, like himself, an assemblage of contradictions—a builder up at the same moment of Babylon and of Zion.

All roads, it is said, lead to Rome; and in like manner it may be affirmed that all English prime ministers since the revolution have led Rome-ward more or less. All have been employed in raising the valleys and levelling the hills, that a straight path might be made for the majestic march of the restored and ancient faith. Every thing has told in favor of the gens lucifuga, the despised and persecuted Catholics, who shunned the light of day. If one and the other premier sought to oppress them anew, as Walpole did in his day, and Lord John Russell in our own, the unrighteous attempt recoiled sooner or later on its promoters, and ample reparation was made in the long run by a sense of justice being awakened in the popular mind.

The prime ministers of England, be it remembered, have been in some sense its kings—nay, more than kings. The real king has often been a cipher; the queen—as for example, Queen Caroline—has been above her lord; and the premier—as, for instance, Sir Robert Walpole—has controlled them both. And if this was the case in the last century, much more is it so now. England is in fact a republic, though nominally a monarchy. It is an aristocratic republic; and the prime minister being responsible to parliament, and representing for the time being the voice of parliament and the popular will in the council chamber of the sovereign, is himself the chief executive in the government, and holds in his hands more real power than any one besides in the kingdom. The monarch before whom he bows, and to whom he seems to defer, is in reality a puppet of which he works the wires. King George IV. was as nothing compared to King Wellington, and King William IV. was but a middy under the command of Earl Grey. Queen Victoria at the present moment (and we say it with sincere respect for that excellent and sovereign lady) is but a shadow to the substance Gladstone, and will be but a shadow to any prime minister who may succeed him. It was not so entirely with her grandfather. He was really a king. He ruled himself, and often very unwisely; but times have changed. Political and religious emancipation has conferred on Catholics an importance in the state which is altogether new, and conversions on a large scale during a quarter of a century have been a concurrent cause of their occupying a high and honorable position in society. No prime minister, therefore, can now ignore them, much less can he molest them. In every session of parliament some obloquy cast on them in former ages is removed. The lord chancellor of Ireland is now a Catholic, and very soon the lord lieutenant[836] of Ireland may be so too. Every office of state, even the highest, will in all probability be in a short time opened to the Catholics, and the unjust law which excludes them from the crown, and prohibits members of the royal family from marrying them, will be swept away. If a Catholic were to be made premier now, it would not be more surprising than it was that Wellington should emancipate Catholics in 1829 or that Gladstone should demolish the Irish establishment in 1869. Providence has wrought wonderfully in behalf of the church already in England, and what has been done should be taken by us as a pledge of what is yet to be. Meanwhile, it will be well to remember gratefully, where gratitude is due, the labors of Protestant prime ministers for the removal of Catholic disabilities; and in order to do so adequately, we must make every allowance for the prejudices in which they were brought up, and the obstacles which lay so thickly in their path. We must not deny them all merit because they have yielded to the force of circumstances, but believe that they probably would not thus have yielded if there had not been in them some noble and virtuous impulse, some personal attachment to truth and justice. The stronger their original repugnance to concession, the more deeply they felt convinced in earlier years of the importance of maintaining intact the Protestant constitution in church and state, the more credit assuredly is due to them for having broken the spell of their youth, admitted that their ideas were erroneous, and faced a thousand reproaches and unmeasured obloquy in their determination to place the liberties of their fellow-subjects on a broader and better basis. The day has arrived in England when the Protestant premier and the Catholic primate shake hands, not merely as private friends, but also as representative men; and when they were seen not long ago in familiar intercourse at the foot of the steps of the throne in the House of Lords, they were for the moment living signs and symbols of that vast and happy change which has come over the relations between the English government and its Catholic subjects.

LUCIFER'S EAR.

Fernan. Never mind; you must know that many people are pleased with Andalusian stories, and I am told that they write them.

Uncle R. Then what I tell your honor is going to be printed! It makes me laugh; for you see I thought that those high-flying folks who go to college liked nothing but Latinity. However, with the help of God, I shall do as your worship commands, since those that give us good-will aid us to live, and gratitude is a duty that none but the base-born refuse to pay. I will go on telling; your worship will go on writing it[837] down, and leaving out mistakes, and shaving off the roughness of my way of saying things, till it sounds like print; and your worship can write to those you-sirs, "My journeyman and I made this between us. If it is good, I did it; and my journeyman, if it is bad." Shall it be a story of enchantment?

Uncle R. O señor! I can't invent. Those inventions are flashes of the mind; mine is too dull, Don Fernan; but I'll tell you a story that I've known ever since I cut my teeth. I've lost them all now; so your worship can judge what date it must bear.

Uncle R. Well then, señor, there was once a rich tradesman who was father to a very fine son. He brought him up like a king's child, and, besides the accomplishments of a gentleman, in which the boy came to excel, had him taught in all branches as if he had meant to make him doctor of every thing. The son grew to be a young man with a will of his own; bearded and dashing; and for gallantry there was not another like him.

One day he told his father that the place had become too narrow for him; he could not content himself in it, and he wanted to go away.

"You are like the grasshopper that jumps he don't know where," said the tradesman. "How are you to get along in those strange countries without experience?"

"Father, 'He that has knowledge may go where he will,'" the son replied; and as the old cock had allowed the young one to run so much to wings that he couldn't hold him, the youth took his arms, his horse of noble stirp, and set out to see the world.

When he had travelled three days through wilds and thickets, he came up with a man who was carrying a double cart-load—that is to say, a hundred and fifty arrobas of taramee upon his shoulders.

"Friend," said the young gentleman, "you carry more than a church mule. What is your name?"

"I am called Carry-much Carry-more, son of The Stout Carrier," answered the man.

At the end of an hour they found a man who was blowing hard enough to burst his cheeks; sending forth more wind than the bellows of the forge of that Bulcan[190] who, they say, was a giant blacksmith, of those you hear tell about.

"Don't speak, your worship," said the man, "for I mustn't leave off blowing. I have to keep forty-five mills a-going with my wind."

"Indeed will I!" said the man; "for I'm ready to collapse with blowing, day in and day out, as many days as God has put into the world."

"With all my heart, since your worship is so kind; the mosquitoes will announce their approach presently."

The four went along in love and fellowship till they came in sight of a castle so musty, lonesome, and cloaked with gloom that it appeared more like sepulchre of the dead than habitation of the living. While they were drawing nearer, the sky was growing each moment more threatening, and, as they reached the castle, it burst into a torrent of rain; for size and sound, every drop might have been a cascabel.

"My master's worship needn't mind it," said Blow-hard; "we'll soon see what'll become of the storm." And he began to blow. The clouds, thunders, and lightnings scampered across those skies in such hurry and confusion that the sun stood squinting after them, and the moon staring open-mouthed with astonishment.

But this was not the worst; for when they got to the castle, they found that it had neither gate, nor door, nor postern, nor sign of an entrance.

"I told your worship well," said Hear-all, who had more fear than shame, "that this ugly-faced castle was only for a nest of magpies, and refuge of owls."

"Give yourself no uneasiness, your worship," said Carry-much; and he immediately brought a big boulder, which he placed against the wall of the castle. They climbed up by this, and went in through the window. In the hall they found tables spread with the most famous dishes; all kinds of liquors, jugs of pure water, and bread of the finest quality. When they had eaten till they could stuff no longer, the gentleman wanted to explore the castle.

"Señor," said Hear-all, "if you meet somebody that asks, 'Where is this ball rolling to?' One should not make free in another's house unless he is well posted."

"Who's afraid?" said Carry-much. "We are not going to do any thing wrong; and if one draws a straight furrow, nobody will follow him with a plough."

"Let us get away from here, my master!" cried Hear-all, whose flesh was creeping with fear. "This castle is not in the grace of God; for I tell your worship that I hear noises under ground that sound like lamentations."

But the gentleman paid Hear-all no attention. His servants followed him, and they went on exploring those corridors and passages that were more intricate than if a lawyer had built them, until they came into a yard that was like an arena for bulls.

They had hardly set foot in it, when a serpent with seven heads, each one more fierce than the others, seven tongues like lances, and fourteen eyes like coals of fire, glided out to attack them.

Carry-much, Blow-hard, and Hear-all, more scared than rats found out of the hole, ran as if they would run out of their trowsers; but the gentleman, who was as valiant as the Cid and as strong as a Bernardo, drew his sword, and with four strokes, and four back-strokes, cut off the creature's seven heads in less time than you could say tilen! The biggest of the seven glared at the gentleman for[839] an instant with its savage eyes that darted fire and blood, and then gave a bound into the middle of the yard and disappeared through a hole which opened in the ground to receive it.

At the gentleman's call, the three who had fled came back, and were well astonished at their master's bravery.

"Be it known to you," said the cavalier, who was looking, without seeing bottom, down the hole the serpent's head had gone into, "that we are going now to the fields to get hemp and palm-leaves to make a line that will reach to the floor of this well." They did so; and the four spent four years making rope. At the end of that time they felt it touch bottom. The master then told Hear-all to slide down it and see what was below there, and come back and let him know. But Hear-all stuck to his supports, as upright as a palm-tree in a gully that no wind moves, and said that he'd be smashed first and go down in pieces.

Then the master told Blow-hard to go. Blow-hard took fast hold of the rope, and descended night and day till he got to the bottom, where he found himself in a palace like the famous ones you read of, and in the presence of the Princess of Naples, who was lying on a bed with her face downward, weeping tears as big as chick-peas. She told him that Lucifer had fallen in love with her, and would keep her enchanted there until one willing and able to fight and vanquish him should present himself. 'Here is one already who is going to undertake the enterprise,' said Blow-hard, and he drew in a long breath, which was scarcely drawn when Lucifer appeared in person. The sight of him frightened Blow-hard so that he ran and climbed to the top of a door. Lucifer unhinged the door with one thwack of his big tail, and it fell to the ground with Blow-hard, and broke one of his legs.

We will leave him with his bitter cud, and go back to the gentleman, who, tired of waiting for Blow-hard to come up, asked Hear-all what was going on down there in the bowels of the earth. Hear-all told him what had passed, and that now he could hear Blow-hard complaining of a broken leg. Then the gentleman sent Carry-much, who assured him that he would shoulder Lucifer and bring him up, if he weighed more than all the lead of the Sierra Almagrera. But, step by step, it happened to Carry-much just as it had to Blow-hard, except that he got an arm broken instead of a leg.

"I will go down myself," said the gentleman, when Hear-all related to him what had taken place.

When he reached the palace and saw the Princess of Naples, he fell into such love with her wonderful beauty that he prepared himself for the encounter with a double ration of valor.

Christians! such a fight as there was then between the good cavalier and the cursed dog of a Lucifer the world has never seen; as, naturally, it would not see, since Lucifer never comes to fight above here in his own form. But the gentleman crossed himself, and, as every man must who commends his cause to God, vanquished the devil. He did more; for he cut off one of his ears.

The state Lucifer would be in at seeing his ear in the hands of a Christian, I leave to your consideration. His yells had such an effect upon Hear-all that he repeated every jerk and spring. You would have said that he was being repeatedly stung by a tarantula.

"You will give me a good ransom if you get it," answered the cavalier;[840] "for I have taken it like a true knight in fair combat; therefore, I shall make three conditions with which you must comply."

"Oh! you may spit out the gall; but I warn you that I am going to pickle your ear and show it for money," replied the cavalier.

"The first is, that you instantly return this princess to her own kingdom and palace," said the cavalier.

There was nothing for it but to comply; so Lucifer placed the princess in her royal palace, and then said to the cavalier, "Give me my ear."

"No," replied the cavalier; "you must first transport me, with my three servants and such a kingly suite as becomes your vanquisher, to the court of Naples, and into a suitable lodging, which you will have prepared for me."

"It does not suit me, little bully, to have you diverting yourself, and triumphing at my expense."

"Very well. I will publish, with the sound of a clarion, that you have lost an ear. We shall see then if you can disguise yourself as a notary, lawyer, agent, money-lender, or lover, without being found out in less than no time."

"Now," whimpered Lucifer, after he had placed the cavalier in Naples, with great riches and an immense retinue, "give me my ear."

"I have it here," said the cavalier, "and I don't want it, for it smells of sulphur; but you have yet to fulfil the third condition."

"I am not quite ready to tell it. In the mean time, have patience, which, if it will not serve you to gain heaven, will be of use to you in getting back your ear."

Lucifer changed from poison to the essence of venom. "You are seven times worse than I," said he to his vanquisher. "By the soul of Napoleon! there is more knavery on earth than in hell. But you shall remember me! By my horns and tail, I swear it!" And off he went, pulling at his remaining ear for vexation at finding himself outwitted by a Christian.

Well, when the princess saw the cavalier so finely gotten up, and with such a splendid following, she recognized him, and told her father that he was her saviour! and that she wished to marry him. They were married; and I was there, and saw, and came away, and nothing was said to me; for I slipped in and out without being seen;[191] mindful of the saying, "Neither to wedding nor christening go unbidden."

