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    THE
    CATHOLIC WORLD.

    A
    MONTHLY MAGAZINE
    OF
    GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.

    VOL. X.
    OCTOBER, 1869, TO MARCH, 1870.


    NEW YORK:
    THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION HOUSE,
    126 Nassau Street.

    1870.


    S. W. GREEN,
    PRINTER,
    16 and 18 Jacob St., N. Y.




CONTENTS.


    Angela, 38, 161, 293, 471, 617.
    An October Reverie, 186.

    British Premiers in Relation to British Catholics, 674, 826.
    Bach, Friedemann, 805.

    Contradiction, An Imaginary, 1.
    Council of Trent, The, 24.
    Christian Women, An Appeal to, 71.
    Church in Paris and France, 95.
    Catholicity and Pantheism, 118.
    Council, The, and the Roman Congregations, 170.
    Church Music, 402, 598, 743.
    Catholic Church in New York, Early History of, 413, 515.
    Council, Matters Relating to, 420.
    Church Door, At the, 651.
    Chess, 683.
    Council of the Vatican, The First Oecumenical, 693, 841.
    Civil and Political Liberty, 721.
    Christ of Ausfeldt, The, 774.

    Devious Ways, Through, 550.

    Eclipse of August Seventh, 106.

    Foreign Literary Notes, 135, 422, 705.
    Father Faber, Life of, 145.
    Free Religion, 195.
    Ffoulkes, The Letter of E. S., 631.

    Gallicanism, The True Origin of, 527.
    Gordian Knots, Untying, 589, 735.
    Greek Schism, The, 758.

    Hero, or a Heroine? 232, 346, 497.
    Hecker, Father, Farewell Sermon of, 289.
    Harwood's, Dr., Price Lecture, 312.
    Haydn's Struggle and Triumph, 326.
    History of the Catholic Church in New York, 413, 515.
    Hurston Hall, 449.
    Hints on Housekeeping, 610.

    Irish Volunteers, A Sketch of, 276.
    Immutability of the Species, 252, 332, 656.
    Irish Land Tenure, History of, 641.
    Iron Mask, The, 754.

    Lost and Found, 84.
    Life of Father Faber, 145.
    Liberty, Civil and Political, 721.
    Labor Movement, Views of the, 784.
    Lucifer's Ear, 856.

    Memento Mori, 206.
    Music and Love, Haydn's First Lessons in, 267.
    Music, Church, 402, 598, 743.
    Matters Relating to the Council, 420.
    Miscellany, 564.

    New York City, Sanitary Topography of, 362.

    Paganina, 13.
    Priory, St. Oren's, 56.
    Prisons, Religion in, 114.
    Presbyterian Reply to the Pope's Letter, 216.
    Protestantism and Catholicity, The Future of, 433, 577.
    Putnam's Defence, 542.
    Polish Patriotic Hymn, A, 548.
    Poland, Present Condition of, 799.

    Rome, Morality of, 50.
    Roman Congregations and the Council, 170.

    Species, Immutability of, 252, 332, 656.
    Sermon, Father Hecker's Farewell, 289.
    St. Peter, Basilica of, 374.
    St. Augustine, The Philosophical Doctrines of, compared with the
        Ideology of the Modern Schools, 481.
    Schism, The Greek, 758.
    Seton, Mrs., 778.

    Trent, The Council of, 24.
    The Seven Bishops, 130.

    Vansleb, The Oriental Scholar and Traveller, 459.
    Vatican Council, The, 841.

    Women, An Appeal to Young Christian, 71.
    Wayside Reminiscence, 84.


POETRY.

    Ambition, Sacred, 12.
    A Christmas Hymn, 526.
    A Convert's Prayer, 614.

    December 8, 1869, 457.

    In Memoriam of Rev. F. A. Baker, 597.
    "It's Wrong," 825.

    Lines on the Pontifical Hat, 134.

    Matthew xxvii, 37.
    My Christmas Gift, 496.

    Nazareth, On a Picture of, 757.

    Prayer, 331.

    Sacred Ambition, 12.
    St. Peter Delivered from Prison, 824.

    The Chapel, 655.


NEW PUBLICATIONS.

    Alcott's Hospital Sketches, 143.
    A Little Boy's Story, 426.
    Auerbach's German Tales, 427.
    Almanac, Catholic Family, 574.
    Andersen's Improvisatore and Two Baronesses, 575.
    Acta ex iis Decerpta, etc., etc., 720.
    Alexander, J. A., Life of, 856.
    An American Family in Paris, 858.

    Bayma's Elements of Molecular Mechanics, 288.
    Bonaventure's Parables and Stories, 575.
    Bushnell's Woman's Suffrage, 715.

    Cantarium Romanum, 427.
    Caseine, 431.
    Cooley's Text-Book of Chemistry, 432.
    Columbus, Lorgne's Life of, 574.
    Curtis's Life of Webster, 714.
    Creation a Recent Work of God, 855.

    Diomede, 142.
    Dorie, Henry, Life of, 144.

    Evans's Autobiography of a Shaker, 143.
    Emerald, The, 144.
    Edgeworth's Tales and Parent's Assistant, 430.
    Elm Island Stories, 860.

    Ffoulkes's Letter, A Critique on, 287.
    Ffoulkes's Roman Index and its Late Proceedings, 709.
    Formby's Life of Christ, 719.
    Fair Harvard, 858.
    Frontier Stories, 860.

    Giles's Lectures and Essays on Irish Subjects, 138.
    Gilmour's Bible History, 143.
    Gallitzin's Life and Character, 426.
    Gasparini's Attributes of Christ, 857.

    Henry Crabbe Robinson's Diary, Correspondence, etc., 141.
    Heady's Seen and Heard, 288.
    Horace, The Works of, 288.
    Hadley's Elements of the Greek Language, 288.
    Hagenbach's History of the Church, 718.
    Hefele's Council of Constance, 719.
    Hill's Titania's Banquet, etc., 856.
    Hedge's Primeval World of Hebrew Tradition, 858.

    In Heaven We Know Our Own, 139.
    Intelligence of Animals, 288.
    Ireland, Patriot's History of, 432.

    Janus on the Pope and the Council, 712.
    Jarves's Art Thoughts, 717.

    Kerney's First Class Book of History, 431.
    Kickham's Sally Cavanagh, 720.
    Neal's Great Mysteries and Little Plagues, 720.

    Lacordaire's Sketch of the Order of St. Dominic, 429.
    Lange's Commentary on Romans, 430.
    Lorimer's Among the Trees, 718.
    Library of Good Example, 719.
    Lange's Commentary on the Old Testament, 857.
    La Salle, Life of the Venerable J. B. de, 857.
    Lady Fullerton's Mrs. Gerald's Niece, 859.

    Marshall's Order and Chaos, 138.
    Mopsa and the Fairy, 140.
    Madame Swetchine, Writings of, 285.
    Mangin's Mysteries of the Ocean, 428.
    Meunier's Great Hunting-Grounds of the World, 428.
    Mangin's Desert World, 428.
    Minor Chords, 431.
    Manual of Third Order of St. Francis, 431.
    Manning's Pastoral on the Council, 569.
    Missale Romanum, 715.
    Mommsen's History of Rome, 715.
    McGee, Thomas D'Arcy, Poems of, 854.

    Nampon's Catholic Doctrine, as Defined by the Council of Trent, 286.
    Nolan's Byrnes of Glengoulah, 720.

    Patty Gray's Journal from Boston to Baltimore, 142.
    Placidus on Education, 143.
    Potter's Pastor and People, 573.
    Pumpelly's Across America and Asia, 711.
    Prentiss's Nidworth, 716.
    Preston's Christ and the Church, 718.
    Particular Examen, 857.

    Reiter's Ecclesiastical Map of the U. S., 142.
    Ryder's Critique on Ffoulkes's Letter, 287.
    Robertson's Sermons, 432.

    Smith's Pentateuch, 429.
    Sargent's Woman who Dared, 571.
    Spielhagen's Through Night to Light, 576.
    Sadlier's Almanac and Directory, 718.
    Sybaris and other Poems, 859.

    Two Years before the Mast, 140.
    The Two Women, 144.
    Thompson's Man in Genesis and Geology, 287.
    The Two Cottages, 576.
    The Lost Rosary, 576.
    The Life of Blessed Margaret Mary, 576.
    Tennyson's Holy Grail, 855.
    The Cabin on the Prairie, 860.
    The Sunset Land, 860.

    Upton's Letters of Peregrine Pickle, 859.

    White's Elements of Astronomy, 141.
    Whipple's Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, 283.
    Wood's Bible Animals, 716.
    White's Ecce Femina, 857.
    Wiley's Elocution and Oratory, 859.
    Wonders of Pompeii, 860.

    Young's Office of Vespers, 144.




THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. X., No. 55.--OCTOBER, 1869.




AN IMAGINARY CONTRADICTION.[1]


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 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 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 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 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 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 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
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
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 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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] _The Christian Quarterly._ Cincinnati: Carroll & Co. July, 1869.
Art IV. Spirit of Romanism.




SACRED AMBITION.


    Hast thou indeed
      Sacred ambition,
    In word and deed
      Based on contrition?
    Pray low and long,
      Sowing and weeping;
    Promises strong
      Pledge thee thy reaping.

    Thus hast thou prayed?
      Wait then contented;
    Blessings delayed
      Are blessings augmented.
    Every thing proves
      Holy ambition
    Is what God loves
      Next to contrition.




TRANSLATED FROM LE CORRESPONDANT.

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 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.

After several days of agony, the good musician found his peroration.
He died.

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; 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.

     Extract from the _Gazette of Lombardy_, the 20th of September,
     18--.

     "Her father was German, her mother an Italian; her father belonged
     to the church, her mother to the theatre. Both were superior
     musicians. Such a birth could promise her a more than common
     destiny, and this birth had a singular predestination. She was
     born in the side-scenes of the theatre during a _soirée_, the
     memory of which is still fresh among us. Her first cries were
     drowned in the passionate strains of the violin of Paganini, and
     the bursts of admiration from his auditory. The little creature,
     as if in reply to the powerful invocation of the master, appeared
     before the hour fixed by nature.

     "This is all her history. From that hour she disappeared. Without
     doubt, the new-born vestal sought the retreat of the sacred fire.

     "To-day she returns to the place of her birth. The words are
     literally true; we will hear her this evening in La Scala.

     "I have desired to announce this _fête_. Let no one fail to be
     there, for I predict it will be an event.

     "My task is finished. I would like to describe this cantatrice,
     but she belongs to no formula. It would require two to express the
     dualism of which her person and character bear the imprint.

     "She seems to have received from her parents two natures which by
     turns inspire her. Even now we hear her pure and original voice
     mount to heaven; no breath of human passion seems to agitate it.
     We listen enchanted, lifted far above ourselves, and share the
     serenity, the peace she inspires; suddenly the air changes, the
     color mounts to her cheeks, passion absorbs her, and she bursts
     out in its most marvellous tones. I could see the spectre of the
     old Paganini grimacing by the side of his beautiful god-child, and
     goading on her enchained genius."


XXIV.

The result was as predicted. The young cantatrice excited immense
enthusiasm.

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.

She wept, but not with happy emotions.

"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."

André at this moment appeared.


XXV.

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

André was the first to break the silence.

"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."

She burst into tears. André, after a silence, approached her.

"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 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."

And raising his hands to heaven, the unhappy one fled.


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
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,

"Go on, then! Is it not said that you can lead to death?"

"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 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.

"I am here," she replied; "the hand of God has led us hither."

With her intention, such words were blasphemy; but she spoke in
delirium.


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.

The assassin was André!

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 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.

Paganina was laid on a litter and carried to Arèse.

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? 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.

She rose, and standing, pale as her long white vestments, she prayed:

"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;
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,

"He saved my honor!"

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.

It is easily known he was acquitted.


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.

We can conceive the emotion was great, and spread rapidly.

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 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.

This song of songs will reveal her last thoughts and conclude her
history.


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 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.

No, Paganina! one who can so weep has not lost heaven.

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;
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:

     "Our evangelicals are now sevenfold more wicked than they were
     before. In proportion as we hear the Gospel, we steal, lie, cheat,
     gorge, swill, and commit every crime. If one devil has been driven
     out of us, seven worse ones have taken their place, to judge from
     the conduct of princes, lords, nobles, burgesses, and peasants,
     their utterly shameless acts, and their disregard of God and of
     his menaces."

Of the old church, Henry Hallam says:

     "The decrees of the Council of Trent were received by the
     spiritual princes of the empire in 1566, 'and from this moment,'
     says the excellent historian who has thrown most light on this
     subject, 'began a new life for the Catholic Church in Germany.'...
     Every method was adopted to revive an attachment to the ancient
     religion, insuperable by the love of novelty or the force of
     argument. A stricter discipline and subordination was introduced
     among the clergy; they were early trained in seminaries, apart
     from the sentiments and habits, the vices and the virtues of the
     world. The monastic orders resumed their rigid observances."[4]

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 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:

     "While we awaited the hidden time, the time of thy good pleasure,
     O God! we were compelled to say that when we take counsel
     concerning things sacred, and pertaining to Christian piety, every
     time is pleasing to God. Wherefore, seeing, to our great sorrow,
     that the condition of Christendom was every day becoming worse,
     Hungary oppressed by the Turks, the Germans themselves in danger,
     and all the rest of Europe seized with fear and sadness--we
     determined no longer to wait on the consent of any prince, but
     to regard solely the will of Almighty God and the good of the
     Christian commonwealth."

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 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 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, 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 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:

     "It is usual for Protestant writers to inveigh against the
     Tridentine fathers. I do not assent to their decisions, which
     is not to the purpose, nor vindicate the intrigues of the papal
     party. But I must presume to say that, reading their proceedings
     in the pages of that very able and not very lenient historian to
     whom we have generally recourse, an adversary as decided as any
     that could have come from the reformed churches, I find proofs of
     much ability, considering the embarrassments with which they had
     to struggle, and of an honest desire of reformation, among a large
     body, as to those matters which, in their judgment, ought to be
     reformed."[10]

Again:

     "It will appear, by reading the accounts of the sessions of
     the council, either in Father Paul, or in any more favorable
     historian, that, even in certain points, such as justification,
     which had not been clearly laid down before, the Tridentine
     decrees were mostly conformable with the sense of the majority
     of those doctors who had obtained the highest reputation; and
     that upon what are more usually reckoned the distinctive
     characteristics of the Church of Rome, namely, transubstantiation,
     purgatory, and invocation of the saints and the Virgin, they
     assert nothing but what had been so engrafted into the faith of
     this part of Europe as to have been rejected by no one without
     suspicion or imputation of heresy. Perhaps Erasmus would not have
     acquiesced with good-will in _all_ the decrees of the council; but
     was Erasmus deemed orthodox?... No general council ever contained
     so many persons of eminent learning and ability as that of Trent;
     nor is there ground for believing that any other ever investigated
     the questions before it with so much patience, acuteness, temper,
     and desire of truth. The early councils, unless they are greatly
     belied, would not bear comparison in these characteristics.
     Impartiality and freedom from prejudice, no Protestant will
     attribute to the fathers of Trent; but where will he produce these
     qualities in an ecclesiastical synod? But it may be said that they
     had only one leading prejudice, that of determining theological
     faith according to the tradition of the Catholic Church, as handed
     down to their age. This one point of authority conceded, I am
     not aware that they can be proved to have decided wrong, or at
     least against all reasonable evidence. Let those who have imbibed
     a different opinion ask themselves whether they have read Sarpi
     through with any attention, especially as to those sessions of the
     Tridentine Council which preceded its suspension in 1549."[11]

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, 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 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:

     "Protestantism, as late as 1578, might be deemed preponderant
     in all the Austrian dominions, except the Tyrol. In the Polish
     diets, the dissidents, as they were called, met their opponents
     with vigor and success. The ecclesiastical principalities were
     full of Protestants; and even in the chapters some of them might
     be found. But the contention was unequal, from the different
     characters of the parties; religious zeal and devotion, which,
     fifty years before, had overthrown the ancient rites in northern
     Germany, were now more invigorating sentiments in those who
     rescued them from further innovation. In religious struggles,
     where there is any thing like an equality of forces, the question
     soon comes to be, which party will make the greatest sacrifice for
     its own faith? And, while the Catholic self-devotion had grown
     far stronger, there was much more secular cupidity, lukewarmness,
     and formality in the Lutheran Church. In a very few years the
     effects of this were distinctly seen. The Protestants of the
     Catholic principalities went back into the bosom of Rome. In the
     bishopric of Wurtzburg alone, sixty-two thousand converts are
     said to have been received in the year 1586. The Emperor Rodolph
     and his brother archdukes, by a long series of persecution and
     banishment, finally, though not within this century, almost
     outrooted Protestantism from the hereditary provinces of Austria.
     It is true that these violent measures were the proximate cause
     of so many conversions; but if the reformed had been ardent
     and united, they were much too strong to be thus subdued. In
     Bohemia, accordingly, and in Hungary, where there was a more
     steady spirit, they kept their ground. The reaction was not less
     conspicuous in other countries. It is asserted that the Huguenots
     had already lost more than two thirds of their number in 1580;[13]
     comparatively, I presume, with twenty years before; and the change
     in their relative position is manifest from all the histories
     of this period. In the Netherlands, though the seven united
     provinces were slowly winning their civil and religious liberties
     at the sword's point, yet West Flanders, once in great measure
     Protestant, became Catholic before the end of the century; while
     the Walloon provinces were kept from swerving by some bishops of
     great eloquence and excellent lives, as well as by the influence
     of the Jesuits planted at St. Omer and Douay. At the close of this
     period of fifty years, the mischief done to the old church in its
     first decennium was very nearly repaired; the proportion of the
     two religions in Germany coincided with those which had existed
     at the pacification of Passau. The Jesuits, however, had begun to
     encroach a little on the proper domain of the Lutheran church.

     "This great revival of the papal religion, after the shock it had
     sustained in the first part of the sixteenth century, ought for
     ever to restrain that temerity of prediction so frequent in our
     ears.... In the year 1560, every Protestant in Europe doubtless
     anticipated the overthrow of popery; the Catholics could have
     found little else to warrant hope than their trust in heaven. The
     late rush of many nations toward democratical opinions has not
     been so rapid and so general as the change of religion about that
     period. It is important and interesting to inquire what stemmed
     this current. We readily acknowledge the prudence, firmness,
     and unity of purpose that for the most part distinguished the
     court of Rome, the obedience of its hierarchy, the severity of
     intolerant laws, and the searching rigor of the Inquisition, the
     resolute adherence of great princes to the Catholic faith, the
     influence of the Jesuits over education; but these either existed
     before, or would at least not have been sufficient to withstand
     an overwhelming force of opinion. It must be acknowledged that
     there was a principle of vitality in that religion, independent
     of its external strength. By the side of its secular pomp, its
     relaxation of morality, there had always been an intense flame
     of zeal and devotion. Superstition, it might be, in the many,
     fanaticism in a few; but both of these imply the qualities which,
     while they subsist, render a religion indestructible. That revival
     of an ardent zeal, through which the Franciscans had, in the
     thirteenth century, with some good and much more evil effect,
     spread a popular enthusiasm over Europe, was once more displayed
     in counteraction of those new doctrines that themselves had drawn
     their life from a similar development of moral emotion."[14]

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 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 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._"

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




MATTHEW XXVII.

     "And He answered them nothing."


    O mighty Nothing! unto thee,
    Nothing, we owe all things that be.
    God spake once when He all things made,
    He saved all when He nothing said.
    The world was made of nothing then;
    'Tis made by nothing now again.

                                          CRASHAW.




TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF CONRAD VON BOLANDEN.

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."

"What is the cause of this antipathy of your son to women?"

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 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.

"I do not understand you, 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."

"Who is this Angela?"

"The daughter of your neighbor, Siegwart."

Frank looked at the doctor with open mouth and staring eyes.

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

"Why not?"

"Well--because the Siegwart family are not agreeable to me."

"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?"

Frank was perplexed. He might have reasons and yet be ashamed to give
them.

"Ah!" said the doctor, smiling, "it is now for you to lay aside
prejudice."

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

Klingenberg shrugged his shoulders. There was a long pause.

"I renew my request, my friend," urged Frank. "Convince my son of his
errors."

"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
others who are beautiful but wear crinoline." He had written in his
diary:

     "Of what value is corporal beauty that fades when it is disfigured
     by bad customs and caprices? I admit that I have never yet met
     any woman so graceful and charming as Angela; but this very
     circumstance warns me to be careful that my judgment may not
     be dazzled. If it turns out that Angela sets herself up as a
     religious coquette or a Pharisee, her fine figure is only a
     deceitful mask of falsehood, and my opinion would again be
     verified. I must make observations with great care."

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.

Frank stopped for a moment and heard the voice say,

"Miss Angela is as lovely as ever."

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.

The gentleman rose and made a stiff bow.

"The Assessor von Hamm," continued the proprietor.

Frank made an equally stiff and somewhat colder bow.

The three sat down.

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?"

"Very well; he goes this morning to the city, where business calls
him."

"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.

The servant brought a glass.

"Try this wine," said Siegwart; "my own growth," he added with some
pride.

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.

"Excellent! I do not remember to have drank better Burgundy."

"Real Burgundy, neighbor--real Burgundy. I brought the vines from
France."

"Do you not think the vines degenerate with us?" said Frank.

"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."

"Is it not too late to plant them?"

"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,

"Here we are again; you know very well what we want."

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.

"For the pope, Herr von Hamm," said Siegwart.

The official air of the assessor became more severe.

"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 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.

"You have the authority, Herr Assessor, to permit it; I beg you will
do so."

"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."

"Why do you draw this conclusion?"

"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 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?"

"On what conditions, Herr Assessor?"

"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 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."

The proprietor opened wide his eyes.

"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 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."

"Very natural," said the official.

"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."

"That is self-evident," said the assessor.

"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.

"How so, how so?" cried Hamm inquiringly.

"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."

"Then the clergy must be free."

"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. 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?"

"I do not know, Herr Assessor."

"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."

She answered by an inclination, and was about to leave the room.

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

She moved a step or two toward Richard.

"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."

"Can you pray yet, my child," said Richard.

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

She looked at the stranger a moment and said with childish simplicity,

"Can you pray too?"

"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."

"That is true," said Frank. "Obey your sister Angela."

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? 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."

"And so do I," sighed the assessor.

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.

"Has Klingenberg not gone out yet to-day?"

"No, but he has been walking up and down his room for the last two
hours."

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 to the human mind. We might
say with Faust,

    'It will my heart consume
    That we can nothing know.'"

"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."

Klingenberg arose.

"We will meet again at three," said he with a friendly nod.

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

    TO BE CONTINUED.




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 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:

     "In the Italian statistics of Mittermaier we have the number of
     exposed infants received in Il S. Spirito, Il Conservatorio, and
     other establishments of this class. The number received during
     a series of ten years amounts to 31,689. This total distributed
     among the ten years gives as the mean, the number of 3160 infants
     exposed annually in the city of Rome."

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,

    Total number of births,             4373
    Total number of foundlings,         3160

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,

    Total number of births,              3700
    Total number of foundlings,          3160
                                         ----
    Total number of lawful children,      540

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 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:

     "The number of 900 may seem very great as representing the annual
     average received; but it should be stated that the hospital
     of Santo Spirito affords an asylum not only to the foundlings
     of Rome, but to those of the provinces of Sabina, Frosinone,
     Velletri, and the Comarca, and also districts on the borders of
     Naples."

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

     "If it happen, as it often does with people in the humblest
     condition of life, that their family exceed their means of
     support, one of the children is committed to the wheel of the
     foundling hospital of Santo Spirito--it might be, with some mark
     on its dress by which its identity would be afterward proved and
     it be reclaimed by its parents, a thing of no uncommon occurrence.
     Another frequent cause of having recourse to this institution is
     the delicacy of the mother, or of the child. The mother has no
     nourishment to give the infant, and she bears it to the hospital
     to be provided for. Or it is a rickety, miserable thing from
     its birth, stunted, malformed, or so delicate that in the rude
     hut of its parents it has no chance of ever doing well; then
     too, in its case, the wheel of the hospital is a safe recourse,
     and with parents of hard hearts takes the place of many an evil
     suggestion, such as is often present in the homes and the breasts
     of the destitute. Frequently the parent is known to argue that
     the infirm or malformed child, who is thus got rid of, has the
     best chance of recovery, and certainty of being provided for,
     where eminent medical attendance is always to be had, and where
     the greatest care is taken of the training and future interests
     of the foundling. It may be said that this facility of getting
     rid of legitimate offspring leads to a disregard of the manifest
     obligations of a parent's duty; but to this fair objection I can
     only offer a preponderating advantage, that it does away with
     that awful proneness to infanticide which distinguishes other
     countries, but pre-eminently England."

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; others of doubtful or uncertain birth; as
follows:

    Foundlings   Of legitimate  Uncertain.
    received.    birth.

    In May,           38            46
    In June,          25            51
    In July,          29            49
                      --           ---
                      92           146

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:

Asylums for children of all ages, with schools attached:

    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.
                            {number   boys
    S. Maria del Angeli,    {  not     and
                            {stated.  girls.
    S. Caterina,                "     girls.
    Trinitarians,               "     girls.
    St. Pietro,                 "     girls.
    Il Borromeo,                "     girls.
    Mother of Sorrows,          "     girls.

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 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
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]

     "The returns (criminal) embrace all kinds of crime.... And among
     the rest they comprehend a class of offenders who, in some
     countries--for instance, in France--are under the control as
     well as sanctioned by the police authorities, and in others defy
     almost all authority or restraint whatsoever. I allude to women
     of depraved character, not one of whom is to be met with in the
     streets of Rome, which may accordingly be traversed with impunity
     at any hour of the evening or night by a modest female without the
     risk of having her eyes and ears offended, as they are in too many
     cities of our highly civilized empire. Offenders of this class
     are at once made amenable to the law, and committed either to the
     Termini, or to the institution of the Good Shepherd, where the
     most effectual means of reformation are adopted, and in very many
     instances with success--both institutions being specially under
     the care and control of religious communities."

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 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:

     "The condition of the population is one of comparative ease.... An
     appearance of prosperity strikes the eyes of the least observant.
     Gaiety of the most expansive kind is to be traced in the faces of
     all. It may be asked whether this can be the people whose miseries
     excite to such a degree the commiseration of Europe?"[21]

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




ST. OREN'S PRIORY;

OR, EXTRACTS FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN AMERICAN IN A FRENCH MONASTERY.

"Pour chercher mieux."--_Device of Queen Christina of Sweden._


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

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,

    "Like the stained web that whitens in the sun,
    Grows pure by being purely shone upon."

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 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 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 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
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 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 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."

    "Oh! blissful and calm was the wondrous rest
    That thou gavest thy God in thy virginal breast.
    For the heaven he left he found heaven in thee;
    And he shone in thy shining, sweet Star of the sea!"

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 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.

     "I adore thee, O Infant Jesus! naked, weeping, and lying in the
     manger. Thy childhood and poverty are become my delight. Oh! that
     I could be thus poor, thus a child like thee. O eternal wisdom!
     reduced to the condition of a little babe, take from me the vanity
     and presumptuousness of human wisdom! Make me a child with thee.
     Be silent, ye teachers and sages of the earth! I wish to know
     nothing but to be resigned, to be willing to suffer, to lose
     and forsake all, to be all faith! The Word made Flesh! now _is_
     silent, now has an imperfect utterance, now weeps as a child! And
     shall I set up for being wise? Shall I take a complacency in my
     own schemes and systems? Shall I be afraid lest the world should
     not have an opinion high enough of my capacity? No, no; all my
     pleasure shall be to _decrease_--to become little and obscure, to
     live in silence, to bear the reproach of Jesus crucified, and to
     add thereto the helplessness and imperfect utterance of Jesus, a
     child."[22]

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.

        "He neither shall be born
        In housen nor in hall,
    Nor in the place of Paradise,
        But in an ox's stall;
        He neither shall be rocked
        In silver nor in gold,
    But in a wooden cradle
        That rocks upon the mould."

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 it was one of these that
the poets tell us the little St. John contended for:

    "Give me the cross, I pray you, dearest Jesus!
    Oh! if you knew how much I wish to have it,
    You would not hold it in your hand so tightly.
    Something has told me, something in my breast here,
    Which I am sure is true, that if you keep it,
    If you will let no other take it from you,
    Terrible things I cannot bear to think of
    Must fall upon you. Show me that you love me;
    Am I not here to be your little servant,
    Follow your steps and wait upon your wishes?"

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!

FOOTNOTE:

[22] Fénélon.

       *       *       *       *       *

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 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

    "In fairy land whose streets and towers
    Are made of gems, and lights, and flowers."

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 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.

    "How shall we breathe in other air
    Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?"

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 Coeli 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 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 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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[23] This priest has since died in a Southern diocese.




TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.

APPEAL TO YOUNG CHRISTIAN WOMEN.

BY MARIE DE GENTELLES.

BRIEF OF HIS HOLINESS PIUS IX.


PIUS IX. POPE, TO HIS BELOVED DAUGHTER IN CHRIST, MARIE DE GENTELLES:

Beloved daughter in Christ, grace and apostolic benediction.

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,

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.

                                  PIUS IX. _Pope_.

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 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
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 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.

Let us then appeal to the husbands!

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.

But between the former and the latter what a distance! What a broad
gulf!

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? 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 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."

See to what our round hats, little bonnets, and red locks lead.

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.

To-day it is a lie.

"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 herself, and it seems to me that these words might be
addressed to each one of us:

     "Because the daughters of Sion are haughty, and have walked with
     stretched-out necks, and wanton glances of their eyes, and made a
     noise as they walked with their feet, and moved in a set pace:

     "The Lord will make bald the crown of the head of the daughters of
     Sion, and the Lord will discover their hair.

     "In that day the Lord will take away the ornaments of shoes, and
     little moons,

     "And chains and necklaces, and bracelets, and bonnets,

     "And bodkins, and ornaments of the legs, and tablets, and
     sweet-balls, and ear-rings,

     "And rings, and jewels hanging on the forehead.

     "And changes of apparel, and short cloaks, and fine linen, and
     crisping-pins.

     "And looking-glasses, and lawns, and head-bands, and fine veils.

     "And instead of a sweet smell there shall be stench, and instead
     of a girdle a cord, and instead of curled hair baldness, and
     instead of a stomacher hair-cloth."[24]

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.

In these latter days only has the contagion spread in an alarming
manner.

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 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. 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 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?

And our husbands--do we devote our time to them any more than to 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 to her, exclaimed with a simplicity which was her only
excuse:

"Why, are there people who are poor? I did not know it!"

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 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!

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Isaias, iii. 16, and following.

[25] St. Matt. xxv. 42.

[26] St. Matt. xviii. 6.




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 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 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 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
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 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 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 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,

"'What beautiful children!'

"'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 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,

"'What did she say was her name?'

"'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,

"'Where?'

"'Here in Montreal,' I replied.

"'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
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 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!'"

We sat for some time in silence after she closed, and I then asked,

"Did you ever see or hear from them after your departure?"

"Cars ready! Hurry up, ladies and gentlemen! Hurry up!"

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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, (1-1/2 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 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 Oeuvre 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,
(_Oeuvre 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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."

We shall, therefore, offer a few suggestions on this subject.

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, 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 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 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




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.

Let us investigate more deeply the nature of the problem.

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 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 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, 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 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.

7th. This union or incorporation must be effected by the Word.

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.

"In the beginning (the Father) was the Word.

"And the Word was with God.

"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.

"That which was made in him was _life_.

"And the Word was made _flesh_, and dwelt among us."[31]

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 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.

Nature is the radical, interior principle of action in every existing
being.

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 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 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 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 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 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_:

     "According to this doctrine, (the doctrine of those who hold
     the hypostatic union,) Jesus Christ, instead of being one mind,
     one conscious intelligent principle, whom we can understand,
     consists of two souls, two minds: the one divine, the other
     human; the one weak, the other almighty; the one ignorant, the
     other omniscient. Now, we maintain that this is to make Christ
     two beings. To denominate him one person, one being, and yet to
     suppose him made up of two minds infinitely different from each
     other, is to abuse and confound language, and to throw darkness
     over all our conceptions of intelligent natures. According to the
     common doctrine, each of those two minds in Christ has its own
     consciousness, its own will, its own perceptions. They have,
     in fact, no common properties. The divine mind feels none of
     the wants and sorrows of the human, and the human is infinitely
     removed from the perfections and happiness of the divine. Can you
     conceive of two beings in the universe more distinct? We have
     always thought that one person was constituted and distinguished
     by one consciousness. The doctrine that one and the same person
     should have two consciousnesses, two wills, two souls infinitely
     different from each other, this we think an enormous tax on human
     credulity."[33]

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 first real objection of Dr. Channing is as follows:

     "We maintain that this (to attribute to Christ two natures in one
     person) is to make Christ two beings."

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.

Dr. Channing continues:

     "To denominate him one person, one being, and yet to suppose him
     made up of two minds infinitely different from each other, is to
     abuse and confound language, and to throw darkness over all our
     conceptions of intelligent natures."

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?

     "According to the common doctrine, each of these two minds
     in Christ has its own consciousness, its own will, its own
     perceptions. They have, in fact, no common properties. Can you
     conceive of two beings in the universe more distinct?"

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.

     "We have always thought that one person was constituted and
     distinguished by one consciousness."

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 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




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:

     "Spain," said _The Tribune_, "is going to have a trial of the
     seven bishops. There will be some difference, however, between
     the question at issue in the Spanish trial and that in the famous
     English cause which Macaulay describes as the most important
     recorded in the history of England. 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. It
     seems to us a good omen when they venture to put bishops on trial
     for any thing in Spain."

Now, _The Tribune_ has always been a foremost advocate for complete
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 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:

     "DECREE.

     "At the proposal of the minister of grace and justice, and with
     the approbation of the council of ministers, I ordain as follows:

     "Article 1st. That an exhortation shall be made, and I hereby
     make it to the most reverend archbishops and the right reverend
     bishops to send immediately to the government, as is their bounden
     duty, a circumstantial account of all those ecclesiastics of their
     respective dioceses who have abandoned the churches to which
     they were appointed, in order to combat the political situation
     established by the Constitutional Cortes.

     "Article 2d. The most reverend archbishops and right reverend
     bishops are charged to send to the government, immediately
     after their acquaintance with this decree, and without delays
     or excuses being listened to, a statement of the canonical and
     public measures they may have adopted, during the separation and
     abandonment of the rebel priests, with a view not only to correct
     and restrain them, but also to repair the most grievous scandal
     produced among the faithful by such disloyal and reckless conduct;
     and the government reserves to itself, after examining the reports
     which the prelates may transmit to the ministry of grace and
     justice, the adoption of such other measures as it may consider
     expedient.

     "Article 3d. It being notorious that many ecclesiastics excite the
     innocent minds of some people against the laws and decisions voted
     by the Cortes, and also against the order which I have issued
     for their fulfilment, let the most reverend archbishops, right
     reverend bishops, and ecclesiastical administrators send round
     their dioceses for circulation, within the precise term of eight
     days, a short pastoral edict, exhorting their flocks to obedience
     to the constituted authorities; and the said prelates shall,
     without loss of time, transmit a copy of the said edict to the
     secretary of the said ministry.

     "_Article 4th. The most reverend archbishops and the right
     reverend bishops are likewise charged to withdraw the faculties of
     confessing and preaching from those priests who are notoriously
     displeased with, who have not hesitated to make an ostensible
     display of opposition to the constitutional regimen._

     "Article 5th. The government will render account of this decree to
     the Cortes.

                               "FRANCISCO SERRANO.

            "MANUEL RUIZ ZORRILLA,
                "_Minister of Grace and Justice_."

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
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.


    O high exalted instinct of the soul!
      That evermore doth find
    A grace and hidden splendor not their own
      In things of curious kind;

    Casket, or signet-ring, or coat of mail,
      Or ermined robe of state,
    That once belonged to history's champions,
      The good, the wise, the great!

    This relic fair, which love most Catholic
      Devoutly treasures here,
    To me, beholding it, than rubied crown
      More glorious doth appear.

    For cinctured round with spiry wheaten ears
      And clustering grapes of gold,
    Types of the pure oblation offered now
      For bloody rites of old,

    Here, (by no freak of fancy,) underneath
      Its rim of mystic red,
    It shaded from a Roman summer's sun
      The sacred snow-white head

    Of our dear Pius; as from church to church,
      Amidst the kneeling throng,
    Serene he passed--a vision of delight,
      The ancient ways along!

    Angels of Rome! oh! shield that head beloved
      From danger and all fears;
    Watch o'er the pontiff brave, the sovereign good,
      The priest of fifty years!

    And when his hour arrives, so long postponed
      By Christendom's fond prayer,
    May he in heaven's own hierarchy throned,
      Be still our glory there!

    _Oratory, Birmingham._             E. CASWALL.




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. 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 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 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 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:

     "You are asked to believe, by those who prefer the temple of
     chaos to the sanctuary of God, this monstrous proposition: that
     although disorder is inexorably banished, as we have seen, from
     every other part of his dominions, as a thing abhorrent to the
     Divine Architect, it finds its true home and congenial refuge
     precisely in that spiritual kingdom of which he is at once the
     lawgiver and the life. Brute matter knows nothing of it; earth,
     and sea, and sky refuse to give it a place; the very beasts
     of the field obey a law which regulates all the conditions of
     their existence; but confusion and chaos, which can find a home
     nowhere else, reign, and ought to reign, in the Christian church,
     and in the kingdom of souls! That is the proposition which is
     deliberately maintained, at this hour and in this land, by men
     whose profession it is to teach others eternal truth. They gravely
     assert that religion--which, when it is divine, is a bond of union
     stronger than adamant, and when it is human, is the most active
     dissolvent, the most powerful disintegrating agent which divides
     and devastates modern society--_gains_ by ceasing to be one,
     and that Christianity derives its chief vitality from the very
     divisions which make it contemptible in the sight of unbelievers,
     and had often provoked the scorn and derision even of the pagan
     world. As this statement may seem to you impossible, even in
     this nineteenth century, which is tolerant of all absurdities in
     the sphere of religion, I will quote to you the very words of
     one of the most conspicuous preachers of this land, who holds a
     high position in the hierarchy of chaos. I take them from one of
     your own local journals, of the second of this month, (June.)
     You know that of late years many Protestants, weary of their
     ceaseless conflicts and ashamed of their unending divisions,
     have begun at last to sigh for the unity which they have lost,
     and that in England they have even formed a society with the
     express object of bringing together what they ignorantly call
     'the different branches of the church.' We are told, however,
     by the journal to which I allude, that the Reverend Henry Ward
     Beecher, vehemently rejecting every such project, lately 'preached
     against the schemes of church union, whether planned by pope,
     protestant, or pagan'--pray understand that these are not my
     words--and added this characteristic dissuasive from unity.
     'The strength of the Christian religion lies,' he said--in what
     do you suppose? in its truth, its holiness, or its peace? no,
     but--'_in the number of the existing denominations_.' The hands
     fall down in reading such words. 'I pray,' said He who will judge
     the world, 'that they may all be _one_ as thou, Father, art in
     me, and I in thee.' I sincerely trust, replies Mr. Beecher, that
     they never will be one. 'Be perfect,' said St. Paul, 'in the
     _same mind_ and the _same judgment_.' It is much more important,
     rejoins Mr. Beecher, that you should maintain your divisions and
     perpetuate your differences, for in _them_ lies the strength of
     Christianity. 'Sects,' observed the same apostle, 'are the work
     of the flesh.' Mr. Beecher judges them more leniently, and warns
     his hearers, as you see, against the mistake of St. Paul. Yes,
     these human teachers have come at last to this. They know so well
     that supernatural unity is beyond _their_ reach, that they have
     come to hate it, and to call it an evil! Yet even they will not
     deny that it was the unity of the first Christians which conquered
     the heathen world; and when the victory was accomplished, and the
     surviving pagans had only strength enough left to beat themselves
     against the ground where they had fallen, _they_ also cried out
     in their impotent rage, '_Execranda est ista consensio_'--cursed
     be this unity of the Christians. They had found it to be
     invincible, but did not know that it was divine. Mr. Beecher
     dares not say openly, 'Cursed be the unity for which Christ
     prayed,' for even his disciples, though they can bear a good deal,
     could not bear _that_; but he is not afraid to say, 'Blessed be
     chaos!' 'Confusion, thou art my choice!' 'Disorder, be thou mine
     inheritance!' Let us wish him a happier lot, both in this world
     and the next."

       *       *       *       *       *

     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,

    "Here in the feeble twilight of this world
    Groping,"

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

    "There the cherished heart _is_ fond,
    The eye the same, except in tears;"

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:

    "An endless fountain of immortal drink,
    Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink."

       *       *       *       *       *

     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 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 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 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
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.

       *       *       *       *       *

     THE TWO WOMEN: A Ballad. By Delta. Milwaukee: The Wisconsin News
     Company. 1868.

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 CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. X., No. 56.--NOVEMBER, 1869.




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 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:

     "I have been thinking a great deal on the merits and tendency
     of Newmanism, and I have become more than ever convinced of its
     falsehood.... What makes me fear most is, that I have seen Newman
     himself _growing_ in his opinions; I have seen indistinct visions
     become distinct embodiments; I have seen the conclusion of one
     proposition become the premiss of a next, through a long series:
     all this is still going on--to my eyes more like the blind march
     of error than the steady uniformity of truth--and I know not when
     it will stop."

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:

     "When, after writing to you, and one or two other relations and
     friends, I turn to pen a letter to my literary intellectual
     friends, you cannot conceive how weak and uninteresting the topics
     of discussion become. It is like one of Tom Moore's melodies after
     an Handelian chorus, at once ludicrous and disgusting from its
     inferiority."

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 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:

     "Newman is delivering lectures against the Church of Rome. I have
     just come from a magnificent one on Peter's prerogative. He admits
     the text in its full literal completeness, and shows that it makes
     not one iota for the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome."

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 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:

     "I spent a _delicious_ evening at Fiesole, yesterday, and not
     being, as I had feared, tormented by a single thought of the
     execrable rebel and heretic, Milton, I had nothing to disturb the
     beautiful tranquillity of the sunset, and the rosy mists of the
     garden-like Valdarno.... England has no 'need' of Milton: how can
     a country have need of any thing, policy, courage, talent, or any
     thing else, which is unblessed of God; and how can any talent in
     any subject-matter be blessed by the Eternal Father for one who,
     in prose and verse, denied, ridiculed, blasphemed the Godhead of
     the Eternal Son? Milton (accursed be his blasphemous memory) spent
     a great part of his life in writing down my Lord's divinity--my
     sole trust, my sole love; and that thought poisons _Comus_."

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:

     "I fear you will think me a sad Protestant. I determined, and so
     did M----, to conform to the Catholic ritual here. We both of
     us got Mechlin breviaries at Mechlin, and go to church pretty
     regularly every day to say the hours, and we say the rest of the
     hours as the priests do, in carriages, or inns, or anywhere. Also,
     I have been tutorized in the breviary by a very _nice_ priest, a
     simple-hearted, pious fellow with little knowledge of theology.
     But it all will not do. The careless irreverence, the noise, the
     going in and out, the spitting of the priests on the altar-steps,
     the distressing representations of our Blessed Lord--I cannot
     get over them. The censing of the priests, the ringing of bells,
     the constant carrying of the blessed sacrament from one altar to
     another--this I can manage; because I can say psalms meanwhile.
     But at best, when I can get away into a side chapel with no wax
     virgins in it, and no hideous pictures of the FATHER, I cannot
     manage well."

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

    'Who so above
    All mothers shone;
    The Mother of
    The Blessed One.'"

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 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 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:

     "The Rector of the English College accompanied me, and told me
     that, as Protestants did not like kissing the pope's foot, I
     should not be required to do it. We waited in the lobby of the
     Vatican library for half an hour, when the pope arrived, and a
     prelate opened the door, remaining outside. The pope was perfectly
     alone, without a courtier or prelate, standing in the middle of
     the library, in a plain white cassock, and a white silk skull-cap,
     (white is the papal color.) On entering, I knelt down, and again
     when a few yards from him, and lastly before him; he held out his
     hand, but I kissed his foot; there seemed to be a mean puerility
     in refusing the customary homage. With Dr. Baggs for interpreter,
     we had a long conversation; he spoke of Dr. Pusey's suspension for
     defending the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist with amazement
     and disgust; he said to me, 'You must not mislead yourself in
     wishing for unity, yet waiting for your _church_ to move. Think
     of the salvation of your own soul.' I said I feared self-will
     and _individual_ judging. He said, 'You are all individuals in
     the English church; you have only external communion and the
     accident of being all under the queen. You know this; you know all
     doctrines are taught amongst you, any how. You have good wishes;
     may God strengthen them! You must think for yourself and for your
     soul.' He then laid his hands on my shoulders, and I immediately
     knelt down; upon which he laid them on my head, and said, 'May the
     grace of God correspond to your good wishes and deliver you from
     the nets (_insidie_) of Anglicanism, and bring you to the true
     holy church!' I left him almost in tears, affected as much by the
     earnest, affectionate demeanor of the old man as by his blessing
     and his prayer. I shall remember St. Alban's day in 1843 to my
     life's end."

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 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 _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; 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 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 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 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:

     "And now I have so many things to tell you that I hardly know
     where to begin. Some time ago, a lady at prayer in our church
     thought it was revealed to her that St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi
     wished to confer some _grazia_ on me in connection with my
     headache. Her director gave her permission to act upon this;
     whereupon she wrote to me, begging me when my headache came on to
     apply a relic of the saint to my forehead. Some days elapsed; I
     asked Father Francis, my director, for his leave to do this; as
     it was a merely temporal thing, he took some time to consider.
     I became ill, and had a night of great pain. I thought he had
     forgotten all about it, and that it would be a blameworthy
     imperfection in me to remind him of it. The morning after, he came
     to confession, and found me ill in bed; he was going away, but I
     knew he was going to say Mass, and so I made him kneel down by my
     bedside, while I put on my stole, and with considerable pain heard
     his confession; when he rose, I gave him the stole, and asked him
     to hear my confession, which he did. Afterward he said, 'Well,
     now, I think it would be well to try this relic.' I answered,
     'Just as you please.' I was in great suffering, and very sick
     besides. He gave it me, and walked away to the door to say Mass.
     I applied the relic, a piece of her linen, to my forehead; a sort
     of fire went into my head, through every limb down to my feet,
     causing me to tremble; before Father Francis could even reach
     the door, I sprang up, crying, 'I am cured, I am quite well!' He
     said I looked as white as a sheet; I was filled with a kind of
     sacred fear, and an intense desire to consecrate myself utterly
     to God. I got up and dressed, without any difficulty, or pain, or
     sickness. This was on the Wednesday. On the Saturday I had another
     headache, but I had not asked Father Francis's leave about the
     relic, and felt I ought to take no steps to get rid of my cross.
     In the afternoon he told me I might apply it. Fathers Philip and
     Edward were in the room. I was on my bed; I took the relic and
     applied it; there was the same fire in a less degree, but no cure.
     I then said to the saint, 'I only ask it to go to the novena and
     benediction.' The cure was instantaneous; while Father Philip had
     such an impression that the saint was in the room, that he was
     irresistibly drawn to bow to her. Well, I said my office; then in
     an hour or so came the novena and benediction; and as soon as I
     returned to my room, I was taken so ill again I was obliged to go
     to bed. Meanwhile I had totally forgotten what the others reminded
     me of afterward, that two years ago Michael Watts Russell wrote
     to me from Florence, and said, 'The children send their love, and
     desire me to say they have just come from the tomb of St. Mary
     Magdalene of Pazzi, whom they have been asking to cure Father
     Wilfrid's headache.'

     "After all this, I am sure I shall lose my soul if I do not serve
     God less lukewarmly; so please pray for me."

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 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_:

     "We know of no one man who has done more to make the men of his
     day love God and aspire to a higher path of the interior life;
     and we know no man who so nearly represents to us the mind and
     the preaching of St. Bernard and St. Bernardine of Siena in the
     tenderness and beauty with which he has surrounded the names of
     Jesus and Mary."

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 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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[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.




TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF CONRAD VON BOLANDEN.

ANGELA.


CHAPTER V.

THE PROGRESSIVE PROFESSOR.

When Frank returned from the walk, he found a visitor at Frankenhöhe.

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."

Frank smiled.

"The glory of the rostrum I leave undisputed," said he. "But I beg
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."

"How particular he is!" said the professor.

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?"

"I have that honor," answered the professor with much dignity.

They began to eat.

"You read Sybel's periodical?" asked the professor.

"We must not remain entirely ignorant of literary productions,
particularly the more excellent."

Lutz felt much flattered by this declaration.

"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 incorrectly," said the professor,
after the meal. "He understands Sybel and praises his efforts--the
best sign of a clear mind."

"Klingenberg is always just," returned Frank.

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."

"I presume, Herr Siegwart, that you wish for Klingenberg."

"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,

"Papa--papa!"

This whispered "papa" seemed to 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?"

"Mamma!" whispered the child.

"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.

Both men left the room.

"I will immediately seek the doctor, who is now on his walk," said
Frank.

"Shall I send my servant for him?"

"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."

The young man pressed the outstretched hand of Siegwart, and hastened
away.

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 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."

The professor could scarcely believe his own ears.

"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."

"This you assert, doctor; it is impossible to prove such a
declaration."

"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 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."

"Does Sybel's periodical say all this?"

"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.

He stopped before the professor.

"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."

The professor lowered his eyes and stood embarrassed.

"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.

"What do you think of the child?" said Siegwart, as they passed over
the yard.

"The child is very sick; send for me in the morning if it be
necessary."

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.

"Is recovery not possible?"

"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."

When Frank entered his room, he found Lutz in a very bad humor.

"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 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."

Carl sat for a time thinking.

"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.

Frank wrote in his diary:

     "May 20th.--After mature reflection, I find that the views which
     I believed to be strongly founded begin to totter. What would
     the professor say if he knew that not the doctor, but a country
     family, and that, too, ultramontane, begin to shake the foundation
     of my views? Would he not call me weak?"

He laid down the pen and sat sullenly reflecting.

     "All my impressions of the ultramontane family be herewith
     effaced," he wrote further. "The only fact I admit is, that even
     ultramontanes also can be good people. But this fact shall in no
     wise destroy my former convictions."

    TO BE CONTINUED.




FROM THE REVUE DU MONDE CATHOLIQUE.

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 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 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 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 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.

These congregations, fifteen in number, are as follows:

     1. The Congregation of the Holy Office, established by Paul III.

     2. The Congregation of the Council, established by Pius IV.

     3. The Congregation of the Index, established by Leo X.

     4 and 5. The Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, established by
     Gregory XIII. and Sixtus V.

     6. The Congregation of Rites, established by Sixtus V.

     7. The Congregation of Schools, established by Sixtus V.

     8. The Congregation of the Consistory, established by Sixtus V.

     9. The Congregation of the Examination of Bishops, established by
     Clement VIII.

     10. The Congregation of the Propaganda, established by Gregory XV.

     11. The Congregation of Ecclesiastical Immunities, established by
     Urban VIII.

     12. The Congregation of the Residence of Bishops, established by
     Clement VIII. and Benedict XIV.

     13. The Congregation of Indulgences, established by Clement IX.

     14. The Congregation of Extraordinary Affairs, established by Pius
     VII.

     15. The Congregation of Oriental Rites, established by Pius IX.

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. 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




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!"

It might be as well, but it is no affair of his.

Moreover, the mother has her dream. In it she sees her daughter less
hard-worked than she has been, 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; 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,)

    "The man whose utmost skill was simple truth;
      Whose life was free from servile bands
      Of hope to rise or fear to fall,"

does not still stand on the old pedestal in his secret heart.

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 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,
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, by hallowed memories of purer scenes, have been kept from
evil.

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
foetid 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? 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.

Is there no spot, dear friend, that you and I would revisit?

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 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--

    EVELYN GRANT.
      Aged 35.

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 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.

I used to know every mound, from that Egyptian-faced vault,

    "Against whose portal I had thrown,
    In childhood, many an echoing stone;
    And shrank to think, poor heart of sin,
    It was the dead that groaned within;"

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,

    "He lived as mothers wish their sons to live,
    He died as fathers wish their sons to die,"

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.

Figures homely yet gracious, how they rise in memory!

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 promise those who are kept awake by care "a blessed sleep."

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:

     "This association shall be called the Free Religious
     Association--its objects being to promote the interests of
     pure religion, to encourage the scientific study of theology,
     and to increase fellowship in the spirit; and to this end all
     persons interested in these objects are cordially invited to its
     membership."

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:

     "Our aim, let it be understood, is _unity_; not division, discord,
     conflict--but unity. We are not controversialists. We carry no
     sword in our hands. We wear no weapons concealed about our person.
     Our one word is peace--the word which is always most heartily
     responded to by earnest men. Religion means unity; the very
     definition of it signifies the power that binds men together;
     that binds all souls to the divine. The communion of saints--that
     is the religious phrase; and yet you will pardon me if I say
     that religion at present is the one word that means division. As
     interpreted by the religious world, it means war and discord.
     Subjects are debated on other platforms--social questions,
     political questions; they are debated and dismissed. In the
     religious world the discussion goes on more persistently, more
     bitterly than on any other field; but the issues are always the
     same, the venue is never changed, conclusions are never reached,
     and we lack the benefit that comes from the reconciliation of
     perpetual discussion.

     "Religion as organized is organized division. The communion is a
     communion-table, the Christ is a symbol of the sects, the unity is
     a unity made up of separate departments and families. The ancient
     religions of the world still hold their own. Buddhism, Brahminism,
     the religion of Zoroaster, the religion of Confucius, Judaism,
     fetichism, Sabaism--all stand where they did. All gather in their
     population; all have their organized activities, as they ever
     had. No one of them has materially changed its front; not one of
     them has been disorganized; not one of them has retreated from
     the ground that from time immemorial it has occupied. They have
     stormed at each other, they have been mortal enemies; but still
     they stand where they stood. There is no superstition, however
     degrading, that does not exist to-day; and Christian missionaries,
     Catholic and Protestant, have gone out with hearts of flame and
     tongues of fire, and souls that were all one solid single piece of
     consecration, and have dashed themselves in hosts with the utmost
     heroism against those ancient lines of faith; and their weapons
     have dropped harmless at the foot. Here and there a few hundred,
     or a few thousand, or a few tens or hundreds of thousands, may
     have shifted from one faith to the other; but the solid substance
     of these great religions still endures. The vast aggregates of
     millions and tens of millions are unaffected. Christianity holds
     its own, and no more. Buddhism and Brahminism hold their own, and
     as much. What shall we say to this? Does religion mean unity?
     The world cannot be all of one form of religion. Religion is
     deeper than all its several forms. One religion cannot dislodge
     another; one faith cannot supplant another faith. Put Christianity
     in the place of Brahminism and Buddhism, and people would not
     be Christians. They might change their name--they would not
     change their nature. The inhabitants of countries that have been
     under the sway of those great faiths do not become Christian
     men by becoming Christian peoples. The Turks in European Turkey
     are better men than the Greek Christians in European Turkey.
     The religions, as such, must hold their places essentially
     undisturbed. Harmony is not possible at present on that ground--on
     any sectarian ground.

     "Christianity itself is a bundle of religions. There is the vast
     Greek Church, with its patriarchs; there is the enormous Catholic
     Church, with its pope; here are all the families of the Protestant
     Church, with their clergy. They hold the same relative position.
     Protestantism does not subdue Romanism; Romanism will never
     subdue Protestantism. The Protestant Church and Roman Church have
     stood face to face for centuries; and thus they will continue to
     stand, as long as the populations have the genius that God gave
     them. What is Christendom but an army divided against itself?
     What is Protestantism but a mingling of warring sects?--each
     sect falling in pieces the moment it becomes organized for work.
     Unitarianism does not gain on Orthodoxy; Orthodoxy does not gain
     on Unitarianism. Each sect takes up the little portion that
     belongs to it, and must rest contented; and all the power of
     propagandism, of sectarian zeal, of fire and earnestness, does but
     cause the little flame to burn up more brightly for an instant on
     the local altar; and, when it dies down, the ashes remain on that
     altar still.

     "Our word, then, is Unity. But how shall we get it? Not by
     becoming Catholics; not by making another order of Protestants;
     not by instituting another sect; but by going down below all the
     sects--going down to faith. For faith, hope, aspiration, charity,
     love, worship, we believe, are inherent, profound, indestructible
     elements of human nature." (Pp. 7-9.)

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 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:

     "As I look abroad in the community, I see two extreme types of
     religious faith. One is represented in the Roman Church, the
     great principle of authority. That church has been, and, I think,
     will always be, the grandest and the greatest embodiment of
     Christianity in social life. It is worthy of profound respect;
     and I, for one, yield it profound respect. It took an infidel,
     Auguste Comte, to portray fairly the service done to the world by
     the Christian Church--the great Catholic Church--of the middle
     ages; and we radicals are false to our principles, if we do not
     do homage to every thing that is great and good and serviceable
     in its season, even although we think its day of usefulness may
     have passed. The fundamental principle of the Roman Church is
     authority, pure and simple. The theology of Rome carries that
     principle out to the extremest degree. Its hierarchy embodies it
     in an institution; and, from beginning to end, from centre to
     periphery, the Roman Catholic Church is consistent with itself
     in the development of that one idea in spiritual and social and
     ecclesiastical life.

     "At the other pole of human thought and experience, I see a
     very few persons--indeed, so few that I might, perhaps, almost
     count them on the fingers of one hand--who plant themselves
     on the principle of liberty alone; who want nothing else; who
     stand without dogma, without creed, without priesthood, without
     Bible, without Christ, without any thing but the Almighty God
     working in their hearts. These two principles of authority and
     freedom have thus worked out for themselves, at last, consistent
     expression. Here are the two extremes--Romish Christianity and
     free religion; and between these two extremes we see a compromise,
     Protestant Christianity--the compromise between Catholicism and
     free religion. Every compromise is weak, because it contains
     conflicting elements. Protestant Christianity is like the image
     with head of gold and feet of clay. It cannot stand for ever.
     Either Christianity, as embodied in the Roman Church, is right, or
     else free religion is right. Have we not learned yet to give up
     these combinations of opposites, contraries, and incompatibles?
     Has the war taught us nothing? Are we still trying to make some
     chimerical mixture, some impossible union of freedom and slavery?
     I trust not. For my own part, I stand pledged to liberty, pure
     and simple; and I have come to view all compromises alike, and
     to cast them utterly away, whether they clothe themselves in the
     garments of Geneva, or in the last expression of Dr. Bellows and
     the Unitarian Church." (Pp. 32-33.)

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:

     "We have had, not long since, presented to us by Max Müller a
     valuable paragraph from St. Augustine, not at all extraordinary
     in itself, but only as coming from that eminent father in the
     church, and at that age in which St. Augustine writes: 'That which
     is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients,
     and never did not exist from the planting of the human race until
     Christ came in the flesh, at which time the true religion, which
     already subsisted, began to be called Christianity.' I believe
     that not only Christianity is as old as the creation--not only
     every sentiment and precept of Christianity can be paralleled
     in other religious writings--but more, that a man of religious
     susceptibility, and one at the same time conversant with many
     men--say a much travelled man--can find the same idea in
     numberless conversations. The religious find religion wherever
     they associate. When I find in people narrow religion, I find also
     in them narrow reading.

     "I object, of course, to the claim of miraculous
     dispensation--certainly not to the doctrine of Christianity. This
     claim impairs, to my mind, the soundness of him who makes it, and
     indisposes us to his communion. This comes the wrong way; it comes
     from without, not within. This positive, historical, authoritative
     scheme is not consistent with our experience or our expectations.
     It is something not in nature, it is contrary to that law of
     nature which all wise men recognized, namely, never to require
     a larger cause than is necessary to the effect. George Fox, the
     Quaker, said that, though he read of Christ and God, he knew them
     only from the like spirit in his own soul. We want all the aids to
     our moral training. We cannot spare the vision nor the virtue of
     the saints; but let it be by pure sympathy, not with any personal
     or official claim. If you are childish and exhibit your saint as
     a worker of wonders, a thaumaturgist, I am repelled. That claim
     takes his teachings out of logic and out of nature, and permits
     official and arbitrary senses to be grafted on the teachings. It
     is the praise of our New Testament that its teachings go to the
     honor and benefit of humanity--that no better lesson has been
     taught or incarnated. Let it stand, beautiful and wholesome, with
     whatever is most like it in the teaching and practice of men; but
     do not attempt to elevate it out of humanity by saying, 'This was
     not a man,' for then you confound it with the fables of every
     popular religion; and my distrust of the story makes me distrust
     the doctrine as soon as it differs from my own belief. Whoever
     thinks a story gains by the prodigious, by adding something out
     of nature, robs it more than he adds. It is no longer an example,
     a model; no longer a heart-stirring hero, but an exhibition, a
     wonder, an anomaly, removed out of the range of influence with
     thoughtful men." (Pp. 42-44.)

Mr. Emerson cannot be very deeply read in patristic literature,
if he 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_:

    "Out from the heart of nature rolled
    The burdens of the Bible old;
    The litanies of nations came
    Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
    Up from the burning core below--
    The canticles of love and woe."

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:

     "If this movement of ours means any thing, it means not a little
     petty denial, not a little criticism, not a textual discussion,
     not a sum in addition or subtraction, like Bishop Colenso's books,
     not a bit of historical analysis, like Strauss or Renan. These
     are trivial things; these do not touch people; these do not reach
     the universal heart. The universe needs an affirmation, not a
     denial; and the religious movement that has not for its centre the
     assertion of something, would be condemned already to degenerate
     into a sect by the time it had the misfortune to get fairly born."
     (P. 58.)

And again:

     "Affirmation! There is no affirmation except the belief
     in universal natural religion; all else is narrowness and
     sectarianism, though it call itself by the grandest name, compared
     with that. It impoverishes a man; it keeps his sympathy in one
     line of religious communication; it takes all the spiritual life
     of the race, and says, 'All of this that was not an effluence
     from Jesus you must set aside;' and so it makes you a member in
     full standing of some little sect, all of whose ideas, all of
     whose thoughts, revolved in the mind of some one narrow-minded
     theologian who founded it. It shuts you up there, and you die,
     suffocated for want of God's free air outside." (P. 59.)

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:

     "We come into the world, I believe, every one of us, with all
     that is needful in ourselves, if we will only trust it--all that
     is needful to help us on and up to the very highest heights to
     which a human being can ever climb; but we have covered it over
     by dogma and creed and sectarian theory, and by our own misdeeds,
     until these angel voices that are in us cease to be heard; not
     totally cease--I do not believe they ever totally cease--but
     they become less and less audible to us. But if we learn to heed
     their faintest whisper, reverently and obediently, I believe that
     there is no path where the soul asks you to go that you may not
     safely tread. It may carry you to the burning, fiery furnace,
     but you will come out, and the smell of fire even will not be on
     your garments. It may compel you into the lion's den, but the
     wild beast's mouth will be shut. You may walk where scorpions are
     in the way of duty, and you will not be hurt. It is this 'inner
     light;' it is not a text, it is not a creed, but it is this in
     ourselves which, if trusted, will lead us into all truth.

     "I said I did not believe this voice was ever lost in the human
     soul. I do not forget that men grow very wicked, and women too,
     for that matter; I do not forget that men and women sometimes
     appear to us so lost and fallen that it seems as if no power in
     themselves, or any human power, could help them up; and yet to
     these worst, men and women, in some hallowed moment, is the word
     given, 'This is the way: walk ye in it.' And if, at the side of
     this man or woman, at that very moment, is some helping hand, some
     voice wise enough to counsel, he or she may be started to walk in
     that way." (P. 100.)

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 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_:

     "But, friends, a sudden reaction comes over me. I determine to
     profess and practise the new religion. I have learned at the
     free religious club that I possess the first requisite for this,
     having never studied any theology at all. The ex-divines whom I
     have met there have so bewailed the artificial ignorance which
     they acquired in their divinity-school training, that I presume
     my natural knowledge to be its proper and desired antithesis. I
     have read the Bhavadgheeta and Mr. Emerson's poems, the psalms and
     gospel of the new faith. To be no Christian is the next important
     desideratum; and I believe that I shall find this, as most people
     do, easier than not. My first rule will be, 'Brahmins, beware
     of intercourse with Pariahs!' The three hundred incarnations of
     Vishnu, far more imposing in number than the single excarnation
     of which the old theology has made so much, shall be preached
     by me both as precept and example. The Confucian moralities,
     as illustrated by Californian experience, shall replace the
     Decalogue. Mr. Emerson's crowning sentence, that he who commits a
     crime hurts himself, will, of course, suffice to convert a whole
     society of criminals and reprobates. I will introduce the Joss
     into prisons, and give the myth of the Celestial Empire a literal
     interpretation. Our railroad and steamboat system will greatly
     facilitate the offering of children to the river, with the further
     advantage of offering the parents too. The strangling of female
     infants will relieve the present excess of female population in
     New England, and postpone the pressure of woman suffrage. The
     burning of widows alone will save the country no small outlay in
     pensions. Lastly, since the Turkish ethics are coming so much into
     favor, I should advise a more than Mormon application of them in
     our midst. Coöperative housekeeping could then be begun on the
     most immediate and harmonious footing. And so we will reconvert
     and transreform, and true progress shall consist in regress.

     "But, as Archimedes asked to get out of the world in order to move
     it, we shall be forced to go outside of Christendom in order to
     accomplish this revolution. And if I may believe my friends of the
     Free Religious Association, the surest way to do this will be to
     keep closely in their midst. For, elsewhere, between steamboats
     and missionaries, we cannot be sure of meeting people who shall be
     sure of not being Christians.

     "Perish the jest, and let the jester perish, if in aught but
     saddest earnest she exchanged the serious for the comic mask.
     Laughter is sometimes made to convey pathos that lies too deep for
     tears. I have but faintly sketched the scene-painting that would
     have to be done to-day, if religion could slip back and miss the
     sacred and indispensable mediation of Christianity. Take back the
     English language beyond the noble building of Shakespeare and
     Milton; take back philosophy beyond the labor of the Germans and
     the intuition of the Greeks; take back mathematics beyond Laplace
     and Newton; take back politics from the enlargement of republican
     experience--you will have yet a harder task when you shall carry
     religion back to its ante-Christian status and interpretation.

     "Lastly, and to sum up. The freedom of religion is the
     satisfaction of obeying the innermost and highest impulses
     of the human soul, to the disregard of all secondary powers
     and considerations. I find this freedom inseparable from the
     constraint which obliges the man toward this highest effort, as
     the laws of the tidal flow force the wave to high-water mark.
     Our human dignity consists in the assertion of this freedom, the
     acknowledgment of this obligation. Intellectual freedom is found
     in study and the progress of thought, which is ever substituting
     enlarged and improved for rude and narrow processes. But the
     liberal heart precedes the liberal mind, and conditions it. To be
     careless as to authority and rash in conclusions, is not to be
     free; to be strict in logic and scrupulous in derivation, is not
     to be unfree. Let me end my discursive remarks with one phrase
     from a dear, melancholy, Calvinistic poet, who passed his life in
     damning himself and blessing others, repenting of a thousand sins
     he was never able to commit:

      'He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,
        And all are slaves beside.'"
                                      (Pp. 53-57.)

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 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
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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[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.




MEMENTO MORI.


     "Come and see how a Christian can die."--_Addison to his
     step-son._

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 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:

    "A death-bed's a detector of the heart.
    Here tired dissimulation drops her mask
    Through life's grimace, that mistress of the scene!"

Father Faber says:

     "Every Christian death-bed is a world--a complete world--of
     graces, interferences, compensations, lights, struggles,
     victories, supernatural gestures, and the action of grand
     spiritual laws. Each death-bed, explained to us as God could
     explain it, would be in itself an entire science of God--a summa
     of the most delicate theology. The varieties of grace in the
     individual soul are so many infinities of the one infinite life of
     God. No two deaths are quite alike. The most delicate shades of
     difference between one death and another would probably disclose
     to us more of the ways of God, and more of the capabilities of the
     soul than philosophy has ever taught. Some deaths are so beautiful
     that they can hardly be recognizable for punishments. Such was
     the death of St. Joseph, with his head pillowed on the lap of
     Jesus. The twilight bosom of Abraham was but a dull place compared
     with the house of Nazareth which the eyes of Jesus lighted. Such
     was Mary's death, the penalty of which was rather in its delay.
     It was a soft extinction, through the noiseless flooding of her
     heart with divine love. As nightingales are said to have sung
     themselves to death, so Simeon died, not of the sweet weariness of
     his long watching, but of the fulness of his contentment, of the
     satisfaction of his desires, of the very new youth of soul which
     the touch of the Eternal Child had infused into his age, and,
     breaking forth into music which heaven itself might envy and could
     not surpass, he died with his world-soothing song upon his lips--a
     song so sunset-like that one might believe all the beauty of all
     earth's beautiful evenings since creation had gone into it to
     fill it full of peaceful spells. Age after age shall take up the
     strain. All the poetry of Christian weariness is in it. It gives
     a voice to the heavenly detachment and unworldliness of countless
     saints. It is the heart's evening light after the working hours
     of the day to millions and millions of believers. The very last
     compline that the church shall sing, before the midnight when the
     doom begins and the Lord breaks out upon the darkness from the
     refulgent east, shall overflow with the melodious sweetness of
     Simeon's pathetic song."

Thus do our words--even dying words--go on vibrating for ever.

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.

     "About a fortnight before the feast of Easter," says his disciple
     Cuthbert, "he was reduced to a state of great debility, with
     difficulty of breathing, but without much pain, and in that
     condition he lasted till the day of the Lord's Ascension. This
     time he passed cheerfully and joyfully, giving thanks to Almighty
     God both by day and night, or rather at all hours of the day
     and night. He continued to give lessons to us daily, spending
     the rest of his time in psalmody, and the night also in joy and
     thanksgiving, unless he were interrupted by a short sleep; and
     yet, even then, the moment he awaked he began again, and never
     ceased, with outstretched hands, to return thanks to God. I can
     declare with truth that I never saw with my eyes, nor heard with
     my ears, of any man who was so indefatigable in giving thanks to
     the living God.

     "O truly happy man! He chanted the passage from the blessed
     Apostle Paul, 'It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands
     of the living God,' and several other passages from Holy Writ,
     warning us to throw off all torpor of soul, in consideration of
     our last hour. And being conversant with Anglo-Saxon poetry, he
     repeated several passages and composed the following lines in our
     tongue:

         'Before the need-fare
         None becometh
         Of thought more wise
         Than is his need.
         To search out
         Ere his going hence,
         What his spirit
         For good or evil
         After his death-day
         Doomed may be.'

     He also chanted the antiphons according to his and our custom.
     One of these is, 'O King of glory, Lord of hosts, who on this
     day didst ascend in triumph above all the heavens, leave us not
     orphans, but send upon us the Spirit of truth, the promised of
     the Father. Alleluia.' When he came to the words 'leave us not
     orphans,' he burst into tears and wept much; and after a while he
     resumed where he had broken off, and we who heard him wept with
     him. We wept and studied by turns; or rather wept all the time
     that we studied.

     "Thus we passed in joy the quinquagesimal days till the aforesaid
     festival, and he rejoiced greatly, and gave thanks to God for
     the infirmities under which he suffered, often repeating, 'God
     scourgeth every son whom he receiveth,' with other passages of
     Scripture, and the saying of St. Ambrose, 'I have not lived so as
     to be ashamed to live among you; nor do I fear to die, for we have
     a gracious God.'

     "During these days, beside the lessons which he gave us, and
     the chant of the psalms, he undertook the composition of two
     memorable works; that is, he translated into our language the
     Gospel of St. John as far as 'But what are those among so many?'
     [St. John vi. 9,] and made a collection of extracts from the notes
     of Isidore the bishop, saying, 'I will not suffer my pupils to
     read falsehoods, and labor without profit in that book, after my
     death.' But on the Tuesday before the Ascension his difficulty of
     breathing began to distress him exceedingly, and a slight tumor
     appeared in his feet. He spent the whole day and dictated to us
     with cheerfulness, saying occasionally, 'Lose no time; I know not
     how long I may last. Perhaps in a very short time my Maker may
     take me.' In fact, it seemed to us that he knew the time of his
     death. He lay awake the whole night praising God, and at dawn on
     the Wednesday morning ordered us to write quickly, which we did
     till the hour of tierce. At that hour we walked in procession with
     the relics, as the rubric for the day prescribed; but one of us
     remained to wait on him, and said to him, 'Dearest master, there
     still remains one chapter unwritten; will it fatigue you if I ask
     more questions?' 'No,' said Bede; 'take your pen and mend it, and
     write quickly.' This he did.

     "At noon he said to me, 'I have some valuables in my little
     chest--pepper, handkerchiefs, and incense. Run quickly and bring
     the priests of the monastery to me, that I may make to them such
     presents as God hath given to me. The rich of this world give
     gold and silver and other things of value; I will give to my
     brethren what God hath given to me, and will give it with love
     and pleasure.' I shuddered, but did as he had bidden. He spoke to
     each one in his turn, reminding and entreating them to celebrate
     masses, and to pray diligently for him, which all readily promised
     to do.

     "When they heard him say that they would see him no more in this
     world, all burst into tears; but their tears were tempered with
     joy when he said, 'It is time that I return to Him who made me
     out of nothing I have lived long, and kindly hath my merciful
     Judge forecast the course of my life for me. The time of my
     dissolution is at hand. I wish to be released and to be with
     Christ.' In this way he continued to speak cheerfully till sunset,
     when the fore-mentioned youth said, 'Beloved master, there is
     still one sentence unwritten.' 'Then write quickly,' said Bede.
     In a few minutes the youth said, 'It is finished.' 'Thou hast
     spoken truly,' replied Bede; 'take my head between thy hands,
     for it is my delight to sit opposite to that holy place in which
     I used to pray; let me sit and invoke my Father.' Sitting thus
     on the pavement of the cell, and repeating, 'Glory be to the
     Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,' as he finished
     the word 'Ghost,' he breathed his last and took his departure for
     heaven."[41]

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 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 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:

     "Brother Benedict, of the diocese of Rouen, died five years and a
     half after his profession, the day of the _fête_ of our father St.
     Bernard, aged thirty-two years. And as God visited him peculiarly
     with his grace in the progress of his disease, and at the time
     of his death, it has been thought desirable, in order both to
     recognize the mercy of Christ and for the edification of his
     community, to record the principal circumstances of his life and
     death.

     "He fell sick nearly four years before his death of a disease
     upon his chest, and although, after that time, he was almost
     continually oppressed with a violent cough, with extreme pain, and
     with an intermitting fever, he never manifested even the slightest
     impatience of his suffering or the least desire to be cured.
     About Christmas of the year 1673, which preceded his death a few
     months, his disease increased. But he did not cease to discharge
     the peculiar offices prescribed to penitents in the monastery.
     The fever which seized him about the middle of Christmas did
     not prevent his following the same course of life he had long
     pursued. Five days after Easter, his disease having considerably
     advanced, the reverend father abbot ordered him to be conducted to
     the infirmary. There his fever immediately increased, his limbs
     inflamed, his cough became more violent, and the struggles in
     which he passed his nights quite exhausted him. Notwithstanding
     this, he continued to lie on a hard bed of straw till the moment
     when they removed him to the ashes, five hours before his death.
     He rose at four in the morning; he dined at the table of the
     infirmary, though his weakness was such that he was evidently
     unable to sustain the weight of his own head. During this time
     nothing was to be discovered upon his countenance which did not
     evidence the most complete tranquillity. He had been remarkably
     ingenious, and had nothing about him which he had not both
     invented and executed. Three weeks before his death, he said to
     the father abbot that, as he had been in the habit of constructing
     many things for the convenience of the monastery, and as it might
     be troublesome to the abbot to find and introduce workmen into
     the house after his death, he would on this account, if agreeable
     to the abbot, instruct one of the brothers in his various arts.
     The abbot having consented, he instructed a monk in less than a
     fortnight in the different arts in which he had been accustomed
     to be employed. And notwithstanding his weakness and pain, he did
     all this with so much patience and collectedness that he seemed
     to have lost all remembrance of his sufferings. The father abbot,
     knowing the grace which God had given to him, and the degree in
     which God had detached him from the world, thought it his duty
     to follow up what he believed to be the designs of Providence in
     regard to him. This led him in the various ordinances of religion
     to maintain all the rigor which charity and prudence would permit;
     though in all private communications with him he treated him with
     the tenderness of a father. One day, when so overcome with pain
     that he could take nothing, he described his state to the father
     abbot, accompanying his description with certain expressions of
     countenance which it is almost impossible to restrain in such
     circumstances. The father abbot, however, said with severity,
     (as though he had no compassion for those sufferings in which he
     sympathized so truly,) that 'he spoke like a man of the world,
     and that a monk ought to manifest under the worst circumstances
     the constancy of his soul.' Benedict in an instant assumed that
     air of severity that never afterward quitted him. The fear lest
     the great exertions which he made by day and by night, combined
     with his extreme debility, might suddenly remove him, led them to
     give him the holy sacrament and extreme unction. He received both
     with every demonstration of piety. Such, however, was his weakness
     that he immediately fainted away. The father abbot having asked,
     before they brought him the extreme unction, if he desired that
     the whole community should be present at the ceremony, he answered
     that, 'exterior ceremonies were not of vital importance; that
     his brethren would derive little edification from him; and that
     he had more need of their prayers than their presence.' All his
     conversation during his malady was on the necessity of separation
     from worldly things, of the joy which he anticipated in death, and
     of the mercy which God had shown him in suffering him to end his
     days in the society of the father abbot.

     "Some days before his death, the father abbot inquired minutely
     into the state of his mind; he answered in these very words, 'I
     consider the day of my death as a festival; I have no desire for
     any thing here, and I cannot better express my total separation
     from things below than by comparing myself to a leaf which the
     wind has lifted from the earth. All that I have read in the sacred
     Scriptures comes home to me and fills me with joy. Nevertheless,
     I can in no action of my life see any thing which can sustain
     the judgment of God, and which is not worthy of punishment; but
     the confidence which I have in his goodness gives me hope and
     consolation.' He added, 'How can it be that God should show such
     compassion to a man who has so miserably served him? I desire
     death alone; what can a man be thinking of, not always to desire
     it? What joy, my father, when I remember that I am about to
     refresh myself in the waters of life.'

     "His ordinary reading, for many years of his life, had been the
     sacred Scriptures, which were so familiar to him that he spoke of
     little else. He mentioned to the father abbot so many passages,
     and repeated them in a manner so touching, so animated, and so
     devotional, that his hearers were at once edified and astonished.
     Those passages which were uppermost in his mind respected chiefly
     the majesty of God; but as he had a most humble opinion of his own
     life, which had however been, in the main, faithful and pure, he
     always reverted to the subject of the divine compassion. It was in
     that he found peace and repose.

     "On the day of the Assumption, he felt himself so weak that he
     was unable to leave the infirmary. The father abbot carried him
     our Lord, whom he received upon his knees, leaning on two of his
     brethren. Two days afterward, he fell into strong convulsions, and
     imagined that the hour of his deliverance was come. The father
     abbot asked, 'Is it with joy that you depart?' 'Yes,' said he,
     'from my very heart.' He then added, 'Into thy hands I commend my
     spirit.'

     "The customary prayers were then offered up for the dying; but
     the convulsions having left him, the father abbot said that the
     hour of God was not arrived; and having given orders to remove
     him from the ashes to his bed, he turned to the father abbot
     with a serene countenance, and said, 'The will of God be done.'
     He lived three days waiting with anxiety the time when God would
     have mercy upon him. And such was his desire of death that the
     father abbot was obliged more than once to say to him that it was
     not for him to anticipate the designs of Providence. His pangs
     lasted till within an hour of his death, but he endured them with
     his accustomed patience and serenity. He said three days before
     his death that the most dangerous moments were the last, and that
     he did not doubt the great enemy of man would seek to disquiet
     him, and therefore requested the prayers of the community. The
     father abbot, having asked, after some other general discourse,
     if he knew the guilt of sin, he answered sighing, and, as it
     were, looking into the recesses of his own soul, and in language
     expressive of the intensity of his feelings, 'Alas! once I knew
     it not; but now I see in the Scripture that God claims, as one of
     his chief attributes, the power of pardoning sin; "I am he who
     blotteth out your iniquities." I am therefore convinced that sin
     is a tremendous offence. I am far, indeed, from being like those
     who are always overwhelmed with a consciousness of their offences,
     but yet I believe, upon the testimony of faith and Scripture, that
     sin is a fathomless gulf of ruin.' These words were accompanied
     with a manner so extraordinary that they touched the very hearts
     of those who surrounded him.

     "His bones having pierced his skin, and his shirt of serge
     sticking to his wounds, he begged them to move him a little; but
     at the end of the day, when the person who had the care of him
     wished again to ease his body, he said, 'My brother, you give me
     too much ease.' The father abbot having ordered some milk to be
     brought him, which was the only nourishment he took, he said,
     'You wish then, my father, to prolong my life, and are unwilling
     I should die on the day of St. Bernard.' The father abbot having
     quitted him, he begged, perceiving that his death approached, that
     he might be called back. As soon as he saw him, he said, 'Father,
     my eyes fail me--it is finished.' The father having asked him
     in what state he found himself, and if he was about to approach
     Christ, 'Yes, father,' said he, 'by the grace of God, I am. I am
     not indeed sensible of any extraordinary elevation of my mind to
     God; but through his mercy I am in perfect peace. God be thanked!'
     This he repeated three times. The father abbot having asked him if
     he wished to die upon the cross and upon the ashes, 'Yes,' said
     he, 'from my heart.' With these words he lost his speech, or, at
     all events, it was impossible to hear any thing intelligible from
     him except the name of Jesus, which he pronounced repeatedly. They
     carried him to the straw spread out in his chamber. He was nearly
     four hours in a dying state, and preserved his recollection during
     the whole time. His eyes indicating a wandering state of mind,
     the father arose, took some holy water, and, having scattered
     it around him, repeated these words, 'Let God arise and let
     his enemies be scattered.' His face at this moment resumed its
     serenity. He kissed the cross several times, and, wanting strength
     to lay hold of it, they observed that he advanced his head to
     reverence it every time that it was presented to him. At length
     all his disquietudes ceased; they beheld him calm, peaceful,
     serene; and he breathed his last sigh with so much tranquillity
     that those who watched him scarcely perceived his death."