But, señor, you must know that, after the wedding-bread was eaten, the princess and the cavalier led a cat-and-dog's life together; for the woman's temper and manners had become so bad and intolerable while she remained under the power of Lucifer that no one else could abide them. So, when the devil appeared to beg for his ear, the cavalier said to him,

"I am going to give it to you; but you must comply with the last condition I impose for its ransom."

"Knave! Mountebank! You would damn me if I were not damned already! And what is this last condition?"

"That you take my wife again," responded the cavalier; "for you are like for like, Peter for John."

THE VATICAN COUNCIL.

We intimated in our last number our intention of presenting each month to the readers of The Catholic World an article on the progress, and, so far as we could, on the proceedings of the Vatican Council, now in session. We shall endeavor, in so doing, to state facts, the accuracy of which we can guarantee. Misstatements, silly, absurd, and not unfrequently mischievous, are sent by "our own correspondents," to fill the columns of hostile newspapers; and they may sometimes disturb the minds and sadden the hearts of the unwary. We wish to give such an account as shall correct such errors and misstatements, by an accurate and impartial statement of the truth. Our form of a monthly publication may subject us to some delay, and to the disadvantage of saying much which our readers will have already seen in the daily and weekly press. But on the other hand, it will secure for us fuller and more accurate knowledge of our subject than could be obtained at an earlier period, and may enable us, perhaps, to form a more mature judgment on many points. Our aim is to give a series of articles, which our readers may preserve and refer to hereafter. In writing them, we are guided by information derived from the best sources.

The amount and the variety of misstatements and of mistakes about the council and its doings, that have fallen even under our own eyes, would seem incredible. The talent of fiction seems to have attained a truly marvellous development. We tried to classify them. There were fictions to blame, and fictions to praise, fictions droll, fictions malicious, fictions stupid, fictions about persons, fictions about things, fictions about words, fictions about the past, fictions about the present, fictions in the shape of conjectures of the future, fictions gay and witty, fictions solemn and dull, fictions pious, and fictions blasphemous.

But then even this stream of incorrect statements, the result of imagination striving to eke out a scanty knowledge of facts, or of prejudice looking at every thing through a distorted medium, is poured forth to satisfy, if it can, the cravings of the public, and is an additional evidence of the intense and universal interest the Council of the Vatican has excited. Men may misrepresent it, they may hate it, or fear it. They cannot despise it. It seems they cannot be silent about it.

The time has not yet come to speak of the results of the deliberations of this venerable body. Perhaps it is well that it is so. As yet, our minds are still dazzled and preoccupied by the outward splendor and the striking external aspects of the council. Everywhere in Rome, you hear men commenting on these points, and comparing the present œcumenical council with those which the church has celebrated in the past centuries of her existence.

But once before in her history were so many bishops gathered together. In the second Lateran Council, assembled by Pope Innocent III., in 1139, about one thousand bishops united. The next largest number was at Chalcedon in 451, where six hundred[842] and thirty bishops assembled; and next to that came the second Council of Lyons in 1274, under Gregory X., at which five hundred were present. Of the other councils, one had over four hundred bishops, five over three hundred, and the others all fell below that number.

Since the day of the opening not a few additional bishops have arrived, and the total number now taking part in the present council cannot fall below seven hundred and fifty. The Vatican Council stands, therefore, by a mere count of numbers second on the list. But, as a representation of the entire world, it far exceeds all that have preceded it.

The remarkable punctuality with which the council was opened is a subject of surprise and gratification, and may well be looked on as a signal evidence of the protection of divine providence. It has not always happened that councils could meet at the time and the place first indicated in the bull for their convocation. Sometimes only a comparatively small number of bishops could assemble; and weeks and months, and perhaps a year would pass by, before such a number could gather together as to render the opening of the council advisable. The difficulties of journeying were great. Oftentimes political jealousies, and the wars of nations, interfered to delay and embarrass, if they could not altogether thwart, the meeting, as well as the action of the council. Something of this kind was anticipated by many in the present instance. When, in 1867, Pius IX., in his address to the assembled bishops, stated his purpose of holding a sacred œcumenical council of the bishops of the whole world, in order that, with their united counsels and labors, necessary and salutary remedies might, by God's help, be applied to the many evils under which the church suffers, the heart of the Catholic world thrilled with delight. But among infidels and non-Catholics, and even lukewarm Catholics, or those of little faith, there was many a jest and many a sneer. Many a paper assured its readers that the council would not, could not assemble; and some, who thought themselves well informed, declared that before the day for opening it would arrive, Garibaldi would be in Rome, and Pius IX. a wanderer and a fugitive, far from the Vatican. Plans were even then being laid to bring this about; and, ere many months rolled by, a well-prepared and vigorous attempt was made to carry them into effect. The attempt signally failed. The battle of Mentana forbade its renewal in that shape for some time to come; and the storm, at one moment so threatening, passed by. The council was called, and the place and the day of its meeting appointed. What Garibaldi and his party had failed to effect by arms, diplomacy now attempted in another guise. The chief minister of a so-called Catholic power professed to entertain great apprehensions of the possible results of the council, and sent a secret circular to the courts of the other Catholic nations of Europe, urging the expediency of united action in such shape as might control the decisions of the council. Had the plan been adopted, and the spirit in which it was conceived been carried out in the details, the result would probably have been what the originators intended, and what indeed some of their papers announced to the world as already determined on. The council would have been postponed, perhaps would not have met at all. But this plan failed too. The circular was received coldly, and the proposal fell to the ground. Under the guiding hand of Providence, all was peaceful. The bishops (save those under the Czar[843] of Russia) were free to travel in peace; and they came at the voice of the chief pastor. From the volcanic and coral islands of the Pacific, from Hudson's Bay and Labrador and Canada, from Brazil, La Plata, and Chili, from the golden shores of California, from rugged New England and the fertile valley of the Mississippi, from mysterious Egypt, and the classic isles of Greece, from the sacred hills and cities of Palestine and Syria, from the stricken remnants of Assyria and Media, from Persia, India, Burmah, Siam, and China, bishops were journeying toward the central city of the Catholic world. The antipodal Australia and New Zealand sent still others. From every country of Europe, Hungary, Bohemia, Illyria, Austria. Prussia, Bavaria, and Würtemberg, France, Spain, and Portugal, England, Holland, Belgium, Scotland, and Ireland, the Island of Saints, they came, not merely a few delegates, but it seemed the entire episcopal body en masse. Distance and difficulties of the journey were no obstacles; even old age and infirmities seemed to have lost the power of retaining these prelates at home. Among the arrivals in Rome over a score had passed eighty years of age, and one, not the least vigorous among them, had reached the mature age of ninety-five. And so it came to pass, under the blessing of Heaven, that in this nineteenth century, in which even that profound statesman and excellent Catholic, Count De Maistre, once said it would be simply impossible to convene a general council of the church, all difficulties have vanished, and without one hour's delay or postponement, the Vatican Council, exceeding all others save one in its number of prelates, and far surpassing that one in its intrinsic grandeur, was opened in the majestic Basilica of St. Peter, on the day and the hour originally appointed. We may trust that the blessing of Heaven will continue with it, and that its results will be commensurate with the prayers and hopes of the Catholic world, in promoting the glory of God, in establishing the kingdom of Christ our Lord on earth, and in leading men to Christian holiness and eternal life.

In our former article we gave an account of the grand spectacle presented at the opening session. In the present one, we will speak of the general congregations, or committees of the whole, as we would term them, in which most of the work is to be done. The curious observer will find here many of those old rules and forms from which the modern and civilized world has derived our existing codes of parliamentary rules. It is interesting to observe the points of agreement and of disagreement. For of later years, in our mundane parliaments, the strife of party spirit, and sometimes the necessity of settling a question by a given time, have brought in various devices unknown in those older and quieter assemblies for the purpose of shutting off debate, or overcoming the reluctance of a minority for a speedy vote.

An œcumenical council is, under one point of view, a deliberative assembly of the entire Catholic Church. The sovereign pontiff, who, as successor of St. Peter, the head of the apostolic college in the see of Rome, is head of the Catholic Church and the centre of unity, presides ex-officio. As his right and his power were not bestowed on him by the church, but were instituted by her Divine Founder as an essential part of her organization, it follows that they do not cease, or suffer suspension, on occasion of, or during the holding of a council.

His office in reference to councils has been recognized from the beginning. A Council of Alexandria, in[844] their letter to Pope Felix II., in the year 362, wrote: "We know that in the great Council of Nice all the bishops unanimously declared that councils should not be held save with the judgment of the Roman pontiff," and Julius I., in his first letter to the eastern churches, appealed to the ancient laws of the church, which forbade "the holding of councils without the knowledge and assent of the Roman pontiff, because the Holy Roman Church held the primacy over all the churches." In the first place, then, an œcumenical council must be summoned by the authority of the pope. In the second place, he presides in the council ex-officio, either personally or by such legates as he may send. The First Council of Nice in Bithynia was held in 325. Three hundred and eighteen bishops were present, all of them (save half a dozen) patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops from the east. Osius, a bishop of Spain, and two priests from Rome, presided in the name of Pope Sylvester. Meletius of Antioch, and afterward St. Gregory of Nazianzum, presided in the name of Pope Damasus in the First Council of Constantinople, in 381. St. Cyril of Alexandria presided at the Council of Ephesus in 431, in the name of Pope St. Celestine I. St. Leo the Great sent two bishops, Pascasinus and Lucentius, and two priests, Boniface and Basil, who conjointly represented him, and presided over the Fourth General Council at Chalcedon, in the year 451. The same right has been exercised in every succeeding œcumenical council. Nor could it be otherwise. The body cannot be separated from the head without destroying the life of the church. The gates of hell would then have assuredly prevailed over her.

A third right and office of the sovereign pontiff in relation to œcumenical councils is that of confirming and giving force to their decrees. His is the supreme duty and charge of confirming his brethren in the faith. Pope St. Damasus expressed the Catholic doctrine and practice on this head fifteen hundred years ago, when he wrote to the bishops of an African council, "You well know, that to hold councils without the authority and approval of the Roman see is not according to the Catholic spirit; nor do we meet any councils that are held as legitimate which were not supported by its apostolic confirmation." The words of Pope Damasus were then specially significant and emphatic. Not a quarter of a century before, in 363, six hundred bishops had assembled at Rimini, and, under pressure from the Emperor Constantius, had passed decrees which Pope Liberius reprobated. At once, and ever since, that Council of Rimini has been held as utterly destitute of authority.

An œcumenical council, therefore, to be truly such, must be convoked by the sovereign pontiff, or by his authority, must be presided over by him, either in person or by his legates, and its acts must be confirmed and sanctioned by him.

To say he has the duty of judging when the necessities or dangers of the church render it proper to summon a general council, in order to meet or to remedy them, implies obviously that he will propose to the council the matters on which he calls for their judgment and their coöperation with him. As president ex-officio, it is his duty to make such arrangements in accordance with the spirit of religion, and the usages of former councils, as will facilitate and expedite the action of the council, and allow the bishops to return as quickly as possible to their flocks.

In the present instance, the sovereign[845] pontiff has done this chiefly by the brief, Multiplices inter, and by the labors of the five preparatory commissions, which have for nearly a year and a half been studying up the subjects which are to form a portion of the matter to be discussed and decided on by the council.

We have already spoken of this apostolic letter, Multiplices inter. It was dated November 27th, and having been printed in pamphlet form, was delivered to the bishops on December 2d, nearly a week before the opening of the council. There are ten chapters in it, several of which set forth the mode of procedure which will be followed in the council in the transaction of business.

We may say here that this special committee has been appointed, and is composed of twelve cardinals and fourteen prelates. Of the cardinals five are usually resident in Rome, three are from sees in Italy, one is French, one Spanish, one German, and one (Cardinal Cullen) from Ireland. Of the prelates, two are patriarchs from the East, one is French, two Spanish, four Italians, one South American, one (Archbishop Spalding) from the United States, one Mexican, one English, one Belgian, and one German. This committee is thus an admirable synopsis, as it were, of the entire council. Their duties may hereafter be delicate and responsible. So far, we believe, they have not been called on to act.

Chapters v. and vii. of the same apostolic letter set forth that, for the rapid furthering of business, there shall be six other standing committees, the members of all of which shall be elected by ballot, in the council: 1. On excuses for non-attendance, or for leave of absence, to consist of five members. 2. On grievances and complaints, likewise to consist of five members. 3. On matters of faith, to consist of twenty-four members. 4. On matters of discipline, with twenty-four members. 5. One on regular orders, with twenty-four members; and 6. One on oriental rites and on missions, to consist of twenty-four members. These last four committees, or deputations, as they are termed, will be presided over each by a cardinal, to be appointed by the pope.