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 sola fuisti digna sustinere Regem coelorum 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:

     "As I entered, he held in his hand a few spring flowers, which
     he let fall as I handed him the rosary. He pressed the cross to
     his lips and whispered, 'Maria.' His voice had a peculiar sound,
     clear but so low as to be scarcely audible. In the sick-room I
     found Count Castiglione, the good fathers Antonio and Domenico,
     the painter Giulio, and others. They had moved his couch to
     the window which stood wide open. Was it the effect of the
     softening light or of the approaching triumph? Raphael had never
     appeared more beautiful. His complexion was more roseate, and his
     thoughtful, brown artist-eyes larger and more luminous than usual.
     I told him what his holiness had requested me to say.

     "'And so, dear Raphael,' I concluded, 'may the sympathy which the
     highest as well as the lowest feels for you, have the power to
     keep you long with us!'

     "He smiled sadly.

     "'You will, you must!' broke in Castiglione. 'Think what a longing
     for art your attainments have awakened within us. Think of your
     favorite plan to rebuild classical Rome, with its marble palaces
     and temples, its triumphal arches and picture galleries!'

     "'Yes, I desired it,' replied he; 'and if God had granted me
     longer life, I should have succeeded.'

     "'Do you still speak,' said I reproachfully, 'as if you would
     never recover?'

     "'O father!' said he, 'the separation is not easy for me. If I
     could describe to you the longing which I have to retain the
     departing day! How my heart cherished the last ray of the sun that
     lingered on the hill! How beautiful is the world, how beautiful
     the faces of men! And now to take leave of them for ever--to sleep
     without hope of seeing the morrow!'

     "'Beloved,' said I, 'do not forget that to-day the Saviour died,
     that we might throw off this mortal life and put on immortality.'

     "'How should I forget Him from whom I have received every thing?'
     he answered softly. 'But even this mortal life was beautiful.'

     "There was a moment's silence. Castiglione had taken Raphael's
     hand. The latter was looking through the open window at the
     distant hills that were lit up with the soft glow of the setting
     sun. Then his glance wandered, evidently in the direction of his
     thoughts, to the blue heavens, where the evening star looked down
     quietly like a messenger from the other world.

     "'I shall see Dante,' said he suddenly.

     "At this moment one of those present took the cover from Raphael's
     last picture, which hung on the wall opposite the couch. It is, as
     you know, an altar-piece--the _Transfiguration_. The sight of the
     immortal work, the dying master, the subject of the picture, and
     all remembrances associated therewith, overpowered us, and we wept
     aloud.

     "His features began to change quickly, he spoke still, but wearily
     and without connection, though in significant phrases. Twice we
     heard those words of Plato, 'Great is the hope, and beautiful the
     prize!' He mentioned your name, too, and begged that you would lay
     your hand on his head.... The painter Giulio threw himself on the
     couch and wept in agony. I asked the others to kneel with me and
     pray for the dying.

     "Once more Raphael revived, and, supported by two friends, arose
     and looked around with wide-open eyes.

     "'Whence comes the sunshine?' murmured he.

     "'Raphael!' cried I, and extended both hands toward him, 'do you
     recognize me?' For a moment it seemed as if he had not heard me,
     then he spoke again, and the holy calm of his expression, in spite
     of the death-struggle, bore testimony to his words, 'Happy.'...
     He did not speak again; but it was full night when a voice broke
     through the long stillness, 'Raphael is dead!'"

He died on Good-Friday, 1520, aged thirty-seven.

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.

    "Oh! soothe us, haunt us, night and day,
    Ye gentle spirits far away,
    With whom ye shared the cup of grace,
    Then parted; ye to Christ's embrace,
    We to the lonesome world again;
    Yet mindful of the unearthly strain
    Practised with you at Eden's door,
    To be sung on, where angels soar
    With blended voices evermore."

FOOTNOTES:

[38] Faber.

[39] Butler.

[40] Mrs. Jameson.

[41] Lingard.

[42] _Life of St. Wilfrid._

[43] Digby.

[44] Ibid.

[45] Digby.




REPLY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN ASSEMBLIES TO THE POPE'S LETTER.


     "TO PIUS IX., BISHOP OF ROME:

     "In your encyclical letter, dated Sept. 13th, 1868, you invite
     'all Protestants' to 'embrace the opportunity' presented by the
     council summoned to meet in the city of Rome during the month of
     December of the current year, to 'return to the only one fold,'
     intending thereby, as the connection implies, the Roman Catholic
     Church. That letter has been brought to the notice of the two
     General Assemblies of the Presbyterian Church in the United States
     of America. Those assemblies represent nearly five thousand
     ministers of the gospel, and a still larger number of Christian
     congregations.

     "Believing, as we do, that it is the will of Christ that his
     church on earth should be one; and recognizing the duty of
     doing all we consistently can to promote Christian charity and
     fellowship, we deem it right to say in few words why we cannot
     comply with your invitation, or participate in the deliberations
     of the approaching council.

     "It is not because we reject any article of the Catholic faith.
     We are not heretics; we receive all the doctrines contained in
     the ancient symbol known as the Apostles' Creed; we regard as
     consistent with Scripture the doctrinal decisions of the first six
     oecumenical councils; and because of that consistency we receive
     those decisions as expressing our own faith. We believe the
     doctrines of the Trinity and Person of Christ as those doctrines
     are set forth by the Council of Nice, A.D. 325; by that of
     Chalcedon, A.D. 451; and by that of Constantinople, A.D. 680.

     "With the whole Catholic Church, therefore, we believe that
     there are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and
     the Holy Ghost; and that these three are one God, the same in
     substance, and equal in power and glory.

     "We believe that the Eternal Son of God became man by taking
     to himself a true body and a reasonable soul; and so was, and
     continues to be, both God and man, in two distinct natures and one
     person for ever. We believe that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
     is the Prophet of God, whose teachings we are bound to receive,
     and in whose promises we confide. He is the high-priest of our
     profession, whose infinitely meritorious satisfaction to divine
     justice, and whose ever-prevalent intercession is the only ground
     of our justification and acceptance before God. He is our King, to
     whom our allegiance is due, not only as his creatures, but as the
     purchase of his blood. To his authority we submit; in his care we
     trust; and to his service we and all creatures in heaven and earth
     should be devoted.

     "We believe, moreover, all those doctrines concerning sin, grace,
     and predestination, known in history as Augustinian. Those
     doctrines were sanctioned by the Council of Carthage, A.D. 416; by
     a more general council in the same place, A.D. 418; by Zosimus,
     Bishop of Rome, A.D. 418; and by the third Oecumenical Council at
     Ephesus, A.D. 481. It is impossible, therefore, that we should be
     pronounced heretical without including the whole ancient church
     in the same condemnation. We not only 'glory in the name of
     Christians, but profess the true faith of Christ, and follow the
     communion of the Catholic Church.' Still further to quote your own
     words, 'Truth must continue ever stable and not subject to any
     change.'

     "Neither are we schismatics. We believe in true 'Catholic unity.'
     We cordially recognize as members of Christ's visible church on
     earth all who profess the true religion, together with their
     children. We are not only willing, but earnestly desire, to
     maintain Christian communion with them, provided they do not
     prescribe as a condition of such communion that we should profess
     what the word of God condemns, or do what that word forbids. If
     any church prescribes unscriptural conditions of fellowship, the
     error and the fault are with such church, and not with us.

     "But, although neither heretics nor schismatics, we cannot
     accept your invitation, because we still hold 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--principles for which our fathers were, by the
     Council of Trent, representing the church over which you preside,
     excommunicated and pronounced accursed. The most important of
     those principles are the following:

     "FIRST. That the word of God, as contained in the Scriptures of
     the Old and New Testament, is the only infallible rule of faith
     and practice. The Council of Trent, however, demands that we
     receive, _pari pietatis affectu_, the teachings of tradition as
     supplementing and interpreting the written word of God. This
     we cannot do without incurring the condemnation which our Lord
     pronounced on the Pharisees when he said, 'Ye make void the word
     of God by your traditions.'

     "SECOND. The right of private judgment. When we open the
     Scriptures, we find them addressed to the people. They speak to
     us; they command us to search their sacred pages; they require
     us to believe what they teach, and to do what they enjoin; they
     hold us personally responsible for our faith and conduct. The
     promise of the inward teaching of the Spirit to guide men into the
     knowledge of the truth, is made to the people of God; not to the
     clergy exclusively; much less to any special order of the clergy
     alone. The Apostle John says to believers, 'Ye have an unction
     from the Holy One, and know all things; and the anointing which
     ye have received of him abideth with you, and ye have not need
     that any man teach you.' (1 John ii. 20 and 27.) The Apostle Paul
     commands us (the people) to pronounce accursed an apostle, or an
     angel from heaven, who teaches any thing contrary to the divinely
     authenticated word of God. (Gal. i. 8.) He makes the people the
     judges of truth and error as accountable to God only; he places
     the rule of judgment in their hands, and holds them responsible
     for their decisions. Private judgment, therefore, is not only a
     right, but a duty, from which no man can exonerate himself or be
     exonerated by others.

     "THIRD. We believe in the universal priesthood of believers; that
     is, that all men have, through Christ, access by one Spirit unto
     the Father. (Eph. ii. 18.) They need no human priest to secure
     their access to God. Every man for himself may come with boldness
     to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help in
     time of need. (Heb. iv. 16.) 'Having, therefore, boldness to enter
     into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way,
     ... and having a High-Priest over the house of God, we may all
     draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having
     our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies
     washed with pure water.' (Heb. x. 19-22.) To admit, therefore,
     the priesthood of the clergy, whose intervention is necessary to
     secure for the people the remission of sins and other benefits of
     redeeming grace, we regard as involving either the rejection of
     the priesthood of Christ, or a denial of its sufficiency.

     "FOURTH. We deny the perpetuity of the apostleship. As no man can
     be a prophet without the spirit of prophecy, so no man can be an
     apostle without the gifts of an apostle. Those gifts, as we learn
     from Scripture, are plenary knowledge of the gospel, derived by
     immediate revelation from Christ, (Gal. i. 12,) and personal
     infallibility in teaching and ruling. What are the seals of the
     apostleship, we learn from what St. Paul says to the Corinthians,
     'Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all
     patience, in signs, in wonders, in mighty deeds.' (2 Cor. xii.
     12.) Modern prelates, although they claim apostolic authority,
     do not pretend to possess the gifts on which that authority was
     founded; nor do they venture to exhibit the 'signs' by which
     the commission of the messengers of Christ was authenticated.
     We cannot, therefore, recognize them, either individually or
     collectively, as the infallible teachers and rulers of the church.

     "Much less can we acknowledge the Bishop of Rome to be Christ's
     vicar upon earth, possessing 'supreme rule.' We acknowledge our
     adorable Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to be the only head of the
     church, which is his body. We believe that although now enthroned
     at the right hand of the Majesty on high, he is still present with
     his people on earth, whom he governs by his word, providence, and
     spirit. We cannot, therefore, put any creature in his place, or
     render to a man the obedience which is due to Christ alone.

     "As the Church of Rome excommunicates all those who profess the
     principles above enumerated; as we regard these principles to be
     of vital importance, and intend to assert them more earnestly
     than ever; as God appears to have given his seal and sanction to
     these principles by making the countries where they are held the
     leaders in civilization--the most eminent for liberty, order,
     intelligence, and all forms of private and social prosperity--it
     is evident that the barrier between us and you is, at present,
     insurmountable.

     "Although this letter is not intended to be either objurgatory
     or controversial, it is known to all the world that there are
     doctrines and usages of the church over which you preside which
     Protestants believe to be not only unscriptural, but contrary
     to the faith and practice of the early church. Some of those
     doctrines and usages are the following, namely, The doctrine of
     transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass; the adoration
     of the host; the power of judicial absolution, (which places
     the salvation of the people in the hands of the priests;) the
     doctrine of the grace of orders, that is, that supernatural power
     and influence are conferred in ordination by the imposition of
     hands; the doctrine of purgatory; the worship of the Virgin Mary;
     the invocation of saints; the worship of images; the doctrine of
     reserve and of implicit faith, and the consequent withholding the
     Scriptures from the people, etc.

     "So long as the profession of such doctrines and submission
     to such usages are required, it is obvious that there is an
     impassable gulf between us and the church by which such demands
     are made.

     "While loyalty to Christ, obedience to the holy Scriptures,
     consistent respect for the early councils of the church, and the
     firm belief that pure 'religion is the foundation of all human
     society,' compel us to withdraw from fellowship with the Church of
     Rome, we, nevertheless, desire to live in charity with all men. We
     love all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. We cordially
     recognize as Christian brethren all who worship, trust, and serve
     him as their God and Saviour according to the inspired word. And
     we hope to be united in heaven with all those who unite with us on
     earth in saying, 'Unto him who loved us, and washed us from our
     sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto
     God--to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.' (Rev.
     i. 6.)

     "Signed in behalf of the two General Assemblies of the
     Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.

                    "M. W. JACOBUS, PH. H. FOWLER,

                                   "_Moderators_."

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 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.
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
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
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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 oecumenical
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 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 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




A HERO, OR A HEROINE?


CHAPTER I.

A HERO.

"You say he is handsome?"

"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?"

"Of course I would."

"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."

"My dear Margaret!"

"I know you think me uncharitable. The truth is, men exasperate me;
and then remember I am twenty-five and not engaged."

"You have no one to blame except yourself."

"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 was wondering how you would suit the doctor."

"Does he want to be suited?"

"I should think so, from his letter."

"Jessie, give it to me this moment. I must see it."

"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 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?"

"Don't be silly, Margaret, but read on."

"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 read as follows:

     "I highly approve of your wish to marry, and think I can help
     you in the matter. I have some one in my mind that comes pretty
     well up to your different requirements--at least those you have
     specified; for of course I cannot pretend to answer for the
     'great many more things' which you want, but have not mentioned.
     Moreover, this young woman is a dear friend of mine, and is
     willing to marry, if she can be satisfied. She says she will go
     to Shellbeach and stay with a relation, in order to see and to
     be seen, on condition that you will be at her disposal to a
     reasonable degree during her visit, which she will limit to six
     months, and that, at the end of that time, you will write her a
     true statement of how you stand affected toward her. On her part,
     she will promise to marry you, if by that time you both desire it.
     I may as well tell you that her name is Margaret Lester, and that
     she will stay with old Miss Spelman, with whom you are on such
     friendly terms. This whole matter, you will understand, is to rest
     between you, Miss Lester, and myself."

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 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 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,

    "Love trusts; and for ever he gives, and gives all."

"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 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."

"Why do you take the Marchioness?"

"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?"

"But why not take Lady Jane? She is much handsomer."

"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."

"How do you know she has any cats?"

"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.

     "If it were the first of April," wrote the doctor, "I should find
     no difficulty in comprehending your letter; as it is not, I am
     inclined to believe that I am being 'sold;' but I do not believe
     practical jokes are in your line, and you write apparently in good
     earnest. Therefore, if your original friend seriously recommends
     such an experiment as this, I can but acquiesce, of course. Miss
     Spelman also informs me that her niece 'is coming;' so I feel that
     any opinion I may express on the subject is superfluous. However,
     it seems to me that there should be an equality of position in
     this matter, and I will say that I agree to Miss Lester's terms,
     provided she agrees to mine. I have but one condition, and it
     is her own: that at the end of the time she appoints she will,
     simultaneously with me, that is, at a given hour, write me 'a
     true statement of how she stands affected toward me'--which
     means, of course, tell me honestly if she loves me. I have a
     right to say that I think this plan doubtful in its purpose, its
     practicability, and its probable results."

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 thinks a great deal of himself.
How I shall enjoy snubbing him!"

"You are going?"

"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:

     "DR. JAMES: I accept your condition. Six months from next Monday,
     which will be July 18th, at eleven o'clock in the evening, we will
     write our letters.

                                "MARGARET LESTER."

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."

"O mademoiselle! it is terrible," cried Cécile, with a sort of little
shriek.

"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."

"Yes, mademoiselle; you look like a fright."

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 Doctor James?" said Margaret with an inquisitive look.

"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 she
broke the silence by saying abruptly,

"Does not extreme hunger add to one's capacity for being cold?"

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?"

"At eight," she replied shortly.

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."

"I do not understand why my aunt did not send for me."

"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,

"Welcome, my dearest niece, a thousand times!"

"Thank you, aunt; I am almost perished! How pleasant the fire looks!"

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 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.

"No matter now, aunt, I'm safely here."

"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!"

"I was not alone with him."

"But I did not know that; and, O dear me! how did you all get here?"

"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
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,

"You see a good deal of Doctor James, don't you, aunt?"

"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."

"What sort of a girl was the sister?"

"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."

Miss Spelman shook her head, and Margaret continued,

"But where does Lucy live, and where does the family come from
originally?"

"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; why,
he attends all the poor people, for miles around, for nothing!"

"But then what does he live on?"

"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."

"I hope he enjoys it."

"He says he does; but I think the life is too hard for him."

"And does he intend to live here indefinitely?"

"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."

"Don't you think his wishes ought to be hers?"

"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 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 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.

    Always your loving
                                         MARGARET.

    SHELLBEACH, Dec. 21.


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."

"I have a call to make near here, and will come back for you."

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.

"Will you be warm enough?" asked the doctor, surveying her.

"I have my cloak besides," said Margaret, displaying a very thick and
heavy mantle, of every color of the rainbow.

As they drove off, Doctor James remarked,

"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, does she not? She is so perfectly
refined and lady-like."

Margaret glanced at him quickly and answered,

"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."

"Does not Miss Edgar care for dress?"

"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,

"Did Miss Edgar show you that letter?"

"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."

Margaret's voice sounded remorseful, and the doctor softened.

"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 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."

"Were you in earnest when you said getting up early was heroism?"

"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."

"There is coasting about here, I hope?"

"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.

"What do you think it is?" she asked.

"I can't imagine what you should want from that shop, but the shape
is very much like a clock."

"You are right; it is an alarm-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 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."

Dr. James seemed much entertained by this description, and Margaret
added,

"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.

The following is a letter which Dr. James wrote to his friend Philip:

     "You ask me to tell you about Jessie's friend, who has come to
     stay with my old crony, Miss Spelman, and I see that you are
     curious to know my sentiments regarding her. I also suspect, from
     the tone of your remarks, that you think it would be a very good
     thing for a poor doctor like me, etc., etc. That this coincides
     with Miss Selina's course of reasoning on this matter, I am pretty
     certain; for before Miss Lester came she was continually praising
     her to me, and now I can see that every opportunity is improved
     to bring us together. Would you believe it, Philip?--when the
     young lady arrived, Miss Spelman manoeuvred so as to give me a
     _tête-à-tête_ drive with her from the station to the house! She
     was disappointed in her plans, as there were both a maid and a dog
     to be packed into my chaise besides Miss Lester. But what seems so
     plain to other people's eyes, I cannot say is so to mine. You want
     a description of her, and add a hope that I have found the ideal
     of our college days. I laugh as I recall that ideal, and think
     of the reality before my mind's eye. Picture to yourself, then,
     a tall young woman--five feet eight inches, I should say--large
     in proportion, and a decided brunette. She is called handsome,
     as you know, but I do not agree to this; though if the adjective
     were _showy_, I should have no objection to make. Her style is
     rather loud, or, as she herself says, '_prononcé_.' She has a pair
     of very brown, inquisitive eyes, which see, I am sure, much more
     than they have any right to see. She has a good deal of color, but
     not the changing blush we used to talk of. Her dress? Of course I
     cannot give you a correct description of that; but the first time
     I saw her in the house, she wore very deep purple with ornaments
     of gold, a gold band on her hair, and long, barbarous eardrops.
     The next time, in the morning, she was dressed (I am not joking)
     in bright scarlet, worked all over with black; and she went to
     drive with me in a round fur cap that would have been appropriate
     to a young swell in New York, but hardly to a lady. But all these
     objections are, after all, minor, when I come to the great one;
     my dear fellow, she is an heiress! Now, you know very well my mind
     on this subject; and I know you will think of my favorite verse,

        'Where I want of riches find,
        Think what with them I would do,
        That without them dare to woo.'

     "But in this case I feel sure that I should not be a disinterested
     lover. I could never forget her money. By the way, I suspect that
     she did not intend me to know she was wealthy; Jessie's note gave
     the impression that she had, as I wished, enough to secure her own
     comfort; but Miss Spelman took care to let me understand how very
     well her niece was provided with 'earthly goods.'

     "I see I am allowing myself to find fault with Miss Lester and
     criticise her, a thing I have resolved I will not do. I will
     therefore suppress a good deal more of disapproval I was going to
     write, and see what I can tell you in her praise. In the first
     place, I think she is good-tempered; I have seen her thoughtful
     of her maid, and good-natured when she was both cold and hungry.
     She is entertaining, intelligent, and companionable. I enjoyed her
     society when I drove her over to Sealing, and she is wonderfully
     fresh and simple in her tastes for a _blase_ New Yorker, surfeited
     with gayeties as she has been. She is a good musician, though she
     does not sing. Her hands are her best feature: large and shapely
     and well kept; they are also warm, smooth, and womanly.

     "Where is my dream, Philip? Would not your gentle Jessie more
     nearly fulfil it? You will say that dreams 'go by contraries;'
     true perhaps of those we frame at night, unconsciously; but does
     that wise maxim hold good of day-dreams and castles in the air
     also? Now, you have chosen well and wisely for yourself, and
     my best wish is that you and your loving helpmate may live to
     enjoy all the bliss you hope for; but I must wait until my wife
     manifests herself, as I am sure she will, unmistakably, and for
     that I am content to wait until I am an old man."

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 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 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."

"Is it not a hard life for her?"

"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."

"And he accepted it?"

"Why, certainly he did, dear Margaret; no man would wish to marry a
woman with such a father."

Margaret drummed with her foot on the fender, but made no reply.

"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."

"Well, I suppose she would not object to my going to see her."

"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?"

    TO BE CONTINUED.




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:

     "There can be little doubt that the acceptance or rejection
     of Darwinism has, in the vast majority of cases, been wholly
     determined by the monistic or dualistic attitude of the mind.
     And this explains, what would otherwise be inexplicable, the
     surprising fervor and facility with which men, wholly incompetent
     to appreciate the evidence for or against natural selection, have
     adopted or 'refuted' it."

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[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.




HAYDN'S FIRST LESSONS IN MUSIC AND LOVE.


I.

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 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.

"Is that your boy, fiddler?" asked the music-teacher.

"Yes, sir, that is my little Seperl."[58]

"The little fellow seems to have a taste for music."

"Why not? I shall take him as soon as I can to one who can teach him."

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 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?"

"In the garden," said the boy; "shall I call him?"

"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?"

"Yes, I am Seperl."

"Well, then, go."

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.

FOOTNOTE:

[58] The diminutive for "Joseph," in the dialect of the country.


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.

"And what does young Haydn now?" asked the baron.

"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 be!" cried the Baron von Swieten,
as he rose from his seat. "Am I ready?"

"One moment, your honor--only the string around the hair-bag."

"It is very good as it is. Now begone!"

Puderlein vanished.

"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?"

"Ask no questions; but sit still."

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 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 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.

"I can, your honor. It is Pepi Haydn."

"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 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."

"Surely not, Master Puderlein. But listen to me."

"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."

"And marry that girl?"

"Marry her?" repeated Joseph, astonished. "Marry her? I--your
daughter?"

"Who else? Have you not told her she was handsome? that you liked
her?"

"I have indeed; but--"

"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 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.




FROM THE REVUE DU MONDE CATHOLIQUE.

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 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 men, whom I
must inspect without delay."

"Immediately, mon cher commandant--"

"Still another thing, Monsieur l'Aumonier--"

"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."

"Hurrah for the captain!" shouted the hundred and fifty.

"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 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."

"All right, father. I await your rendering an account of them."

The monk stepped firmly up to the mutineers and endeavored to speak
with them.

"We want the upper floor! We'll have the top floor!" was the only
answer he received.

"But, boys, the upper floor is no better than the lower."

"We want the upper! The Kerry lads are not made to be stowed away on
the ground-floor."

"For mercy's sake, listen to reason, or else the captain--"

"Down wid Dublin! Kerry for ever!"

The monk returned, pale as death, to explain the cause of the tumult.

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--"

"Ah! captain, remember their inexperience of discipline."

"That is the very reason why I wish to be severe with the leaders."

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."

"Hurrah for the pope! hurrah for the chaplain! hurrah for the
captain!"

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 remembered one of these
touching ballads, and cannot resist giving it here:

    "Rich and rare were the gems she wore,
    And a bright gold ring on her wand she bore;
    But oh! her beauty was far beyond
    Her sparkling gems or snow-white wand.

    "'Lady, dost thou not fear to stray,
    So lone and lovely, through this bleak way?
    Are Erin's sons so good or so cold
    As not to be tempted by woman or gold?'

    "'Sir knight! I feel not the least alarm;
    No son of Erin will offer me harm;
    For though they love woman and golden store,
    Sir knight, they love honor and virtue more!'

    "On she went, and her maiden smile
    In safety lighted her round the green isle,
    And blest for ever is she who relied
    On Erin's honor and Erin's pride."

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:

     "We have no means of deciding whether or not Ben was foolish
     enough to look upon his trade as degrading; that it was
     distasteful we know, from the fact that he soon exchanged the
     trowel for the sword, and we hear no more of his dealing with
     bricks, if we may except his questionable habit of carrying too
     many in his hat."

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
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:

     "They seem written with his fist."

Of Chapman he says:

     "Often we feel his meaning rather than apprehend it. The imagery
     has the indefiniteness of distant objects seen by moonlight."

And of Spenser:

     "In truth, the combining, coördinating, centralizing, fusing
     imagination of the highest order of genius--an imagination
     competent to seize and hold such a complex design as our poet
     contemplated, and to flash in brief and burning words details over
     which his description lovingly lingers--this was a power denied to
     Spenser. _He has auroral lights in profusion, but no lightning._"

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 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:

     "Loyalty is patriotism simplified."

     "I like people to be saints; but I want them to be first, and
     superlatively, honest men."

     "The root of sanctity is sanity. A man must be healthy before he
     can be holy. We bathe first, and then perfume."

     "We forgive too little--forget too much."

     "Good is slow; it climbs. Evil is swift; it descends. Why should
     we marvel that it makes great progress in a short time?"

     "We must labor unceasingly to render our piety reasonable, and our
     reason pious."

     "Years do not make sages; they only make old men."

     "Antiquity is a species of aristocracy with which it is not easy
     to be on visiting terms."

     "The choicest of the public are not always the public choice."

     "The inventory of my faith for this lower world is soon made out.
     I believe in Him who made it."

     "I allow the Catholic only one right; that, namely, of being a
     better man than others."

     "Only those faults which we encounter in ourselves are
     insufferable to us in others."

     "A vast number of attachments subsist on the common hatred of a
     third person."

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:

     "To have ideas is to gather flowers. To think is to weave them
     into garlands."

     "Our vanity is the constant enemy of our dignity."

     "The chains which cramp us most are those which weigh on us least."

     "O widow's mite! why hast thou not, in human balances, the immense
     weight which celestial pity accords thee?"

     "Travel is the frivolous part of serious lives, and the serious
     part of frivolous ones."

     "We are always looking into the future, but we see only the past."

     "We are often prophets to others only because we are our own
     historians."

     "We are early struck by bold conceptions and brilliant thoughts;
     later, we learn to appreciate natural grace and the charm of
     simplicity. In early youth, we are hardly sensible of any but very
     lively emotions. All that is not dazzling appears dull; all that
     is not affecting, cold. Conspicuous beauties overshadow those
     which must be sought; and the mind, in its haste to enjoy, demands
     facile pleasures. Ripe age inspires us with other thoughts. We
     retrace our steps; taste critically what, before, we devoured;
     study, and make discoveries; and the ray of light, decomposed
     under our hands, yields a thousand shades for one color."

     "Slavery, for example. Christianity has no need to ordain its
     abolition--it inspires it; and that is enough for the man who
     would be governed by the spirit of Christ. It is the imperfect
     reception of Christianity in the soul which allows slavery to
     continue; and truth has made no progress unless human bondage
     has been rendered impossible by its advance. To combat slavery
     solely from a philanthropic point of view, is too often to lose
     one's labor, for lust and cupidity mount guard over the system;
     but to encourage, develop, and stimulate the moral element most
     antagonistic to human bondage is to accelerate the chances of
     emancipation, and to multiply them a hundred-fold."

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 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 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_:

    "Silence and Darkness, solemn sisters, twins
    From ancient Night, who nursed the tender thought
    To reason, and on reason built resolve--
    That column of true majesty in man--
    Assist me; I will thank you in the grave."

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.




THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. X., No. 57.--DECEMBER, 1869.




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 oecumenical
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. You no
longer affect to pity her feebleness, but you exclaim against her
audacity. Undoubtedly, the convocation of an oecumenical 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 oecumenical 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 oecumenical 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 oecumenical 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 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 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 Oecumenical
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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[59] Preached at St. Paul's church, New York, Sunday, October 17th,
1869, previous to his departure for Europe to attend the Oecumenical
Council.




TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF CONRAD VON BOLANDEN.

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.

A servant came weeping to meet him.

"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.

"When did the child die?"

"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 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.

When he returned home, he wrote in his diary:

     "May 21st.--Surprising and wonderful!

     "When my uncle's little Agnes died, my aunt took ill, and my
     uncle's condition bordered on insanity; tortured by excruciating
     anguish, he murmured against providence. He accused God of
     cruelty and injustice, because he took from him a child he loved
     so much. He lost all self-control, and had not strength to bear
     the misfortune with resignation. And now the Siegwart family
     are in the same circumstances; the father is much broken down,
     much afflicted, but very resigned; his trembling lips betray the
     affliction that presses on his heart, but they make no complaints
     against providence.

     "'I thank you for your sympathy,' said he to me. 'The trial is
     painful; but God knows what he does. The Lord gave me the dear
     child; the Lord has taken her away. His holy will be done.' So
     spoke Siegwart. While he said this, a perceptible pain changed
     his manly countenance, and he lay like a quivering victim on the
     altar of the Lord. Siegwart's wife, a beautiful woman, with calm,
     mild eyes, wept inwardly. Her mother's heart bled from a thousand
     wounds; but she showed the same self-control and resignation as
     Siegwart did, to the will of the Most High.

     "And Angela? I do not understand her at all. She speaks of Eliza
     as of one sleeping, or of one who has gone to a place where she
     is happy. But sometimes a spasm twitches her features; then her
     eyes rest on the crucifix that stands amid the lighted candles.
     The contemplation of the crucifix seems to afford her strength and
     vigor. This is a mystery to me. I cannot conceive the mysterious
     power of that carved figure.

     "Misery does not depress these people; it ennobles them. I have
     never seen the like. When I compare their conduct with that of
     those I have known, I confess that the Siegwart family puts my
     acquaintance as well as myself to shame.

     "What gives these people this strength, this calm, this
     resignation? Religion, perhaps. Then religion is infinitely more
     than a mere conception, a mere external rule of faith.

     "I am beginning to suspect that between heaven and earth there
     exists, for those who live for heaven, a warm, living union.
     It appears to me that Providence does not, indeed, exempt the
     faithful from the common lot of earthly affliction; but he gives
     them strength which transcends the power of human nature.

     "I have undertaken the task of putting Angela to the test, and
     what do I find? Admiration for her--shame for myself; and also the
     certainty that my views of women must be restricted."

He had scarcely written down these thoughts, when he bit impatiently
the pen between his teeth.

     "We must not be hasty in our judgments," he wrote further.
     "Perhaps it is my ignorance of the depth of the human heart that
     causes me to consider in so favorable a light the occurrences in
     the Siegwart family.

     "Perhaps it is a kind of stupidity of mind, an unrefined
     feeling, a frivolous perception of fatality, that gives these
     people this quiet and resignation. My judgment shall not be made
     up. Angela may conceal beneath the loveliness of her nature
     characteristics and failings which may justify my opinion of the
     sex, notwithstanding."

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
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?"

She looked at him somewhat astonished.

"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."

These words sounded enigmatically to Richard.

"I do not comprehend the meaning of your words, Fräulein Angela."

"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 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?"

"The stupid monks!" said Richard.

"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 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."

"Do you not wish to have the 'murder-chamber' appear in Sybel's
periodical?"

"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."

The professor shrugged his shoulders.

"Gustavus Adolphus may wander for ever about Germany as the 'pious
hero,' if for no other purpose than to annoy the ultramontanes."

Frank thought of the Siegwart family.

"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."

"But she does not wear crinoline," said Frank.

"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?"

"Why not? It is eight o'clock. At this hour I am accustomed to make
my visit."

"Let us go, by all means," urged Lutz.

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!"

"His head," said Lutz, "would be an expressive symbol for the
evangelist Luke."

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.

"If he charges, slip quickly to one side."

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 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.

Frank arose.

"You are not hurt?" asked Lutz with concern.

"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 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."

They went into the house.

"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!"

Frank said nothing.

"And you did not even thank her!" said Lutz vehemently. "Your conduct
was more than ungallant. I do not understand you."

"Nothing without reason," said Frank.

"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,

"You shall know all, and then judge if my offensive conduct is not
pardonable."

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 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."

"And what then?" said the professor.

"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 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."

Hamm smiled.

"You believe then, Herr Siegwart, that divine providence, or rather
God, has aimed that blow at you?"

"Yes; so I believe."

"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."

The official shook his head.

"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 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.

The proprietor smiled.

"Permit me to ask a question, Herr Assessor. Why does the state make
laws?"

"To preserve order."

"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."

"You believe, then, in the future destruction of the earth?" asked
Hamm.

"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 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 wrote in his diary:

     "Even the preaching tone becomes her admirably. Morality and
     religion flow from her lips as from a pure fountain that vivifies
     her soul."

As yet he had not surrendered to Angela.

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."

"What trouble have you?"

"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 clasp with a latch, and
how he broke it, he only knows."

"It is all right," replied Frank. "I believe you are not to blame."

"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."

"The pardon is granted, on condition that you guard the steer better."

"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.

Siegwart shook hands with the visitor.

"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."

The invitation was accepted.

"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 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
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.

"Do you have this edifying reading every Sunday?" asked Richard.

"Regularly," answered the proprietor. "It is an old custom of our
family, and I find it has such good 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."

She smiled and blushed a little at this praise.

"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."

Richard smiled and blushed slightly.

"You no doubt have heard this honorable title applied to me, Herr
Frank?"

"Yes, I have heard of it."

"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."

"My father never spoke of it, and I am eager to know the unfortunate
cause."

"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 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?"

"Yes, my son; but not longer. Be back by supper-time."

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."

Angela, smiling, looked after her retiring parents and then at
Richard.

"I must keep you, Herr Frank. How shall I begin?"

"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."

She took out her knitting.

"This is Sunday, Miss Angela!"

"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 the contrary, the poor give me
more than I give them; for giving is to every one more pleasant than
receiving."

"To every one, Fräulein?"

"To every one who can give without denying herself."

"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.

"Has Herr von Hamm departed?" asked Richard.

"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.

"Perhaps he wanted the Peter-pence collection," said Frank, smiling.

"No. Herr von Hamm wanted nothing more or less than to marry my
daughter!"

Frank was astonished. Although he long since saw through Hamm's
designs, he did not expect so sudden and hasty a step.

"And in what manner did he demand her?"

"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."

"Herr von Hamm does not think little of himself," said Richard drily.

"How did the man ever come to ask my daughter? He and Angela! What
opposites!"

"Which, of course, you made clear to him."

"I reminded the gentleman that identity of moral and religious
principles alone could render matrimonial 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."

When Richard came home, he wrote in his diary:

     "June 4.--Unconditional surrender. What I supposed only to exist
     in the ideal world is realized in the daughter of an ultramontane.
     Angela, compared to our crinolines, our flirts, our insipid
     coquettes--how brilliant the light, how deep the shadow!

     "My visits to that family have no longer a purpose. I feel they
     must be discontinued for the sake of my peace. I dare not dream of
     a happiness of which I am unworthy. But my future life will feel
     painfully the want of a happiness the possibility of which I did
     not dream. This is a punishment for presuming to penetrate the
     pure, glorious character of the Angel of Salingen."

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.

    TO BE CONTINUED.




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 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 oecumenical 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, 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 oecumenical. 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 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 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 _sacrifice_ was made or instituted in the night in which
     he was betrayed; and, in the system of Romanism, this sacrifice
     is every thing. I do not see that the cross is necessary; for
     the stress falls upon the sacrifice of the altar, and the
     worshipper is directed to that sacrifice as vested with objective
     propitiatory virtue."

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 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 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 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 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:

     "As searchers after truth, we must acknowledge some standard and
     appeal to some recognized authority. Without this we must follow
     either our own mental bias, or else become the prey of every man
     who shall be bold enough to declare that he has and holds the
     truth of God. I fear very much we have lost sight of this need
     of appeal to a recognized standard of truth and duty. We are, in
     this new age, building apparently on the sand; or it would seem
     that what we had supposed to be rock, on which many were building,
     has become pulverized, and as the sands shift under the power of
     the stream, multitudes believe to-day what they did not believe
     yesterday, and to-morrow they may believe nothing at all.

     "I touch here a serious evil which is doing more harm to our
     Protestantism than any direct assaults of Romanism. We seem to be
     under some spell. Our spiritual ideas are resolving themselves
     into a series of dissolving views; and all because the mind
     has not the proper nutriment to impart health and vigor to our
     religious feelings and convictions. Upon every account it becomes
     us to recognize the fact that in religion we must have an actual,
     definite standard of appeal. This we must find either in sacred
     Scripture or in tradition, or in both combined. If we accept the
     tradition of the church as law, we might as well abandon the
     contest with Rome, because the traditions gradually, as they
     gather force and headway in time, revolve around the papacy. The
     traditions in the long run have made the papacy; they are its
     chief support to-day. To accept them bodily, in mass, is to appeal
     to actual Christendom--to the historic church--as to a standard
     and law, and not as to a _witness_ of truth. It is to acknowledge
     the identity of Christian truth and the Christian Church visible.
     This brings us again to Romanism, or this is the postulate of the
     Roman Catholic apologist.

     "If to-day I ask _what is truth?_ and if I allow every church or
     sect to answer, I am stunned by a confused and unintelligible
     noise. If I allow one church to answer, and only one, in the midst
     of the crowd of churches, by my procedure I submit myself, in
     advance, to that one church. But if I allow none to answer for
     me, and I recognize, nevertheless, a divine historic revelation,
     I am compelled to go to sacred Scripture in order to learn what
     God requires me to believe. Shall we take the sacred Scripture
     fashioned by Italian workmen? or by Greek, or by Anglican, or by
     German, or by American workmen? No; but the text in its purity
     and simplicity. Here we must take our stand whensoever we come to
     the question of what it is necessary to believe in order to be a
     Christian; whensoever, in a word, loyalty and the obedience of
     faith are required or even considered.

     "I do not mean, however, to deny and repudiate utterly the
     traditional principle. Christianity is historic. As a social
     interest, as an organized spiritual fact, it comes to us from
     the past. We cannot dismiss this past of Christian life and
     history, any more than we can dismiss the past of our civil life
     and institutions. The new generation, as it succeeds the old,
     does not build again from the foundations. A. U. C. represented a
     fact to the Roman citizen which he never could forget. We measure
     time in the world's history by the letters A. D. We date our
     public documents in the United States from the declaration of
     our independence. We do not create the state anew; we administer
     it as an existing fact. So in religion. Many things, many words,
     institutions, and the like have come to us from the past, which
     we accept and use as a matter of course. We baptize infants, we
     observe the first day of the week, we use the imposition of hands
     in ordination and confirmation, we employ the words sacrament,
     trinity, incarnation, etc., in theology. This is an illustration
     of the recognition of a traditional principle which is inevitable.
     We do not, therefore, maintain that we must have a sure and
     certain warrant of Scripture for all that we may observe and do
     as Christians, because it is impossible to be confined to the
     written word under all circumstances, and during all ages. Much is
     left the conscience and judgment of individuals and of particular
     churches; but when we come to faith, to what it is necessary to
     believe as Christians, we must adhere firmly to the Bible, and
     never for a moment allow any one to impose upon the conscience any
     thing, as requisite to a true reception of the Gospel, which is
     not contained therein, nor may be proved thereby.

     "This, then, is our standard of appeal. Logically and morally
     it is the right and only standard of appeal in the discussion,
     especially of the claims and teachings of any and of every church
     whatsoever. If this be not the tribunal to which we must go, then
     we must have recourse to the dictum of a church, and then, as we
     have seen, we allow a church to be its own standard of appeal.
     Consequently, when Rome proclaims her infallibility, we must allow
     her claim. When the Church of England disowns infallibility, we
     may or may not accept her disclaimer. If we do _not_ accept it,
     then we prove her to be _fallible_, to be mistaken articulately
     in respect of her own quality and prerogative. We are reduced to
     absurdity.

     "We are forced back to sacred Scripture, and in the interests of
     Christian truth we are compelled to take our stand here. And I
     declare in all completeness of conviction, that with the Bible in
     our hands we are triumphant against the doctrine of the supremacy
     of the pope, and of the sacrifice of the mass. This is to be
     triumphant against Romanism."

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] 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 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 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 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[60] Romans xvi. 20.

[61] _Liber Librorum._ Note D, p. 228.




HAYDN'S STRUGGLE AND TRIUMPH.


I.

"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!"

"What can I do?" said the weary, desponding man.

"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.

"How now, Haydn! what is the matter, my boy?"

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.

"And when, my dear Porpora, did you return to Vienna?" he asked.

"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.

Porpora shook his head, and was silent for a few moments. At length
he said:

"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, if you like," answered the composer more cheerfully.

"To-morrow then; and you must work to-night. I will go and order you
a physician; he will come to-morrow 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?"

The count referred to one of his friends. The answer was, "Joseph
Haydn."

"I have heard his quartettos; he is no common artist. Is he in your
service, count?"

"He has been employed by me."

"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?"

"This is he--Joseph Haydn," replied the friend who introduced him.

"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?"

"I have been very unfortunate, your highness--"

"Well, you shall have no reason to complain in my service. My
secretary shall fix your appointments; and name whatever else you
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.

"The farewell?"

"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 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 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."

"Not here," answered Haydn, and pointed upward.

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.


    If men but knew--a wise priest gravely said,
    His Roman doctor's cap upon his head--
    If men but knew what they had won by prayer
    Aside from all their worldly thrift and care,
    They might be tempted, in a literal sense,
    "Always to pray," and with just toil dispense.




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 has not, I think, been sufficiently observed that the theory
     of Mr. Darwin does not address itself to the same question, (the
     introduction of new forms of life,) and does not even profess to
     trace the origin of new forms to any definite law. His theory
     gives an explanation, not of the processes by which new forms
     first appear, but only of the processes by which, when they have
     appeared, they acquire a preference over others, and thus become
     established in the world. A new species is, indeed, according to
     his theory, as well as with the older theories of development,
     simply an unusual birth. The bond of connection between allied
     specific and generic forms is, in his view, simply the bond of
     inheritance. But Mr. Darwin does not pretend to have discovered
     any law or rule according to which new forms have been born from
     old forms. He does not hold that outward conditions, however
     changed, are sufficient to account for them. Still less does he
     connect them with the effort or aspirations of any organisms after
     new faculties and powers. He frankly confesses that 'our ignorance
     of the laws of variation is profound;' and says that in speaking
     of them as due to chance, he means only 'to acknowledge plainly
     our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation.' Again he
     says, 'I believe in no law of necessary development.'" (P. 228.)

On page 254, the Duke of Argyll continues:

     "It will be seen, then, that the principle of Natural Selection
     has no bearing whatever on the origin of species, but only on
     the preservation and distribution of species when they have
     arisen. I have already pointed out that Mr. Darwin does not
     always keep this distinction clearly in view; because he speaks
     of natural selection 'producing' organs or 'adapting' them. It
     cannot be too often repeated that natural selection can produce
     nothing whatever except the conservation or preservation of some
     variation otherwise originated. The _true_ origin of species
     does not consist in the adjustments which help varieties to live
     and prevail; but in those previous adjustments which cause those
     varieties to be born at all. Now, what are these? Can they be
     traced or even guessed at? Mr. Darwin has a whole chapter on the
     laws of variation, and it is here, if anywhere, that we look for
     any suggestion as to the physical causes which account for the
     origin as distinguished from the preservation of the species.
     He candidly admits that his doctrine of natural selection takes
     cognizance of variations only after they have arisen, and that
     it regards variations as purely accidental in their origin, or,
     in other words, as due to chance. This, of course, he adds, is
     a supposition wholly incorrect, and only serves 'to indicate
     plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation.'
     Accordingly, the laws of variation which he proceeds to indicate
     are merely certain observed facts in respect to variation, and do
     not at all come under the category of laws, in that higher sense
     in which the word law indicates a discovered method under which
     natural forces are made to work."

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:

     "In his latest work, Mr. Darwin inclines to adopt the mechanist
     theory, so far as the cause of variations is concerned. 'We will
     now consider,' he says, 'the general arguments, which appear to
     me to have great weight, in favor of the view that variations
     are directly or indirectly caused by the conditions of life to
     which each being, and more especially its ancestors, have been
     exposed.... These several considerations alone render it probable
     that variation of every kind is directly or indirectly caused by
     changed conditions of life. Or, to put the case under another
     point of view; if it were possible to expose all the individuals
     of a species to absolutely uniform conditions, there would be no
     variability.' When variations of all kinds and degrees, that is,
     all the gradual differentiations by which the vast multitude of
     existing species has been evolved out of the primordial form or
     forms, are thus attributed solely to the accumulative action of
     the conditions of life, without any recognition of a concurrent
     cause in that constant self-adaptation by organisms for which the
     conditions cannot account, it would seem fairly inferrible that
     the mechanist theory is supposed to explain the evolution of the
     species, if not of individual organisms."

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; 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 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 oesophagus; 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 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 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 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 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 oesophagus, 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 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 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. 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.

Ears in other animals have been reduced to mere vestiges.

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 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 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.

"My dear aunt, what a forlorn room! And do you see the dust?"

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 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.

"This does not look to me like a shop," said Margaret.

"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.

"And who is John?" she asked.

"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.

On their drive homeward, Margaret said,

"Why did you punch me, Aunt Selina? Was I misbehaving?"

"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."

"But then he must have money."

"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."

"The second time you admonished me was when he spoke of his boy."

Miss Spelman laughed contemptuously.

"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
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 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."

He looked at her earnestly and continued,

"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.

Dr. James was the first to speak.

"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."

"Why, I have done more harm than good."

"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 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."

"What! to that fat man with the red face, who laughs so loud?"

"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."

"Think of your own life, Dr. James."

"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."

"What do you mean?"

"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.

"Why not the minister here, or at Sealing?"

"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.

"Was he agreeable, my dear? Did he tell you about himself?"

"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 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:

"A double sequence, eight; pairs royal, fourteen; that takes me out,
my dear."

"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?"

"To the McNallys', this afternoon, I suppose."

"Very wisely guessed; but where have I been this morning?"

"Really, Miss Lester, you tax my curiosity too far; I am not good at
guessing."

"I have been to see Father Barry."

"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 --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 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 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 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."

"A bridge! Then it is meant to be crossed. Come, let us cross it."

"Certainly, if you wish. I have been foolish enough to cross it
before, and am willing to do so again."

"Why was it foolish?"

"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.

"Do you see what a lovely green that water is, just below us?"

Two steps more and her stick dropped, she staggered, and put her
hands to her head.

"I am falling!"

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 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,

"How can you call it a trifle? It might have cost me my life."

"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. 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 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.

    TO BE CONTINUED.




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 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.

On the west side of the park we have a very different topography.

     "From Fifty-ninth to One Hundred and Fourth street, the Eighth
     avenue is nearly the central ridge of the Island. Its average
     height is twenty to thirty feet above the Fifth avenue. At
     Fifty-ninth street, the elevation of the Eighth avenue above the
     tide-level is seventy-six feet four inches, increasing to ninety
     feet at Seventieth street, reaching one hundred and twenty feet
     at Eighty-fifth street and one hundred and twenty-two feet at
     Ninety-second street; descending, it is eighty-nine feet at One
     Hundred and Fourth street, and gradually falls off to the general
     low level of Harlem plains.

     "At One Hundred and Sixth street, the ridge extends
     north-westwardly, leaving the Eighth avenue, running nearly
     along the Ninth avenue to One Hundred and Twentieth street; then
     bending westwardly, and forming the southern hill-side of the
     Manhattan valley to the Hudson River. The new grade of the Eighth
     avenue already established, by keeping up elevations and filling
     depressions, will gradually ascend to and then descend from its
     summit at Ninety-second street, and make the finest possible grade
     for any avenue on the island."[64]

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.

     "There is a high table-land between the Eighth and Ninth avenue
     ridge on the east, and the Hudson River bank on the west. The
     surface of this table-land is broken; it has high rocky ridges and
     mounds in central locations reaching these elevations. At

       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   "

     "Between these elevations, which (except a central ridge or
     terrace between the Ninth and Tenth avenues from Seventy-ninth to
     Ninety-fourth street) are not generally continuous, are numerous
     hollows and valleys, the lowest having an elevation of fifty to
     sixty feet above the tide-level. The average elevation of this
     plateau is as much as seventy-five feet; in the more northerly
     portion, as much as one hundred feet. The surface drainage from
     this plateau finds its way to the river, through the valleys
     above indicated, at Sixty-seventh, Eightieth, and Ninety-sixth
     streets."[65]

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 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:

     "When the mercury in the barometer rises, the smoke and injurious
     emanations are quickly dispelled in the air. When the mercury
     lowers, we see the smoke and noxious vapors remain in the
     apartments and near the surface of the earth. Now, every one knows
     that, of all winds, that from the east causes the mercury in the
     barometer to rise the highest, and that which lowers it most is
     from the west. When the latter blows, it carries with it all the
     deleterious gases it meets in its course from the west. The
     result is, that the inhabitants of the eastern parts of a city
     not only have their own smoke and miasmas, but also those of the
     western parts brought by the west wind. When, on the contrary,
     the east wind blows, it purifies the air by causing the injurious
     emanations to rise, so that they cannot be thrown back upon the
     west. It is evident, then, that the inhabitants of the western
     parts receive pure air from whatever part of the horizon it comes.
     We will add, that the west wind is most prevalent, and the west
     end receives it all fresh from the country.

     "From the foregoing facts, M. Junod lays down the following
     directions: First, persons who are free to choose, especially
     those of delicate health, should reside in the western part of a
     city. Secondly, for the same reason, all the establishments that
     send forth vapors or injurious gases should be in the eastern
     part. Thirdly and finally, in erecting a house in the city, and
     even in the country, the kitchen should be on the eastern side, as
     well as all the out-houses from which unhealthy emanations might
     spread into the apartments."[66]

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. This carbon is rapidly absorbed by plants, and nurtures
them; and in return they liberate the oxygen which is absolutely
necessary for our being.

     "Plants absorb their food entirely in a liquid or gaseous form,
     by imbibition, according to the law of _endosmosis_, through the
     walls of the cells that form the surface; as when liquids of
     unequal density are separated by a permeable membrane, the lighter
     liquid or the weaker solution will flow into the stronger with a
     force proportionate to the difference in density; but at the same
     time a smaller portion of the denser liquid will flow out into the
     weaker, which process is called _exosmosis_. The fluid absorbed by
     the roots is thus carried from cell to cell, rising principally in
     the wood, and is attracted to the leaves, or other parts of the
     plants exposed to the sun and light, by the exhalation which takes
     place from them, and the consequent inspiration of the sap. Here
     the crude sap is exposed to sun and light, and assimilated and
     converted into organizable matter."[67]

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.

     "In the houses on the west side of Main street, north of Court,
     more deaths took place than in any other portion of the city;
     and more occurred, in proportion to the number of inmates, in
     every other house than in the one in front of which were trees,
     and, what is still more convincing, the natural predisposition
     to cholera existed to a greater extent among the inmates of this
     house, than in any other. Another and more striking instance
     occurred in the two houses nearest the 'old saw-mill.' The house
     adjoining the mill was surrounded by trees, and not one of the
     occupants suffered from cholera; while, in the other house, which
     was exposed, and stood upon the bank of the Mississippi, three
     deaths took place; and what is more to the point, the family which
     escaped were new-comers, and suffering from _nostalgia_, and the
     effects of a change of climate, which act as a predisposing and
     exciting cause of the disease; while those who lived in the other
     house were old residents, and had been thoroughly acclimated. Dr.
     Buckler notices similar facts in his account of the cholera, as it
     appeared in the Baltimore Alms-house, in 1849."[68]

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 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 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
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 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.

     "Sewerage has been advantageously deodorized and applied to
     agricultural uses in localities in England, where it could not be
     conveniently discharged into the sea, by the process of Mr. W.
     Higgs, of Westminster, which consists in collecting it in large
     tanks and admitting with it a stream of lime-water, the effect of
     which is to cause the precipitation of the organic matter with
     the phosphates, urates, sulphates, etc., and the expulsion of any
     free ammonia. Through the cover of the tanks the ammonia and all
     gaseous matters are conveyed by a pipe into a convoluted chamber,
     where they are fixed by various chemical reagents, and preserved.
     The tanks, when full, are allowed to remain undisturbed for an
     hour, when the liquids are drawn off clear and without odor. The
     pulpy sediments are then collected and dried, and rendered fit
     for the market. The expense of the process was rated at £1 per
     ton, and the manure thus prepared was sold at Cardiff for £3 per
     ton."[70]

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 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 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 visiting the ruins of Pompeii and other ancient cities, I
     have observed, as well as M. Junod, that this custom dates from
     the highest antiquity. In those cities, as is seen at Paris in
     our day, the largest cemeteries are found in the eastern parts,
     and generally none in the western. M. Junod, examining the reason
     of so general a fact, thinks it is connected with _atmospheric
     pressure_.

     "M. Elie de Beaumont has since mentioned some facts which tend
     to prove the constancy and generality of the rule laid down by
     M. Junod. He noticed in most of the large cities this tendency
     of the wealthy class to move to the same side--generally, the
     western--unless hindered by certain local obstacles. Turin, Liège,
     and Caen are examples of this. M. Moquin-Tandon has observed the
     same thing at Montpellier and Toulouse."

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. 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 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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._




THE BASILICA OF ST. PETER.

TRANSLATED FROM LES ETUDES RELIGIEUSES, HISTORIQUES ET LITTERAIRES.


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 Oecumenical 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 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 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 oecumenical 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," 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 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 oecumenical 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, 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 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, 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 COELORUM.
"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 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:

    _Fabri polita malleo,
    Hanc saxa molem construunt,
    Aptisque juncta nexibus,
    Locantur in fastigio._

     "This vast edifice, even to the pediment, is composed of stones
     polished by the mallet of the workman and skilfully joined
     together."

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 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 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
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 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:

     "I, Boniface, an unworthy bishop, have written with my own hand
     this paper containing my oath of fidelity, and, in placing it on
     the sacred body of St. Peter, I promise to keep this vow before
     God, who is my witness and my judge."...

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, 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:

    "Toute diversité vient ici se confondre;
    Le Chinois parle au Turc surpris de lui répondre,
    Gambier par l'Indoustan se laisse interroger,
    Le nègre ouvre l'oreille aux doux chants de la Grèce,
    Et dans ce choeur de voix, qui s'aggrandit sans cesse,
    Dieu prépare une place au Bédouin d'Alger.

    Rome! c'est dans ton sein que leur accord s'opère!
    Dans ce chaos de mots qui divise la terre,
    L'harmonie apparît des qu'on prie avec toi;
    Ton hymne universel est le concert des âmes,
    Le Dieu de l'unité, que seule tu proclames,
    En nos accents divers entend la même foi.

    Sur tout rivage ou peut aborder une voile,
    Tes apôtres s'en vont, guidés par ton étoile,
    Des peoples renouer l'antique parenté;
    La vérité refait ce qu'a détruit le crime,
    Et Rome, de Babel antipode sublime,
    Du genre humain épars reconstruit l'unité."

     All races are here mingled. The Chinaman converses with the
     surprised Turk, and Gambia is questioned by Hindostan. The negro
     listens to the sweet chants of Greece, and in this choir of
     voices, constantly increasing, Providence has prepared a place for
     the Bedouin of Algiers.

     Rome, it is in thy bosom that this union is effected! In the
     confusion of tongues which divides the nations, harmony is
     restored by union with thee. All souls join in thy universal hymn.
     The God of unity, whom thou alone proclaimest, hears the same
     accent of faith in our different languages.

     Thy apostles, guided by thy star, go forth to every shore where
     a vessel can land, to bind all nations to their venerable head.
     Truth repairs the devastations of sin, and Rome, sublime antipode
     of Babel, restores the unity of the scattered human race.

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 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 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 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 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 oecumenical 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:

    "Dall' altezza del Pincio contemplando
    Il disceso all' occaso Astro primiero,
    Ammiravam siccome egli, toccando
    La divina Basilica di Piero,
    Arricchisca di luce i suoi tesori
    E con celeste amor si fermi a cingerla
    Di rubini, zaffiri et fulgid' ori;
    Io quindi ammutolia.
    Ma intesi una più fervida, più pia
    Alma esclamar: 'Son quelle
    Le due dell' universo opre più belle
    Onde materia sublimata adornisi:
    Dio per l'uom quella Lampa in ciel ponea,
    Al suo Signor l'uomo quel tempio ergea.'"

    "Contemplating afar from Pincio's height
    The monarch orb slow sinking in the west,
    Enrapt we stood to see him touch the shrine
    Of Peter, the Basilica divine--
    Enriching all its treasures with his light:
    And how his love its grandeur did invest
    With robe of rubies, sapphires, and bright gold.
    And I withal grew voiceless at the sight;
    But one, a soul of purer beat than mine,
    Made utterance at my side, 'In these behold
    Two works, of all which matter can unfold
    Of ornament, creation's loveliest.
    God set for man that lamp in yonder sky:
    Man to his Lord this temple raised on high.'"

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_.

ROME, April 19, 1869.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




BEECHER'S NORWOOD.[83]

     [Our delay in noticing this book by a distinguished author till
     the reading public have probably forgotten it, has been purely
     unintentional. We placed it, soon after its publication, in the
     hands of one of our collaborateurs, a genuine New Englander by
     birth, education, and association, to prepare a notice or a review
     of it, as he might judge proper. He read it, no inconsiderable
     feat, but was taken very ill, and lay for many months with faint
     hopes of recovery. During his illness and for some time after his
     recovery the book was forgotten. He now, at this late day, sends
     us his judgment, and we hasten to pay our respects to the author,
     and our debt to the publishers.--ED. CATH. WORLD.]


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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




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
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 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:

     "Would any one contend that the rollicking tunes of many a modern
     Kyrie express the meaning of the supplicatory ejaculation, _Lord,
     have mercy on us_?... It may fairly be questioned whether any
     one unaccustomed to our florid church-music, upon hearing one of
     the jigs which render the sweet prayer, _O Lord, give us peace,
     dona nobis pacem_, in some of our modern masses, would be able
     to tell, not only that it aptly describes the words, but even
     that it expresses any religious feeling at all. That in numerous
     instances, modern church music, instead of being descriptive
     of the holy words to which it is joined, rather expresses the
     sensuous languor of the stage, or the airy joy of the ball-room,
     could not well be disputed.

     "Indeed, it is exceedingly remarkable that what Haydn, Mozart,
     Weber, and others would have been ashamed to do for the stage,
     they have, seemingly without a qualm of conscience, done for the
     house of God. They knew that they must have been accused of folly,
     had they in one of their operatic works given to earnestness the
     tones of jesting, to prayer those of mirth; but this is precisely
     what they have done for the services of the Church. The most
     touching supplications of the liturgy are often clothed by them
     in strains of mockery.... It is not implied here that there are
     not in the works of the great modern composers beautiful passages
     full of genuine religious feeling; but will any impartial judge
     contend that there are many masses in which there is no blundering
     at all between the words and the music?... Nay, is it not true
     that certain masses by those composers, if separated from the
     sacred words and applied to some libretto of the late Eugène
     Scribe, would only gain in naturalness and meaning by the change?
     What, then, it may be asked, is there no other music for the
     Almighty than that of the theatre?... It can hardly be disputed
     that some of our own churches have too often, in their musical
     efforts, exhibited scenes bordering very closely upon downright
     desecration of the house of God.... There is no need to describe
     the sad feelings which arise in the heart of a Catholic who finds
     the adorable sacrifice of the Mass turned into a Sunday morning
     amusement.

     "Some people, who allow that the music of some of our churches
     is thoroughly profane, still justify its use on the plea that
     it allures strangers, who may be favorably impressed with other
     and more religious portions of the service. But this is a poor
     justification of practices which annoy the real congregation, and
     hinder devotion. No doubt a priest should seek to draw strangers
     to his church, but all means are not equally legitimate toward
     attaining this laudable end. Besides, the writer though entirely
     unable to form any judgment which he could commend to the belief
     of others, much doubts whether any priest could trace more than
     a few conversions, if any at all, not to his church music, which
     may partly be very ecclesiastical, but to his florid or orchestral
     music, as to their origin."

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:

     "Haydn's Mass No. 16 was the great selection. The _Kyrie_ was
     coldly given, the alto and bass, in the _soli_ parts, being
     hardly strung up to tune. In the _Gloria_, however, both chorus
     and soloists warmed to their work, and several of the finest
     choral passages were given with great power and precision. The
     _Credo_ was not taken up firmly, but every praise is due to the
     manner in which the choir acquitted themselves at the finish,
     and in the exquisite _Et Incarnatus_ and succeeding quartette
     the four principal voices blended beautifully together, and the
     alto (Miss ----) told well in the delivery of the leading and
     interwoven subject, the _Sub Pontio_. The most critical would have
     been satisfied with the evenness with which the principal voices
     were balanced in this and the subsequent _soli_ passages. The
     _Sanctus_ and _Hosanna_ were very fairly given, the _Benedictus_
     being perhaps the most telling effort of all. The opening of the
     _Agnus_ was not delivered sufficiently _staccato_, as the chorus
     did not hang well together. The _Dona Nobis_ made up for all, and
     throughout the principals acquitted themselves in unexceptionable
     style, being well supported at the finish by the chorus."

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 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 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
leading soprano; the lines (--) show where the text is broken up by
instrumental interludes:

     "Glory to God in the highest----in the highest----to
     God glory----to God glory----to God glory, glory to
     God in the highest, to God in the highest, to God in
     the highest, to God in the highest----to God in the
     highest----and on earth peace----peace----peace to men,
     and on earth peace----peace----peace to men----of good,
     good----will----will----of good, good will, of good, good, good
     will----of good, good will, of good, good, good will----of good
     will----of good will----of good will----We praise, we bless----we
     adore----we glorify----we give thanks to thee for thy great
     glory, for thy great glory, for thy great glory, for thy great
     glory----thy glory----thy glory----O Lord God, God, heavenly King,
     God the Father Almighty----O God the Son----only begotten----Jesus
     Christ; O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father----Son of
     the Father----Son of the Father----Son of the Father----O Lord
     God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father----O Lord God, Lamb of God,
     Son of the Father, Son, Son of the Father----who takest, who
     takest away the sins of the world, have mercy, have mercy, have
     mercy on us----who takest away, who takest away the sins of the
     world, receive our prayer, our prayer, our prayer, our prayer,
     our prayer----who sittest, who sittest at the right hand of the
     Father, have mercy, have mercy on us----have mercy, have mercy
     on us----For thou only art holy, thou only art the Lord----only
     art the highest, Jesus Christ----For thou only art holy----thou
     only, thou only art the highest----thou only, thou only art the
     highest, Jesus Christ----Jesus Christ----For thou only----thou
     only art holy, thou only art highest----Jesus Christ, Jesus
     Christ----For thou only, thou only art highest, Jesus Christ,
     Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ----For thou only art holy, thou only
     art the Lord----thou only art highest, Jesus Christ----For thou
     only art holy, thou only, only art holy, thou only, only, art the
     Lord.----For thou only art holy----thou only art the Lord----thou
     only art holy, thou only art the Lord, only, art highest. For thou
     only, thou only art holy----thou art the Lord----only art highest,
     thou only art highest, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ----For thou
     only----thou only art highest----Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ----For
     thou only, thou only art highest----Jesus Christ----Jesus, Jesus
     Christ----Jesus, Jesus Christ----Jesus----Christ----With the Holy
     Ghost----in the glory of God the Father. Amen, amen. With the
     Holy Ghost, in the glory of God the Father. Amen, amen----Amen,
     amen----With the Holy Ghost, in the glory of God the Father, Amen,
     in the glory of God the Father----Amen----Amen----Amen----Amen,
     amen, amen, amen.----With the Holy Ghost----in the glory of God
     the Father. Amen. With the Holy Ghost, in the glory of God the
     Father, Amen, amen, amen. With the Holy Ghost, in the glory of God
     the Father, Amen, amen, amen, amen.----With the Holy Ghost----With
     the Holy Ghost, with the Holy Ghost, with the Holy Ghost, in the
     glory of God the Father, of God the Father, Amen, amen, amen,
     amen, amen, amen----With the Holy Ghost, in the glory of God the
     Father, Amen, amen, amen----in the glory of God the Father, Amen,
     amen----of God the Father, Amen; in the glory of God the Father,
     Amen; in the glory of God the Father, Amen----of God the Father,
     Amen. With the Holy Ghost, in the glory of God the Father, Amen,
     amen----of God the Father, Amen----of God the Father, Amen, amen,
     amen, amen, amen."

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:"

     "Thus we have a 'Credo' beginning with the four phrases, _Credo in
     unum Deum_--_Genitum non factum_--_Qui propter nos_--and _Et ex
     Patre natum_--all sung simultaneously by the four voices. Again,
     we have a 'Gloria' beginning with the four phrases, _Gratias
     agimus_ (for the soprano)--_Domine Fili_ (alto)--_Domine Deus_
     (tenor)--_Et in terra pax_ (bass)--the whole being dispatched in
     two short pages of music!

     "As for instances of garblings by the omission of words and
     clauses in much of the popular mass music, they are too numerous
     to be mentioned.

     "One of the most grotesquely absurd settings, perhaps, is that
     of the 'Alma Redemptoris' of Webbe. The words are divided into
     three parts, the first ending with 'cadenti,' the second with
     'genitorem,' the same music being used for each, _and a repeat
     and musical interlude coming between_. The consequence is that the
     adjective '_cadenti_' is entirely cut off from its substantive
     '_populo_;' and the whole, as sung, is of course sheer nonsense.
     The reason is plain. Webbe found an air which, by a threefold
     repetition, could be applied to the words of the antiphon, and
     for this every thing, even to the grammar of the piece, was
     sacrificed. No doubt this is the history of many of the absurd
     adaptations we meet with.

     "Nothing can go beyond the examples we have quoted, except,
     perhaps, the instance of a composer of the 'light Italian school,'
     who by way of producing an original and striking musical effect
     in the 'Credo,' made one voice sing 'Genitum non factum,' and
     another respond 'Factum non genitum!' It will be said that these
     are extreme cases, and that many of the pieces are not likely to
     be used in our churches. Be it so; still they show what it was
     the fashion of certain composers to provide for the use of the
     Church, and what is apt to come of the theory that it does not
     matter what is sung by the choir, provided the people do not hear
     it. But whether heard or not, the rules of the Church (and we see
     how strict they are on these points) remain the same. Besides, do
     we sing merely to satisfy the ears of an audience? Rather, is not
     this the true principle--_In conspectu Angelorum psallam tibi,
     Domine_?"

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 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,

     "This conservatism, if we may so call it, of the Church, is not
     confined to plain chant. The same may be said of the language and
     the style of her offices, the dresses of her clergy and religious
     orders, and many of her rites, ceremonies, and customs. The chant
     is, therefore, no stranger than any part of the Church system; and
     that system being what it is, the antique character of the music
     seems in every way suitable."

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 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:

     "That all may be done according to prescribed order, and that the
     solemn rites of the Church be preserved in their integrity, we
     admonish pastors of churches to earnestly labor in removing those
     abuses which, in our country, have crept into the church chant.
     Let them, therefore, provide that the music be subservient to the
     holy Sacrifice of the Mass and other offices, and not the divine
     offices to the music. Let them also bear in mind that, according
     to the ritual of the Church, it is not lawful to sing hymns in the
     vernacular language at High Mass nor at solemn Vespers."[85]

The wishes of the fathers of the Council in regard to the Gregorian
chant may be seen in the decree _De Vesperis_:

     "Moreover, we judge it to be most desirable that the rudiments of
     the Gregorian chant be taught and practised in parochial schools,
     and thus, the number of those who can chant the psalms well
     increasing more and more, gradually the greater part, at least,
     of the people, according to the usage of the primitive church yet
     preserved in many places, may be able to join with the sacred
     ministers and choir in singing Vespers and other similar offices;
     which will be the source of edification to all, according to that
     saying of St. Paul, 'Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns
     and spiritual canticles.'"[86]

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" 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, "_Foeminæ 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 Oecumenical 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 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




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, 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 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, 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:

     "The first act of the first assembly of New York convened by
     Colonel Dongan was the 'Charter of Liberty,' passed October 30th,
     1683, which, among other things, declares that 'no person or
     persons which profess faith in God by Jesus Christ shall, at any
     time, be any ways molested, punished, disquieted, or called in
     question for any difference of opinion, or matter of religious
     concernment, who do not actually disturb the civil peace of the
     province; but that all and every such person or persons may, from
     time to time and at all times, freely have, and fully enjoy,
     his or their judgments or consciences in matters of religion,
     throughout all the province--they behaving themselves peaceably
     and quietly, and not using this liberty to licentiousness, nor to
     the civil injury or outward disturbance of others.' By another
     enactment, all denominations then in the province were secured in
     their liberty and discipline, and the like privilege was granted
     to others who might come into it."

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.

Bishop Bayley thus describes the negro plot:

     "The year 1741 was made memorable by one of those popular
     excitements which shows that whole communities as well as
     individuals are sometimes liable to lose their wits. Upon a rumor
     of a plot made by the negroes to burn the city and massacre the
     inhabitants, the whole body of the people were carried away by a
     sudden excitement. The lieutenant-governor offered a reward of
     one hundred pounds and full pardon to any free white person who
     would make known the author or authors of certain attempts to
     set fire to houses in various parts of the city. A servant-girl,
     named Mary Burton, living with a man named Hughson, who had been
     previously condemned for receiving stolen goods, came forward to
     claim the reward, declaring that certain negroes who frequented
     her master's house (he kept a small tavern) had made a plot; one
     of the accused, named Cuffee, she declared had said that 'a great
     many people had too much, and others too little,' and that such
     an unequal state of things should not continue long.[89] The
     pretended disclosures increased the excitement, and the lawyers
     of the city, to the number of seven, with the attorney-general,
     were called together to take council in regard to the matter. They
     certainly manifested very little coolness or judgment, and may be
     said to have led on the unfair and unjust trials which followed.
     The accused had no counsel allowed them; the attorney-general and
     the whole bar were on the side of the prosecution; the evidence
     was loose and inconclusive, and came without exception from
     the mouths of interested persons of bad character. Yet, upon
     such evidence as this, four white persons were hanged, eleven
     negroes were burned at the stake, eighteen hanged, and fifty
     were transported and sold, principally in the West Indies.[90]
     Among those hung was the unfortunate Mr. John Ury. Whether he
     was really a Catholic priest or not, he was certainly condemned
     and hung as such. We have no other evidence upon the matter than
     Horsmanden's account, and from this it does not clearly appear
     whether he was really a priest or a nonjuring clergyman of the
     Church of England.[91] The most conclusive fact in favor of
     his being a priest is founded upon the circumstance that, when
     arraigned as a priest, tried as a priest, and condemned as a
     priest, he never formally denied it, nor exhibited any evidence of
     his being ordained in the Church of England.[92]

     "The persons most to blame were the judges and lawyers. The
     speech of the attorney-general on the trial of Ury, the sentence
     given by Horsmanden upon certain of the negroes, and that by the
     chief-justice on others, are so harsh, cruel, and abusive that we
     could hardly believe it possible that they had uttered them, if
     they were not published with the authority of Horsmanden himself.
     It is evident, however, that their 'holy horror of Popery' had as
     much to do with the whole matter as their fear of insurrection
     among the blacks."

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. 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
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:

     "In 1778, in the month of February, a large French ship was taken
     by the British, near the Chesapeake, and sent for condemnation
     into New York, at that time still in possession of the English.
     Among her officers was a priest, of the name of De la Motte,
     of the order of St. Augustine, who was chaplain of the vessel.
     Being permitted to go at large in the city, he was solicited by
     his countrymen, and by those of his own faith, to celebrate mass.
     Being advised of the existence of a prohibitory law, he applied to
     the commanding officer for permission, which was refused; but M.
     de la Motte, not knowing the language very well, mistook what was
     intended for a refusal as a permission, and accordingly celebrated
     mass. For this he was arrested, and kept in close confinement
     until exchanged. This was under Governor Tryon's administration."

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 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, then, Catholicity took root and grew under the protecting work
of men who

    "Builded better than they knew,"

how it has spread and done its work of struggle and triumph under the
federal government, will be the matter of another article.

FOOTNOTES:

[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._




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 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 Oecumenical 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
Oecumenical 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 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 oecumenical 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 Oecumenique 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[93] _Du Droit Criminel des Peuples Anciens et Modernes._

       *       *       *       *       *

The _Lettre sur le Futur Concile Oecumenique_, 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 Oecumenique, 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 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 Oecumenique_, 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.

Second. Moral truths concerning civil society.

Third. Truths concerning marriage.

Fourth. Truths concerning the authority and the infallibility of
popes.

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:

     "MON CHER PRINCE: Voici ma lettre à l'impératrice; je vous prie
     d'y ajouter ou retrancher ce que vous voudrez, mais il faut savoir
     qu'on a à faire avec une femme qui ne se soucie que d'elle et plus
     de Russie que moi; ainsi il faut la chatouiller. Sa vanité est son
     idole; un bonheur enragé et l'hommage outré et à l'envie de toute
     l'Europe l'a gâtée. Il faut déjà hurler avec les loups: pourvu
     que le bien se fasse, il importe peu de la forme sous laquelle on
     l'obtient."[95]

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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."

       *       *       *       *       *

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.

FOOTNOTE:

[96] _Lettera sulla cogniziani che i Vèneziani avevano dell'
Abissinia, etc. etc._ 1869. 8vo.

       *       *       *       *       *

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.

FOOTNOTE:

[97] _Niccolo Macchiavelli ed il suo centenario, con una sua versione
storica non mai publicata._

       *       *       *       *       *

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.

FOOTNOTE:

[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.

       *       *       *       *       *

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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[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.

       *       *       *       *       *

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 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.

       *       *       *       *       *

     NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

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 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.

       *       *       *       *       *

     LANGE'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.

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.

       *       *       *       *       *

     MINOR CHORDS. By Sophia May Eckley. London: Bell & Daldy. 1869.

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:

     "I must build a church for a poor and sparse congregation, and I
     propose to get a portion of the necessary funds from the sale of
     my book.... I do not rush into print because I judge that these,
     my literary wares, of themselves and on their own merits, have any
     valid claim to acceptance; nor because I suppose that I have any
     thing novel or striking in point either of expression or matter to
     offer. Far from me be such presumptuous thoughts! In sending forth
     this little volume I do but, as it were, don my beggar's garb, and
     take my stand in public places, which any beggar may do without
     offence. It is by this view of the case alone that I justify my
     cause, which else would surely require an ampler apology. This
     consideration alone led me to address a circular to the reverend
     clergy which, I doubt not, was by many regarded as the height of
     impudence. Now, however, after this explanation, I hope I shall
     be pardoned my intrusion, and aided in a good work, in spite of
     my awkward presumption. I will say this, however, that I was
     encouraged to try this means of collecting money for my church by
     two considerations. The first was, the well-known generosity of
     the clergy as patrons of books; and then the novelty of the thing,
     which could hardly fail to get me some subscribers."

       *       *       *       *       *

     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 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.


     NOTE.

     THE LIFE OF FATHER FABER.--We have received from Mr. Murphy a
     copy of this work, reviewed in our last number, printed on tinted
     paper, and very handsomely bound. It is one of the most tastefully
     and beautifully executed books which we have ever seen from the
     press of any American publisher, and we take occasion with the
     greatest pleasure to make this acknowledgment to Mr. Murphy of
     the favor he has conferred on us and the Catholic public in
     reproducing an edition of Father Bowden's excellent biography
     which is worthy of the gifted and beloved subject. The portrait of
     Father Faber is very fine, and adds much to the value of the book.




THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. X., No. 58.--JANUARY, 1870.




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 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 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.

     "Protestantism," he says, "differs essentially from all the
     heresies that have previously rent the bosom of the church.
     It is not a particular heresy, nor a union of heresies; it is
     simply a frame for the reception of errors. Vinet, one of the
     most distinguished Protestants of the day, softens, indeed, this
     expression, and says that 'Protestantism is less a religion than
     the place of a religion.' He would have been strictly exact,
     if he had said Protestantism is less a religion than the place
     of any negation of religion under a religious garb. It is a
     circle capable of indefinite extension, of being enlarged as
     occasion requires, so as to include any and every error within
     its circumference. A new error rises on the horizon, the circle
     extends further and takes it in. Its power of extension is limited
     only by its last denial, and is therefore practically illimitable.
     What it asserted in the beginning it was able to deny a century
     later; what it maintained a century ago it can reject now; and
     what it holds to-day it may discard to-morrow. It may deny
     indefinitely, and still be Protestantism. It can modify, change,
     metamorphose, turn and return itself without losing any thing
     of its identity. Grub, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly, it is
     transformed, but dies not." (Pp. 1, 2.)

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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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,

     "How could it be otherwise with the French clergy, so learned, so
     pious, so vigilant, and so zealous? They are preparing themselves
     for the struggle; they proceed to the battle with the energy
     of faith; they lack not ability; but they _lack a knowledge of
     contemporary Protestantism_. If they would struggle with success,
     if they would revive the glorious days of the Catholic apologetic
     of the seventeenth century, or rather, if they would create a new
     apologetic in harmony with the wants and errors of the times,
     they must study Protestantism in its latest evolutions and in its
     actual physiognomy." (Pp. 178, 179.)

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 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 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 oecumenical 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.

     "Catholics," he says, "relying on authority, full of confidence in
     its unfailing promises, are quite ready to think that it is enough
     for them to preserve the faith in their hearts, and to perform
     its works, while the defence and preservation of the church
     is the care of Providence. This sentiment, very commendable,
     no doubt, is yet, when not joined to a masculine energy which
     counts no sacrifices, if needed, in sustaining the work of God,
     only an enervating sloth. Catholics--may I say it?--need the
     activity of individual forces, not, indeed, of that excessive
     individualism which, puffed up by pride, drives the Protestant
     over the dark waves of doubt, but that Christian individualism
     which, accepting by conviction the compass of authority, knows
     how to employ all its personal forces in its service. This
     individualism, Protestants reproach us with lacking; let us prove
     to them the contrary, and show that individual action is quite
     as powerful and far more productive, when it is well balanced,
     measured, and subjected to wise rules, as when it wanders without
     law or discipline, and acts only under the varying impulses of
     free inquiry. It is, moreover, necessary to enter into this way;
     for the time has come for Catholics to understand that they can
     henceforth nowhere on earth count on any support but from God and
     themselves." (Pp. 175, 176.)

The author adds that Catholics, not only nominal but even many
practical Catholics, lack the individual energy that

     "springs from profound faith, the faith which goes to the marrow,
     and enters even the centre of the soul, and radiates from it
     in earnest convictions over all religious practices, over the
     entire life, giving to them their true sense and to it the right
     direction and end. Protestants accuse our church of materialism in
     her worship....

     "The charge is false when applied to the church and her worship,
     but is only too true when applied to her members. Hence the
     painful inconsistencies in their conduct. They are Catholics in
     the church, Catholics in essential religious practices, sometimes
     even in works of supererogation, but are elsewhere and in other
     matters hardly Christians. The _petit devotion_ is sterile; manly,
     robust piety alone is productive, and it is it alone that we must
     labor to diffuse. We should seek to make it enter into souls and
     become fused with their very substance. Catholic worship is the
     most admirable vehicle of the spirit of life; but souls must
     comprehend it, and be instructed to draw the spirit of life from
     it." (Pp. 176, 177.)

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 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
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.

FOOTNOTE:

[100] _De l'Avenir du Protestantisme et du Catholicisme._ Par M.
l'Abbé Martin. Paris: Tobra et Haton. 1869. 8vo. pp. 608.




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."

Aunt Caddy's eyes were bright with tears of pity.

"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."

The boy was silent for a moment; then replied with touching
seriousness,

"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.

But Arthur's voice aroused her from her reverie.

"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."

"My darling, my darling, these morbid fancies grieve me sadly."

"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 Uncle Charles," said Arthur eagerly.
"Did I ever see him?"

"When you were a little baby, perhaps. He has been in America ten
years."

"Did _you_ ever see him, Aunt Caddy?"

"Very often, dear," was the low reply.

"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.

"And would he come to Hurston if I should die?"

"I scarcely think so, dear; he has few pleasant memories connected
with it."

"Then you would stay, dear auntie?"

"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."

"How old is my uncle, Aunt Caddy?"

"Thirty-one, I think, Arthur."

"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."

"But why did he go away? Why do we not hear from him?"

"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,
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, 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 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."

"Arthur, my dear, this is nonsense!" began Lady Nesbitt nervously.

"Grandmamma, I must go," was the firm reply.

"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 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; 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.


I.

    There came an hour, and words were uttered then
        That live to-day and echo evermore.
    ONE spoke them to a knot of simple men,
        Who simply took the simple sense they bore:
    A promise--such as never tongue or pen
        Of sage oracular had made before;
    And a design no _wisdom_ could have planned,
    Save His who holds the nations in his hand.

II.

    Had less than God so spoken, he had been
        The wildest of all dreamers. What! to make
    A poor rude fisher, who had never seen
        A gloom upon his Galilæan lake
    But feared the menace of its boding mien,
        A rock no surge should fret, no tempest shake--
    The baffled ages foaming at its feet
    The broken malice of their ceaseless beat!

III.

    God saith; and who shall gainsay? Devils first;
        Then fools, their ready dupes. To these, forsooth,
    'Tis nobler to resist, and dare the worst,
        Than own the gentle majesty of truth--
    As came the church to free a world accurst,
        And heal its heartache, and renew its youth:
    A spring to thaw the universal frost--
    Fire-dowered from her natal Pentecost.

IV.

    But principle is something to defy,
        That may not swerve to give a falsehood breath;
    Or call masked anarchy its stout ally,
        And offer God an honorable death.
    And so along the ages rolls a cry--
        The din of onset at the gates of faith:
    'Tis Arius now, now Luther heads the fray;
    Or bristles up the hydra of to-day.

V.