Chapter vi. appoints the officers and attendants required in the council. Prince John Colonna and Prince Dominic Orsini are sergeants-at-arms. What a change from the days, seven centuries ago, when their ancestors would meet only as rivals at court, or antagonists in the field! The Rt. Rev. Joseph Fessler, of Germany, is named secretary of the council, with an under[846] secretary and two assistants. Seven notaries are named, and eight scrutatores or tellers, for receiving and counting the votes. Among these last is Monsignor Nardi, well known to the foreign visitors to Rome. The promotors, masters of ceremony, and ushers are also named in this chapter.

Finally, the sovereign pontiff, who would preside in person only in the solemn sessions, designated five cardinals who, in his name and by his authority, would preside in the general congregations. They were Cardinals De Reisach, De Luca, Bizzarri, Bilio, and Capalti.

The apostolic letter also set forth how the several committees of theologians had prepared schemata, or draughts, as we would term them, on various points belonging to the general purposes of the council. The Holy Father declared that he had abstained from giving to these draughts any sanction of approval. They would be placed in the hands of the bishops for their serious study and for their discussion, (integra integre,) freely, and as to every part.

These arrangements were held to be sufficient at least in the commencement. Should it appear during the progress of the council that additional measures are necessary, it is obvious that they can, at any time, easily be provided by the fathers.

In our account of the grand ceremonial of opening the council, we stated that the second decree appointed a second solemn session to be held on the festival of the Epiphany, January 6th. The bishops were also informed that the first general congregation would be held on Friday, December 10th, at nine A.M.

On that morning, by half-past eight, thousands were waiting in the grand nave of St. Peter's, to see the bishops as they arrived and passed up its length, to reach the council hall, in the transept, to the right of the main altar. Hundreds remained to see them come out at the conclusion of the meeting. On each of the ten times since then that the bishops have met in general congregation, there was the crowd of Romans and of strangers. In truth, under some respects, this occasion seems almost as interesting as a public session. The bishops come, not in procession, but singly, or in groups of two, three, or four, as they may chance to arrive at the door of St. Peter's. They are robed not in cope and mitre, but simply in rochet and mantelletta, and as they gravely walk up the nave, you have a full opportunity to scan their features and study their bearing, their size, and to read the thousand and one indications of character by which, whether correctly or incorrectly, men will ever form some judgment of those they look on. Most of them bear in their hands portfolios for writing, and large quarto pamphlets which have been distributed to them. They look as if they had been studying, and were still preoccupied with matters of importance.

They enter the door of the council hall, and each one passes to his numbered seat. Some open their pamphlets, some are writing, some are conversing in whispers. At nine A.M. the main door is closed. Whoever comes late must enter by a side door. Mass of the Holy Ghost is celebrated by some one of the prelates, without music. At its conclusion, the presiding cardinals take their places. All kneel while the chief cardinal reads the prayers prescribed for the occasion. When he concludes, all rise, are seated, and the congregation is opened.

On December 10th, only four of the presiding cardinals were in their places. The chief one, Cardinal De[847] Reisach, was absent in Switzerland, whither he had gone for his health. He has since died there. Born in Bavaria, in 1806, of a noble family, his rank, his talents, and his personal accomplishments, and the prospect of a brilliant career before him, gathered around him a circle of admirers and hopeful friends, as, at the age of twenty, he took his place in the court of King Louis. Pure and delicate as a girl, loving piety, and dreading the seductions of the world, he soon gave up all the world offered, and withdrew to devote himself to the sanctuary. He came to Rome, to pursue his theological studies in the German College, graduated with honors, was ordained priest, and soon after, when not thirty years of age, was appointed rector of the celebrated College of the Propaganda. His memory is dear to all those students, now scattered through the world, who had the happiness of being under his paternal care. In 1836, he was consecrated Bishop of Eichstadt, in his native land, and afterward was made Archbishop of Munich. In both these offices he displayed that zeal, and wisdom, and firmness, united with kindest charity, of which his earlier years had given such promise. He was finally made cardinal, and resigning the archbishopric of Munich, came several years ago to reside again in Rome. For some time past his health was impaired. He was president of one of the preparatory committees of theologians and canonists for the council, and it is thought that his excessive labors as such contributed not a little to break his health down. In September he left Rome, never to return. In his death, the Vatican Council has lost one who would have been a most able presiding cardinal.

On December 10th, Cardinal De Luca, the next in rank, took his place, and made a brief and eloquent address to the fathers. It was of course in Latin, the language of the council. The bishops voted by ballot, first, for the five members of the committee on excuses, and then, a second time, for the five members of the committee on complaints. As the fathers voting were over seven hundred, as each one voted for ten persons, and as the voting was very scattering, it was obvious that the ballots could not be counted then and there. They were therefore placed in boxes, which were publicly sealed; and a committee, consisting of the senior patriarch, the senior primate, the senior archbishop, the senior bishop, and the senior mitred abbot, was appointed to superintend the counting of these votes the next day, and to superintend the counting hereafter the votes to be cast in the coming elections. The ushers then delivered to each of the bishops a copy of the first draught, or schema, on doctrinal matters. The concluding prayer was said, and the meeting adjourned.

The prelates elected on the committee of excuses were, Melchers, Archbishop of Cologne; Monzon y Martins, Archbishop of Granada; Limberti, Archbishop of Florence; Landriot, Archbishop of Rheims; and Pedicini, Archbishop of Bari.

Those elected on the committee of complaints were, Angelini, Archbishop of Corinth; Mermillod, Bishop of Geneva; Sannibale, Bishop of Gubbio; Rosati, Bishop of Todi; and Canzi, Bishop of Cyrene.

On the 14th of December, a second general congregation was held. After the celebration of mass and the opening prayers, two documents were distributed to the bishops. The first had special reference to the council. It was a "constitution" on the election of the Roman pontiff, should the apostolic see become vacant during[848] the œcumenical council. Referring to the long-established laws of the church as to such a case, the decrees of several sovereign pontiffs in times past, and the clear precedents in the history of several general councils, the Holy Father now anew decrees and ordains "that if it please God to put an end to our mortal course during the General Council of the Vatican, whatever may be the position of the council and the state of the business on which it is engaged, the election of the new sovereign pontiff must be made by the cardinals alone, the council having no share therein." And he further decrees and ordains that "if our death occur during the said Vatican Council, this council, in whatever state it may be, and whatever be the position of the works on which it is engaged, is forthwith and immediately to be deemed suspended and adjourned. The council must therefore at once abstain from holding any meeting, congregation, or session; it must not make any decree or canon, nor take any proceeding, until such time as the new pontiff, having been canonically elected by the sacred college of cardinals, judges right, in virtue of his supreme authority, to ordain that the council be resumed and continued."

A cloud of sadness, we are told, seemed to fall on the assembly of prelates as they read this rehearsal and reënactment of the law of the church for the case contemplated—a case by no means impossible; for Pius IX. has reached the ripe old age of fourscore, and in his pontificate is fast approaching "the years of Peter." They thought, doubtless, of their distant homes and their flocks, so dear to their hearts; they thought of the council they were just entering on, and remembered how often other councils had lasted years. Yet from many a heart a prayer went up that not by his death should this council cease; many a lip spoke the words, Vivat, diu vivat Pius Nonus. Were it not for the sanctity of the place, and the graveness of the assembly, the low spoken words would have been loud acclamations ringing through St. Peter's.

The second paper did not directly refer to the council, and we would not speak of it here had it not been made the subject of so many remarks and so much misrepresentation in many secular papers. It was a bull revoking and annulling many of the censures and penalties enacted in times past by the canon law against various offences.

A little thought will make the matter clear. The church has power, and has always exercised it, to inflict her censures and penalties on grievous offenders. Such penalties, intended to deter from evil, and to procure, if possible, the amendment of the offender, must be prudently adapted to the circumstances of time and place. Many things must be taken into consideration. Hence, it will happen that what is beneficial at one time is hurtful at another. What in one age, or in one condition of a country, would repress the evil, may in another age, or under different circumstances, be found to aggravate it.

Hence, in the body of canon law, commenced as it was eleven centuries ago, and embracing, in fact, many laws of a far more ancient date, it is not surprising to find many laws which, however wise at the time of their enactment, are no longer applicable with prudence, and which the church has centuries ago let fall into desuetude and oblivion. There are other laws concerning which this action may even now be going on. In some countries it may be more advanced than in others. To some minds it may be clearer than to others.[849] Hence, for some time past, and especially on occasion of the council, representations have been made in Rome on the subject. The sovereign pontiff, after mature consideration, and taking advice of his counsellors, has by this bull withdrawn and repealed all the censures and ecclesiastical penalties at any time in ages past enacted by his predecessors, excepting those of which he gives a special and definite list in the bull. These he leaves as they were; all others he abrogates.

At this second congregation a ballot was taken for the members of the committee or deputation on matters of faith. Each prelate voted for twenty-four persons. There were seven hundred and twenty-one votes cast. They were sealed up as before, in the presence of the council, and were afterward counted. The result was as follows:

This is looked on as the most important committee of the council; and it is gratifying to us, and honorable to the Catholic Church of the United States, that two of our archbishops should be placed on it.

A third general congregation was held on the 21st of December, for the election in the same manner of twenty-four prelates, to constitute the deputation or committee on discipline. The number of votes given was larger than on the previous occasion. We give the names of those elected, arranging them here, as we did before, according to the number of suffrages each one received:

On December 28th, another general congregation was held, at which the following twenty-four prelates were elected, to constitute the committee on all questions relating to the religious orders:

This fourth congregation was one of importance and special interest, for at this meeting the discussion of the schema, or draught, on certain matters regarding faith, given to the bishops on December 10th, was to commence. Originally, and to the great mortification of the architect, the noble hall prepared for the council was found to be unsuited for speaking. Its size, the loftiness of the roof, and its communication aloft with the nave and the dome, seemed to render even strong voices inaudible. When the secretaries made announcements, they were forced to repeat the same words two or three times from different positions, that all might hear. To hold discussions there seemed impossible. Various halls in the Vatican Palace were measured. Several churches were examined; and at one time it was almost decided to try a hall in the distant Quirinal Palace. But, before doing so, the architect tried other plans in the council hall itself, and has finally succeeded in remedying the evils complained of in a very[851] simple manner, and to the satisfaction of all. The hall itself is, as we have said, the north wing of the transept, divided from the rest of the church by a partition wall, rising about one third of the way to the vaulted ceiling above. Its dimensions are about two hundred feet in length by almost one hundred in breadth, and the ceiling is over one hundred and fifty feet high. Its southern end, toward the church, is square. The other end is the semi-circular apse of the transept. This apse is occupied by an elevated platform, on which, in the middle, is the throne of the sovereign pontiff. The cardinals are seated in lines on either side of him, and before them are seated the patriarchs. All this occupies nearly one third of the hall. For the other two thirds, lines of seats stretch down on either side, from the platform to the partition wall, giving ample room for all the bishops. In the middle, between these rows of seats, stretches an ample space down to the broad door. Toward the platform there are here and there in it tables and seats for the secretaries, notaries, and other officials. Nearer the door stands the altar, and near by the movable pulpit. The alteration consists in this: a second partition wall, of light materials, is thrown across the hall, about one third of the way from the door, cutting off the altar and one half of the seats on either side. The prelates who occupied these seats are now placed in other temporary seats in the middle space and on the platform. As the Holy Father does not preside in the congregations, his throne is removed, and thus room is obtained in the apse for another altar, at which the mass is celebrated. At its conclusion, the presiding cardinals come forward and take their places in seats in front of the altar. The pulpit stands opposite, against the middle of the new partition; and the loss of voice by its passage aloft into the church is prevented by an awning overhead, stretching entirely across the hall, and extending from the partition some twenty-five feet forward.

In a solemn session all this change disappears. The second partition and the awning are taken away. The prelates occupy their old places; the second altar is removed; the pope's throne is restored; and the services are at the original altar. All is brought back again for the next congregation. A few hours suffice to put it up or take it away.

In the congregation of December 28th, after the voting had ended, and the ballots had been sealed up as usual, to be afterward counted, the presiding cardinal announced that the discussion on the first schema, or draught, on matters of faith, would now commence, and that fourteen prelates had already given notice of their intention to speak. They would have precedence of all others, and would be heard in their order of rank and seniority. Seven spoke that day, all of course in Latin. First was Cardinal Rauscher, of Vienna. The second of the number was the learned Archbishop of St. Louis. The seventh was the eloquent Archbishop Connolly, of Halifax. The discussion was continued on the 29th, when, in addition to the seven who remained over from the day before, a second, list of ten additional speakers was announced. On the 3d of January, the Bishop of Savannah spoke; and a third list of five more speakers was given in on the 4th. On the 8th, still nine speakers in addition sent in their names; all was closed at the sitting of January 11th. In all, thirty-five speakers addressed the council. Three others, who were to speak, stated that what they intended to say had already been fully treated of by[852] other speakers, and in such manner as to render any repetition unnecessary. The speakers were from North America, South America, France, Spain, Italy, Prussia, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Armenia, and Chaldea. The Latin was their common language, and it was wonderful with what correctness and readiness all spoke it. Some of them—the Italians and Hungarians especially—were as fluent as if it were their mother-tongue—as indeed it almost is for them. The nationality of the speaker might generally be known at once by the intonations of his voice and the peculiarities of his pronunciation. But the widest differences heard there did not prevent their perfectly understanding each other. There was no one to use the "English" pronunciation of Latin. Had that been heard, the majority of the bishops would have thought it some dialect of English. As it was, the variations seemed like the differences of English, Irish, Scotch, and American orators, who all speak the same language, each with a marked accent and peculiar mode of pronunciation; yet all are perfectly intelligible to each other.