    And patient Rome sits victor over all:
        Her strength in seeming feebleness increased.
    She smiles to hear "the storm against the wall,"
        And lavished names of harlot and of beast,
    And prophets raving of her speedy fall:
        While Satan counts his failures with at least
    The joy that such solidity of rock
    Draws none the fewer to the fatal shock.

VI.

    Press on, close in, ye gallant ranks of hell!
        Concentrating the might ye think to bow.
    Stood ever Holy Church, do records tell,
        More one, more conscious, more herself than now?
    When was the chair of Peter loved so well?
        Wore ever pontiff a serener brow?
    He calls: earth hears; her utmost realms resound;
    And lo, a thousand mitres gird him round!

VII.

    And they who trembled, and had been content
        To scorn with quiet mirth a voice so weak,
    Are forced, they find, to yield their panic vent.
        "Another Trent!" rings out the indignant shriek;
    "This nineteenth century, another Trent!"
        'Tis not so sweet to have the Master speak,
    When passion, weary of his peaceful sway,
    No longer deems it freedom to obey.

VIII.

    But speak he will--the blessed words of life;
        How welcome to the soul that thirsts to know,
    Or views alarmed the too successful strife
        Of earth with heaven--truth's ebb and error's flow.
    We murmur through, our tears, "Decay is rife!
        The sound, the old, the sacred--all will go!"
    Fond fear! Whatever faithless thrones expect,
    _Christ's_ kingdom stands: he garners his elect.

IX.

    The serpent writhes--his last convulsions these--
        Beneath the foot that tramples his crushed head.
    O Lady! worker of thy Son's decrees,
        Thy Rome, thy Pius trust thee. Deign to shed
    Thy gracious light, lone star of troubled seas,
        At whose sweet ray the ancient darkness fled!
    The serpent writhes beneath thee: deign to show
    He is indeed the Woman's vanquished foe!

X.

    This day we hymn thy victory; and claim
        Thy prayer omnipotent. Nor let it rise
    For us alone, that boast to love thy name,
        But those, unhappy, that have dared despise!
    Who came for them, by thee it was He came,
        Through thee must break unclouded to their eyes.
    Ah Mother's Heart! How long, then, wilt thou wait
    Till _all_ thy children sing "IMMACULATE"?

                                          B. D. H.




VANSLEB, THE ORIENTAL SCHOLAR AND TRAVELLER.

    "Le contraire des bruits qui courent des affaires et des hommes est
        souvent la vérité.
    La justice qui nous est quelquefois refusée par nos contemporains,
        la postérité sait nous la rendre."[101]

                                       LA BRUYERE.


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 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 duke fully entered into all these views with the most sanguine
hopes.

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, 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. 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.


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 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 Phoenicia. 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 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 manoeuvre, 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
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:

    "V irtuti
     A lemannicæ
     N imiæ
     S acer
     L udovicus
     E xhibebit
     B ona
     I mmensa
     O ptimaque."[106]

"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,
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. 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.

Even England was more generous, at least in appreciation of his merit.

On Vansleb's return from Egypt, Dr. Bernard, of the University of
Oxford, composed in his honor the following lines:

    "Deseris Ægyptum spoliis majoribus auctus,
    Quam gens Hebræum sub duce Mose tulit!"[107]

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.

2. _Relazione Dello Stato Presente Dell' Egitto._ In Parigi, MDCLXXI.

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.


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, under the title, _Vansleb, savant, orientaliste,
et voyageur. Sa Vie, sa Disgrace, ses Oeuvres. 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,

     "Perceiving that I have good reason to expect from your excellency
     neither munificence nor liberality, nor even such an honorable
     recompense as I had every just reason to look for after such long
     and important labors, I at least do not anticipate from your
     excellency's justice, since you insist upon a rigorous settlement,
     a refusal to pay the balance due me for expenditures in the
     service of his majesty, and which I have not claimed until now,
     for the reason that I was warranted in presuming upon such a fair
     remuneration as would cover it. In as few words as possible, then,
     my lord, and with rigorous exactitude, there is due me--"[110]

And here follows the recapitulation already presented.

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF CONRAD VON BOLANDEN.

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."

Angela started.

"Ill? May God forbid!"

"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.

"Would it not be well, father, to send and inquire after his health?"

"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. 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."

"Very praiseworthy," said the father.

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.

       *       *       *       *       *

Herr Frank had returned from the city, and was roughly received by
the doctor.

"Have you spoken to your son?" said he sharply.

"No! I have just alighted from the carriage," answered Frank in
astonishment.

The doctor walked up and down the room, and Frank saw his face
growing darker.

"You disturb me, good friend. How is Richard?"

"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."

"You knew that! Why did you leave him the miserable trash?"

"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.

"How are you, Richard?"

"Very well, as you see."

"You are industrious. What book is this?"

"A rare book, father--a remarkable 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."

"You certainly do not believe such absurdities?"

"Believe? I believe nothing at all. Faith ends where proof begins."

Herr Frank read the open page.

"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."

"You must read the whole book, father, and then those others there."

"But, Richard, you must not read books that rob man of all dignity."

"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."

Greatly afflicted, Herr Frank returned to the doctor.

"Great God! in what a condition is my poor Richard!" said the
oppressed father.

"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 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."

"I will do immediately what must be done," said Herr Frank as he
hastily rose.

"What will you do?"

"Take from my son those execrable books."

"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.

"All to the fire!" commanded Herr Frank.

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 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.

"Perhaps your father took offence at your visits to us?"

"Oh! no. No; I alone am to blame."

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.

"Do you know the cause of this?"

"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 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."

Frank became nervous.

"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?"

Frank hemmed and was silent.

"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, 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?"

"That would be manifest folly."

"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."

Richard remained silent, and they passed into the house.

Angela and her mother looked with astonishment and sympathy on their
friend.

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."

"I have often observed Hector's dreams," said Siegwart coolly.

Frank continued,

"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."

Angela started at these words. Her mother shook her head.

"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."

"How will you explain it?" said Richard excitedly.

"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 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 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.

For a moment Frank saw and heard nothing.

"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.

"O fraulein! how I thank you."

She appeared most lovely in his eyes. He suddenly turned toward her
father.

"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."

FOOTNOTE:

[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.

       *       *       *       *       *

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."

"Ah! in love?" said Herr Frank.

"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
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."

"But if he loves her so deeply, sir?"

"Be still; you know nothing about it. Has he lain down?"

"Yes; or, at least, he is quiet."

"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."

    TO BE CONTINUED.




TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL DOCTRINES OF ST. AUGUSTINE COMPARED WITH THE
IDEOLOGY OF THE MODERN SCHOOLS.

     "St. Thomas treats the peripatetic philosophy in such a
     manner that Plato himself would have willingly accepted it as
     Platonic."--_Gerdil_, Ed. Rom. t. ix. p. 58.

BY THE REV. FATHER CARLO VERCELLONE, BARNABITE.


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 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 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 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 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 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.

     "No one having even a slight knowledge of these things is ignorant
     that there are those philosophers called Platonists, from
     their master, Plato."(1) "Perhaps those who enjoy the greatest
     celebrity as having the most clearly understood, and the most
     closely followed Plato, who is with justice esteemed to be far
     superior to the other philosophers of the Gentiles, hold a similar
     opinion concerning God, namely, that in him is found the cause of
     subsistence, and the reason of intelligence, and the regulating
     principle of life."(2) "If, therefore, Plato has said that the
     wise man is one who is an imitator, a knower, and a lover of the
     one true and supremely good God, by a participation with whom he
     is blessed, what need is there of discussing the rest?"(3) "This
     is, therefore, the reason why we prefer these to the others;
     because while other philosophers have employed their talents and
     efforts in searching out the causes of things, and what is the
     method of learning and living, these, having the knowledge of
     God, have found where is the cause of the constitution of the
     universe, and the light of perceptible truth, and the fountain
     whence we may drink felicity."(4) "All those philosophers who
     have held these opinions concerning the true and supreme God,
     that he is the framer of those things which are created, and
     the light of those things which are knowable, and the good of
     those things which ought to be done, whether they are more
     properly called Platonists, Ionics, or Italics, on account of
     Pythagoras, we prefer to the others, and regard them as nearer to
     ourselves."(5)[113]

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 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 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 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.

     "Now, those authors whom we with justice prefer to all others,"
     (says St. Augustine, speaking of the Platonists, Pythagoreans, and
     others of the best stamp,) "have distinguished those things which
     are perceived by the mind from those which are attained by the
     sense; not taking from the senses those things for which they have
     a capacity, or granting to them what is beyond their capacity.
     But the light of minds by which all things are learned [see here
     clearly the second cycle] they affirmed to be God himself, by whom
     all things were made."

_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 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 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.

     "Plato, that noble philosopher, ... related that a certain boy who
     was asked some questions, I know not precisely what, in geometry,
     answered like a person extremely skilled in that branch of study;
     whence he attempted to prove that the souls of men have lived here
     before they were in their present bodies.... But we ought rather
     to believe that the nature of the intellectual mind was so created
     that, being naturally coördinated by the Creator to intelligible
     things, it sees them in a certain incorporeal light _sui generis_,
     in the same way that the bodily eye sees those things which are
     circumjacent to it in this corporeal light for which it has been
     created with a natural capacity and congruity."[120]

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:

     "Behold how much I have wandered about in my memory seeking thee,
     O Lord! and I have not found thee outside of it; ... for where
     I have found the truth, there I have found my God, the truth
     itself."[122]

Moreover, in those most stupendous books of the _Literal
Interpretation of Genesis_, he undertakes to distinguish 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:

     "Even in that kind of things seen by intellectual vision,
     (_intellectualium visorum_, understand here that which he is wont
     to call _intellectum rationale_,) those which are seen in the
     soul itself, as virtues, the contraries of which are vices, are
     one thing; ... the light itself by which the soul is illuminated,
     so that it is able to see in a true intellectual apprehension
     all things either in itself (rational knowledge) or in that
     (intellectual knowledge;) for that indeed is God himself; but this
     created existence, although made rational and intelligent (these
     two terms correspond to the two members, _either in itself, or in
     that_) after his image, when it attempts to gaze upon that light
     trembles with weakness, and can do but little; yet it derives
     from thence whatever it does understand according to its ability.
     When, therefore, it is rapt into that region, and, being withdrawn
     from the senses, is brought more directly face to face with that
     vision, not by any local presence in space, but in a manner
     peculiar to itself; it even sees in a way superior to its ordinary
     power that by the aid of which it also sees whatsoever it does see
     in itself by understanding."[123]

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 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?

     "The whole discipline of wisdom pertaining to the instruction
     of man is the correct discrimination of the creator from the
     creation; the worship of the one as possessing supreme dominion,
     and the acknowledgment of the simple subjection of the other."[125]

Let us then bring these things back to their origin, and the
philosophers of our times will recognize that 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 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!

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




MY CHRISTMAS GIFT.


    On the eve of Christmas Day,
    Ere the moon began to rise,
    I fell to dreaming.
    When a fairy did display,
    Spread before my wond'ring eyes,
    Bright jewels gleaming
    Like the stars at night.
    Then to me--"Choose which to send
    As a present to your friend,
    And thus your friendship plight."
    Ah! how rare the jewels seemed
    Ere those words were spoken.
    After, I no longer deemed
    Gems a fitting token.
    "Jewels may her garments grace:
    'Tis not there that I would place
    Something to remind her thought
    Of the friendship of my heart.
    Not all gems that may be bought
    Would of that be counterpart."
    "Hoity, toity!" said the fairy,
    "This is extraordinary!
    Don't you know 'tis customary?"
    "Yes," said I; "but on this morn
    Could I but her _heart_ adorn
    With some little gift of mine,
    Then 'twould have a fitting shrine."
    Gathering up her jewels rare,
    Said the fairy, "Don't despair.
    Send her what her heart can wear."
    Reaching out my eager hand--
    "Have you in all fairy-land
    Such a boon at my command?"
    Raising up her eyes to heaven--
    "Only there such gifts are given.
    Gifts that make the heart more fair
    God bestows. The price--a prayer."

    God knows the prayer is said, my friend.
    I doubt not He the gift will send.




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 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.

"I would like to walk home with you, in this lovely moonlight," she
said.

"Well, will you not come? I will gladly accompany you back."

"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."

"Yes, Miss Lester, it shall be ready, if you say so."

"I do. Good night, Dr. James. Give me your hand; we are friends, are
we not?"

"I believe we are. Yes, Miss Lester, I know we are friends to-night."

"And we shall be friends to-morrow; remember that I say so.
Good-night."

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?"

"To-morrow."

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:

     "MY DEAR MISS LESTER: I have a humiliating confession to make
     to you; but before I make it (afterward it would be impossible)
     I feel obliged to say to you that your conduct since you have
     been at Shellbeach has compelled my respect and admiration. I
     appreciate the courage and earnestness with which you adopted
     your change of life, and, instead of seeking in it only your
     own amusement, made your stay here not only a pleasure to your
     friends, but a blessing to persons whose number I can only guess
     at, but whom your own heart knows.

     "I know, Miss Lester, you are wealthy; I knew it long before you
     came here. And your wealth, I acknowledge it to my shame, has been
     a temptation to me. I believe you consider all men mercenary,
     and fortune-hunters. I think you are mistaken; and I wish you to
     take the humiliation of what I am going to say as a proof that
     you are wrong. Miss Lester, I know I do not love you, and here is
     the proof: If I think of you as my wife, the thought of what your
     money would be to me comes _first_ to my mind. Having said that, I
     can say no more; but I am, always yours faithfully,

                                   "FRANCIS JAMES.

    "SHELLBEACH, July 18, 1868."

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:

                            "SWEET BRIER COTTAGE,}
                                   July 18, 1868.}

     "MY DEAR DR. JAMES: When, six months ago, I promised to write you
     this letter, I certainly had no idea that I should say in it what
     I am about to say now. Whether, if this possibility had occurred
     to me, I should have made that promise, or whether I should have
     come to Shellbeach at all, it is profitless to consider.

     "I know you always speak the truth frankly, and I am resolved,
     in all my dealings with you, to do the same; for I feel that I
     shall thus best show my appreciation and approbation of your
     character, and of the plain truth which I know you will write to
     me to-night. You deserve honest treatment, and you shall have it.
     I consider the time I have spent here to be the great lesson of my
     life, and one which I on no account regret, though I weigh well
     the significance of the words. I have learned to know and value
     the useful and unselfish life and work of one man, and from him
     to believe in the capacity for noble things in other people whom
     I once despised. In recognizing your superiority, I have grown
     humble; and from your wisdom and good sense, I have come to be
     aware of my own ignorance and conceit. I know how strongly you
     will object to hearing this, but be patient a little longer. You
     have given me a lesson you will be glad to hear of, and it is
     this: I believe that a useless life will never again content me,
     and that to do some active good will be the only way to make my
     life happy.

     "But you will say all this is not to the purpose, and not in the
     bond. You are very right; and though I beat round the bush, I do
     not mean to beg the question, and I know very well that honor,
     esteem, appreciation, good resolutions, etc., etc., were not to be
     the subjects of this letter. Truly then, I love you, and I have
     never loved before. I believe that to be your wife, in this little
     town, with no society and no excitements, to share your work and
     your poverty, (if poverty indeed it were,) would be a happy lot.
     I tell you this, because I trust you; I know it is not maidenly,
     but it is honest. I shall not see you again; for I know you do not
     love me, and that your letter will tell the truth. I thank you for
     your kindness, and your wise and good advice. I hope it has not
     all been lost upon me. I hope you will sometimes let me know what
     you are interested in, and how you are prospering.

     "Good-by, and believe me your true friend,

                                  MARGARET LESTER.

     "Once more, I do not regret any thing."

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!"

"Do you mean Miss Lester?"

"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 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."

"What do you mean?"

"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."

"I thought she seemed much as usual whenever I saw her."

"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, 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.

"He is the best fellow in the world," said the bridegroom; and Jessie
added,

"We are very glad to see you, Dr. James; it was very kind of you to
come."

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 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."

"Why should she have to be consoled?"

"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
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, Miss Lester. I go back to Sealing this afternoon."

"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."

So he took the five o'clock train, and arrived safely in Sealing that
night.


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:

"Why did you never notice that I have not resumed my school-work this
year?"

"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.

"Margaret has offered me a home, and I have accepted it."

"I imagined you were too proud to accept assistance from any body."

"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."

"You are right; and what decided you to take this step?"

"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 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."

"You will not repent it, I am sure. And when do you go?"

"Next week."

"Has she bought her house?"

"She has not decided yet, and wants my help about furnishing, etc.;
so the sooner I go the better."

"Is she in New York now?"

"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 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.

"From Margaret Lester! What can she have to say to me?"

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.

"She is engaged, I suppose," and he quickly broke the seal.

     "MY DEAR FRIEND: I write to you because this is the very happiest
     day of my life, and because I owe that happiness, after God, to
     you.

     "Do you remember your words, 'For the direction of practical,
     systematic good works, I advise you to go to the Catholic priest'?
     Well, I established myself in New York with the object of making
     myself happy by doing as much good to the poor as I was able;
     and as soon as I asked myself how I should begin, I thought of
     your words, and said to myself, 'I found how true that advice
     was in that quiet little town; now, why should it not hold good
     in a great city like this, where there is so much more misery,
     and where opportunities for doing good are so much greater?' So
     I said to my cook, whom I found to be a good Catholic, going to
     her confessions and communions regularly, 'Where does your priest
     live? For I want to go and see him.' She gladly told me where to
     find him, and I went where she directed me, and found an old,
     white-headed Frenchman with most courtly manners, before whom I
     felt as unpolished as a school-girl. I told him the simple truth,
     and asked to be instructed as to how I could aid the poor. Well,
     we sat down, and he gave me a little sketch of the different
     Catholic charities in New York, and each one, as he described it,
     seemed to me best of all; and I saw how much more good I could do
     by aiding those perfectly organized charities than by working on
     my own responsibility. He ended by telling me of a lady who would
     take me with her and show me all these institutions.

     "From that day began for me a life of revelations. I had always
     dreamed of lives of heroism; and I began to see that they were not
     only possible, but of every-day occurrence among those men and
     women devoted to works of mercy. Then came the question, What is
     it that inspires such self-sacrifice, such complete abnegation and
     ignoring of self, such all-embracing charity and purity of motive?
     For in no case could I see a trace of any personal advantage to
     be gained from these almost superhuman labors. And then, Dr.
     James, I began to look into the doctrine of that church which all
     my life I had been taught to regard as the teacher of falsehood,
     superstition, and idolatry.

     "The result has been that a week ago I was baptized a Roman
     Catholic, and this day, for the first time, I have received our
     Lord Jesus Christ in the most holy communion.

     "O my friend! God's goodness has been great to me, and I am as
     happy as a person should be who has found there is such a thing
     as heaven upon earth. This is why I have written to you, because
     my heart, in its gratitude to God, turns next to you; and also
     because I wish you to hear from no one except myself of this great
     change in my life.

     "And now, I cannot end my letter without one more word. I have
     another saying of yours in my mind; was it not this? 'Do as well
     as you know how, and then be at peace.' That is true; yet it is
     not all that will be required of us. We ought to try to know the
     best thing, and then do what we know as well as we can.

     "Good-by, and God bless you.

                                        "MARGARET.

     "P.S.--Martha Burney, after trying her best to dissuade me, had
     the justice to examine what I was about, and she was received into
     the church this very day."

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."

Margaret looked up inquiringly.

"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:

                              "NEW YORK, March 18.

     "MY DEAR MISS LESTER: It has not been from disapprobation, nor
     neglect, nor indifference that I have left your letter so long
     unanswered. It is because I earnestly desired, if possible, to
     give you some good news in return for that which you sent me.

     "You speak of owing your conversion partly to me, and I am very
     happy that this should be true; but your letter has done a greater
     work for me than you thought it could when you wrote it. Miss
     Lester, I ought to have been where you are now a year ago; but
     pride of intellect, perversity of will, and, latterly, another
     obstacle, have stood in my way, and I might have kept on blind and
     miserable for the rest of my life. You have found the church of
     God through its treasures of charity, displayed in its works of
     mercy to the poor, the weak, and the sinful; it was your heart,
     so to speak, that carried you there. I have found the same church
     entirely by my mind. I have seen repeatedly shallow prejudices,
     groundless suspicions, and fanatical attacks met by calm, strong,
     logical arguments. I have seen the carping opinions of sects
     dwindling away before the majesty of a revealed faith. I have
     recognized that intellect, learning, science, philosophy, shine
     brightest in that church which the scoffers of the day assert to
     be in her dotage and dissolution. I have been forced at last,
     to admit her divine authority, and the consequent infallibility
     of her teaching, and there was but one thing left for me to do.
     How long would I have resisted light, conviction? I cannot tell.
     Cowardice, pride, and something else held me back; then your
     letter came, as a push from a friendly hand to a wretch clinging
     to the feeble branch which threatens to give way in his grasp and
     precipitate him into the abyss below, yet fearing to take the leap
     which will land him on firm ground.

     "We have landed on the rock--you and I. God grant that we may
     stand on it for ever.

     "I have much more to say, but can write no more. I have been for
     a week making a retreat at the house of the ---- fathers, and I
     shall be baptized in their church to-morrow morning, Feast of St.
     Joseph, after the nine o'clock mass. You will come, will you not?
     Pray for me.

                                   FRANCIS JAMES."

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.

"Has he? I should think he would have asked me," responded Margaret.

"Don't you remember what you told me once about the spiritual
relationship between sponsors and their god-children, and what it
precludes?"

Margaret slightly smiled, and the subject was dropped.

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 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?"

"I will not forget," she answered with a happy smile.


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 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."

"See, Dr. James, what Martha has given me for a birthday present."

"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."

"So do you."

"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."

Margaret was silent, and the doctor continued, with an effort,

"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 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."

Dr. James looked searchingly at her, and said in a low voice,

"You do me good and make me feel like myself. Then, Margaret, though
I am not worthy of you, will you be my wife?"

Margaret laid her hand in his,

"I will, if God allows me so much happiness."


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 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,

"If you please, doctor, this is a present from all your patients."

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:

     "MY DEAREST MARGARET: Do not think, by my leaving your house, that
     I do not appreciate the hospitality that you and your husband have
     offered me, or that I am ungrateful for it. But I could never
     consent to live upon you always; and I thought it better, while I
     am strong and healthy, to enter on the life in which I should be
     glad to be found at death. I have consulted with M. Saincère, and
     he encourages me to hope that my vocation may be a religious one;
     and the sympathy and affection I feel for the Sisters of Charity,
     which I believe you share with me, leads me to seek my home and
     work among them, at the house we visited together on the Hudson
     River. There I shall remain for the present as a boarder, till I
     am quite sure what is God's will for me; but I may tell you, in
     confidence, that I have in mind the work of teaching the poor and
     abandoned little ones of this great city.

     "I cannot express the joy which comes to my heart when I think
     that my life, which since my father's death has seemed to me
     aimless and unprofitable, may be devoted in the humblest way to
     the service of God and his holy church. Rejoice with me, my dear
     friend, in the midst of your own great happiness. God grant that
     we may both be worthy of the favors he has bestowed on us! I pray
     him to grant his blessing to you and yours.

     "With love and congratulations to you and your husband; I remain,
     in the heart of Jesus, your faithful friend,

                                   "MARTHA BURNEY.

     "NEW YORK, Sept. 1."

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 REPUBLIC.


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 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,

    "They reverence their priest; but disagreeing
    In price or creed, dismiss him without fear,"

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
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 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, 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.

     "Restitution had been made to a man named James Keating, through
     the Rev. Father Kohlmann, of certain goods which had been stolen
     from him. Keating had previously made a complaint against one
     Philips and his wife, as having received the goods thus stolen,
     and they were indicted for a misdemeanor before the justices
     of the peace. Keating having afterward stated that the goods
     had been restored to him through the instrumentality of Father
     Kohlmann, the latter was cited before the court, and required to
     give evidence in regard to the person or persons from whom he had
     received them. This he refused to do, on the ground that no court
     could require a priest to give evidence in regard to matters known
     to him only under the seal of confession. Upon the case being sent
     to the grand-jury, Father Kohlmann was subpoenaed to attend before
     them, and appeared in obedience to the process, but in respectful
     terms again declined answering. On the trial which ensued, Father
     Kohlmann was again cited to appear as a witness in the case.
     Having been asked certain questions, he entreated that he might
     be excused, and offered his reasons to the court. With consent
     of counsel, the question was put off for some time, and finally
     brought on for argument on Tuesday, the 8th of June, 1813, before
     a court composed of the Hon. De Witt Clinton, mayor of the city;
     the Hon. Josiah Ogden Hoffman, recorder; and Isaac S. Douglass,
     and Richard Cunningham, Esqs., sitting aldermen. The Hon. Richard
     Riker, afterward for so many years recorder of the city, and
     Counsellor Sampson, volunteered their services in behalf of Father
     Kohlmann....

     "The decision was given by De Witt Clinton at some length. Having
     shown that, according to the doctrine and practice of the Catholic
     Church, a priest who should reveal what he had heard in the
     confessional would become infamous and degraded in the eyes of
     Catholics, and as no one could be called upon to give evidence
     which would expose him to infamy, he declared that the only way
     was to excuse a priest from answering in such cases."

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
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,

     "The trustee system had not been behind its early promise, and
     trustees of churches had become so accustomed to have every thing
     their own way, that they were not disposed to allow even the
     interference of a bishop.

     "In such a state of things, he was obliged to assume the office of
     a missionary priest, rather than a bishop; and many still living
     remember the humility and earnest zeal with which he discharged
     the laborious duties of the confessional, and traversed the city
     on foot to attend upon the poor and sick.

     "Bishop Connolly was not lacking in firmness, but the great wants
     of his new diocese made it necessary for him to fall in, to a
     certain extent, with the established order of things, and this
     exposed him afterward to much difficulty and many humiliations."

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.

The _Brief Sketch_ gives his portrait, as well as that of his
predecessor.

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.

     "Having received faculties from Bishop Carroll, he exercised
     the holy ministry in various parts of Virginia and Maryland. He
     lived for some time with Mr. Monroe, afterward President of the
     United States, and in the family of Gov. Lee, of Maryland. After
     the death of Father Frambach, he took charge of the mission of
     Frederick in Maryland, of which mission he may be said in reality
     to have been the founder. When he arrived there, he celebrated
     mass in a large room which served as a chapel, and afterward
     built the first church. But though Frederick was his headquarters,
     he did not confine himself to it, but made stations throughout all
     the surrounding country, at Montgomery, Winchester, Hagerstown,
     and Emmettsburg, everywhere manifesting the same earnest zeal and
     indomitable perseverance. Bishop Bruté relates, as an instance of
     his activity and zeal, that once, after hearing confessions on
     Saturday evening, he rode during the night to near Montgomery, a
     distance of thirty-five to forty miles, to administer the last
     sacraments to a dying woman, and was back hearing confessions in
     the morning, at the Mountain, singing high mass and preaching,
     without scarcely any one knowing that he had been absent at all.

     "In 1808, the Rev. Mr. Du Bois, having previously become a member
     of the Society of St. Sulpice, in Baltimore, went to reside at
     Emmettsburg, and laid the foundation of Mount St. Mary's College,
     which was afterward destined to be the means of so much usefulness
     to the Catholic Church in America. From this point, now surrounded
     by so many hallowed associations in the minds of American
     Catholics, by the sound religious education imparted to so many
     young men from various parts of the United States, 'by the many
     fervent and holy priests, trained under his direction,' and by
     the prudent care with which he cherished the rising institute of
     the Sisters of Charity at St. Joseph's, he became the benefactor,
     not of any particular locality, but of the whole Catholic body
     throughout 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 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 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 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 other important acts of the
administration of Bishop Hughes, and concludes,

     "But though much has been done, much remains to be accomplished.
     The 'two hundred Catholics' of 1785 were better provided for
     than the two hundred thousand who now (1853) dwell within the
     boundaries of the city of New York. It is true that no exertions
     could have kept pace with the tide of emigration which has been
     pouring in upon our shores, especially during the last few years.
     The number of priests, churches, and schools, rapidly as they have
     increased, are entirely inadequate to the wants of our Catholic
     population, and render it imperative that every exertion should
     be made to supply the deficiency. What has been done so far has,
     by God's blessing, been accomplished by the Catholics of New York
     themselves. Comparatively very little assistance has been received
     from the liberality of our brethren in other countries. And while
     we have done so much for ourselves, we have contributed liberally
     toward the erection of churches and other works of piety in
     various parts of the United States.

     "Though the Catholic Church in this country has increased much
     more largely by conversions than is generally supposed, yet,
     for the most part, its rapid development has been owing to the
     emigration of Catholics from foreign countries; and, if we desire
     to make this increase permanent, and to keep the children in the
     faith of their fathers, we must, above all things, take measures
     to imbue the minds of the rising generation of Catholics with
     sound religious principles. This can only be done by giving them a
     good Catholic education. In our present position, the school-house
     has become second in importance only to the house of God itself.
     We have abundant cause for thankfulness to God on account of the
     many blessings which he has conferred on us; but we will show
     ourselves unworthy of these blessings if we do not do all that
     is in our power to promote every good work by which they may be
     increased and confirmed to those who shall come after us."

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.

BY POPE ST. DAMASUS.[127]


    Christe potens rerum, redeuntis conditor ævi,
    Vox summi sensusque Dei, quem fundit ab altâ
    Mente Pater, tantique dedit consortia regni,
    Impia tu nostræ domuisti crimina vitæ,
    Passus corporeâ mundum vestire figurâ,
    Affarique palam populos, hominemque fateri.
    Virginei tumuere sinus, innuptaque mater
    Arcano obstupuit compleri viscera partu,
    Auctorem paritura suum. Mortalia corda
    Artificem texere poli, mundique repertor
    Pars fuit humani generis, latuitque sub uno
    Pectore, qui totum latè complectitur orbem;
    Et qui non spatiis terræ, non æquoris undis,
    Nec capitur coelo, parvos confluxit in artus.
    Quin et supplicii nomen nexusque subisti,
    Ut nos surriperes letho, mortemque fugares
    Morte tuâ: mox æthereas evectus in auras,
    Purgatâ repetis lætum tellure parentem.


TRANSLATION.

    Christ, sovereign of all things that be,
    Wisdom and Word of God! we see
    A new-born world spring forth from thee.

    God born of God, and who dost share
    His reign supreme, how didst thou bear
    The vesture of our dust to wear?

    Unto our race thou didst belong--
    Didst speak and mingle with the throng,
    To bear--to triumph over wrong.

    A Virgin's bosom did accord
    Repose to Him whom she adored;
    In wonder she brought forth her Lord.

    Who spread aloft the heavens, the day,
    Who built the world--lo! clothed in clay
    Hid 'neath one human bosom lay.

    Whose hands the universe uphold,
    Whom earth, nor seas, nor heavens enfold--
    Lo! compassed by a mortal mould.

    What anguish didst thou undergo;
    What woe, to shelter us from woe;
    What death, from death to save us so;

    Ere from a world redeemed by grace
    Thou didst return aloft through space
    To seek the Blessed Father's face.

                            CONSTANTINA E. BROOKS.

FOOTNOTE:

[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.




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 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 oecumenical 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 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
Paloeologus, 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:

     "We define that the holy apostolic see and the Roman pontiff
     hold the primacy throughout the whole world; that the same Roman
     pontiff is the successor of blessed Peter, prince of the apostles,
     and the true vicar of Christ, the head of the whole church, and
     the father and doctor of all Christians; that to him, in blessed
     Peter, was given by our Lord Jesus Christ full power to feed,
     rule, and govern the universal church, as is contained, also, in
     the acts of oecumenical councils and in the sacred canons."

It was impossible for Gallican theologians to ignore the force of
these words. To elude it they had recourse to the last phrase,
"_as_ is contained in the acts of oecumenical 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, ~kat' hon eropon~--"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 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:

     "We acknowledge Christ head of the church in such a manner that
     he, on ascending to heaven, intrusted the government of it first
     to Peter, and afterward to his successors, and gave them the same
     infallibility he himself possessed, whenever they should speak
     authoritatively, (_ex cathedra_.) There is, therefore, in the
     Roman church an infallible judge of controversy regarding faith,
     even apart from general councils, in questions both of right and
     of fact."

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 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.

     "List of doctors who have acted badly, or are suspected, on the
     subject of the decree of the parliament, (that is, opposed the
     king.)

       MM. Cornet,
       Grandin, professor,
       De Lestocq,   "
       Chamillard,   "
       Leblond,      "
       Bonst,        "
       Despérier,    "
       Joisel,
       Chamillard, brother of the professor,
       Pignay,
       Morel,
       Charton,
       Gobinet,
       Amiot,
       Rouillé,
       Alleaume de Tilloy,
       Demure,
       Magnet,
       Quatrehommes,
       Bossuet,
       De la Barmondière,
       Leblanc,
       Dez de Fontaine,
       Bail,
       Du Fournel,
       De Pinteville.

     "Doctors who have acted well on this same occasion, and who
     particularly distinguished themselves, (that is, favored the king.)

       MM. De Mincé, curé de Gonesse--very well.
       De Breda, curé de St. André--admirably.
       Duzon,
       Vaillant,
       Faure,
       Fortin,
       Cocquelin,
       Caspin."


     "SKETCH OF THE DOCTORS WHO HAVE ACTED BADLY OR ARE SUSPECTED.

     "Before making remarks on these gentlemen, I protest sincerely
     that I consider them all good men, full of true ecclesiastical
     zeal, but, to my mind, in this affair not bearing themselves
     according to knowledge.

     "M. Cornet,[131] a fine mind, a very able man, of irreproachable
     life, with so great a reputation among those of his party that he
     is their head beyond dispute, and the soul of their deliberations.
     Those most attached to him are MM. Grandin, Chamillard, and
     Morel--the first two with more reserve and management, the last
     more openly and frankly.

     "Nothing can be expected from the Carmelites, Augustinians, and
     Franciscans."


     "COMMUNITIES TO BE FEARED ON THIS OCCASION.

     "That of the Jesuits under the Père Bazot.

     "That of St. Sulpice, where, to tell the truth, ecclesiastics are
     educated in a spirit of perfect regularity; but we are assured
     that every one there is extremely in favor of the papal authority.

     "That of St. Nicolas du Chardonnet.

     "That known as the Trente-Trois, at the Hôtel d'Albiac, near the
     College of Navarre, under M. Charton.

     "That of M. Gilot.

     "There are several _dévots_ who aid these in a work which good
     Frenchmen and true subjects of the king strive to prevent. The
     principal are MM. Dalbon, De la Motte, Fénélon, and M. d'Abély
     named for the bishopric of Rodez."

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:

     "1. It is not the doctrine of the faculty that the sovereign
     pontiff has any authority over the temporal rights of the most
     Christian king; on the contrary, the faculty always opposed those
     who favored that authority, even understood as indirect only.

     "2. It is the doctrine of the faculty that the most Christian king
     acknowledges and has no superior at all in temporal matters except
     God; and this is its ancient doctrine, from which it will never
     recede.

     "3. It is the doctrine of the faculty that subjects owe fidelity
     and obedience to the most Christian king in such a way that they
     can be dispensed from them under no pretext.

     "4. It is the doctrine of the faculty that they neither approve
     nor have approved any proposition, contrary to the authority of
     the most Christian king, or to the genuine (_germanis_) liberties
     of the Gallican Church and canons received in the realm, v. g.,
     that the sovereign pontiff can depose bishops in despite of these
     canons.

     "5. It is not the doctrine of the faculty that the sovereign
     pontiff is above an oecumenical council.

     "6. It is not the doctrine of the faculty that the sovereign
     pontiff is infallible if no consent of the church support him,
     (_nullo accedente ecclesiæ consensu_.)"

With regard to these propositions, M. Deslions writes:

     "M. Bouthillier, doctor of the Sorbonne, and later member of the
     assembly of 1682, and Bishop of Troyes, told me that, in the
     conference held among the doctors deputed to draw up the six
     articles presented to the king on the part of the Sorbonne, in the
     first article, which concerns the deposition of kings, the phrase
     'on no pretext,' (_nullo prætextu_,) was purposely inserted; and
     that thereupon some one present objected the case of heresy. M.
     Morel then said that this would be a _reason_, and not a simple
     _pretext_, for deposing a king. He told me, also, that he had
     seen in the MS. of M. Grandin, at the sixth article, that the
     pope is not infallible _if some kind of consent_ of the church
     do not support him. They resolved to put instead of this, _if no
     consent_ support him; which is the same thing, and in some way
     less even. So true is it that these articles were drawn up in the
     most equivocal language the framers could suitably employ. M.
     Bouthillier learned this of M. Gobinet, one of the deputies."

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:

     "1. This first proposition is captious; it should have been
     general, affirmative, specific, etc.

     "2. The king did not need the avowal of the faculty to prove that
     he knows no superior in temporal matters, this avowal being much
     more advantageous to the popes themselves, who have recognized
     it, as does Pope Innocent III., cap. _Per venerabilem_, in the
     decretals.

     "3. This repetition too often made of the words 'most Christian
     king' was unnecessary for Frenchmen, and it would have been less
     suspicious and more advantageous if, in speaking of the king, they
     had given to him no title, etc.

     "4. This fourth is equivocal and suspicious, etc.

     "5. The affectation of framing the fifth article in negative
     expressions cannot but be suspicious, etc.

     "6. The last article should not have been conceived in negative
     terms, but in affirmative; to wit, that the pope of himself is
     not infallible without the consent of the universal church. And
     the phrase, 'If no consent of the church support him,' is too
     equivocal in this place," etc.

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.

     "The parliaments undertook, however, to make the custom one of
     universal application, compelling the dioceses claiming exemption
     to prove their title to be free from it.

     "Henry IV. by an edict of 1606, art. 27, declared, 'We do not
     intend to enjoy the right of royal perquisite (_regale_) save in
     the manner in which we and our predecessors have done, without
     extending it further to the prejudice of churches exempt from
     it.' This edict was registered in the parliament of Paris without
     modification; but on the 24th of August, 1608, the same parliament
     pronounced a decree conceived in these terms: 'The court declares
     the king to have a right to the royal perquisite from the church
     of Belley, as from every other in his kingdom;' and forbidding
     advocates to put forward any proposition to the contrary. The
     clergy complained to the king, who by letters of 1609 yielded the
     execution of the decree. Louis XIII. seemed favorable to the
     rights of the church; but after the accession of Louis XIV. these
     rights were menaced more than ever, and 'there was no assembly
     of the clergy,' particularly after the year 1638, in which a
     special commission was not named to attend to the subject of royal
     perquisite."[133]

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.

     "The general agents or procurators of the clergy" (these agents
     resided permanently in Paris to protect the interests of the
     church in case of collision with the state, or in matters partly
     ecclesiastical and partly secular) "were counselled to present
     a memorial to the king, and to pray his majesty to allow them
     to call together the prelates who were in Paris, on business
     connected with their churches, in order that through their
     singular prudence they might find means to restore peace and put
     every thing in order. The king having permitted this assembly,
     it was held during the months of March and of May, 1681, in the
     archiepiscopal palace of Paris."

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:

    "Un ordre, hier venu de S. Germain,
    Veut qu'on s'assemble; on s'assemble demain;
    Notre archévêque et cinquante-deux autres,
        Successeurs des apôtres,
    S'y trouveront. Or, de savoir quel cas
    S'y traitera, c'est encore un mystère.
        C'est seulement chose très claire
    Que nous avions cinquante-deux prélats
        Qui ne residaient pas."

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:

1. The royal perquisite, which Fleury and Bossuet could not approve.

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.

4. In the affair of the diocese of Pamiers, of which we have spoken
above.

     "On the 2d of May the assembly resolved to ask the king to call
     a national council, or general assembly of the clergy, composed
     of two deputies of the first order and two of the second from
     each province, the latter to have a consulting voice only. The
     other details were to be arranged according to the advice of the
     commissaries."[134]

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 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:

     "SIR: You will find accompanying this a copy of the letter of
     the king, as approved by his majesty, for the convocation of the
     general assembly of the clergy, in which you will remark that
     no mention is made of the plan of procuration, placed by you in
     my hands. His majesty has thought that nothing should appear as
     coming from him that might determine the matters to be acted on in
     the said assemblage; but he has resolved to give orders on this
     subject _by word of mouth_ to the general agents of the clergy,
     and to direct that this project or plan of procuration be sent to
     the archbishops, with the explanation that it has been drawn up
     by commissioners named at the late assembly, for the purpose of
     being sent to all parts; to make known what ought to be treated
     of in the said assembly, and to bring about uniformity of powers;
     and in order to cause the provincial assemblies to give powers of
     procuration to the deputies of the general assembly, conformably
     to the project, his majesty will direct that the intendants
     of provinces be written to, to command them to impart to the
     archbishops his intentions on the subject of the procuration."

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

     "To repair to the said city of Paris, according to the letters
     of the king and of the said agents, and there deliberate, in the
     manner contained in the resolution of the said assemblies of March
     and May, (the Little Assembly,) on the means of reconciling the
     variances respecting the royal right of perquisite (_regale_)
     between the pope, on the one side, and the king, on the other; to
     determine on all the acts which they shall deem necessary to put
     an end to these variances, with the deputies of other provinces,
     the same to sign the clauses and conditions that the assembly
     shall judge fitting; they are likewise charged and expressly
     commanded to employ all proper means to repair the infractions
     committed by the court of Rome in the decrees of the concordat _de
     causis et de frivolis appellationibus_ in the affairs of Charonne,
     of Pamiers, of Toulouse, and others which may have or shall have
     transpired; to preserve the jurisdiction of the ordinaries of
     the realm, and the various degrees of it in the form sanctioned
     by the concordat; to cause the pope, in case of appeal to Rome,
     to depute commissaries in France to judge it; to procure, by all
     sorts of due and proper means, the preservation of the maxims
     and liberties of the Gallican Church; to pass the resolutions
     by a plurality of votes, and, for the reasons explained above,
     to frame all acts that shall be required, even though there be
     any thing demanding a more special commission than is contained
     in these presents, promise being given that all that shall have
     been granted and signed by them shall be agreed to and observed
     inviolably in every particular, according to its form and tenor."

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:

                   "FONTAINEBLEAU, Sept. 21, 1681.

     "The king, being persuaded that the Bishop of Lisieux can be of
     more use in the next assembly than any other of your suffragans,
     his majesty has ordered me to write you that you will please have
     him chosen," etc.

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,

     "Why were not seen there Mascaron, Fléchier, Bourdaloue, Fénélon,
     Huet, Mabillon, Thomassin, Rancé, Tronson, Brisacier, Tiberge, La
     Salle, La Chétardie, and so many others, still more glorious in
     the sight of God than in that of men?... Cease then from saying
     that the assembly of 1682 was the _élite_ of the clergy of the
     day!"

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:

     "The assembly is about to be held; and they desire not only that
     I should be present, but that I should preach the introductory
     sermon." (Letter to the Abbé de Rancé.)

Fleury in his notes says,

     "It was the will of the king that the Bishop of Meaux should be
     present."

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 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,

    "Prélats, abbés, séparez-vous;
    Laissez un peu Rome et l'Eglise!
    Un chacun se moque de vous,
    Et toute la cour vous méprise.
    Ma foi! l'on vous ferait, avant qu'il fût un an,
    Signer à l'Alcoran."

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.

    "A Dio Spiacenti ed ai nemici sui."

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 man favorable to the court, the Abbé
Le Gendre; he says,

     "At first the declaration of the clergy was by no means applauded.
     Far from doing so, many attributed it to cowardice, saying that
     it was the effect of the servile obedience of the bishops to the
     will of the court. Others thought it was neither prudent nor
     honorable to rise with levity against the pretensions of the pope,
     at a moment when he was risking every thing to sustain theirs.
     This movement of opposition, which was almost general, gave birth
     to spicy writing, in which Mgr. De Harlay was the most ill-used,
     as he was regarded as the first inciter, and almost as the only
     author of all that was done in the assembly."

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,

     "The house of Sorbonne, with the exception of six or seven, have
     been educated in sentiments contrary to the declaration. The
     professors, the syndic excepted, are so opposed to it that those
     even who are paid by the king have not been willing to teach any
     of the propositions presented to his majesty in 1663, etc.... The
     principal of the College of Plessis, and those whom he employs and
     protects, in his college and out of it, are absolutely one with
     those of Sorbonne."

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,

     "Those of St. Sulpice, of St. Nicolas de Chardonnet, and of the
     Missions Etrangères, who have given their opinion in this affair,
     (of the four articles,) hold the same views as those of Sorbonne."

Of the religious orders and communities, it was written in 1663,

     "Nothing can be hoped for of the Carmelites, Augustinians, and
     Franciscans, who make profession of favoring his holiness in every
     thing," etc.

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.

     "Forty-three Cistercians and six canons regular, who are all for
     Rome, are to be treated as the above friars."

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, _La Tradition des Faits_, that
appeared in 1760, by the Gallican Abbé Chauvelin, clerical counsellor
to the parliament of Paris. The abbé writes,

     "When it was resolved to oblige the ecclesiastics to profess
     the maxims of France, what difficulties stood in the way? It
     was necessary to extort from many of them their consent. Others
     opposed obstacles which all the authority of the parliament could
     only with difficulty remove. It became necessary to use all the
     zeal and light of several prelates, and of several doctors, who
     were favorable to the true teaching, to bring back the great
     number of ultramontanes in the French clergy.... The ecclesiastics
     did not cease from resistance until the parliament used its
     authority to restrain them.... The university and the faculty
     of law submitted without difficulty, _but they were obliged to
     proceed by way of authority to make the faculty of theology obey_."

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,

     "This letter of Louis XIV. to Pope Innocent was the seal put
     upon the accommodation between the court of Rome and the clergy
     of France; and conformably to the engagement it contained, his
     majesty did not any longer enforce the observation of the edict
     of March, 1682, which obliged all who wished to obtain degrees to
     sustain the declaration of the clergy made that year with regard
     to ecclesiastical authority; ceasing thus to impose, on this
     point, the obligation existing, while the edict was in force,
     and leaving for the future, as before the edict, full liberty to
     sustain the doctrine."

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,

     "When the archives of Rome were brought to Paris, Napoleon went
     one day to the Hôtel de Soubise, in which they were kept. There
     he obtained the letter of Louis XIV. He took it with him, and,
     on his return to the Tuileries, threw it into the fire, saying,
     'We'll not be troubled hereafter with these ashes.'"

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,

     "'This work is not a libel: if it contains some erroneous
     ideas, it contains a great number which are sound and worthy
     of meditation.' He afterward dictated six notes upon different
     points contained in the work; he takes notice in them of all that
     appeared to him deserving of censure; but he has not a single word
     to say against the story of the destruction by himself of the
     letter of Louis XIV."[142]

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,

     "Prostrate at the feet of your holiness, we profess and declare
     that we grieve deeply from our heart, and beyond what we can
     express, on account of what has been done in the assembly, so
     greatly offensive to your holiness and your predecessors; and
     therefore whatever may have been deemed (_censeri potuit_) decreed
     against ecclesiastical power and pontifical authority, we hold,
     and declare that all should hold it, as not decreed. Moreover, we
     hold as not determined on whatever may have been deemed (_censeri
     potuit_) determined on in prejudice of the rights of churches;
     for our intention was not to decree any thing nor to do any thing
     prejudicial to the said churches."

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,

     "This court (Rome) continues always what it has begun, and often
     obliges us to retract or alter what we have judiciously and
     necessarily done against her. Nothing proves this better than the
     history of the assembly of 1682."

Adrien Baillet, writing his _Démêlé de Philippe le Bel avec Boniface
VIII._, tells us,

     "In the first variance, (between Philip and Boniface,) it was the
     court of Rome that gave satisfaction to that of France; in the
     second, (of the assembly,) it is the court of France that has just
     rendered satisfaction to that of Rome."

Bayle, _Dictionnaire_, art. "Braunbom," writes,

     "France was so far from having broken with the pope, from the year
     1690 to the year 1701, that she became, on the contrary, more
     papist. It is known, moreover, that Innocent XII. gained the day,
     in having things put again on their old footing in 1693."

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




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 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 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 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? 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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[143] See Debates in the New York State Convention, 1867 and 1868,
vol. iii. pp. 2736-2744.




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:

AD PARVULUM CHRISTUM CONTRA HOSTES PATRIÆ.

    1.

    Benevolus audi
    Quæ tuæ sunt laudi,
    O Parvule delicate!
    Patriam defende!
    Tu solus es agnus
    Et fortis et magnus!
    Qui perfidum Turcam
    Compellis ad furcam!
    Patriam! patriam! patriam
          Defende!

     Mercifully listen to those who praise and implore thee, O tender
     Infant! Defend our country. Thou alone art the Lamb, alone
     powerful! alone great! Exterminator of the treacherous Turk. Our
     country, our country, ah! defend our country.

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,

    Gloria factorum temere conceditur horum,

singing verses without prosodial measure, their vehement and rapid
rhyme 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:

    2.

    O nefas! O crimen!
    Mors transit limen!
    O Parvule delicate!
    Patriam defende!
    Jam victima sumus,
    Et pulvis et fumus.
        Patriam!
        Patriam!
    Patriam defende!

     O injustice! O crime! Death advances! O tender Infant! defend our
     country. Already are we victims, naught but smoke and dust. Our
     country, etc., etc.

    3.

    Tu nudus hic jaces
    Et friges et taces!
    O Parvule delicate!
    Patriam defende!
    Minusculum pectus,
    Duriusculus lectus!
    Nihilominus telo
    Pugnabis e coelo!
        Patriam!
        Patriam!
    Patriam defende!

     All naked as we see thee, and cold and silent! O tender Infant!
     defend our country. Delicate is thy breast. Hard is thy couch! And
     yet, from heaven on high, wilt thou combat for us! Our country,
     etc., etc.

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:

    4.

    Grassantur,
    Furantur,
    Prædantur,
    Bacchantur!
    O Parvule delicate!
    Patriam defende!
    Nil tutum
    Nil ausum,
    Nil satis est clausum!
    Nil foedera valent.
    Cum hæreses calent.
        Patriam!
        Patriam!
    Patriam defende!

     Devastating, raging, slaying, in orgies they ruin. O tender
     Infant! defend our country. Naught is safe with us, naught
     withholds them. Heresy triumphs! Treaties are trampled upon! Our
     country, etc., etc.

    5.

    Polonia perit
    Et spolium erit.
    O Parvule delicate!
    Patriam defende!
    Tu fregeris nisi
    Vim hostis invisi,
    Oppresseris facem
    Et dederis pacem!
        Patriam!
        Patriam!
    Patriam defende!

     Poland perishes. A prey she becomes. O tender Infant! defend our
     country. Sealed is her fate, unless thou breakest the force of the
     enemy that crushes her; unless thou givest peace. Our country,
     etc., etc.

    6.

    Est tempus, est hora
    Ne, quæso, sit mora!
    Parvule delicate!
    Patriam defende!
    Vicini laborant,
    Et aliud orant!
    Quod perfidus hostis
    Nos, superi, nostis!
        Patriam!
        Patriam!
    Patriam defende!

     The time and the hour have come. Oh! delay not, I implore. O
     tender Infant! save our country. With other things our neighbors
     are occupied. Thou, O God supreme! knowest the designs of the
     enemy. Defend, defend our country!

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 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 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 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."

I quickened my steps, and in a moment was at her side.

"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.

"Not I," I replied laughingly; "but you have, I presume?"

"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 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_."

"Read it," he said; "read it in the original; it loses by
translation."

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.

"What is it?" she asked, resuming her seat.

"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 will not read it," she said in a low tone.

"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," 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 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. 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."

"Of course she makes you her confidant?" I said quizzingly.

"_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 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.

"From Helen, is it not?"

"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 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
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."

"I was not aware," I rejoined, "that you knew of my conversion."

"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 doubt the discovery surprised you, Miss Foster," I continued.

"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.

"Even when I accused you most bitterly," she said, in a low tone.

"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
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 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, which is a perfect gem of artistic ornamentation. It bears
the appropriate inscription,

     Invocatâ Immaculatâ, Pius Nonus pastor bonus, per concilium fert
     auxilium. Mundus crebris tot tenebris, implicatus, obcoecatus, per
     hoc Numen et hoc lumen, extricatur, illustratur.

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 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 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 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 foeticide 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 OECUMENICAL 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 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 oecumenical 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 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 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 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 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.

       *       *       *       *       *

     THE STORIES AND PARABLES OF PERE BONAVENTURE. New York: P. O'Shea.
     1869.

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,

     "Have you not paid the penalty of the wrong, if wrong it was to
     follow the impulse of a free heart? Is it reasonable to sacrifice
     the wife to a rigorous moral law which the husband does not
     consider binding? Who has made that unwise law? Not I, not you."
     (He might have added _only_ Almighty God.) "Why, then, should you
     obey it? I tell you the day of freedom which is now dawning will
     blow all such self-imposed laws to the winds, and with them all
     the ordinances devised by a dark, monkish disposition to fetter
     nature and torment hearts."

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 CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. X., No. 59.--FEBRUARY, 1870.




THE FUTURE OF PROTESTANTISM AND CATHOLICITY.[144]

SECOND ARTICLE.


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 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.

     "Place," he says, "Catholics and Protestants side by side on the
     same territory, in conditions perfectly equal, and leave each
     to act under the influence of their respective principles, and
     not a half-century will elapse before the Protestants will have
     taken in the material order a marked superiority. The Protestants
     will have the finest vineyards, the best cultivated fields, the
     greenest meadows, the most elegant mansions, and the freshest
     shade. They will have almost the monopoly of industry, commerce,
     large capital, the bourse, the bank, money at interest, and own
     all the mills and factories, if any there are. If you doubt it,
     consult Alsace and Strasburg, Nimes, Montpellier, the environs of
     Bourdeaux, the mixed Swiss cantons, and the conquests the American
     Union has made of the Spaniards of Mexico.... Wherever Protestants
     plant themselves, they are able to attain a preponderating
     influence in all civil affairs. With only a fourth of the
     population they will hold three fourths of the public offices,
     have the majority in the municipal council, the mayor of the
     commune, if not the adjunct, the highest grades in the national
     guard, the member of the conseil-général, the deputy, sometimes
     the senator, and the most widely circulating journal of the
     district, daily filled with eulogiums on their merit.

     "It is the same on a large scale among nations. Who knows not that
     there are more wealth, more well-being, more comfort, eleganter
     houses, softer couches, more sugar and coffee, in England,
     Scotland, Holland, Prussia, at Zurich, Berne, Geneva, New York,
     than in Spain, Portugal, Austria, at Rome or Rio Janeiro?

     "It would seem that there is a sort of _preëstablished harmony_
     between Protestantism and the earth, that they know and attract
     each other. Where the earth is most smiling and wears the richest
     decorations, it naturally becomes Protestant. In Switzerland, the
     richest and most fertile districts are Protestant, the rugged and
     barren are Catholic. The former, with their facile enjoyments,
     seem to invite to very forgetfulness of heaven; the latter only
     to raise and fix the affections above the earth, and can be made
     or become Protestant possessions only by force or violence." (Pp.
     186-188.)

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 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 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 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 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 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 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
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 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 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 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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[144] _De l'Avenir du Protestantisme et du Catholicisme._ Par M.
l'Abbé F. Martin. Paris: Tobra et Haton. 1869. 8vo, pp. 608.




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."

"She's rather pretty, is she not?"

"Not exactly pretty, but excessively nice. George respects her
immensely."

"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
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 Oedipus, 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.

"Miss Grant had a great many lovers, I suppose," she said at length.

"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.

Vane laughed, and looked out the reference himself.

"She was married at twenty, you goose; so it is not probable that she
had many declared lovers."

"What sort of man was Lord Sackvil?"

"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."

"Was the marriage a happy one?"

"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 to know a live countess. I
really must look at her."

"Mary, come to me," said Vane sternly, rising from his seat.

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 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.

Vane knocked the ashes off his cigar and answered curtly, "No."

"Why not?"

"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 think you made a mistake."

"I don't."

"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 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."

"So Cassandra found," replied Holston; "but she was right, for all
that."


V.

"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 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."

"Tell me about that day."

"Won't nurse be here in a minute?"

"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."

"How much was there?"

"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."

"What were you thinking of, dear?"

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."

"Has it been all you thought it would be?"

"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:

     "DEAR NICHOLAS: We are going to Torcello to-morrow, and must
     have you with us to expound the mysteries of the old church, the
     arabesques, etc. We leave at ten, and shall be gone all day. Don't
     say no to yours very faithfully,

                                          F. R. H.

     "P.S.--My sister says, 'Oh! yes. We must have him; he is so
     _gemüthlich_.'"

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:

                  "All too good
    For human nature's daily food."

It is a bad sign when one feels out of harmony with one's best
influences.

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.

    TO BE CONTINUED.




IN MEMORIAM OF THE REV. FRANCIS A. BAKER.

WRITTEN ON ALL SAINTS' DAY, 1869.


    All Saints' to-day! To-morrow is All Souls':
    To-morrow, blessed soul, I pray for thee.
    To-day, O sainted spirit! pray for me.
    One day--what years one day of life controls,
    My round eternity on that day rolls--
    Retired, we prayed together; my bent knee
    Before thee; thy hand raised to make me free,
    While, as through Moses, mercy wrath withholds.
    And well I mind me of succeeding joy,
    How thanks more rapt for God's dear love arose.
    When my full heart did thy blest words employ:
    And after, though unmarked the bashful boy,
    How sweet thy chance inquiry thrilled me, heaven knows!
    How close the bond there formed, heaven will disclose.




CHURCH MUSIC.

II.


"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."

"Most assuredly," said we; "and the poorest too. Why not?"

"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."

"And the occasion is--" we suggested.

"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.

"Exactly answering to your definition?"

"Well, no. I cannot say _exactly_ answering to my definition."

"We have been more fortunate than you," said we. "It has been our lot
to hear very charming music, exactly answering to your definition."

"Where?" demanded our friend earnestly.

"In many churches and monasteries of Europe," we replied.

"What was its style and character?" inquired our friend.

"The Gregorian Chant, pure and undefiled."

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 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, "Foemineæ voces ne audiantur in choro," hoping to gradually
induce a return to the established discipline of the Church. The
present Archbishop of Westminster, referring to this in a letter,
says,

     "Unfortunately, this decree has not been carried out. I can only
     suppose that the causes which brought in this deviation have
     prevailed to obtain its toleration until such time as we shall be
     able to do better. A sudden order to remove women singers, while
     as yet we have no boys trained to take their places, would be
     inconvenient and inconsiderate. I have not thought it right to
     issue any such order. But all that I can effect by the strongest
     expression of desire and persuasion I shall endeavor to effect."

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 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 aid? The question is well put by one who
has devoted much time and thought to the subject of church music:

     "Can we believe that the divine assistance can have failed her so
     far that her work, a discordant jumble of notes, should not be
     fit to be sung by us in our country and century? How different
     were the feelings and the belief of the people during the ages of
     faith! The monks and other holy men who wrote those sacred chants,
     set themselves to work sometimes after months of holy meditation
     and of watching, of fasting and of prayer; and then they composed
     those melodies, so little appreciated now, because so little
     known; but to the correct religious taste of our pious ancestors
     in the faith, so full of heavenly harmony that they sometimes
     thought, and not always without reason, the angels themselves had
     dictated them."[145]

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,

     "The very ruggedness of the Gregorian modes serves to impart to
     them a character of durability. These simple melodies, as we well
     know from the instance of the Vesper Psalms, to mention no other,
     somehow never pall upon the ear, and have, in fact, a perennial
     freshness which we can only account for by the circumstance of
     their having a variety of scale which modern melodies do not
     possess. This, too, is proved by the well-known fact that the most
     beautiful chants of the modern school (and we ourselves are fain
     to add also the most beautiful motets, Anthems, Glorias, Credos,
     etc.) become unendurable by constant repetition; and for this
     reason we find that even dissenters have been fain to adopt the
     old chant in their services."

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_:

     "We may look upon it in its plaintive if not mournful character
     in fact, as a kind of _pilgrim's song_, by which it would seem as
     if the Church would have us remember, even in the midst of our
     festal joys, that we are the '_Exules filii Hevæ, gementes et
     flentes in hâc lacrymarum valle_.' It is, we may say, the grave,
     sweet, pathetic note which the Church puts into the mouths of
     her children, lamenting with the Psalmist that 'their sojourning
     is prolonged;' the plaintive accent in which they confess that
     they are strangers upon earth, and that they 'seek another, even
     a heavenly city.' And so Father Faber sings in his well-known
     hymn--itself a kind of wayfarer's song--

         'While we toil on, and soothe ourselves with weeping,
         Till life's long night shall break in endless love.'"

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,

     "There is no song to be found without a tone of sadness in it;
     even as here below there are no joys without a mixture of sorrow;
     for songs of pure joy belong only to the heavenly Sion, but
     lamentation is the property of our earthly pilgrimage."

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, ~Hê
theia leitourgia tou hagiou apostolou Petrou~, _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:

     "_Deinde sacerdos voce clara dicit._

     "Dominus vobiscum.

     "_Populus._ Et cum spiritu tuo.

     "_Sacerdos._ Oremus.

     "_Populus._ Domine, miserere, _ter_.

     "_Tum sacerdos alta voce._

     "Præbe, Domine, servis tuis, dexteram coelestis auxilii, ut te
     toto corde perquirant, et quæ dignè postulant consequantur. Per
     Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, cum quo vivis et regnas Deus
     noster in unitate Spiritus sancti, in sæcula.

     "_Populus._ Amen. Sanctus Deus, sanctus fortis. _Et interea dum
     populus dicit hymnum ter sanctum, precatur sacerdos._ (Various
     prayers here follow, closing with the Lavabo.)

     "_Mox sacerdos clara voce._

     "Dominus vobiscum.

     "_Populus._ Et cum spiritu tuo.

     "_Sacerdos._ Ostia, ostia. (Alluding to the closing of the doors
     and departure of the catechumens.)

     "_Populus._ Credo in unum Deum, etc.

     "_Sacerdos._ Stemus honeste; stemus cum reverentia, etc.

     "_Populus._ Misericordiam; pacem.

     "_Sacerdos, alta voce._ Hostiam tibi Domine destinatam in
     oblationem sanctifica, et per eam nos clementer suscipe, per
     Dominum, etc., per omnia sæcula sæculorum.

     "_Populus._ Amen.

     "_Sacerdos._ Sursum corda.

     "_Populus._ Habemus ad Dominum.

     "_Sacerdos._ Gratiarum actiones submittamus, Domino Deo nostro.

     "_Populus._ Dignum et justum est."

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 be acknowledged that no more complete,
intelligent, or edifying expression of the Great Eucharistic Rite
could possibly be desired.

     "Shall we ever see the day," asks a writer in the old _Dublin
     Review_, "when, on entering a Catholic church during service
     time, we shall be struck, not with the dampening spectacle of a
     congregation partly composed of unbelievers in the act of enjoying
     the pleasure of a Sunday concert, while the remainder, with
     closed books in their lap, or by their side, wait patiently or
     impatiently till the prolonged and a hundred times repeated _Amen_
     of the Gloria or the Creed deigns to come to an end, but with the
     refreshing sight of an unmixed body of true worshippers, learned
     and ignorant, high and low, rich and poor, unostentatiously led by
     a select choir, engaged in heartily singing the praises of Him in
     whose house they are assembled? To so consoling and truly Catholic
     a state of things should all our reforms tend; for it will only
     be when it is established that we shall be able to taste the
     sweetness, as well as delight in the beauty and feel the grandeur
     of that congregational singing which so many desire, but which is
     incompatible with an encouragement in churches of the music of
     _Don Giovanni_, _Fidelio_, _Lodoiska_, _Il Barbière_, and _Faust_."

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:

     "A Protestant meeting-house is built to preach in; the nearer the
     minister is to the people, the better he is heard. _Our_ churches
     are, first of all, places of worship. Nothing so affects the
     visitor who enters one of our churches in the old country as the
     mysterious depth of their sanctuaries. We allude here not merely
     to the Gothic cathedrals, but to all kind of churches, no matter
     to what particular order of architecture they belong. Architects,
     in those ancient times, would as soon have thought of planning a
     church without a chancel, (choir,) as of building one without a
     roof."

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:

     "Quand on voit la piété se refroidir en tant d'endroits, il est
     naturel de craindre qu'on ne l'envoque le bon Dieu avec tant de
     ferveur, que le feu sacré ne languisse dans son sanctuaire. C'est
     le moment de se demander si les adorateurs ne seraient devenus
     plus froids en devenant plus rares, _si le silence des temples n'a
     pas amené le sommeil des âmes_."

     When one sees piety growing cold in so many places, it is but
     reasonable to fear that God is invoked with so little fervor
     because the sacred fire is dying out in his sanctuary. It is time
     to ask ourselves if the worshippers have not become less devout
     in becoming less attentive at the services of the church; if the
     silence of our temples of religion has not brought on the sleep of
     souls.

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,
instructive, and devout offices of the Church.

The accomplished author of the remarkable work on _Christian Schools
and Scholars_ thus writes:

     "The fact is that, in one respect, the rude, ignorant peasantry
     of the middle ages were a great deal more learned than the pupils
     of our modern schools. In a certain sort of way, every child was
     rendered familiar with the language of the Church. From infancy
     they were taught to recite their prayers, the antiphons, and many
     parts of the ritual of the Church, in Latin, and to understand the
     meaning of what they learnt; and hence they became familiar with a
     great number of Latin words, so that a Latin discourse would sound
     far less strange in their ears than in those of a more educated
     audience of the same class in the present day. In many cases,
     indeed, the children who were taught in the priest's, or parochial
     school, learned grammar, that is--the Latin language; but all were
     required to learn the church chant, and a considerable number of
     Latin prayers, and hymns, and psalms. This point of poor-school
     education deserves more than a passing notice. Its result was,
     that the lower classes were able thoroughly to understand and
     heartily to take part in the rites and offices of Holy Church.
     The faith rooted itself in their hearts with a tenacity which was
     not easily destroyed, even by penal laws, because they imbibed
     it from its fountain source--the Church herself. She taught her
     children out of her own ritual, and by her own voice, and made
     them believers after a different fashion from those much more
     highly educated Catholics of the same class who, in our day,
     often grow up almost as much strangers to the liturgical language
     of the Church as the mass of unbelievers outside the fold. Can
     there be any incongruity more grievous than to enter a Catholic
     school, rich in every appliance of education, and to find that,
     in spite of the time, money, and method lavished on its support,
     its pupils are unable to understand and recite the church offices,
     and are untrained to take part in church psalmody? The language
     of the Church has, therefore, in a very literal sense, become
     a dead language to them, and it is from other and far inferior
     sources that they derive their religious instruction. Thus they
     are ignorant of a large branch of school education, in which the
     children of a ruder and darker age were thoroughly trained; no
     doubt, on the other hand, they know a great many things of which
     children in the middle ages were altogether ignorant; and the
     question is simply to determine which method of instruction has
     most practical utility in it. Without dogmatizing on this point,
     we may be permitted to regret that through any defect in the
     system of our parochial schools, Catholic congregations should in
     our own days be deprived of the solemn and thorough celebrations
     of those sacred offices which in themselves comprise a body of
     unequalled religious instruction; and that, in an age which makes
     so much of the theory of education, we should have to confess our
     inability to teach our children to pray and sing the prayers of
     the Church as the children of Catholic peasants prayed and sang
     them six hundred years ago. The English schools of that period
     enjoyed the benefit of no other inspection than that of the parish
     priest and the archdeacon, 'the eye of the bishop,' as he was
     called; and if their pupils knew little about 'monocotyledons,'
     the 'crustacea,' or grammatical analysis, they were able to recite
     their Alma Redemptoris and their Dixit Dominus with hearty,
     _intelligent_ devotion.[146] They knew the order of the church
     service, and could sing its psalms and antiphons in the language
     of the church, and to her ancient tones."

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
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:

     "The prayer of the Church is the most pleasing to the ear and
     heart of God, and therefore the most efficacious of all prayers.
     Happy, then, is he who prays with the Church, and unites his
     own petitions with those of this Spouse, who is so dear to her
     Lord that he gives her all she asks. It was for this reason that
     our Blessed Saviour taught us to say _our Father_, and not _my
     Father_; _give us, forgive us, deliver us_, and not _give me,
     forgive me, deliver me_. Hence, we find that, for upward of a
     thousand years, the Church, who prays in her temples seven times
     in the day, and once again during the night, did not pray alone.
     The people kept her company, and fed themselves with delight
     on the manna which is hidden under the words and mysteries of
     the divine liturgy. Thus initiated into the sacred cycle of the
     mysteries of the Christian year, the faithful, attentive to the
     teachings of the Spirit, came to know the secrets of eternal
     life; and without any further preparation, a Christian was not
     unfrequently chosen by the bishops to be a priest, or even a
     bishop, that he might go and pour out on the people the treasures
     of wisdom and love which he had drunk in at the very fountain-head.

     "But for now many past ages, Christians have grown too solicitous
     about earthly things to frequent the holy _vigils_ and the
     mystical _hours_ of the day. Long before the rationalism of the
     sixteenth century became the auxiliary of the heresies of that
     period by curtailing the solemnity of the divine service, the
     days for the people's uniting exteriorly with the prayer of the
     church had been reduced to Sundays and festivals. During the rest
     of the year, the solemn and imposing grandeur of the liturgy
     was gone through, and the people took no share in it. Each
     new generation increased in indifference for that which their
     forefathers in the faith had loved as their best and strongest
     food. Social prayer was made to give way to individual devotion.
     Chanting, which is the natural expression of the prayers and even
     of the sorrows of the Church, became limited to the solemn feasts.
     That was the first sad revolution in the Christian world.

     "But even then Christendom was still rich in churches and
     monasteries, and there, day and night, was still heard the sound
     of the same venerable prayers which the Church had used through
     all the past ages. So many hands lifted up to God drew down upon
     the earth the dew of heaven, averted storms, and won victory for
     those who were in battle. These servants of God, who thus kept up
     an untiring choir that sang the divine praises, were considered
     as solemnly deputed by the people, which was still Catholic, to
     pay the full tribute of homage and thanksgiving due to God, his
     Blessed Mother, and the saints. These prayers formed a treasury
     which belonged to all. The faithful gladly united themselves in
     spirit to what was done. When any affliction, or the desire to
     obtain a special favor, led them to the house of God, they were
     sure to hear, no matter at what hour they went, that untiring
     voice of prayer which was for ever ascending to heaven for the
     salvation of mankind. At times they would give up their worldly
     business and cares, and take part in the office of the church, and
     all still understood, at least in a general way, the mysteries of
     the liturgy.

     "Then came the _Reformation_, and, at the onset, it attacked the
     very life of Christianity--it would put an end to the sacrifice of
     man's praise of his God. It strewed many countries with the ruins
     of churches; the clergy, the monks, and virgins consecrated to
     God were banished or put to death; and in the churches which were
     spared the divine offices were not permitted. In other countries,
     where the persecution was not so violent, many sanctuaries were
     devastated and irremediably ruined, so that the life and voice of
     prayer grew faint. Faith, too, was weakened; rationalism became
     fearfully developed; and now our own age seems threatened with
     what is the result of these evils--the subversion of all social
     order.

     "For, when the Reformation had abated the violence of its
     persecution, it had other weapons wherewith to attack the Church.
     By these, several countries, which continued to be Catholic, were
     infected with that spirit of pride which is the enemy of prayer.
     The modern spirit would have it that _prayer is not action_--as
     though every good action done by man were not a gift of God; a
     gift which implies two prayers: one of petition, that it may be
     granted; and another of thanksgiving, because it is granted! There
     were found men who said, _Let us abolish all the festival days of
     God from the earth_; and then came upon us that calamity which
     brings all others with it, and which the good Mardochai besought
     God to avert from his nation, when he said, _Shut not, O Lord, the
     mouths of them that sing to thee!_

     "But, by the mercy of God, _we have not been consumed_; there have
     been left remnants of Israel; and the number of believers in the
     Lord has increased. What is it that has moved the heart of our
     God to bring about this merciful conversion? Prayer, which had
     been interrupted, has been resumed. Numerous choirs of virgins
     consecrated to God, and, though far less in number, of men who
     have left the world to spend themselves in the divine praises,
     make _the voice of the turtle-dove heard in our land_. This voice
     is every day gaining more power; may it find acceptance from
     our Lord, and move him to show the sign of his covenant with
     us, the rainbow of reconciliation! May our venerable cathedrals
     again reëcho those solemn formulæ of prayer which heresy has so
     long suppressed! May the faith and munificence of the faithful
     reproduce the prodigies of those past ages, which owed their
     greatness to the acknowledgment, which all, even the very civic
     authorities, paid to the all-powerfulness of prayer!

     "For a long time a remedy has been devised for an evil which was
     only vaguely felt. The spirit of prayer, and even prayer itself,
     has been sought for in methods, and prayer-books, which contain,
     it is true, laudable, yea pious thoughts, but, after all, only
     human thoughts. Such nourishment cannot satisfy the soul, for it
     does not initiate her into the prayer of the Church. Instead of
     uniting her with the prayer of the Church it isolates her. Of this
     kind are so many of those collections of prayers and reflections
     which have been published, under different titles, during the
     last two hundred years, and by which it was intended to edify the
     faithful, and suggest to them, either for hearing mass, or going
     to the sacraments, or keeping the feasts of the church, certain
     more or less commonplace considerations and acts, always drawn up
     according to the manner of thought and sentiment peculiar to the
     author of each book. Each manual had consequently its own way of
     treating these important subjects. To Christians already formed
     to piety, such books as these would, indeed, serve a purpose,
     especially as nothing better was offered to them; but they had not
     influence sufficient to inspire with a relish and spirit of prayer
     such as had not otherwise received them.

     "But this liturgical prayer would soon become powerless were the
     faithful not to take a real share in it, or, at least, not to
     associate themselves to it in heart. It can heal and save the
     world, but only on the condition that it be understood. Be wise,
     then, ye children of the Catholic Church, and get that largeness
     of heart which will make you pray the prayer of your mother. Come,
     and buy your share in it, fill up that harmony which is so sweet
     to the ear of God. Where would you obtain the spirit of prayer if
     not at its natural source? Let us remind you of the exhortation
     of the apostle to the first Christians: _Let the peace of Christ
     rejoice in your hearts--let the word of Christ dwell in you
     abundantly, in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in
     psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing in grace in your
     hearts to God_."

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




HINTS ON HOUSEKEEPING

BY A GRANDMOTHER.


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 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_.

"And it is not," she replied.

"But you do not mean to tell me," I exclaimed in dismay, "that these
are the ordinary costumes for full dress at parties?"

"Of course they are. Why not?" she very innocently answered.

I ventured no further remark or inquiry, but retired with my own
quiet 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!

"No wonder," thought I, "that Harry does not dare to marry!"

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.

What are these defects, what their remedy, and what the proper


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 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 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.

In no other way can this painful domestic problem ever find a fitting
solution.




A CONVERT'S PRAYER.

    "Too late have I known thee, O ancient truth! Too long have I
        wandered from thee, O ancient beauty!"

                                  SAINT AUGUSTINE.

INSCRIBED TO THE REV. FATHER WELCH, S.J.


    Is it too late, O Lord! too late,
        To thee who count'st not time
    As we thy finite creatures do,
        By cycles as they chime?
    By years, and months, and fleeting days--
        Not so thou countest, Lord;
    A thousand years are in thy sight
        As yesterday's brief word.

    Or is it only late for _me_,
        Late for earth's fleeting day,
    Because the best of life is gone--
        My youth has passed away?
    Its fresh love, though, was given to thee;
        Yet now, how cold it seems,
    And I as one who shadows chased
        In labyrinths of dreams.

    In faith I walk now with thee, Lord,
        As when Incarnate here
    The wondering Jews looked on thy face,
        And to thy words gave ear.
    I am with thee at the marriage feast
        In Cana's peaceful dale,
    I hear thy Blessed Mother's voice
        O'er thee in love prevail.

    I hear thee answer her, and bring
        From water even wine,
    And mark that wondrous miracle
        Which stamps thee God Divine!
    And then, amid thy chosen twelve
        The mystic supper spread,
    With only juice pressed from the vine,
        And only wheaten bread;

    And yet, as at fair Cana's feast,
        Faith's miracle there stood,
    This bread thy _word_ transforms to flesh,
        This wine into thy blood!
    I hear thee say those solemn words,
        "_Except my flesh ye eat,
    And drink my blood, no life have ye_,"
        No love for me complete!

    I hear the Jew, "How can this man
        Give us his flesh to eat?"
    I mark thy silence; then, again,
        Thy solemn words repeat.
    This is faith's lesson. Lord, I bow
        Submissive to thy word,
    Nor ask I "_how_:" it is enough
        That thou hast said it, Lord!

    O wondrous mystery of faith!
        Great God, thou dost retain
    The vision of thy _presence_ till
        We cease to say, "Explain."
    And last, I see thee on the cross,
        Thine arms extended wide,
    As if to draw the world to thee
        To kiss thy wounded side.

    And then, down-lifted from the cross,
        And in the linen laid,
    With spices pressed by Mary's hand
        In wounds the spear had made.
    All this I see, and in the night
        Thy voice comes low and sweet,
    And bids me, sinner as I am,
        To kiss thy wounded feet.

    And each dear hand, once raised to bless,
        To heal, now torn and riven--
    Lord, in those bleeding hands take _mine_,
        Nor let them go till heaven
    Shall take me, wanderer, safely in,
        Where all these tears and sighs
    Shall on thy breast be hushed to rest,
        In golden paradise!

    Then is it late, "too late," O Lord?
        I am waiting in the porch
    To hear those "gates of pearl" unbar,
        And enter in thy church;
    To find sure anchor, peace and rest,
        From error, sorrow, sin;
    I am very weary of earth's strife--
        Lord, let thy wanderer in.

                                SOPHIA MAY ECKLEY.

St. Gertrude's Day, Nov. 15, 1869.




TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF CONRAD VON BOLANDEN.

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."

"Thought is a function of the brain."

"Then it is incomprehensible how the sensible can beget the
supersensible. How matter--the brain--can produce the immaterial, the
spiritual."

Richard was silent.

"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 is false. There are existences which can neither be
felt, tasted, nor seen."

"The vivifying principle is also in animals," said Richard.

"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."

"You read for diversion! What did you wish to forget?"

"Dark clouds that lowered over my mind."

"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?"

"No; it will never come to that."

"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
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."

The doctor was scarcely in his room when Richard's father entered.

"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?"

"What do you understand by possible consequences?"

"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 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.

This astonished him.

"What is the matter, Angela?" he exclaimed.

There was no answer. He was about to go after her when Frank entered.

"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."

Frank nodded assent.

"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."

Richard shook his head disapprovingly.

"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."

"Mean and contemptible!" said Frank.

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.

"Miss, I have greatly offended you, and beg your pardon."

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, 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.

"I will forgive you, Herr Frank, on one condition."

"Only speak. I am prepared for any penance."

"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."

"This rejoices no one more than me," said she with a tremulous voice.

He stood up, bowed, and returned to his former place.

"But, my dear neighbor, how did this singular affair happen?" said
the proprietor.

Frank told him about the death of the chicken.

"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.

"I wish them all happiness," said he.

"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?"

"The angel is well," said Richard, avoiding the glance of his friend.

"What do you mean by the 'Angel of Salingen'?" said the father.

"Thereby I understand the unmarried daughter of Herr Siegwart, of
Salingen, named Angela, who richly deserves to be called the 'Angel
of Salingen.'"

Frank knit his brows darkly and drummed on his knees.

"And the encounter with the steer?" continued he.

The professor related the occurrence.

"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."

"With pleasure, Herr Professor."

"Richard," said the other friend, "shall we meet at the opera
to-night?"

"Scarcely. I must to-day enter upon my usual business."

"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.

"Herr Richard," reported the spy, "hears mass at the Capuchins."

Frank drummed a march on his knees.

"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?"

"I have imposed upon myself the obligation of hearing mass every
morning."

"How did you come to take that singular obligation upon yourself?"

"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."

"It is my constant care, father, to give you no cause of uneasiness."

"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."

"And why to Frankenhöhe? I do not know any amusement there for you."

"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 give the permission. He thought and
drummed.

"You can go," he said resignedly. "I hope the mountain air will cheer
you up."

       *       *       *       *       *

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."

"Give them many kind greetings from me. I will come back in the
evening."

"Off so soon? Will you not say good-day to Miss Angela? She is in the
garden. Shall I call her?"

"No," said he after a moment's reflection; "I will go into the garden
myself."

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.

"Do you remain long at Frankenhöhe?"

"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."

"Do you work every day regularly in the counting-room?"

"I am punctual to the hours, for the work demands regularity and
order. There are every day some hours for recreation."

"And what is the most pleasant recreation for you?"

"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."

Angela thought of his former mental troubles and looked anxiously in
his eyes.

"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."

He paused; but the declaration of his love hovered on his lips.

"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.

They arose.

"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.

"You know your father's opinion of us," she said, disturbed.

"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 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."

He arose and was about to kneel, when Herr Frank stopped him.

"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."

"May I ask the reason of your refusal, father?"

"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 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."

"And you approved of this narrow-mindedness of the ultramontane?"
cried Frank.

"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?"

"I take no part; I express frankly my views," answered Richard
tranquilly.

"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."

"No, no! Once for all--never!" cried Frank hastily.

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."

The young man arose.

"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. 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 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."

"Pardon me; my head is confused, my heart is sad; grief wastes my
life away."

"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
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."

Schlagbein shook his head sadly.

"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 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.

"What does this mean, Emil?"

"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."

The professor pitied his unhappy friend.

"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."

Schlagbein moved his head disconsolately.

"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 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 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.

They resolve themselves into the following:

1. The pope allowed the civil power to make an alteration in the
creed--a thing distinctly forbidden by the Fourth General Council.

2. The pope afterward altered the creed on his own authority.

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?

     "Rome," says Mr. Ffoulkes, "has abundantly proved, during the last
     thousand years, that she can be a negligent, hesitating, fickle,
     self-seeking, hypocritical guide to others, _even where the faith
     is concerned_."

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 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
oecumenical 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 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. 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 oecumenical 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 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 oecumenical
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," 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,

     "We define that the apostolic see and the Roman pontiff hold the
     primacy in the whole world, and that the Roman pontiff himself is
     the successor of blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, the
     true vicar of Christ, the head of the whole church, and the father
     and teacher of all Christians; and that to him, in the person
     of Peter, our Lord Jesus Christ gave full power to feed, rule,
     and govern the whole church, as is contained in the acts of the
     oecumenical councils and the sacred canons."