But these peculiarities were forgotten, as the prelates bent forward to catch the calm and earnest words, in which the successive speakers brought their intimate knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, of the traditions of the church, of the acute reasoning of the scholastics, of modern philosophy, of history, ecclesiastical and civil, and of modern sciences in their most advanced stages, to bear on the subjects before them. The speakers seemed somewhat awed by the majesty of the assembly, but they spoke firmly and freely; for they were fulfilling a sacred duty in thus expressing their matured thoughts and earnest convictions. There was no applause. It would scarce comport with the dignity of the assembly. The prelates listened in silence and attentively, and seemed to weigh carefully the merits of each argument or criticism as it dropped from the lips of the speaker.

All these discourses were carefully taken down by the stenographers of the council, and were immediately written out. At the conclusion of the discussion, the Schema itself which had been discussed, and all the speeches on it, were referred to the deputation or committee on faith, who will make such alterations and amendments in it as a careful weighing of the remarks made may show to be advisable. In this amended form, it will come again before the congregation for further consideration, and ultimately for approval or rejection. In the mean time, other schemata or draughts on discipline have been placed in the hands of the prelates, to be studied, discussed, and acted on in a similar way.

In the congregation of January 3d, the death of Cardinal Reisach, chief of the presiding cardinals, was announced. He had not been able to return from Switzerland to take his seat in the council. It was also announced that the holy father had appointed Cardinal De Angelis to fill the vacant place. Cardinal de Angelis is Bishop of Fermo, in Italy, and is a hale old man, approaching seventy years of age. He has suffered not a little from the government of Victor Emanuel, and is looked on as a confessor like those of the earlier ages of the church. He was imprisoned, maltreated, taken away from his see, and kept for years in domicilio coatto, under arrest, as we would say, and forbidden to go beyond certain restricted limits. He was set at liberty about two years ago. He is a bishop of vast learning, full of zeal and energy, and of unshakable firmness.[853] His sufferings have made him the idol of the clergy of Italy. They hold him a most worthy successor of the lamented Reisach.

On the festival of the Epiphany of our Lord, January 6th, the second solemn session of the Vatican Council was held. There was no procession. The prelates, having robed in cope and mitre in the adjoining chapels, entered the hall singly or in groups, and took each his proper place. At nine o'clock, the cardinals and sovereign pontiff entered. Cardinal Patrizi celebrated the high mass. The music was by the unequalled choir of the Sistine Chapel. The crowd of strangers and Romans gathered in St. Peter's, though not so large as on the day of the opening, was still immense. At the conclusion of the mass, the book of the gospels was reverently enthroned on the altar, the pontiff chanted the usual prayers, the Litany of the Saints was intoned, and the responses swelled and rang through the vast church as the bishops and thousands of the assistants sang them in unison. As on the first day, the pontiff arose toward the end of the Litany, and thrice blessed the kneeling assembly, and prayed the Saviour to bless, to sanctify, and to preserve and protect this holy council; and stronger and grander than before rolled the united answer, Te rogamus, audi nos. Other prayers followed the Litany. A gospel was chanted, and the holy father intoned the Veni Creator. The choir took up the strain, and the body of prelates responded in the alternate verses. The usual prayer to the Holy Ghost followed. The time for the special business of the session had come. It was to make the solemn profession of faith, which, by the laws of the church, is required in every ecclesiastical synod or council.

The promotors, approaching the holy father, knelt and asked that this be now done. He assented, and arose, and put off his mitre. All arose, and stood uncovered. In his own clear, ringing voice, in tones that filled the hall, and passed out to the multitude beyond in the church—so clear that words could be caught far off at the other end of the transept—he read slowly and solemnly the profession of Catholic faith, in the form of Pius IV., and seemed to lay special stress on the declaration that in his heart he held and professed this holy faith, and would hold it, with God's blessing, until death, and concluded, "I, Pius, Bishop of the Catholic Church, so promise, vow, and swear. So help me God, and these holy gospels," and kissed the book of gospels. He was then seated. The prelates remained standing as before, while one of their number read, in a clear voice, the same profession in their name. When he had concluded, the masters of ceremony placed a book of the gospels on the knees of the pontiff, and one by one the cardinals approached, according to their rank, and confirmed the profession, "I, Constantine, Cardinal Patrizi, promise, vow, and swear, according to the form just read. So help me God, and these holy gospels," and kissed the book. After the cardinals came the patriarchs and primates, and then the archbishops and bishops. It was, in truth, a sublime evidence of the truth and the living force of our holy religion to behold these prelates of the church, assembled from every quarter of the globe, gradually passing down from their seats, as their turn came, to join the line that was slowly passing up the centre of the hall toward the throne of the pontiff, that, kneeling before him, each one might personally unite in this solemn profession of a common faith. The crowd seemed electrified, and at times[854] almost melted to tears as they saw some aged prelate, with tottering step, assisted up the steps of the platform by the masters of ceremony, and again carefully and gently aided, as he came down, or a blind bishop led on by the hand, that he might unite with his brethren. The world was dark to him, but his soul was illumined by the light of heaven. The prelates made the profession each in the liturgical language of his rite. Most, of course, in Latin, some in Greek, and Syriac, and Chaldean, and Arabic, and Armenian, and Copt, and Slavonic. In the true church, around the centre of unity, there may be many languages, there is but one faith. Under the banner of error, even if the language be but one, there are many religions.

This solemn ceremony lasted for two hours and a half. When it was concluded, the Te Deum was intoned, and chanted in the old and venerable Gregorian style by the choir, the bishops, and the assembled thousands, and with it closed the second public session of the Vatican Council.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

The Poems of Thomas D'Arcy McGee. With Introduction and Biographical Sketch by Mrs. J. Sadlier. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. xii. 612. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1869.

That Mr. McGee was a man of high intellectual gifts and merit no one can deny. His History of Ireland proves this sufficiently, to say nothing of his other writings in prose. As a statesman, he was also above the common order. In respect to his integrity and disinterestedness, the judgments of his countrymen are various, and he has been at different times obnoxious to the censures of very opposite parties, while at the same time he has always had many warm admirers. He was certainly led astray by revolutionary tendencies at one period of his career, and is accused of having, at a later period, erred in a contrary direction from a desire to gain political preferment. From what we know of him through his writings and the sketch of his life contained in this volume, we are disposed to think that he was truly a noble-hearted man, and always intent on serving the best interests both of his native and adopted countries, of his religion, and of his own Celtic race everywhere. The faults of his youth he made good by a subsequent reparation which does him honor, and we believe that in his later political life he was governed by sincere convictions, and never lost sight of the great object of his youthful devotion. At the time of his dastardly assassination, which awoke such a lively and universal sentiment of sorrow, he was one of the most valued contributors to this magazine, and was intending, had his life been spared, to continue his interesting articles on topics connected with Ireland.

Mrs. Sadlier's biographical sketch, introduction, and notes add greatly to the worth of the volume, and to her already high reputation as a writer. Like all her other literary productions, they are full of the spirit of fervent enthusiasm for her religion and her race and of the romantic love of her native island. The sentiments and opinions which are interwoven with the sketch of Mr. McGee's life, in relation to the welfare of Ireland and the Irish people, make it also one of the most sensible and judicious essays on this subject we have ever met with. It is well worthy of the frequent and attentive perusal of every one who has the real interests of[855] the Irish people at heart, and increases the debt of gratitude which all her countrymen in America owe to the accomplished authoress.

We have reserved our remarks on the poetry which fills this goodly volume to the last. It has its chief interest and significance from its relation to the topics of which we have been speaking. It was one of the instruments through which Mr. McGee gave voice to his patriotic sentiments, and sought to kindle the same in the hearts of his countrymen. That his themes are in themselves the fittest possible for the most stirring poetry, cannot be questioned. He was endowed with a large share of genuine poetic gifts, and the great number of really fine pieces which are contained in this volume, thrown off in leisure moments, in haste, and amid all his other labors, prove that, if he had made it his chief aim to become a poet, he would have attained great eminence. Some of his most perfect pieces are truly exquisite, as a specimen of which we may designate the one called "Iona to Erin," first published in this magazine. We think the editress might judiciously have omitted some of the more unfinished and imperfect pieces, and others written in the earlier part of his career, and containing too much of that unhallowed revolutionary and vengeful fire which afterward gave place to a more holy and Christian flame. We hope this volume of genuine Irish poetry will become a favorite book with the millions of exiles from Erin who have made their home in this new world, and that their children also will learn from it to love and venerate both the national and religious traditions of the country of their forefathers.

Creation a Recent Work of God. By the Rector of St. Mary's Church, New York. New York: Pott & Amery, Cooper Union. 1870.

This is an attempt to show that the literal theory of creation in six days is deducible from the observed facts of geology. The author occasionally shows some ingenuity, but on the whole the work is not one which will command the respect of scientific men, and its appearance is rather to be regretted, as tending to the spread of infidelity, by giving the impression that religion and science cannot well be reconciled.

The Holy Grail, and Other Poems. By Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L., Poet-Laureate. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co. 1870.

All lovers of "Tennyson's enchanted reverie" have here another true feast. The four Idylls, the main portion of the volume, are fully equal to the first four: as faultless, as sublime, as instructive. We do not hesitate to say that the whole series of these "Idylls of the King," as the author intends them to be read, forms a work which, for all that is best of epic and didactic, is not only unsurpassed, but unequalled, in the poetry of the world. Besides its artistic beauty, which out-Homer's Homer, it is eminently Catholic. The poet's genius could not fail to perceive that on Catholic ground alone is real romance to be found; and, as the result of deep and accurate study, his poem is a splendid proof of the Catholicity of the ancient British church. He is also the purest of poets. None appreciates so well, on the one hand, the dignity of love and the sanctity of marriage; or, on the other, the glory of virginity and the blessedness of divine espousals.

The rest of the volume bears the stamp of the same master-hand as ever. We only regret to find so few lyrics. Of those with which he has deigned to enrich us, that entitled "The Higher Pantheism" is especially worthy of note—for such, at least, as are capable of understanding it. Tennyson has the art of extrinsicating, and shaping in "closest words," intuitions which all minds have in common, but mostly without the power of analyzing them, or even without the consciousness of their presence. He uses the word "pantheism" here in the sense that "God is all," and not that "all is God." He insists on the objectivity of truth, and[856] therefore diametrically opposes the subjective autotheism of the day.

The influence of the poet is the widest and most lasting of influences; and Tennyson's influence for good, especially on the youth of our times, is, in our judgment, inestimable. We believe that his influence is powerful to check the follies and purify the tone of the age, and we pray that this volume may not be his last.

Titania's Banquet, Pictures of Woman, and other Poems. By George Hill. Third Edition. Revised and Enlarged. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1870.

This volume contains many pieces which prove the author a true poet. There are passages worthy of Moore, and even of Byron. We regret, however, that the author should have done such an injustice to his powers as to show an habitual carelessness both in diction and in versification. "The Ruins of Athens," too, by far the best long poem in the book, reflects too patently considerable portions of the first two cantos of "Childe Harold," more especially of the second.

We congratulate the author on his conversion to the church. Had this taken place in his younger days, he might have done service in the cause of Catholicity with his talents. We hope, however, it is not too late now.

Life of J. A. Alexander, D.D. By H. C. Alexander. New York: Chas. Scribner & Co. 1870.

This is an extremely well-written, interesting, and, moreover, genial and entertaining book, which any one, whether he be religious or purely worldly, a believer or an unbeliever in Christianity, a friend or a foe of Presbyterian doctrine, must read with pleasure. It is not an ordinary clerical biography, but the life of a man who, though belonging to the clerical order in his own denomination, was chiefly devoted to study and teaching, and was one of the most eminent scholars, as well as eloquent preachers, this country has produced. He was also a man of the highest order of personal attractiveness, of exquisite taste and culture in belles-lettres, poetry, and music, and a humorist nearly if not quite equal to the choicest wits of English literature. It is impossible to read his life without admiring and loving the man, and esteeming the great scholar. He was a disciple, friend, and compeer of the celebrated Hengstenberg, whose masterly vindication of the Messianic doctrine of the Old Testament against Jews and neologists is so well known. Professor Alexander's greatest work is a Commentary on Isaias, written in the same spirit. He was a powerful opponent of that neological and rationalistic school which undermines all religion by denying the divine authority of its inspired records, and so far did a great service to the cause of Christianity. It is impossible not to see, however, that these great Protestant scholars, who produce such solid and valuable works in defence of that part of their doctrine which is Catholic, fail altogether in completing their structure. They stop short at a certain point, and their genius immediately deserts them.

Their exposition of the doctrine concerning the person of the Messias is admirable; but when they come to explain the prophecies concerning the Messianic kingdom, all vanishes into a vague ideality or a prognostication of some church of the future equally vain with the Jewish expectation of a coming Messias. When we consider the lives and works of men in many respects so admirable, and who might have been bright lights in the church of God, we grieve more deeply over that deplorable schism which divides from us so many who adore our Lord Jesus Christ and reverence the prophets and apostles. Dr. Alexander was, of course, hostile to the Catholic religion, as he must have been to be an honest Presbyterian; but there is surprisingly little in his biography that shocks the religious sentiment of a Catholic, and it appears very clearly how unbounded[857] was his admiration for the learned Cardinal Mezzofanti.

The Attributes of Christ; or, Christ the Wonderful, the Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the World to come, the Prince of Peace. By the Rev. Father Joseph Gasparini, Passionist. Dublin: James Duffy.

This book is a medium between a theological treatise and a series of meditations. There is much learning and a great deal of imagination in it, using this last term in a good sense. Italians usually combine the beautiful with the useful, and throw a poetic charm over grave subjects. F. Gasparini is no exception, and we think his treatise ought to be popular on this account.

Particular Examen for Brothers of the Christian Schools. By Brother Philippe. New York: P. O'Shea. 1870.

These are two very useful and edifying books, whose contents will recommend them, although no effort has been made to give them an attractive exterior.

Lange's Commentary of the Old Testament. Vol. V. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.

This volume contains Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon, commented by Dr. Otto Zöckler. The first book is translated by Professor Aiken, of Union College; the second by Professor Wells, of the same college, with additions and a metrical version by Professor Tayler Lewis; the third by Professor Green, of Princeton, well known by his excellent refutation of Colenso on the Pentateuch. It is a monument of erudition, to which the American editors have contributed not a little. The translations are valuable critical helps to a study of the original text. The poetical merit of the version of Ecclesiastes does not appear to us of the first order. The inevitable shortcoming of all Protestant exposition of the Holy Scripture is most patent in the commentary on the Canticles, the most difficult and mysterious book in the sacred canon. It is the divine text-book of mystical theology, and can be understood and expounded only by a man deeply versed in the science of the saints, such as St. John of the Cross, whose spiritual canticles are a most perfect imitation and reproduction of the inspired songs of Solomon.

Ecce Femina: An Attempt to solve the Woman Question, etc. By Carlos White. Boston: Lee & Shepard.

This book is a novelty in one respect in our recent American literature. It is logical. The style is clear, pointed, and direct; the author grapples manfully with that arch sophist, John Stuart Mill, and wresting the dagger of his logic from his hand, deals him a deadly blow, like that which Joab gave to Abner the son of Ner. It adds much to the value of this book that the author does not indulge in any satire on women, but treats them with that respect which is their due so long as they remain women, and do not become Amazons. We are sorry to see him apply the coarse and libellous epithet "bloody" to Queen Mary of England. The less Protestants have to say about bloodshed in connection with English history the better; for history is a little better known than it used to be. Mr. White believes in the Bible—almost as great a novelty now a days as believing in logic. It is very refreshing to find a man who writes without cant, and yet asserts fearlessly Christian principles. Imperfect as it is, such Christianity as Mr. White professes is far preferable to the immoral system which has lately given such loathsome exhibitions of itself as to evoke the bitter scorn and mockery of even the secular press. Mr. White deserves the thanks of the sensible portion of the community, and we hope his[858] book will be extensively read and carefully reflected on by men and women alike.

Fair Harvard. A Story of American College Life. New York: G. P. Putnam & Son. 1869.

This book presents a sufficiently correct view of American college life. It is interesting, possesses considerable literary merit, and contains some happy sketches of Boston society.

It has, however, one fault in common with Verdant Green, a book after which it is evidently modelled to a considerable extent. It lacks a sufficiently high tone. Getting up muscle, excessive drinking, midnight escapades, and immorality, alluded to more or less openly, are made to play entirely too prominent a part in both stories. In Fair Harvard the brutal foot-ball game (now, we believe, abolished) is depicted without condemnation—except from a young lady, whose judgment the reader is of course expected, with the hero of the story, to disregard—while the disgraceful conduct of the students at Worcester two years ago is narrated as though it were something very "smart." When we read such things, we involuntarily think of what Carlyle, we believe, says somewhere in his works—that most young men at that age when, under the present system of things, they are at college, should be under barrels. A couple of contemptuous allusions, moreover, to the Irish people, found in this book, are, we assure the author, to say the least, in exceedingly bad taste.

We think it our duty to add that we by no means consider Harvard, or any other non-Catholic college, a suitable place for a Catholic young man to pursue his studies. His morality will there be endangered; but what is perhaps of still more importance, his faith will be put in the greatest peril. This is true of Harvard College now more than ever before, since under the new régime lectures are delivered before the students on all the different systems of philosophy, by eminent professors of the same; and in this list Positivism—in other words, rank Atheism—is included. This is done in order that the young student may be enabled to choose for himself—if he pleases, Atheism! We have here, however, but a logical sequence of the doctrine of private judgment, and we see to what they finally come who have once rejected the only infallible criterion of truth.

The Primeval World of Hebrew Tradition. By Frederick Henry Hedge. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1870.

The paper, type, and entire typographical and mechanical execution of this book are so extremely good that we are disappointed and pained to be obliged to add that this pretty shell contains a worthless nut. The doctrine of the essay is an incoherent kind of pantheism, together with a confused sort of semi-rationalism. The style is dull, and the manner of treating the topics introduced extremely commonplace. The only redeeming feature which an infidel book can have is its smartness and charm of style. But a dull book of infidelity is simply unbearable, and this one is almost as dull as the Essays and Reviews.

An American Family in Paris. With fifty-eight Illustrations of historical Monuments and Familiar Scenes. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1869.

This book is, on the whole, written in a pleasant and interesting manner; still, it is not fit to be put in the hands of Catholic children. It deals not alone with the Paris of to-day, but with the Paris of the past, and so includes not only sight-seeing but history; and we cannot let our children get their first ideas of history from Protestant sources. It gives the old story of the so-called massacre of St. Bartholomew, with all its misrepresentations and errors; and although the life of St. Genevieve is beautifully told, still it adds "that untrue and impossible stories have been told of her, and foolish honors paid to her, which should not be paid to any[859] human being." Though we cannot begin too soon to teach our children truth, it is not necessary or well to plunge their young minds into all the misrepresentations, discussions, and contentions of the past.

Wiley's Elocution and Oratory; giving a thorough Treatise on the Art of Reading and Speaking. Containing numerous and choice Selections, etc. By Charles A. Wiley, Teacher of Elocution. New York: Clark & Maynard, 5 Barclay street. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co.

This seems a practical text-book of elocution, and contains useful hints on vocal culture. A few typographical errors slightly mar the appearance of the book, and a lack of perfect taste in the choice of pieces for declamation, especially in the "Humorous Selections," detracts from but does not destroy its value.

We can safely compliment the author on many features of his pleasant book, but not on his selection of a nom de plume. And this little phrase reminds us that we are grateful to him for writing it correctly when he uses it, and for rising superior to the ordinary newspaper French of nomme de plume, esprit du corps, etc. etc. At the same time we decidedly object to his saying, (p. 104,) "Every thing is so blasé," because in French the person, and not the thing, becomes blasé. Of course, it was not Mr. Upton's fault that the Chicago printer had no accented é in case. Enthused, he will permit us to remark, is a wretched vulgarism, and we have our doubts about a thing that "would go a great ways."

Mr. Upton is right in praising Jefferson's Rip van Winkle. It is a personation as deserving of praise as the wretched dramatic version he renders is of blame. He is also right in saying, "The St. Elmos who start off as scoundrels always remain so—Miss Evans to the contrary notwithstanding." The chapters on the "Maiden Aunt" and the "Tenor" are good, and fashionable weddings, the fashionable minister, and petroleum and shoddy, are well handled. The book has generally a sound, wholesome tone, is straightforward in its dealing with sham and humbug, and possesses withal a dash of the spirit of the Potiphar Papers and a flavor of the Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table that make one feel as if among old friends.

Sybaris and Other Homes. By Edward E. Hale. 16mo, pp. 206. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co.

The purpose of this little book is to show how town and city life ought to be arranged, how far certain experiments in improved social arrangements have succeeded, and how the poor are compelled to live and die in the crowded tenements of our great metropolises, such as Boston and other continental capitals. The solid chunks of wisdom which Mr. Hale has to impart on these subjects are conveyed in the pleasant disguise of short stories—in the telling of which he has very few rivals among American authors. The narrative of "My Visit to Sybaris" is a peculiarly happy specimen of his aptitude for that vraisemblance which is so important a part of a good fiction.

Lady Georgiana Fullerton's novels are most of them productions of considerable merit. Their great fault has been too much intensity of passion, a quality which has been subdued sufficiently in the present novel to satisfy our critical judgment, without detracting from the vividness and warmth of conception and style so highly appreciated by the novel-reader. Those who want an exciting story to read, which is full of originality, and which abounds both in[860] charming descriptions of natural scenery, and masterly delineations of character, while it is at the same time safe and sound enough to satisfy the most fastidious confessor, will probably be pleased with this one. Perhaps some of them will skip the elaborate discussion of Anglicanism and Catholicity; but whatever mere story-readers may think, we must say that they show, more than any thing else in the book, the great mental power and accurate knowledge of the accomplished authoress.

The Wonders of Pompeii. By Marc Monnier. Translated from the original French. Illustrated.

Ramesis the Great; or, Egypt 3300 Years Ago. Translated from the French of F. de Lanoye. Illustrated. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870.

Two very interesting volumes, beautifully illustrated with wood-cuts of the most important places and things described in the text.

The Frontier Series. Planting the Wilderness; or, The Pioneer Boys. A Story of Frontier Life. By James D. McCabe, Jr. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1870.

The Cabin on the Prairie. By Rev. C. H. Pearson, author of "Scenes in the West," etc. Illustrated. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1870.

Pleasant and useful books for boys, full of the excitement they like so well, and giving them at the same time a knowledge of the early settlements of the country that every American boy should have.

The Sunset Land; or, The Great Pacific Slope. By Rev. John Todd, D.D. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1870.

An interesting account of the climate, soil, and natural productions of California; of its mines and mining, and of the wonders and beauties of its natural scenery.

Elm Island Stories. The Boy Farmers of Elm Island. By Rev. Elijah Kellogg, author of "Spartacus to the Gladiators," "Good Old Times," etc. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1870.

The pamphlet in F. O'Flaherty's case, which was severely censured in our last number, is, we are rejoiced to see, denounced in a circular signed by every priest in good standing in the diocese of Rochester as a scandalous forgery.

From Anson D. F. Randolph & Co., 770 Broadway, New York: Evenings with the Sacred Poets; a Series of Quiet Talks about the Singers and their Songs. By the author of "Festival of Song," "Salad for the Solitary," "Mosaics," etc. 1870.

From J. B. Ford & Co., 39 Park Row, New York: The Overture of Angels. By Henry Ward Beecher, 1870. The Sermons of Henry Ward Beecher in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn; from verbatim Reports. By T. J. Ellinwood. "Plymouth Pulpit," second series: March to September, 1869.

From D. & J. Sadlier & Co., 31 Barclay street, New York: Conversations on Liberalism and the Church. By O. A. Brownson, LL.D.

From James Miller, 647 Broadway, New York: History of American Socialisms. By John Humphrey Noyes.

From Charles Scribner & Co., New York: Practical Composition; with numerous Models and Exercises. By Mrs. Mary J. Harper, Packer Collegiate Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y. 1870.

From D. Appleton & Co., 90, 92, and 94 Grand street, New York: The Pursuit of Holiness: a sequel to "Thoughts on Personal Religion." By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., Dean of Norwich, and formerly one of Her Majesty's Chaplains in Ordinary. 1870.

From J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia: Bible Gems; or, Manual of Scripture Lessons. By R. E. Kremer. 1870.

Le Canada et les Zouaves Pontificaux. Memoire sur l'origine, l'enrôlement et l'expédition du contingent Canadien á Rome, pendant l'année 1868. Conpilé par ordre du Comité Canadien des Zouaves Pontificaux, par E. Lef. de Bellefeuille, membre du Comité. Montreal: Typographie du journal Le Nouveau Monde, No. 23 Rue St. Vincent, 1868. En vente: A l'Evêché de Montreal et chez tous les Libraires Catholiques de la Province de Québec.

From T. W. Strong, New York: The King's Daughters: An Allegory. By Madeleine Vere.

Fifteenth Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of New York. Albany: The Argus Company, Printers. 1869.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Christian Quarterly. Cincinnati: Carroll & Co. July, 1869. Art IV. Spirit of Romanism.