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 oecumenical 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 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:

     "It was secretly and perhaps tacitly resolved," he says, "by the
     prince and people (Greek) to destroy, or at least to discourage
     the pilgrims by every species of injury and oppression, and their
     want of prudence and discipline continually afforded the pretence
     or the opportunity. The western monarchs had stipulated a safe
     passage and a fair market in the country of their Christian
     brethren; the treaty had been ratified by oath and hostages, and
     the poorest soldier of Frederic's army was furnished with three
     marks of silver to defray his expenses on the road. But every
     engagement was violated by treachery and injustice, and the
     complaints of the Latins are attested by the honest confession of
     a Greek historian who has dared to prefer truth to his country.
     Instead of a hospitable reception, the gates of the cities, both
     in Europe and Asia, were closely barred against the Crusaders,
     and the scanty pittance of food was let down from the walls....
     In every step of their march they were stopped or misled; the
     governors had private orders to fortify the passes and break
     down the bridges against them; the stragglers were pillaged and
     murdered; the soldiers and horses were pierced in the woods by
     arrows from an invisible hand; the sick were burnt in their beds;
     and the dead bodies were hung on gibbets along the highways. These
     injuries exasperated the champions of the cross, who were not
     endowed with evangelical patience, and the Byzantine princes, who
     had provoked the unequal conflict, promoted the embarkation and
     march of these formidable guests."

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.

     "Innocent," says Mr. Ffoulkes, "was no lawless invader of the
     rights of others, but rather one of the most eminent and exact
     canonists that ever adorned the chair of Peter; and if he took the
     loftiest views of the prerogatives of his see, it was because he
     believed them to be thoroughly consonant with law and equity."

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:

     "In the general Congregation of the Holy Roman and Universal
     Inquisition, held in the apostolical palace at St. Peter's,
     in the presence of our most holy lord, Clement XI., by divine
     providence pope, and the most eminent and reverend lords, the
     cardinals of the holy Roman Church, the aforesaid memorial having
     been read, our most holy lord, the aforesaid pope, having heard
     the sentiments of the same eminent personages, decreed that the
     petitioner, John Clement Gordon, be promoted from the commencement
     to all, even the holy orders, and the priesthood; and that, as he
     has not been fortified by the sacrament of confirmation, he be
     confirmed."

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:

     "It cannot be granted that they (the Anglican bishops) have
     received the ministry from Catholics, since no evidence is
     produced of successive ordination. Without this, there remains no
     vestige of consecration with these heretics, besides a ministry
     derived from the people or a lay-prince. Moreover, supposing
     even that some one of them had received, by means of legitimate
     succession, the episcopal ordination and consecration, (which,
     however, is by no means proved,) still, their orders must now be
     pronounced invalid _through the defect of matter, form, and due
     intention_."

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 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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
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:

     "The only thing I ask of you is this: that you will give up, now
     and for ever, all interest in the Romish Church."

"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 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?"

Agnes was interested; she sat up and looked about her.

"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:

"Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison!"

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.

"Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison!"

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, my child?"

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; for we know "there is
joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance."

FOOTNOTES:

[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."

       *       *       *       *       *

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,

"Have you lost your senses? Come with me. I want to speak to you."

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?"

"No," she answered, "I must go back; I cannot leave It yet."

"What do you mean? I came for an answer to my letter. Have you read
it?"

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,

"_Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonæ
voluntatis._"




THE CHAPEL.


    On the outskirts of the city, where the poor and outcast dwell,
    Is a humble little chapel, in its tower a sweet-voiced bell;
    And beside its simple altar, with a smile serene and mild,
    Stands a rudely-sculptured image of the Virgin and her Child.

    In the early, dewy mornings, when the grass-grown walks are bright,
    When beyond the chimneys glimmer the far mountain-tops with light,
    Here a crowd of poor and lowly to the dust their heads incline,
    As the chalice of salvation is uplifted o'er the shrine.

    Yonder, in the great cathedral, oriel tints the banners stain,
    On the purple and the mitre slanting down the pictured pane;
    And the statues high in niches, and the chanting of the choir,
    All art's mighty inspirations to the tired heart say, "Aspire!"

    Here heaven's pure white light streams inward; here through open
        windows sweet
    Blow the fresh airs on the wild flowers at the Virgin Mother's feet,
    And sweet, silvery, girlish voices sweetly chant a simple strain,
    Such as shepherds might have chanted on the old Chaldean plain.

    Often when my heart grows restless, burdened with earth's cares,
        and sore,
    Come I to this humble chapel, kneel down on the wooden floor;
    Those poor ragged outcasts round me, praying side by side with them,
    Wondrously I seem drawn nearer to the crib of Bethlehem.

    These pale faces, seamed and weary, seeking solace here, and peace,
    Speak more eloquent a language than the olden seers of Greece;
    More than Plato taught when round him stood the Athenians rapt and
        dumb;
    More of wisdom than e'er echoed through the groves of Tusculum.

    The poor lives and poor endeavors of these toilers of the sod
    Teach life's grand and noble lessons--patience, faith, and trust in
        God;
    And the weight of earth falls from me, for I hear a soft voice thrill,
    And my heart lies down in quiet as it whispers, "Peace, be still!"

                            CONSTANTINA E. BROOKS.




THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE SPECIES.[151]

III.


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, 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 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, 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 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 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, 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:

     "How completely the several attributes of animal life come within
     the definition, we shall see on going through them _seriatim_.

     "Thus, _strength_ results from the coördination of actions; for
     it is produced by the simultaneous contraction of many muscles,
     and many fibres of each muscle; and the strength is great in
     proportion to the number of these acting together; that is, in
     proportion to the coördination. _Swiftness_, also, depending
     partly on strength, but requiring, also, the rapid alternation
     of movements, equally comes under the expression; seeing that,
     other things equal, the more quickly sequent actions can be made
     to follow each other, the more completely are they coördinated.
     So, too, is it with _agility_; the power of a chamois to spring
     from crag to crag implies accurate coördination in the movements
     of different muscles, and a due subordination of them to the
     perceptions."

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 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 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 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:

     "In the early part of this chapter it was shown that the crossing
     of distinct forms, whether closely or distantly allied, gives
     increased size and constitutional vigor, and, except in the case
     of crossed species, increased fertility to the offspring. The
     evidence rests on the universal testimony of breeders.... Although
     animals of pure blood will obviously be deteriorated by crossing,
     as far as their characteristic qualities are concerned, there
     seems to be no exception to the rule that advantages of the kind
     just mentioned are thus gained even when there has not been any
     previous close interbreeding. The rule applies to all animals,
     _even to cattle and sheep_, which can long resist breeding
     in-and-in between the nearest blood relations. It applies to
     individuals of the same sub-variety, but of distinct families, to
     varieties or races, to sub-species, as well as to quite distinct
     species.

     "In this latter case, however, while size, vigor, precocity,
     and hardiness are, with rare exceptions, gained, fertility,
     in a greater or less degree, is lost; but the gain cannot be
     exclusively attributed to the principle of compensation; for there
     is no close parallelism between the increased size and vigor of
     the offspring and their sterility. Moreover, it has been clearly
     proved that mongrels which are perfectly fertile gain these same
     advantages, as well as sterile hybrids."

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:

     "All the domestic races pair readily together, and, what is
     equally important, their mongrel offspring are perfectly fertile.
     To ascertain this fact, I made many experiments, which are given
     in the note below; and recently Mr. Tegetmeier has made similar
     experiments with the same result. The accurate Neumeister asserts
     that when dovecots are crossed with pigeons of any other breed the
     mongrels are extremely fertile and hardy. MM. Boitard and Corbie
     affirm, after their great experience, _that with crossed pigeons,
     the more distinct the breeds, the more productive are their
     mongrel offspring_." (Page 236, vol i., American edition.)

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 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:

     "Nevertheless, it is probable that the crossing of two forms, when
     one or both have long been domesticated or cultivated, adds to the
     variability of the offspring, independently of the commingling of
     the characters derived from the two parent forms; and this implies
     that new characters actually arise. But we must not forget the
     facts advanced in the thirteenth chapter, which clearly prove that
     the act of crossing often leads to the reappearance or reversion
     of long-lost characters; and in most cases, it would be impossible
     to distinguish between the reappearance of ancient characters and
     the first appearance of new characters. Practically, whether new
     or old, they would be new to the breed in which they reappeared."

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 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:

     "Evidence of the evil effects of close interbreeding can most
     readily be acquired in the case of animals, such as fowls,
     pigeons, etc., which propagate quickly, and, from being kept in
     the same place, are exposed to the same conditions. Now, I have
     inquired of very many breeders of these birds, and I have hitherto
     not met with a single man who was not thoroughly convinced that an
     occasional cross with another strain of the same sub-variety was
     absolutely necessary. Most breeders of highly improved or fancy
     birds value their own strain, and are most unwilling, at the risk,
     in their opinion, of deterioration, to make a cross. The purchase
     of a first-rate bird of another strain is expensive, and exchanges
     are troublesome; yet all breeders, as far as I can hear, excepting
     those who keep large stocks at different places for the sake of
     crossing, are driven after a time to take this step." (P. 117,
     vol. ii.)

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
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.

Of the close interbreeding of the cow Darwin says:

     "With _cattle_ there can be no doubt that extremely close
     interbreeding may be long carried on, advantageously with
     respect to external characters and with no manifestly apparent
     evil as far as constitution is concerned. The same remark is
     applicable to sheep. Whether these animals have been rendered
     less susceptible than others to this evil, in order to permit
     them to live in herds--a habit which leads the old and vigorous
     males to expel all intruders, and in consequence often to pair
     with their own daughters--I will not pretend to decide. The case
     of Bakewell's longhorns, which were closely interbred for a long
     period, has often been quoted; yet Youatt says the breed 'had
     acquired a delicacy of constitution inconsistent with common
     management,' and 'the propagation of the species was not always
     certain.' But the shorthorns offer the most striking case of
     close interbreeding; for instance, the famous bull Favorite (who
     was himself the offspring of a half-brother and sister from
     Foljambe) was matched with his own daughter, granddaughter, and
     great-granddaughter; so that the produce of this last union, or
     the great-great-granddaughter, had fifteen sixteenths, or 93.75
     per cent, of the blood of Favorite in her reins. This cow was
     matched with the bull Wellington, having 62.5 per cent of Favorite
     blood in his veins, and produced Clarissa; Clarissa was matched
     with the bull Lancaster, having 68.75 of the same blood, and she
     yielded valuable offspring. Nevertheless, Collings, who reared
     these animals, and was a strong advocate for close interbreeding,
     once crossed his stock with a Galloway, and the cows from this
     cross realized the highest prices. Bates's herd was esteemed the
     most celebrated in the world. For thirteen years he bred most
     closely in-and-in; but during the next seventeen years, though
     he had the most exalted notion of the value of his own stock, he
     thrice infused fresh blood into his herd; it is said that he did
     this, not to improve the form of his animals, but on account of
     their lessened fertility. Mr. Bates's own view, as given by a
     celebrated breeder, was, that 'to breed in-and-in from a bad stock
     was ruin and devastation; yet that the practice may be safely
     allowed within certain limits when the parents so related are
     descended from first-rate animals.' We thus see that there has
     been extremely close interbreeding with shorthorns; but Nathusius,
     after the most careful study of their pedigrees, says that he
     can find no instance of a breeder who has strictly followed this
     practice during his whole life. From this study and his own
     experience, he concludes that close interbreeding is necessary to
     ennoble the stock; but that in effecting this the greatest care is
     necessary on account of the tendency to infertility and weakness.
     It may be added that another high authority asserts that many more
     calves are born cripples from shorthorns than from any other and
     less closely interbred races of cattle." (Pp. 117, 118, vol. ii.)

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.

On page 119, vol. ii., he remarks that,

     "With _sheep_ there has often been long-continued close
     interbreeding within the limits of the same flock; but whether
     the nearest relations have been matched so frequently as in the
     case of shorthorn cattle, I do not know. The Messrs. Brown, during
     fifty years, have never infused fresh blood into their excellent
     flock of Leicesters. Since 1810, Mr. Barford has acted on the same
     principle with the Foscote flock. He asserts that half a century
     of experience has convinced him that when two nearly-related
     individuals are quite sound in constitution, in-and-in breeding
     does not induce degeneracy; but he adds that he 'does not pride
     himself on breeding from the nearest affinities.' In France, the
     Naz flock has been bred for sixty years without the introduction
     of a single strange ram."

In connection with this subject _The Westminster Review_ says that,

     "M. Beaudouin, in a memoir to be found in the _Comptes Rendus_
     of August 5th, 1862, gives some very interesting particulars
     of a flock of merino sheep bred in-and-in, for a period of two
     and twenty years, without a single cross, and with perfectly
     successful results, there being no sign of decreased fertility,
     and the breed having in other respects improved."

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":

     "Mr. J. H. Walsh, well known, under the _nom de plume_ of
     Stonehenge, as an authority upon sporting matters, says
     distinctly, in his recent work, that nearly all our thorough-bred
     horses are bred in-and-in." (_Vide West. Rev._ for July, 1863, p.
     44.)

     "Writers upon sporting matters are pretty generally agreed that no
     horse either bears fatigue so well or recovers from its effects
     so soon as the thorough-bred, and it is a subject upon which such
     writers are the best of all authorities. Thus, 'Nimrod' concludes
     a comparison between the thorough-bred and the half-bred hunter in
     the following words: 'As for his powers of endurance under equal
     sufferings, they doubtless would exceed those of the 'cock-tail,'
     and being by his nature what is termed a better doer in the
     stable, he is sooner at his work again than the others. _Indeed,
     there is scarcely a limit to the work of full-bred hunters_ of
     good form and constitution and temper; and yet these, as we have
     seen, are almost all close bred." (_Ibid._ p. 45.)

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.
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 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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[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.




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 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 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 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 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 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
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 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 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.

    TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




CHESS.


I.

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 Euboea.
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 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--

    "At chesse with me she gan to pleye
    With hir fals draughtes dyverse,
    She staale on me and toke my ferz, (now queen.)
    And when I saugh my ferz awaye,
    Alas, I kouthe no longer pleye.
    With a powne errante, allas I
    Ful craftier to pleye she was
    Than Athalus, who made the game
    First of the chesse, so was hys name."[167]

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,

    "Exegi monumentum ære perennius."

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:

     "Three hundred and seventy-nine years after the time of Confucius,
     or 1965 years ago," says the annal, "Hung Cochu, King of Kiangnan,
     sent an expedition into the Shense country, under command of a
     mandarin named Hansing, to conquer it. After one campaign, the
     soldiers went into winter quarters, and they grew homesick and
     wanted to return. Then Hansing invented the game of chess. They
     were well pleased. In the spring they took the field again, and
     soon added the rich country of Shense to the kingdom of Kiangnan."

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_."

FOOTNOTE:

[167] Bell's _Chaucer_, vol. vi.


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, 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 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:

     "At one of the festivals at the court of Charlemagne, the
     emperor's son Charles, and Bauduin, son of Ogier, went to play
     together. They took a chess-board and sat down to play for
     pastime. They arranged their chess-men on the board. The emperor's
     son first moved his pawn, and young Bauduin moved his _aufin_,
     (bishop.) Then Charles thought to press him very hard, and he
     moves his knight upon the other _aufin_. The one moves forward and
     the other backward so long that Bauduin said _mate_ to him in the
     corner. Then the young prince was furious at his defeat, and not
     only assailed the son of Ogier with the most insulting language,
     but seized the chess-board and dealt him such a violent blow on
     his forehead that he split his head and scattered his brains on
     the floor!"

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:

     "Young Fulk was bred at the court of King Henry, and was much
     beloved by all his sons except John; for he used often to quarrel
     with John. It happened that John and Fulk were sitting all alone
     in a chamber playing at chess. John took the chess-board and hit
     Fulk a great blow. Fulk felt hurt, raised his foot and struck
     John so that his head went against the wall, and he grew weak and
     faint. Fulk was in consternation, but he was glad they were alone.
     Then he rubbed John's ears, and he recovered and went to the king
     his father to complain."

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.

"Are you a coward?" he exclaimed.

"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.

     "When Duke Richarde saw these sergeauntes hed him by the arm, he
     helde in his hande a lady of ivery, wherewith he would have given
     _mate_ to Younet. Then he withdrew his arm, and gave to one of the
     sergeauntes such a stroke with it into the forehead that he made
     him tumble over and over at his feete; and then he tooke a rooke
     and smote another withal upon his head, so that he all to-brost it
     to the brayne."

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,

     "having arrived at a hotel, I withdrew into the cell of a priest,
     while he remained with a crowd of travellers in the spacious
     house. In the morning I was informed by my servant that the bishop
     had been playing chess; which information like an arrow pierced my
     heart. At a convenient hour I sent for him, and said, in a tone
     of reproof, 'The hand is stretched out, the rod is ready for
     the offender.' 'Let the fault be proved,' said he, 'and penance
     shall not be refused.' 'Was it well,' I rejoined, 'was it worthy
     of the character you bear, to spend the evening in the vanity
     of chess-play, and defile the hands and tongue which ought to
     be the mediator between man and the Deity? Are you aware that,
     by the canonical law, bishops who are dice-players are ordered
     to be deposed?' He, however, making himself a shield of defence
     from the difference of names, said that dice was one thing, and
     chess another; consequently, that the canon only forbade dice, but
     tacitly allowed chess. To which I replied, 'Chess is not named in
     the text, but the general term of dice comprehends both games;
     wherefore, since dice is forbidden and chess is not named, it
     follows without doubt that both are equally condemned.'"

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."

Similar scenes are in _Ipomydon_, as in the following quoted by
Strutt:

    "When theye had dyned, as you saye,
    Lords and ladys yede to playe,
    Some to tables, some to chesse,
    And other gamys more or less."

     "The writers immediately after the conquest," says a distinguished
     antiquarian, "speak of the Saxons as playing at chess; and pretend
     that they learned the game of the Danes. Gaimar, who gives an
     interesting story of the deceit practised on King Edgar (A.D. 973)
     by Ethelwold, when sent to visit the beautiful Elfthrida, daughter
     of Orgar of Devonshire, describes the young lady and her noble
     father passing the day at chess." (_Wright._)

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--

    "Beside a chess-board's checkered frame
    Frithiof and Bjorn pursued their game;
    Silver was each alternate plane,
    And each alternate plane of gold."[168]

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.

Such was one of the early chess-players.

FOOTNOTE:

[168] Strong's Translation.


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 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:

     "Love had assumed a new character.... It was not more tender and
     passionate than among the Romans; but it was more respectful,
     and something of a mystery was mingled with its sentiment. Women
     were considered rather as angelic beings than as dependents and
     inferiors. The task of serving and protecting them was considered
     honorable, as though they were the representatives of the divinity
     upon earth; and to this worship was added an ardor of feeling,
     passion, and desire, peculiar to the people of the south, and the
     expression of which was borrowed from the Arabians."[169]

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 _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._

In it, among many other things, the author describes the chess-men:

     "As for the fashion of the pieces, that is according to the
     fantasie of the workeman, which maketh them after this manner.
     Some make them lyke men, whereof the _kynge_ is the highest, and
     the _queene_ (which some name amasone or ladye) is the next, bothe
     two crowned. The _bishoppes_ some name alphins, some fooles,
     and some princes, lyke as also they are next unto the kynge and
     queene, other some cal them archers, and they are fashioned
     accordinge to the wyll of the workeman. The _knights_ some cal
     horsemen, and they are men on horsebacke. The _rookes_ some call
     elephantes, cariynge towres upon their backes, and men within the
     towres. The _paunes_ some cal fote-men, as they are souldiours on
     fote, cariynge some of them pykes, and other some javelyns and
     targets. Other makers of cheast-men make them other fashions, but
     use thereof wyll cause perfect knowledge."

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.

FOOTNOTE:

[169] Sismondi, _Lit. of Troubadours_.




THE FIRST OECUMENICAL 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 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
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
oecumenical council.

Assuredly no more remarkable event has occurred in this nineteenth
century than the meeting of this Oecumenical 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. 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 oecumenical 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 Oecumenical 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 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
oecumenical 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 oecumenical
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 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.

ROME, Dec. 15, 1869.

FOOTNOTE:

[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.




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 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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[171] _Quellenkunde und Bibliographie der boehmische-slavonischen
Literatur-Geschichte._

       *       *       *       *       *

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.

FOOTNOTE:

[172] _Das Weihwasser im heidnischen und christlichen Cultus_, etc.

       *       *       *       *       *

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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[173] _Johann Calvin. Seine Kirche und sein Staat in Genf._ Leipzig.
8vo, 493 pp.

       *       *       *       *       *

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 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:

     "Having learned from my bishop that a pamphlet, lately published
     by me, entitled, _The Church's Creed or the Crown's Creed?_ has
     been examined, and pronounced by him to be heretical, I desire
     hereby to submit myself to that judgment, and to express my sorrow
     that I should in any thing have erred from the Holy Catholic
     and Apostolic faith. Although I trust I have not intentionally
     erred from the truth, nor wilfully opposed myself to the divine
     authority of the church, nevertheless I am well aware how easily I
     may have done so. I therefore hereby, without reserve, retract all
     and every thing that I have written, there or elsewhere, which is
     contrary to what the church has defined as of faith.

     "Having learned also from him that scandal, offence, and pain
     have been given by my writings, and especially by the pamphlet
     above named, to the faithful; and that the same pamphlet has
     been used by those who are separate from the Catholic and Roman
     Church as an excuse or argument for not submitting to its divine
     authority, I hereby desire to explain myself categorically on two
     points in particular, the most likely to have caused such results
     of any that occurred to me, from not having been brought out as
     prominently there as they might have been, but on which it never
     was my intention that my meaning should be ambiguous.

     "1. Whatever I may or may not have been called upon to profess
     fourteen years ago myself, I nevertheless believe, and believe
     heartily, in the inerrancy, _by perpetual assistance of the Holy
     Ghost in all ages_, of the one Catholic Church in communion with
     the pope, and of which the pope is head by divine right, '_in
     fidei ac morum disciplinâ tradendâ_,' as the Catechism of the
     Council of Trent teaches. And 2, as regards matter of fact, my
     own personal investigations enable me to affirm the verdict of
     history to be, that the see of Rome, as such, has been preserved
     in all ages from upholding or embracing heresy. _I say this more
     particularly with reference to the doctrine of the procession
     of the Holy Ghost, on which I fear my meaning may have been
     misapprehended._ Therefore, negatively, should I have ever seemed
     to say or imply that the true church has ever ceased to be one
     _visibly_, or that the see of Rome was not constituted its centre
     of unity upon earth, so that communion with the one should be
     the indispensable condition of participating in the unity of
     the other, I hereby declare my heartfelt sorrow at having, in
     any of my writings, so expressed myself on these points as to
     have offended any or misled any by seeming to say or imply, _in
     language injurious to the Holy See_, what I never meant to assert,
     and hereby repudiate.

     "And as the best reparation now in my power, I willingly undertake
     that this explicit declaration of mine shall be printed and
     distributed gratuitously by my publisher, and appended as a
     fly-leaf to all copies of my pamphlet, of which the copyright is
     not in my own hands, and other published works of mine that may
     hereafter be sold, should it be desired. Lastly, I freely, and
     from my heart, renew my assent to what follows, taken from the
     profession of Pope Pius IV.: 'I acknowledge the _Holy, Catholic,
     Apostolic, Roman Church_ for the mother and mistress of all
     churches; and I promise true obedience to the _Bishop of Rome_,
     successor to St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus
     Christ.'" (Pages 37, 38.)

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 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.

       *       *       *       *       *

     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 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
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:

     "An oecumenical assembly of the church can have no existence,
     properly speaking, in presence of an _ordinarius ordinariorum_
     (equivalent to bishop of bishops) and infallible teacher of
     faith.... Bishops who have been obliged to swear 'to maintain,
     defend, increase, and advance the rights, honors, privileges, and
     authority of their lord the pope'--and every bishop takes this
     oath--cannot regard themselves, or be regarded by the Christian
     world, as free members of a free council; natural justice and
     equity require that. These men neither will nor can be held
     responsible for decisions or omissions which do not depend on them.

     "With abundant reason were the two demands urged throughout half
     Europe in the sixteenth century, in the negotiations about the
     council--first, that it should not be held in Rome, or even in
     Italy; and, secondly, that the bishops should be absolved from
     their oath of obedience. The recently proclaimed council is to be
     held not only in Italy, but in Rome itself; and already has it
     been announced that, as the sixth Lateran council, it will adhere
     faithfully to the fifth. That is quite enough--it means this,
     that whatever course the synod may take, one quality can never be
     predicated of it, namely, that it has been a really free council.
     Theologians and canonists declare that without complete freedom
     the decisions of a council are not binding, and the assembly is
     only a pseudo-synod. Its decrees may have to be corrected." (Pp.
     343-345.)

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 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:

     "Many excellent reasons are given for his being a bad husband,
     the sum of which is that he was a very bad man. I confess, I
     was rejoiced then, I am rejoiced now, that he was driven out of
     England by public scorn; for his vices were not in his passions,
     but in his principles."

On the whole, there are few biographies of public men more healthful
to the moral system of the reader than that 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 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.

       *       *       *       *       *

     NIDWORTH AND HIS THREE MAGIC WANDS. By E. Prentiss. Boston:
     Roberts Bros.

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 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 prefix "St.," is another
common fault. For the words "King Ca_u_daules," "So_u_briquet," 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.

       *       *       *       *       *

     THE LIBRARY OF GOOD EXAMPLE. In twelve volumes. New York: P.
     O'Shea. 1870.

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.

       *       *       *       *       *

     CONCILIEN GESCHICHTE. Hefele. Vol. vii. Part I. Council of
     Constance. 1869.

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, oecumenical. 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 oecumenical; 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 oecumenical, and relegates it to a second class of
general councils 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.

       *       *       *       *       *

     THE BYRNES OF GLENGOULAH. A True Tale. By Alice Nolan. New York:
     P. O'Shea.

     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_.


BOOKS RECEIVED.

     From P. O'Shea, New York, The Key of Heaven; or, A Manual of
     Prayer. With the approbation of the Most Rev. John McCloskey,
     D.D., Archbishop of New York. Revised, corrected, and improved.
     1869. Pp. 532.

       *       *       *       *       *

     From J. W. SCHERMERHORN & CO., New York: Scottish University
     Addresses by Mill, Froude, Carlyle. Paper.

       *       *       *       *       *

     From E. CUMMISKEY, Philadelphia: Considerations upon Christian
     Truths and Christian Duties; digested into Meditations for
     every day in the year. By Rt. Rev. Richard Challoner. New
     edition. 1 vol. 12mo. Controversy between Rev. Messrs. Hughes
     and Breckinridge on the subject, "Is the Protestant Religion the
     Religion of Christ?" Sixth edition. 1 vol. 12mo.




THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. X., No. 60.--MARCH, 1870.




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_:

     "We may remind our readers that, in all feudalized countries,
     (that is to say, in almost all Europe during the middle ages,) an
     _ardent spirit of liberty_ pervaded the constitution; and the only
     fault that could be found was, that the privileges and freedom for
     which the great vassals contended did not sufficiently descend to
     the lower orders of society, or extend protection to those most
     likely to need it. The two first ranks in the state, the nobles
     and the clergy, enjoyed high and important privileges, and even
     the third estate, or citizens, had this immunity in peculiar, that
     no new duties, customs, or taxes of any kind could be exacted from
     them save by their own consent."

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, 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 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,

     "At the breaking out of Protestantism slavery had entirely
     disappeared, and serfage or villenage, the transition state from
     slavery to complete liberty, was gradually disappearing, and
     giving place to free labor and domestic servants. The third estate
     was everywhere constituted, and nowhere had it more life and vigor
     than in the neighborhood of the churches and monasteries. This
     emancipation was the work of the Catholic Church, and never had
     a more signal service been rendered to liberty. The basis of all
     liberties, I say not of modern but of Christian liberties, was
     laid.

     "Impartial history testifies that Protestantism has not
     accelerated this movement in behalf of liberty, but has arrested
     it. A few facts, gathered at random from the immense number that
     might be adduced, will sufficiently prove this assertion.

     "'In Denmark,' says Berthold, 'the peasant was reduced to serfage
     as a dog.' The nobility profited by the reform, not only to
     appropriate to themselves the greater part of the goods of the
     church, but also the free goods of the peasant.

     "'The _corvées_,' says Allen, the best historian of Denmark,
     'were arbitrarily multiplied; the peasants were treated as serfs.
     It happened frequently that the children of the preachers and
     sacristans themselves were reduced to serfage. In 1804--mark
     the late date--personal liberty was granted for the first time
     to twenty thousand families of serfs. Sweden and Norway fared
     no better. In Mecklenburg, the oppression of the peasants,
     who had no one to defend their rights since they had lost the
     effective and vigilant protection of the Catholic clergy, followed
     immediately the triumph of the Reformation. At the diet of 1607,
     they were declared simple tenants at will--_colons_--who must
     yield up to the landlords, on their demand, even the lands which
     they had possessed from time immemorial. Their personal liberty
     was suppressed by the ordinances of 1633, 1648, and 1654. They
     sought to escape from this intolerable servitude by flight. The
     emigration was large. But the severest punishments, the lash,
     the carcan, even death, could not arrest it, nor prevent the
     depopulation of the fields. The lot of those miserable creatures
     hardly differed from that of negro slaves. The only difference
     was, that the masters were prohibited from separating families,
     and selling the members to the highest bidder at public auction;
     but they eluded it by trading off their serfs as horses and cows.
     Serfage was abolished in Mecklenburg only in 1820.

     "The introduction of the Reform into Pomerania gave birth there
     to all the horrors of slavery. The ordinance of 1616 decreed that
     all peasants are serfs without any rights.... The ministers were
     required to denounce the fugitive serf from the pulpit. People are
     astonished to-day at the emigration from Germany, which nearly
     doubles that from Ireland. May not the cause be found in that old
     state of things, which, though recently abolished, has left but
     too many traces of its existence?

     "A single fact will enable us to judge of the magnitude of the
     evil in Prussia. Under Frederick II., the contemporary and friend
     of Voltaire, who labored so energetically to make of his infant
     kingdom an immense barrack, the soldiers themselves, the support
     and instrument of his power, when discharged, returned to the
     common lot of serfs, after having fought his battles and won his
     victories. They were subjected anew to their landlords; and not
     only they, but also their wives, their widows, and their children,
     even though born in a state of freedom....

     "Calvinism has not produced so sad results of the same kind. Less
     hierarchical in its nature than Lutheranism, and having taken
     its rise in Geneva, a free state, it has preserved something of
     its original constitution. Thus it has prevailed generally in
     countries organized under a republican form; in France, even, it
     aspired to a federation. But the liberty it has found, rather
     than created, it turns into an odious tyranny. It has, above
     all, no respect for individual liberty. The system which Calvin
     established at Geneva was even surpassed by that of John Knox
     in Scotland. The ecclesiastical domination over the faithful,
     and the inquisition into all their doings, were frightful. Every
     detail of private life could be brought before the presbyterial
     _forum_; nobody could feel himself safe. Espionage and domestic
     accusation were the soul of the system. The secrets of the
     family were scrutinized and inventoried; and the terrible arm
     of excommunication struck without relaxation and without mercy.
     Woe to him who fell under its blows; for him there was no social
     right. Will it be believed? The Puritans of England, who, to
     escape oppression and death, free, and masters of a virgin
     territory, became only the more rigorous, and their communities in
     North America were even more exclusive and tyrannical than those
     of their brethren in Europe." (Pp. 326-330.)

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:

     "At the epoch of the outbreak of Protestantism, Christendom was
     advancing with rapid strides toward the practice of the largest
     liberty. For centuries the Italian republics had pushed liberty
     almost to license. They were, no doubt, often disorderly and
     turbulent; but they were full of sap, overflowing with life and
     activity, which availed for Italy a power and a glory which
     she seeks in vain from a factitious unity. Switzerland, by the
     energy of her patriotism and the wisdom of her government, won
     the admiration of the whole world. Flanders and the northern
     provinces of Spain watched with jealous susceptibility over their
     proud and noble independence; England had her _Magna Charta_, the
     basis of the strong constitution which has given her security
     in the midst of modern political and social convulsions; the
     cities and _communes_ of France and Germany administered freely
     their own affairs, as small republics under the guardianship,
     often more nominal than real, of some few suzerains. The guilds
     or corporations of the mechanics and tradesmen enjoyed rights
     the most extended. Power was nowhere despotic, and, though not
     restrained by scientific and uniform rules, it encountered
     everywhere a counterpoise to its authority and obstacles to
     its arbitrary will. Christian monarchy, that creation of the
     church, unknown in antiquity, approached maturity, and there was
     room to hope that it would found liberty without opening the
     door to license, and without having recourse to that enormous
     centralization which has only too often become a necessity.
     Catholic theology, always liberal, in the true sense of the word,
     inclined more to the rights of the people than to the rights of
     the sovereign. It knew not yet that right divine of kings as it
     was understood under Louis XIV., a diminutive pagan Cæsarism,
     which, as we shall show further on, held more strictly than is
     commonly believed from the principles which the Renaissance and
     Protestantism caused to prevail." (Pp. 330-332.)

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
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:

     "Who does not know that Lutheranism depended solely on the
     princes and nobles to overcome and despoil the church, and to
     triumph over the resistance of the people? Through gratitude, and
     through necessity, it surrendered itself and the people to the
     discretionary authority of the princes. In all countries where it
     became predominant, absolute power prevailed.

     "As the result of the revolution in 1661, Frederic III. of Denmark
     and his successors were declared absolute monarchs. The royal
     law of 1665 attests that the king was required to take no oath,
     was under no obligation whatever; but had plenary authority to
     do whatever he pleased. In Sweden, the violent and surreptitious
     establishment of Protestantism was done in the interest of royalty
     and nobility, and, moreover, raised up an antagonism between
     these two powers which produced a series of revolutions in that
     country unrivalled in any other European state. But royalty
     finally triumphed. The estates, in 1680, declared that the king
     is bound to no form of government. In 1682, they declared it an
     absurdity to pretend that he was bound by statutes and ordinances
     to consult, before acting, the estates; whence it follows that
     the will of the king was the supreme law. 'After that,' says
     Geijer, the classic historian of Sweden, 'all was interpreted to
     the advantage of the omnipotence of one alone. The estates were
     no longer called the estates of the realm, but the estates of his
     majesty. In 1693, the unlimited absolutism of royalty became the
     law; the king was free to govern according to his good pleasure,
     without any responsibility.'

     "It would be too long to follow the introduction of the same
     _régime_ as the consequence of the Reformation into the several
     states and principalities of Germany, in Mecklenburg, Pomerania,
     the duchies of Hanover and Brunswick, Brandenburg and Saxony.
     Everywhere the introduction of the new religion was followed
     by an augmentation of the power of the prince and nobles, and
     everywhere the prince finally succeeded in absorbing the power
     of the nobility. Prussia affords us a striking example of this
     result. Under the reign of the Elector Frederick William, from
     1640 to 1688, the arbitrary and absolute power of the prince was
     developed according to a regular plan. The General Diet after 1665
     ceased to be convoked. Crushing taxes were imposed without the
     consent and against the protests of the estates, and collected by
     the military; and so heavy were they, that multitudes of peasants,
     despoiled of their goods, were driven to brigandage for a living.
     A great number sought refuge in Poland, and nobles even deserted
     a country that devoured their children. Lands which were taxed
     beyond the value of their produce were abandoned, and suffered
     to run to waste. The country was oppressed by an unprecedented
     tyranny. Prussia, according to the expression of Stenzel, was
     in the way of becoming one of those Asiatic countries in which
     despotism stifles the growth of whatever is beautiful or noble."
     (Pp. 332-334.)

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." 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:

     "It is not simply in countries in which it triumphed that
     the Protestant Reformation has given to liberty a retrograde
     movement; it has reacted in a most fatal, though generally in
     an imperceptible, manner on Catholic governments themselves.
     It was, at its first appearance, a terrible temptation to the
     princes and sovereigns of Europe. It broke that firm independence
     of the Catholic clergy which had for so many ages repressed the
     tyrannical aspirations of secular governments; it gave up the
     rich spoils of the church to them, reversed their parts, and
     after having placed the priest, the representative of heaven, at
     the mercy of the powers of earth, it constituted the prince the
     master and director of consciences. What could be more seductive?
     An obstacle to overcome, almost a yoke to break, independence
     to conquer, vast riches to appropriate, the empire of souls to
     place by the side of the empire of bodies, the ideal of a power
     veritably sovereign; is it not the dream of every man who feels
     himself at the head of a nation? Princes and sovereigns yielded to
     the temptation. They were, besides, already prepared for it, by
     the received theories of legists or civil lawyers, inherited from
     the pagan state; by the ideas propagated by the Renaissance and by
     the Machiavelian lessons then taught in all the courts of Europe;
     and if all did not accept Protestantism, it was far less due to
     their personal repulsion than to the decided opposition of their
     people. But the new ideal of power germinated in their minds.
     On the other hand, the church, weakened and her very existence
     threatened, saw herself reduced to the necessity of relying on
     them for support against the armed violence of the Reformation.
     She must purchase their protection, and could do it only at the
     expense of her independence. In various places she abandoned to
     them the nomination of bishops and the collation of benefices,
     giving by this sacrifice, rigorously exacted by circumstances,
     and by this abandonment of her rights, which afterward proved so
     fatal, a sufficient satisfaction for the moment to the secret
     reason which inclined them to Protestantism. She loosened a prey
     to them, in order not to be devoured herself. Their hunger thus
     appeased, they consented to sustain her, but without having a
     common cause with her.

     "Profiting adroitly by their position, the sovereigns passed
     rapidly from the part of defenders of the church to that of
     guardians and masters, and while respecting the essence of the
     spiritual power, they labored to subordinate the church and the
     exercise of her authority to the surveillance of the state. Not
     content with excluding all control of the church over their own
     acts, all interventions of the spiritual authority in civil
     and political affairs, they sought, after the example of the
     Protestant princes, to penetrate the interior of the church,
     and make themselves pontiffs; and if we cannot say that they
     completely succeeded, we cannot any more say that they wholly
     failed. What is certain is, that thenceforward they ceased to find
     any serious obstacle in the Catholic clergy or their chief to
     their designs, and that the legists, imbued with the maxims of the
     Roman law, and for a long time hostile to the church, coming to
     their aid, absolute royalty, without much difficulty, prevailed.
     The indirect influence of Protestantism was there.

     "Even the Catholic clergy themselves contributed to this fatal
     evolution. Whether moved by gratitude, by a monarchical impulse,
     or, in fine, by necessity, they accepted, at least in the civil
     and political order, the new pretensions, and acknowledged the
     new rights of those sovereigns who, in espousing the Catholic
     religion, had saved it from the greatest danger it had as yet run.
     Influenced by the tendency of the times, Catholic theologians,
     especially in France, deserted the highways of the political
     theology of the middle ages, and proclaimed not only the divine
     origin of power, but the divine right of the king, his dependence
     on God alone, and the passive obedience of the people. The idea
     of the Christian monarchy was perverted, and in Catholic as in
     Protestant countries it inclined to Cæsarism. The church was the
     principal victim of this political transformation; she was all but
     smothered in the cruel embraces of Catholic monarchs, when God
     himself delivered her by the blow which was intended to extinguish
     her--the French Revolution. When that revolution broke out, the
     work of the Renaissance and of the Reform seemed accomplished.
     Except in England, Holland, and some microscopic Swiss republics,
     Catholic for the most part, absolutism reigned everywhere. Is it
     not, then, the strangest falsification of history to attribute to
     Protestantism the initiation of modern liberty?" (Pp. 339-341.)

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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[176] _De l'Avenir du Protestantisme et du Catholicisme._ Par M.
l'Abbé F. Martin. Paris: Tobra et Haton. 1869. 8vo, pp. 608.




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:

     "DEAR EVANS: I see by the newspapers that three officers of the
     U. S. A. have been appointed to visit the Crimea, and study
     the position and progress of affairs in the French and English
     armies. You will oblige me extremely by going to General Scott, on
     receipt of this, and asking him, in my name, to obtain a fourth
     appointment in the person of Captain Vane, of the --th Cavalry, U.
     S. A., subject to Vane's approval. For several reasons, too long
     to explain, I do not mention this plan to him before writing; but
     I have no doubt that he will jump at the proposal when it comes.
     The general and the secretary of war will need no explanations.
     They know that Vane has been on the sick-list for wounds received
     in frontier service, and they are much interested in him and
     his family; therefore no apologies are necessary for making the
     proposal.

     "Vane is a constant and serious student of military matters,
     and no man is more likely than he to make a good use of such an
     opportunity.

     "If objections are made on the grounds of extra pay, you may say
     that no such increase is necessary, as Captain Vane has a large
     private fortune.

     "Hoping soon to have a chance to reciprocate the kindness I ask of
     you, my dear Evans, I am

         "Yours always truly,

                                 "GEORGE HOLSTON."

George put away the letter and went to the window.

"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 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.

"Put baby down by me, nurse, and give me some valerian; there's a
good soul."

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, "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.

She was waked by hearing Nicholas come gently into the room.

"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?"

"Quite pleasant," he replied absently. "Did the piano disturb you?"

"Only just at first. I got through the evening very comfortably, and
expect to be bright and well by to-morrow. Kiss me, darling."

"Good night, Mary. God bless you!"

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.

"I must get well and be his second guardian angel," she said.

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.

"May I come in?" asked Mary at the door of Lady Sackvil's music-room.

"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 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 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."

"And convinced you?" asked Amelia with interest.

"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 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."

"Is there no new music to interest you?"

"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.

    TO BE CONTINUED.




CHURCH MUSIC.

III.


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 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:

     "In this respect we have been equally out of harmony with
     ecclesiastical tradition and practice; and if we are to save
     ourselves from disappointment with our choristers, we must
     make up our minds to give them the advantage of all the sacred
     associations which that system provides. In other words, we must
     substitute a proper choral arrangement in connection with the
     sanctuary for that now prevailing, and with which so many abuses
     are unhappily connected. There need, we think, be no practical
     difficulty about this, and we would suggest it as a matter worthy
     of serious consideration by our clergy and Catholic architects
     who are about to build or restore churches. The time is surely
     gone by for the stereotyped plan of an east end with an altar
     under a large window, flanked by a smaller altar on either side,
     involving, besides other inconveniences, the impossibility of
     making any provision for the proper choral arrangements. Several
     instances might be adduced of churches recently erected in
     which the beautiful and convenient feature of side altars has
     been introduced, thus allowing the choir to occupy their proper
     place--the organ, of course, being placed at the side, and ample
     space being still left for the sanctuary proper. We should say
     that, even in cases where boys cannot be at once procured for the
     choir, it is very unadvisable to plan a building in such a way as
     to preclude a proper arrangement afterward."

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:

     "In the same way as the object of church music is quite frustrated
     when it is of such a character as only to gratify the ears with
     vain pleasures, so, too, the dignity of divine worship is not
     preserved unless the singers also are such as to beseem the
     church. Women's voices are not admitted by ecclesiastical usage
     into the choir of singers, since the rules of divine worship
     and the dignity of ecclesiastical music evidently require their
     exclusion. For in the same way as they are withheld from all
     share in the ministry of the holy liturgy, so also every thing
     effeminate ought to be quite excluded from church singing; and
     hence the presence of women in an ecclesiastical choir is opposed
     to the very sense of the faithful. Therefore, we decree and order
     that women be altogether excluded from the choir of singers,
     unless in the churches or chapels of nuns. And if hereafter, in
     violation of this injunction of this Provincial Synod, women be
     employed in any church as singers or organists, let the rectors
     of those churches be aware that they will have to render a most
     strict account to the ordinary for such an infraction of the law."
     (Syn. Prov. Ultrajectan., tit. 5, cap. 6.)

And again:

     "The tradition of the church in excluding women from choirs is so
     universal and inflexible that it is not easy to understand how it
     should have been so widely forgotten in this country. I can only
     conceive that the confusion of all things under the penal laws,
     the shattered and informal state of the church in England after
     its emancipation, our poverty, not only of money, but of culture
     to do better; and, finally, the force of custom in rendering
     us insensible to many anomalies, have been the real causes of
     our ever admitting, and of our so long passively tolerating, so
     visible a deviation from the tradition and mind of the Church. It
     is strange that you should have to argue a case which the Church
     has decided." (Letter of Archbishop Manning to Canon Oakeley.)

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:

     "That a choir of male voices is actually that provision for
     the solemn celebration of divine worship which the Church
     contemplates, to the exclusion of every other, is, I think, a
     fact which cannot reasonably be disputed. The Church no more
     recognizes female choristers than female sacristans, though she
     may tolerate either in case of necessity. The single exception
     to the rule is in convents, for obvious reasons. According to
     the ancient arrangement of churches, the choir is immediately
     connected with the sanctuary; and those who take part in it are
     most appropriately habited as clerics. The circumstances of modern
     times have led to some deviation from this practice, so far as it
     depends upon the architectural arrangements of our churches; but
     even where the choir is detached from the sanctuary, the ancient
     and universal rule of the Church which excludes females (probably
     in accordance with apostolical tradition) from taking, any active
     and ministerial part in divine worship, is still rigidly observed.
     Not only in Rome, but in countries which retain certain national
     peculiarities in the sacred administration of the Church, such
     as France and Belgium, the practice of employing females in the
     musical department of divine worship is, I believe, unknown. It
     is almost entirely confined to those countries, such as Great
     Britain, parts of Germany, and the United States of America, in
     which Protestantism prevails and produces a certain impression on
     the outward aspect even of the Church herself. In our own country
     the type of the ancient worship, which has been innovated on among
     ourselves, is preserved in the national cathedrals, in which the
     large endowments derived from Catholic munificence enable the
     present usurpers to represent the true ecclesiastical form of
     the choral service with a facility which is denied to those to
     whom it belongs by undisputed inheritance. Meanwhile, this type
     had till recently suffered considerable decay among ourselves.
     Dethroned from our rightful position, we had in this, as in other
     far more important respects, fallen in with the ways of the sects
     around us. But the revival of the ecclesiastical spirit which
     has come in with the events of the last few years, has brought
     home to us some of the anomalies which had grown up in the day of
     our depression, while increased communication with the continent
     has tended to bring our external worship into more and more of
     union with general practice. It is hardly necessary to observe
     that the admission of females into the church choir is absolutely
     fatal to the retention of the proper cathedral type of worship,
     while in parish churches it is sometimes productive of obvious
     evils, and even in the best regulated administrations is adverse
     to the spirit which should animate every part of divine worship,
     and especially one so intimately connected with its dignified
     celebration as that of the choir."

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:

     "The church bore the appearance of a concert-room or theatre.
     People came in with their hats on, talking and laughing. After
     each piece of music was sung, their _bravos_ were barely
     restrained, and more than once applauding cries seemed about to
     break forth. The majority of the congregation, forgetting both
     the altar and the corpse of the deceased, turned their faces
     toward the tribune of the singers, talking in a loud voice, and
     using their opera-glasses; and this at the very moment of the
     _elevation_, when the soldiers who served as a guard of honor, at
     the command of their officer, were falling on their knees. This
     scandal was deplored not only by religious persons, but even by
     the true friends of art, because it served once more to prove that
     such musical solemnities, in this age and in this country, are
     incompatible with the respect due to the sanctity of churches."

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.

Canon Oakeley shall sum up for us what we have to say on this head:

     "Together with the name of 'chapels,' which it may be hoped we
     are in the way to renounce once for all, let us divest ourselves
     of all that smacks of the chapel and dissenting system--the pews,
     the pew-openers, the female sacristans, and the female choristers.
     One of the principal lessons taught us by our great cardinal was
     the duty of asserting in all judicious ways the dignity of our
     true position; and this we can do only by ridding ourselves of
     sectarian habits, down even to the very fringes of our garment,
     and associating ourselves in spirit, and in that which forms
     so especial a test of the ecclesiastical spirit, the external
     worship of the Church, with the most approved practice of Catholic
     countries."

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,

    "Et antiquum documentum
    Novo cedat ritui"!

and, in the presence of what she believed to be only a piece of
bread, adding,

    "Præstet fides supplementum
    Sensuum defectui"!

We like the language of the Bishop of Langres. In a late pastoral on
this subject, he says,

     "The function of which we speak (singer) is one that deserves
     respect for its sanctity. For many centuries it was reserved to
     clerics; and when, afterward, laymen were admitted to assist, it
     was required that they should, from their good conduct, be worthy
     to represent the congregation of God's people, and take the lead
     in this part of their worship; and, above all, it was required
     that they should understand the dignity of the trust committed
     to them, and should neglect no preparation necessary to acquit
     themselves respectably. These laymen hold in the Lord's house the
     first place after its consecrated ministers; and they should not
     be allowed to continue in it unless they showed themselves the
     zealous auxiliaries of the priest who takes the lead in the name
     of the Church."

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. 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 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 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 Oecumenical
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 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 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--

        "The sweetest strains of music
    Do but jar upon the soul, and set
    The very teeth on edge, if but the heart
    Hath not a mind to hear it."

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 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.

But this is a mystery, and his early training no less so.

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 the Iron Mask
and Fouquet, who were here confined.

They showed the chamber in 1818 that these poor victims inhabited.

       *       *       *       *       *

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:


  +---------------------------------------------------------------------+
  | Names and qualities | Date of their | Book. Page. | Motive of their |
  |   of prisoners.     |   entrance.   |             |   detention.    |
  |---------------------+---------------+-------------+-----------------|
  | Former prisoner of  | 18th of       | Du Junca,   | Never known.    |
  |   Pignerol, obliged |   September,  |   vol. 37.  |                 |
  |   to wear a velvet  |   1698, at    |             |                 |
  |   mask; his name or |   3 o'clock   |             |                 |
  |   quality never     |   in the      |             |                 |
  |   known.            |   afternoon.  |             |                 |
  +---------------------------------------------------------------------+

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:

     "Thursday, the 18th of September, 1698, at three o'clock in
     the afternoon, Monsieur de St. Mars, governor of the Bastille,
     arrived for the first time from the Isles of Ste. Marguerite and
     Honorat, bringing with him, in his own litter, an old prisoner
     he had guarded at Pignerol. His name was not given; he wore a
     velvet mask; and was first placed in the tower of the Bayimère
     to await the night, when I was to conduct him myself, at nine
     P.M., into the tower of the Bertandière, to the third-story room
     which, by order of M. St. Mars, I had completely furnished for his
     reception. In conducting him to the said room, I was accompanied
     by M. Rosarges, who was to serve and guard the prisoner at the
     government expense."

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.

"No, sir," replied the fisherman; "I cannot read."

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.

     "I had," said he, "the curiosity to enter the chamber of the
     unfortunate man. It was lighted only by a window to the north,
     inclosed in a thick wall and cased by three gratings of iron
     placed at equal distances. This window overlooked the sea. I found
     in the citadel an officer of the French company, about sixty-nine
     years old. He told me that his father had often told him in secret
     that a watchman one day perceived under the window of the prisoner
     something white floating on the water.... It was a very fine
     shirt, plaited with negligence, and upon which the prisoner had
     written from one end to the other.

     "The watchman took means to recover it, and carried it to M. de
     St. Mars, the governor of the Isle Ste. Marguerite.

     "He protested that he had read nothing; but two days afterward he
     was found dead in his bed."

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:

     "The unfortunate prince that I raised and guarded," said he,
     "until the end of my days, was born the 6th of September, 1638, at
     eight o'clock in the evening, during the supper of the king, Louis
     XIII. His brother, now reigning, Louis XIV., had been born in the
     morning at twelve o'clock, during the dinner hour of his father;
     but as the birth of the first child was splendid and brilliant,
     that of his brother was most sad and carefully concealed; for the
     king, advised by the midwife that the queen would bring forth
     a second child, caused to remain in her chamber the chancellor
     of France, the midwife, the first almoner, the confessor of the
     queen, and myself, to be witnesses of what might happen, and of
     what he would do, if this child should be born alive."

       *       *       *       *       *

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 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.

Very singular precautions were taken after his decease.

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.

This popular story was in every mouth the day of the taking of the
Bastille.

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?

We wait for M. Topin to answer.




ON A PICTURE OF NAZARETH.


    In dreams no longer, but revealed to sight,
        Comes o'er us, like a vision after death,
    That shrine of tenderest worship--that delight
        Of loftiest contemplation--Nazareth.

    Fair-throned as when creation's King and Queen
        Abode within its walls, it looks around
    As scorning time and change; though these have been
        The ruthless masters of its hallowed ground.

    Still smiling as of old, it catches still
        As fresh a morning; basks in such a noon;
    Hears evening's voice as sweetly softly thrill;
        In glory sleeps beneath a gushing moon.

    Still looms the Mountain of Precipitation
        In sadness o'er a vale serene and bright,
    As when the Saviour foiled his frenzied nation,
        Who fain had cast him headlong from the height.

    And see upon the slope the very gate
        Where--spot to kiss!--a lowly footstep fell,
    As daily passed the Maid Immaculate
        To fill her pitcher yonder at the well.

    That well! where mirrored shone the loveliest face
        That ever woman wore! 'Tis there--the same!
    Though hating Christ and Juda's banished race,
        The Moslems honor there the Virgin's name.

    Give thanks, my soul! give thanks that thou hast seen.
        Make Nazareth all a well of grace; and pray
    To keep its taste within thee--which has been
        The strength of saints. Drink deep, and go thy way.

                                          B. D. H.




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 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 oecumenical 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 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
_oecumenical_, 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 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, 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 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 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. 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,
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 oecumenical 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 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 _oecumenical patriarch_. The
request being refused by the pontiff, his name was omitted from the
_diptychs_ by the indignant 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 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. 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_. 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 oecumenical 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 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.

     "In the election and investiture of a patriarch, the ceremonial
     of the Byzantine court was revived and imitated. With a mixture
     of satisfaction and horror, the Greeks beheld the sultan on
     his throne; who delivered into the hands of Gennadius (the
     patriarch elect) the crosier or pastoral staff, the symbol of his
     ecclesiastical office; who conducted the patriarch to the gate of
     the seraglio, presented him with a horse richly caparisoned, and
     directed the viziers and bashaws to lead him to the palace which
     had been allotted for his residence."[183]

And this degrading ceremony is continued to this day, each
"oecumenical 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 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




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.

"_Ach, mein Herr!_ and hast never heard the legend of the Christ of
Ausfeldt?"

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, 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 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_ 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":

    "The mill-wheel ceaseless turneth,
      Beside the mill I know;
    But she who once did dwell there
      Hath vanished long ago."

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 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:

     "Her thoughts were more practically directed to it by the Rev.
     William Valentine Dubourg, president of St. Mary's College in
     Baltimore. He became acquainted with her in the following way:
     Having visited the city of New York in the autumn of 1806, he was
     one morning offering up the holy sacrifice of mass in St. Peter's
     Church, when a lady presented herself at the communion-rail, and,
     bathed in tears, received the Blessed Sacrament at his hands.
     He was struck with the uncommon deportment and piety of the
     communicant, and when afterward seated at the breakfast-table
     with the Rev. Mr. Sibourd, one of the pastors of the church, he
     inquired who she was, rightly judging in his mind that it was
     Mrs. Seton, of whose conversion and edifying life he had been
     informed. Before Mr. Sibourd had time to answer his question, a
     gentle tap at the door was heard, and the next moment Mrs. Seton
     was introduced, and knelt before the priest of God to receive
     his blessing. Entering into conversation with her respecting her
     sons and her intentions in their regard, he learned from her the
     views and wishes of Mr. Filicchi, as stated above, and the remote
     expectation she had of removing herself, with her daughters,
     to Canada. Mr. Dubourg, who was a man of enlarged views and
     remarkable enterprise, no sooner became acquainted with the design
     which she entertained of retiring at some future period into a
     religious community, for the welfare of herself and her children,
     than he suggested the practicability of the scheme within the
     limits of the United States. Mrs. Seton immediately wrote to
     Bishop Carroll, informing him of what had passed between her and
     Mr. Dubourg, and requesting his advice in the matter. 'I could
     not venture,' she says, 'to take a further step in so interesting
     a situation without your concurrence and direction, which also,
     I am assured, will the more readily obtain for me the blessing
     of Him whose will alone it is my earnest desire to accomplish.'
     After mentioning the particular trials she had to contend with
     in New York, and assuring Dr. Carroll that she had yielded in
     condescension to her opponents every point possible consistently
     with her peace for the hour of death, she continues, 'And for that
     hour, my dear sir, I now beg you to consider, while you direct me
     how to act for my dear little children, who in that hour, if they
     remain in their present situation, would be snatched from our dear
     faith as from an accumulation of error as well as misfortune to
     them. For myself, certainly the only fear I can have is that there
     is too much of self-seeking in pleading for the accomplishment
     of this object, which, however, I joyfully yield to the will of
     the Almighty, confident that, as he has disposed my heart to wish
     above all things to please him, it will not be disappointed in
     the desire, whatever may be his appointed means. The embracing a
     religious life has been, from the time I was in Leghorn, so much
     my hope and consolation, that I would at any moment have embraced
     all the difficulties of again crossing the ocean to attain it,
     little imagining it could be accomplished here. But now my
     children are so circumstanced that I could not die in peace (and
     you know, dear sir, we must make every preparation) except I felt
     the full conviction I had done all in my power to shield them from
     it; in that case, it would be easy to commit them to God.'

     "While Mrs. Seton was consulting Bishop Carroll in regard to the
     important arrangement suggested by Mr. Dubourg, this gentleman
     was conferring with the Rev. Messrs. Matignon and Cheverus, of
     Boston, upon the same subject. After having weighed the matter
     attentively, they came to the conclusion that her Canada scheme
     should be abandoned, and that it would be preferable to exert her
     talents in the way proposed by Mr. Dubourg. Mr. Cheverus wrote to
     her, 'hoping that this project would do better for her family,
     and being sure it would be very conducive to the progress of
     religion in this country.' It was the opinion, however, of these
     distinguished clergymen that the execution of the design should
     not be precipitate; and they therefore advised her, through Mr.
     Dubourg, 'to wait the manifestation of the divine will--the will
     of a Father most tender, who will not let go the child afraid
     to step alone.' The wise forethought of Dr. Matignon led him
     to believe that Mrs. Seton was called, in the designs of God's
     providence, to be the instrument of some special mercies that he
     wished to dispense to the church in this country. 'I have only
     to pray to God,' he wrote to her, 'to bless your views and his,
     and to give you the grace to fulfil them for his greater glory.
     _You are destined, I think, for some great good in the United
     States_, and here you should remain in preference to any other
     location. For the rest, God has his moments, which we must not
     seek to anticipate, and a prudent delay only brings to maturity
     the good desires which he awakens within us.' Bishop Carroll, in
     answer to Mrs. Seton's inquiries, informed her that, although he
     was entirely ignorant of all particulars, yet, to approve the plan
     of Mr. Dubourg, it was enough for him to know that it had the
     concurrence of Dr. Matignon and Mr. Cheverus."

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, 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
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,

     "with a transport of mingled love and humility in reflecting
     upon the subject. Being with two or three of her sisters, and
     the discourse turning upon the probable designs of providence
     in their regard, Mother Seton became so penetrated with the
     awful responsibility, and sense of her own incapacity, that she
     was almost inconsolable. For some moments she wept bitterly in
     silence; then, throwing herself upon her knees, she confessed
     aloud the most frail and humiliating actions of her life from her
     childhood upward; after which she exclaimed in the most affecting
     manner, her hands and eyes raised toward heaven and the tears
     gushing down her cheeks, 'My gracious God! You know my unfitness
     for this task. I who by my sins have so often crucified you, I
     blush with shame and confusion! How can I teach others who know
     so little myself, and am so miserable and imperfect?' The sisters
     who were present were overwhelmed by the scene before them, and,
     falling on their knees, gave vent to their tears and painful
     emotions."

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 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 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:

     "Here, near this door, by this fireplace, on a poor, lowly couch,
     died our cherished and saintly Mother Seton, on the 4th of
     January, 1821. She died in poverty, but rich in faith and good
     works. May we, her children, walk in her footsteps and share one
     day in her happiness! Amen!"

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.

FOOTNOTE:

[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.




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 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 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. 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, 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, Baboeuf 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.

It certainly has something of each of these three elements.

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 Baboeuf, 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:

     "Thus, to-day we see on one side revolution, bringing in her train
     THAT _socialism_ which repudiates morals and religion and denies
     God himself; while on the other side we behold the faithful and
     true, who calmly and firmly expect that good principles will
     resume their salutary empire, and that the merciful designs of
     Deity will be realized."

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
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,)
describing Christian society as it was in his time, (A.D. 150,) says,

     "We who formerly delighted in adultery, now observe the strictest
     chastity; we who used the charms of magic, have devoted ourselves
     to the true God; and we who valued money and gain above all
     things, now _cast what we have in common, and distribute to every
     man according to his necessities_."

The writings of other primitive fathers contain similar passages.

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 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 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.

The one instance I refer to is that of the Jesuit REDUCTIONS in
Paraguay.

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.

Here several questions present themselves together:

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 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. 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),

     "It sometimes happened that the number thus collected was far too
     great to admit of their being received as permanent dwellers in
     the 'reduction;' and in this case their instructors would furnish
     all that was needed for _the founding of a new one_, not only
     supplying corn, cattle, and clothing from their own stores, but
     giving what, to an Indian, was most difficult to bestow, their
     active and personal coöperation in _building a new 'reduction.'_"

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. 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[185] We make the word from the name the Jesuit fathers gave to their
establishments in Paraguay. They called them _Reductions_.




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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[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.




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.

"Come to Seconda's!" cried the page. "You will find plenty of hot
punch there."

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 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!"

A flush mounted to the young man's brow.

"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.

"Is it on account of his wife?" asked young Bach.

"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!"

"Yet he is the favorite composer in the world of fashion."

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.

All were silent as Hasse rose and approached the table.

"Gentlemen," he said with dignity, "I have the honor to wish you all
a good evening, and farewell. To-morrow morning I leave Dresden."

"To go whither?" asked Scherbitz.

"To Italy."

The company knew by his tone that he meant not to return. There was a
moment's deep silence, and then an officer asked:

"Does the signora go with you?"

"No; she remains in Dresden," replied the composer.

Hasse then turned to Friedemann, and grasped his hand.

"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."

"To crush us in the dust!" moaned Friedemann.

"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."

"You are not the first whose life is a failure."

"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?"

"How could I forget him?"

"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? 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--"

"He never played the hypocrite to his father!" said Friedemann
bitterly.

"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,

"You will be silent, will you not?"

"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 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.

"I will come," he said to the servant, "at the hour named."

The man withdrew.

Sebastian smiled.

"Our court-organist," he said, "appears to have distinguished
acquaintances."

"The livery was the lord premier's," remarked Philip.

"Indeed!" asked Sebastian. "You know his excellency, my son?"

"The note came from his niece, the Countess Natalie," answered
Friedemann, in a confusion which he could not conceal.

"And you visit the young countess?"

"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 thought M. Hasse managed all those matters."

"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."

"Hasse gone--the excellent Hasse!" exclaimed Sebastian.

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.

"Dear father, I need not be in haste."

"'Early wooed has naught rued.'"

"It is a serious step, father."

"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 laid both hands on his head, saying devoutly,

"God's peace be with you, my son, now and for ever!"

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.

Friedemann looked after him apprehensively.

"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?"

Crossing the hall, he passed on through one of the galleries.

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,

"What were you doing, Bach, opposite our house last night?"

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."

The countess turned angrily away.

"These are my thanks, proud man, for my trust, for my love. Out upon
ingratitude!" she cried.

The young man flushed crimson at these reproachful words.

"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! 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!"

"I did not mock you!" cried Natalie.

"Did you love me, then?"

"I can not answer that."

"Tell me, Natalie--did you love me?"

"What good can it do? Are we not parted for ever?"

"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?"

"Be silent!" cried the girl.

Friedemann's burst of grief was convulsive, and he covered his face
with his hands.

At length Natalie said,

"I honored your genius--your heart--"

"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?"

"Alas! you know; my station, the will of my uncle--"

"_My_ happiness, _my_ peace is nothing to you?"

"My affection is still yours. I shall never love another. Will not
that content you?"

Friedemann's pale face crimsoned; he stamped his foot fiercely.

"Hypocrite! liar! coward that I am," he cried; "and all for a
coquette!"

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.

"Then be my wife, Natalie!"

She shook her head.

"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."

"Duty! Toward whom?"

"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?"

Friedemann grew pale, and looked down.

"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."

"And love you in secret?" asked the young man bitterly.

"I would bear condemnation for your sake."

"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, 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.

The maid entered quickly, announcing the minister.

Natalie retreated to the sofa.

"Ha! M. Bach," said the count, as he came in. "I am delighted to see
you again."

"Is it all arranged about the concert, my dear niece?"

"I hope so, uncle," answered Natalie.

"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.

"I am going home," said young Bach.

"You are not! Come instantly with me to Faustina Hasse's."

"Are you mad?"

"Not so near it as yourself, _mon ami_! The blind bird will not see
the trap."

"What do you mean?"

"_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.

Philip knew not what to answer.

"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."

Philip looked surprised.

"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 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.

"But where is Friedemann?" asked both father and son.

"As I said, at the house of Signora Hasse."

"What does he there?" asked the father.

"That is what I came to tell you."

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."

"And those two strangers--"

"Were officers sent to arrest him."

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."

"Is the boy mad?" exclaimed Bach, rising from his chair.

"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
step. He has broken off his acquaintance with the countess."

"Heaven be praised!" cried the father clasping his hands.

"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."

"Then he may come to you?"

"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."

Scherbitz caught the old man's hand and warmly pressed it.

"Friedemann is saved!" he exclaimed.

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.

A waiting-maid had just presented the card of a visitor on a silver
plate.

"I will see him," was the careless answer.

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.

"I do not know its object," was her calm reply.

"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?"

"I do not sing, my lord minister."

"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."

"Will his highness be there?"

"He promised to honor me."

"I will come."

"Signora, my gratitude is unbounded!" He raised her hand to his lips,
and retired with a low bow.

Faustina sprang to her feet, her eyes flashing fire.

"Stop, monsieur!" she cried.

The minister stood still.

"Where is Friedemann Bach?" demanded the lady.

The minister started visibly, but suppressed all sign of emotion.
With a courtly smile he endeavored to evade reply.

"Where is Friedemann Bach?" still more angrily asked Faustina.

Something in her face warned the count not to trifle with her.

"He is probably on his way to Königstein," answered the premier.

"For what offence?" asked the lady with a smile of scorn.

"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."

"What have you done with his fellow-rioters?"

"They belong to high families," answered the count with a significant
shrug.

"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."

And with a bow he retired.

"_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.

"Can you forgive me, father?" murmured Friedemann gloomily.

"I have forgiven you; for I trust in your ability to amend."

"No word of reproach?"

"Your conscience does that; my part is to comfort you. Come home to
Leipzig."

"No," said Friedemann resolutely; "I will not go home till I am again
worthy to be received there."

"Are you so resolved?"

"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--"

"Then come to my heart, Friedemann!"

"I will."

The son threw himself into his father's arms.

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.

He held out his hand to his wife, as he placed himself in his
arm-chair.

"You seem exhausted to-day," Madame Bach remarked. "I am glad the
lessons are over."

Sebastian smiled.

"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?"

"A letter for you, from Philip."

"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.

    "Your dutiful son,

                           "PHILIP EMMANUEL BACH."

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!"

"Then you will go to Berlin?"

"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 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.

"Father," cried Friedemann, "I have come to stay with you!"

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."

"By whom, Friedemann?"

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.

"He would not," she said, "give his name."

Sebastian bade her bring him in. Presently a sharp voice called out,

"_Bon soir, mon cher_ papa!" and the stranger entered and took the
old man's hand. "Do you not know me?"

Friedemann recognized him, and saluted Monsieur von Scherbitz.

"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
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!"

He pressed his hands with a wild gesture over his eyes.

"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.

"What makes you such an idiot, man? Recollect yourself!" cried
Scherbitz.

Friedemann gave a forced laugh.

"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 the wall. Sit down, and play me something till I get over
my fright. You acted your part so naturally!"

Friedemann sat down to the instrument and began to play.

"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.

Friedemann looked over the manuscript with sparkling eyes.

"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."

"You have rewarded me, Friedemann."

Sebastian went on to pour into his son's heart the kindly words of
wisdom.

"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,

"What a lovely morning!"

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.

Thus died Johann Sebastian Bach, by a stroke of apoplexy.

       *       *       *       *       *

Three years had passed. The wealthy Baron von Globig celebrated the
feast of the vintage at his magnificent 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."

"Have you heard nothing of him?"

"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,

"'Tis he!" and Philip exclaimed aloud,

"It is my brother--Friedemann!"

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. 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.

"What hour struck?" asked the old man.

"Midnight. You had better go to bed."

"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?"

"Eighty-four."

"Eighty-four! Forty-seven years ago.... We will not speak of that."

"Poor old friend! Will you never tell me who you are?"

"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!"

"You saved my life; but what is it worth? You see me old even in
youth."

"You will live many years yet."

"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?"

"'The Old Musician.'"

"So the few who know you in this great city always call you. But your
other name?"

"I have promised to reveal it only to an artist in music."

Then, noticing the pallid and sunken cheek of his young companion, he
said,

"Has the new year brought you nothing, Theodore?"

Theodore took a roll of money from his vest pocket, and threw it on
the table.

"Gold!" exclaimed the old man.

"Yes--when we need it no longer!"

He drew out a flask from the pocket of his cloak.

"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.

The old man asked, at length, how he came by such luck.

"I sold my paintings to a lord travelling through the city."

"What a pity you could not exhibit them!"

"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?"

"Live on; the answer will come."

"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 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 would not let me pass," answered the old man.

"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.

"That was admirable music," said the old man drawing a deep breath.

"It was," replied the servant. "All you heard was composed by the
same master, who is staying with my lord at present."

"What is his name?"

"It is Master Naumann, chapel-master to the Elector of Saxony."

"Let me speak with him, if he is in the house."

"Certainly, if you want to ask any thing."

"I want to thank him."

"Well, come to-morrow morning."

The next morning the strange visitor was announced to the composer
Naumann.

"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, 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.

"Does M. Friedemann Bach live here yet?" asked Mendelssohn.

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."

Her voice was choked with tears.

There was no need of further inquiry. Poor Bach was a wanderer no
more.




ON ST. PETER DELIVERED FROM PRISON.


    This is no mystery
    Or juggler's play
    Which here is told.
    What lock can stay
    Him who the key
    Of heaven doth hold?




"IT'S WRONG!"


    "It's wrong! It's wrong!" the whole day long
    My hidden censor has piped the song,
    Till my ears are tingling like a gong
                        With--"It's wrong! It's wrong!"

    Out by my chamber window there,
    In the mulberry-tops, in the August air,
    The mock-bird sings his devil-may-care--
                              "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

    Rash birdy! have you no monishing fear--
    Chiding a monarch as you do here?
    I'm regal in all this little sphere!
                              "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

    You laying down law for the village queen,
    Who from her envied height serene
    Gives a code to its best, I ween!
                              "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

    Ha! see, I am decking my "throat of snow"
    With his costly gems, (he called it so.)
    What if little Barefoot beg below?
                              "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

    Look, little sage, in my bright blue eyes!
    Their color was caught from the summer skies.
    He says it; and ah! he is very wise.
                              "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

    Ha! self-wise bird, I am fooling you.
    My lover is not more gallant than true,
    And we'll go tripping it through the dew--
                              "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

    What! wrong to go by the shiny birch
    That shades the lane to the village church?
    Wrong, may be, to leave you in the lurch?
                              "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

    O birdy! I'll be a love-in-the-mist,
    In my loom-fog veil, when the bride is kissed,
    Blushing through filmy folds--ah! hist!
                              "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

    Well, welladay for the wedding-bells!
    Arch-misanthrope, what is this he tells
    As whistle and chime go down the dells?
                              "It's wrong! It's wrong!"




BRITISH PREMIERS IN RELATION TO BRITISH CATHOLICS.

CONCLUDED.


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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

     "We, the opponents of the bill," he said, "are a minority,
     insignificant in point of numbers. We are more insignificant,
     because we have no ordinary bond of union. What is it that binds
     us together against you but the conviction that we have on our
     side the principle of justice--the conviction that we shall soon
     have on our side the course of public opinion?"

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 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 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, "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 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.




FROM THE SPANISH.

LUCIFER'S EAR.


FERNAN. Come, Uncle Romance, tell me one of your stories.

UNCLE R. But, Señor Don Fernan, if they are not worth the telling?

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 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?

FERNAN. The first that occurs to you; if you invent it, all the
better.

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.

FERNAN. The older the better. Stories are like wine, age improves
their flavor.

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.

"And where do you want to go?" asked the father.

"To see the world," answered the young man.

"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.

"Would you like to come with me?"

"If your worship is as much for taking me as I am for going, yes."

So they went on together.

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.

"What are you doing here?" asked the gentleman.

"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."

"And what is your name?"

"Blow-hard Blow-harder, son of The Hard Blower," answered the man.

"Will you come with me?"

"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."

A little further on, they stumbled upon a man who was lying in wait,
listening.

"What are you doing here?" asked the gentleman.

"I am waiting to hear a swarm of mosquitoes rise out of the sea."

"Why, man! if the sea is a hundred leagues off?"

"And what of that, if I hear them?"

"What is your name?"

"Hear-all Hear-every-thing, son of The Good Hearer."

"Will you come with me?"

"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."

"But I am tired, and I must rest," said the gentleman.

"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 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.

"Give me my ear!" shouted Lucifer in the voice of a trumpet.

"You will give me a good ransom if you get it," answered the
cavalier; "for I have taken it like a true knight in fair combat;
therefore, I shall make three conditions with which you must comply."

"Insolent braggart!" said Lucifer.

"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.

Lucifer danced with rage.

"What are your conditions, low-born, ill-bred, and worse-thriven?" he
demanded.

"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."

"What is it, impudent upstart?"

"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."

FOOTNOTES:

[190] Vulcan.

[191] Manner of ending a tale.




THE VATICAN COUNCIL.

NUMBER TWO.


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 oecumenical 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 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 oecumenical 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 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 oecumenical 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 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 oecumenical 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
oecumenical 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
oecumenical 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 oecumenical 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 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.

Chapter ii. is as follows:

     "Although the right and duty of proposing the matters to be
     treated in the Holy Oecumenical Council, and of asking the
     judgments of the fathers on them, belongs only to us and this
     apostolic see, yet we not only desire, but we exhort, that if
     any among the fathers of the council have any thing to propose
     which they believe will tend to the general benefit, they shall
     freely propose it. However, as we clearly perceive that this,
     unless it be done in proper time and mode, may seriously disturb
     the necessary order of the business of the council, we direct
     that such proposals be offered in this mode, to wit: 1. Each one
     must be put in writing, and be directly delivered to a special
     congregation (committee) composed of several cardinals and fathers
     of the council, to be appointed by us. 2. It must regard the
     general welfare of the church, not the special benefit of only
     this or that diocese. 3. It must set forth the reasons for which
     it is held useful and opportune. 4. It must not run counter to the
     constant belief of the church, and her inviolable traditions. The
     said special congregation shall diligently weigh the propositions
     delivered to it, and shall report to us their recommendation as to
     the admission or exclusion of them, in order that, after mature
     deliberation, we may decide whether or not they shall be placed
     before the council for discussion."

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 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 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 the
oecumenical 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. 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:

     1. Most Rev. Emmanuel Garcia Gil, Archbishop of Saragossa, Spain.

     2. Rt. Rev. Louis Francis Pié, Bishop of Poitiers, France.

     3. Most Rev. Patrick Leahy, Archbishop of Cashel, Ireland.

     4. Most Rev. Réné Fr. Regnier, Archbishop of Cambrai, France.

     5. Most Rev. John Simor, Archbishop of Gran, Hungary.

     6. Most Rev. Ignatius Andrew Schaepman, Archbishop of Utrecht,
     Holland.

     7. Most Rev. Antonius Hassun, Armenian Patriarch.

     8. Rt. Rev. Bartholomew D'Avanzo, Bishop of Calvi.

     9. Most Rev. Miecislaus Ledochowski, Archbishop of Gnesen and
     Posen.

     10. Most Rev. Francis Cugini, Archbishop of Modena, Italy.

     11. Rt. Rev. S. D. Larangeira, Bishop of Rio Grande, Brazil.

     12. Rt. Rev. Ignatius Senestry, Bishop of Ratisbon, Bavaria.

     13. Most Rev. Victor A. Dechamps, Archbishop of Malines, Belgium.

     14. Most Rev. Martin J. Spalding, Archbishop of Baltimore, United
     States.

     15. Rt. Rev. Anthony Monescillo, Bishop of Jaen, Spain.

     16. Rt. Rev. Peter J. De Preux, Bishop of Sion, Switzerland.

     17. Rt. Rev. Vincent Gasser, Bishop of Brixen, Tyrol.

     18. Most Rev. Raphael V. Valdivieso, Archbishop of Santiago, Chili.

     19. Most Rev. Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop of Westminster,
     England.

     20. Rt. Rev. Fred. M. Zinelli, Bishop of Treviso, Lombardy.

     22. Most Rev. Walter Steins, Archbishop of Calcutta.

     23. Rt. Rev. Conrad Martin, Bishop of Paderborn, Prussia.

     24. Most Rev. Joseph S. Allemany, Archbishop of San Francisco,
     United States.

     Cardinal Bilio was appointed chairman.

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:

     1. Most Rev. John McCloskey, Archbishop of New York, United States.

     2. Rt. Rev. William Ullathorne, Bishop of Birmingham, England.

     3. Most Rev. John McHale, Archbishop of Tuam, Ireland.

     4. Most Rev. Pelagius De Lavastida, Archbishop of Mexico.

     5. Rt. Rev. Pantaleon Monserrat y Navarro, Bishop of Barcelona,
     Spain.

     6. Most Rev. Anastasius Yusto, Archbishop of Burgos, Spain.

     7. Most Rev. Julius Arrigoni, Archbishop of Lucca, Italy.

     8. Most Rev. Francis Baillargeon, Archbishop of Quebec, Canada.

     9. Most Rev. Paul Ballerini, Patriarch of Alexandria.

     10. Rt. Rev. Claudius Plantier, Bishop of Nîmes, France.

     11. Rt. Rev. Theodore de Montpellier, Bishop of Liège, France.

     12. Rt. Rev. Stephen Marilley, Bishop of Lausanne, Switzerland.

     13. Rt. Rev. F. X. Wierzchleyski, Bishop of Lemberg, Hungary.

     14. Rt. Rev. George Stahl, Bishop of Wurzburg, Germany.

     15. Rt. Rev. John Ambrose Huerta, Bishop of Puno, South America.

     16. Rt. Rev. Charles Fillion, Bishop of Le Mans, France.

     17. Rt. Rev. John B. Zwerger, Bishop of Segovia.

     18. Rt. Rev. Nicholas Sergent, Bishop of Quimper, France.

     19. Rt. Rev. Michael Heiss, Bishop of La Crosse, United States.

     20. Most Rev. Marianus Ricciardi, Archbishop of Reggio, Italy.

     21. Rt. Rev. Leo Meurin, Bishop of Ascalon.

     22. Rt. Rev. John Guttadauro di Reburdone, Bishop of Caltanisetta,
     Italy.

     23. Rt. Rev. Marinus Marini, Bishop of Orvieto, Italy.

     24. Rt. Rev. Joseph Aggarbati, Bishop of Sinigaglia, Italy.

     Cardinal Caterini was afterward appointed president of this
     committee.

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:

     1. Most Rev. Francis Felix y Solans, Archbishop of Tarragona,
     Spain.

     2. Rt. Rev. Andrew Raess, Bishop of Strasbourg, Alsace.

     3. Most Rev. Godfrey St. Marc, Archbishop of Rennes, France.

     4. Rt. Rev Ferdinand Blanco, Bishop of Avila, Spain.

     5. Rt. Rev. John Derry, Bishop of Clonfert, Ireland.

     6. Most Rev. Joseph B. Dusmet, Archbishop of Catania, Sicily.

     7. Rt. Rev. Felix Cantimorri, Bishop of Parma, Italy.

     8. Most Rev. Joseph J. Checa, Archbishop of Quito, South America.

     9. Most Rev. Frederic de Fürstenberg, Archbishop of Olmütz.

     10. Most Rev. Charles Pooten, Archbishop of Antivari and Scutari,
     in Dalmatia.

     11. Rt. Rev. Paul Micaleff, Bishop of Città di Castello, Italy.

     12. Rt. Rev. Stephen V. Ryan, Bishop of Buffalo, United States.

     13. Rt. Rev. Simon Spilotros, Bishop of Tricarico, Greece.

     14. Most Rev. Alexander Angeloni, Archbishop of Urbino, Italy.

     15. Rt. Rev. Ignatius M. Cardoso, Bishop of Faro.

     16. Rt. Rev. Francis de Leonrod, Bishop of Eichstadt, Bavaria.

     17. Rt. Rev. William I. Clifford, Bishop of Clifton, England.

     18. Rt. Rev. Thomas M. Salzano, Bishop of Tanes.

     19. Rt. Rev. John I. Fayet, Bishop of Bruges, Belgium.

     20. Rt. Rev. M. Ephrem Garrelon, Bishop of Nemesi.

     21. Most Rev. Aloysius Nazari di Calabiano, Archbishop of Milan.

     22. Most Rev. George Ebedjesu Kayatt, Chaldean Archbishop of Amida.

     23. Rt. Rev. Caspar Willi, Bishop of Antipatros, Greece.

     24. Rt. Rev. John Thomas Ghilardi, Bishop of Mondovi, Italy.

     Cardinal Bizzarri was appointed president of this deputation.

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 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 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. 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 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.

ROME, January 15, 1870.




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 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 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
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.

       *       *       *       *       *

     LIFE OF THE VENERABLE J. B. DE LA SALLE.

     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 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 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.

       *       *       *       *       *

     LETTERS OF PEREGRINE PICKLE. By George P. Upton. Chicago: Western
     News Company.

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.

       *       *       *       *       *

     MRS. GERALD'S NIECE. A Novel, by Lady Georgiana Fullerton. New
     York: Appletons.

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 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.

A delightful story for boys.

_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.


BOOKS RECEIVED.

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.


       *       *       *       *       *


Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious typographical errors have been repaired. Archaic spellings
retained.

Hyphenation variants have been standardized.

P. iv, "New Publications"; entry for "Neal's ..." was immediately
after "Kickham's ..." in the original; retained.

P. 69, "uplifted to bless;" original read "unlifted."

P. 377, "Another glory is in reserve for Saints Processus and
Martinian" and "Returning from the altar of Saints Processus and
Martinian"; original showed "Maximian" in place of "Martinian."

P. 466, acrostic; original list displayed the initial letters laying
on their right sides, to spell "VANSLEBIO" sideways.





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Catholic World, Vol. X, October
1869, by Various

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43524 ***