[2] Pallavicini. Historia Conc. Trid. Apparatus. Chap. 1, § 4. We quote from the Latin translation of F. Giattini, S.J.

[3] Sermons on the Failure of Protestantism. Sermon v.

[4] Introd. to The Literature of Europe. Part ii. ch. 2, §§ 7, 8.

[5] Pallav. Lib. v. c. 17, § 8.

[6] Lib. xi. c. 6, § 4.

[7] Lib. xiv. c. 9, § 5.

[8] Pallav. Lib. xxiv. c. 9, § 5.

[9] We append the estimate which Hallam himself forms of the Catholicity of this unfortunate friar: "Dupin observes that the long list of errors imputed by Pallavicini, which are chiefly in dates and such trifling matters, make little or no difference as to the substance of Sarpi's history; but that its author is more blamable for a malicious disposition to impute political motives to the members of the council, and idle reasonings which they did not employ. Ranke, who has given this a more minute scrutiny than Dupin could have done, comes nearly to the same result. Sarpi is not a fair, but he is, for those times, a tolerably exact historian.... Much has been disputed about the religious tenets of Father Paul: it appears to me quite out of doubt, both by the tenor of his history, and still more unequivocally, if possible, by some of his letters that he was entirely hostile to the church, in the usual sense, as well as to the court of Rome; sympathizing in affection, and concurring generally in opinion, with the reformed denomination." (Lit. of Europe, Part iii. ch. 2, § 3.) "This confirms the principal points in Pallavicini's main charge, that Sarpi was hostile to the church, and substituted his own malicious conjectures for the truth of history." (See Apparatus, ch. 1.)

[10] Literature of Eur. Part i. ch. 6, § 25.

[11] Literature of Europe, Part ii. ch. 2, § 18, note.

[12] Pallav. Hist. Appar. ch. 9, § 4.

[13] In a note, quoting Ranke as authority, he adds, "The number is rather startling."

[14] Lit. of Europe, Part ii. c. 2, §§ 14, 15.

[15] Mal. iii. 2-4.

[16] One of these was the power of giving regular benefices in commendam, that is, conferring the style, title, rank, and revenues of abbot, or other religious superior, on some one not a member of the religious community, who enjoyed the advantages but never performed the duties of his office. Two evils followed: 1. An ecclesiastical benefice was a mere matter of political patronage, and liable to be conferred on unworthy persons. 2. Owing to the absence of the chief superior, discipline became very relaxed in religious communities so afflicted. At least one regular congregation, in France, entirely died out on this account.

[17] Hallam. Lit. of Eur. Part ii. ch. 2, § 6.

[18] Evenings with the Romanists. Rev. M. Hobart Seymour. Carter & Brothers. New York.

New Englander. July, 1869. New Haven.

American Churchman. Chicago.

Is Romanism the best Religion for the Republic? Pamphlet. Pott & Amery. New York.

Good News. October, 1868. P. S. Wynkoop & Son. New York.

Fair Play on Both Sides. Pamphlet. New Haven. Rev. L. W. Bacon.

Watchman and Reflector. Boston, August 12.

London Examiner.

[19] Rome. By John Francis Maguire, M.P.; p. 169.

[20] Rome, p. 458.

[21] Maguire's Rome, p. 444.

[22] Fénélon.

[23] This priest has since died in a Southern diocese.

[24] Isaias, iii. 16, and following.

[25] St. Matt. xxv. 42.

[26] St. Matt. xviii. 6.

[27] Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Prison Association of New York, and accompanying Documents, for 1868. Transmitted to the Legislature Jan. 13th, 1869. Albany: The Argus Company, Printers. 1869.

[28] See Catholic World, January, 1869.

[29] Strauss, La Vie de Jésus. Par Littré, Paris.

[30] We read this passage as St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Augustine, Beda, and others read it.

[31] St. John i.

[32] This species of union is what, in theological language, would be called confirmation in grace, and took place in the Blessed Virgin and in some saints.

[33] Unitarian Christianity, p. 196.

[34] The Life and Letters of Frederick William Faber, D.D., Priest of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. By John Edward Bowden, of the same Congregation. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1869.

[35] We take pleasure in laying before our readers, at this time, the accompanying translation from a recent number of one of the leading magazines of France. The eyes of the people of this country, and especially of our great cities, are being slowly opened to the necessity of some reform in the methods of judicial business. The delay and expense of legal proceedings—above all, the great uncertainty of their result, is becoming daily a matter of more and more serious consideration. In casting about the world for light upon this vexed and intricate subject, the mind of the reformer cannot fail to be guided to the mother and mistress of all nations, in whose bosom is garnered the experience of twenty-five centuries, and whose institutions are the development of that wisdom and sagacity which made pagan Rome the queen of the world, and has given to Christian Rome a sceptre whose sway is mightier and more extensive than that of the sword.

We feel confident, therefore, that in presenting this article on The Roman Congregations to the American public, and particularly to the legal profession, we are directing attention to what must, in a greater or less degree, be the model of all permanent and reliable civil tribunals. As applicable to the exigencies which press us most severely at the moment, we call attention to the following features of these congregations as worthy of particular investigation:

1. The life-tenure of judges and other officials, with the permanent provision made for their support in case of disability.

2. The reduction of all pleadings to a simple, definite issue, expressing in untechnical language the precise points of law or fact which are in controversy.

3. The reduction of all testimony to the form of depositions, thereby securing the sworn evidence without the mistakes and prejudices almost inseparable from the oral examination of witnesses in court.

4. The reduction of all arguments to writing, procedure eminently productive of accuracy, brevity, and completeness; three qualities which, however desirable, are rarely found in the oral arguments of counsel.

5. The submission of all questions to a body of trained and practised judges, not so liable to be swayed by passion, interest, and prejudice as a jury, or unaided by the counsel and assistance of others, like a single judge, but bringing to the solution of every issue a multitude of counsellors, among whom, if anywhere on earth, is impartiality and wisdom.

We commend these features of Roman jurisprudence to those whose interest and duty lead them to consider seriously the question of legal reform, remarking for ourselves that the rapid and accurate enforcement of legal rights and redress of legal wrongs is the highest mark of temporal civilization, and that no country can expect prosperity and renown unless the judicial ermine is kept free from stain, and unless all men, rich or poor, have both equal rights and equal means of protecting them before the law.—Ed. Cath. World.

[36] We use this term in its common, not its legal acceptation. It technically refers only to those mutual allegations and denials of the parties which end in the issue, either of law or fact, upon which the courts are to decide. Here we employ it to denote the spoken arguments of counsel.

[37] Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting of the Free Religious Association, held in Boston May 27th and 28th, 1869. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1869. 8vo, pp. 122.

[38] Faber.

[39] Butler.

[40] Mrs. Jameson.

[41] Lingard.

[42] Life of St. Wilfrid.

[43] Digby.

[44] Ibid.

[45] Digby.

[46] Besides the great bodies above mentioned, there are in the United States eight or ten other societies resembling the Presbyterian Church in order and doctrine, and numbering some hundreds of thousands of communicants.

[47] Epistle to Titus, iii. 11.

[48] 2 Thess. ii. 14.

[49] 2 Peter iii. 16.

[50] De Genesi ad Litteram. Op. Imp. Cap. 1, §§ 2 and 4.

[51] De Ver. Rel. v. 2.

[52] The reader is referred to a treatise entitled Studies in St. Augustine, which is published in the same volume as the Problems of the Age, at the office of this magazine.

[53] Con. Ep. Manich. i. 6.

[54] Sur Le Canon, p. 169.

[55] Quoted by Döllinger. Church and Churches, p. 298.

[56] See Audin's Life of Luther, vol. ii. p. 418, where references and quotations are given.

[57] The Origin of Species. By Charles Darwin, A.M., F.R.S., etc. Fourth edition.

The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. By Charles Darwin, A.M., F.R.S., etc. Two volumes, 8vo. London: John Murray. 1868.

The Principles of Biology. Vol. I. By Herbert Spencer. London: Williams & Norgate. 1864.

[58] The diminutive for "Joseph," in the dialect of the country.

[59] Preached at St. Paul's church, New York, Sunday, October 17th, 1869, previous to his departure for Europe to attend the Œcumenical Council.

[60] Romans xvi. 20.

[61] Liber Librorum. Note D, p. 228.

[62] Encyclopedia.

[63] New York World, February 15th, 1868.

[64] New York World, February 15th, 1868.

[65] New York World, February 15th, 1868.

[66] "Influence of Locality on Duration of Life." Catholic World, April, 1869.

[67] Public Parks. John H. Rauch, M.D., of Chicago.

[68] Public Parks. John H. Rauch, M.D.

[69] New York World, February 15th, 1868.

[70] New American Cyclopædia.

[71] New American Cyclopædia.

[72] See Istoria della sacrosanta patriarcale Basilica Vaticana. By the Rev. F. M. Mignanti. Vol. i. c. xxiii. Other special synods are mentioned, held in the ancient basilica of St. Peter—the first in 386, and the last in 1413.

[73] Esquisse de Rome Chrétienne, vol. i. c. iii.

[74] The fact to which I have alluded happened in 1848. The details are to be found in Mignanti's Istoria, vol. ii. pp. 203-5.

[75] Esquisse de Rome Chrétienne, vol. i. ch. ii.

[76] Sermon on the Unity of the Church.

[77] Esquisse de Rome Chrétienne, vol. ii. c. x.

[78] Esquisse de Rome Chrétienne, vol. i. c. ii.

[79] Esquisse de Rome Chrétienne, vol. i. c. 6.

[80] My learned confrère, Father Martinoff, has been so kind as to translate a passage from an ancient manuscript attesting this interesting fact.

[81] Tutto il pavimento dell' istessa chiesa è pieno di sepolcri di santi. Bosio, Roma Sotter, p. 33.

[82] I am sorry to abridge these quotations from the Abbé Gerbet. They should be read in their connection in order to comprehend the beautiful development of his ideas. I wished to make numerous extracts from this great writer, first, because they would be the most brilliant part of these pages, and that they might cause a book too little known, in spite of its eminent merits, to be more appreciated. Whoever truly wishes to know Rome, should read and re-read l'Esquisse de Rome Chrétienne. Although this work was not as fully finished as the celebrated Bishop of Perpignan intended, he implies to a certain degree what he does not say, for he possesses a suggestive talent which is the peculiarity of genius. He opens to us new perspectives. His broad religious and philosophic views of Rome direct and develop the personal views of the reader who attentively studies the place. Such has been my experience, and I wish that all instructed Christians who come to Rome could experience it more fully.

[83] Norwood; or, Village Life in New England. By Henry Ward Beecher. New York: Scribner & Co. 1868. 12mo, pp. 549.

[84] Since this was written, we learn that morning prayers are not dispensed with, only they are held at eight o'clock instead of an earlier hour, as formerly.

[85] "Ut omnia juxta ordinem fiant, et solemnes Ecclesiæ ritus integre serventur, monemus rectores ecclesiarum ut sedulo invigilent ad abusus eliminandos qui in cantu ecclesiastico in his regionibus invaluerunt. Curent igitur ut sacrosancto Missæ Sacrificio et aliis officiis musica, non vero musicæ divina officia inserviant. Noverint, juxta Ecclesiæ ritum, carmina vernaculo idiomate, inter Missarum solemnia, vel vesperas solemnes, decantare non licere."

[86] "Insuper valde exoptandum esse censemus, ut rudimenta cantus Gregoriani in scholis parochialibus exponantur et exerceantur, sicque numero eorum qui psalmos bene cantare valeant, magis magisque in crescente, paulatim major saltem pars populi, secundum primitivæ ecclesiæ adhuc in variis locis vigentem usum, Vesperas et alia similia cum ministris et choro decantare possit. Qua ratione omnium ædificatio promovebitur, juxta illud S. Pauli, 'Loquentes vobismetipsis in psalmis et hymnis et canticis spiritualibus.'"

[87] We are not a little surprised to see the Rules for Singers and Composers issued by the cardinal vicar of Rome, only, as far as we can learn, for Rome itself, taken by certain English musical authors and publishers as a positive sanction of figured music, which has resulted in the recent publication of several masses both in unison and in parts, named after some saint. We commend most heartily the well-meant effort, but augur for them but a very mediocre success. If figured music is to be permitted at all, it will be found that neither priest nor organist, singers nor congregation are going to put up with what is second-rate.

We hope the prospectus of the publishers will be faithfully carried out and the rules of the cardinal vicar will be strictly adhered to. "The masses," although baptized with the names of all the saints in the calendar, will soon disappear from the "holy courts of Christian song," where, in our humble judgment, they have ever done more harm than good.

[88] A Brief Sketch of the Early History of the Catholic Church on the Island of New York. By the Rev. J. R. Bayley, Secretary to the Archbishop of New York. Second edition. New York: Catholic Publication Society. 1869.

[89] The city of New York at this time contained about 12,000 inhabitants, of which one sixth, in all probability, were negro slaves. (Preface to second edition Negro Plot.) The foolish fears and prejudices of the inhabitants were not a little increased by a silly letter written to them at this time by the good-intentioned but visionary founder of the colony of Georgia, in which he warned them to be on their guard against Spanish spies and incendiaries, especially priests, whom he accused of having made a plot to burn the chief cities in the Northern colonies.

[90] Several of the negroes were Catholics. Horsmanden mentions that they held crucifixes in their hands and kissed them before they died. This act of faith and piety on the part of these poor victims of prejudice of course only served to confirm the enlightened inhabitants of Manhattan in the conviction that they had a very narrow escape from being delivered over body and soul to the pope. It is a curious circumstance that a law made against Catholic priests should have been enforced only once, and then resulted in the death of a Protestant clergyman.

[91] Campbell, in his Life and Times of Archbishop Carroll, has given a clear and able analysis of the trial and of the evidence, upon which he concludes that the unfortunate Ury was undoubtedly a priest. Horsmanden always speaks of him as "Ury the priest," in his history of the plot. It is my own opinion that he was a nonjuror.

[92] Smith, in his History of New York, vol. ii. p. 73, says "that Mr. Smith, his father, assisted at the request of the government on the trial against Ury, who asserted his innocence to the last. And when the ferments of the hour had subsided, and an opinion prevailed that the conspiracy extended no further than to create alarms for committing thefts with more ease, the fate of this man was lamented by some and regretted by many, and the proceedings against him generally condemned as harsh, if not cruel and unjust." Ury was the son of a former secretary of the South Sea Company. He was executed on an island in the Collect, near where the Halls of Justice now stand. "Hughson was executed on the south-east point of H. Rutgers's farm, on the East River, not ten rods from the south-east corner of Cherry and Catharine streets."—Notes on New York in the Appendix to Watson's Notes on Philadelphia.

[93] Du Droit Criminel des Peuples Anciens et Modernes.

[94] Joseph II. und Catharine von Russland, ihr Briefwechsel. Wien. 1869.

[95] "My Dear Prince: I send you my letter to the empress. Make such alterations in it as you please, bearing in mind that we have to do with a woman who cares only for herself, and more for Russia than for me. So then tickle her vanity which is her idol. An insane good luck and the exaggerated homage of all Europe have spoiled her. We must howl when others yell; provided good is effected, it matters little how or in what manner it is obtained."

[96] Lettera sulla cogniziani che i Vèneziani avevano dell' Abissinia, etc. etc. 1869. 8vo.

[97] Niccolo Macchiavelli ed il suo centenario, con una sua versione storica non mai publicata.

[98] The Authentic Historical Memoirs of Louis Charles, Prince Royal, Dauphin of France, second son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, etc. etc. The Memoirs written by the veritable Louis XVII., etc. London. 8vo.

[99] Roma Sotterrenea. Compiled from the Works of Commendatore Rossi. By J. S. Northcote, D.D., and Rev. W. Brownlow, M.A. London: Longman. 1 vol. 8vo.

[100] De l'Avenir du Protestantisme et du Catholicisme. Par M. l'Abbé Martin. Paris: Tobra et Haton. 1869. 8vo. pp. 608.

[101] The truth is frequently the very contrary of the reports current concerning men and things.

Posterity frequently does us the justice refused us by our contemporaries.

[102] Through the Latinization of Wansleben, Vanslebius, his name subsequently in France took the form of Vansleb, by which he became known as an author, and which he retained.

[103] He spent large sums in its preparation, and twelve thousand pounds in its publication, to say nothing of the sacrifice of his repose and health. The success of the work was far from commensurate with its merit, or with its author's sacrifices. After his death, five hundred copies of it were found abandoned in a garret, a prey to rain and to rats.

[104] At the same time Vansleb applied himself with all his power to the study of Ethiopian, and afterward, in order to perfect himself therein, undertook long and perilous voyages in various oriental countries.

[105] Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hand to God.

[106] To the learned German traveller Louis will be generous in favors, riches, and most excellent gifts.

[107] You bring with you from Egypt richer treasures than the Hebrews, led by Moses, took away.

[108] The Astor Library has a copy of this work.

[109] He died in the palace at Fontainebleau May 9th, 1867, aged eighty-nine years.

[110] "Voyant que V. E. ne me fait plus rien espérer qui sente la magnificence et la libéralité, ni même quelque honnête récompense, que je croyais justement pouvoir espérer, après de si longues et de si grandes peines, je me promets pourtant de la justice de V. E., puisqu'elle veut traiter les choses à la rigueur, qu'elle ne me refusera pas le paiement de quelques restes de dépenses que j'ai faites comme les autres au service de sa majesté, et dont je n'ai osé parler jusqu'à présent, dans la pensée que j'avais qu'une honnête récompense me tiendrait lieu de tout cela. En trois mots, Monseigneur, parlant dans la dernière rigueur, il me reste encore," etc.

[111] This argument is not conclusive, nor is it at all necessary. Animals have memory; and there is no more reason why their waking sensations, emotions, and acts should not repeat themselves in dreams than there is in the case of men. The difference between the soul of man and the soul of the brute is constituted by the presence of the gift of reason, or the faculty of knowing necessary and universal truths in the former, and its absence in the latter.—Ed. Catholic World.

[112] Rom. i. 19, 20; Acts xvii. 28; Colos. ii. 8. These texts are given according to St. Augustine's rendering. This gives "a constitutione mundi" instead of "a creatura mundi," as in the Vulgate. The author, following St. Augustine, Tertullian, and Cardinal Tolet, understands St. Paul to say that God has been manifested to men through his works ever since the world began.—Abridged from the note of the author.

[113] De Civ. Dei, lib. viii.; (1) cap. 1; (2) cap. 4; (3) cap. 5; (4) cap. 10; (5) cap. 9. This last quotation is abridged.—Trans.

[114] Civ. Dei, lib. viii. cap. 9.

[115] Ibid., lib. viii. cap. 10.

[116] Thomassin, Dogm. Theol. de Deo. Martin, S. Aur. Aug. Hipponen. Epis. Philosophia. Ed. Jul. Fabre. Parisiis. 1863.

[117] Civ. Dei, lib. viii. c. 7.

[118] Nothing is more noteworthy than this passage of the Summa. (Pars Prima, Qu. 15, a. 1, ad. 1.) Et sic etiam Aristoteles, lib. 3. Metaphys. improbat opinionem Platonis de ideis, secundum quod ponebat eas per se existentes, non in intellectu. In many other places, St. Thomas cites the doctrines of Plato on the faith of Aristotle. In support of the allegations of the text, consult the Summa. P. 1, qu. 16, a. 6. Ibid. ad. 1, et qu. 12, a. 2, et qu. 88, a. 3, ad. 1. Ibid. qu. 84, a. 5. Ibid. qu. 16, a. 7.

[119] F. Milone, in his Neapolitan edition, adds the following note: "Throughout this entire passage we find a mixture of the Platonic and the Augustinian, (p. 1, qu. 15, a. 3,) where St. Thomas appears to intend to collect from St. Augustine the true meaning of Plato, or again to remand to Plato the admirable design of the ideology of St. Augustine. Sed contra, ideæ sunt rationes in mente divina existentes, ut per Augustinum patet; sed omnium quæ cognoscit, Deus habet proprias rationes; ergo omnium quæ cognoscit habet ideam. Respondeo dicendum, quod cum ideæ a Platone ponerentur principia cognitionis rerum et generationis ipsarum, ad utrumque se habet idea prout in mente divina ponitur. Et secundum quod est principium factionis rerum, exemplar dici potest, et ad practicam cognitionem pertinet; secundum autem quod principium cognoscitivum est, proprie dicitur ratio, et potest etiam ad scientiam speculativum pertinere. There is not, I say, in all our own Marsilius, a more respectful and favorable comment upon Plato; but the key is found in that observation on which the whole thing depends, ut per Augustinum patet." Worthy of consideration under this head are also the articles 3, 4, and 5, under the 79th question.

[120] De Trin. lib. xii. § 24. Vide etiam Retract. lib. 1 cap. 4. Arnob. Contra Gentes, lib. 11. § 14. Tertull. De Anima, cap. 24 and 28.

[121] De Trin. lib. xii. § 2, 3, 5, 12, 23. Ibid. lib. xv. § 10. Ibid. lib. xiv. § 6, 11.

[122] Lib. x. cap. 24.

[123] De Gen. ad Litt. lib. xii. cap. 31, § 59.

[124] The Civilta Cattolica, (series v. vol. viii. 585) seems to have wished to continue the series of these opposing arguments of the antagonistic schools, where, in the name of those whom I call psychologists, it speaks thus: "To maintain the essential distinction between the sense and the intellect, it is not necessary to attribute to the latter the immediate perception of a divine object, as, to maintain the essential distinction between the body and the spirit, it is not necessary to ascribe to the second a divine existence. It suffices that as the spirit is differentiated from the body by the immateriality of its essence, so the intellect should be differentiated from the sense by the immateriality of its cognoscitive power." If it be so, the ontologists will respond, that in the above passage the word sense signifies only that with which we perceive bodies; so that to sense is given as its term or object that which is corporeal, and to intellect that which is spiritual. Now, S. Augustine had at first adopted the same language; but afterward he recognized its imperfection, and in his Retractations (lib. i. cap. 1, 3, 4) declares that the word sense ought to include also the intimate sense with which the soul perceives what passes within itself. Then this has as object that which is spiritual. Therefore the spirituality of its object cannot any longer serve to differentiate intellect from sense. (Vid. La Scuola of F. Milone, p. 32, et seq.)

[125] St. Aug. lib. 83, Quæst. ad qu. 81.

[126] Difesa di Malebr. diss. prelim. § 25.

[127] St. Damasus was of Spanish extraction. He was elected pope in the year 366, being then sixty years old. During the latter years of his life the celebrated St. Jerome acted as his secretary, and mentions him in his epistles as "an incomparable person and a learned doctor." He is classed by writers with Basil, Athanasius, Ambrose, and such like men, who have been eminent for their zeal, learning, and holy lives.

Through his care many valuable public works were executed. He repaired and beautified the church of St. Laurence near Pompey's Pillar, and the paintings with which he decorated it were admirable four hundred years afterward. He also drained some of the impure springs of the Vatican, and repaired and adorned with epitaphs in verse many of the tombs of the martyrs interred in the Catacombs. A collection of nearly forty of those epitaphs is still extant, and justifies the praises which St. Jerome bestows on his poetical genius. He is also known as the author of many longer poems.

After a life of humility, benevolence, and purity, he died in the year 384, having filled the papal throne eighteen years. He was buried in a small oratory near the Ardeatine Way, and his tomb was identified and described in 1736.

A further interest is thrown around this prelate and poet by recent investigations. In 1851, Pope Pius IX. employed the distinguished Chevalier G. B. de Rossi to prepare a work illustrating the cemeteries which underlie the vineyards of the Via Appia, on each side of which are some of the most extensive and most important. M. de Rossi found here in fragments, which he put together, an inscription in honor of Eusebius, the authorship of which is distinctly ascribed to Damasus—Damasus Episcopus fecit Eusebio Episcopo et Martyri.

The slab of marble on which this was engraved had been used (as was seen by marks on the other side) for some public monument in honor of the Emperor Caracalla.

[128] Recherches Historiques sur l'Assemblée du Clergè de France de 1682. Par Charles Gérin, Juge au Tribunal Civil de la Seine. Paris: Le Coffre. 1869.

[129] There is in a secret report made to Colbert, "Memoir regarding what passed in the faculty with respect to the thesis," a curious account, hitherto unknown, of these debates.—MSS. Cinq Cents, Colbert, vol. 153.

[130] Afterward Bishop of Meaux.

[131] Bossuet's master.

[132] Bib. Imp.—MS. Sorbonne, 1258.

[133] Procès Verbaux du Clergé, l. v. p. 377, sq.

[134] MSS. 9517 fr. Bibl. Imp.

[135] P. 128. The letter conveying the orders is given in full.

[136] De l'Eglise Gallicane, t. ii. c. xi.

[137] Procès Verbaux, t. v.

[138] Projet du Réforme, Pap. De Harlay.

[139] P. 376, from MS. letters 10,265. Bibl. Imp. fr.

[140] Bibl. Imp. MSS. Harlay, 367, vol. v. p. 145.

[141] Vol. xiii. p. 423.

[142] Montholon, Mémoires, vol. i. p. 113. Paris, 1823.

[143] See Debates in the New York State Convention, 1867 and 1868, vol. iii. pp. 2736-2744.

[144] De l'Avenir du Protestantisme et du Catholicisme. Par M. l'Abbé F. Martin. Paris: Tobra et Haton. 1869. 8vo, pp. 608.

[145] Introduction to Extracts from the Roman Gradual and other Liturgical Books, in course of publication by the Rt. Rev. Louis Lootens, D.D.

[146] St. Godric is said to have learned (in a poor school at Durham) many things of which he was before ignorant, "by hearing, reading, and chanting them." In the parochial schools, even from St. Dunstan's time, children of the lower orders were taught grammar and church music. Schools of greater or less pretensions were attached to most parish churches, and the scholars assembled in the porch. Thus, in 1300, we read of children being taught to sing and read in the porch of St. Martin's, Norwich. At Stoke-by-Clare there was, besides the extensive college, a school in which boys were taught "grammar, singing, and good manners." To which answer the pictures in Chaucer of the schools in which children were taught,

"That is to say, to singe and to rede,
As small children do in their childhede."

Again:

"As he sate in the scole at his primere,
He Alma Redemptoris heard sing," etc.

[147] This dilemma is nothing at all in Mr. Ffoulkes's eyes. He has recently published a pamphlet in which he proposes to the Council of the Vatican, as a conundrum, the question whether the whole western church is under an anathema.—Ed. Catholic World.

[148] The definition was drawn up by the prelates of the Greek Synod, which sat separately until the act of union had been consummated.—Ed. Catholic World.

[149] "I sign thee with the sign of the cross. I confirm thee with the chrism of salvation."

[150] "May the Lord be in thy heart and on thy lips, that thou mayst truly and humbly confess thy sins."

[151] In the definition of a species, propounded in the last article, there occurred two mistakes. "Character" should have been characters; and the semicolon immediately following should have been absent.

[152] 11 and 12 William III., c. 4. Madden's Penal Statutes against Roman Catholics, pages 229, 232, 233.

[153] Macaulay, Hist. of England, chap. vii., ann. 1687.

[154] Ibid. chap. xvii.

[155] To Mr. Prior, Jan. 30th, 1714.

[156] 10 Anne c. 2. 12 St. 2, c. 14.

[157] Earl Stanhope, Hist. of England, vol. 1. p. 81.

[158] Craggs to Stanhope, June 30th, 1719.

[159] 9 George I., c. 18.

[160] Madden's Penal Statutes, p. 238.

[161] Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, 1792.

[162] 14 George III. c. 35, § 5.

[163] 18 George III., c. 60.

[164] To Rev. Mr. Cole, May 21, 1778.

[165] 31 George III., c. 32.

[166] English Premiers. No. xii. Month, 1867.

[167] Bell's Chaucer, vol. vi.

[168] Strong's Translation.

[169] Sismondi, Lit. of Troubadours.

[170] An example has just come under our notice. The special correspondent of the London Times, writing from Rome on the 8th of December, has a long story of a mysterious bull prepared to be promulgated on the 8th, in the grand ceremony, and secretly confided only to a trusty few. Somehow, within twenty-four hours of the time appointed, that is, on the 7th of December, some bishops got wind of it beforehand, and so great a storm of opposition arose that the bull was kept back, perhaps suppressed. The writer actually got sight of a copy, and makes an extract. This was taking a little too much rope. For the extract is from this apostolic letter, which was dated November 27th, was soon after printed, was distributed on December 2d, to all the bishops then in Rome—further copies of which were carefully supplied to the bishops arriving later; and which is in full force, regulating the procedure of the council, not only without a murmur, but to the perfect satisfaction of all the prelates. A "special correspondent" of the Times, who had retired from business after years of service, defined the chief qualification of such a correspondent to be, the ability to write frankly and boldly about persons and things as if he knew every thing about them, even though, as was generally the case, he knew nothing at all. For doing this acceptably, he would get £600 a year, and travelling expenses paid.

[171] Quellenkunde und Bibliographie der boehmische-slavonischen Literatur-Geschichte.

[172] Das Weihwasser im heidnischen und christlichen Cultus, etc.

[173] Johann Calvin. Seine Kirche und sein Staat in Genf. Leipzig. 8vo, 493 pp.

[174] The italics are our own.—Ed. C. W.

[175] This sic is Mr. Ffoulkes's; what it means is known only to himself and heaven.—Ed. C. W.

[176] De l'Avenir du Protestantisme et du Catholicisme. Par M. l'Abbé F. Martin. Paris: Tobra et Haton. 1869. 8vo, pp. 608.

[177] Epist. 34, lib. 7.

[178] Decline and Fall, ch. xlviii.

[179] See L'Eglise Orientale. Par Jacques Pitzipios. Rome: Propaganda Press. 1855. Part vi. p. 13. A work which gives most useful and interesting information on the state of the modern Greek Church.

[180] See Pitzipios, (Part ii. p. 47,) who gives a copy of one of the circular letters of the patriarch.

[181] Pitzipios, Part ii. pp. 55, 56, 57.

[182] Ibid., l. c. pp. 59, 60.

[183] Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. lxviii.

[184] Memoir, Letters, and Journal of Elizabeth Seton. Edited by Right Rev. Robert Seton, D.D., Prothonotary Apostolic. 2 vols. 8vo, pp. 322, 311. P. O'Shea. 1869.

Life of Mrs. Eliza A. Seton. By Charles I. White, D.D. 12mo, pp. 462. John Murphy & Co. 1853.

[185] We make the word from the name the Jesuit fathers gave to their establishments in Paraguay. They called them Reductions.

[186] This barbarous conduct of the Russian government has been once equalled and even surpassed. We allude to the laws by which England, after she had been enlightened by the Reformation, prohibited all education among the Irish people. We wish to call most particular attention to the fact that in both cases distinctively Catholic nations have struggled earnestly for the right of instruction which bitterly anti-Catholic ones have withheld. Yet we are daily told that Catholicity is the great foe, and anti-Catholicity the great fosterer of popular education!—Ed. Cath. World.

[187] W. B. MacCabe, Memoir of O'Connell. Madden's Penal Laws, p. 255.

[188] MacCabe, Memoir of O'Connell. Tablet, 29th May, 1847.

[189] This anecdote was related to the writer by the Bishop of Southwark.

[190] Vulcan.

[191] Manner of ending a tale.

"V	irtuti
A	lemannicæ
N	imiæ
S	acer
L	udovicus
E	xhibebit
B	ona
I	mmensa
O	ptimaque."[106]

Names and qualities of prisoners.	Date of their entrance.	Book. Page.	Motive of their detention.
Former prisoner of Pignerol, obliged to wear a velvet mask; his name or quality never known.	18th of September, 1698, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.	Du Junca, vol. 37	Never known.

Total number of births,	3700
Total number of foundlings,	3160
Total number of lawful children,	540

Foundlings received.	Of legitimate birth.	Uncertain.
In May,	38	46
In June,	25	51
In July,	29	49
	92	146

S. Maria, in Aguiro,	50
S. Michael,	200	boys.
S. Michael,	240	girls.
Divine Providence,	100	girls.
S. Mary of Refuge,	50	girls.
S. Euphemia,	40	girls.
Tata Giovanni,	over 100	boys.
Quatro SS. Giovanni,	12	girls.
Zoccoletti,	60	girls.
S. Maria del Angeli,	number not stated.	boys and girls.
S. Caterina,	"	girls.
Trinitarians,	"	girls.
St. Pietro,	"	girls.
Il Borromeo,	"	girls.
Mother of Sorrows,	"	girls.

Ninth avenue and Sixty-sixth street	89	feet.
Ninth avenue and Seventieth street	98	"
Ninth avenue and Eighty-fourth street	120	feet.
Ninth avenue and Ninety-first street	121	"
Ninth avenue and One Hundred and Fifth street	117	"
Tenth avenue and Seventy-seventh street	98	"
Tenth avenue and Eighty-fifth street	109	"
Tenth avenue and Ninety-Second street	107	"
Tenth avenue and One Hundred and Fifth street	109	"
Tenth avenue and One Hundred and Seventeenth street	145	"

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. A MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF General Literature and Science.

AN IMAGINARY CONTRADICTION.[1]

SACRED AMBITION.

PAGANINA.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

XXXIII.

XXXIV.

XXXV.

THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.

MATTHEW XXVII.

ANGELA.

CHAPTER IV. THE BUREAUCRAT AND THE SWALLOWS.

MORALITY OF THE CITY OF ROME.[18]

ST. OREN'S PRIORY; OR, EXTRACTS FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN AMERICAN IN A FRENCH MONASTERY.

PART II.

APPEAL TO YOUNG CHRISTIAN WOMEN.

LOST AND FOUND. A WAYSIDE REMINISCENCE.

THE CHURCH IN PARIS AND FRANCE.

THE TOTAL ECLIPSE OF AUGUST SEVENTH.

RELIGION IN PRISONS.[27]

CATHOLICITY AND PANTHEISM. NUMBER EIGHT.

THE SEVEN BISHOPS.

LINES ON THE PONTIFICAL HAT PRESERVED IN MADAME UZIELLI'S PRIVATE ORATORY.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE LIFE OF FATHER FABER.[34]

ANGELA.

CHAPTER V. THE PROGRESSIVE PROFESSOR.

THE COUNCIL AND THE ROMAN CONGREGATIONS.[35]

AN OCTOBER REVERIE.

FREE RELIGION.[37]

MEMENTO MORI.

REPLY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN ASSEMBLIES TO THE POPE'S LETTER.

A HERO, OR A HEROINE?

CHAPTER I. A HERO.

CHAPTER II. PRELIMINARY.

CHAPTER III. PASSENGERS FOR SHELLBEACH.

CHAPTER IV. A CONFIDENTIAL LETTER.

CHAPTER V. A SLEIGH-RIDE.

CHAPTER VI. ANOTHER LETTER.

CHAPTER VII. FROM THE LABORING CLASSES.

THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE SPECIES.[57] I.

HAYDN'S FIRST LESSONS IN MUSIC AND LOVE.

I.

II.

III.

A SKETCH OF THE IRISH VOLUNTEERS. BY COUNT FRANK RUSSELL KILLOUGH, LATE OF THE PONTIFICAL ARMY.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

FATHER HECKER'S FAREWELL SERMON.[59]

ANGELA.

CHAPTER VI. THE ULTRAMONTANE WAY OF THINKING.

DR. HARWOOD'S PRICE LECTURE.

HAYDN'S STRUGGLE AND TRIUMPH.

I.

II.

PRAYER.

THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE SPECIES. II.

A HERO, OR A HEROINE?

CHAPTER VIII. THE LION'S DEN.

CHAPTER IX. STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE.

CHAPTER X. AN AWAKENING.

CHAPTER XI. UNEXPECTED ADVICE.

CHAPTER XII. PROGRESS.

CHAPTER XIII. A PROOF OF FRIENDSHIP.

CHAPTER XIV. MARGARET'S COURAGE.

CHAPTER XV. A CHANGE.

THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF
General Literature and Science.

CHAPTER IV.
THE BUREAUCRAT AND THE SWALLOWS.

ST. OREN'S PRIORY;
OR, EXTRACTS FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN AMERICAN IN A FRENCH MONASTERY.

CATHOLICITY AND PANTHEISM.
NUMBER EIGHT.

CHAPTER V.
THE PROGRESSIVE PROFESSOR.

CHAPTER I.
A HERO.

CHAPTER II.
PRELIMINARY.

CHAPTER III.
PASSENGERS FOR SHELLBEACH.

CHAPTER IV.
A CONFIDENTIAL LETTER.

CHAPTER V.
A SLEIGH-RIDE.

CHAPTER VI.
ANOTHER LETTER.

CHAPTER VII.
FROM THE LABORING CLASSES.

THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE SPECIES.[57]
I.

A SKETCH OF THE IRISH VOLUNTEERS.
BY COUNT FRANK RUSSELL KILLOUGH, LATE OF THE PONTIFICAL ARMY.

CHAPTER VI.
THE ULTRAMONTANE WAY OF THINKING.

THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE SPECIES.
II.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE LION'S DEN.

CHAPTER IX.
STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE.

CHAPTER X.
AN AWAKENING.

CHAPTER XI.
UNEXPECTED ADVICE.

CHAPTER XII.
PROGRESS.

CHAPTER XIII.
A PROOF OF FRIENDSHIP.

CHAPTER XIV.
MARGARET'S COURAGE.

CHAPTER XV.
A CHANGE.

CHURCH MUSIC
I.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE ISLAND OF NEW YORK.[88]
THE COLONIAL DAYS.

CHAPTER VII.
POISONOUS FOOD.

CHAPTER XVI.
GOOD-NIGHT.

CHAPTER XVII.
CONQUERED BY CONQUERING.

CHAPTER XVIII.
"THE HEARTBREAK OF TO-MORROW."

CHAPTER XIX.
A LAST LOOK.

CHAPTER XX.
MISS BURNEY LEAVES SHELLBEACH.

CHAPTER XXI.
SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

CHAPTER XXII.
ALL THINGS SHALL BE ADDED UNTO YOU.

CHAPTER XXIII.
MARGARET'S BIRTHDAY.

CHAPTER XXIV.
THE SEVENTH SACRAMENT.

CHAPTER XXV.
THE MISTRESS OF A POOR MAN'S HOUSEHOLD.

I.
LADY SACKVIL'S JOURNAL.

III.
LADY SACKVIL'S JOURNAL.

CHAPTER VIII.
AVOWALS.